Da Vinci Code

[JoeyWarren]

I was watching on the History Channel about investigations into Dan Browns book.

One historian on Jewish Life during the life of Christ stated some things he thought were fact:

Jesus no doubtedly had children. He was a devout Jew. He was a Rabbi. Rabbi’s would have followed the Torah to the letter. Jesus would have had to follow the commandment in Genesis to “Replenish the Earth”. Jesus would have been considered a gross-negligent sinner if he did not marry and have children.

This caused me some severe speculation. I am disturbed by this if any one bit of is true.

So for those of you that have some knowledge of Jewish Customs, what say you?

Also if any of these believed facts are true, how would have Jesus bypassed requirements of the Torah? What is Tradition of Jews during that time? IE it follows the same logic that we use when we say Mary had no other children because Jewish tradition says he could not have possible given care of Mary to someone that was not family?

 

[Lazerlike42]

It would have been “normal” for [Jesus] to have been married, but not obligatory for that time (or any other time, for that matter).

1. The rabbinic literature–which is what people sometimes use to argue that celibacy was a capital offense(!)–notes and gives rules for exceptions to rules which were themselves non-binding:

“Celibacy was, in fact, not common, and was disapproved by the rabbis, who taught that a man should marry at eighteen, and that if he passed the age of twenty without taking a wife he transgressed a divine command and incurred God’s displeasure. Postponement of marriage was permitted students of the Law that they might concentrate their attention on their studies, free from the cares of support a wife. Cases like that of Simeon be 'Azzai, who never married, were evidently infrequent. He had himself said that a man who did not marry was like one who shed blood, and diminished the likeness of God. One of his colleagues threw up to him that he was better at preaching that at practicing, to which he replied, What shall I do? My soul is enamored of the Law; the population of the world can be kept up by others…It is not to be imagined that pronouncements about the duty of marrying and the age at which people should marry actually regulated practice.” [HI:JFCCE:2.119f]…

1. Judaism at the time of Jesus, of course, was a “many splintered thing”, with the forerunners of the rabbinics being only one sect among many, one viewpoint (actually, multiple viewpoints!) on a spectrum of viewpoints. Accordingly, there were other groups at the time that either (a) required celibacy; or (b) allowed it.

The Essenes (and the somehow-related Qumran folks) were described by Josephus, Philo, and Pliny as being celibate, but the data is inconclusive as to whether they REQUIRED it or merely ENCOURAGED it. [OT:FAI:130ff]
Philo describes another Jewish sect of both men and women–the Therapeutae --who were celibate in their studies and pursuit of wisdom and the holy life (De Vita Contemplativa 68f).
3. But the dominant class of individuals who were “allowed” or “expected” to be celibate were prophetic figures, throughout Jewish history:

The prophet Jeremiah…
The wilderness prophet Banus:
“More well-known, though still exceptional, would have been the undoubted celibacy of wilderness prophets like Banus (Josephus Life 2.11) and John the Baptist.” [DictNTB, s.v. “marriage”]

John the Baptist (and possibly his prototype Elijah]…
Even the 2nd century AD Hasidic miracle-worker, the Galilean rabbi Pinhas ben Yair taught that abstinence was essential to reception of prophetic wisdom and the Holy Spirit. [JJ:102]
4. Although the Rabbinic writers stressed the importance of marriage for procreation, it is noteworthy that this prophetic ideal of celibacy still showed up in the rabbinics:

“Judaism saw nothing wrong in portraying as celibate the great primordial prophet, seer, and lawgiver Moses (though only after the Lord had begun to speak to him). We see this interpretation already beginning to develop in Philo in the 1st century A.D. What is more surprising is that this idea is also reflected in various rabbinic passages. The gist of the tradition is an a fortiori argument. If the Israelites at Sinai had to abstain from women temporarily to prepare for God’s brief, once-and- for-all address to them, how much more should Moses be permanently chaste, since God spoke regularly to him (see, e.g., b. Yabb. 87a). The same tradition, but from the viewpoint of the deprived wife, is related in the Sipre on Numbers 12.1 (99). Since the rabbis in general were unsympathetic–not to say hostile–to religious celibacy, the survival of this Moses tradition even in later rabbinic writings argues that the tradition was long-lived and widespread by the time of the rabbis…In view of this “marginal” tradition in early Judaism, it is hardly surprising that the Jewish scholar Geza Vermes has no difficulty in seeing Jesus as celibate and explaining his unusual state by his prophetic call and the reception of the Spirit.” [MJ:1.340f]

So, although it would have been “normal” and expected for a young Jewish man to be married, we have examples of where celibacy was accepted, encouraged, or required. Therefore, Jesus would not have had to have been married…

Miller adds that it is a mistake to misuse Rabbinical literature (as Teabing is likely doing by Brown’s account) to assume that a rabbinic opinion was somehow a law. As the historian E.P. Sanders notes, according to Miller:

“There is also a more general point with regard to calling an opinion a law: once one starts quoting rabbinic statements as laws governing Palestine, one may draw absolutely any portrait of first-century Palestine that one wants. There are thousands and thousands of pages, filled with opinions." [JPB:463]

• tektonics.org/davincicrude.htm

 

[awfulthings9]

The number of times that Jesus upsets the laws of Jewish culture is many. Look at how offended the Pharisees were when he allowed his followers to break the Sabbath, among other things He had no problem making it obvious that he intended to introduce something more meaningful and substantial than the Mosaic law, and the custom of getting married and having children would have definitely taken a backseat to his greater plan for our salvation, no matter how controversial it would have seemed. Look at Paul, after all. Couldn’t the same logic apply to him? Yet we see Paul very adamantly chosing celibacy.

 

[JoeyWarren]

awfulthings9:

The number of times that Jesus upsets the laws of Jewish culture is many. Look at how offended the Pharisees were when he allowed his followers to break the Sabbath, among other things He had no problem making it obvious that he intended to introduce something more meaningful and substantial than the Mosaic law, and the custom of getting married and having children would have definitely taken a backseat to his greater plan for our salvation, no matter how controversial it would have seemed. Look at Paul, after all. Couldn’t the same logic apply to him? Yet we see Paul very adamantly chosing celibacy.

True