There is not the slightest hint in the New Testament that Jesus ever married. Yet, Jesus’ marital status has become a hot topic—again—as a result of the best-selling book The Da Vinci Code.¹ Novelist Dan Brown claims not only that Jesus married Mary Magdalene, but that the happy couple bore a daughter who became the ancestress of the Merovingian dynasty of France.

In 1970 New Testament scholar William Phipps created a smaller-scale sensation with his work of nonfiction, Was Jesus Married?² Noting that in Jesus’ day, all ordinary Jewish men were expected to marry, Phipps suggested Jesus was probably no exception. According to Phipps, Jesus would have married by the time he turned 18.