The most obvious evidence that we would have reason to expect is that someone would have mentioned it! It is not merely that 'they didn't mention it' that leads one to the conclusion, but even more strongly that
'they didn't mention it, even when they had a very good reason to do so.'

For example, in one of Paul's epistles, he is defending his apostleship, and he says that he refrained from asserting rights that the he the complete right to assert, one of the the rights that he refers to, was the right to bring along a wife with him on his travels. He refers to apostles and teachers that were married and brought their wives along, among those he mentions who did this was the apostle Peter. Now, if Jesus been married, wouldn't he have also mentioned Jesus in this context? Wouldn't that COMPLETELY settle the argument, decisively, if Jesus himself were married? And yet, he did not say Jesus was married, even though he had a very good reason to do so, it would have won the argument for him. This can only mean that he had no knowledge of Jesus ever being married, which can only mean that Jesus must not have been married, because if he had been, surely Paul would know about it. So, it is not merely the lack of evidence which is decisive, but the lack of evidence, where which have reason to expect ought to be present.

While you make a good point, it is still all in interpretation and your beliefs, not in actual historical fact. If you could show me a passage in which someone said, without any doubt "Jesus is a bachelor" - that is the ONLY way I would accept that there was no chance of him being married.

Now on the flipside, according to the movie and the book, it was the early Church who decided what went into the Bible and what was left out. If their motive was to portray Jesus as unmarried, among other things, who knows what was left out. Now I know you would totally disagree with my implying there is any truth to that and I don't even claim to believe there is much truth in that. What I do believe to be a fact is that SOMEONE other than God decided what the Bible would say and I don't think we can think of it as flawless. Some would argue the Bible is not proof either. Not that I think that, or that I think Dan Brown's ideas are proof. I'm just throwing out ideas...

Still yet, there may be reason for it to have been said and still no evidence but as far as I'm concerned that is not concrete evidence. Still I would love to know why it bothers you so to think of it. Logic, reasoning, proof and evidence aside, why is it appalling to you to think of Jesus as being married and a father? We both seem to agree he is both human and divine. You say he couldn't marry a human due to the differences between them, but that contradicts your saying he is fully human too. Jesus was baptised was he not? Obviously God does not need to be cleansed of sin but he still chose to do something humans do. I'm sure he had to eat and drink and use the bathroom also... All human things that I'm guessing God doesn't bother with? (could be wrong, I don't know!). I just really want to know WHY it upsets you to think it could be true. And don't use the its not true so it bothers me thing... That's not the question I'm asking! Other than debating true or not, I want to know what is so wrong about it...

Also, what about the rabbi/marriage issue? Still no answer. I'm assuming there is no answer because the answer is not in your favor, but in mine.

I think Doom and gherkin have done an excellent job here, but I'll jump in just because Thursdays are notoriously dull here at work, so I might as well.

Rheanna and Opppoy, you are misunderstanding logical argument foundations. There is a reason that the concept of coming out of nowhere and saying Jesus was married is silly, and that's because, as Doom and gherkin have pointed out, there is no evidence of it.

In logical argument, evidence is not needed to declare a concept or fact as null. It's automatic state is null because there is no evidence to support it. As such, the idea of Jesus not being married is not a proposition, because the question of marriage is already null in this scenario. The burden of proof is entirely to provide evidence to make something positive (or true and present), and not null. This is logic as it applies universally, not just to this matter.

For example, someone could say that my unmarried nephew is married. The burden of proof would be to be on them to prove that he is married, to provide evidence. Since there are no accounts of him anywhere as being married, the REASONABLE AND LOGICAL assumption is that the concept of marriage is null and that he is not married. If someone were to declare the contrary, according to logic, the burden of proof is on them.

Rheanna, I'll give you the rabbi/marriage issue answer that you seem to so fervently seek (of course, your last comment about it was a little snide, but I'm being nice and answering the question for you anyway).

Jesus is referred to as Rabbi in Aramaic, which also translates to "teacher." The greek form of the same word (meaning teacher) is didaskalos and is also used to refer to Jesus. It's also important for any Christian to know that Jesus was also referred to as prophet, Christ and Lord.

If you have any knowledge of scripture you are not ignorant to the fact that SEVERAL distinctions are made between Jesus and others in a rabbinical role, hence the need for these additional names for Jesus. He was a rabbi in that he was a teacher of faith, and he was a prophet as well because he foretold of things to come.

He transcended each of those titles because he is also the Messiah and Lord, and therefore, those titles supercede his more limited titles of teacher and prophet.

And, there is a fundamental flaw in your reasoning of the rabbi/marriage issue. According to the Torah and Jewish law, all Jews are to marry. One certainly CAN become a rabbi if they are unmarried...not yet having found your soulmate does not disqualify you from being a viable candidate for the holy life in Jewish culture.

However, Jesus brought about the transcendence of many of the old Jewish laws (that's why we have the New Testament, a new covenant between man and God).

Further, it is important to note that just as we don't believe that Jesus was JUST man, it would be silly for us to believe that he was JUST a rabbi. He was so much more, and that is based on scripture, not even on Catholic dogma.

If you disagree with that, you disagree with scripture, which most Christians don't like to intentionally do.

Dani

This is a ridiculous standard.... like saying that you refuse to believe that George Washington never walked on the moon unless someone specifically said that the never walked on the moon.




Huh? Orthodox Christian belief holds merely that the Bible is 'inspired', we do not, and never have, believed that God 'wrote the Bible and compiled it' himself, the actual writing and compilation was by human beings. God's role in the process was to make sure that no mistakes were made along the way.


If Dan Brown wants to think that there is something suspicious or scandalous about the fact that the Bible did not simply fall out of the sky, in a leather bound volume, with the 'words of Christ in red', and that it is the work of human beings, then he is barking up the wrong tree.



The only way that what you are trying to argue here actually makes sense is if we assume that the men who wrote and compiled the Bible were just automatons, slavishly, mindlessly obeying God at every turn, their freewill and human identity extinguished, the 'drones' of the beehive of God. Christians do not, and have never believed this. This is what Muslims believe about the Koran, this is what Mormons seem to believe about the Book of Mormon, but Christians have never thought this way aboutt the Bible. The fact that the writing and compilation of the Bible was done by men, is not a revelation that any halfway informed Christian is going to find at all shocking. The fact that so many Christians apparently are shocked to discover this, is a sign of just how much ignorance of basic Christian principles there is out there, among both Catholics and Protestant Christians.




I believe you have received sufficent explanation on this point, thank you.




This has been explained sufficiently I think.



No, it does not contradict anything. Do you REALLY think that is is appropriate for the omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, transcendent God of the universe to have sexual intercourse with one of his creatures? And what would the offspring of such a union be? A 'half God half man', like Hercules? Are we talking here about Zeus or are we talking about Yahweh? Is this Greek mythology or Christianity?

You have been reading 'Holy Blood, Holy Grail' haven't you? Because that is where the argument that 'a rabbi had to be married' comes from.


Baigent, Lincoln and Leigh's comprehsion of basic Juddaism is VERY POOR, almost as poor as their reading comprehension of the gospels and their basic knowledge of Christianity, and even more poor than their comprehension of the Arthurian legend.


A rabbi is not, and never has been, required to be married, this is a fallacious claim. There are many rabbis who have never been married, both in our own time and in ancient times, there are even known rabbis at the time of Christ who took vows of virginity. One rabbi from the century before Christ, who took a vow of virginity, is mentioned in the Talmud is reported to have said 'I can't help it, I am in love with the Torah, others can allow the world to continue to exist.' And there is indeed a tradition of 'sacred virginity' with Juddaism, such as the Essence community that compiled the Dead Sea Scrolls. I will admit that Juddaism never made as big of a deal out of it as Christianity later did, but it is not a completely foreign concept either.

Doom,

This is REALLY interesting and I didn't know this. Would you mind posting (or potentially PM me if you think it will derail the thread to post) some resources where I could read more about this stuff?

I'd really appreciate it!

Thanks!

Dani

For information on the Essenes, pretty much any respectable resource on the Dead Sea Scrolls should do the trick, and ancient authors such as Philo, Josephys and Pliny the Elder discuss them in depth. But of course our best resource about them and their beliefs are the Dead Sea Scrolls themselves. Here is a brief article describing them:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essenes

Okay then.. Dani, you say "Rheanna and Opppoy, you are misunderstanding logical argument foundations. There is a reason that the concept of coming out of nowhere and saying Jesus was married is silly, and that's because, as Doom and gherkin have pointed out, there is no evidence of it. "

Here you are missing my point. This is not coming out of nowhere according to Dan Brown or to anyone who has read the Gnostic Gospels. It is information that supposedly has been around since the time of Christ. Hidden. Covered up. Supposedly killed for. I don't know if any of that is true. But I am still saying it could be a possibility. This is not meant as an attack against modern day Catholics, so please do not see it in that way.


Doomlock Holmes wrote "Huh? Orthodox Christian belief holds merely that the Bible is 'inspired', we do not, and never have, believed that God 'wrote the Bible and compiled it' himself, the actual writing and compilation was by human beings. God's role in the process was to make sure that no mistakes were made along the way.


If Dan Brown wants to think that there is something suspicious or scandalous about the fact that the Bible did not simply fall out of the sky, in a leather bound volume, with the 'words of Christ in red', and that it is the work of human beings, then he is barking up the wrong tree.



The only way that what you are trying to argue here actually makes sense is if we assume that the men who wrote and compiled the Bible were just automatons, slavishly, mindlessly obeying God at every turn, their freewill and human identity extinguished, the 'drones' of the beehive of God. Christians do not, and have never believed this. This is what Muslims believe about the Koran, this is what Mormons seem to believe about the Book of Mormon, but Christians have never thought this way aboutt the Bible. The fact that the writing and compilation of the Bible was done by men, is not a revelation that any halfway informed Christian is going to find at all shocking. The fact that so many Christians apparently are shocked to discover this, is a sign of just how much ignorance of basic Christian principles there is out there, among both Catholics and Protestant Christians. "

As I said, I am not that familiar with Catholic doctrine. I grew up in a predominantly southern Baptist town and most of these people think every single word in the Bible came directly from God. I was merely trying to make a point that just because it was left out of the Bible, doesn't mean it can't be true. Dani says if I disagree then I'm disagreeing with scripture, but still yet scripture has not actually said he was a bachelor. You say it's implied, that it would need to be said otherwise. This may work in a debate, in a logical argument, but it still does not erase the possibility, no matter how small it may be....

Doomlock also says "No, it does not contradict anything. Do you REALLY think that is is appropriate for the omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, transcendent God of the universe to have sexual intercourse with one of his creatures? And what would the offspring of such a union be? A 'half God half man', like Hercules? Are we talking here about Zeus or are we talking about Yahweh? Is this Greek mythology or Christianity?"

No, it is not Greek Mythology. And as I stated earlier, I think Jesus was the SON of God but also the SON of Mary. I do not, and have never thought of Jesus as God the Father. If you believe that, that is your right. But I don't. To me, if Jesus spoke to the Father, referred to him as his Father and said the only way to God was through him, I believe he is a separate being from God the Father though just as divine. I've always been taught that God did not have a physical body; Jesus did.

I'll say more when I get to page 4.

Thank you for answering my question on the issue with Jesus being a rabbi and explaining the ancient meaning of the word. And no, I haven't read Holy Blood, Holy Grail, although I did think about it. Speaking of which, do you find it to be coincidence that Sangreal split one way is Blood Royal and the other way is Holy Grail? One other question, you keep saying that it came out of nowhere to say Jesus is married. I already mentioned the Gnostic Gospels. You seem to have acknowledged that the Bible is not perfect, not from God entirely. Do you also acknowledge that items could have been left out? And once again making the point regarding it "coming from nowhere," some people people it's been around for a very long time. Evidently Leonardo Da Vinci thought so, at least we can assume that. That definitely wasn't recently...

Except that the Gnostic Gospels were never hidden or covered up. Dan Brown didn't discover them. They've been around for years, and they've been shown not to be reliable.

When the Bible was compiled, there were many, many books that didn't "make the cut" as being authentic. The notion that there were other books such as the Gospel of Thomas, or whatever, isn't new news or some sort of shocking revelation to Catholics. We've known about that since the beginning. It's really no big deal.

Now, if you want to talk about cover-ups, did you know that the Gnostic Gospels say that women can't enter heaven? This is hardly compatible with Dan Brown's notion of the feminine mystique that he tries to convey in his novel. Much of the Gnostic Gospels disprove Brown's feminine mystique ideas, so he fails to mention the incompatibilities. In other words, Dan Brown's story claims that the Catholic Church is withholding information and covering up the truth, when in fact Dan Brown himself is withholding information from his readers and covering up the truth. The irony is not lost on many Catholics.

These kinds of arguments based on language are very, VERY flimsy, to say the least. I mean, is there something to the fact that the phrase 'Godisnowhere' could be either 'God is now here' or 'God is nowhere' depending on how you divide up the words? Really, language just doesn't work like that.





It did 'come out of nowhere', the gnostic gospels do not feature a married, or in any way 'a more human' Christ, in fact, quite the opposte. In the gnostic gospels, Jesus is portrayed as completely NON-HUMAN, there is nothing human about him AT ALL. In fact, many of the gnostic gospels argue that Jesus didn't even have a physical body, that his 'body' was merely a kind of hologram, designed to fool the gullible, and that in reality he was only a spirit. The idea that the gnostic gospels portray Jesus as married, or 'more human' than the gospels that are in the Bible is ridiculous, and can only be based on a rather fundamental misunderstanding of what gnosticism actually is.

'Gnosticism' is a philosophy which holds that matter is evil, that physical things, including and especially human bodies, are inherently evil. For this reason, they tend to oppose marriage and sexuality, because it 'legitimized' the physical body, which they believe is irredeemibly evil. The goal of gnosticism is to find 'liberation' by escaping from the 'prison' of a physical body. Christian gnosticism in particular is distinguished by a tendency to deny that Christ was in any way human, or had a human body.

No, the gnostics did not believe that Christ was married, and there is not a single shred of evidence that they did.




No, all the evidence indicates that Leonardo Da Vinci was a faithful, if largely ignorant and somewhat confused, Catholic. There is no evidence whatsoever that he opposed the Church in any way. He was hardly the model of virtue I will acknowledge, no one will ever nominate him for sainthood, but there is simply no reason for thinking that he may have belonged to some secret society dedicated to destroying the Church, or that may have been in any an unorthodox, heretical or hypocritical. All the evidence suggests that his religious beliefs were fairly typical, traditional and conventional for a man living in his time and place.

Rheanna,

Brian makes good points. If you need for us to get into the gnostic gospels specifically and why they are not widely regarded as unreliable, please don't hesitate to ask. That will be some long posts and may require a new thread, but I know that we will be happy to help you with that.

Next, you mention :

Grail comes from the Old French graal or grael (flat dish), from Latin gradalis (flat dish) and from the Greek krater (a bowl). I don't believe that the phrase Holy Grail actually exists anywhere in the Bible. If I am mistaken, kindly let me know. I believe that I read that the first reference to this term came from a 12th century romance novel. That would be over 1000 years distanced from Christ. Explain to me how that shows any reliability whatsoever.



What exactly are you saying that DaVinci thought, and where is your source?

Thanks,
Dani

Thankfully, the Arthurian legend just happens to be something I am quite interested in, and so I know something about it.

The term 'Holy Grail' originated in the Arthurian legend, appearing in the earliest versions of the Arthurian legend compiled by Chrétien de Troyes sometime during the last quarter of the 12th century, he is also the first to mention the forbidden romance between Sir Lancelot and Guinevere. I think that the reason why many non-Catholics 'don't get' the legend of the Holy Grail is because they 'don't get' the inherent Eucharistic symbolism behind it. The legend of the Holy Grail is a distinctly and explicitly Christian legend. The meaning of the Grail legend is apparent to a Catholic who can recognize Eucharistic symbolism, but to a non-Catholic like the authors of 'Holy Blood, Holy Grail', Dan Brown and others, the legend doesn't seem to make sense, it 'feels weird' and hence they feel the need to find some other explanation for it, like maybe that it really refers to gnosticism or something equally absurd. But the legend makes total sense to any Catholic who can recognize obvious Euchartstic symbolism when he sees it.

Thanks, Doom! There is just NO WAY I was going to remember all the details of this, especially not the name Chrétien de Troyes! I'm glad you jumped in!

Also, thanks for the wikipedia link and other info I asked about!

Dani

Therefore, your claim that Jesus was always a bachelor rests on idea that you can speak for the editorial judgement of the gospel authors. That's an interesting notion, but hardly one that can be conclusively demonstrated.

We can see the authors didn't think Jesus marital status was even important enough to mention.

There may be reasons to hold bachelorhood to be a reasonable belief, but there is no evidence that conclusively demonstartes it. The same is true of the marriage case. There may be reasons to believe it, but none that conclusively demonstrate it.

There is no conclusive demonstartion for either option.

I really don't care one way or the other. What really interests me is why the thought that Jesus was married riles so many people. If he had been married, how would that change anything in Catholic theology? How would it change anything about the mission Christians believe he accomplished? Why is it any more important than his preference for fresh or dried dates?

O,

Please re-read my post about logic and burden of proof. You are attempting to re-write the rules of logic, which is a rather silly way to make an argument.

Dani

Unnecessary. Just list the evidence for Jesus' bachelorhood. Those who claim he was a bachelor have the burden of proof for that claim.

Those who claim he was married have that burden of proof. Since nobody here claims he was married, I will not ask for that evidence.

And, I'd really like to know how Catholic theology would change if Jesus had been married. Would it change? If not, then why does it rile so many people? It seems to tap into some deep emotional conviction.

Why? Because He's already married to His Bride, the Church. The wedding feast of the Lamb isn't just a warm fuzzy notion. It's a reality. He died to give birth to His Bride. He has no need of any other. That would be polygamy.

Not emotional. Theological.