# If Jesus had Kids, enlighten me about why this is heresy? **URL:** \ **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:** 2
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2006, 10:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-jesus-had-kids-enlighten-me-about-why-this-is-heresy/355768/21 "2006-05-08T10:38:48Z")
I have stated this in other threads, but If one Reads how the gospel writer quotes Jesus,he used the term of My Father and yours,(when challenged about his divinity) one can conclude that he felt all people were god and sons of God.He was referring to the psalm 82(81 in some bibles). So he was saying that he and all humans were both God and man.He most always said;my father and yours or our father. Mary did not conceive by the Father but by the Holy Spirit.Jesus would then have no human Male connection except through Mary’s ancestors,his male chromosomes would not be present. Monavis ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2006, 11:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-jesus-had-kids-enlighten-me-about-why-this-is-heresy/355768/22 "2006-05-08T11:24:08Z")
> [@monavis](#): > > I have stated this in other threads, but If one Reads how the gospel writer quotes Jesus,he used the term of My Father and yours,(when challenged about his divinity) one can conclude that he felt all people were god and sons of God. I think you’re stretching the meaning (and number of occurrences) of John 20:17 pretty far, but OK. ---
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2006, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-jesus-had-kids-enlighten-me-about-why-this-is-heresy/355768/23 "2006-05-08T13:47:49Z")
> [@monavis](#): > > I have stated this in other threads, but If one Reads how the gospel writer quotes Jesus,he used the term of My Father and yours,(when challenged about his divinity) one can conclude that he felt all people were god and sons of God.He was referring to the psalm 82(81 in some bibles). So he was saying that he and all humans were both God and man. I don’t know how in the world you got that idea. Would you care to cite some specifics? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2006, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-jesus-had-kids-enlighten-me-about-why-this-is-heresy/355768/24 "2006-05-08T16:19:04Z")
From a Christian POV, the most important things about Jesus are: 1. He was/is God. 2. He died as a redemptive sacrifice for the sins of humanity. 3. He taught a new way of life and worship. Jesus’ royal Davidic lineage is emphasized in the Gospels because the Jewish Messiah had to be of the house of David. But for Jesus to have founded a line of equally royal **descendants** would confuse and detract from the above – it would make Jesus something predominantly political, as a (failed) claimant to the Judean throne, and it would add his descendants’ potential claims to the picture. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2006, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-jesus-had-kids-enlighten-me-about-why-this-is-heresy/355768/25 "2006-05-08T16:27:06Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > From a Christian POV, the most important things about Jesus are: > > 1. He was/is God. > > 2. He died as a redemptive sacrifice for the sins of humanity. > > 3. He taught a new way of life and worship. And He is/was human. ---
**Author:** ![Sunrazor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sunrazor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunrazor)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2006, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-jesus-had-kids-enlighten-me-about-why-this-is-heresy/355768/26 "2006-05-08T16:31:38Z")
I’m not sure that posing the possibility that Jesus had sex, had a wife or fathered children is officially heresy according to any modern Christian rules and regulations. Might be. More probably, as tomndebb points out, it’s more just garden variety offensive than official heresy. People tend to not like anything different from what their priest/pastor/Sunday school teacher taught them, unless it comes in the form of further elucidation from a priest/pastor/Sunday school teacher. ---
**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2006, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-jesus-had-kids-enlighten-me-about-why-this-is-heresy/355768/27 "2006-05-08T16:35:01Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Jesus’ royal Davidic lineage is emphasized in the Gospels because the Jewish Messiah had to be of the house of David. I know this is going slightly off topic, but I was under the impression the Davidic Lineage is expressed in Joseph. If that’s true, how does Jesus fit into that, as Jesus is not Josph’s Biological son? ---
**Author:** ![Sunrazor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sunrazor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunrazor)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2006, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-jesus-had-kids-enlighten-me-about-why-this-is-heresy/355768/28 "2006-05-08T16:51:26Z")
> [@Fear Itself](#): > > I think it has more to do with the importance of the virgin birth in Christian dogma. Sex (even within marriage) is so linked to original sin that it was necessary not only that Jesus be conceived without sex, but that the 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. This is a common misreading of “original sin.” The biblical citation that Adam and Eve grew ashamed of their nakedness as a result of their newfound knowledge (which, in turn, had resulted from eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge) is only an example of the unwelcome knowledge they gained after eating said fruit. In fact, the serpent had promised Eve that, if they ate the fruit, they would become like God, and they would know all the things God knew. That’s what Adam and Eve wanted. The “original sin” wasn’t having sex, but wanting to be like God, and trying to become like God. Sure enough, the first God-like knowledge the kids gained was, “Hey, we’re naked!” So original sin isn’t really sexual in nature, but the realization that they were naked, and thus ashamed, and the punishment God inflicted on Eve being what it was, gave a sexual overtone to the whole thing. Christians are especially susceptible to this misunderstanding because, in trying to evangelize throughout peasant-populated Europe during the early years of the church, uneducated priests tended to reach for the most powerful and emotionally-charged messages they could find, and those had to do with sex. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2006, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-jesus-had-kids-enlighten-me-about-why-this-is-heresy/355768/29 "2006-05-08T17:08:26Z")
> [@HPL](#): > > I know this is going slightly off topic, but I was under the impression the Davidic Lineage is expressed in Joseph. > > If that’s true, how does Jesus fit into that, as Jesus is not Josph’s Biological son? Biologically, Jesus was a descendant of David because Mary was “also of the House and lineage of David.” But the lineage through Joseph was the heirship of the throne – Jesus was, effectively, pretender to the throne of Israel and Judah if he chose to exert his claim, and that depended only on blood relationship and adoption as heir, not necessarily on descent. (Cf all the O.T. figures who adopt a “son” who is a more distant relative.) It also has to be remembered that the child born in a legal marriage is legally the son of the couple, in Jewish law, regardless of who may have been the actual father. This even transcends death, as in the Levirate situations where the man fathers a son on his deceased brother’s widow – who is deemed the son of the deceased for inheritance purposes. So regardless of the paternity of Jesus, Joseph was his father by Jewish law, and hence able to pass on the heirship to him. ---
**Author:** ![sciguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e68b1a/32.png) [@sciguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sciguy)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2006, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-jesus-had-kids-enlighten-me-about-why-this-is-heresy/355768/30 "2006-05-08T19:20:29Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > 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. The comic series (later collected into graphic novels) was “Preacher”. In that mythos, Jesus died, was resurrected, established the church, then lived out the rest of his life on Earth (IIRC, he was eventually run over by a cart) married to Mary Magdalene and fathering children. A secret society named “The Grail” took up the children, and kept inbreeding them to keep the divine bloodline pure. The end result of that program was retarded and a little scrawny, but not really physically deformed. As presented in the comics, the last descendent of Christ died crushed beneath the 800 pound leader of the Grail after a fall out of a helicopter. ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2006, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-jesus-had-kids-enlighten-me-about-why-this-is-heresy/355768/31 "2006-05-08T19:25:40Z")
> [@sciguy](#): > > The comic series (later collected into graphic novels) was “Preacher”. > > In that mythos, Jesus died, was resurrected, established the church, then lived out the rest of his life on Earth I’m pretty sure the death faked and there was no resurrection. ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2006, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-jesus-had-kids-enlighten-me-about-why-this-is-heresy/355768/32 "2006-05-08T19:35:11Z")
… the death **was** faked… ---
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2006, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-jesus-had-kids-enlighten-me-about-why-this-is-heresy/355768/33 "2006-05-08T19:46:59Z")
> [@Fear Itself](#): > > 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)… Nope. Original sin had nothing to do with sex. Rather, it had everything to do with not eating of the fruit from the forbidden tree. ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2006, 11:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-jesus-had-kids-enlighten-me-about-why-this-is-heresy/355768/34 "2006-05-09T11:19:03Z")
> [@JThunder](#): > > I don’t know how in the world you got that idea. Would you care to cite some specifics? I will look up the chapter and verse again,but when Jesus was accused of Blasphmey he replied"Why do you say I blaspheme because I call God my father when your fathers did?'Refering to the 81st or 82d Psalm. There are several occasions that Jesus said my father and yours, and taught people to say Our Father when praying. The only way Jesus could be all God and all man would be if God and Man are the same. Monavis ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2006, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-jesus-had-kids-enlighten-me-about-why-this-is-heresy/355768/35 "2006-05-09T11:33:03Z")
> [@jeffrice](#): > > I’m not sure that posing the possibility that Jesus had sex, had a wife or fathered children is officially heresy according to any modern Christian rules and regulations. Might be. More probably, as tomndebb points out, it’s more just garden variety offensive than official heresy. People tend to not like anything different from what their priest/pastor/Sunday school teacher taught them, unless it comes in the form of further elucidation from a priest/pastor/Sunday school teacher. It’s funny and sad how correct you are. I’ve made the comparison that hearing something negative about your religion or specific beliefs is like hearing something awful about your mother or father. It’s something we are emotionally very reluctant to accept. I’ve tried to point out to some of my more mainstream Christian family members and friends that when they read some study guide or commentary they are just reading someones opinion and it’s fine to consider the information offered but please don’t give it more credibility than it deserves. Use your own mind and reasoning , look into your own heart and motives, and then choose for yourself. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2006, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-jesus-had-kids-enlighten-me-about-why-this-is-heresy/355768/36 "2006-05-09T14:16:06Z")
> [@monavis](#): > > The only way Jesus could be all God and all man would be if God and Man are the same. Or it’s a mystery we can’t wrap our minds around. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2006, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-jesus-had-kids-enlighten-me-about-why-this-is-heresy/355768/37 "2006-05-09T22:06:35Z")
> [@gigi](#): > > Or it’s a mystery we can’t wrap our minds around. Not that that stops some people from trying. Let’s see, there’s trinitarianism, arianism, monophysitism, monotheletism, monoenergism, docetism . . . [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christology](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christology) ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2006, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-jesus-had-kids-enlighten-me-about-why-this-is-heresy/355768/38 "2006-05-09T22:43:46Z")
> [@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. Already happened. Called the Middle Ages. Also called ancient Egypt, the cult of Caesar, & modern Thailand & Japan. Not even making this up. > [@](#): > > 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.” In other words, the Merovingians. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2006, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-jesus-had-kids-enlighten-me-about-why-this-is-heresy/355768/39 "2006-05-09T22:55:44Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > .Not even making this up.In other words, the Merovingians. But is it a historical fact that the Merovingians actually claimed descent from Jesus? ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2006, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-jesus-had-kids-enlighten-me-about-why-this-is-heresy/355768/40 "2006-05-10T05:41:50Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > But is it a historical fact that the Merovingians actually claimed descent from Jesus? My understanding is that the Merovingians weren’t even Christian until after [Clovis](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clovis_I) married [Clotilda](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clotilde) around 500 A.D… That was a problem I had with Baigent when I first heard his theory- wouldn’t it stand to reason that the Magdalene y Nazareth descendants would at least be Jewish if not Christian? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-jesus-had-kids-enlighten-me-about-why-this-is-heresy/355768.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-jesus-had-kids-enlighten-me-about-why-this-is-heresy/355768.md?page=3)