Jesus married prostitute Mary Magdalene and had two children, 'lost gospel' claims
- New book 'The Lost Gospel' claims Mary Magdalene was original Virgin Mary
- It is based on manuscript found in British Library dating back 1,450 years
- Professor Barrie Wilson and writer Simcha Jacobovici translated text
- They claim there was an assassination attempt on Mary's two children
- Church of England has dismissed claims comparing it to Dan Brown's work
Jesus
married his 'soul-mate' Mary Magdalene and they had two children
together, a lost gospel dating back 1,450 years has revealed.
The
ancient manuscript has also brought to light a previously unknown plot
on Jesus' life 13 years before his crucifixion and an assassination
attempt on Mary Magdalene and their children.
Professor
of religious studies Barrie Wilson and historical writer Simcha
Jacobovici discovered the text in the British Library and spent months
translating it for their new book.
Jesus revealing himself to Mary
Magdalene after the resurrection in painting by Antonio Allegri da
Correggio titled Noli me Tangere. It has been claimed that Jesus and
Mary Magdalene were married
Further
details of 'The Lost Gospel: Decoding the Sacred Text that Reveals
Jesus' Marriage to Mary Magdalene' will be released on Wednesday,
including the names of the two children.
The
book also elaborates on Jesus's alleged connections to top political
figures in the Roman Empire such as Emperor Tiberius and his best
friend, the soldier Sejanus.
Based
on The Dead Sea Scrolls, the Gnostic writings and now the
newly-translated manuscript, the book controversially claims the
original Virgin Mary was Jesus's wife, not his mother.
But
the Church of England claims the work shares more in common 'with Dan
Brown (author of the Da Vinci Code) than Matthew, Mark, Luke or John.'
Writers of new book 'The Lost Gospel'
claim that Mary Magdalene and Jesus had two children together, they are
believed to be portrayed in Da Vinci's The Last Supper
It
provides the first translation from Syriac into English of ancient
manuscript, The Ecclesiastical History of Zacharias Rhetor (of
Mytilene).
This
has been at the British Museum and then the British Library for nearly
170 years and will lead some to question why it was not translated
before now.
Syriac
is a dialect of Middle Aramaic that was once spoken across much of the
Fertile Crescent and Eastern Arabia and first appeared in the first
century AD.
Mary
Magdalene was a prominent figure at the two most important moments in
the story of Jesus - the crucifixion and the resurrection.
Mary Magdalene played a prominent role
in the two most important moments of Jesus' life, portrayed in Pieta by
Sir Anthony van Dyck
She
is remembered in popular culture as a prostitute and was portrayed by
the Catholic Church as the ideal penitent because she supposedly
anointed the feet of Jesus.
But,
although she is mentioned in each of the four gospels in the New
Testament, it does not once allude to the fact that she was a prostitute
or a sinner.
'The Lost Gospel' is not the first account to claim that Jesus of Nazareth married Mary Magdalene.
Nikos Kazantzakis made the same suggestion in his 1953 book The Last Temptation of Christ.
And
Dan Brown picked up on the ancient and persistent undercurrent in
Christian thought that Jesus and Magdalene were in fact a couple in the
plot of his best-selling thriller The Da Vinci Code.
The Church of England has claimed the book has more in common with Dan Brown's book The Da Vinci Code than the gospels
It
explores an alternative religious history whose central plot is that
the Merovingian kings of France were descended from the bloodline of
Christ and Mary.
In 2012 a fragment of ancient papyrus was also discovered which is thought to support the explosive suggestion.
The
centre of the Coptic document contains the bombshell phrase where
Jesus, speaking to his disciples, says 'my wife', which researchers
believe refers to Magdalene.
'The Lost Gospel' is a follow up to controversial New York Times bestseller The Jesus Family Tomb.
This
tells the story of the discovery of the Talpiot Tomb and makes an
argument that it is the tomb of Jesus Christ and his 'family.'
Mary Magdalene's name gives up the first real clue about her and suggests she came from a town called Magdala.
There is a place today called Magdala, 120 miles north of Jerusalem on the shores of the Sea of Galilee.
She
is considered a saint by the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox,
Anglican, and Lutheran churches with a feast day of 22nd July.
The British Library will not endorse the new book and its conclusions, saying: 'It is not for us to comment.'
Diarmaid Mac-Culloch, professor of the history of the church at Oxford University, said: 'It sounds like the deepest bilge.'
'I'm very surprised that the British Library gives these authors houseroom.'
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