Thanks!
Tinker
Let’s try to stick to the OP here. So far, it seems the consensus is that there exists no (even modestly reliable) evidence that Jesus moved to France.
Is there a contridiction to the consensus?
Um…I thought Cecil answered this one!
Cecil answered the Mary Madgelene part, here. Good catch!
No word on settling down with the richie-riches in the south of France, though.
Thanks, Manny! 
Anyhoo, though, I don’t think France would’ve been very rich…weren’t they fighting the Brits and the Celts?
Hey…maybe Jesus became Irish!
Just as a question, does that mean that the Nag Hammadi texts are pretty much dismissed? Cecil didn’t mention them at all. I am well aware that they were written with the Gnostic bias in mind, but much of the New Testament was written with Pauls um, peculiar biases in mind, so to me, that doesn’t wash as an excuse for dismissing them.
Yeah, I’m gonna ask here. Since it’s vaguely related to the topic.
Tisiphone
Know what? I’m seriously thinking of making this my sig. It has a little je ne sais quoi…
Was Magdeline her last name, or is it a compound name like Mary Jane? Did they even have family names in Biblical times?
Thats not what Shindell meant in his song…from
http://www.richardshindell.com/answers2.html
“The song explores one other aspect of being human - love. I’m not interested in whether or not Jesus and Mary had a sexual relationship. Fascination in that regard is just salacious tabloid scandal-mongering applied to the New Testament. The song has a simple message: they loved each other, and she misses him. Is this so terrible?”
I’m a big RS fan 
“And did those feet
in ancient times
walk upon ENGLAND’S mountains green…”
(it seems the English have their own local angle on the New Testament, as well as dso the French)
Well, if teenage Jesus visited Roman Britan with his merchant uncle Joseph, whay not a side trip to Ireland if there was a shekel to be made? But after Golgotha?
Faking his death on the cross and skipping out to France? I doubt it. Jesus made his peace with the suicidal (if you’ll excuse the phrase - okay “sacrificial”) nature of his mission when he was arrested in the garden. And look at it from the Romans’ point of view: yet another rabble-rouser comes to town, an inflamable population waving palm fronds at him. He makes enemies of the native power base at the temple by throwing a one-man riot, giving you the excuse to silence him and get back to your main business of sending money back to your Emperor (Tiberius - not a man to take excuses for short-payments). And when the Romans crucified a guy, he stayed crucified.
They used to say that all when all good Americans
die they go to Paris, but there’s no evidence of that either. And it’s a good possibliity that Mary M. went back to the brothel - what other livelihood did she have? As enlightened as he was, Jesus didn’t make her an apostle (I guess he had only one last slot left and Judas got it)
Mary came from the town of Magdala. Mary Magadalene is no more her name than is Jesus Nazarene. (In fact, we should probably be calling her Mary the Magdalene, a la Jesus the Nazarene.)
And she was not a prostitute. In fact, the Bible says nearly nothing about her. She could have been a 60 year old widow for all we know. In fact, it’s likely that she was some sort of patron of Jesus, and as such would have had at least a fair amount of money to her name.
The “Gospel of Philip” from the Naq Hammadi scrolls seems to be the one quoted in support of the idea that Jesus and the Magdalene were married. Since the Naq Hammadi link in an earlier post doesn’t seem to be working right now, here’s a translation of Philip’s gospel. The Magdalene reference is about a third of the way down the page.
“Jesus and Maggie were lovers-
Oh Lordy, how they could love…”
While it’s true that Magdalene was probably not properly her surname, that is how last names developed. Origins, professions and nicknames were eventually adopted as proper surnames (e.g. John the Smith became John Smith, Eric the Cartwright became Eric Cartwright). My own surname, Leonard, came from an egotistical Norman ancestor who dubbed himself “Lion Heart.”
I believe it was required in the days of Jesus, Joseph, etc. for a person to be married in order for him to be a rabbi. I have heard that Jesus was considered by some early scholars to have been a rabbi. His number of followers would lend credence to this belief (minimum of ten males for services).
The Catholic take on Jesus’s being called Rabbi is that he was a teacher, thus, referred to as Rabbi out of respect. I can’t find anything in the Bible that implies Jesus underwent formal Rabbinical training, but the New Testament isn’t famous for its inclusion of details.
Referring to previous posts on the perpetual virginity of Mary, certainly Jesus did have brothers. Not only do the quotes previously mentioned state “Mary and Jesus’ brothers” but the cross reference in Mark mentions their names… Simeon, Joseph, James, and a sister (or more). The trouble with the Catholic Church, is it presuposes something and then states it as fact.
It says the “brethren” were step Brothers, as Joseph MAY have been a widow and had kids by a previous marriage.
OK. It’s possible… but the Bible makes NO referrence. Do they really expect us to base our salvation on what the book DOESNT say?
In the meantime, as for was Jesus married? Why not?
In John 2, you know, the miracle of turning water into wine (the opposite of my party trick…) It seems strange to me, that when the wine ran out, they would approach a guest. Now remember, Jesus hadn’t done any miracles at this point, so it’s not like they were expecting him to do it.
It would have been such an insult to all concerned to go to a guest to supply more wine. Would they have rather gone to the Groom? Perhaps this was Jesus’ own wedding… honeymoon in Marseilles?
Ok, so he could have been making arrangements for his sister’s wedding in the absence of Joseph, who just seemed to vanish.
I did hear that the Bourbon Kings of France claimed to be descendants of Jesus, but how many ancient (I know, the Bourbons weren’t ancient) kings claimed direct ancestry from a godhead?
Just to be picky, it never says any member of the wedding party approached Jesus. It says that Mary noticed that they were out of wine and she did the Mom thing: “Help these people out.” It would also be a stretch have have the bridegroom (or the brother-in-law) “invited” to the wedding.
I thought Joseph died.
I liked the story when Jesus went on a vacation retreat with his parents, and they went back, and Mary and Joseph were upset because they couldn’t find him-and he was in the temple.
“Young man! You scared the beJESUS out of us!”
Ha ha!
An alternative view on Jesus’s life, post-Crucifixion:
No word on whether Mary Magdalane was supposed to have accompanied him, though.
Thanks, beagledave! I fell into the the same trap of thinking by intimacy he meant sex. Yet, the image of Jesus and Mary M. lying in each other’s arms at night is questionable–even fantasizing about sex is sinful and it would be hard for them not to while wrapped up physically. Anyway, thanks for the clarification; I’m glad RS thinks this is all tabloid crap too but I wish he had explored it strictly as agape, where you would miss this tremendous person without a physical aspect to it.