I want to keep this specific rather than get thrown into GD. Is there any reference in the bible or Roman Catholic teachings/dogma that states Jesus never married?
I was watching the History channel big on The Da Vinci Code last night which is what brought the question up in my mind. I know it’s always been assumed that Jesus never married but I want to know why this is the case.
There is nothing in the Bible that says anything one way or the other about whether Jesus was married.
Those who feel he may have been married suggest that the marriage at Cana where he performed his first miracle of turning water into wine may have been his own marriage, since it was Mary who was concerned that they had run out of wine and asked him to do something about it. If it were not her son’s wedding why would she have been so worried?
Also, as I understand Jewish law at the time, one could not preach in the synagogues unless he was married, but maybe Zev or someone else can clarify this.
Paul preached in the synagogues of the time and was not married. He noted that being unmarried was the preferable state for a Christian if it could be managed.
Not that this proves anything about Jesus and the OP one way or the other – For instance Peter was definitely married – again proving nothing about Jesus.
As **Fat Bald Guy ** says, no wife is mentioned in the gospels. You can take from that what you will. I’m one of those who thinks that, if Jesus were married, one of the gospel-writers would have mentioned a wife (and that if the Magdalene was his wife, the gospels would say so, rather than calling her his disciple).
I thought I remembered from Bible study as a kid that there was a part in Revelations where Jesus comes back and takes a wife? Was I totally imagining that or something?
Only in a symbolic sense. In Christian theology (or maybe just Catholic, but I’m pretty sure there’s biblical support for it), the Church as a whole is regarded as the bride of Christ. Which would also seem to be an argument against Jesus having been married to an individual woman.
Re: The wedding at Cana, Jesus was not the groom. He was invited (John 2:2), and did the miracle as a favor. The groom wasn’t even aware that a miracle took place, and was in fact chewed out by the master of the banquet for being a stingy git. (John 2:10)
Meanwhile, Jesus and the disciples are in the kitchen snickering and toasting each other over some world-class spirits. (1 A.D. It was a good year. :D)
Who invites a 1-year-old to a wedding?
:smack: I meant the wine, not Jesus.
My comic delivery still needs work, obviously.
Would Jesus’ contemporaries have found His marital status…batchelor or otherwise…normal, or odd?
He obviously caused a lot of heads to turn by hanging out with “tax collectors, prostitutes, and sinners”. And he had a large following of unmarried women whom he taught as disciples, also highly scandalous.
Well, odd because Jesus was regularly addressed as “Rabbi,” and traditionally, a true, formally trained Jewish rabbi was supposed to be married.
On the other hand, if Jesus was not a rabbi in the formal sense, merely a “teacher” who was highly regarded for his knowledge and wisdom, his non-married status would not have seemed terribly strange.
Jesus wasn’t very likely “a traditional, a true, formally trained Jewish Rabbi”. The postion of “traditional true, formally trained Jewish rabbi” seems to have been started later that century anyway, and it is debated whether or not there were such at the time of Jesus. In any case- Hillel, one of the greatest of the Teachers was also not (AFAIK) a “traditional true, formally trained Jewish Rabbi”. Jesus was* called *“rabbi” which means "Master’ as in “teacher”. It was a "term of respect’ rather than a title.
I am not sure exactly when the first “traditional, a true, formally trained Jewish Rabbi” school opened (although I saw one reference to AD63), nor when they first started requiring them to marry. However, I doubt if that was a rule in the time of Jesus.
John the Baptist wasn’t amrried either afaik- he was a “prophet”. From what I know, not all of the recognized Jewish Prophets were considered to have been married either.
Oh, and a “rabbi” would not have been a “full time job” until quite a bit later in the middle ages. Most early rabbis were tradesmen.
IMHO, he thought that the groom was a schmuck for wasting good wine on a bunch of drunks.
These folks evidently have never met a Jewish Mother!
;j