The secret family of Jesus

On prime-time television on Christmas Day (surely not a co-incidence), a two-hour special entitled The Secret Family of Jesus was shown on Channel 4.

A typical example of the ‘personal’ discovery genre so popular with today’s programme makers, it was presented by Robert Beckford of Oxford Brookes University, who early asserted that the programme ‘uncovers a conspiracy that Dan Brown missed, more significant than The Da Vinci Code… [one] hidden for more than two thousand years … [that] could rock everything Christians believe in’.

So what were these ‘new’ Church-threatening discoveries? Stripped to its basics, the programme asserted that Jesus had full brothers and sisters whose descendants are traceable in the Galilee for several subsequent centuries. It claimed that Mary Magdalene was a close friend and, possibly, patron. It noted that the early Church was led by some of Jesus’s siblings and that John the Baptist was a relation of Jesus and his teacher. It further noted that, especially after the Fall of Jerusalem, the locus of power in the early Church moved from Jerusalem to Rome and, in the process, the Messianic Judaism of the Jerusalem Church was superseded by the form of Christianity pioneered by the apostle Paul. As such, it developed a strong anti-feminist and power-hungry character that marginalised the poor and needy to whom Jesus’s Gospel was directed and ‘wrote out’ the persona who led the early Church.

Protestants not shocked

The immediate response to such claims is that many are scarcely shocking. Indeed, as the programme proceeds, without using the word Protestant, it recognises that its affirmation that Mary had other children is only a problem to Orthodox and Roman Catholic believers. And for those alert to modern trends in contemporary theology, the placing of James/Jude and Paul as arch-rivals, the affirmation that the early Church adopted a ‘replacement theology’ and that the deity of Jesus and deification of Mary were a construct of the post-Jerusalem Church are scarcely novel views. Thus Beckford’s belief that by decoding of Bible and other ancient texts ‘for the first time’ he is able to tell the ‘real story of Jesus’s family’ is arrogant nonsense.

Nevertheless, some analysis of Beckford’s methodology is of value; if only to unravel a number of approaches to ‘evidence’ that are often advanced to undermine biblical faith. At the same time it must be admitted that Beckford is either ill-equipped in his use of these theories or badly edited since his application of them is frequently garbled and often accompanied by considerable non-sequiturs.

Beckford’s procedures

Methodologically, then, he adopts several procedures.

* First, he argues that the New Testament writings show a progressive attempt to marginalise reference to the family of Jesus (and Mary Magdalene). To do so he assumes Markan priority for the Gospels (i.e, the order Mark, Matthew, Luke, John). While this order is widely assumed in biblical studies, it has been increasingly challenged (and has long been rejected by the present writer) and there are other answers as to the phenomena he notes than to posit suppression by the Church. Further to assert that Matthew (probably a member of the Jerusalem church) sought to undermine the affirmatory references to Jesus’s family in Mark (who possibly authored his Gospel in Rome) is psychologically incoherent if Beckford’s other claims are true.

* Secondly, Beckford draws attention to those themes that are ‘omitted’ from the Pauline letters and the apparent conflict between their teachings and those of James and Jude. These are very old and, increasingly mouldy, chestnuts. The arch rivalry between James and Paul has little evidence to support it and requires a tortured exegesis of New Testament texts to give it any plausibility at all. Moreover, such an approach simply refuses to acknowledge that content in any writing is determined by context. That certain themes emerge in one text rather than another is simply a reflection of the context that prompted the correspondence!

* Thirdly, he draws upon the popular theory that the Gentile church replaced the Jerusalem church and that the latter was the context in which dogma was developed and which showed (especially after Constantine) an antipathy to the female gender and a predilection for power. There is some justification for these assertions but Beckford tries to find evidence for this in the New Testament documents themselves, and in the projected Jerusalem/Rome opposition; a far more uncertain procedure. Moreover, the highest Christology appears to antedate the New Testament texts and is reflected in both Pauline and other texts; notably James and Jude themselves.

* Fourthly, Beckford draws upon the considerable scholarly work that has attempted, on the basis of archaeological and historical research, to uncover ongoing evidence for Jesus’s family ‘blood line’ for several centuries into the Christian era in the Galilee. At this point he is on securer ground… although in a typical non-sequitur he denies Jesus’s birth in Bethlehem and, implicitly, his virgin birth.

* Thus, and finally, he draws upon the speculative theories of ‘rogue’ scholars who, for example, have claimed to find evidence for Jesus’s birth in the Galilee. Rather than refer to ‘new’ discoveries, Beckford would have been better advised to refer to rejected speculations!

Some detail

More detailed criticisms can be made. For example:

The treatment of James, Jesus’s brother, is, Beckford claims, a ‘scandal at heart’ of Christian faith. Jesus had an older (half) brother, James, shown in ancient icons (but traditionally viewed as a half-brother), who was as important as Peter and Paul in the early church. Thus almost all non-biblical sources identify James as the first leader of the Jerusalem church but the Bible makes this less clear, since there is only grudging admission in Acts! Except for the last point, no Protestant believer would necessarily wish to challenge Beckford’s view (although such would probably prefer to view James as Jesus’s younger brother) … and it is scarcely a ‘scandal’ since it has been widely recognised by Christians down the centuries.

Further, Beckford argues, the Church faced a choice between James’s or Paul’s versions of Christianity. And James’s Jewish Christians became marginalised. AD 70 was catastrophic for Jewish Christians and Jesus’s family’s control of the church shifted to that of the ‘arch-rival’ Paul. In a palpable anachronism we are told ‘Paul [almost certainly already dead for half a decade!] and his followers took over leadership’. Rome became centre and Christianity burgeoned there. This growth was the death-knell for the family’s control of the new Christian movement’ and their ‘narrowly Jewish outlook’ whereas Paul re-invented Christianity in the version known to us today. The winners wrote the early history.

However, in the Bible itself, despite marginalisation, shadows of family are still present and evidence of their role and importance is still recoverable, e.g. in James and Jude. Thus, whereas Paul emphasised salvation through faith in Jesus Christ as the Son of God, the brothers concentrate on what Jesus taught and his vision for the world in challenging the rich and powerful. Beckford argues that the Church Fathers refused to receive these letters and only included them when oral traditions demanded such. He notes that they do not regard Jesus as divine but one blessed by God, they offer a theology of Jesus not about Jesus and they exclude many fundamental Pauline truths, e.g. about the cross and salvation. Beckford appeals as ‘the key’ to The Didache which, he alleges, was written when family still alive and which similarly teach a code of Christian ethics based on original teachings of Jesus. It too is dangerous because of what it leaves out: virgin birth, resurrection and Jesus as Son of God (though he is mentioned as Lord).

In all of this Beckford shows little grasp of the details of Church history. The Didache is not often dated as early as he claims, nor is it necessary to place his ‘spin’ on it. Moreover, the alleged division between the Jerusalem Church and Paul is (as noted above) a gross over-statement of the evidence and his understanding of the development of Church dogma faulty.

To be fair to the programme, Beckford does allow the Rev. Dean Bechard of the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome to state, in reference to some of Beckford’s views, that, ‘Christians in every generation have had an interest and curiosity about [the family of Jesus] but this has generated fanciful, speculative, imaginary images and stories about the family of Jesus’. He argues Beckford’s thesis is ‘another example of that’. One is bound to agree!

Gospel looks after itself

So why The Secret Family of Jesus? The liberal establishment in the TV world doubtless rejoiced in what was viewed as an opportunity to de-bunk the traditional Christmas story. Beckford, himself, alleges that while he believes the dogma of the Church and has experienced the risen Christ himself, he wishes to rediscover Jesus’s message as one directed to the downtrodden, an ethical code that heralded the kingdom of God on earth now. In other words, he wishes to affirm a fundamentally feminist and liberationist interpretation of the gospel. One is bound to conclude that if he (and the liberal establishment) have to resort to such an incoherent and eclectic mish-mash of truth, half-truth, theory and wish-fulfilment, the ‘old fashioned’ gospel is alive, kicking, in good heart and able to look after itself!

The Rev. Dr. Stephen Dray, Minister of Ferndale Baptist Church, Southend-on-Sea, and Visiting Scholar, Sarum College, Salisbury

A review

Protestants not shocked

Beckford’s procedures

Methodologically, then, he adopts several procedures.

Some detail

Gospel looks after itself

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