Why Is Jesus’ Virginity So Important To The Christian Church?

With all the hoopla over The Da Vinci Code movie coming out this month and the mainstream media and blogosphere reporting on the Teen “Virginity Pledges”, I have to admit I’ve been pondering the big questions about religion and faith and “The Christian Church”.

Mostly, I’ve been wondering what the big deal about virginity is. (As the World’s Oldest Virgin, I have the right to wonder.)

O.K. I get that Jesus’ birth was a miracle virgin birth signifying that only God himself could have actually impregnated Mary. I see where that is significant.

But what I don’t get is this big hang up by the Christian Church on Jesus’ virginity. Why is it so vital to their Faith that he be virginally chaste for 30+ years?

I mean, I don’t think Jesus was out partying in his teen years and such. I mean, I think he was a good Jewish boy who did good Jewish things. After all, he was sent to be the Messiah of the Jews. How better to be a role model and Savior of the Jews than to be a good Jew?

If he was a good Torah observant Jew, then he probably did marry otherwise he’d have been violating the “mitzvah (commandment) “be fruitful and multiply” (Genesis 1:28). After all, in Matthew 5:17, Jesus says “Think not that I am come to abolish the law or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.” Why would he say this and then fail to fulfill his obligation as a Torah observing Jew to marry and propagate the human race? In fact, without a wife, he couldn’t have been thought a man: Genesis 2:24 says “he who has no wife cannot be called a man.”
Why then would Jesus not have been married? Why then would he not have been a father? Certainly these things would have given him a greater understanding, a greater closeness to mankind and the people he was here to save.

So, what’s the big deal with the Christian Church and Jesus’ virginity? I really don’t get it. What part of their religion is going to come crumbling down if Christ did in fact have sex? Does it really make him less of a God? Less of God’s son? Less of a savior? Can a man who’s had sex be less holy? Even if it was loving marital, faithful sex? If the only woman he ever made love to was his wife, how does that make him less of a savior?

I wish someone would explain it to me.

tags: Christian Church, Virginity Pledges, Jesus, Da Vinci Code, virgin, Faith, religion

2 comments

1. on May 10, 2006 at 4:35 am

   Tess said:

   Great blog. I’ve barely scratched the surface. Couldn’t resist posting on your February “hell” post.
   Here’s my take on the Jesus virginity thing. First disclaimer is that I haven’t read the Da Vinci Code even though it has been wildly recommended to me by dozens of people.
   I think your point on Jesus being a Torah-observant Jew is well-taken. If he hadn’t had a specific and unique mission, he would have gone ahead and fulfilled that mitzvah. But there was a precedent for some to undertake a special vow that would preclude marriage (remember Sampson and his Nazirite vow? He wasn’t even supposed to eat grapes or cut his hair).
   Anyway, I think the reason Jesus didn’t marry or have sex are not because marriage and sex are evil, but because he had a specific and focused purpose for his life on this planet. He knew he was going to die and he had to be pretty single-minded.
   I think the thing that bugs me about the whole “Jesus got married” argument, is that it usually goes something like this: “The evil Christians, in their hatred of women and sex, erased a vital aspect of Jesus life so that they could keep men in power and perpetuate sexual hangups for two-thousand years.”
   What if that’s just not true? The Jesus/Mary Magdalene idea is a lovely romance, but if it didn’t really happen that way, it’s not because Jesus hated sex. It’s just that it didn’t happen that way. It does get a little complicated if all the crowned heads of Europe can trace their origins back to God incarnate. If he was God incarnate, and knew it, it would be a good reason not to marry.
   But I can’t prove that. I’ve just decided to stick with the traditional version — not personally having anything against Mary Magdalene, marriage or sex.
   I’m rambling.
   Great blog. Have a fantastic trip to England.
   Tess

2. on May 10, 2006 at 9:07 am

   n. mallory said:

   Point well taken. Your explanation is certainly more likely to me than the sex is a sin and Jesus didn’t sin theory that’s been passed around. If sex was really such a sin then God wouldn’t have told mankind to be fruitful and multiply.

   I do still lean toward Jesus and Mary Magdalene having been married, but I am willing now to mull over the thought that if he wasn’t married it was simply because he understood his mission, which does fit into my view of who he was. If I remember my Sunday school teachings, he knew fairly early what his purpose on Earth was and had a fairly clear understanding of what was ahead of him. Quite a lot to have on a young man’s shoulders.

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