Annette Merz offers a short assessment of Jesus' marital status. She kindly cites my book alongside a few others. New to me is the suggestion made by Martin Luther that Jesus employed prostitutes from time to time. After all, Jesus was fully human and therefore was a sexual person. Merz rightly points out that this reveals more about Luther's view of masculinity than it does about Jesus' sexuality.
-anthony
I'm curious if either of you (or even the hot-blooded Luther) discuss Giod's command to Jeremiah not to take a wife:
ReplyDelete"The word of the Lord came to me: 2 “You shall not take a wife, nor shall you have sons or daughters in this place. 3 For thus says the Lord concerning the sons and daughters who are born in this place, and concerning the mothers who bore them and the fathers who begot them in this land: 4 They shall die of deadly diseases. They shall not be lamented, nor shall they be buried; they shall be as dung on the surface of the ground. They shall perish by the sword and by famine, and their dead bodies shall be food for the birds of the air and for the beasts of the earth." (Jeremiah 16)
I can't remember whether I talk about this passage in my book. I will say, however, that this command to Jeremiah proves that celibacy is an extreme - almost doomsday - position among ancient Northerners. I.e. Jeremiah's was an irregular call bespeaking an austere circumstance.
DeleteThat said, there is a difference between marriage and sex - and Luther seems aware of this difference.
-anthony
Given the explanation offered to Jeremiah for abstaining from marriage - impending doom on the kingdom of Judah, and given that Jesus likewise thought that there was impending doom on Israel, and that he had a similar calling to Jeremiah, and was fated to an early death, would it make sense that Jesus also felt called to abstain from marriage? As to abstaining from sex, who am I to argue with Luther?
DeleteAnthony, its obvious that the statement of Maarten Luther says a lot about his view on sex. But considering Jesus' sexlife, it all depends on Jesus' view on celibacy and Mez point at Matteus 19:12.
ReplyDeleteHere Jesus just sums up different examples of eunuchs. You might assume, as Merz does, that Jesus is talking about himself too, but he doesn't make any statement of judgement about it. So just this passage seems not convincing to me to conclude Jesus advocates celibacy. But maybe there are more references to celibacy in the gospels im not aware of?
If not, the statement of Maarten Luther makes sense.
There are more references to celibacy, both direct and indirect in the gospels. I comment on these in my book The Wife of Jesus.
Delete-anthony
I was surprised I had never heard this idea attributed to Luther before. I tried Googling it, and this is what I found:
ReplyDelete"Christ was an adulterer for the first time with the woman at the well, for it was said, 'Nobody knows what he's doing with her'. Again with Magdalene, and still again with the adulterous woman in John 8, whom he let off so easily. So the good Christ had to become an adulterer before he died."
From what I can find about Luther's "suggestion", his comment was recorded second-hand by someone having a meal with him, and this scribe didn't provide any context to the quote. But from how the statement reads, it seems that Luther was speaking figuratively, from the perspective of Jesus' opponents, i.e. because Jesus was seen in the company of women and prostitutes, his opponents concluded he "must" have been employing them.
Otherwise, the only websites I could find that discuss the claim all showed up in 2006 (or after), when The Da Vinci Code was released in theaters.
I came across some other weird quotes - whose veracity I can't check and, given the source, seem questionable - on this site, under the "Marriage and Women" section: http://www.catholicapologetics.info/apologetics/protestantism/matluther.htm#_ftnref44
DeletePossible insight on Luther's remarks here: http://beggarsallreformation.blogspot.com/2005/12/luther-said-christ-committed-adultery.html
ReplyDelete