{"id":80,"date":"2003-12-10T02:22:00","date_gmt":"2003-12-10T02:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=80"},"modified":"2012-05-22T16:07:50","modified_gmt":"2012-05-22T22:07:50","slug":"80","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=80","title":{"rendered":"Of Course Jesus Was Married"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/strong>I did not want to be one of the 50 people in the English-speaking world who had not read The Da Vinci Code<\/em>, especially after one of my students wrote a flattering review of it in which I recognized all the elements of Holy Blood, Holy Grail<\/em>, so I got a copy. Think of it as “Tom Clancy meets Holy Blood, Holy Grail<\/em>.”<\/p>\n

It’s a remarkably Pagan-friendly book, in a generic sort of way.<\/p>\n

Apparently, the book’s success has led more Catholics to take a hard look <\/a>at the Opus Dei organization.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the book’s success has Christian apologists scrambling!<\/a> No, he wasn’t married, no no no! All wrong! Evil obscene pagan propaganda!<\/p>\n

Here is another attempt.<\/a>. But all these Christian apologists can do is endlessly quote their four gospels. They do not deal with the notion that 1st-century Jews did not promote celibacy as a religious option. Temple priests, rabbis, kings and shoemakers were all expected to marry and produce children. How would a healthy 30-year-old carpenter\/building contractor have evaded that social responsibilty?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I did not want to be one of the 50 people in the English-speaking world who had not read The Da Vinci Code, especially after one of my students wrote a flattering review of it in which I recognized all the elements of Holy Blood, Holy Grail, so I got a copy. Think of it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[24,12],"class_list":["post-80","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-christianity","tag-writing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s6xQTg-80","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":900,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=900","url_meta":{"origin":80,"position":0},"title":"Gallimaufry","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 30, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00b6 Is a Celtic bowl the Nazi holy grail? Probably not, but it might inspire a Dan Brown-wannabe.\u00b6 On Sunday we leave on a trip to the Mendocino coast. We are taking Amtrak most of the way. Some of our friends seem to think that we are eccentric for preferring\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"blogging\"","block_context":{"text":"blogging","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=blogging"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12059,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=12059","url_meta":{"origin":80,"position":1},"title":"Christmas, When the Veil is Thin","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 11, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"In December (yeah, this is late) I was tapped by a public library in Oregon to give an hour's Zoom lecture on the \"Pagan origins of Christmas.\" I did it, but that format is still pretty weird. How many people are watching? Three? Thirty? Three hundred? And are they awake?\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"ancestors\"","block_context":{"text":"ancestors","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=ancestors"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Christmas-eve-lantern-1-238x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2165,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2165","url_meta":{"origin":80,"position":2},"title":"Why We Do Pagan Studies – 2","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 16, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"(Part 1 here) Just to continue the previous discussion, let's look at a Pagan scholar's (in both senses of the term) book, Niki Bado's Coming to the Edge of the Circle (Oxford University Press, 2005). Its subtitle is\u00a0 \"A Wiccan Initiation Ritual.\"\u00a0 But is that all that it is about?\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 4 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 4 comments","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2165#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"Coming to the Edge of the Circle: A Wiccan Initiation Ritual","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ecx.images-amazon.com\/images\/I\/41FdQcxfVoL._SL160_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-dp%2CTopRight%2C12%2C-18_SH30_OU01_AA160_.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1028,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1028","url_meta":{"origin":80,"position":3},"title":"Nazi Archaeology and the Holy Grail","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 25, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"There really was a Nazi archaeologist who sought the Holy Grail and wrote a book about it, Otto Rahn:There was more in a similar vein -- a lot more. To the untrained ear, this has a note of desperate flannel about it. However, Himmler loved the book and ordered 5,000\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"archaeology\"","block_context":{"text":"archaeology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=archaeology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7932,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7932","url_meta":{"origin":80,"position":4},"title":"Assessing a New Book on Jesus’ Wife","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 24, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"I used to think that of course Jesus was married \u2014 what normal 1st-century small-town Jewish man would not be married? Answer: most of the Essenes, to name one group. The perennial interest in an actual bloodline of his descendents is periodically stoked by books like Holy Blood, Holy Grail,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"books\"","block_context":{"text":"books","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=books"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/e\/ir?t=soutrocknatub-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1605986100","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3093,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3093","url_meta":{"origin":80,"position":5},"title":"No, Not That Horned God","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 18, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Celebrate your Christian faith with a touch of that ol' Pagan mystique: the \"Holy Shed.\" That is \"shed\" in the sense of naturally shed deer or elk antlers, which some people like to collect for decor projects or for sale to be powdered for Asian men who have not yet\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Christianity\"","block_context":{"text":"Christianity","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=christianity"},"img":{"alt_text":"The \"holy shed\" antler cross","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/holyshed-218x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=80"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4253,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80\/revisions\/4253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=80"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=80"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=80"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}