Toto

Vinnie - I don't know how serious you are with this, or if this is your final break with Christianity.

If you are serious, I recommend Uta Ranke-Heinemann's Eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven.

Ranke-Heinemann's theory is that marriage was the norm for a Jewish male, that it was a requirement for each Jewish male to get married shortly after puberty and start a family; and that if Jesus had not been married, that fact would have been so remarkable that we would have heard about it. Since we have no indication of his marital status, the default is that he was married. Every other Jewish prophet seems to have married, and Jesus did not preach asceticism like John the Baptist.

My own theory is that the lack of references to Jesus' marriage and/or sexuality are further indications that he was not a historical person. If you look at every other cult leader or founder of a new religion, leaders have and use a lot of sexual energy. (The major exception I can think of is the Heaven's Gate cult, which followed Origen's example of turning themselves into eunuchs.) Most cult leaders in the US recently and throughout history have had either multiple wives or some sexual scandal involving their followers, male or female. It is hard to imagine that if Jesus had the following that the gospels allege, that he didn't have women throwing themselves at him, that he wouldn't have taken one as a wife.

ThePhoenix

Enjoy the wait.

Toto

And I guess I should issue a moderator's semi-stern warning about the level of discussion in this thread not being what we expect in an upper forum. If you want to keep it out of ~Elsewhere~ please keep the discussion more scholarly and less graphic.

rlogan

Well you can't blame them. It is silliness on the face of it.

There is no positive evidence. As far as the individual pieces go, they each must have some merit or they are collectively zero.

You don't get to say the collection proves he's a queer and so therefore each element is damning. Like the kiss of Judas.

Psalm 41:9 is the most likely HB underpinning for the Judas business:

"Yea, mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, hath lifted up his heel against me."



I'm with Toto on the additional ammo for no HJ.


edited in view of Toto's warning...

Magus55

Unless Jesus truly was who He claimed to be, in which case taking a wife would have been innapropriate and He saw no need for it. Maybe every other founder of a new religion did it, because they were frauds, and sinners like anyone else. The Son of God had no need for a wife or to use sexual energy.

Paul2

Jesus was human too, no?

Asha'man

All this time you have been saying that Jesus was fully human, and now you are claiming he was utterly un-human at the same time? Are you really unable to see the contradiction?

Please, get the story straight and stick to it...

Magus55

Jesus was fully human, but He was how humans were originally created to be: sinless. Hate to break it to you, but being sexually promiscuous is not a requirement to be human nor is getting married and having kids.

blt to go

But Magus55, what do you do about:In order for Christ to be fully tempted, wouldn't he have had to have homosexual tendencies? Otherwise he could not "sympathize" with homosexuals, correct?

And in the same light, would he not have had to be tempted heterosexually? Otherwise he certainly could not "sympathize" with me?

Magus55

There is a difference between "tempted" and sinning. Yes Jesus was most certaintly tempted by sin, but He never gave in to it like we do.