“Jesus Was Married with Children!” (Really?)

Tim

Stratton

(The FreeThinking Theist)

|

February 16, 2015

I find it remarkable how so many atheists are jumping all over this, “Jesus was married with children,” bandwagon. This jump seems to be a blatant inconsistency, however, as many skeptics and even “Jesus mythers” are now affirming this so-called “lost gospel” reporting that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/11/10/the-book-that-claims-jesus-had-a-wife-and-kids-and-the-controversial-author-behind-it/

Nick Peters characterizes them in the following way:

“You can’t trust the Gospels! They’re religious propaganda written a couple of generations later by anonymous people! Whoa! New Gospel shows up by an unknown author centuries after the fact saying Jesus married Mary Magdalene! I can totally believe that!”

Moreover, let me offer the academic response of, “so what?” So what if Jesus was married with children? What would logically follow from that? Now, let me be clear, I don’t think Jesus was married, but I’m willing to be proven wrong on that because it just doesn’t matter – it’s irrelevant!

What makes “Mere Christianity” (as C.S. Lewis put it) true? Two things: 1- The existence of God (we can prove that metaphysically and support it via scientific data). 2- The resurrection of Jesus (we can prove this with high degrees of historical certainty via the historical method).

Now, some skeptics claim that if Jesus was married then the Bible is false because the it doesn’t say anything about this marriage. Really? How does that follow? In fact, the Bible says that Jesus did so many things that there is not enough room to record everything that Jesus did (John 21:25), maybe getting married didn’t happen to make the cut.

Some atheists have even claimed that if Jesus were married, then he would have sinned because he would have had sex. That is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard because according to the Bible, sex is a good thing when it is within the confines of marriage. Sex is like fire; when fire is in the fireplace, it’s good. When fire is on the couch, it’s very bad. Similarly, when sex is within marriage, it’s good. When sex is outside of marriage, it is bad and sinful. So if Jesus happened to get married and had sex with his wife, well, good for him!

I do not think there is any good reason to think Jesus was married or had a family. With that said, this bad objection, even if it were true, is no objection to Christianity at all.

Stay reasonable (Philippians 4:5),

Tim Stratton

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About the Author

Tim

Stratton

(The FreeThinking Theist)

Timothy A. Stratton (PhD, North-West University) is a professor at Trinity College of the Bible and Theological Seminary. As a former youth pastor, he is now devoted to answering deep theological and philosophical questions he first encountered from inquisitive teens in his church youth group. Stratton is founder and president of FreeThinking Ministries, a web-based apologetics ministry. Stratton speaks on church and college campuses around the country and offers regular videos on FreeThinking Ministries’ YouTube channel.

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