Counter arguments to 'Jesus must have been married'

[Mary Ward]

There is a popular mode of thought among some Christians today (fed by the Da Vinci Code, and other books inside and outside the Christian community) that Jesus had to have been married because it was the custom among Jews during his time on earth. The argument for the marriage of Jesus is that there was nothing specifically said about it, therefore it must be true. The "norm" is not mentioned, whereas the out-of-the-ordinary would be.

To my way of thinking, this is faulty logic. No proof is proof? But they counter that there is no proof for non-marriage as well.

In considering this, two proofs against marriage of Jesus came to my mind: 1) Jesus' statement that he has no home--what self-respecting husband announces that he does not provide a home for his family? 2) the verses referring to his family, e.g., waiting outside for him, only mention his mother and brothers and sisters (extended family of cousins is included here in the custom of the time) never mention wife or children. Wouldn't the gospel writers explain these anomalies if he were married?

One other thought in the same vein as popular "historical method" is that what is assumed to be known among the readers is not necessary to mention. Everyone who knew Jesus or were taught about Jesus would have known of his celibacy so it would not have to be explained.

What teachings of the fathers are there on this topic? Or did they assume he was not married and never spoke of it?

[John Charmley]

Dear Mary,

The Orthodox scholars on this site will provide you with much in the way of good sources, so I will confine myself to a few fairly obvious ones.

The argument from Holy Tradition is not an argument from silence, but a witness to the overwhelming consensus of the faithful. It has never been believed at all times and in all places that Our Lord was 'married' - indeed, quite the opposite is the case, and always has been.

If we take the first epistle of Clement to the Corinthians, which was written by one who had been at Philippi with St. Paul, and who had known some of the Apostles, his comments on the Incarnate Lord in human form are plain, and help lay down the lines of tradition:


Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Scepter of the majesty of God, did not come in the pomp of pride or arrogance, although He might have done so, but in a lowly condition, as the Holy Spirit had declared regarding Him. For He says, “Lord, who hath believed our report, and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?

We have declared [our message] in His presence: He is, as it were, a child, and like a root in thirsty ground; He has no form nor glory, yea, we saw Him, and He had no form nor comeliness; but His form was without eminence, yea, deficient in comparison with the [ordinary] form of men. He is a man exposed to stripes and suffering, and acquainted with the endurance of grief: for His
countenance was turned away; He was despised, and not esteemed. He
bears our iniquities, and is in sorrow for our sakes; yet we supposed that
[on His own account] He was exposed to labor, and stripes, and affliction.
But He was wounded for our transgressions, and bruised for our iniquities.

Here is a moving account of how the humanity of the Incarnation appeared to His followers - but there is no account of any 'marriage' in this very early source.

None of our earliest and most reliable sources mentions any 'marriage', and the only sources that do are those which the consensus of the early Church found against - and if that was so then, why should we take such things any more seriously?

For all the modern arguments one hears, the facts are that we have far more evidence of the early Church, its practices, its Orthodoxy, its struggles against heterodoxy, than we have for almost anything else of that era. It is a peculiar deformation of the modern mindset, with its love of conspiracy theories and distrust of any received wisdom, to turn to these ancient and discarded heresies and find something 'new' and 'relevant' in them.

I wasted a whole hour of my life the other evening watching the first part of a programme which consisted of an historian saying, with all due arrogance, that he had 'discovered' that Jesus had a family, a 'fact' the Church had suppressed for centuries; his evidence - all from the Bible - which the Church has not been suppressing as far as I know. But what he was doing is what others do, reading these sources against only the feeble candle of his own 'wisdom', rather than by the illumination of the Church and Holy Tradition.

Protestant societies, where the 'baby' of tradition was thrown out with the 'bathwater' of Roman Catholic accretions, are particularly vulnerable to such 'discoveries', because they usually know very little Church history before the sixteenth century.

I shall leave it to others to add to this, but one of the many reasons the west needs Orthodoxy is that it provides a perfect antidote to such musings.

In Christ,

John

[Peter Farrington]

On Christmas Day my father and I were talking with one of my brothers. He had seen a programme about one of the gnostic gospels and was suggesting that the more information we had, the better. I replied that in fact these were not sources that had ever been accepted by the Church but were in fact heretical documents pushing a non-Christian line which had been rejected at all times and in all places.

I suggested that he read a book or two about how our Bible came to be, and the process of developing the canon and excluding other books. I suggested that in fact though he thought that the canon was completely flexible, in fact there were only a few books which were ever in dispute - Revelation, The Shepherd, Letters of Clement etc.

So what I would like to do is to get him a book or two. I don't want a particularly partisan Orthodox one, rather a serious, scholarly but interesting read which shows that the Bible we have is the Bible the Church has always had, and that there is no gnosis which the Church has suppressed.

Can someone recommend a book or two?

Thanks

Peter

[John Charmley]

On Christmas Day my father and I were talking with one of my brothers. He had seen a programme about one of the gnostic gospels and was suggesting that the more information we had, the better. I replied that in fact these were not sources that had ever been accepted by the Church but were in fact heretical documents pushing a non-Christian line which had been rejected at all times and in all places.

I suggested that he read a book or two about how our Bible came to be, and the process of developing the canon and excluding other books. I suggested that in fact though he thought that the canon was completely flexible, in fact there were only a few books which were ever in dispute - Revelation, The Shepherd, Letters of Clement etc.

So what I would like to do is to get him a book or two. I don't want a particularly partisan Orthodox one, rather a serious, scholarly but interesting read which shows that the Bible we have is the Bible the Church has always had, and that there is no gnosis which the Church has suppressed.

Can someone recommend a book or two?

Thanks

Peter


Dear Peter,

I would very strongly recommend Dr. Michael Green's The Books the Church suppressed (2005) ISBN-10:85424-698-4 (UK) ISBN-10:0-8254-6096-4 (USA). Although he is not an Orthodox scholar, his scholarship is impeccably orthodox, and his work provides a most accessible and enjoyable account of how the Church produced the Bible, and how, and why, the various other 'accounts' were rejected.

He also provides a very salutary account of why some of these ancient heresies have been revived, and a revealing explanation of the agenda of those who wish to revive them.

Altogether an excellent book, and one which is founded on great scholarship, and deep Christian learning.

In Christ,

John

[Peter Farrington]

Hi John

Thanks for that recommendation. Of course I know Dr Michael Green's other books and so I am sure he has covered this topic very well.

I will take a look on Amazon and see if I can't get my brother a copy.

Thanks again

Peter

[John Charmley]

Dear Mary,

What you write raises some interesting questions of wider application.

When you ask:

What teachings of the fathers are there on this topic? Or did they assume he was not married and never spoke of it?

the answer is that the Fathers 'assumed' nothing. Just as we should, they relied upon the tradition of the Church received since Apostolic times.

St. John's Gospel expressly bases itself upon his eye witness testimony of the work of the Incarnate Lord, and, in sharp contrast to what people like Dan Brown would have us believe, the entire thrust of that Gospel is to engage with the divinity of Christ. The loss of knowledge of tradition in the west leaves it wide open to such charlatanry.

St. Paul knew well the sort of thing that would happen when he wrote in
2 Timothy 4:2-5:


2 Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching.
3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers;
4 and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables.
5 But you be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.


Good counsel to us all.


In Christ,

John

[Peter Farrington]

John

Indeed over lunch today, a Chinese all you could eat buffet with all my nephews and nieces and wife's family, my Father in Law asked me whether the British Orthodox Church believed as the Greek Orthodox, that Christ had no full brother or sisters.

Of course I said that was the case, and he said that was interesting based on the clear word of the Bible. I started to talk about the wider Tradition and ecclesial context in which the Scriptures are to be understood but my wife kicked me under the table which was a warning not to start a controversial argument with her father!

Anyhow, I wonder if anyone could recommend a good, non-polemical book, about some of the traditions of the Church. Something fairly serious and scholarly that might interest someone who likes to be rather critical of orthodoxy - he used to like to argue with me that the OT was wrong about many factual matters, such as the number of Israelites in the Exodus.

Thanks in advance - I am compiling rather a long list of books I need to get, both here and on other Orthodox forums.

Peter