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Look, I am not a punching bag for your comments on my intelligence.

I may not understand where you are coming from as the posts here do tend to run together.

Here are my points and I am not judging your views or even know them.

- Whether or not Jesus was married has absolutely nothing to do with what His life was all about. That is a deflection into areas that will lead to diminishing Jesus into not being here as the Savior but as merely a good man.

- If we were not told in the Bible, it is not needed for our understanding. We also do not know what happened to Joseph since he was not mentioned during the cruxification. Possibly he died.

- We are given the lineage of Jesus - but, a fact hardly ever mentioned is that the lineage did not actually give birth to Jesus because it lead to Joseph. We don't have the lineage of the birth mother, Mary (or I don't). So, therefore, the genes were not through the lineage of David but through Mary because this was a virgin birth and Joseph was not involved in it other than to marry Mary and raise Jesus. But, does this matter? No. Joseph was married to Mary and raised Jesus although his genes were not involved.

Now that is according to our understanding of things. God can do anything, he created His Son, so if He wished genes from the lineage of David, He would surely be able to accomplish it. The Bible mentions the lineage continually but never speaks of the lineage of Mary, the mother. So, we could even conclude that though Mary was the birth mother, her virgin birth of God's Son did carry the genes of the lineage God mentioned all through the Old Testament - otherwise, why mention it as a promise?

God is not limited to our world view of how things work - He is God. We come along and use our human reasoning to figure out what happened, how it happened and we can lead ourselves into error because we are looking at events through human eyes in our framework.

- Jesus was a Jew but His purpose here was not to be a rabbi to bring forward the Jewish law of the Old Testament. His purpose was to bring the new law - the New Testatment, to serve as the one time sacrifice for the sins of each of us. This was not just for the Jews but for gentiles and any that accept Him as the Son of God and follow him.

- If you will note, the New Testament does not teach we are required to follow any of the Jewish regulations and prior laws. Why?

- The Jews were God's chosen people, but they, chosen though they were, always failed to follow God, and as the final travesty failed to acknowledge His Son as the Savior. How do you think that makes God feel - his own chosen ones refute His own Son given to serve as the one time sacrifice for man's sins so that man can be perfect enough to be in the presence of God in eternity?

Therefore, I am always leery when a rabbi, or a Jew starts determining the validity of Jesus. The marriage issue is a prime example. They are looking at Jesus as a good man - not the Savior generally. Some will or do accept Jesus but, on the whole, they are still waiting for their Savior.

Which, to me, is such an insult to God who has chosen them as His people. Why are they always resistent to God? Who in the world could be more worthy of their adoration and their honor - yet, they deny that Jesus is the Son of God.

Right or wrong - that is where I see it.

Look, I am not a punching bag for your comments on my intelligence.

I wasn't intending you to be - it just seemed that you didn't understand what I or my friend had said.

Whether or not Jesus was married has absolutely nothing to do with what His life was all about.

And I agree - as I said, his being married or not does not reflect upon his divinity.

That is a deflection into areas that will lead to diminishing Jesus into not being here as the Savior but as merely a good man.

I disagree - it doesn't diminish him in the least to say that he could have been married, just as it doesn't diminish him in the least when discussing whether or not he was a carpenter or what color his hair was.

- If we were not told in the Bible, it is not needed for our understanding.

I disagree - keep in mind that the NT was written at a time when people would have known much of what was going on around them or during the time of Jesus. When you just read the NT and nothing else, you are getting an isolated look at things, because you see it with 21st Century eyes - not the eyes of those living then. If you study the culture, the lifestyles of people living then, and the geopolitical history, it makes the sacrifices and actions of Jesus and his followers even more important than they already were.

In fact, some of what went on around Jesus and within a few generations before and after him, has caused reprecussions that have carried down to this very day, outside of religion - I'm talking social/historical changes that have led to conflicts that are still simmering today. I believe it's very important to know what life would have been like for those in the Bible.

- We are given the lineage of Jesus - but, a fact hardly ever mentioned is that the lineage did not actually give birth to Jesus because it lead to Joseph.

In Luke, Chapter 3, many believe that is Jesus' ancestry through Mary - after all, Jesus is referred to as the Son of David almost 20 times. Something mentioned that often is obviously very important. We could debate that for the rest of our lives (what Luke is referring to).

Therefore, I am always leery when a rabbi, or a Jew starts determining the validity of Jesus. The marriage issue is a prime example. They are looking at Jesus as a good man - not the Savior generally.

He wasn't looking at it as the validity or divinity of Jesus, but as a "if you were living back then and you were a Rabbi as Jesus was, it's very probable that you were married and people would have assumed you were married" - it's the same as if saying Jesus were a carpenter or Jesus wore this type of clothing or had this kind of beard or ate this kind of food. It has nothing to do with his divinity, but rather the way things were.

As far as your comments about Judaism, why we don't follow the Old Testament, or why those laws and beliefs were not all carried forward for the most part (although many were), that's something Biblical scholars could argue for decades to come - we don't have access to the Q document(s) or the original Gospel of Mark, or anything else that the New Testament was based on (the Nicene Creed doesn't help much either - we know the final results of course, but not all that went into those councils). There was so much turmoil in that time - it took many years before Christianity was truly seperated from Pharisaic Judaism (which became Rabbinic Judaism), and so there is a lot we don't know in how the Old Testament was viewed among those followers.