Did Jesus have Sex??

[James S]

If that was the case, again, look at this in a practical way. If they were travelling the land, would they want a full entourage with them?

Still doesn't deny marriage for any of them.

Just a thought.....doesn't a description in the bible of the last supper talk of "the apostle whom He loved" leaning against him. It's usually assumed this is Peter, but the bible never actually states this. What if that was the wife of Jesus, and the name ended up being withheld when the new testament was written because of key questions that apostle asked were too important for even Constantine or his wife to omit?

James.

[Lighthouse]

James,

That's what I was trying to point out with my response to exothen.  Why would a woman be excluded from being the one who he loved?

Kerri

[Shinobi]

...

[Lighthouse]

There is as much proof that he was married as there is that he wasn't.

Kerri

[Shinobi]

...

[exothen]

quote:Now think about the Jews of the time. How would they react to one of their own telling them how to love, if that person hadn't even experienced the love that exists between husband and wife? Is not the union (as brought about under the law - that is, within a marriage) between a man and a woman considered by God to be one of the greatest expressions of love?

If you think about some of these ideas with just an ounce of common sense, you see that some concepts promoted within the bible defeat some of the other concepts. It's inconsistent.

Yeah, lets think of some of these ideas. Jesus knew he was going to the cross to die, that is why he was sent, or came. How loving would it be for him to marry someone knowing that he would soon be leaving?

Furthermore, your idea does nothing to defeat anything else in the Bible since the love and  marriage between and man and woman is used as a metaphor for God's love for people and the Church. Jesus is God so he loved people in a way that is consistent with marriage.

[Lighthouse]

Gandalf would do a much more eloquent job of this for me and could explain some of the religious significance in Anointing someone before death.  Jesus was anointed BY MARY with Oil before his death.  This is the smearing of perfumed oil upon the brow which was done by a High preistess or a woman of the highest significance within religious customs.  I have done a quick google search here and have come up with some papers written by other scholars like Gandalf in order to make this point more clearly.

I've snipped a few sources here--  
The following is from this site; http://www.thewhitemoon.com/mary/magdalene.html

Perhaps the strongest, piece of evidence is the anointing of Jesus with the sacred oil, an event which (uncharacteristically) was recorded in all four New Testament Gospels, pointing to its significance. The anointing of the Jesus' head with oil (as described in Mark 14:3-4) is an unmistakable symbol of The Sacred Marriage, a ceremony performed by temple priestesses.

Here is a definition of the word anoint:

The practice of anointing with perfumed oil was common among the Hebrews. (1.) The act of anointing was significant of consecration to a holy or sacred use; hence the anointing of the high priest (Ex. 29:29; Lev. 4:3) and of the sacred vessels (Ex. 30:26). The high priest and the king are thus called "the anointed" (Lev. 4:3, 5, 16; 6:20; Ps. 132:10). Anointing a king was equivalent to crowning him (1 Sam. 16:13; 2 Sam. 2:4, etc.). Prophets were also anointed (1 Kings 19:16; 1 Chr. 16:22; Ps. 105:15). The expression, "anoint the shield" (Isa. 21:5), refers to the custom of rubbing oil on the leather of the shield so as to make it supple and fit for use in war.

Here's a good link, well thought out and very scholarly explaining the slanderous nature that the Church has treated Mary Magdalene.  http://lor.trincoll.edu/~papers/1996/mary.html

And this one: http://www.the-cauldron.fsnet.co.uk/BLACK_MAR1.htm
Mary of Magdalene is one of the most fascinating and enigmatic figures in the New Testament and her unique relationship to Jesus has never been adequately explained. In the gospels she was also known as Mary of Bethany and was (mis)represented in non-Biblical clerical sources as a prostitute and adulterer. In John 11:2 she is the sister of Lazarus who Jesus 'raised from the dead'. Some writers believe this particular 'miracle' was a coded reference to a death and rebirth initiation into the Christian mysteries. Mark 14:3 describes how Jesus visited Bethany and he was anointed by a woman. She used an ointment made from a plant called spikenard contained in an alabaster jar. This 'woman with the alabaster jar' has been identified as Mary Magdalene. By this symbolic act she was recognising Jesus as the messiah or Christos 'the anointed one'. He was the sacred king, the scapegoat, who must die for his people that their sins are cleansed. Jesus himself acknowledged this fact when he remarked that by her action the woman had prepared him for burial. In the pagan rituals of Sumeria, Babylonia and Canaan the ritual anointing of the sacred king with oil was carried out by the priestess or royal bride. She was the representative of the goddess and this ritual act was a prelude to the 'sacred marriage' of the God and Goddess.

Kerri

[James S]

Good arguments Shinobi.[^] Well said.

"Again, none of this is proof against his being married, but folks are really putting lot of energy into this when, short of new archeological evidence, there is nothing to stand on."

This is indeed true.

Spiritual understanding will not be gained through discussing religious differences.

[]
James.

[Mustardseed]

Well I believe he did. It only says that "he was in all things tempted yet without sin" this scripture is always the last stand for most Christians. But why could he not have enjoyed a nice f..., like most of us do. What is sinfull about that?. It seems tha Devil would like to take credit for sex when it was really Gods greatest creation. Be fruitful and multiply. However the Dark side would like to make folks believe that if you enjoy "that" you are one of his. I think he had himself a heaven of a time and why not, we all do it dont we. (some more than others maybe) but we all do it.[]
Regards Mustardseed

[You]

The reason Jesus is said not to have sex is that sex is considered a sin, especially if one looks at in the regards of 'a good ----' as you so elegantly put it.

The reason the virgin conception is so often spouted is that children were thought to be born sinners, inheriting the sin from the sex that conceived them into being. As he was born without sex (unless you have strange views of how exactly God impregnated Mary...), he would therefore be born without any sins, and have the potential to be sinless.

Perhaps the fact that he was born without sin was the very reason he could not sin.... although based on some of what I've read, he has sinned. It says he hasn't, but he's stolen and disrespected his parents (and encouraged others to do it) so I don't see how that could be explained away.

[Berserk]

Dear Tyciol,

From my perspective as a biblical academician, you are often wrong, but unlike other New Age fundamentalists on this site, you are usually wrong intelligently.  I will confine my critique to just 8 points:

(1) [Tyciol:] "the reason that Jesus is said not to have sex is that sex is considered a sin..."  No, the Bible does not consider sex a sin.  Indeed the Song of Songs is a celebration of erotic love.

(2) No, the Bible does not teach that sin is a sexually transmitted disease.
The Old Testament writers were more concerned to trace the origin of sin existentially in human predicaments than to indulge in historical and cosmological speculation about sin's origin.  The notion that sin arises from our creatureliness as such or from sexual procreation does not appear in the Old Testament.   Such passages as Psalm 51:5, Job 14:1, and 15:14 go no further than alleging that humanity is sinful from the time of conception and that frail "flesh" is prone to all the evils of life.  Elaine Pagels has recently written a book that points to St. Augustine as the culprit for the invention of the ill-conceived modern doctrine of original sin.

(3) Pre-Christian Judaism anticipates a Messiah who would be human--not divine--and yet sinless (so Psalms of Solomon 17:40f.; Testament of Judah 24:1; Testament of Levi 18:9).  New Testament theology adopts this Jewish perspective and adds to it a belief in Christ's divinity and the image of Christ as the flawless Passover Lamb of God:

"For you know that is was not with perishable things. . .that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, A LAMB WITHOUT BLEMISH OR DEFECT (1 Peter 1:19)."

"God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:20)."

(4) In the New Testament, the sinlesness of Christ is a function of both His status as the Jewish Messiah and His status as God's Passover Lamb;  it is never treated as a function of His virgin birth.  On the contrary, in Greco-Roman mythology, virgin births are associated with the sexual immorality of the gods (e.g. Zeus's infidelity to his goddess wife Hera) and the virginal offspring is not deemed sinless.

(5) [Tyciol:] "But he's stolen and disrespected his parents (and encouraged others to do it)."  You can produce no example of Jesus stealing.  Perhaps you have in mind the account of Jesus and His disciples picking heads of grain in someone else's fields (Mark 2:23-24).  If so, you don't understand Jewish law.  Such pilfering was encouraged as an act of charity towards hungry travelers.   The Pharisees object not to the act per se, but to the fact that the grain is plucked on the Sabbath.

(6) You claim that Jesus "disrespected His parents."  True, in Luke 2:41-52 an immature 12-year-old Jesus leaves his family without notifying them and wows the Jewish teachers in the Temple with His knowledge.  But you must draw a distinction between sin and the maturation process by which a child learns by trial and error.  This distinction is addressed in Hebrews: "Although He [Jesus] was a Son, He learned obedience from what He suffered (5:8)."  This text implies a time when Jesus was disobedient or, at least, non-obedient.  So that would make Him a sinner by biblical standards, right?  Wrong!  Despite the implication that Jesus learned by trial and error, Hebrews insists: "We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one [Jesus] who has beem tempted IN EVERY WAY JUST AS WE ARE--YET WITHOUT SIN (4:15)."  Note the implication that Jesus had no advantage over us by virtue of His divine nature.   To incarnate, the divine Son "emptied Himself" of all His divine prerogatives (Philippians 2:6-7).
Hebrews conceives of sin as a condition, not a series of bad acts.  As a condition, sin is that which separates us from God.  Jesus is sinless in the sense that, despite the fact that He might occasionally have been a "naughty boy," nothing He ever did terminated His oneness with the Father (e.g. John 10:30).

(7) You claim that Jesus "encouraged others to do it [i. e. disrespect their parents. Only 3 texts could possibly create theat impression.

"To another he said, 'Follow me.'  But he said, `First let me go and bury my father.'  But Jesus said to him, `Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God (Luke (9:59-60)."

This text seems shocking until it is recognized as a rather conventional use of Semitic hyperbole, a teaching device commonly used by Jewish teachers in Jesus' era.  This saying is uttered in the context of a discussion of common excuses for not following Jesus.  The point is not to leave without saying good-bye to one's family, but to elevate one's responsibilities towards God above those towards family, if the two must clash.  The inevitability of such clashes is stressed in another example of Jesus' Semitic hyperbole: "I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.  For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother. . .and one's foes will be members of one's own household (Matthew 10:36)."  Jesus is merely saying that family conflict is the regrettably inevitable result of His teaching.   After all, this is the same Jesus who teaches,  "Blessed are the peacemakers (Matthew 5:9).!"  

Nor does Luke 14:26 imply anything different: "Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother. . .cannot be my disciple (Luke 14:26)."  In Aramaic "hate" is merely a euphemism for the wrong priority.
The true meaning of the saying is clear from its variant in Matthew 10:37:
"whoever loves father and mother more than me is not worthy of me."  So there is really no contradiction between these sayings and Jesus' teaching about the need to love and honor one's parents:

"You know the commandments:. . .Honor your father and mother (Mark 10:19)."

"God said, `Honor your father and your mother' . . .But you say that whoever tells his father or mother, `Whatever support you might have had from me is given to God,' so that person need not honor the father.  So for the sake of your tradition, you make void the word of God (Matthew 15:4-6)."

You raise a more important issue with your challenge that deliberate astral projection is contrary to biblical teaching.  When I find the time, I will post my response to that in the appropriate thread.

Berserk

[You]

Damn... Berserk I greatly await that post.

Good job.

To be truthful, I already did know the true meaning behind Jesus' words of cleaving the families, but I find it's an easy way to tear up an argument as most Christians aren't well informed enough about the testaments to provide a counter-argument, you on the other hand, are. Learning about parts of the bible like this is a message I want to get through to Christians. They're all so gung-ho about family values and protecting their own that they don't really care about Christ's real teachings, and putting it before all else.

The majority of people who call themselves Christian do so only because it's what their family wants, to please the elders and those who take it seriously, while they rarely do and indulge in sin. While I smile at this weakening in the chains of faith, the hypocritical picking and choosing of what to follow and when to use the Bible (like to condemn gays) is completely asinine, and annoys me to no end.

This Hebrew custom about free grain for travelers is definitely news to me, thank you for telling me about it. I'll have to inform the person I learned it from to amend their web page stating it as a bad example of Jesus' morality.

Even so, did Jesus take it on the Sabbath when he wasn't supposed to? If so, wouldn't that be stealing because people aren't supposed to take it then?

Jesus IS fully human, but it also did say he was fully God. I take that to mean his flesh was mortal (duh!) but he was fully filled with the Lord's spirit.

The virgin birth thing, like I said, is just an old superstition, I just presented it as a theory for why sex was associating with sin.

Definitely, as other posters here have alleged, sex without marriage is surely sin? I haven't quite read enough to discern that, though modern-day Christians do seem to have the 'wait until marriage' attitude, even though very rarely do they follow it.

When I referred to Jesus himself disrespecting his parents, I wasn't referring to him going off with the priests to read the scriptures. I'm pretty sure Mary never said to him "Jesus, never run away from home to study with priests!", so he was just an overenthusiastic youth who ran off to a temple, it drew him in.

What I was referring to was when he said to Mary "woman, what have I do to with thee?" Try saying that to your mother today, she'll get ticked.

[Berserk]

[Tyciol:] "Even so, did Jesus take it [the grain] on the Sabbath when he wasn't supposed to?  If so, wouldn't that be stealing because people weren't supposed to take it then?"
______________________

Here you are touching on a profound problem overlooked by most Christians, a problem that warrants a separate thread entitled something like "Jesus' and Paul's Morality."  Jesus opposed the excessive number of Jewish moral absolutes, including their legion Sabbath laws.  His act here was not theft, but a revolutionary new vision of a non-legalistic morality.  To explain this, I will later create a new thread.

[Tyciol:]  "What I was referring to when he said to Mary, `Woman, what have I to do with thee?"  Try saying that to your mother today.  She'll get ticked."
_______

Here you have been misled by the poor KJV translation and by a first century cultural quirk that no longer applies in our day.  It seems best to quote Raymond Brown's magisterial commentary on John (2:3):

"`Woman': This is not a rebuke nor an impolite term, nor an indication of a lack of affection.  (In 19:26 the dying Jesus uses it for Mary.)  It was Jesus' normal, polite way of addressing women (Matthew 15:28; Luke 13:12; John 4:21; 8:10; 20:13); and as such, it is attested in Greek writing also."

In the KJV translation, Jesus' question, "Woman, what have I to do with thee?" is a mistranslation of a Greek idiom that literally means "What to me and to you?"  and should be translated, "What has this concern of yours to do with me?"  So Jesus is not saying, "Why are you bothering me?"  but rather "How is their wine shortage relevant to me?   The implication is that Jesus had no plans to turn the water into wine until the idea was implanted in His mind by His mother.

In Sepphoris, just a few miles down the road from Cana, there was a temple of Dionysos.  Central to the cult of Dionysos was the belief that this Greek god changed water into wine.  By duplicating this miracle, Jesus found a way to get the attention of Galilean Greeks.

As for your skepticism about the virgin birth, there is no way of making something that private and exotic credible to a skeptic.  But it does seem worthwhile to make 3 observations:

(1) The notion of Jesus' illegitimacy is traceable to His lifetime.  The hostile residents of Nazareth jeer Jesus' with the taunt, "Is this not the carpenter, the son of Mary...(Mark 6:3)?"  In that culture, to call someone the son of his mother is to cast aspersions on his legitimacy.  True, Joseph is probably alreadly dead.  But if Joseph were Jesus' father, one would still expect Jesus to be portrayed as the son of Joseph.  Jesus' opponents retort, "[At least] we are not illegitimate children (John 8:41)!"
n Greek the "we" is emphatic and implies Jesus' illegitimacy.  In Jewish law, a man deemed a bastard was not permitted to marry a nice Jewish girl.  In my view, the bastard charge is the most likely reason why Jesus never married.

It therefore seems unlikely that Jesus is the natural son of Joseph.  Whether one embraces the virgin birth will depend on one's openness to the miraculous and on what one thinks of Mary's character and the sexually conservative culture that shaped her.  Beyond this, the case for and against the virgin birth is very complex and I'll refrain from assessing it further in this post.

But let me share one of my bizarre discoveries.   John Chrysostom, bishop of Antioch, lived near Aleppo, an early Jewish Christian center ultimately traceable to the first Jerusalem church.  John came across the tradition that after Joseph died, Mary lived with Joseph's brother Clopas as his wife in a state called levirate marriage (Deuteronomy 25:5-6).   Such a marriage would be illegal if Jesus were the natural son of Joseph,  but mandatory if Joseph died without natural children.   The firstborn of Mary's sexual union with Clopas would be deemed Joseph's son.  If this marriage occurred, it would mean that both Mary and Joseph's brother believed that Jesus was born of a virgin.  John Chrystom lives in an age where the church embraces Mary's immaculate conception and perpetual virginity.  But those doctrines are clearly a Catholic imposition on an earlier Jewish Christian tradition here.

The tradition, though far from convincing, can be defended on 4 grounds:
(1) The Jewish Christian historian Hegesippus refers to Jesus' brothers as His cousins also.  The Catholic claim that the Hebrew for "brother" can mean "cousin" is indefensible.  But if Mary married Jesus' uncle Clopas, then Clopas's sons, formerly Jesus' cousins, wuuld legally become His brothers also!

(2) Jesus has a brother named "Joseph" (Matthew 13:55).  In Jewish culture sons received the names of their grandfathers, but not the names of their fathers, except in the case of the royal family or the family of the hereditary high priesthood.  There is only one exception to this rule in the countless Jewish family lineages reported in late antiquity.  It is unlikely that Jesus' brother Joseph is a son of Joseph, Sr. and more likely that he is the son of Clopas.

(3) In early rabbinic Judaism Jesus is known as the son of Penteri, not the son of Joseph.  The rabbis sometimes misunderstood Greek nouns as proper names.  The Greek  for "husband's brother" is "penterides."  In its Hebrew translation, the Greek suffix "ides" would be dropped.  It is possible that the rabbis remember Jesus as the product of a levirate marriage.  In other words, if Clopas marries the widow Mary, then Clopas legally becomes Jesus' father-guardian.   Hence, "Jesus the son of the husband's brother" or the son of a levir.  

(4) Finally, I am haunted by this question: if the tradition of Mary's levirate marriage is fictional, why on earth would it have been invented?

Berserk

[You]

More excellent points that further clarify me of the fallacy of some of the arguments used to debase Christianity. It's a good thing they're not the primary ones

My question is this, and I will put it bluntly: why did Joseph never shag Mary, but his brother did? Is it possible he was infertile? Was Joseph's brother the older or younger?

[Berserk]

Dear Tyciol,

Early Christian tradition sheds no light on whether Joseph was older than his brother Clopas.   Your question about Joseph's possible infertility is a good one.  An affirmative answer is suggested by the Proto-Gospel of James, a totally fictional late second century Gospel that, among other things, was written to confirm the miraculous birth and perpetual virginity of Mary.  This Gospel claims that Joseph was an elderly widower when he married Mary.  The Gospel is a Gentile fabrication that badly distorts Jewish customs, culture, and institutions.  It is too late to contain any historically important material.  Yet its teaching about Mary's perpetual virginity is Catholic dogma.  The great problem for this dogma is Matthew 1:25: "But he [Joseph] did not know her until she gave birth to a son."  As you are doubtless aware, in the biblical era, the expression "he knew her" means "he had sex with her."  So the NIV rightly translates this verse:  
But he had no union with her until she gave birth to a son."  The clear implication is that, after Jesus was born, Joseph and Mary had lots of sex.
So if the theory that Jesus' brothers were originally his cousins is correct, then clearly Joseph seems to have been infertile.

Our best guesses as to the age of Joseph and Mary at their betrothal must be gleaned from the Jewish customs of the times.  Mary was just 12-15 years old.   Jewish men were expected to marry around age 21 and no later then 30.  In rabbinic tradition, a Jewish male was ordinarily considered to be sinning if he refused to marry.  That is why a good reason must be found for Jesus' celibacy.  As I have already argued, I think the best reason is that Jesus was widely considered a bastard and bastards could not marry a nice Jewish girl.   One can't expect non-Christian Jews to embrace the virgin birth.  But the charge of illegitimacy at least seems to suggest that the virgin birth claims are traceable to Jesus' lifetime.

[You]

Man I feel bad for Joseph now... so... what do you think he did until the J-kid came about? Everything but sex, some of the manger animals, or was he just really disciplined. I've see art depicting Mary, if she's anything like that I'd think it would be hard to resist.

[lifebreath]

[Tyciol:] "Even so, did Jesus take it [the grain] on the Sabbath when he wasn't supposed to? If so, wouldn't that be stealing because people weren't supposed to take it then?"
______________________

Here you are touching on a profound problem overlooked by most Christians, a problem that warrants a separate thread entitled something like "Jesus' and Paul's Morality." Jesus opposed the excessive number of Jewish moral absolutes, including their legion Sabbath laws. His act here was not theft, but a revolutionary new vision of a non-legalistic morality. To explain this, I will later create a new thread.

Jesus did numerous "illegal" acts on the Sabbath. These actions were not immoral, in the sense of harming others, although they offended the sensibilities of those who were adhering very strictly to the regulations set up for observing the Sabbath. They also were seen by the religio-political leaders of the Jews as threatening "the system." Some acts are such that they would have been laudable if not done on the Sabbath - like healing the sick. Others, like going into the temple and eating the consecrated bread, would not have been acceptable in any cicumstance, unless one were a priest (which brings up a whole other sidebar).

Jesus explains very cleary the reason for breaking these Sabbath regulations. He is trying to reestablish a right understanding of the purpose of Sabbath (and worship/spirituality in general). The "Law," meaning the spiritual code of the Jews, was not meant to be an unbearable yoke for the people, it was meant to be a guide for spiritual progress and right attitude toward God and neighbor - it was meant to serve the human person, not enslave them. Thus he says, when confronted, "Man was not made for the Sabbath, rather the Sabbath was made for man."