Jesus bloodline
Although absent from the Gospels or historical records, the concept of Jesus having descendants has gained a presence in the public imagination, as seen with Dan Brown's 2003 best-selling novel The Da Vinci Code and its 2006 movie adaptation of the same name that used the premise for its plot.[4] The anti-heretic polemic Historia Albigensis, written between 1212 and 1218 by Cistercian monk and chronicler Peter of Vaux de Cernay, gives the most lurid description, attributing to Cathars the belief that Mary Magdalene was the concubine of Jesus.Joyce identified the writer with Jesus of Nazareth, who, he claimed, had survived his own crucifixion to marry and settle at Masada, and suggested a conspiracy to hide the contents of the Dead Sea Scrolls in order to suppress this counter-narrative to Christian orthodoxy.[19][20][21] In 2014, Simcha Jacobovici and fringe religious studies historian Barrie Wilson suggested in The Lost Gospel that the eponymous characters of a 6th-century tale called "Joseph and Aseneth" were in actuality representations of Jesus and Mary Magdalene.[25] The Church of England compared The Lost Gospel to a Monty Python sketch, the director of communications for the Archbishop's Council citing the book as an example of religious illiteracy and that ever since the publication of The Da Vinci Code in 2003, "an industry had been constructed in which 'conspiracy theorists, satellite channel documentaries and opportunistic publishers had identified a lucrative income stream'.In their reconstruction, Mary Magdalene goes to France after the crucifixion, carrying a child by Jesus who would originate a lineage that centuries later would unite with the Merovingian rulers of the early Frankish kingdom, from whom they trace the descent into medieval dynasties that were almost exterminated by the Albigensian Crusade against the Cathars, leaving a small remnant protected by a secret society, the Priory of Sion.[39][40][41] The actual lineage claimed for the portion of the Plantard and Holy Blood bloodline that passes through the medieval era received very negative reviews in the genealogical literature, being considered as consisting of numerous inaccurate associations that were unsupported, or even directly contradicted, by the authentic historical record.The work became so well known that the Catholic Church felt compelled to warn its congregates against accepting its pseudo-historical background as fact, which did not stop it from becoming the eleventh highest-selling novel in American history, with tens of millions of copies sold worldwide.[52] Though one judge questioned whether the supposedly-factual Holy Blood truly represented fact, or instead bordered on fiction due to its highly conjectural nature,[53] courts ruled in favor of Random House and Brown.[54] Formatted as a footnoted scholarly study and claiming to be the culmination of almost three decades of research, the work was produced partly as a response to "a fuzzy gnostic, leftwing, liberal, and adamantly feminist bias" regarding the divine feminine and sacred marriage that pervaded recent literature concerning the subject, and that the author considered as "ideologically corrosive to faith in Jesus Christ".[30][54] He nonetheless drew from the same pseudohistorical grail legend as Holy Blood, combining it with concepts related to British Israelism, beliefs of the early Mormon fathers, and modern genetic genealogy.[58] In 2012, however, Ben Hammott, using his real name of Bill Wilkinson, gave a podcast interview in which he apologised and confessed that everything to do with the tomb and related artifacts was a hoax, revealing that the 'tomb' had been part of a now-destroyed full-sized movie set, located in a warehouse in England.[61] In South Asia, the founder of the reformist Ahmaddiyya religion, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (1835-1908), likewise claimed that Jesus survived the crucifixion and escaped the Levant, but instead placed his subsequent activities in Afghanistan and India.Fida M. Hassnain, as part of a 1970s study of this myth that brought it to the attention of western popularizers, found that the guardian of the shrine claimed to be a descendant of Jesus and a woman named 'Marjan'.[65] Some try to advance and understand the equality of men and women spiritually by portraying Mary Magdalene as being the apostle of a Christian feminism,[67] and even the personification of the mother goddess or sacred feminine,[68] usually associating her with the Black Madonna.[73] The notion of a progeny from Jesus and Mary Magdalene and its supposed relationship to the Merovingians, as well as to their alleged modern descendants, is strongly dismissed as pseudohistorical by a qualified majority of Christian and secular historians such as Darrell Bock[74] and Bart D. Ehrman,[2][75] along with journalists and investigators such as Jean-Luc Chaumeil, who has an extensive archive on this subject matter.In 2005, UK television presenter and amateur archaeologist Tony Robinson edited and narrated a detailed rebuttal of the main arguments of Dan Brown and those of Baigent, Leigh, and Lincoln, "The Real Da Vinci Code", shown on Channel 4.[citation needed] Robert Lockwood, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh's director for communications, considers the notion of the Church conspiring to cover-up the truth about a Jesus bloodline as a deliberate piece of anti-Catholic propaganda.[78] Steve Olson, author of Mapping Human History: Genes, Race, and Our Common Origins, published an article in Nature demonstrating that, as a matter of statistical probability: If anyone living today is descended from Jesus, so are most of us on the planet.
Genealogy of Jesushistorical JesusDan BrownThe Da Vinci Codeits 2006 movie adaptation of the same nameBrothers of JesusDesposyniSexuality and marital status of JesusJesus ChristChristian theologyBart D. EhrmanNew Testamentearly ChristianityGnosticismGospel of PhilipCatharistWaldensianCatholic ChurchCistercianPeter of Vaux de CernayconcubinesocialistatheistLazarus of BethanyProvenceDonovan JoyceThe Jesus ScrollMasadaTel AvivHasmonean dynastyDead Sea ScrollsBarbara ThieringJesus and the Riddle of the Dead Sea Scrolls: Unlocking the Secrets of His Life StoryAustralian Broadcasting CorporationQumranrevived after an incomplete crucifixionTalpiot TombIsrael MuseumThe Lost Tomb of JesusThe Jesus Family TombSimcha JacoboviciCharles R. PellegrinoossuariesAramaicpsychic mediumSylvia BrowneJesus Seminarquest for the historical Jesusliberal Christianhistorical evidenceearly ChristianlegendsdisciplesJoseph of ArimatheaEnglandCrown of ThornsGlastonburypious fraudsMiddle AgesJoseph and AsenethBarrie WilsonPseudo-Zacharias RhetorMoses of IngilaRichard BauckhamChurch of EnglandMonty PythonMarkus BockmuehlMormonJedediah M. GrantOrson HydeJoseph F. SmithOrson PrattpolygamousCelsusCelsus the PlatonistContra CelsumChurch FatherOrigenMichael BaigentRichard LeighHenry LincolnThe Holy Blood and the Holy GrailHoly GrailLast SupperMerovingian rulersFrankish kingdomAlbigensian CrusadePriory of SionPierre PlantardTribe of BenjaminPhilippe de CheriseyThe Woman with the Alabaster JarSaint SarahSaintes-Maries-de-la-MerHebrewblood royalKing of the JewsMary of Bethanysacred femininefeminist theologyexegeticalmythographerLaurence Gardnerpedigree chartsEuropeanroyal familiesCommon EraAdam and EveprimatehybridsAnunnakiancient astronaut theoryhigh priestsTemple in JerusalemHugues de Payensof the same nameconspiracy fictionThe Passover PlotHugh J. SchonfieldRandom Houseanagramhistorical fictionBritish Israelismgenetic genealogyDruidismJoseph Smith