Historical book about Jesus may find traction with Jewish readers

The Lost Gospel published by Harper Collins Canada

Why would a book about Jesus (specifically, one alleging he was married and had children) written by two Jewish authors entice Jewish readers?

There are several reasons. For one, it presents Jesus as a human, an itinerant rabbi who bristled with foibles, emotions, even lust; it paints a picture of the bubbling politics and tensions between Jews and Romans of his day, culminating in the destruction of the Second Temple; and, as its publicity material breathlessly declares, it “changes everything we thought we knew about Jesus.”

Perhaps this volume is best summed up by its very first sentence: “What you are about to read is a detective story.”

And given the renewed general interest over the past few years in blockbuster musings on whether Jesus had a wife and produced a divine lineage, the collaboration between Simcha Jacobovici and Prof. Barrie Wilson may find traction among Jewish readers.

Even before it was released last month, scholars took swipes at The Lost Gospel: Decoding the Sacred Text that Reveals Jesus’ Marriage to Mary Magdalene (Harper Collins Canada,), sighing that there was little new in another entry in the crowded field of biblical conspiracy theories.

 “The timing, just before Christmas, is highly suspect,” groused one American New Testament scholar.

But Jacobovici is no stranger to controversy. He even seems to relish it. Best known as television’s Naked Archaeologist and a three-time Emmy Award-winning filmmaker, he’s triggered other uproars in academia by claiming to have found Jesus’ family tomb and the ossuary (or bone box) that once held the remains of Jesus’ brother, James.

This time, he and Wilson, a professor of religious studies at York University and author of How Jesus Became Christian, have pooled talents and curiosities to literally decode an ancient manuscript that’s apparently been gathering dust in the British Library for 150 years.

The central thesis of The Lost Gospel is that the document, known as the Ecclesiastical History of Zacharias Rhetor, written in Syriac around 1,500 years ago, appears to tell the story of the Hebrew Bible’s Joseph and his marriage to Asaneth, the daughter of an Egyptian priest. The text was apparently brought to the British Library around 1850 after its discovery in an Egyptian monastery.

But all is not as it appears. Using what they claim was a method employed by early Christians themselves, the authors decode the text to find that it was really about Jesus, his marriage to Mary Magdalene (who, based on the ancient manuscript, the authors contend was a gentile) and their two sons.

The claim is buttressed by two accompanying letters the authors say expressly state that there is hidden meaning embedded in the narrative.

Among the book’s other dramatic claims is that more than being Mrs. Jesus, Mary Magdalene was in her own right considered a co-deity and co-redeemer by early Christians. Modern Christianity has short-changed her, the authors contend.

Jews should read the book because “anything that tries to underscore the humanity of Jesus [and] his Jewishness is important to a Jewish audience,” Wilson, a member of Beth Tzedec Congregation, told The CJN. “From a Jewish perspective, seeing what I think is arguably the most important person who ever lived in human terms should be of interest.”

Among those terms is sex and wedlock. The original manuscript “talks about how sexuality and marriage are healthy and redemptive, and that’s missing from the pages of the Christian scriptures. We don’t think that way. Judaism has a very healthy view of sexuality and marriage.”

For Jacobovici, the subject, long considered in some Jewish circles to be taboo, is a no-brainer.

“Here you have a Galilean rabbi mentioned in the Gemara – often, by the way – who is worshipped by billions of people as God incarnate across thousands of years. How would I as a Jew not be interested in how that happened? How did it happen that a Galilean rabbi who ended up crucified and buried in Jerusalem is worshipped by billions of people as God? Isn’t that an important, interesting question as far as Jewish history is concerned? How could you not be interested in that?

“I’m interested in reclaiming my own history. I see it as a natural part of my own history.”

Jacobovici said he brings his “Jewish consciousness” to the table to consider a Jesus “not as divine but as a first century Galilean rabbi whose humanness makes him a legitimate subject for human traits.” The book is a “historical analysis that’s not filtered through Christian theology. I think for many Jews, it will be an eye-opener.”

Portraying Jesus as human, Jewish and married – “any one of those three adjectives is fighting words to a very strong segment of Christians,” Wilson noted.

The book also upends conventional thinking, Jacobovici said, in its portrayal of Jesus not as marginal but as fully embroiled in the turbulent politics of the day; of Galilee not as a backwater but as wealthy and cosmopolitan – “more like Tel Aviv today”; and as Christianity beginning not with Paul but with Jesus himself – and his wife.

By now, Jacobovici is used to blowback from scholars and others.

“Some attacks are thinly veiled anti-Semitism. You’re not allowed to say that but I don’t care. You have people mocking my kippah. You have people mocking the fact that I’m a child of Holocaust survivors. You have people saying I’m only in it for the money, [and] that I come around Christmastime.”

As a non-academic, “I’m free to say what I want. And I can take it.”

Wilson agrees there is a “personal vendetta” against Jacobovici by some scholars.

“I think they’re jealous that he can ask questions and exposes things that various scholars have been unable to do. He always positions himself as an investigative journalist and he’s extremely good at that, and he backs it up with uncomfortable details. He asks the questions that many academics are afraid to ask.”

Wilson gently turned aside the question of whether he and Jacobovici have poked a hornet’s nest. “To be slightly more neutral,” he said, “I’d say we’ve acted as a catalyst for discussion.”