Was Jesus Married to Mary Magdalene?

The notion that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married is one that has received a great deal of attention in popular culture. For instance, the idea of a conjugal union between Jesus and Mary Magdalene was a central plot point of the 2003 mystery thriller novel The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. Meanwhile, you can find all kinds of articles online, many of them influenced by The Da Vinci Code, contending that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married. It seems to be a very popular idea.

I have debunked claims from The Da Vinci Code before; for instance, in this article I published in August 2019, I debunk the misconception popularized by The Da Vinci Code that the books of the New Testament were chosen by Constantine I, when, in reality, the New Testament canon was mostly agreed upon long before Constantine I was born and what issues there were with the canon in Constantine I’s day were not resolved until long after his death. In this article, however, I will be tackling the most fundamental contention of the novel: the contention that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married and had offspring.

Historically speaking, it is highly, highly improbable that Jesus ever married or ever had any offspring. None of the canonical gospels ever even remotely imply that Jesus had a sexual relationship with anyone or that he ever had any offspring, nor do even the later apocryphal gospels imply either of these things. Furthermore, there are some very good reasons to believe that Jesus did not marry or have a sexual partner and that he did not have any offspring.

Evidence from Paul

The earliest extant Christian writings are the seven undisputedly authentic epistles of the apostle Paul, which are as follows:

• The First Epistle to the Thessalonians (most likely written c. 50 or 51 AD)
• The Epistle to the Galatians (most likely written either c. 49 , c. 53, or c. 55 AD)
• The First Epistle to the Corinthians (most likely written c. 53 or 54 AD)
• The Epistle to the Philippians (most likely written c. 54 or 55 AD)
• The Epistle to Philemon (most likely written c. 54 or 55 AD)
• The Second Epistle to the Corinthians (most likely written c. 55 or 56 AD)
• The Epistle to the Romans (most likely written c. 57 AD)

Even in the undisputed Pauline Epistles, we already find compelling evidence against the idea that Jesus was married—although not necessarily against the idea that he might have had children out of wedlock.

In the First Epistle to the Corinthians 9:3–5, as part of a defense of the legality of marriage, Paul, who knew Jesus’s brother James as well as his closest disciple Peter, writes, as translated in the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV):

“This is my defense to those who would examine me. Do we not have the right to our food and drink? Do we not have the right to be accompanied by a believing wife, as do the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas?”

Notice that Paul does not cite Jesus as an example of a person of faith who was married. If Jesus had been married, Paul almost certainly would have mentioned that fact here, since it would be an absolutely failproof lynchpin to his argument in favor of the legality of marriage. No Christian would have been able to contest the legality of marriage if Jesus himself had been married.

Despite this, Paul conspicuously does not use Jesus as an example of Christian marriage. Instead, he cites Cephas (i.e. Peter) and Jesus’s brothers. As I mentioned before, Paul knew people who had known Jesus while he was alive, so, if Jesus had been married, it is highly probable that Paul would have known. The fact that Paul shows no awareness of Jesus having had a wife strongly indicates that Jesus was not married.

Paul also never mentions Mary Magdalene at all at any point in any of his extant epistles. If Mary Magdalene had been Jesus’s wife, Paul surely would have mentioned her. Instead, she is completely absent from his letters. Paul never even mentions the famous story of Mary Magdalene and the other women discovering the empty tomb of Jesus, which is first mentioned in the Gospel of Mark.

ABOVE: Paul Writing His Epistles, painted in the seventeenth century by the French Tenebrist painter Valentin de Bologne. This painting is actually historically inaccurate, because most historians agree that Paul probably dictated his epistles to a scribe rather than writing them himself, apparently because of poor eyesight or bad handwriting, as indicated by passages such as Galatians 6:11 and Romans 16:22.

Evidence from the canonical gospels

The earliest surviving gospel is the Gospel of Mark, which was probably written sometime around 70 AD or thereabouts. The Gospel of Matthew probably dates to within a decade or two after the Gospel of Mark. The Gospel of Luke, which seems to rely on Josephus’s Antiquities of the Jews, which was published in around 94 AD, probably dates to the late 90s AD. The Gospel of John, the last of the canonical gospels, most likely dates to the first half of the second century AD.

The canonical gospels were all originally anonymous; the earliest mentions of them refer to them as anonymous writings and the names we know them by were only attached to them in the late second century AD. Obviously, since they were written so late and since we do not know who wrote them, the canonical gospels are not particularly reliable sources of information about Jesus’s life.

Nonetheless, it is generally agreed that the canonical gospels, especially the Synoptic Gospels of Mark, Matthew, and Luke, do contain some accurate information about the historical Jesus. Picking out what information is accurate can be difficult, since the gospels are so full of legends, rumors, and exaggerations. Nevertheless, there is some material in the canonical gospels that is historical.

The canonical gospels never mention anything at all about Jesus having ever been married to anyone—let alone Mary Magdalene. In fact, Mary Magdalene is never even mentioned in the Gospel of Mark until after Jesus’s crucifixion and, when she is finally mentioned for the first time in Mark 15:40, she is simply listed alongside two other women: Mary, the mother of James the Lesser, and Salome. Admittedly, Mary Magdalene is listed first, perhaps indicating that she was seen as the most important of the three, but she is still only listed, not described or introduced.

ABOVE: The Deposition, painted in 1507 by the Italian Renaissance artist Raphael, depicting Jesus’s body being carried to the tomb, with Mary Magdalene holding his hand and weeping for him. Mary Magdalene is not even mentioned in the Gospel of Mark until Jesus’s crucifixion.

In the Gospel of Matthew, Mary Magdalene plays an only somewhat more significant role, since, in the Gospel of Matthew, she is described, along with one woman named as “the other Mary,” as the first witness to Jesus’s resurrection. (In the original version of the Gospel of Mark, the women at the tomb never actually see the risen Jesus.)

It is only in the later Gospels of Luke and John that Mary Magdalene’s role in the narrative is expanded. For instance, the Gospel of Luke 8:1-3 lists Mary Magdalene as one of the women funding Jesus’s ministry and states that Jesus drove “seven demons” out of her, which is probably supposed to mean that Jesus cured her of some terrible affliction. None of this information, though, is found in any of the earlier sources and this whole story of Jesus driving seven demons out of Mary Magdalene may just be a legend.

I used to be absolutely convinced that Mary Magdalene was a historical figure, but I am no longer so convinced. She is never mentioned in any of the Pauline Epistles and it is entirely possible that she is just a legendary figure. It is even possible that she was just made up wholesale by the anonymous author of the Gospel of Mark. I would give her maybe a 50/50 chance of having been a real person.

ABOVE: The Conversion of Mary Magdalene, painted in 1548 by the Italian Baroque painter Paulo Veronese

The complete lack of mention in any of our earliest sources of Jesus having had any kind of spouse, sexual partner, or any offspring whatsoever is all the more significant when we consider the fact that the Synoptic Gospels actually mention quite a few very specific details about Jesus’s family.

The Gospel of Mark 6:3, for instance, states that Jesus was a τέκτων (téktōn), which is Greek for “workman,” “craftsman,” or “carpenter.” The same verse also states that Jesus’s mother was named Mary, that Jesus had four brothers named James, Joseph (or Joses, a shortened form of Joseph), Judas, and Simon, and that he had at least two sisters, whose names are not recorded. Likewise, the Gospel of Matthew 13:55–56 lists all four of Jesus’s brothers by name and makes mention of the fact that he also had sisters.

If Jesus was married or if he had any children, we are forced to wonder, “Why would the gospels record all this information about his parents and siblings, but somehow completely fail to mention the crucial piece of information that he had a wife and/or children?”

ABOVE: The Appearance of Jesus Christ to Mary Magdalene, painted in 1835 by the Russian Academic painter Alexander Andreyevich Ivanov

“But what about the apocryphal writings?”

Many people will no doubt insist, “But Spencer, everyone knows the canonical writings can’t be trusted! You’ve got to look at the apocryphal writings; those are so much more reliable!” First of all, in response to this, it is important to note that, even though the early canonical gospels are wildly unreliable, all surviving apocryphal gospels were written much later than the canonical gospels and are, in fact, even less reliable.

In fact, the apocryphal gospels are so late and unreliable that they are basically completely useless for trying to find any kind of historical information about Jesus. The apocryphal writings only reflect what some groups of early Christians thought about Jesus centuries after his death. It is highly unlikely that any of the apocryphal gospels contain any genuine historical information about Jesus whatsoever that is not already found in the earlier canonical gospels.

Nonetheless, since the apocryphal gospels are placed in such high esteem by most proponents of the view that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married, it is worth addressing a few of the most commonly referenced passages from the apocryphal gospels to show that, despite what uninformed people keep insisting, even the apocryphal gospels offer no persuasive evidence to support the conclusion that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were in any sort of sexual relationship.

ABOVE: Christ with Mary and Martha, painted in 1886 by the Polish Academic painter Henryk Siemiradzki

“The one who was called his companion”

Supporters of the view that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married often point to several passages in the Gospel of Philip, which they claim indicate that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married or in some kind of sexual relationship with each other.

First of all, it must be emphasized that the Gospel of Philip is extremely late. It was probably originally written in around the third century AD, around at least a century or so after the Gospel of John, the latest of the four canonical gospels. Although much of the gospel has been lost, a substantial portion of the gospel survives through a single copy of a Coptic translation discovered at Nag Hammadi in 1945.

The first passage from the Gospel of Philip that proponents of the view that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married often point to is one in which the Gospel of Philip refers to Mary Magdalene as Jesus’s “companion.” The Gospel of Philip states, as translated by Wesley W. Isenberg:

“There were three who always walked with the Lord: Mary, his mother, and her sister, and Magdalene, the one who was called his companion. His sister and his mother and his companion were each a Mary.”

The Da Vinci Code claims that, at the time when the Gospel of Philip was written, the Aramaic word for “companion” meant “spouse.” The problem with this assertion is that the surviving manuscript of the Gospel of Philip is not written in Aramaic. The surviving manuscript of the Gospel of Philip is, in fact, written in Coptic, a late form of the ancient Egyptian language heavily influenced by Koine Greek. The Coptic word that is used here in this passage that is translated as “companion” is ⲕⲟⲓⲛⲱⲛⲟⲋ (koinōnos), which is derived from the Greek word κοινωνός (koinōnós). Both words simply mean “companion”—nothing more, nothing less. The word bears no implications of sexual intimacy and is often used to describe platonic friends.

We cannot be absolutely sure which language the Gospel of Philip was originally written in, so there is still a slim chance it could have originally been written in Aramaic. Most likely, however, the Gospel of Philip was originally written in Koine Greek. Even if the Gospel of Philip were originally written in Aramaic and the original Aramaic gospel used a word that meant “spouse,” then the person who translated the gospel into Coptic would have most likely translated this word as a word that meant “spouse.” The fact that the word used does not mean “spouse” strongly indicates that the word used in the text in the original language probably did not mean “spouse” either.

ABOVE: Photograph of a page from the Coptic manuscript of the Gospel of Philip that was discovered at Nag Hammadi

“Loved her more than all the disciples”

Another passage from the Gospel of Philip that has attracted much attention is one which states that Jesus loved Mary Magdalene more than any of the other disciples and that he “used to kiss her often.” Here is the passage, as translated by Wesley W. Isenberg:

“And the companion of the […] Mary Magdalene. […] loved her more than all the disciples, and used to kiss her often on her mouth. The rest of the disciples […]. They said to him ‘Why do you love her more than all of us?’ The Savior answered and said to them, ‘Why do I not love you like her? When a blind man and one who sees are both together in darkness, they are no different from one another. When the light comes, then he who sees will see the light, and he who is blind will remain in darkness.'”

Nothing in this passage implies any kind of sexual relationship between Jesus and Mary Magdalene. The passage does say that Jesus “loved [Mary] more than all the disciples,” but the word for “love” that is used here does not imply sexual attraction. Furthermore, the passage goes on to describe the reason why Jesus loved Mary so much, which is because of her ability to see the light that others cannot. This passage is clearly trying to establish the relationship between Jesus and Mary as an intellectual relationship between a wise teacher and a brilliant pupil, not a sexual relationship between a man and a woman.

“And used to kiss her often on her mouth”

Supporters of the view that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were in a sexual relationship will no doubt point to the mention of Jesus kissing Mary Magdalene “on her mouth” and say, “But they kissed! This clearly proves that they must have been in a sexual relationship!” Unfortunately for those people, this passage proves absolutely no such thing.

First of all, the phrase “on her mouth” is not actually in the Coptic text. There is a lacuna in the manuscript at that point where the text is missing. Isenberg, the translator of the passage, has inserted the phrase “on the mouth” as a guess at what the manuscript might have originally said based on this earlier passage in the Gospel of Philip, which states, in his translation:

“It is from being promised to the heavenly place that man receives nourishment. […] him from the mouth. And had the word gone out from that place, it would be nourished from the mouth and it would become perfect. For it is by a kiss that the perfect conceive and give birth. For this reason we also kiss one another. We receive conception from the grace which is in one another.”

In other words, we really do not know where the Gospel of Philip said Jesus was kissing Mary Magdalene. The phrase “on her mouth” is just a guess. Other scholars have suggested that the Gospel of Philip may have instead described Jesus as kissing Mary Magdalene on the hand. The truth is, we cannot know where the author of the Gospel of Philip thought Jesus was kissing Mary Magdalene. Any phrase we try to insert after the word “often” is necessarily going to be an interpolation.

In any case, in the ancient world, kissing—even kissing on the mouth—was not necessarily regarded as sexual. As I discussed in this article I published in June 2018, kissing was widely used in the ancient world as a form of greeting. We know that kissing as a form of greeting was especially practiced among early Christians, since New Testament writings are absolutely overflowing with references to the so-called “kiss of peace.”

For instance, in the canonical New Testament, 1 Thessalonians 5:26, Romans 16:16, 1 Corinthians 16:20, 2 Corinthians 13:12, Mark 14:43–45, Matthew 26:47–50, Luke 22:48, and 1 Peter 5:14 all make reference to the custom of kissing as a common and completely chaste form of greeting. Kissing each other was just something ancient Christians did; it wasn’t sexual—or at least not usually—but it was a gesture that was seen as having religious importance.

The passage from the Gospel of Philip itself that I have just quoted above clearly establishes kissing on the lips as a means of conveying spiritual nourishment from one person to another. It is clear that the author of the Gospel of Philip was clearly thinking of kissing as a spiritual rather than sexual act when he described Jesus as kissing Mary Magdalene. Therefore, this passage from the Gospel of Philip cannot be accurately interpreted as containing any implication whatsoever of a sexual relationship between Jesus and Mary Magdalene.

ABOVE: The Farewell of Saints Peter and Paul, painted in the seventeenth century by the Spanish painter Alonzo Rodriguez, depicting Saints Peter and Paul kissing each other farewell on the lips before going to their respective martyrdoms

The Gospel of Jesus’s Wife

Some supporters of the view that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married will no doubt point to the so-called “Gospel of Jesus’s Wife,” an extremely tiny fragment of papyrus dated to between the seventh century AD and the ninth century AD with Coptic writing on it. The papyrus fragment was first published in 2012 by Karen L. King, a professor at Harvard Divinity School. Most of the text is illegible, but one of the few phrases that can be made out is the sentence, “Jesus said to them, ‘My wife… she is able to be my disciple.'” The name “Mary” occurs at one point earlier in the text.

Even if it were authentic, the Gospel of Jesus’s Wife would not be compelling evidence that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene for two reasons. The first reason is because the gospel does not say that Mary Magdalene was Jesus’s wife; it only says that Jesus had a wife. We cannot construe the mention of the name “Mary” earlier in the text as an indication that the “wife” of Jesus mentioned in the text is Mary Magdalene, especially since the phrase “my mother” also occurs in the fragment, meaning the “Mary” mentioned in the text could just as easily be Jesus’s mother Mary as Mary Magdalene.

The second reason is because, if it were authentic, the surviving fragment of the Gospel of Jesus’s Wife would only date to between the seventh and ninth centuries AD. At the very best, if the surviving fragment were authentic, the original version of the Gospel of Jesus’s Wife could only date to around the late second century AD at the very earliest, which would still make it significantly later than the canonical gospels.

In any case, though, none of this really matters because it is now widely agreed among Biblical scholars that the so-called “Gospel of Jesus’s Wife” is a modern forgery. Indeed, it is not even seen as a particularly convincing forgery. For instance, there is an usual typo that occurs in both the Gospel of Jesus’s Wife and in a Coptic interlinear version of the Gospel of Thomas that was published online in 2002. This strongly indicates that whoever made the Gospel of Jesus’s Wife fragment was relying on that particular online interlinear text of the Gospel of Thomas.

Even the size and shape of the papyrus fragment itself, which is almost perfectly rectangular and very close to the size and shape of a typical modern credit card, is suspicious, since it is unlikely that a genuine papyrus fragment would be so neatly torn. Most genuine ancient papyrus fragments are unusually shaped and have ragged edges. The Gospel of Jesus’s Wife fragment, though, looks like it was deliberately trimmed to be a certain size and shape.

Finally, in an article published in The Atlantic in 2016, investigative journalist Ariel Sabar tracked down the Gospel of Jesus’s Wife’s provenance and found that the fragment’s history was highly suspicious to say the least. Even Karen L. King, the very scholar who initially published the Gospel of Jesus’s Wife fragment, now agrees that all the evidence strongly indicates that the fragment is a modern forgery. She was quoted in an article in The Atlantic as saying that the evidence now “presses in the direction of forgery.”

ABOVE: Photograph of the so-called “Gospel of Jesus’s Wife,” which is now widely agreed to be a modern hoax

Jesus as a celibate religious leader

To summarize what I have said so far, there are no references to Jesus having been married in any of the Pauline Epistles, in any of the canonical gospels, or in any other early Christian writings. While some late, apocryphal works such as the Gospel of Philip and the Gospel of Mary Magdalene—both of which were written in the late second century or early third century AD, centuries after Jesus’s death—do portray Jesus and Mary Magdalene as having a close personal relationship, none of them ever imply that this relationship was of a sexual or romantic nature and certainly none of them ever imply that Jesus and Mary ever had any children together.

Now, proponents of the view that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married will certainly insist, “All Jewish men at the time when Jesus lived were expected to marry. If Jesus hadn’t been married, that would have been absolutely, utterly bizarre and everyone would have been shocked. The fact that no sources mention anything about Jesus being unmarried indicates that he must have been married!”

I have read various iterations of this argument many times, but, no matter how often it is repeated, this argument is still very wrong. For one thing, while it is true that Jewish men in Galilee and Judaea during the first century AD were generally expected to marry, proponents of the view that Jesus was married often massively exaggerate the degree to which this was expected. Most men did marry, but there were still a lot of men who did not marry. The fact that no early sources explicitly say that Jesus was unmarried does not by any means prove that he was married.

Furthermore, it makes complete sense within the context of what is known about Jesus’s beliefs for him to have been unmarried, celibate, and without children. Scholars generally agree that the views attributed to Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels bear many similarities to those of the Essenes, a sect of early first-century apocalyptic Jews who, among other things, believed that it was better to remain unmarried and celibate. Jesus’s teacher was John the Baptist, an itinerant apocalyptic preacher who is not recorded as having had a wife.

The Synoptic Gospels consistently portray Jesus as frankly rather indifferent towards the ideas of marriage and sexuality, if not openly hostile towards them. In the Gospel of Mark 12:24-25, for instance, Jesus is portrayed as directly telling the Sadducees interrogating him that marriage will not exist at all in the coming Kingdom of God. Here is the passage, as translated in the NRSV:

“Jesus said to them, ‘Is not this the reason you are wrong, that you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God? For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.'”

The Synoptic Gospels state that Jesus believed that he and his followers should try to live as though the Kingdom of God had already arrived, which indicates that Jesus probably supported a life of unmarried celibacy.

This is not the only passage in the Synoptic Gospels, however, in which Jesus is portrayed as espousing a view of sexuality and marriage that is at best indifferent and at worst openly hostile. In the Gospel of Matthew 19:1-9, Jesus tells the Pharisees that it is categorically unlawful for a man to divorce his wife. Immediately afterwards, in Matthew 19:10-12, we get this fascinating exchange between Jesus and the disciples, which reveals a lot about how early Christians felt about sex and marriage:

“His disciples said to him, ‘If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry.’ But he [i.e. Jesus] said to them, ‘Not everyone can accept this teaching, but only those to whom it is given. For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let anyone accept this who can.'”

This passage is admittedly rather difficult to interpret, but, if we interpret this passage in the most literal possible way, it seems as though Jesus is implying that any man who cannot control his sexual urges should castrate himself to rid himself of those urges. You can come up with other interpretations for this passage that do not involve literal, physical self-mutilation, but it is frankly extremely difficult to conceive of an interpretation for this passage that is sex-positive in any way.

ABOVE: The Pharisees and Sadducees Come to Tempt Jesus, painted between 1886 and 1894 by the French painter James Tissot

Paul on marriage and celibacy

Further evidence that unmarried celibacy was valued among early Christians comes from the surviving authentic epistles of the apostle Paul. Paul himself tells us that he was unmarried and celibate and that he viewed this as the most ideal condition. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 7:7-9, as translated in the NRSV:

“I wish that all were as I myself am. But each has a particular gift from God, one having one kind and another a different kind. To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is well for them to remain unmarried as I am. But if they are not practicing self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to be aflame with passion.”

Paul goes on to explain why he thinks that people who are not married should remain unmarried in 1 Corinthians 7:25-28:

“Now concerning virgins, I have no command of the Lord, but I give my opinion as one who by the Lord’s mercy is trustworthy. I think that, in view of the impending crisis, it is well for you to remain as you are. Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to be free. Are you free from a wife? Do not seek a wife. But if you marry, you do not sin, and if a virgin marries, she does not sin. Yet those who marry will experience distress in this life, and I would spare you that.”

The “impending crisis” that Paul references here is the Tribulation. Early Christians believed that the End Times were imminent and that the Tribulation would come within their own lifetimes. The imminence of the End Times is repeatedly emphasized throughout all of Paul’s authentic surviving letters and throughout the Synoptic Gospels. Paul was therefore advising his contemporaries that they should not marry because, if they did marry, they would only suffer even more in the Tribulation, since they would be forced to watch their family members suffer and die.

Thus, according to Paul, marriage was a legal option that a person could take, but it was inadvisable for someone to marry, since anyone who married would suffer even more greatly in the coming Tribulation. Paul believed that, ideally, everyone should remain unmarried and celibate, but, if someone is absolutely desperate and they feel they cannot control their own lusts, then that person should marry so that they may satiate their desires in a lawful manner. It is extremely likely that Jesus believed the same thing or at least something very close to this.

Not one descendant, but thousands

The question of whether Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married is often closely linked with the tantalizing notion that Jesus and Mary Magdalene might have living descendants. If Jesus did have offspring, though, which, again, is an idea that we have absolutely no historical evidence to support, then we do not know whether those offspring would have had any offspring. Even if we had some good reason to suppose that Jesus might have been married, we would still not be able to say whether or not he has any living descendants.

In any case, another way in which The Da Vinci Code is clearly wrong is in its portrayal of Jesus and Mary Magdalene only having a handful of living descendants. The fact is, if Jesus did have living descendants today, he would not have only a handful of descendants, but rather thousands of them, perhaps even hundreds of thousands.

You see, as I mentioned previously in this article I wrote about whether or not Julius Caesar has any living descendants, the further back in time you go, the more living descendants that a person who has living descendants is likely to have. Once you go back 2,000 years, anyone who has living descendants at all would have at least hundreds of descendants, if not thousands.

The only way that there could be a single family descended from Jesus and Mary Magdalene as portrayed in The Da Vinci Code would be if each generation of Jesus’s descendants had exactly one child survive and produce offspring, which would be extraordinarily improbable, since, surely, at least one of his descendants would have had more than one child over the course of 2,000 years.

Realistically speaking, if Jesus really had living descendants today, there would be cadet branches of the Jesus lineage galore and probably at least half the people in the Levant would have him as an ancestor.

ABOVE: Illustration from the Book of Kells of the version of Jesus’s ancestry from the Gospel of Luke

Conclusion

We have no evidence that Jesus ever married anyone, let alone Mary Magdalene, and we have no evidence that Jesus ever had any offspring. Since we have no evidence that leads us to suppose that Jesus was married or that he ever had any children, the most parsimonious conclusion is that Jesus probably never married and probably never had any children.

Obviously, the evidence I have presented here cannot completely prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Jesus definitely did not marry or that he did not have any children. There is always a tiny, remote chance that Jesus could have married. Nonetheless, all the available evidence strongly indicates that Jesus remained unmarried and celibate for his entire life.