Jesus broke a commandment by not marrying

[Joe_Kelley]

tractarian:

. . . In my understanding, Paul’s observance of the Torah was entirely voluntary, because he was just a free from the Law as any other Christian by that point. In some of his letters he mentioned how observant a Pharisee he was, in others he pointed out Gentile customs he had adopted, so i don’t know if we can be sure whether he considered the obligation to marry as a mitzvah or not. . . .

Paul’s observance of the Torah was voluntary after the Damascus Road experience, but before that he was a most observant Jew, and apparently unmarried.

 

[Sunniva]

BobCatholic:

I don’t know the answer to this, but ALL MEN were required to be married? Even though unable to…consummate, like the impotent or the sterile?

[thread drift warning]
Ahem, a sterile/infertile man is not the same as being impotent. The majority of infertile men are very well able to consummate a marriage. Being sterile is not an impediment to enter into Holy Matrimony, being *permanently *impotent is.
[/thread drift warning]

 

[yinekka]

According to “To Know Christ Jesus” by Frank Sheed P99 “…in the Old Testament, among men only the prophet Jermiah (was called to celibacy)…There were eccentrics, Essenes and perhaps the sect at Qumran, withdrawn in communities of their own and remaining celibate…” St John the Baptist was celibate.

In “Pocket Catholic Dictionary” by Fr John Hardon S.J.under Mosaic Law it states "…The foundation of this law is the Decalogue (Ex 20), Book of the covenant (Ex 20-23), Exodus (18-23), Deuteronomy (5 and16-26(, Leviticus (11-20). I have read these verses and nowhere can I find a command to marry.

Perhaps what you are referring to is a commandment in the Talmud (boook of Jewish tradition) not the Torah (first 5 Books of the Bible). The Talmudic teachings of the Pharisees were what Jesus spoke against many times as being additions to the Law of Moses.

 

[Catholic_Cadet]

Actually, this was perfectly in line with the fact that Christ was a rabbi. While it was rare, it was certainly acceptable for a rabbi to remain single so as to devote themselves more fully to the Torah and God.

 

[Andreas_Hofer]

The first idea to pop into my mind was also the distinction between the written Torah and the oral Torah (an example of which is the Talmud). Christians recognize the written Torah as divinely inspired, but not the oral traditions of the Jewish rabbis. I don’t know if you could see Jesus’ preaching against the pharisees as a total rejection of the oral Torah, but it’s obvious that if you have to follow all of the mitzvot then Jesus failed on many counts because he was always getting called out by the Pharisees for “breaking the law” (healing on the Sabbath, picking grain on the Sabbath, not following cleanliness rules, etc.). If a Jew doesn’t accept that distinction, then it seems the biblical arguments of celibates and “late” marriages would be best.

 

[sleeper987]

If that was a rule then Paul and most the other Apostles broke it too!

 

[Richard_Lamb]

tractarian:

There’s like a gajillion apologetics threads dealing with objections to Catholicism from Protestants and atheists, so i thought i’d contribute something different:

Nearly every Jewish apologetic website i’ve seen mentions that one of the reasons Jesus could not be the Jewish Messiah is that he broke one of the Torah precepts. The Jewish interpretation of Genesis 1:28 is that it is a commandment for every Jew (every human being, in fact) to get married and have children; in the traditional list of 613 mitzvot (commandments), this mitzvah often appears as #1.

It is apparent that prior to the founding of the Church, all of the Mosaic laws were still binding upon Jews, including Jesus (Matt 23:3).

Even more to the point, the New Testament says several times that Jesus was sinless (I John 3:5, I Pet 2:22, etc). Yet he never married. Even though that mitzvah is nolonger binding upon us Christians, at the very least Jesus was guilty of the sin of disobedience since he was still under the Mosaic Law.

It really does matter whether Jesus was the Messiah promised to Israel, because if he was not, he loses all connection with the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob. The New Testament could be 100% true, Ressurection, Divinity and everything, and Jesus would be no more than any other ancient pagan tale of a god (not the God) incarnating as a human. Like Vishnu or Osiris. To be our Savior, Jesus needs to be the Jewish Messiah first.

And i have just made a case against that, for your apologetic enjoyment.
(This is not a thread about Mary Magdalene, the DaVinci Code, or anything like that. It takes it a priori that Jesus was lifelong single man.)

I could be wrong but I beleive mah=ny f the old Testament prophets were not married. John the baptist was not married either.