There isn't any need for direct evidence on the question of whether Jesus was married. Those who assert he was, or may have been, married are doing one of two things. (1) They are committing themselves to either the actuality or the possibility of a Divine Person taking a human person as a wife. If you take a moment to actually think about this, you'll see how utterly repulsive the idea is. The distance between God and man is infinite. There is absoutely no sense in which a marriage relationship between a Divine Person and a human person could be anything but a gross distortion of what marriage is supposed to be--a partnership of love and equality. (Not that I deny the husband is the priest and head of the family, but his relationship with his wife is nevertheless a relationship between ontological equals.) For a Divine Person to marry a human being would be something like for me to marry a slug. Obviously, I'm not denying that Jesus is true man: he is. But he is a Divine Person, not a human person. This is Catholic dogma.

Or, (2) they are saying that Jesus was just a guy like anyone else--thus, not a Divine Person--and that the point I raise above does not apply.

Well, clearly, not Christian can embrace option (2). To do so is to become non-Christian. So the only way a Christian could grant that Jesus may have been married is to grant that a Divine person could take a human person as a wife. But this is not an acceptable notion.

Thus, the theological case against Jesus's marriage is entirely compelling. Historical evidence is superfluous.

It seems like a divine person could have a human wife if he could have a human mother. Perhaps the evaluation rests with the divine person rather than the humans.

It is Catholic dogma that Jesus was true God and true man. So he did have a physical body (which is why he was able to be nailed to a cross). He had a complete human nature. But though there are two natures in Christ--Divine and human--there is only one person--Divine, the second person of the Blessed Trinity. So he was not half man or half God. He was entirely both.

I hope my earlier post just above here helps with your other question about why Catholic believe Christ would not have been married.

Opppoy, you seriously need to stop this constant flurry of posts, it is impossible for me to keep up, I understand that you are being attacked by several people at once, but you need to slow down here, don't make several posts in a row without making it clear what you are responding to, because it makes it impossible for me to keep up with the argument. And don't make one argument in one post, and then jump to another post with another argument, but wait for someone else to reply before moving on to your next point.

Now,

let me address this post:




Not ANY proposition, but rather the SPECIFIC proposition that a specific individual has done a specific thing.



Lack of evidence means that we must assume it is false, yes, this is the way human beings normally operate.



This is absurd, it is simply a negation of the previous proposition. It is like saying that there is no evidence that the sky is brown, and there is no evidence that the sky is not not brown, it is absurd.




This is complete gibberish, have you ever taken a course in logic? We are not dealing with deductive reasoning, but rather inductive reasoning.

Do you think that an appropriate model for the relationship between a man and his wife is one where the wife literally worships her husband, and owns herself entirely surrendered to His Divine Will?

If so, I'd hate to be your wife.

If you think you can demonstrate some kind of parity between the relationship between Christ and his mother, and the alleged relationship between Christ and a spouse, then by all means do so.

You contend he was a bachelor, yet there is no evidence. You then say the lack of evidence is evidence.

I have taken logic. What course in logic tells us lack of evidence proves a proposition false?

Do we have reason to believe that at age twenty people worshipped Jesus and surrendered to his divine will? Why would a sixteen year old wife do that?

(In the following I am dealing with your analogy, and intend no insult.)
You said for a divine person to marry a human would be like you marrying a slug. Would that analogy carry over to a parent? Would a divine person having a human mother be like you having a slug for a mother?

If Jesus was fully human, fully human people marry humans. If marrying humans is below him, then is he really fully human?

You're probably right that we would hardly be a match made in heaven.

For the THIRD TIME that isn't what I said, what I said is that when IN THE SPECIFIC INSTANCE where you are trying to determine whether a SPECIFIC INDIVIDUAL at a SPECIFIC TIME AND PLACE did A SPECIFIC THING, then 'absence of evidence is evidence of absence'..... and this is the normal way that we operate, as human beings, in our day to day lives.

If an individual is not able to prove that he DID do something, than this is taken as evidence that he did not do it:


'Did Johnny show up to school today?'

'Well, there is no evidence that he did, I spoke to all his teachers and classmates and none of them could remember seeing him, so apparently he played hookie'

This is the way we draw conclusions about whether someone performed a particular action or not, if there is no proof that he did perform the action, then we assume he did not. The possibility that maybe he did, but left no evidence, is simply dismissed as dumb.

Now, the argument you are making is more like this:

'I played Major League Baseball last season, and hit 950 home runs!'

'You did not, and you can't prove you did!'

'And you can't prove I didn't, so the question is still open!'

Now, you keep changing the question from 'evidence that Jesus was married' to 'evidence that Jesus was a bachelor' and this is sophistry because the two are simply not the same thing, getting married is PERFORMING AN ACTION, it is active, it is something that leaves evidence behind. It is the kind of thing which, if it happened, we have reason to expect evidence for.

Now, 'Being a bachelor' is 'CHOOSING NOT TO DO SOMETHING', it is not performing an action, it is not being active, it is the exact opposite of being active, it is passive, it is not the kind of thing for which we can expect evidence, because choosing not to do something doesn't leave evidence. It is ridiculous to ask someone to prove that an action was not taken, that an act was not performed.

We have reason to believe that he knew who he is, and what his mission was at all times in his life, including when he was very young. We have reason to believe that if he had decided to pursue marriage, he would have been honest about these matters with his wife. If she believed in him (which presumably she would, if she were going through with the marriage) the only fitting response to him would be worship and surrender. But, of course, we also know that he didn't reveal who he is, or what his mission was, at that point. Only his mother and farhter knew.



The relationship between God and man is a close one. God loves us, and died for our sins. He does not look down on us as "beneath him." The point of the analogy was simply to illustrate the ontological difference between God and man in a graphic way.



You're not listening. Jesus is not a human person. He is a Divine person. Marriage is between two people: a man and a woman. If Christ were to be married, it would be a marriage between a human person and a Divine Person. The difference is insurmountable.

Seriously, this is not a difficult point to get ahold of. Stop and think about it for a minute, or I'll start to worry about your sincerity.

A further point, regarding your discussion with Doom, comes up here:



Leave aside for a moment the question of truth and falsity. This is pretty clear: if we have no evidence of any kind for or against a given proposition, we have no justification for either accepting or rejecting the proposition. It's not that the lack of evidence shows the proposition is false (with certain exceptions as noted by Doom), it's that the lack of evidence undermines any purported justification for accepting the proposition.

So if it were true that we have no evidence in either direction, the most one would get would be pure agnosticism regarding the question of whether Jesus was married. Thus, Dan Brown's speculations would be completely irrational.

However, of course, we do have evidence against the proposition that Jesus was married, so it's rather a moot point.

Doomlock,

You said: "If an individual is not able to prove that he DID do something, than this is taken as evidence that he did not do it: "

Who takes this as evidence he did not do it? All we can say is there is no evidence he did it. That demonstrates nothing.

According to your theory, any claim a person makes for which there is no evidence is false. We can each probably examine what we did today and decide if we have evidence for each action. You would claim we never did those things for which we cannot produce evidence.

I remember petting the cat this morning. Nobody saw me, and the cat is a poor witness and prone to fibbing. No evidence. Did I pet the cat?

Was Jesus fully human?

I need to know where you're coming from.

Do you have any grip at all of orthodox Christology? I'm not asking to try to put you down. I just don't know if you're trying to be a smart aleck here, or if you sincerely don't have any knowledge at all of the doctrine of Christ. I can't figure out how to try to answer you further until I know a bit about your background. Can you fill me in?

I agree that "lack of evidence undermines any purported justification for accepting the proposition."

I would apply that to the proposition that Jesus was a bachelor, and to the proposition that Jesus was married.

What you are offering is speculation about Jesus' outlook on marriage. It's interesting, and plausible. But so is the idea that he was fully human and married a woman who was also fully human.

If we have no evidence in either direction, then both Dan Brown's speculations and Doomlock's speculations are reasonable, not irrational.

No. I'll stick with the question. I don't need your background, and you don't need mine. I think we can both deal with what we see on our screens.

So, was Jesus fully human?

Uh, no I'm not.



Uh, no it's not.

I take it the answer to my question is that you have no familiarity whatsoever with orthodox Christology?

Do you think your utter ignorance ought to give you some pause before you offer your speculations about what is or is not plausible regarding what a Divine person might do?

EDIT--I see you refused to say whether you know anything about Christology. OK. Goodbye.

We all do, all the time, every day. You as well as I. Historians do it, every day, Historians always say things like 'there is no evidence that Louis XIV ever said 'I am the state', therefore he must not have done so', juries do it, every day.




Not so much 'any claim' as 'any claim for which we have reason to expect to be able to find evidence'

Getting married is something for which one can reasonably expect to find evidence, there are marriage certificates, the testimony of friends and acquaintances, photographs of the wedding, witnesses who were present, the list of evidence that we would have reason to be able to find is nearly endless. If someone is married, there OUGHT TO BE evidence, and the evidence should be very easy to find, and if we cannot find any such evidence, than we have a right to be suspect that no wedding ever took place.

But petting a cat? What could possibly constitute evidence of THAT? Moreover, who cares? It is not a significant action, not something that could leave behind evidence.

So, let me modify my previous statement somewhat, to clarify what I mean,

'whenever one is trying to establish whether or not a specific individual in a particular time, at a particular place, did a specific thing, and we have a reasonable expectation that certain kinds of evidence ought to be present to verify that he did this, but we cannot find any such evidence, then we are justified in concluding that the given action did not take place.'

There are certain kinds of evidence that really OUGHT TO EXIST if Jesus was married, and yet, such evidence simply does not exist. Therefore, we are justified in concluding that such a wedding never took place.

Goodbye. Thanks for the conversation.

You said: "If someone is married, there OUGHT TO BE evidence, and the evidence should be very easy to find, and if we cannot find any such evidence, than we have a right to be suspect that no wedding ever took place.

I agree you could reasonably have that suspicion.

What kind of evidence ought to exist if Jesus was married? If it does not, do we have a right to be suspect that no wedding took place?

This is absolutely absurd. What does it matter about evidence, deductive and inductive reasoning or how logical. I have yet to see anyone really answer the question I have asked and still no one has proven anything either way. There is nothing to prove as there is no evidence. Lack of evidence EITHER way does not prove either point. If the common practice among Jewish men (which I saw that question was avoided once more - I thought you had to be married to be a rabbi!?) was to be married, Jesus was known as a Rabbi and encouraged marriage, shouldn't the Bible explain why he was a Bachelor or state flat out that Jesus chose to never marry. No one has the burden of proof here. While being married may be being active and take something definitive to happen, it is still a state of being, not something that is done over and over. It could have been left out as easily as it could have been included. When it comes down to it no one will change their mind it seems. I just think it's purely ignorant when anyone, any religion, dismisses something just because the Bible or Koran or whatever they believe in doesn't "prove" it. Just because it's not there doesn't mean it's not true. The Bible doesn't say the Earth is round as I recall, or explain gravity or barometric pressure or many other things we see as fact..... Maybe that is oversimplified and I'm tired so I'm probably making no sense. I just don't see why you're not willing to consider the idea whatsoever... I am really not taking a stand either way. I think it could be a POSSIBILITY. I don't know. I wasn't there. I don't claim to know everything...