# The Assertion that Jesus was Married



## Jeff Burns (Sep 18, 2012)

....Says coptic scholar Karen L. King....

So let me get this straight, a text the size of a business card from approximately AD 400 _may_ say "Jesus said, "My wife..." and we're ready to throw out 2000+ years of church history? 

I think I smell an agenda.


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## arapahoepark (Sep 18, 2012)

People always want to get their 15 minutes of fame. That is all, it doesn't matter if they're intellectually dishonest.


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## Jack K (Sep 18, 2012)

For the sake of accuracy...

Neither in the article linked here nor in another I read is she quoted as saying her research suggests Jesus was married. Rather, she says she has evidence suggesting the ancient church argued over the question, trying to create a life story for Jesus that would support certain marital lifestyles. Now I don't agree at all with her liberal/critical approach, and I doubt her conclusions stand up to strong scrutiny. But we should critique her for what she actually claims, not what the headline would lead us to believe she claims.


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## Berean (Sep 18, 2012)

From Harvard Divinity School?


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## arapahoepark (Sep 18, 2012)

Berean said:


> From Harvard Divinity School?



When I was a freshman in high school it was my dream to go there (unaware of liberal Christianity and all these other controversies at the time). I even got a catalog from there. I would not go there now or ever even if a gun was put to my head. I have read through the course descriptions and there's hardly anything on actual Biblical interpretation instead it's more like liberation theologies, what the Bible means to groups like Africans, South Americans and the like, bizarre classes like Queer youth, etc. And the MDiv program is a total cop out especially for Christian students, taking _*only one*_ language for two or three semesters (I think it's the same at Yale, I received a copy of their catalog as well).
So that would explain a lot though.


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## PointyHaired Calvinist (Sep 22, 2012)

I can't help but think if Rome hadn't spent the better part of a millennium exalting celibacy and attacking marriage as a "less honorable" estate ("Pope" Peter and the Evangelist Philip notwithstanding), no one would care if Jesus were married or not.

I don't think He was and I think scripture is clear, but at the same time the Bible doesn't make a big deal about Him being single, which makes me think it's not an issue of faith. If everyone was apathetic about His marital status, the God-haters would have one less "Aha!" to jump on.


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## raekwon (Sep 22, 2012)

Forgery. (Shocking, ain't it?)

The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife: How a Fake Gospel-Fragment Was Composed – Justin Taylor


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## Backwoods Presbyterian (Sep 22, 2012)

One thing that has been interesting to me is how many Christian "analysts" on the TV have been saying for the past week that "it would not matter at all" if Jesus was married. 

Lessons from the Jesus 'wife' story | Fox News


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## JennyG (Sep 22, 2012)

Backwoods Presbyterian said:


> Christian "analysts" on the TV have been saying for the past week that "it would not matter at all" if Jesus was married.


somehow I can't quite believe that's true....but I'm not sure why


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## Peairtach (Sep 22, 2012)

JennyG said:


> Backwoods Presbyterian said:
> 
> 
> > Christian "analysts" on the TV have been saying for the past week that "it would not matter at all" if Jesus was married.
> ...



It would matter because there was no woman suitable for our Lord to get married to, there having never been a sinless woman on Earth since Eve sinned, and because the Church was to be, in a mysterious sense, His wife.



> 25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendour, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.[a] 28 In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, 30 because we are members of his body. 31 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. 33 However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.(Eph 5:25-33, ESV)


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## a mere housewife (Sep 22, 2012)

Thank you Richard. It is sad to think that Christians would not believe that there is a significance to Christ not being married. He came to earth and laid aside His glory, and humbled Himself and laid down His life, and was homeless and hungry and obedient and tempted, and struggled through the awful ordeal of the garden and the cross because He was buying and redeeming and sanctifying His bride, the church. An earthly wife would have obscured that: he would have had to set himself aside for her: even his ministry would necessarily have had to be laid aside in many cases for her concerns, as Paul pointed out in his discussion of marriage and singleness. That does not mean it is wrong to be married -- marriage is a worthy picture of that love of Christ for His church; but it is only a picture. Christ loving the church is the reality. He is married.


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## Gord (Sep 22, 2012)

Fox news and that Jacobovici dude will be fighting over the TV rights to this so called secular truth. They must have found it in the family tomb from his last episode. Once this airs on TV we will all know the truth...right???

 I couldn't find the "sarcastic" smiley.


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## Gord (Sep 22, 2012)

sorry double post


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## crixus (Sep 23, 2012)

If it's not in the Bible, then it's not true. Plain and simple!


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## Zach (Sep 23, 2012)

When I read this passage this morning I thought of this thread. 



> "Now a discussion arose between some of John's disciples and a Jew over purification. And they came to John and said to him, “Rabbi, he who was with you across the Jordan, to whom you bore witness—look, he is baptizing, and all are going to him.” John answered, “A person cannot receive even one thing unless it is given him from heaven. You yourselves bear me witness, that I said, ‘I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before him.’ The one who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom's voice. Therefore this joy of mine is now complete. He must increase, but I must decrease.”
> (John 3:25-30 ESV)



I love the joy that John writes with when he talks of Christ being with his bride.


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## Peairtach (Sep 23, 2012)

crixus said:


> If it's not in the Bible, then it's not true. Plain and simple!



It's possible that an extra-biblical tradition about Christ or the Apostles could be true, but it wouldn't have the authority of Scripture, so we would treat it thus.

But any extra-biblical evidence the Jesus had a wife _contradicts_ what we know from Scripture.


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## DMcFadden (Sep 23, 2012)

Oh well! And, I was hoping to claim that Ancestry.com proved that I am a direct descendant of . . . oh well, never mind! [Maybe that is one reason why the Lord did not elect to marry and have issue]

ANYthing that comes from the pens of either Drs. King or Pagels can be counted on to have a rather predictable agenda:

Early Christianity was theologically diverse.
It resembled our New Age ideas.
It was pro-feminist.
It was gnostic.
Today's "Christianity" is merely the result of a bunch of male brutes forcing their control over a lovely pro-woman movement. 
"Orthodoxy" is just another word for political conformity imposed by tyrants to achieve their secular political ends.
The Bible is a collection of misogynistic and derivative documents foisted upon us as God's "truth" when it is nothing of the kind. 

Dan Brown (DaVinci Code) is merely the popularizer of the kinds of "scholarship" that enchants so large a part of the liberal academy. Anything that detracts from the authority of the Bible, promotes contrary routes to "spirituality," and serves the purpose of muddying the theological waters is just great, particularly if it embraces egalitarian and pro-homosexual subthemes.

We must be really gullible if a non-discovery like this can be parlayed into such a media storm. But, given the biases of the MSM (including theological biases), it is not too surprising.


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## JennyG (Sep 23, 2012)

Peairtach said:


> It would matter because there was no woman suitable for our Lord to get married to, there having never been a sinless woman on Earth since Eve sinned, and because the Church was to be, in a mysterious sense, His wife.





a mere housewife said:


> It is sad to think that Christians would not believe that there is a significance to Christ not being married. He came to earth and laid aside His glory, and humbled Himself and laid down His life, and was homeless and hungry and obedient and tempted, and struggled through the awful ordeal of the garden and the cross because He was buying and redeeming and sanctifying His bride, the church. An earthly wife would have obscured that: he would have had to set himself aside for her: even his ministry would necessarily have had to be laid aside in many cases for her concerns, as Paul pointed out in his discussion of marriage and singleness. That does not mean it is wrong to be married -- marriage is a worthy picture of that love of Christ for His church; but it is only a picture. Christ loving the church is the reality. He is married.



thank you, you make it seem so obvious


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## a mere housewife (Sep 23, 2012)

Jenny, you might like one of my favorite quotes by Dr. Alec Motyer:



> How blithely we read that 'for the joy that was before him he endured the cross . . . ' (Heb. 12:2), and many have been heard to say that the 'joy' in question was the crown that awaited him. Very likely so, but Isaiah says it was the joy of saving us. We think of the intended humiliation and actual pain of the crown of thorns, but to the Lord Jesus it was a bridegroom's priestly head-dress (Isaiah 61:10). We picture the bedraggled and bloodstained seamless robe that he wore to Calvary, but to him it was a wedding garment! His Calvary-joy was wedding-day joy. He was winning his bride. . . . This is how much we mean to him.



Incidentally Zach, though I've read over that verse before I had not really much thought about the joy of Christ those 33 years on earth, of being with us. I think of him as a man of our sorrows and acquainted with our grief; but have not thought much of how it would be a time of joy not only in communion with the Father but because he was with us -- as we long to share even the difficult conditions of those we love and happier to do so. It seems this condition can be a special time of joy for us too then, because Christ is Immanuel, God with us here. The earth is the place where He joined Himself to us and so being here on the earth for awhile, sharing his griefs, is a time of joy for the church.


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## Zach (Sep 23, 2012)

I had never approached that passage in that light either, Heidi. It is amazing to think that the Lord himself would enjoy being with mankind on Earth. It certainly provides motivation to press on for those days when we just long for heaven and for the fight with sin to be over. I have never thought about how this Earth prepares us to identify with Jesus, in a very small way, in his suffering. Thanks for sharing, Sister. As always, your thoughts are very encouraging and edifying.


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## Peairtach (Sep 24, 2012)

*Zach*


> It is amazing to think that the Lord himself would enjoy being with mankind on Earth.



It was His will and desire to become a Man, because He became a Man forever. He hasn't divested Himself of His Manhood now that He has saved us, nor will He once all His people are home.

So God wanted to become Man. Of course that is always seen in the context of the need to save His people, nevertheless it is true that God wanted to become Man forever.



> Then I was by him, as one brought up with him: and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him; Rejoicing in the habitable part of his earth; and my delights were with the sons of men. (Proverbs 8:30-31, KJV)


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## Zach (Sep 24, 2012)

Thanks for sharing that verse, Richard. The depth of the love of God is incredible.


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