Would Jesus be considered an illegitimate child?

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GloriaPatri4

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Before anyone goes into attack mode I really do not know the answer to this question even though I probably should.

There are a couple threads regarding illigitimate priests and illigitimate children going on in the Moral Theology category and it’s made me wonder about Jesus’ legitmacy in the earthly world, not the heavenly world.

Since Jesus’ father (God) was not of the earthly world and never had a sacramental marriage (is this the correct term for a Jewish wedding?) would he technically be considered illigitimate? What is the Church teaching on this?

If this is not the appropriate category for this subject I apologize.
 
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GloriaPatri4:
Since Jesus’ father (God) was not of the earthly world and never had a sacramental marriage (is this the correct term for a Jewish wedding?) would he technically be considered illigitimate? What is the Church teaching on this?

If this is not the appropriate category for this subject I apologize.
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A marriage is a Sacrament ordained by God (see Tobit), we actually only witness the Sacrament. During the annunciation the angel of God informed Mary of God’s plan, but it wasn’t a covenant until Mary freely accepted. In this sense it is a Sacramental marriage between Mary and God. Therefore Mary is the bride of God, in the Holy Spirit; the favored daughter of God, the Father and the mother of God, Jesus. And no it doesn’t make Mary and God an incest family….
 
From an earthly point of view, Joseph and Mary were married and therefore Jesus would be legitimate. People would assume that Joseph was the father.
 
Yeah, a child becomes legitamized if the parents get married…

Besides, doesn’t Jesus being ‘begotten’ have something to do with it?
 
An illegitimate son would never hear “This is my beloved Son, on whom my favor rests.”

Jesus could not be considered, in any real sense, illegitimate.

-Jim
 
Ann Cheryl:
From an earthly point of view, Joseph and Mary were married and therefore Jesus would be legitimate. People would assume that Joseph was the father.
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Actually scripture nowhere states that Joseph and Mary got married or underwent the second stage of Jewish marriage (the canopy ceremony) that made them fully man and wife.

They are only described as **betrothed ** - which was the first, and non-consummated stage of Jewish marriage.
 
I also have been wondering if Mary and Joseph ever had the wedding ceremony. Jesus thought so highly of marriage that he performed his first miracle at a wedding. I am not a bible scholar but I also never read anywhere about Mary’s wedding. Protestants would say it never happened if it was not in the bible. I wonder what Mary did after the annunciation. All I know for sure is that she ?immediately? went to visit and help Elizabeth who was 6 months pregnant. If Mary was with Elizabeth for at least the first 3 months of her own pregnancy…when and where did she marry Joseph? Maybe it was a Jewish custom for pregnant woman not to have a public wedding ceremony and Joseph did not want to create scandal.
 
One can say that God the Father and Mary were spouses through the most basic form of wedlock which is mutual consent. Joseph and Mary were betrothed for the purpose of forming a guardianship marriage. This is a marriage of a woman who is consecrated to the temple as a virgin to an elder man, usually a widower, who will protect her chastity and offer her a home and sustenence. Though this is rare, it is not unheard of in Jewish history.

In a guardian relationship, while the two are legally married, there is no need to consumate the marriage through childbirth and child rearing. In fact, since the woman is a virgin dedicated to the service of the temple, childbirth via normal interaction of the elderly husband would be considered a violation of the union and a grave sin.

According to the Protoevangelium of James (120 AD), both Joseph and Mary endured much criticism and threats by the Jewish elders when Mary was found to be with child.

So… Mary is the spouse of God, even to the point of a consumated marriage as she bore His only child and raised Him according to the faith, and Joseph was a guardian protector of Mary and a foster father to Jesus.

Thal59
 
That was part of the reason the angel came to Joseph. Bad things would have happened to Mary if she were to be pregnant and not married.
 
Ann Cheryl:
From an earthly point of view, Joseph and Mary were married and therefore Jesus would be legitimate. People would assume that Joseph was the father.
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Exactly. Illegitimate is a legal term and Joseph was the legal father (remember all those geneologies read at Christmas.)
 
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Axion:
Actually scripture nowhere states that Joseph and Mary got married or underwent the second stage of Jewish marriage (the canopy ceremony) that made them fully man and wife.

They are only described as **betrothed **- which was the first, and non-consumm
11 “Behold, the virgin shall be with child and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel,” which means “God is with us.” .
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Axion:
Actually scripture nowhere states that Joseph and Mary got married or underwent the second stage of Jewish marriage (the canopy ceremony) that made them fully man and wife.

They are only described as **betrothed **- which was the first, and non-consummated stage of Jewish marriage.
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This is from Mathew 1:20
Such was his intention when, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into your home. For it is through the Holy Spirit that this child has been conceived in her.

I am not sure but I don’t think the canopy ceremony existed at the time. It is my understanding that the couple was married but that the woman did not live with her husband for about a year. This period of time was called the engagement or betrothal time. At the end of the year the woman went to live with her husband. Hence we see that Joseph in a dream is told not to be afraid to take her into his home. No further ceremony was necessary as they were already married.
 
How can a child be illegitimate, it like asking if his teachings were illegitimate. This question is piontless.
 
The engagement or “betrothal” period was up to a year, during this time the couple was indeed considered “married” for all intents and purposes, to include conjugal acts. This is the reason Joseph considered a “divorce”, if they weren’t considered married there would be no reason for this divorce. The reason for this protracted period was the time needed to travel for the wedding. Remember they couldn’t just hop into their SUV and be home in a few minutes, nor could the wedding guests. It took up to a year just to notify all the guests, plan the wedding and have the guests arrive. This is also the reason Scripture insures us that they had no relations, since it was considered normal for couples to have sex prior to the ceremony.
 
The title of this thread is very shocking. Isn’t it irreverent?
 
I have to admit, this topic leaves me a bit ill at ease, but let me put my two cents in.

I’m taking a New Testament class at school and by no means does this make me an expert, but I thought I’d share somthing that my prof. told us.
In the Jewish culture, because it was male dominated, a child was refurred to as so and so son of so and so. Now this could go both ways, but in the Bible, it states that Jesus was refurred to as “Son of Mary”. That would have been a direct jab at Jesus’ parents b/c, in the culture at that time, according to my prof, if you were called by your mother’s name and not your fathers, that gave rise to serious questions about your ligitamacy. It implied by that statement, that Mary ‘slept around’ b/c Jesus is not refurred to as Jesus, son of Joseph.
That being said however, there are other passages in the bible that state: “Isn’t this the Carpenter’s son?”

I agree though, Jesus would be a ligetament child. Esp. with the sayings of the Father at His baptism.
 
Seeks God:
Yeah, a child becomes legitamized if the parents get married…

Besides, doesn’t Jesus being ‘begotten’ have something to do with it?
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Wasn’t Mary “with child,” though, before the wedding actually took place? Isn’t that enough evidence for the world to consider Him illegitimate.

This is not necessarily an emotional or theologic question; it is a social question. We weren’t asked about illegitimate in the eyes of God, but in the eyes of a worldly society.

In the eyes of society Jesus was a drunkard who hung around with tax collectors and prostitutes and defended his people when they broke traditions such as ceremonial handwashing. Some thought He was the prince of demons. How much would His being illegitimate add to it? I have little doubt that anybody who knew how to work a calendar would have had suspicions.

Alan
 
It was the same then as it is now: The husband of the child’s mother is the presumed legal father of the child. A child born to married parents is by definition legitmate, regardless of the child’s true biological parentage.

If there is another man who is the bio-dad, he would have to contest the husband’s presumed fatherhood in a court of law in order to gain parental rights. These days that is done with DNA testing. In biblical times I doubt that it was ever done.

BTW, that is the reason why Jewish descent has always been reckoned through the mother, not the father - you can always be pretty sure who the mother is. Not so with the father.
 
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GloriaPatri4:
Since Jesus’ father (God) was not of the earthly world and never had a sacramental marriage (is this the correct term for a Jewish wedding?) would he technically be considered illigitimate? What is the Church teaching on this?

If this is not the appropriate category for this subject I apologize.
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sacramental marriage had not been established when Joseph and Mary married according to Jewish law, to which they were subject and which they obeyed. According to Jewish law, they were lawfully married and Joseph was acknowledged as the legal and putative father of Jesus, regardless of whether the circumstance of Mary having already conceived before the wedding was generally known.
 
Matthew 1: 1818 Now this is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about. When his mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found with child through the holy Spirit.
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Footnotes from The New American Bible
Betrothed to Joseph: betrothal was the first part of the marriage, constituting a man and woman as husband and wife. Subsequent infidelity was considered adultery. The betrothal was followed some months later by the husband’s taking his wife into his home, at which time normal married life began.
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Mary had completed the first part of the marriage ceremony before the Angel visited her.

In my previous post, I quoted where the angel told Joseph not to worry and to take Mary HIS WIFE to his home which was the second part of the marriage ceremony.
 
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