# If Jesus had Kids, enlighten me about why this is heresy?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-jesus-had-kids-enlighten-me-about-why-this-is-heresy/355768
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [May 7, 2006, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-jesus-had-kids-enlighten-me-about-why-this-is-heresy/355768 "2006-05-07T16:26:34Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)
#### Post date: [May 7, 2006, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-jesus-had-kids-enlighten-me-about-why-this-is-heresy/355768/1 "2006-05-07T16:26:34Z")
I haven’t read the DaVinci Code and I have no plans to see the film, but from what I’ve gathered, the whole premise is that Opus Dei is trying to silence those who know the Heresy that “Jesus had sex with Mary Magladelene and had a couple kids”.
I don’t believe Jesus had kids, but I’m open to the idea(After all, there’s no mention in the bible of what Jesus did between the ages of 12 and 30). If I saw convincing evidence, I’d change my mind.
Could someone more in tune with Catholic Dogma explain why Jesus having kids might be such a theological problem? I understand the Catholic problem with nearly all sex(so it seems from someone outside the church), though if Jesus was married(assuming he was) then that would seem to clear up any moral issues.
As I said, I haven’t read the book, so maybe there’s something I’m missing.
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### Author:  [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)
#### Post date: [May 7, 2006, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-jesus-had-kids-enlighten-me-about-why-this-is-heresy/355768/2 "2006-05-07T16:31:26Z")
[Christians: is the idea that Christ married and/or had kids blasphemous to you?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=341116)
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### Author:  [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)
#### Post date: [May 7, 2006, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-jesus-had-kids-enlighten-me-about-why-this-is-heresy/355768/3 "2006-05-07T17:18:15Z")
If Jesus is God, and Jesus had kids, then you have a lot of little demi-gods running around out there, and that would raise problems. Also, you get the possibility of some people saying, “I’m descended from Jesus and you’re not. Therefore, I should rule, because I’m holier than you.”
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### Author:  [@marinegunductor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marinegunductor)
#### Post date: [May 7, 2006, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-jesus-had-kids-enlighten-me-about-why-this-is-heresy/355768/4 "2006-05-07T17:18:23Z")
Have you heard of ,Hank Hanegraaff, aka The Bible Answerman? He has a radio show (I listen on XM chan 170). His website is [www.equip.org](http://www.equip.org).
Here is a link to an article that may help: [http://www.equip.org/free/DD229.htm](http://www.equip.org/free/DD229.htm)
Or, for some great books on the subject: [http://www.equip.org/store/topical.asp?Div=Topics&TopID=1215](http://www.equip.org/store/topical.asp?Div=Topics&TopID=1215)
Rusty
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### Author:  [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)
#### Post date: [May 7, 2006, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-jesus-had-kids-enlighten-me-about-why-this-is-heresy/355768/5 "2006-05-07T17:33:18Z")
The issue would not be that Jesus could not have had kids, but that if he had kids, would they have been divine, demi-gods (as many Greek heroes), or what? Since there is no tradition that Jesus had any semi-divine offspring running around, it would call into question whether Jesus was actually God. _That_ would be heresy.
On the other hand, aside from a couple of twit cardinals and the loony head of the Catholic League, the Catholic Church as an institution is not that upset over the whole thing.
The general response is one of rolling eyes at one more odd work of fiction that will be picked up and talked about by the uninformed for another year or so. Some uneducated Catholics are probably upset that “They said something bad about the Church!” while most educated Catholics are simply weary of seeing really stupid claims that the church could actually carry on a massive conspiracy for nearly two thousand years, going so far as to have secret police and assassins running around trying to “protect” the conspiracy.
It is a bit tiring to see more of the sort of idiotic claims about how scripture was organized or how various groups act within the church, but the single claim that Jesus had children is not high on the list of things that are irritating about The Da Vinci Code (or its most recent predecessor, Holy Blood, Holy Grail).
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### Author:  [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)
#### Post date: [May 7, 2006, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-jesus-had-kids-enlighten-me-about-why-this-is-heresy/355768/6 "2006-05-07T18:33:06Z")
The main “what’s the big fishin’ deal?” thing to me is that if he and Mary M. had kids and they had kids and they had kids, etc., so many people would be their descendants today that it’d be no distinction at all.
Pocahontas, had only one child to survive infancy. That child, Thomas Rolfe, had only one child, Jane, to survive infancy and she had only one child, John Bolling, to survive infancy. This means that Pocahontas had only one great-grandchild. Today she has thousands upon thousands of direct lineal descendants from that one great-grandchild. Most of her descendants don’t know (and probably don’t care) that they have her lineage. (Add to this that Pocahontas’s son, Thomas Rolfe, may have had a second wife with whom he had children [legal issue dealing with his half-Indian ancestry clouds the issue] and the potential number of Pocahontas descendants explodes.)
The Monticello Association is an organization comprised of direct lineal descendants of Thomas Jefferson and has more than 2,000 living members. That does _not include_ the descendants of Sally Hemings and not including all direct legitimate descendants. Jefferson was a monogamist who died less than 200 years ago and who had only 2 legitimate children to survive childhood (and one of them had only 1 child). Add in the Hemings descendants (most of whom are not known) and you’ve multiplied the number of Jefferson descendants several times to probably more than 10,000 in less than 200 years.
Jesus died more than 1,950 years ago. If he had only one child to survive infancy, if two hundred years later somehow he had only one direct descendant living, if that one lost all his descendants but one during Justinian’s Plague in the 6th century, etc., then it would STILL be probable rather than just possible that there would be literally MILLIONS of Jesus descendants running around. Given the location of Israel it would also be very likely they’d be on several continents- he could have descendants who were on both sides at Pearl Harbor, the Battle of Mafeking and every other conflict, he could easily have been a common ancestor of Martin Luther King, Mao Tse Deng, George Wallace, Russell Crowe, Winnie Mandela, Eva Peron and Emiliano Zapata, etc… It could even be conceivable that Muhammad was his descendant (and once your bloodline gets plugged into a polygamist culture, boy howdy but you’re off and running).
If he did have issue they clearly weren’t important. (Very common: how often do ou hear of Einstein’s kids, or Shakespeare’s or Benjamin Franklin’s or Madame Curie’s or the spawn of most other famous and brilliant parents?) Today the “divine” component of the DNA would be so watered down as to comprise a minute percentage of one percent of a minute percentage of one percent of the descendant’s overall composition. Big whoop.
The only way that it would be at all impressive would be if brother married sister for more than 1900 years. I’m told there was a graphic novel once that actually had this as a plot- an incredibly deformed through inbreeding descendant of Christ- though I’m not sure which one.
But even if I were a devout and Fundamentalist Christian I wouldn’t care less beyond a mild “hmm… that’s interesting” moment if Jesus had children. It wouldn’t detract from his message in the least, it just means that he really was a man, which I already knew (it’s rather the whole point of him being here). I’m sure he also pooped his nappies as a child and played with dogs and probably had favorite and least favorite foods and had days when he felt like takinga picnic instead of healing lepers but had to do so anyway. If he didn’t experience the human emotions and temptations and pleasures, why be human and born of a woman and all?
Though if it is ever proven he had kids, can you imagine the number of blue haired genealogists falling over each other to stake their claim? “That Nativity Set there has been our family a long long time… that’s supposed to be my great great great great grandaddy when he was a baby, though I think in real life he looked more like my boy Buster did when he was a baby.”
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### Author:  [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)
#### Post date: [May 7, 2006, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-jesus-had-kids-enlighten-me-about-why-this-is-heresy/355768/7 "2006-05-07T19:39:28Z")
I think it has more to do with the importance of the [virgin birth](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Birth) in Christian dogma. Sex (even within marriage) is so linked to [original sin](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_sin) that it was necessary not only that Jesus be conceived without sex, but that the [immaculate conception](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immaculate_Conception) of his mother Mary was necessary to put two degrees of separation between original sin and the Messiah. If the church allowed anyone to promote the idea that Jesus even had sex, much less children, it would have destroyed the elaborate history they had created in order to distance Jesus from the stain of any kind of sin.
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### Author:  [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)
#### Post date: [May 7, 2006, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-jesus-had-kids-enlighten-me-about-why-this-is-heresy/355768/8 "2006-05-07T21:02:14Z")
> [@Captain Amazing](#):
>
> If Jesus is God, and Jesus had kids, then you have a lot of little demi-gods running around out there, and that would raise problems. Also, you get the possibility of some people saying, “I’m descended from Jesus and you’re not. Therefore, I should rule, because I’m holier than you.”
As opposed to any other reason to say “I should rule”. I suspect history would have been much the same, with a lot of wars and backstabbing over who runs things.
They’d just have another reason to claim the throne.
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### Author:  [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)
#### Post date: [May 7, 2006, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-jesus-had-kids-enlighten-me-about-why-this-is-heresy/355768/9 "2006-05-07T21:14:21Z")
> [@Captain Amazing](#):
>
> If Jesus is God, and Jesus had kids, then you have a lot of little demi-gods running around out there,
No, Christian theology clearly says that “He was made man, and born of the virgin Mary”. So during his life on earth, he was human, not god. Thus any alleged kids born would also be fully human, not demi-gods.
Besides, it’s clear that John, the only “disciple that Jesus loved” did not have the physical equipment to become pregnant and give birth.
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### Author:  [@bonzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bonzer)
#### Post date: [May 7, 2006, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-jesus-had-kids-enlighten-me-about-why-this-is-heresy/355768/10 "2006-05-07T21:29:48Z")
> [@Sampiro](#):
>
> If he did have issue they clearly weren’t important. (Very common: how often do ou hear of Einstein’s kids, or Shakespeare’s or Benjamin Franklin’s or Madame Curie’s or the spawn of most other famous and brilliant parents?)
[nitpick]
Marie Curie’s a bad example: one of her two daughters [also won a Nobel Prize in Chemistry](http://nobelprize.org/chemistry/laureates/1935/joliot-curie-bio.html).
[/nitpick]
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### Author:  [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)
#### Post date: [May 7, 2006, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-jesus-had-kids-enlighten-me-about-why-this-is-heresy/355768/11 "2006-05-07T21:58:11Z")
Because it would mean that Christianity had a lost “Shi’ite” branch, and there’s been enough dogmatic struggle over the “Sunni” version already. 😛
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### Author:  [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)
#### Post date: [May 7, 2006, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-jesus-had-kids-enlighten-me-about-why-this-is-heresy/355768/12 "2006-05-07T21:59:57Z")
> [@bonzer](#):
>
> [nitpick]
>
> Marie Curie’s a bad example: one of her two daughters [also won a Nobel Prize in Chemistry](http://nobelprize.org/chemistry/laureates/1935/joliot-curie-bio.html).
>
> [/nitpick]
The other one would have but lost major points in the swimsuit competition. Not her fault really as WWI was on and swimsuit material was rationed.
Withdrawn (though she still isn’t as famous as her parents). I’ll substitute Charles Darwin or Charles Dickens, both of whom had a bunch of kids but none anywhere near as illustrious as their dad.
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### Author:  [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)
#### Post date: [May 7, 2006, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-jesus-had-kids-enlighten-me-about-why-this-is-heresy/355768/13 "2006-05-07T22:01:00Z")
> [@Lumpy](#):
>
> Because it would mean that Christianity had a lost “Shi’ite” branch, and there’s been enough dogmatic struggle over the “Sunni” version already. 😛
I happen to know for a fact that God called Jesus “Sonny”, so would this mean shi’ite to most people?
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### Author:  [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)
#### Post date: [May 7, 2006, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-jesus-had-kids-enlighten-me-about-why-this-is-heresy/355768/14 "2006-05-07T22:02:00Z")
> [@t-bonham@scc.net](#):
>
> No, Christian theology clearly says that “He was made man, and born of the virgin Mary”. So during his life on earth, he was human, not god. Thus any alleged kids born would also be fully human, not demi-gods.
Maybe his children would be, but Christ was always considered both God and Man.
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### Author:  [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)
#### Post date: [May 7, 2006, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-jesus-had-kids-enlighten-me-about-why-this-is-heresy/355768/15 "2006-05-07T22:14:46Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#):
>
> Maybe his children would be, but Christ was always considered both God and Man.
Yes, but not at the same time.
While he was on earth, he ‘participated fully in human nature’, and suffered all the trials and temptations of human life. Including that he died and was buried.
Gods are, almost by definition, immortal. Yet Christ died. Clearly, he was not being god at that time. That this was by his own choice, and that he could have asked his Father to give him his god powers back is irrelevant. At the time, he was human.
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### Author:  [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2006, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-jesus-had-kids-enlighten-me-about-why-this-is-heresy/355768/16 "2006-05-08T00:05:35Z")
> [@t-bonham@scc.net](#):
>
> Yes, but not at the same time.
Not true. The overwhelming majority of Christian denominations consider him to have been both God and man simultaneously.
He merely did not exercise all the prerogatives of godhood during his mortal existence. This concept is known as [kenosis](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenosis).
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### Author:  [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2006, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-jesus-had-kids-enlighten-me-about-why-this-is-heresy/355768/17 "2006-05-08T00:14:48Z")
I would suggest that those who wish to line up and proclaim their adherence to Arianism, Apollonarianism, Nestorianism, Miaphysitism, Monophysitism, Eutychianism, Monothelitism, or old fashiooed Gnosticism take it to another thread. While I am sure it will be an engrossing hijack, I suspect that it will overwhelm the OP of this thread and be misunderstood by the overwheming majority of readers.
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### Author:  [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2006, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-jesus-had-kids-enlighten-me-about-why-this-is-heresy/355768/18 "2006-05-08T01:30:42Z")
> [@t-bonham@scc.net](#):
>
> No, Christian theology clearly says that “He was made man, and born of the virgin Mary”. So during his life on earth, he was human, not god. Thus any alleged kids born would also be fully human, not demi-gods.
> Besides, it’s clear that John, the only “disciple that Jesus loved” did not have the physical equipment to become pregnant and give birth.
Eastern Orthodox, Anglican, Catholic, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Methodist, the overwhelming majority of other Protestant groups: all hold allegiance to the Nicene Creed and to Act 5 of the Council of Chalcedon which expanded on it. That Act proclaims Jesus to have been “truly God and truly man” – simultaneously, and 100% each, not some sort of hybrid.
That it may have been the Christian theology taught by your pastor is well and good – but it’s not the consensus opinion of virtually all Christian denominations and their adherents.
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### Author:  [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2006, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-jesus-had-kids-enlighten-me-about-why-this-is-heresy/355768/19 "2006-05-08T02:44:31Z")
> [@t-bonham@scc.net](#):
>
> Yes, but not at the same time.
>
> While he was on earth, he ‘participated fully in human nature’, and suffered all the trials and temptations of human life. Including that he died and was buried.
>
> Gods are, almost by definition, immortal. Yet Christ died. Clearly, he was not being god at that time. That this was by his own choice, and that he could have asked his Father to give him his god powers back is irrelevant. At the time, he was human.
I’m sorry, but you’re wrong-the Creed says so:
> [@](#):
>
> ```
> We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
> the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father,
> God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God,
> begotten, not made, one in Being with the Father.
> Through him all things were made.
>
> ```
He was one with the Father, he was “true God, from true God.” I don’t know what denomination you are, but that’s not what I was taught in Catholic school. He was fully man and fully god.
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### Author:  [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2006, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-jesus-had-kids-enlighten-me-about-why-this-is-heresy/355768/20 "2006-05-08T02:49:24Z")
**[t-bonham@scc.net](mailto:t-bonham@scc.net)**, you might want to read about the [hypostatic union](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypostatic_union), which elucidates the Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox views on Christ’s divinity.
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