Do you think Jesus was married?   

I was seeking to get 100 hundred responses this week to my question, but ended up with just 25 . . . too much bad weather and not enough time.  I did appreciate those who took a moment in the midst of the busy Christmas season to share their thoughts on this contemporary question. 

I don’t know to which faith people belonged—didn’t ask this week.  But here are the stats:

“No” – 8

“I don’t know” – 8 (some suggested it could be a good possibility because our lives are to be patterned after his life)

“Yes” – 7 (one woman referenced a volume, The Marriage of Jesus, that she saw long ago when in seminary . . . does anyone know about this book?)

“He had a female partner” – 2

Two reasons evoked this question:  first, all the buzz over the Da Vinci Code book and movie, secondly, Ogden and Skinner’s side comments in John 2 over Jesus at the marriage feast.

Ogden and Skinner in The Four Gospels (Deseret Book, 2006) suggest Jesus was indeed married. 

Jesus himself was now more than thirty years of age and would probably have married, as was customary for Jewish men to do in their late teens:  ‘At five years old one is ready for the scripture, at ten years for the Mishnah, at thirteen for the commandments, at fifteen for Talmud, at eighteen for marriage, at twenty for pursuit of righteousness, at thirty for full strength’ (Pirke Aboth, V:24).  Had Jesus not been married, we would undoubtedly read of accusation after accusation against him, because marriage was number one of the commandments God had given from the beginning to the meridian of time.  As we have no record of objections to his teaching, it would appear that he had already complied with this most important commandment.  (This point of view does not represent a doctrinal statement but is simply an observation about ancient Jewish culture.)  Joseph Smith taught that the Savior obeyed all ordinances necessary for exaltation:  “If a man gets a fullness of the priesthood of God he has to get it in the same way that Jesus Christ obtained it, and that was by keeping all the commandments and obeying all the ordinances of the house of the Lord” (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 308).  Robert J. Matthews reemphasizes the Prophet’s point:  ‘Jesus kept every commandment of His Father; He held the Melchizedek Priesthood and observed every ordinance of the priesthood pertaining to mortality, including all ordinances of the temple’ (Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior, 316)  (pp. 108-109).

Where Skinner writes with confidence in Verse by Verse, more restraint on Jesus’ marital status is shown in a later book released this year.  Early fall, I picked up a copy of What Da Vinci Didn’t Know:  An LDS Perspective (Deseret Book, 2006), co-authored by Richard Neitzel Holzapfel, Andrew C. Skinner, and Thomas A. Wayment.  In chapter 3, “A Married Savior?” they cover in sequential order—Restoration Scriptures, Inference from Scripture, Nonscriptural Evidence, and Latter-day Statements on Jesus’ Marriage.

On page 39, the authors briefly acknowledge, “The Church is His bride, meaning that His whole focus and fidelity were centered on the eternal happiness of the bride—the members of His Church collectively and all of His Father’s children.  As the Bridegroom, He would be taken away from the bride to offer Himself as a sacrifice for her, to atone for her sins as well as the sins of the whole world (see Matthew 9:15; Mark 2:19-20).  Jesus gave the parable of the Ten Virgins to teach His disciples that they—the bride—must be loyal to Him and prepare purposefully for the return of the Bridegroom (see Matthew 25:1-13).” 

I just wish they would have dealt more with all the great spiritual wonders of spiritual union with Christ.  The book of Ephesians pulsates with this central truth.  Physical marriage is only an earthly picture.  Also, I wonder why they would openly say, “Paul was likely unmarried during his missionary journeys . . . ” and “By comparison, John the Baptist also appears to be unmarried in the Gospel accounts . . . ” (p. 41), but not link such statements for Jesus.

They cautiously conclude the chapter:

We, along with other thoughtful and believing New Testament scholars, know of no doctrinal reason why Jesus could not have been married and still be the divine Son of God, capable of and willing to atone for the sins of the world.

On the issue of what the historical record tells us about the subject, we admit that the New Testament record is virtually silent on the marital status of both Jesus and Mary Magdalene.

Restoration scripture provides little additional information on this subject.  However, we are left with little doubt that several of the leaders of the Church in the early part of this dispensation believed and taught that Jesus was married.  We do not need to explain or defend them.

However, we also recognize that many leaders of the Church have also cautioned us about speculating on issues that the scriptures have not addressed.

It the end, it would not bother modern disciples who are firmly rooted in the doctrines and ordinances of the kingdom to find out one day that Jesus was married while on earth.  Eternal marriage is one of the most ennobling doctrines in our Heavenly Father’s plan of happiness (see Doctrine and Covenants 132).

Someday we will know all things and have our questions answered.  The Lord has promised that there is “a time to come in the which nothing shall be withheld, whether there be one God or many gods, they shall be manifest.  All thrones and dominions, principalities and powers, shall be revealed and set forth upon all who have endured valiantly for the gospel of Jesus Christ” (Doctrine and Covenants 121:28-29; emphasis added).  But therein is found the ultimate point.  If we have not studied and applied in our lives the profundity of the Atonement of our Lord and come to know for a certainty of His divinity, no other information we acquire about Him will make any difference. (p. 50).

As I study John, I am not caught up with either the question over whether Jesus is physically married in heaven or the manifestation of other gods.  I am too busy marveling over my spiritual marriage to the Person of Jesus Christ in the flesh, the exegesis of the One true unseen God.  Remember John 1:18?

Thank God for this marriage, because at one time I had a marriage that absolutely stunk (Romans 7).