The Bible gospels do not give much information about the childhood and adolescent years of Jesus Christ. However, the Apocrypha books contain some information, most of which seem to be imaginary tales by their authors. [Go to read Bible and Apocrypha here !]
However, neither the Bible nor the Apocrypha support the idea that Jesus ever had a wife or even a girl friend, though some of the modern fiction writers and speculators have made it a sensational speculation. The Da Vinci Code is an example where its author Dan Brown depicts Mary Magdalene as the wife of Jesus! In the recent years, some researchers have even found some ancient papyrus pieces which they claim as giving proof for the speculation made by Dan Brown.
But my favorite revelatory book, the Urantia Book, now gives the truthful and detailed history of Jesus Christ in the most elaborate manner. Even though the origin of the Urantia Book is a speculative mystery for many, the contents of the book never look like speculation even to the most hard core critic.
The Urantia Book's non-human authors assert that Jesus Christ was the human incarnation of the Divine Son of God who is the Creator and Sovereign Ruler of a great expanse of space containing a bit over 3.8 million worlds peopled with intelligent beings which include material beings like humans and non-material beings of various orders and kinds.
According to the Urantia Book, Jesus lived like a perfect man, on earth. He was the Divine Creator of his domain and according to the mandate of his Divine Father, he was required to experience the lives of the seven major life forms that were created under his command in his domain. That was required for him to get elevated to the position of the Sovereign Ruler of the domain that he created. Because the ruler should have the fair idea of the lives of his subjects !
The book says that the Creator becoming a lowly creature is in itself a divine mystery. Human forms are the lowest of his intelligent creations and his human incarnation on earth was his last life bestowal. Thus this Divine Son of God took birth on earth as a helpless human child as Jesus of Nazareth, some 2000 years ago, to experience the human life while also helping his fellow humans to know more about his Divine Father in the most appropriate manner than what they had known earlier through other means!
But according to the divine mandate, Jesus was not supposed to marry and have earthly children. He was also required not to leave anything personally attributable to his person, such as his writings. That was because of the immature human tendency to deviate from core values and go after adorable fascinations which the divine wisdom did not wish to happen.
But Jesus as a young man faced situations that was normal to any human being in similar circumstances.
Below are the passages directly quoted from the Urantia Book in the words of its non-human authors, depicting a situation in which an young lady, named Rebecca, falling in love with Jesus and how Jesus faced that situation according to his Divine mandate:
Although Jesus was poor, his social standing in Nazareth was in no way impaired. He was one of the foremost young men of the city and very highly regarded by most of the young women. Since Jesus was such a splendid specimen of robust and intellectual manhood, and considering his reputation as a spiritual leader, it was not strange that Rebecca, the eldest daughter of Ezra, a wealthy merchant and trader of Nazareth, should discover that she was slowly falling in love with this son of Joseph.
She first confided her affection to Miriam, Jesus’ sister, and Miriam in turn talked all this over with her mother. Mary was intensely aroused. Was she about to lose her son, now become the indispensable head of the family? Would troubles never cease? What next could happen? And then she paused to contemplate what effect marriage would have upon Jesus’ future career; not often, but at least sometimes, did she recall the fact that Jesus was a “child of promise.”
After she and Miriam had talked this matter over, they decided to make an effort to stop it before Jesus learned about it, by going direct to Rebecca, laying the whole story before her, and honestly telling her about their belief that Jesus was a son of destiny; that he was to become a great religious leader, perhaps the Messiah.
Rebecca listened intently; she was thrilled with the recital and more than ever determined to cast her lot with this man of her choice and to share his career of leadership. She argued (to herself) that such a man would all the more need a faithful and efficient wife. She interpreted Mary’s efforts to dissuade her as a natural reaction to the dread of losing the head and sole support of her family; but knowing that her father approved of her attraction for the carpenter’s son, she rightly reckoned that he would gladly supply the family with sufficient income fully to compensate for the loss of Jesus’ earnings.
When her father agreed to such a plan, Rebecca had further conferences with Mary and Miriam, and when she failed to win their support, she made bold to go directly to Jesus. This she did with the co-operation of her father, who invited Jesus to their home for the celebration of Rebecca’s seventeenth birthday.
Jesus listened attentively and sympathetically to the recital of these things, first by the father, then by Rebecca herself. He made kindly reply to the effect that no amount of money could take the place of his obligation personally to rear his father’s family, to “fulfill the most sacred of all human trusts—loyalty to one’s own flesh and blood.” Rebecca’s father was deeply touched by Jesus’ words of family devotion and retired from the conference.
His only remark to Mary, his wife (Rebecca's mother), was:
“We can’t have him for a son; he is too noble for us.”
Then began that eventful talk with Rebecca. Thus far in his life, Jesus had made little distinction in his association with boys and girls, with young men and young women. His mind had been altogether too much occupied with the pressing problems of practical earthly affairs and the intriguing contemplation of his eventual career “about his Father’s business” ever to have given serious consideration to the consummation of personal love in human marriage. But now he was face to face with another of those problems which every average human being must confront and decide. Indeed was he “tested in all points like as you (humans) are.”
After listening attentively, he sincerely thanked Rebecca for her expressed admiration, adding:
“it shall cheer and comfort me all the days of my life.”
He (Jesus) explained that he was not free to enter into relations with any woman other than those of simple brotherly regard and pure friendship. He made it clear that his first and paramount duty was the rearing of his father’s family, that he could not consider marriage until that was accomplished; and then he added:
“If I am a son of destiny, I must not assume obligations of lifelong duration until such a time as my destiny shall be made manifest.”
Rebecca was heartbroken. She refused to be comforted and importuned her father to leave Nazareth until he finally consented to move to Sepphoris. In after years, to the many men who sought her hand in marriage, Rebecca had but one answer. She lived for only one purposeï—to await the hour when this, to her, the greatest man who ever lived would begin his career as a teacher of living truth.
And she followed him devotedly through his eventful years of public labor, being present (unobserved by Jesus) that day when he rode triumphantly into Jerusalem; and she stood “among the other women” by the side of Mary on that fateful and tragic afternoon when the Son of Man hung upon the cross, to her, as well as to countless worlds on high, “the one altogether lovely and the greatest among ten thousand.”
Since the name of Mary Magdalene appears in the Bible and in other writings connected with Jesus, it would be interesting to know what the Urantia Book's non-human authors tell about her. Yes, there are some remarkable information about this woman in the Urantia Book.
She was one of the twelve women disciples or apostles that Jesus selected for propagating his good news about the Kingdom of God among the people of earth.
I will cover that story from the my favorite book in another blog.
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