was jesus married with children ? because of several bestseller books such as the 1980s
classic "holy blood holy grail" and the best-selling book of modern times "the da vinci code" . many people
have begun to think that jesus was probably married with at least one child is this true ?
for an answer to that question i turn to "THE NEW TESTAMENT a historical introduction to the early
christian writings" fifth edition by professor Bart Ehrman who has written quite a bit on this actually
and he gives us his view and he says : one of the major arguments in favor of this view is
that allegedly jewish men at the time were always married and bachelorhood was virtually unheard of .
unfortunately this is not the true at all . we know of numerous single celibate adult men from the
time of jesus for example the authors of the dead sea scrolls (these are known as the essenes) before
jesus and afterwards people such as the apostle paul . what is striking is that both the essenes
and paul were apocalyptic jews expecting the end of all things to soon arrive . for them the imminent
arrival of the kingdom was the best argument against getting married and being tied down to
social obligations in the present age . this age is soon to end . jesus was also an apocalyptic jew
there is nothing at all implausible about him being single and celibate .
in addition , it is important to point out that in none of our gospels there is ever a reference not
even one reference to jesus being married . this is true not only of the gospels of matthew , mark , luke
and john ; it is true of every gospel that exists from the ancient world the gospels of philip , mary ,
thomas , peter , judas and on and on . and these are some of the books that are still available to be
read today in the description there . and not only the gospels in fact no ancient christian
literature of any kind whatsoever is there any reference to jesus having a wife . it should be
pointed out that the authors of these books had no qualms about mentioning his other relatives his
father , his mother , his brothers , his sisters are all named . if he had a wife why would she not be named .
in light of the fact that there is not a shred of evidence that jesus was married
and that we know of other apocalyptic jews like him who are not married
it is very difficult to think of solid grounds for thinking jesus was married .
and in fact there are reasons for thinking that he was not . in an argument that he had with the
sadducees . if you can read this in mark's gospel chapter 12 verses 18 to 27 . jesus
indicates that in the coming kingdom , there will be no marriage moreover throughout his ministry
he insisted that his followers begin adopting the ways of the kingdom in the present .
if people were not to be married then and jesus and his followers were trying to live the life of
the kingdom now . that it makes best sense that he was already trying to live the life of the angels
not married but single and celibate . end quote . what do you think ? till next time .