The Lost Gospel': The ancient manuscript that cMagdalene and had children The Lost Gospel': The ancient manuscript that claims Jesus married Mary Magdalene and had children ( Professor Barrie Wilson, Simcha Jacobovici What you are about to read is a detective story.

      The Lost Gospel': The ancient manuscript that claims Jesus married Mary Magdalene and had children

'We now know what the original Jesus movement looked like and the unexpected role sexuality played in it'

Professor Barrie Wilson, Simcha Jacobovici 

What you are about to read is a detective story.

We have uncovered an ancient writing that is encrypted with a hidden meaning. In the process of decoding it, we’ll take you on a journey into the world of this mysterious text. What the Vatican feared—and Dan Brown only suspected—has come true. There is now written evidence that Jesus was married to Mary the Magdalene, and that they had children together.

More than this, based on the new evidence, we now know what the original Jesus movement looked like and the unexpected role sexuality played in it. We have even unraveled the politics behind the crucifixion, as well as the events and the people that took part in it.

Gathering dust in the British Library is a document that takes us into the missing years of Jesus’ life. Scholars believe that Jesus was born around 5 BC, and that he was crucified around 30AD.

But there is a huge gap in his biography. We know absolutely nothing about Jesus from the time he was eight days old (his circumcision, according to Jewish law), until he was in his early thirties. There is one exception. According to the Gospel of Luke (2:41–2:51), when he was twelve years old, Jesus traveled with his parents to Jerusalem to celebrate Passover.

That’s it. That’s all we have. Otherwise, thirty years of absolute

Jesus traveled with his parents to Jerusalem to celebrate Passover.

That’s it. That’s all we have. Otherwise, thirty years of absolute silence.

Isn’t this incredible? Here is arguably the most influential individual in human history and we know nothing about him until after he starts his “ministry” (i.e., his public activism) at most three years before his crucifixion.

But the fact is that we simply have no information about Jesus’ early years—his upbringing, friends, schooling, or his interaction with family members. We have no knowledge of Jesus as a young adult. How did he gain access to the writings of the Hebrew Bible? Did the synagogue in Nazareth, a very small hamlet at the time, have scrolls of the Law and the Prophets? Who were his religious teachers?

How well versed was he in Hebrew, in addition to the Aramaic that we know he spoke? Did he speak Greek, the lingua franca of the Roman world? Jesus appears on the stage of history suddenly in the late 20s c.e. At this point, the mature Jesus announces the “Kingdom of God”—that is, the advent of a qualitative transformation in human history, prophesied by the Hebrew Bible, in which justice will reign upon the earth and the worship of the one true God will be univers

But what happened to Jesus before this sudden appearance? According to the document that we uncovered, sometime during this period he became engaged, got married, had sexual relations, and produced children. Before anyone gets his/her theological back up, keep in mind that we are not attacking anyone’s theology. We are reporting on a text. Theology must follow historical fact and not the other way around. Having said this, for the moment, we are not asserting that our text is historical fact. So far, we are merely stating that the Christian Bible tells us nothing about Jesus’ early years, and that we have discovered a text that claims that he was married and fathered children.

On a purely historical level, this really shouldn’t surprise us. Marriage and children were expected of a Jewish man, then and now. If he hadn’t been married, that would have caused consternation to his family, possible scandal in the community, and the New Testament certainly would have commented on it—if for no other reason than to explain and defend Jesus’ unusual behavior. But now we have a document that claims that he was indeed married and fathered children. Not only this, our document indicates that for some of his original followers, Jesus’ marriage was the most important aspect of their theology.

This extract was published in The Independent with permission from the authors. 'The Lost Gospel' by Profeessor Barrie Wilson and Simcha Jacobovici is out now via Pegasus

Lost gospel' claims Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married and had children

New translation of a 1,500-year-old manuscript said to fill in 'significant gaps' about Jesus and Mary Magdalene's life but Church of England dismisses it as "Pythonesque"

Christ appearing to Mary Magdalene after rising from the tomb  Photo: Alamy

By Victoria Ward

2:08PM GMT 12 Nov 2014

Mary Magdalene was a "co-messiah", the wife of Jesus and the mother of his children, according to a translation of an ancient manuscript.

The authors of a new book claim that by decoding the manuscript and translating it from the Syriac language, they shed light on the politics leading up to the crucifixion, fill in "significant gaps" about Jesus's life and present him as a "human" who placed importance on family, marriage, love and sex.

Simcha Jacobovici, co-author of The Lost Gospel, said that far from being a prostitute, Mary Magdalene was a woman "of stature" who was revered as a goddess.

"It goes way beyond marriage," he said. "It describes (Mary Magdalene) as a co-messiah, co-deity, defender of humanity.

"This shows her as the leader of the Gentile (non Jewish) church. She is called the mother of virgins. This text is called the story of Mary Magdalene. It's about her."

However, the Church of England suggested that the book simply added to the wealth of misinformation published about Jesus and had been produced to cash in on a "lucrative income stream" ahead of Christmas.

The Lost Gospel is based on a 29-chapter manuscript dating back to about AD570 that was purchased by the British Museum from an Egyptian monastery in 1847 before being transferred to the British Library some 20 years ago.

It is the tale of Joseph, recipient of the famed coat of many colours in the Old Testament, and his wife Aseneth.

The manuscript was translated from Syriac into English by Mr Jacobovici, an Israeli-Canadian investigative journalist, and Barrie Wilson, a professor of religious studies at York University, Toronto.

Although the script does not mention Jesus and Mary, they claim that Joseph stands for Jesus and Aseneth for Mary Magdalene. They said the names of their sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, may also be code.

The authors said that although the literal story of Joseph and Aseneth is known to experts, "subtleties" were lost when it was translated into Latin and Greek in the 12th century.

By returning to the ancient Syriac, a Middle Eastern literary language from the 4th to 8th centuries, they claimed they were able to read the entire text and decode its meaning.

Crucially, they said the manuscript was accompanied by two letters which proved that the person who authorised the translation into Syriac "knew they were taking a great risk".

The letters confirm that the manuscript is written in code and contained a "hidden message" about Jesus, they said.

One of them had been "mysteriously" cut in half, fuelling suspicions of censorship.

The code was deciphered by American digital imaging experts using state-of-the-art equipment. A form of x-raying enabled them to "see through" every ink smudge to discern the writing.

Mr Jacobovici said: "We have not just found a text and put Jesus in as a metaphor.

"Christian monks religiously copied this text for hundreds of years. Joseph is called Son of God.The language is very graphic. It says that Joseph, also known as Jesus, had sexual intercourse with Mary Magdalene.

"A story of about Joseph and Aseneth as Israelites would have been of no interest to monks."

The Church of England, noting the book's "spurious" claims, referenced a classic Monty Python sketch, stating: "It’s not lost, it’s not a gospel, it’s a very naughty marketing campaign."

Revd Arun Arora, director of communications for the Archbishops’ Council, said the most noticeable problem was the lack of mentions of Jesus or of Mary Magdalene in the entire manuscript.

Questioning why the "sensational" book had attracted so much attention, he said: "One uncharitable answer would be to suggest that there is now such a high degree of religious illiteracy in society that people lack the rigour to tackle such spurious claims in the same way they would if the author had written a book saying the moon was made of blue cheese."

He said that ever since Dan Brown's bestselling novel The Da Vinci Code was published in 2003, an industry had been constructed in which "conspiracy theorists, satellite channel documentaries and opportunistic publishers had identified a lucrative income stream."

By contrast, the authors likened their "discovery" to that of the Dead Sea Scrolls. They claim it is the first book "to make use of an actual written source" to show that Jesus and Mary were married and had children.

They said the book helped to fill in gaps in Jesus's life by providing insights into his early life, why he had enemies at the most senior levels and what marriage meant to him and his followers.

The book also claims there was a previously unknown plot on Jesus's life when he was 20 and an assassination attempt on Mary and her children.

The authors said the original manuscript was possibly written in the 1st century, before being repeatedly and religiously copied by Egyptian monks.

Mr Wilson said that although scholars had known about it for almost 200 years they “have not known what to make of it”.

In 1953, The Last Temptation of Christ, written by Nikos Kazantzakis, also claimed that Jesus married Mary Magdalene but stated that the union occurred after Christ was taken down from the cross. Martin Scorsese made a film of the same name in 1988.

In 2012, a fragment from an ancient Egyptian Coptic document was said to provide evidence that Jesus was married and had a family

The document included the words, “Jesus said to them, my wife", and the sentence: "She will be able to be my disciple."

It also included the phrases, "My mother gave to me life" and, "Mary is worthy of it"
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