Well, was he?
I know that it’s assumed that he was, but does it say so in the bible?
I asked this in the “celibate priests” thread, in GD, but I guess it was a little off-topic.
Peace,
mangeorge
IIRC, the bible says that Jesus “was without sin”. I suppose we can argue about what that means.
I do not think there is any reference to Jesus’ sex life or lack thereof in the usual protestant bible. I once heard that there was a gospel according to Mary Magdalene, and in it, she claimed to be the wife of Jesus. That claim was given as the reason her gospel was not included in the “standard” bible. A search on “Mary Magdalene gospel” will generate many hits. I’ve also heard an argument that Jesus must have been married, as the title “Rabbi” (sometime translated as “teacher”) is only applied to married men.
I don’t know…but now that I’ve expressed an idea I’m sure someone will be along to disagree with me.
The King James Bible doesn’t say much about it, but the Gnostic Gospels say he was married . . . to Mary Magdalene. I would reference page number and edition but I read it about ten years ago, and don’t own them. I would bet money they would be available through Amazon.com, though.
The King James Bible does seem to have some significant gaps, mimicked by most other editions I’ve seen. The glaringly obvious gaps seem to be from about oh, between two and twelve, and between then and early thirties . . .
Further random tidbits subject to correction by the experts - the Gnostics were a Christian sect that primarily believed that you had to come to God through your own experiences, and did not require a priesthood to interpret God’s message to you. Their versions of the Gospels were also slightly different, but seem to date from around the same time as the originals. They were wiped out by the Pauline Church fairly early on . . . dates I’m fuzzy on. Somewhere before 500 AD I think. Sorry, but I’ve been having way to much fun tonight to be able to formulate a proper query to check … this IS just what I remember . … And their writings were found much like the Dead Sea Scrolls.
:having delivered her final semi-coherent lecture for the night, she staggers drunkenly off to bed:
Tisiphone
I heard something interesting about this (from a book about the dead sea scrolls, I think). You know that wedding where Jesus supposedly turned water into wine? That was HIS wedding (to Mary Magdalene, as xtal and tisiphone suggested). Well, he was telling the servants at that household what to do, and one didn’t just order around the servants of other people…
Well thanks, everyone.
I followed yojimbo’s link, and I guess if Cecil doesn’t know (or can’t find out) nobody really knows.
Personally, I like to think of him as enjoying all the earthly pleasures. He liked to eat and drink and hang with his buddies, so why not sex? He never preached against sex, specifically, did he?
He wasn’t restricted to just Mary M, surely. And he certainly had a lot of charisma.
But that’s my opinion.
Peace,
mangeorge
Nobody knows for sure, mangeorge. If you take the stance that moral sex is solely for within marriage, and ignore the marriage stuff in the Gnostic gospels (for which there is strong evidence that all except possibly the Gospel According to Thomas were made up of whole cloth), then yes, he was celibate, since he was sinless. But he had a sex drive, since he was “tempted in every way as we are, but did not sin” – and sexual temptations have to rank high on anybody’s list.
Aside from the compassionate-Jesus-loves-everyone bit, there are only two people he is said specifically to have loved, and both are male: Lazarus and the unnamed disciple in John’s Gospel, believed to be John himself. That reiterated “disciple whom Jesus loved” has always tweaked my curiosity, and I’ve come up with a solution that works for me: Jesus was human as we are, as well as the Son of God Incarnate, and as such needed emotional intimacy, which he should get from a wife, but his ministry was such that a woman could not travel with him. The love he shared with John filled that need for intimacy, presumably platonically, since the idea that he was gay would have been used by every anti-Christian agitator from the first century on.
If you were in Jesus’ sandels, would you be?
Well, Upham, if you were a True Believer (I’m not) you’d say that everyone is in his sandals. The scripture say’s so.
But no, I’m not celibate. Which is part of the reason I wonder if (and why) Jesus was.
BTW; Here’s a handy little site http://www.m-w.com/
Peace,
mangeorge
Except that he did have women traveling with him. His mother and Mary of Magdala at the very least visit him in Galilee (where their homes were) as well as Jerusalem. I think Mary of Magdala is shown in much of the Gospels as having an unusual amount of access to Jesus for a woman of the day.
I don’t think anyone can say for sure, but the evidence leads me to believe he was married. As far as it being a sin, I have to wonder about Noah, the only man worth saving, who obviously wasn’t celibate (and wouldn’t we be sorry if he were?) or Moses, or David, or anyone else mentioned as a holy man in the Bible. Jesus and his disciples are the only ones anyone seriously considers celibate (and Paul seems to have had some hang-ups about sex) but could God name sex as a sin if he invented it?
By the way: marriage for love is only about two-hundred years old as an institution. I don’t think the Bible ever says Joseph loved Mary…
Well man, if i was a True Believer, which i’m not, i’d also have swollowed the Virgin Birth, among other strange little things. Now why do you suppose that Mary girl (Not his mother) and him were so close? Ever see The Life of Brian? makes a lotta sence if you dont think it to death…
Upham
OK.
Peace,
mangeorge