Was Jesus married?

One of the reasons I think it will be useful to post this blog is that I can use it as a placeholder for all these thoughts going around in my head.

Yesterday I was discussing with my mother the question of whether Jesus was married. If we accept the fact of the historical existence of Jesus, which some people seriously doubt or deny, then we have to look at this question in the context of the times in which Jesus allegedly lived. First, Jesus was a practicing jew, and according to the Bible, he was extremely well versed in the knowledge of Judaism. At the age of 30, a jew was always married. Not being married would have been a very rare event for someone of Jesus' age and I seriously doubt he was antisocial or abnormal in any way. So, most probably, Jesus had a wife.

Why then is she not mentioned in the Bible? Well, for one thing, we know for a fact that women and children in the land and times of Jesus were, basically, non-entities. They were not taken into account. We know, for example, that Peter was married. His wife is, however, never mentioned. Women are mentioned in the Gospels only when they are essential to the story; otherwise, they are ignored. Same as with children.

Jesus did show a distinctly anti-social behavior: he spoke to women in public. That is mentioned in the Bible and the surprise of those surrounding Jesus is also mentioned.

Again, in reading the Gospels, allowances must be made for the fact that they were written by men. (No, I don't think they were inspired). And they wrote them with all the biases that were hard-wired into their psyche by the customs and usages of the time in which they lived. They also don't mention those things they took for granted (being married would have been one of them). One of my favorite examples is that not once is Jesus or his disciples being described in the process of going to the bathroom; those things you do and they are taken for granted.

So, was Jesus married? I guess he was, because that was the proper thing for a young jewish man of 30 in Jesus' time and land of birth. However, I have to bow to the lack of evidence and say, truthfully, I don't know.