Some of you are aware that I do amateurish DNA and genealogical research in my spare time. It is with some degree of trepidation that I must report that this concept of "Jesus had a wife" has reared it's contentious head in that research.
Through my own research I had pushed back some branches of my family tree to 7 - 10 generations. All of them have grown to at least 5 generations before the trail runs cold, others are outliers at 16 to 17 generations. There is a website, "My Heritage" I think it is called, that is operated by, I believe, the Mormons. They have stored a few million family trees, as Mormons are wont to do. What happens there is you go and plug in as much of your family tree as you know, and an algorithm searches the database of family trees for connections to the one YOU just input, and matches found are attached to what you input yourself to extend your tree to the limits of their supposed knowledge. The farther back you have, the more likely connections will be found.
So I did it, thinking this may be the lazy man's way of extending knowledge of my ancestry. Let other folks drive for a while.
What was produced were some unexpected results which I am not altogether comfortable with or confident in, but it's been fun tracing these branches down to see where someone else says they lead to. By doing that, I have found alleged "connections" to, among others, Alfred the Great, William the Conqueror, a "Sir Baldwin Fulford" (who was beheaded 9 Sep 1461 in Devon for maintaining loyalty to his buddy Henry VI against the usurping Edward IV - Eddie won, and set about eliminating the opposition... I guess he wasn't a very gracious winner), Rollo Duke of Normandy, Ragnar Lodbrok (semi mythological) through his son Ivar the Boneless (documented to have really existed, even if his dad isn't), Charlemagne (estimated to be in the ancestry of every single living European - so no real surprise there), Charles Martel (if you've got Charlemagne, you've got Charles Martel), Boudicca and Prasutagus, and, among others... Jesus Christ himself!
And here I had been telling folks all these years that I just came from a long line of horse thieves and cutthroats! Imagine my surprise!
Here's how that happens: After a certain point, actual relationship records get "spotty" at best. That point is different in different places, depending on when the locals thought it was a good idea to start keeping records. In England, that point probably occurs around the time the Domesday Book was recorded, or maybe just slightly before. Beyond that point, "stories" like sagas and mythologies are substituted for actual records by some folks, and mythologies creep into family trees when those folks introduce them.
Some of those stories and mythologies involve Jesus Christ and his alleged wife Mary Magdalene, and a daughter they are alleged to have had named "Saint Sarah" (usually) whose progeny went on to found a royal dynasty (Merovingians) in Europe that lasted 300 years or so before being overthrown by the Carolingians. Enter Jesus Christ himself into my family tree via the magic of mythology.
On my mother's side, this spurious lineage traced back through the Merovingians to "Yeshua ben Yussuf", whose father is listed as Joseph, a carpenter. Another branch on my father's side leads back to the same individual, but who is there listed as "Jesus the Christ", whose father is listed as "Elohim" - so this mythological connection has been salted into that database at least twice, by two separate people, who list the names differently. In that one, Jesus is listed at the 69th generation, with "Elohim" listed as the 70th generation, which I gather to be some sort of magic number to Christians.
As I said above, I have no evidence either way that Jesus was married, and still fail to see why it would upset Christianity if he was - that's not supposed to be the important part of their story, and it couldn't take anything away from what they are supposed to be preaching. It would just be a thing, not an important or earth-shaking thing, just a thing. On the other hand, I find no evidence to support the notion, either... because it's not supposed to be important to Christians. No reason to record it either way.
What DOES grind my grits at this point is that some unscrupulous folk are using the mythologies built up around the notion as actual "history", and trying to insert it into the historical record by nefarious means, mucking up perfectly functional genealogical research in the process of trying to prove their contention.
That kinda burns muh biscuits.
.
Through my own research I had pushed back some branches of my family tree to 7 - 10 generations. All of them have grown to at least 5 generations before the trail runs cold, others are outliers at 16 to 17 generations. There is a website, "My Heritage" I think it is called, that is operated by, I believe, the Mormons. They have stored a few million family trees, as Mormons are wont to do. What happens there is you go and plug in as much of your family tree as you know, and an algorithm searches the database of family trees for connections to the one YOU just input, and matches found are attached to what you input yourself to extend your tree to the limits of their supposed knowledge. The farther back you have, the more likely connections will be found.
So I did it, thinking this may be the lazy man's way of extending knowledge of my ancestry. Let other folks drive for a while.
What was produced were some unexpected results which I am not altogether comfortable with or confident in, but it's been fun tracing these branches down to see where someone else says they lead to. By doing that, I have found alleged "connections" to, among others, Alfred the Great, William the Conqueror, a "Sir Baldwin Fulford" (who was beheaded 9 Sep 1461 in Devon for maintaining loyalty to his buddy Henry VI against the usurping Edward IV - Eddie won, and set about eliminating the opposition... I guess he wasn't a very gracious winner), Rollo Duke of Normandy, Ragnar Lodbrok (semi mythological) through his son Ivar the Boneless (documented to have really existed, even if his dad isn't), Charlemagne (estimated to be in the ancestry of every single living European - so no real surprise there), Charles Martel (if you've got Charlemagne, you've got Charles Martel), Boudicca and Prasutagus, and, among others... Jesus Christ himself!
And here I had been telling folks all these years that I just came from a long line of horse thieves and cutthroats! Imagine my surprise!
Here's how that happens: After a certain point, actual relationship records get "spotty" at best. That point is different in different places, depending on when the locals thought it was a good idea to start keeping records. In England, that point probably occurs around the time the Domesday Book was recorded, or maybe just slightly before. Beyond that point, "stories" like sagas and mythologies are substituted for actual records by some folks, and mythologies creep into family trees when those folks introduce them.
Some of those stories and mythologies involve Jesus Christ and his alleged wife Mary Magdalene, and a daughter they are alleged to have had named "Saint Sarah" (usually) whose progeny went on to found a royal dynasty (Merovingians) in Europe that lasted 300 years or so before being overthrown by the Carolingians. Enter Jesus Christ himself into my family tree via the magic of mythology.
On my mother's side, this spurious lineage traced back through the Merovingians to "Yeshua ben Yussuf", whose father is listed as Joseph, a carpenter. Another branch on my father's side leads back to the same individual, but who is there listed as "Jesus the Christ", whose father is listed as "Elohim" - so this mythological connection has been salted into that database at least twice, by two separate people, who list the names differently. In that one, Jesus is listed at the 69th generation, with "Elohim" listed as the 70th generation, which I gather to be some sort of magic number to Christians.
As I said above, I have no evidence either way that Jesus was married, and still fail to see why it would upset Christianity if he was - that's not supposed to be the important part of their story, and it couldn't take anything away from what they are supposed to be preaching. It would just be a thing, not an important or earth-shaking thing, just a thing. On the other hand, I find no evidence to support the notion, either... because it's not supposed to be important to Christians. No reason to record it either way.
What DOES grind my grits at this point is that some unscrupulous folk are using the mythologies built up around the notion as actual "history", and trying to insert it into the historical record by nefarious means, mucking up perfectly functional genealogical research in the process of trying to prove their contention.
That kinda burns muh biscuits.
.
Diogenes was eating bread and lentils for supper. He was seen by the philosopher Aristippus, who lived comfortably by flattering the king.
Said Aristippus, ‘If you would learn to be subservient to the king you would not have to live on lentils.’ Said Diogenes, ‘Learn to live on lentils and you will not have to be subservient to the king.’
Said Aristippus, ‘If you would learn to be subservient to the king you would not have to live on lentils.’ Said Diogenes, ‘Learn to live on lentils and you will not have to be subservient to the king.’