Jesus was Married!

http://www.theverge.com/2014/4/10/5600450/papyrus-gospel-of-jesus-wife-likely-wasnt-forged-scientists-claim

I have long said that Jesus was married, which puts a whole nuther spin on Christianity. But really, it only makes sense. Most young Jewish men in First Century Israel were married with children, and to not be married was to bring shame to the family. The only thing is that, unlike Dan Brown, I just don't think that Jesus' wife was Mary Magdalene because she was just not respectable enough, given that she was rumored to be demon-possessed, to be a preacher's or rabbi's wife. That role requires considerable decorum. I think that Jesus' wife was Mary (Miriam), the sister of Lazarus (Lazar.)

Here's the thing. Back then, children were betrothed to each other in arranged marriages. People didn't just "fall in love" and then marry the object of their affection the way that they do now because people fall in and out of love all the time, and basing a marriage on that is just too risky. Instead, one's parents or a paid matchmaker set the whole thing up. In fact, there was a First Century rabbi who was famous for being a perfect matchmaker, and so much so that even now, young women go to his tomb in Israel and ask him to find them a suitable husband. And we are talking two thousand years later!  That is some impressive street cred!

But why Miriam?  Because Miriam was respectable enough to be the wife of a preacher or rabbi. There was no taint of dishonor or demon-possession attached to her name. In fact, she doesn't get much of a mention at all in the canonical gospels, except that Jesus acknowledges that she had the better part, being able to sit at his feet and listen to his stories, as compared to her sister Martha, who was bitterly busy doing things.

Plus, Miriam was probably the true Virgin Mary. The alleged "Virgin Mary," Mariyam, who was Jesus' mother, was not a virgin. She was a married woman and mother of at least six sons and possibly additional daughters. (I gave Jesus three sisters.)  And you don't have kids if you are a virgin. Well, maybe technically the first time, but certainly not by the second or third or fourth or fifth or sixth. And Mary Magdalene may not have been a virgin, either, given her reputation. I purposefully make that unclear in my book. But Miriam, the sister of Lazarus, if she were truly Jesus' fiancee, was probably was a virgin, and aside from Jesus and possibly Little John (John the Apostle), the only true virgin in the book.

Furthermore, as I have said before, one has to take into account the early Catholic Church. By closely editing, if not actually changing the content of, the canonical gospels and early letters in order to conform to their agenda, the founding fathers of the Catholic Church were able to affect the way that subsequent generations thought and felt about Jesus and his whole narrative and the way that we view Christianity today. The requirement over the passage of centuries is that we buy the whole New Testament lock, stock and barrel, unquestioningly, and take it on faith, and if we don't, well, the Catholic Church (and man Protestant churches) have a way of being extremely nasty about it. Even thinking something that went against the Church dogma was considered a sin. The Catholic Church has many fine qualities, but they do have a very long history of suppression, mind control and denial. And yes, since the Reformation, a multitude of other churches have sprung up, but the foundation for faith and the Christ Narrative was laid by the Catholic Church. They taught us what to think about the whole Jesus story.

It is like what the Board of Education in Texas was trying to do a few years back when they decided to demote, if not delete, the contributions that Thomas Jefferson made to the Cause of Independence. And when American textbooks failed to mention the contributions to American society made by women, native Americans, Jews, Catholics, blacks, Mexicans, Italians or the Asian communities. "If we don't mention it, it doesn't exist." Or even the more recent example of the Bush Wars, which were trumped up on the most fabricated of excuses, sold to the American public on false pretenses, cost us trillions of dollars and millions of lives, and if we didn't want to go to war or questioned the veracity of greedy psychopathic men, then we were branded "traitors."  And that is now. Just imagine the power to control data and public opinion in a world where there is no Internet or Wikipedia or a society that celebrates the questioning of authority. And you really don't have to work hard to imagine it. There are plenty of places today that are ruled by people who tell their countrymen what to think, or face prison or the death penalty, so what makes anyone think that it have been any different over the past two thousand years?