.. 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.
.. 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.