Bunker Mulligan "Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry." ~Mark Twain

I picked up a copy of Da Vinci Code yesterday and began reading it last night. The book’s concept interests me. I’ve read several articles condemning the thesis that Jesus was married, all of which dispute the claim as blasphemy. I take issue with that. Christianity differs from other religions in that dissent and opposing viewpoints are inherent. When The Church became so rigid as to crush dissent, dissenters splintered off as Protestants. Each of the Protestant churches has differing views. In fact, virtually every congregation is different in some way.

There have been several scholarly studies on the issue of Jesus’ marital status, and many more non-scholarly treatises. Da Vinci Code is one of the latter, but the thesis can’t simply be dismissed as bunk. If Jesus followed, as he apparently did, all the teachings of Judaism throughout his life, it would not be a surprise to find out he married.

Those who, like David Limbaugh and Hal Lindsey, cannot reconcile their own beliefs with the possibility of Jesus’ marriage do a disservice to the tenets of religion. I wrote to Lindsey to express my view that whether Jesus was married or not did nothing to change my religious beliefs, and I asked why it would upset his. I got no reply. One line in his linked article gives an indication of his reason: ‘The natural man can only look at a man-woman relationship from a sexually based orientation.