If you think about it logically for the era, it's incredibly unlikely that Jesus was actually unmarried. The typical age for marriage all the way up until the 20th century was somewhere between puberty and 20. Jesus didn't start his ministry until he was 30. It's really very possible that he was married, maybe even a widower. The fact that no gospel mentions it, could be the exact same reason women get ignored throughout the rest of history.
> The fact that no gospel mentions it, could be the exact same reason women get ignored throughout the rest of history.
It would be weird to leave out Jesus's wife when it mentions his mother and sisters, as well as female disciples/deacons/apostles. Also the NT mentions that Peter and the other Apostles had wives.
As a protestant, I've always found the papal requirement of celibacy funny, in light of the claim that the papacy is a sort of Apostolic-authority lineage from Peter, who was, well, married.
Some of the early Church Fathers (e.g. Jerome) maintained that the married Apostles, including Peter, gave up marital relations with their wives after being called by Christ, i.e. they practiced perpetual (or "perfect") sexual continence from that time forward. Celibacy developed later, as a safeguard for those called to exercise the same "apostolic continence".
.. But your statement about the age at marriage is wrong, at least for Western Europe since about 1400, which has had late marriage and uniquely high proportions never married. If you haven't fact checked your demography assumptions, you are probably wrong.
The story that Jesus was unmarried was probably promulgated by the Roman Catholic Church, with it's uniquely weird attachment to celibacy. Which, of course, has affected Western European demography in many complicated ways.
> The story that Jesus was unmarried was probably promulgated by the Roman Catholic Church, with it's uniquely weird attachment to celibacy.
The discipline of clerical celibacy in the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church (at least one non-Latin Rite Church in union with Rome existed at the time, and there are more now) was a explicitly a adopted in response to repeated scandal, not theological necessity (which is why it is a discipline of the Latin Rite and not a universal law of the Church.)
The widespread Christian acceptance of the belief that Jesus was never married long predates this.
> The discipline of clerical celibacy in the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church (at least one non-Latin Rite Church in union with Rome existed at the time, and there are more now) was a explicitly a adopted in response to repeated scandal, not theological necessity (which is why it is a discipline of the Latin Rite and not a universal law of the Church.)
Oh, well there we go. As a protestant (second time noting that in this thread) I've always wondered about why the Pope at least had to be celibate when Peter himself was married.
This explanation makes much more sense -- it wasn't a doctrinal requirement, but a sort of external job requirement.
Matthew 19:12 is not a particularly disputed verse when comparing ancient manuscripts and fragments.
"For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. He who is able to receive this, let him receive it."
This teaching of Jesus forms the basis of what later Christian writers would expound upon as the "evangelical counsel of chastity", and it is unlikely the master would have counseled the disciple to the embrace of something he himself did not embrace. Would it have been counter-cultural to the Jewish audience hearing Jesus preach those words? Most definitely.
> The fact that no gospel mentions it, could be the exact same reason women get ignored throughout the rest of history.
the catholic/orthodox churches have an incredible amount of attention to women in liturgy, through the veneration of Mary. It is very "pagan" that way.
This is in stark contrast with reformed christian churches, hebraism and islam, for example.
The relegation of women to secondary religious roles doesn't seem especially related to that (which is why it happened in pre-columbian america and in asia too, I guess)
The age of marriage was typically younger in the past, but the exact details depend place and time and the situation of the person.
In Europe in the Middle Ages, for example, nobility typically married very young for modern standards, but that wasn't always the case among the peasants.
A father didn't want to marry his daughter off to someone who didn't have anything, which was usually the case for poor peasant men. The man would have no means to support his wife and provide for the family. So typically the young men would wait until they had some land and a house before marrying, allowing them to support a wife and children.
This typically would happen when they were 25-30 years old. Their wives, on the other hand, would typically be in the 15-20 age range.
If the man's family was fairly wealthy and the prospective bride's family was fairly certain their daughter would be able to be supported by the man in the future, then the man would be able to get married before the age of 20.
> If you think about it logically for the era, it's incredibly unlikely that Jesus was actually unmarried
Only on the assumption that "being married" is uncorrelated with "starting some weird travelling hippie Jewish tradesman cult", which I assume it isn't. Having a wife and family obligations tends to hamper the travelling-and-preaching lifestyle somewhat.
Also, people who spend their 30s claiming to be the Messiah and getting crucified for it probably spent their 20s being a bit weird as well, even if nobody bothered to write about it.
If you're thinking that your calling may invite persecution, or are inclined to do stuff like wander the desert and eating locusts, it's not so strange that you would choose not to get married. Never mind that getting married may not be so easy in this case!
