"Did Jesus marry Mary Magdalene?"
No, not according to those who were eye witnesses to
Jesus' life and ministry.
A recently published novel and movie have sparked a
lot of
sensational speculation on TV and in news magazines on this question.
This story is fiction, but many readers and viewers who are unfamiliar
with the historical record
believe that the basis of the novel might be true. The Da Vinci
Code's careless deviations from
documented history are far too many to list here.
Author Dan Brown says that New Testament was
compiled in AD 325 by Emperor Constantine to consolidate power in the
Roman Catholic Church. One problem with this theory is that the Roman
Catholic Church organization didn't begin to exist until 150 years
later. Also, European, Middle Eastern, and African church leaders were
teaching the NT Gospels and Paul's NT letters almost 200 years before
Constantine was even born! The Da Vinci Code has so many basic
facts of history about the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Council of Nicea
wrong, it should be no surprise that the novel got the Biblical record
wrong, too.
Fanciful speculations of this sort are not new.
During my life time there has been a sensational new "discovery" like
this about once every ten years. But when you have the choice of either
trusting the validated reports of eye witnesses, or accepting the
speculations of a fiction writer 2,000 years later, the reasonable
choice is obvious.
If you want to read about whom Jesus will
marry, read Ephesians
5.25 and Revelation
21.
This issue sparked a lot of follow up
questions and discussion:
"Is there anything in the
Gospels that indicates Jesus wasn't married? There seems to be little
said about the family life of the apostles."
While there is not a verse in the Bible that says,
"Jesus never married," we can scratch beneath the surface and get
more information.
The Gospels have some family information about Peter, James & John,
and Jesus. Then in Acts
and the Epistles we learn about families of Paul, Timothy, Barnabas,
Aquila &
Priscilla.
The apparent disappearance of Joseph in Jesus' adult life is a mystery.
It is safe to assume that Joseph died between the time Jesus was 12 and
30 years old. But continued
references to Mary, her daughters, and her four other sons throughout
the New Testament, add weight to the silence about a
wife for Jesus.
Also consider that women in the NT are most frequently identified by
their family
relationships:
Elizabeth, wife of
Zechariah
Mary wife of Joseph, mother of Jesus
Mary's sister
Mary the wife of Clopas
Sisters Mary & Martha, and their brother Lazarus
The unnamed wife of Peter
The mother-in-law of Peter
The unnamed wife of Zebedee; mother of James and John
Herodius wife of Philip, then wife of Herod (Philip's
brother)
Johanna, wife of Chuza, Herod's steward
Mary, mother of John Mark
Priscilla, wife of Aquila
Lois & Eunice, Grandmother & mother of Timothy
Mary Magdalene was always identified, not by her family relationships,
but her city of
origin (Magdala).
Dan Brown contends that in Da Vinci's depiction of the Last Supper, the
disciple sitting on
Jesus' right was not the Apostle John, but Mary Magdalene.
However, the same Gospel writer who identifies that disciple explicitly
describes him as male (John
13:23-25; 21:20,21).
Throughout the novel,
Brown zealously promotes feminist goddess worship, and is critical of
Christians for
suppressing that "great treasure"... never mind the First Commandment
given to
Israel 1,500 years earlier, "You must have no other gods."
According to The DaVinci Code,
Jesus was not true God, but Mary Magdalene was a true goddess.
If you want to see what the Bible really says
about Mary Magdalene, see our Bible study series on Women of the Bible.
Who decided on what
to include in the Bible?
The books of the Bible, both Old Testament and New Testament, were
written by people of faith, whom God had inspired to communicate His
Word. The larger community of faith copied and distributed these
documents - letters, history, poetry, prophecy - and recognized them
for what they were, truth revealed from God Himself. Contrary to
popular myths about the Bible, there wasn't a vote on what to include
or exclude. Rather, recognition of the Holy Scriptures grew out
of widespread consensus (agreement) by those who read them and
understood them.
In The Da Vinci Code, author
Dan Brown says Constantine edited and produced the Bible in AD 325 in
order to suppress goddess worship, especially the worship of Mary
Magdalene as a god. But consider the historical evidence:
Apostolic Fathers quote the four New Testament
Gospels & Epistles of Paul as authoritative...
| WHO |
WHEN |
WHERE |
| Clement of Rome |
AD 95 |
Rome |
| Polycarp |
AD 110 |
Smyrna (Western Turkey) |
| Ignatius |
AD 115 |
Antioch (Syria) |
| Shepherd of Hermas |
AD 150 |
Rome |
| Didache ("teaching of the 12
Apostles" = catechism) |
Earliest copy:
AD 150 |
Some scholars date parts as early as
AD 50. |
The Apologist quoted both OT and NT Scripture against
heretical movements:
|
Justin Martyr
|
AD 170
|
Born in Sameria; lived in Rome
|
|
Ireneaus
|
AD 177
|
Smyrna (Western Turkey)
|
|
Tertullian
|
AD 200
|
Carthage (North Africa)
|
|
Hippolytus
|
AD 235
|
Smyrna (Western Turkey)
|
|
Clement of Alexandria
|
AD 200
|
Egypt
|
Constantine’s reign AD 306-337
Council of Nicea AD 325
Obviously Christians
Central and
Eastern Europe and Northern Africa, were reading the Bible, and they
considered the New Testament books authoritative long before
Constantine was even born.
Purpose of the Council of Nicea was to deal with
Christology of
Arianism (which loosely resembles today's
teaching of the Jehovah's Witnesses), not to
"vote" on which books to include in the Bible. Rather, Scripture
was cited at the
Council as
evidence against the heresy. Dan Brown is
right in claiming that the Council of Nicea voted to affirm the
Biblical doctrine that Jesus Christ is True God. However, Brown
claims that the vote was "relatively close." The actual vote was
298 for; 2 against.
(The city of Nicea is located in Western
Turkey.)
Click here for further examination of the reliability of New Testament.
The Da
Vinci Code says that Israel had female god named
"Shekinah." Is that true?
This is a popular theory that was made up from thin air.
"Shekinah" is a feminine sounding name to Americans in the 21st
Century. But even a beginner in the study of
the Hebrew language has the tools to research the meaning and origin of
the word "shekinah."
As every student of Hebrew knows, the root of nearly every Hebrew
word is a verb composed of
three consonants. If you want to look up a Hebrew noun,
adjective, or adverb in the lexicon (dictionary), you need to know the
root verb from which the word is derived.
"Shekinah" is an English
noun which comes from the Hebrew verb "SHAKAN"
(pronounce both syllables with a short"A"
sound, like "ah"; emphasize the first syllable). The verb means "dwell, inhabit, reside, settle, rest."
As a verb, this word appears 127 times
in the Old Testament, and refers to
- nations residing in a territory,
- people residing in cities/villages,
- individuals residing in houses and tents,
- animals residing in forests.
There are two nouns derived from this word:
- SHAKEN
(again, emphasis is on the first syllable) - "Inhabitant, resident, or
dweller" - a nation, a
person, or even an animal who lives in a certain place. This noun
appears 20 times in the
Hebrew Old Testament.
- MISHKAN -
"Residence, presence, or dwelling place" - the land,
the city, the house, the tent, or in the case of animals, the cave,
tree, or mountain. This noun appears 140 times in the Hebrew Old
Testament. This is the word often used to identify Israel's tent
of worship, the Tabernacle, where Moses met with God.
Samples of verses that use this word in reference to
God:
Exodus 24:16 Now the glory of
the LORD rested (yishkon) on Mount Sinai, and
the cloud covered it six days. And on the seventh day He called to
Moses out of the midst of the cloud.
Exodus 40:34 Then
the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle (mishkan).
Deuteronomy 12:5 "But you shall seek the place where
the LORD your God chooses, out of all your
tribes, to put His name for
His dwelling place (shikenu); and there you shall
go.
Psalms 26:8 LORD, I have loved the habitation of Your house, And
the place where Your glory dwells
(mishkan).
Psalm 94:17 Unless
the LORD had been my help, my soul
would soon have settled (shakenah) in silence.
Incidentally, the American
Heritage Dictionary defines shekinah
this way:
She-ki-nah ... n. Judaism. A visible
manifestation of the divine presence as described in Jewish theology.
[Hebrew shekina, from shekan, dwell.]
So is Shekinah the name of a goddess wife for Yahweh,
the God of Israel, as Dan Brown claims? No, not even close!
To make his case for the "shekinah" theory, Dan Brown
says that
Jewish priests had sex in the temple as a form of worship to God.
Here Brown is half right. There were times when the kings of
Israel adopted worship of the sex cult of Baal & Asherah. One
descendent of King David name Manasseh even brought idols of Baal and
Asherah and their altars into the Lord's temple in Jerusalem.
Manasseh also sacrificed his own son in worship to the idol of
Molech. Needless to say, what Manasseh, the priests, and
the
people did was very wrong, and God said so, and He punished them for
it. (2 Kings
21, and 2 Chronicles 33)