JESUS – A MARRIED MAN?

 

You will remember Dan Brown’s book The Da Vinci Code and the effect it and the subsequent film had on much of religious thought. Perhaps the one suggestion he made in his book that was considered most blasphemous was that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene and that they had a child together. It seems that the early church fathers had some sort of antipathy towards sex, indeed even today it is considered by Catholic churchmen that sex is to be used exclusively for procreation – if you’re not doing it to make babies you are sinning. And it has to be said that the whole idea of the enforced celibacy of priests needs to be revisited; to what extent has the suppression of the wholesome expression of natural feelings contributed to the scandals that have blighted this fair land for decades and have been exposed in the last couple of years?

Out of what twisted mind did that rule crawl? Even Cardinal Basil Hume, Archbishop of Westminster once described it as a rule of man, not a rule of the Church and went on to infer that there might be a time or circumstances in which it should not apply.

There is some evidence, in the non-canonical Gospel of Philip for example, that Jesus had a close, maybe even a romantic relationship with Mary Magdalene, but the aforementioned church fathers saw to it that any such suggestion would never be seen to receive even a smidgen of approval, so it was suppressed. I never could understand what all the fuss was about, what’s the big deal? But maybe I am missing something.

True, the Bible doesn’t say Jesus was married, but it has got to be significant that neither does it say he wasn’t. Wouldn’t you think that if this was the issue of cosmic proportions that some make it out to be, there would have been some sort of inkling in Holy Writ of its veracity or otherwise?

I was in conversation with a good friend of mine a few months ago when the topic of Jesus’ marital status came up. This man was a minister of religion at the time and so I asked him what he thought about Dan Brown’s suggestion. He looked at me in an odd way; the way a schoolteacher might look at a P3 child who had forgotten that C-A-T spells cat.

‘Don’t be silly Adam,’ he said. ‘Sure we all know Jesus didn’t sin!’

I think I must have looked at him the way he had just looked at me, and I know my face said, ‘Did you hear what you have just said?!’ and my dear old friend realised that his response was based on a belief that has no basis in theology or history. He simply never had thought about the possibility that Jesus might not have died a single man.

Now I’m not saying that Jesus was or wasn’t married, nor have I any interest in debating whether or not it is important – although I happen to think it is not. The point is this: here is a belief that has filtered into religious minds by process of osmosis, a belief that some might stoutly defend or robustly attack. But the strange thing is that the God, whom the fundamentalists would have us believe inspired every word of the Bible – albeit in Greek, Hebrew or Aramaic – said not a word about it. Doesn’t that tell us something about how significant God thinks it is?

So, my next question has got to be, how many other doctrines are there that people have lived and died for but for which the God they claim to worship cares little? And how many of these notions were planted deliberately by the false prophets, whom the apostle John warned us about, in their obsession to control their flock?

I was guest at a book launch last Sunday, the author is Keith (Mitch) Mitchell, a man I’ve known and respected for years, and the book is entitled, ‘Snatched From the Fire.’ It occurred to me part way through the proceedings that I was a bit of a fraud, for I was actively supporting a book I hadn’t yet read. And then it struck me, I know the man, therefore I know the message.

Makes me wonder, when I hear some of the drivel that some so-called Christians claim to believe, have they ever met the author?