biblical archaeology
“Laughing Jesus” by Fred Berger. This image appeared in Playboy magazine decades ago. Photo courtesy of Paul Smith/RNS.
Another day, another stunning blockbuster report that … Jesus was married! And to Mary Magdalene!
The latest version of this meme comes from Simcha Jacobovici, an author and filmmaker who is famous for promoting stunning theories about Jesus that on further review often turn out to be dubious.
Jacobovici’s new claim that he has decoded an old text that reveals Jesus and the Magdalene were married and had two kids (and she was a “co-deity” with her husband) came out this month and has also been widely dismissed.
But as happened earlier this year with the so-called “Gospel of Jesus’s Wife” — a suspect papyrus that receives a further debunking in the latest edition of the Atlantic — people find Jesus’ sex life endlessly fascinating, and plausible.
Why is that? Here are five reasons.