Who's the closest living relative to Jesus?

[Uncommon Sense]

Not sure what guidelines to use for 'closest living relative' but there must be someone who claims to be some direct decendant of Christs' family via Joseph or Marys' siblings. Or an aunt or uncle off the same branch.

[Walloon]

There are no records of Jesus' family past what is in the New Testament. We don't know the descendants of royalty and nobility from that era, much less peasant families from the provinces.

[aegypt]

Jesus had a number of brothers and sisters, including a brother called James, but, unlike in Islam, nobody seems to have kept track of the Savior's family. Why this was so almost calls for a separete thread in my opinion.

And, of course, if you'd believe the argument made in the book The Da Vinci Code, Jesus was actually married to Mary Magdalene, and a secret order called "The Priory of Sion" is keeping track of the descendants...

[Shade]

Well, if Jesus had a number of brothers, you'd expect a gigantic number of direct descendants if they haven't all died out, since if everyone has a couple of kids...

To ask who is 'closest' you'd probably have to look for (1) shorter chain of descendants (say a branch of late-breeding people or something) or (2) interbreeding. An extreme example would be if Jesus had a brother and a sister who married, and had two kids who married, etc. Each would, I think, share as much genetic material with Mary as the original brother and sister. Of course, this is implausible, but if you have a relatively small community with distant cousins marrying you'd get a better figure than the 1/2^generations a naive calculation would expect.

Of course, it's moot, because there aren't any records.

[Polycarp]

A couple of casual points.

First, the "Holy Blood/Holy Grail" and "DaVinci Code" arguments are tin-hat material. It's possible, but so is the idea that a dragon lives within every volcano, and that's why it erupts.

Second, there's some material from about 100 AD that makes reference to two grandsons of Jude, brother of James the Just, and half-brother to Jesus, having been arrested as potential Christian subversives and having been released when there was no case against them.

Third, there are all kinds of legendary interrelationships of probably-legendary ancestors of royal families with the Christian lineage. One that comes to mind is the ancestry of Cunedda, the just-post-Arthurian-times migrant to Wales who gave rise to the three Welsh royal houses, being traced back to Guin the son of Beli (=Heli or Joachim) and Anna, and therefore a brother of the Virgin Mary.

[Uncommon Sense]

You would think that something like this would carry down via word of mouth. "I'm the grandnephew of that late Jesus guy", or something to that effect, 'cept carried on from generation to generation. I mean, who could forget being the direct decendant of Christ? I realize the Church didn't pick up steam 'till much later (AD) but the events surrounding his life and end thereof would be memorable enough to pass on from parents to siblings.

[Loach]

I don't know if you realized how loaded that question is. It depends who you talk to. When I asked a similar question to people my head started to hurt. According to Catholic doctrine there are no desendants. Mary was a virgin. Period. Always. Some Christains believe that he had at least one younger half brother. Of course thats only if you believe that Mary was more than a surrogate and was actually his mother. If he was just planted in the womb by an angel then he couldn't have had real relatives. Except for that Sion thing. My head hurts.

[Polycarp]

Of course thats only if you believe that Mary was more than a surrogate and was actually his mother. If he was just planted in the womb by an angel then he couldn't have had real relatives. Except for that Sion thing. My head hurts.

And that idea -- that Jesus did not inherit humanity through Mary, is one of the classic heresies, and contrary to the official doctrine of nearly all Christians other than the Assyrian Church in Iraq.

[Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor]

Wello, Cleanliness is next to Godliness.

So, Jesus must be related to Mister Clean! (http://www.grudge-match.com/Images/clean.gif) :D

I'm going to Hell for this one.

[Loach]

I'm going to Hell for this one.

Probably just the latest on a long list ;)

[matt_mcl]

"My sister says she never married because she's 'married to Jesus.' I said, 'Cool! That makes Jesus my brother-in-law! And yet we never see him at family functions.' " - Suzanne Westenhoefer

[cmkeller]

Considering that JC was executed as a criminal in his time, and was persona non grata with both the Romans and the Jews, claiming relation to him was probably a smart thing to not do too publicly.

In addition, the spread of the Christian religion was directed by Paul, who was not related to him. So from the very earliest days, there was no doubt a focus on the message rather than the man.

[AHunter3]

cmkeller So from the very earliest days, there was no doubt a focus on the message rather than the man.

Or, rather, neither of the above, since Paul pretty much ignored the message of Jesus of Nazareth (Sermon on the Plains, Sermon on the Mount, etc) to focus on the metaphysical "Son of God, God incarnate" stuff.

Which, btw, lends us this answer to the OP's question: God, if we may posit the existence of such, and grant creedence to Christian theology for the moment, would appear to be the closest living relative of Jesus of Nazareth.

[Chefguy]

I think I may be directly related. I distinctly remember my father saying to me: "Jesus Christ, clean up your room!"

[Jpeg Jones]

I think I may be directly related. I distinctly remember my father saying to me: "Jesus Christ, clean up your room!"A classic Bill Cosby bit, yes? :)

[Chefguy]

A classic Bill Cosby bit, yes? :)

"Damn it, get in here!"
"But Dad, I'm Jesus Christ!"

Worst beating I ever got.

Still a funny bit.

[Walloon]

You would think that something like this would carry down via word of mouth. "I'm the grandnephew of that late Jesus guy", or something to that effect, 'cept carried on from generation to generation. I mean, who could forget being the direct decendant of Christ?A direct descendant is a child, grandchild, great-grandchild, etc. Not nephews or grandnephews; those are collateral descendants.

[DrDeth]

Well, James was a leader in the early Church, but they soon split off from him and then he was also executed - by the Sanhedrin, note. Paul ran the Church after that- and since he never even met Jesus the man- let alone be related to Him- I'd guess Paul made sure to squelch that whole "I'm His Cousin, thus I am important" thing early.

It is likely that there were collateral descendants, but after a bit the Church (Roman Catholic) started pushing the "no siblings of Jesus" thing- so you saying that you were be be squelched and possible heresy.

AFAIK- no one other than "tinfoilhat brigade" dudes now claim they are in any way related to Jesus. There is no one related to Ceasar, either, AFAIK- in fact I don't think anyone has tracked any solid lines of descent much more than a thousand years (early Norse & English Kings go to 900 AD or so....)

[BrainGlutton]

The best online source for this topic is the magazine Dagobert's Revenge, http://www.dagobertsrevenge.com/index.shtml.

From :

Desposyni: Those Descendant From Jesus and the Royal House of Judah
(An. Greek: "Of the Master")

Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands
A leading member of the much-maligned global affairs think tank known as the Trilateral Commission. Founded the Bilderburg Group in 1954, made up of the world's elite in banking and industry, many of whom are also members of the Trilateral Commission. They meet in secret every year to discuss what to do with the rest of us. A well-known Bilderberg document is the infamous Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars.

Otto von Habsburg of Austria
Bears the title King of Jerusalem, which has remained in his family since the days of the Crusades and the Holy Roman Empire. As President of the Society for the United States of Europe, he and his son Karl, now a leading figure in European politics, have been largely responsible for the developing European Union. He is also a member of the Knights of Malta, the military arm of the Vatican and the avowed enemy of the Prieure de Sion. The Knights are suspected of being heavily influenced by fascist conspirators, the C.I.A. and the Mafia.

Pierre Plantard de Saint-Clair
Self-proclaimed "most direct descendant" of the Merovingian kings, and therefore a legitimate claimant to the throne of France, he is also a former Grand Master of the modern Prieure de Sion. The original Prieure was the organization that chartered the Knights Templar, and was officially dedicated to the Merovingian bloodline (as is the modern Prieure). While working in his capacity as Grand Master, M. Plantard published the mystical magazine C.I.R.C.U.I.T (Chivalry of Catholic Rules and Institutions of the Independent and Traditionalist Movement), and was interviewed extensively for the book Holy Blood, Holy Grail.

Prince Michael of Albany
Head of the Royal House of Stewart (yes, they still exist) and Scots King de jure, he is also President of the European Council of Princes and a leading figure in the fight for Scottish independence. He is also a Scottish Knight Templar, the Head of the Sacred Kindred of St. Columba, and Grand Master of the Noble Order of the Guard of St. Germain. He wrote the book The Forgotten Monarchy and the forward to the book Bloodline of the Holy Grail, by Laurence Gardner.

"Prince Michael of Albany" claims to be a direct descendant of Jesus, but for some reason think's it's much more important that he's a direct descendant of Bonnie Prince Charlie. DR interviewed him (http://www.dagobertsrevenge.com/articles/interviews/pminterview.shtml):

DR: I see. Well, when it was explained to you as a child, you know, who you were and what your birthright was and stuff, did they mention the connection with Jesus and the House of David?

PM: No, not really. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's something that many families in Europe are aware of about themselves. However, bear in mind that Europe is extremely Catholicized in any case. Even from a Protestant point of view this would still be termed heretical. It's not something that we mention to anyone. You know, it's 2000 years old, so it's pretty much in the past. We have a concept of Christianity that is very much different from the norm, that's true. None of us have ever considered the virgin birth as explained by the Roman Catholic Church to be correct. These kinds of things, yes. But then of course we do live within a Christian world, either according to the RC - Roman Church, or C of S, Church of Scotland, or whatever, you know, it's either orthodox Greek or Russian, or then it's Roman Catholic or Presbyterian or Protestant. All of them still declare Jesus to have been born of a virgin who was impregnated by the Holy Spirit. Make what you wish out of that, but frankly - (laughs riotously) - we have definite and very different views on that matter, simply because, yes, we are of that bloodline. If I had to describe Jesus to any one I would say, "Well, imagine Bonnie Prince Charlie 2000 years ago making a bid for a new kingship, and unfortunately it went astray and it didn't work." And whoever actually survived after he died - and we're not talking A.D. 33 or A.D. 37, you know, it's much later than that. Christianity was not created during the lifetime of Jesus Christ, it's after his death in A.D. 64. Actually I always say there is no such thing as Christianity. What we have is "Churchianity."

<snip>

DR: On the Council of Princes, I assume there are other members of the Grail families, right?

PM: Well, there's 33 of us, you know, 33 royal houses represented on the Council. Most of us are connected to one another at one point or another. So yes, most of us are of Grail families.

DR: Do all the Grail families kind of have a common goal? I mean, do they network and collaborate together for a specific cause?

PM: No, not particularly. At the end of the day, the idea is that, you know, all of us should be restored to where we belong. On an individual basis it's bad enough working for yourself, never mind having to help and try to work on behalf of somebody else as well. Europe is quite a big continent, you know. So no, it's more on an individualistic basis. But at present how the Council works is as a constitutional advisory body. So think in terms of Straussburg and Brussels legislating new laws. Every country in Europe has a written constitution. Some of that legislation will impinge upon on or two or three or more constitutions, so that's what we're dealing with. We're pointing out that this particular legislation, say, would not or could not apply to either Spain or Holland or whatever because of a particular point of their constitution. Either they amend that legislation or it's the constitution of that country that has to be amended, which of course becomes a bit frightening because you can make so many amendments that at the end of the day you produce a constitution which has nothing in common with the original one. So we'd rather change the legislation in Brussels of Strausburg against changing or amending a constitution in Europe.

<snip>

DR: Do you know about any Merovingian descendants who are trying to reclaim the throne, the French throne?

PM: Oh, there is Ludwig of Anjou, who lives in Spain. He actually is the rightful heir to the throne of France. You can forget about, um, what's that chap's name again?

DR: Pierre Plantard?

PM: Pierre Plantard de Saint-Claire. No no. Forget about that.

DR: So what, he was lying?

PM: Yeah, I think it was more wishful thinking than anything else, personally. Yeah.

DR: So you dismiss all that.

PM: I dismiss the Plantard claim, yes.

DR: And the Prieuré de Sion? You dismiss them?

PM: Well, there certainly was once upon a time the Order of Sion, yes. Again, that became defunct in medieval days. I'm not saying that it didn't survive in some other means. It probably did. But again, you'll find that historically speaking the Holy Blood, Holy Grail book, for example, by Michael Baigent and so forth, what they forgot to say was that it wasn't until post-WWII that all organizations had to register, whether you were spiritual organization, temple or whatever. If you were an association of any kind, after WWII you had to register. Now WWII finished in 1945 and the Order of Sion as mentioned in Holy Blood, Holy Grail did not register before the late 1950s. So you have to ask yourself, you know, considering they had to register after 1946, why did they do it in 1958? And the answer to that is that they only became an association in 1958. It was only created in 1958.

DR: So what we know as the Prieuré de Sion today is probably not the real Order of Sion.

PM: It's not really the real Order, no. I'm quite sure that within some families the concept of the Order still applies. But it will be individuals that are descended from an organization which was prevalent in medieval days. It's like the Templars. You still have many families with Templar names today in France and Scotland and Portugal and such. And their ancestors were once upon a time Knights Templar. It can be said they are Templar families. But whether that makes, in effect, a live order or not, this where I have my doubts, because most of these, if you ask them: "Do you believe yourselves to be a member of the Order of Knights Templars?", the answer to that probably would be: "No, I don't." They would say: "My ancestor was a Knight Templar, but I am not."

DR: Well, that's kind of disappointing. I kind of liked the idea that was put forth in Holy Blood, Holy Grail. It was neat.

PM: Yeah, but it was too many ifs and whats, you see. That's the problem I had with that particular book. In Bloodline of the Holy Grail, we're concerned with, you know, a family tree. That's it. And of course it's a book about the history of the Church vs. the family. It's no longer ifs and whats. You've got dates, you've got names, you know, it's all there. The problem I have with claims of certain historians or researchers is what they are given, they are given this by some very weird individuals, and they tend to actually believe what they're told. I think it's very naive, personally. If Michael Baigent and Co. had actually checked the data they were given, I'm quite sure they would have thought twice before writing the book, or they would have written something in a different vein, still about this particular concept, but written differently. When the book came out, I was quite taken aback, because I thought to myself: Well, they haven't really done any research, because, they haven't really scratched the surface. In fact, they haven't really scratched at all. You've been given this data by one individual, claiming to be the head of one particular order. And they swallowed it, you know, like champagne. And it was an interesting book, but - which is why Bloodline of the Holy Grail was written, really, to put the whole thing back in perspective.

DR: So you would say that Pierre Plantard and friends are charlatans?

PM: I don't like the word "charlatans". I think, basically, like many people, he just jumped on the bandwagon. One thing you could say in your article is that Mary, Queen of Scots, for example, was very aware of her Merovingian and Davidic descent, because she actually had a book that had her family tree back to King David via Jesus and so forth. And that came from the Lorraine family, de Guise-Lorraine. And again, if you go back to The Forgotten Monarchy of Scotland then you see the descent of Marie de Guise-Lorraine from the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, i.e. Baldwin II.

I'd like to see that book . . .

See also:

http://www.royalhouseofstewart.org.uk/

[/url]http://graal.co.uk/[/url]

http://www.jacobite.ca/essays/lafosse.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Michael_of_Albany

http://www.chivalricorders.org/royalty/fantasy/stuart.htm

http://www.dagobertsrevenge.com/articles/interviews/scstewartint.shtml

http://www.dagobertsrevenge.com/articles/monarchy/jacobites.shtml

http://www.dagobertsrevenge.com/articles/monarchy/rhs.shtml

[BrainGlutton]

Flubbed a link . . .

http://graal.co.uk/

It's to the page of Laurence Gardner, Prince Michael's official "Historiographer Royal," and author of Bloodline of the Holy Grail (Fair Winds Press, 2002).

I love this stuff! Hoo-boy fun! :D

[DrDeth]

Do their crowns go over their tinfoil hats, or under them? :dubious:

[BrainGlutton]

You might want to check out this GD thread -- "Was Jesus married to Mary Magdalene? Were Gospels omitted from New Testament?"

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=241541

From the Disinformation website -- http://www.disinfo.com/archive/pages/dossier/id96/pg1/:

'Holy Blood, Holy Grail' is a powerful example of investigative journalism meme-spliced with religious conspiracy theory, a 'fictive arcanum' whose provocative thesis continues to undermine the Catholic Church's institutional reading of Judeo-Christian history. Its trash literature veneer has introduced memes that have led readers to subsequently study the scholarly work of Robert Eisenman, Barbara Thiering and the Dead Sea Scrolls researchers that reveal the suppression of early schisms within Christianity. The book's central hypothesis - that Jesus survived the Crucifixion and together with Mary Magdalene founded a bloodline that later became the Merovingians in France (protected by the Knights Templar and later by the Freemasons) amounts to a stunning re-write of Western history. Banned in Catholic-dominated countries including the Phillipines, the book remains an incendiary example of why culture-jamming official 'grand-narratives' is the frontline of new information wars.

<snip>

Embarking on the 'Holy Blood, Holy Grail' mystery means exploring where Pop Culture and the Sacred intersect in an infinite regressing nest of quantum combinations. The original book spawned several television documentaries and brought contemporary occult subcultures into the mainstream (even influencing conspiracy theorists like Robert Anton Wilson), foreshadowing the impact of the 'X-Files' television series with a combination of foreboding and wonder that entranced audiences worldwide. If many early conspiriologists feel that armchair conspiracy theorizing has become too popular and too mainstream, then the 'Holy Blood, Holy Grail' phenomena may be seen in retrospect as the critical turning point where a Culture exploded beyond previous thresholds and began to devour itself.

From the Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Blood%2C_Holy_Grail:

Holy Blood, Holy Grail is a nonfictional work of pseudohistory and New York Times bestseller written by BBC producers and authors Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln and published in 1982 by Dell (ISBN 055212138).

It details their own quest for the Holy Grail by investigating the mysteries of Rennes-le-Château and constructing a conspiratorial view of the history of the Western world.

After a decade of research, Baigent, Leigh, and Lincoln came to the following controversial conclusions:

There is a secret society known as Priory of Sion that has a long and illustrious history dating back to the First Crusade starting with the creation of the Knights Templar as its military front.

It had a large role in partaking in and promoting the "underground river of esotericism," the Alph, in Medieval Europe.

It is devoted to returning the Merovingian dynasty, that ruled the Frankish kingdom from 447 to 751 C.E., to the thrones of Europe and Jerusalem.

It protects these royal claimants because they are the literal descendants of Jesus and his alleged wife Mary Magdalene.

The Roman Catholic Church tried to kill off all remnants of this dynasty and their guardians, the Cathars and the Templars, during the Inquisition, in order to gain power through the apostolic succession of Peter instead of the hereditary succession of Mary Magdalene.

Author Dan Brown, in his bestseller The Da Vinci Code, makes reference to this book, and uses the above claims as key plot elements.

These theories have not been accepted by many historians.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priory_of_Sion:

There was much speculation as to just what the Prieuré de Sion is. In its English translation it is usually rendered as Priory of Sion, or even Priory of Zion. It was an elusive protagonist in many works of both non-fiction and fiction, and it had been characterized as anything from the most covertly powerful secret society in Western history to a modern Rosicrucian-esque ludibrium but in fact it has been exposed as an elaborate hoax.

Under Article III.c of the original 1956 Statutes of the Priory of Sion, the association was named after the nearby mountain called Sion by the French town of Annemasse. It was devoted to opposing gentrification in the area through its journal, Circuit. The 1956 Priory had its headquarters in Pierre Plantard's house in Annemasse and was officially registered at the sub-prefecture in Saint-Julien-en-Genevoise on May 7th, 1956, by André Bonhomme and Pierre Plantard. It was dissolved sometime after October 1956 but intermittently revived by Plantard between 1962 and 1993 as an initiatory order and crypto-political vanguard party dedicated to the restoration of chivalry and monarchy in France to further his impostor royalty bid.

Between 1961 and 1984 Plantard contrived a mythical pedigree of the Priory of Sion claiming that it had been founded in Jerusalem during the First Crusade by Godfrey de Bouillon. Research in the Rennes-le-Château mysteries led Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln to the pseudohistorical Secret Files of Henri Lobineau, compiled by "Philippe Toscan du Plantier," that became the source for their book, Holy Blood, Holy Grail, in which they reported claims that

with a list of illustrious grand masters (see below), the Priory of Sion has a long history starting with the creation of the Knights Templar as its military front;
it had a large role in partaking in and promoting the "underground river of esotericism," the Alph, in Medieval Europe;

it is sworn to returning the Merovingian dynasty, that ruled the Frankish kingdom from 447 to 751 C.E., to the thrones of Europe and Jerusalem; and

the order protects these royal claimants because they are the literal descendants of Jesus and his wife Mary Magdalene.

These authors further speculated that the ultimate goals of the Priory of Sion are

the founding of a 'Holy European Empire' that would become the next hyperpower and usher in a new world order of peace and prosperity;

the supplantation of the Roman Catholic Church with an ecumenical messianic state religion by revealing the Holy Grail and lost Herodian Temple relics which would prove Ebionite views and Desposyni claims; and

the grooming and installing of the anointed king of a Greater Israel.

Baigent, Leigh, and Lincoln came to their own interpretation of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, where they used the spelling "Sion" in the name:

The original version emanated from an irregular Masonic organization that used the name "Sion" but had nothing to do with an international Zionist conspiracy.
The original version was not intended to be inflammatory or released publicly, but was a program for gaining control of Freemasonry.

The person responsible for changing the text in about 1903 was Sergei Nilus in the course of his attempt to gain influence in the Court of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia. The presence of esoteric cliques in the royal court led to considerable intrigue. Nilus' publication of the text resulted from his failure to succeed in wresting influence away from Papus and an otherwise unidentified "Monsieur Philippe".

Since Nilus did not recognize a number of references in the text that reflected a background in a Christian cultural context, he did not change them. This fact established that the original version could not possibly have come from the Judaic Congress in Basle in 1897.

Although these authors recognised that the history of the Protocols may be linked to the Priory's, they did not go so far as suggest that it proved anything about its continued existence.

Accepting these hypotheses as facts, some fringe Christian eschatologists viewed the Priory of Sion as a fulfillment of prophesies found in the Book of Revelation and further proof of an anti-Christian conspiracy of epic proportions.

However, since modern historians do not accept Holy Blood, Holy Grail as a serious contribution to scholarship, all these claims are regarded as being part of an intriguing but dubious conspiracy theory. French authors like Franck Marie (1978), Jean-Luc Chaumeil (1979, 1984, 1992) and Pierre Jarnac (1985, 1988) have never taken Pierre Plantard and the Priory of Sion as seriously as Baigent, Lincoln and Leigh, always concluding that it was all a hoax in their respective books and outlining the reasons for their verdicts that these authors never reported comprehensively since their books were pro-conspiracy theory oriented.

In 1989, Pierre Plantard tried to salvage his reputation and agenda by claiming that the Priory had actually been founded in 1681 at Rennes-le-Chateau. This last revival did not succeed and in 1993, thinking he was dealing with a P2-like organization at first, Judge Thierry Jean-Pierre investigated and suppressed all activities related to the Priory of Sion hoax.

Most recently, due to Dan Brown's bestselling novel, The Da Vinci Code, there has been a new level of public interest in the Priory of Sion.

Alleged Grand Masters of the Priory of Sion
Jean de Gisors (1188-1220)
Marie de Saint-Clair (1220-1266)
Guillaume de Gisors (1266-1307)
Edouard de Bar (1307-1336)
Jeanne de Bar (1336-1351)
Jean de Saint-Clair (1351-1366)
Blanche d'Evreux (1366-1398)
Nicolas Flamel (1398-1418)
Rene d'Anjou (1418-1480)
Iolande de Bar (1480-1483)
Sandro Filipepi AKA Botticelli (1483-1510)
Leonardo da Vinci (1510-1519)
Charles III (Duke of Bourbon-Montpensier) (1519-1527)
Ferdinand de Gonzague (1527-1556)
Michel de Notre-Dame AKA Nostradamus(1556-1566)
Duc de Longueville & Nicolas Froumenteau (1566-1575)
Louis de Nevers (1575-1595)
Robert Fludd (1595-1637)
Johann Valentin Andrea (1637-1654)
Robert Boyle (1654-1691)
Isaac Newton (1691-1727)
Charles Radclyffe (1727-1746)
Charles de Lorraine (1746-1780)
Maximillian de Lorraine (1780-1801)
Charles Nodier (1801-1844)
Victor Hugo (1844-1885)
Claude Debussy (1885-1918)
Jean Cocteau (1918-1963)

A second List of the Grand Masters of the Priory of Sion that included the names of Roger Patrice Pelat and Thomas Plantard appeared in 1989 - but it should not be confused with the above list that belonged to a version of the Priory of Sion that Plantard rejected. When Plantard tried to make a comeback and a revival of the Priory of Sion in 1989 following his retirement in 1984 he claimed that the above list was bogus and a part of the "Secret Files", which by then had been exposed as a fraud by French researchers and authors.

Cryptic motto
Et in Arcadia ego... is supposedly the official motto of both the Plantard family and the Priory of Sion, according to a claim that first appeared in 1964. Et in Arcadia ego is a Latin phrase, that most famously appears as a tomb inscription on the ca. 1630 classical painting, The Arcadian Shepherds, by French painter Nicolas Poussin. It literally means, "And I in Arcadia." However, the addition of the ellipsis (which was not there in the Poussin painting), suggests a missing word. Although it would not be needed in Latin grammar, sum has been one suggested completion to mean: "And I am in Arcadia." Furthermore, it has been theorized by Richard Andrews and Paul Schellenberger that the completed phrase Et in Arcadia ego sum is an anagram for Arcam Dei Tango Iesu which means "I touch the tomb of God - Jesus." The implication being that the tomb contains the ossuary of Jesus, the mortal prophet of God. Regardless of the accuracy of this extraordinary claim, it is not considered part of the official history of the painting by Poussin that contains the phrase, which is well documented.

Cultural influences

The Priory of Sion has had several influences on popular culture, not all of them entirely accurate or serious:

The Priory, portrayed as more of a Goddess mystery religion, plays a large part in Dan Brown's novel The Da Vinci Code.

The Priory was the template for the Grail order in the Preacher comic book series and, more loosely, the Millennium Group in the Millennium television series.

See also:

http://www.fiu.edu/~mizrachs/poseur3.html

http://priory-of-sion.com/

[Exapno Mapcase]

Wow. After those exhaustive and exhausting posts from BrainGlutton, dare I say that they're all irrelevant because Jesus was - and is - a fictional character?

This is GQ, after all. :)

[Walloon]

Cecil Adams: Did Jesus really exist? (http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_275.html)

[APB]

There is one other angle to this. Several sources do mention later generations of Jesus' family. The best known of these is Eusebius in his Ecclesiastical History (http://www.biblefacts.org/ecf/cvol1/euseb_b1.html). He is discussing what is known about Jesus' ancestry.

A few of the careful, however, having obtained private records of their own, either by remembering the names or by getting them in some other way from the registers, pride themselves on preserving the memory of their noble extraction. Among these are those already mentioned, called Desposyni, on account of their connection with the family of the Savior. Coming from Nazara and Cochaba, villages of Judea, into other parts of the world, they drew the aforesaid genealogy from memory and from the book of daily records as faithfully as possible.

Writers of the Holy-Blood-and-the-Holy-Grail school of historical nonsense are usually quick to point to such sources as evidence for the existence of a 'bloodline'. What however they invariably fail to point out is that, as these almost certainly refer to collateral descendants, these sources can equally be used as good circumstantial evidence against the existence of direct descendants. People clearly did claim to be related to Jesus and, in some cases, used that connection to gain influence, but no one ever tried to do so by claiming to be a direct descendant. Probably because there were no direct descendants.

[Polycarp]

Wow. After those exhaustive and exhausting posts from BrainGlutton, dare I say that they're all irrelevant because Jesus was - and is - a fictional character?

This is GQ, after all. :)

Not in GQ, you dasn't! ;) The question of the evidence for and against his existence, and whether he's been "Arthurized," is most definitely a Great Debate. (Would you believe that prior to editing, how I concluded that last sentence is "..most definitely a GD argument"? ;))

[BrainGlutton]

Wow. After those exhaustive and exhausting posts from BrainGlutton, dare I say that they're all irrelevant because Jesus was - and is - a fictional character?

This is GQ, after all. :)

Yeah, but then we couldn't have this thread at all! What fun would that be? :p

Anyway, since this thread is about Jesus' closest relatives -- which would include collateral as well as lineal descendants -- here's another bit from the Wikipedia (don't worry about copyright -- the Wikipedia is "copyleft," unlimited duplication expressly permitted) (url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desposyni[/url]):

The Desposyni (from Greek, "belonging to the Master") was a sacred name reserved only for Jesus' blood relatives including his mother Mary, his father Joseph, his unnamed sisters, and his brothers James the Just, Joses, Simon and Jude.

It is questionable whether all their descendants up to twenty generations were to be counted among the desposyni or whether that would have rendered the term absurd.

If Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene, a controversial belief held by some Gnostic Christian sects which is only corroborated by the Gospel of Phillip, their child or children would have been the most revered desposyni.

Every early community of Judean followers of Jesus, whether it was Nazarene or Ebionite, was governed by a desposynos as a patriarch, and each of them carried one of the names traditional in Jesus' family but no one was ever named after him.

As the most lineal dynasty of king David and priest Zadok all male desposyni could have legitimately laid claim to both the throne and the office of high priest of Jerusalem. However, the Roman occupation of Palestine, with the collaboration of the Judean establishment, made any attempt by a desposynos to rise to or seize political and religious power impossible or limited in scope.

Historical Accounts

Hegesippus (ca 110 A.D. - ca 180) wrote five books of Commentaries on the Acts of the Church. They are lost, but a few fragments are quoted by Eusebius in Historia Ecclesiae, 3.20. Among them is the following relation, ascribed to the reign of Domitian, 81 - 96 A.D.:

There still survived of the kindred of the Lord the grandsons of Judas, who according to the flesh was called his brother. These were informed against, as belonging to the family of David, and Evocatus brought them before Domitian Caesar: for that emperor dreaded the advent of Christ, as Herod had done.

So he asked them whether they were of the family of David; and they confessed they were. Next he asked them what property they had, or how much money they possessed. They both replied that they had only 9000 denaria between them, each of them owning half that sum; but even this they said they did not possess in cash, but as the estimated value of some land, consisting of thirty-nine plethra only, out of which they had to pay the dues, and that they supported themselves by their own labour. And then they began to hold out their hands, exhibiting, as proof of their manual labour, the roughness of their skin, and the corns raised on their hands by constant work.

Being then asked concerning Christ and His kingdom, what was its nature, and when and where it was to appear, they returned answer that it was not of this world, nor of the earth, but belonging to the sphere of heaven and angels, and would make its appearance at the end of time, when He shall come in glory, and judge living and dead, and render to every one according to the course of his life.

Thereupon Domitian passed no condemnation upon them, but treated them with contempt, as too mean for notice, and let them go free. At the same time he issued a command, and put a stop to the persecution against the Church.

When they were released they became leaders of the churches, as was natural in the case of those who were at once martyrs and of the kindred of the Lord. And, after the establishment of peace to the Church, their lives were prolonged to the reign of Trajan."

Other known relatives of Jesus include Simeon, the second bishop of Jerusalem, who was the son of Joseph's brother Clopas (mentioned by Eusebius, H.E. 3.11,32), and three Nestorian bishops of Seleucia on the Tigris in the 3rd century (according to the 13th century Syrian historian, Gregory Barhebraeus).

And here -- http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/jesus/tree.html -- is a fragmentary family tree of Jesus' relatives up to the middle of the Second Century.

[kniz]

First, the "Holy Blood/Holy Grail" and "DaVinci Code" arguments are tin-hat material. It's possible, but so is the idea that a dragon lives within every volcano, and that's why it erupts.
As much as I and everyone else admires your opinion, I have to challenge this "dragon in every volcano" theory. I am not defending "Holy Blood/Holly Grail", but as you state it is possible. Dragons in volcanoes are not possible, period. ;) That's a stretch.

[Dan Norder]

Uh, Brain, that's pretty excessive copying and pasting there, don't ya think?

As far as the original question, I'm betting the closest living relative would have to be Santa Claus. There are a lot of links there, too many to be coincidence, I'm sure. Beard. Occupation. Philosophy. Miracles. Birthdays. Implausible and unconfirmed stories. Everyone having their own views and what he wants.

And since I dislike posts in General Questions threads just to make jokes, the previous paragraph isn't exactly intended to be a joke, it's intended to be the most serious way I know to answer that particular question.

[Jpeg Jones]

...Nicolas Flamel (1398-1418)...As in Harry Potter?

[BrainGlutton]

Uh, Brain, that's pretty excessive copying and pasting there, don't ya think?

It's OK, it's Wikipedia -- unlimited duplication and republication expressly permitted. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyrights

As in Harry Potter?

The same. Nicholas Flamel was a real-life alchemist, and Rowling apparently knows about him. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Flamel

[Dan Norder]

It's OK, it's Wikipedia -- unlimited duplication and republication expressly permitted. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyrights

OK, first up, only the most recent posts were from Wikipedia. You've yanked a bunch of stuff from a magazine earlier.

Secondly, you can't just copy and paste Wikipedia content, you have to follow the rules of the license. As far as I can tell, you didn't do that.

Third, even if you could legally repost all of that it still seems way overboard, which was my main point.

[samclem]

[Mod hat on]
I'm gonna close this one. It's run out of gas, and maybe shouldn't have been here in the first place. If anyone wants to debate issues, take it to GD in a new thread.

BrainGlutton. You, indeed, copied an excessive amount of copyrighted material in an earlier post. (Not talking about wiki--trying to read their website disclaimers makes my head hurt ;) )

Don't do that. The SDMB tries to respect the copyrights of other sites, and we hope they respect ours. Small bits are fine--huge chunks are NOT.

[Mod hat off]