OK, but there is a difference between research (finding data) and
intepretation (of the data). One of the first things I learned in
upper-division history seminars is there are often serveral, equally
believable ways of interpreting the same data. After a certain point,
all you can give there is your logical argument.
In other words, you're not always following someone else's ideas.
I'll give you an example, BTW. Someone else has probably come up with
this theory, somewhere, but I haven't seen it:
Who got married at the wedding at Cana?
(Let's assume this part of the Bible is a historical account, if
incomplete. Since I'm an atheist, I don't buy the miracle. Just the
same, Jesus was probably a historical prophet of some sort. Note: I
know little about the historical marriage customs of this period.)
Jesus is invited to the wedding at Cana. Mary (his mother) is
prominently mentioned as being there. "They" run out of wine. Mary asks
Jesus to supply the deficiency. He does (by miraculous means). He also
makes a nasty (or at least peculiar) comment: "Woman, what have I to do
with thee?"
I think Jesus was probably married to Mary Magdalene, but unlike some, I
don't think this was his wedding. If the King James translation of the
Bible is any good, Jesus was invited to the wedding, which makes it
unlikely that it was his own. On the other hand, his mother is
prominently mentioned, and Jesus is expected to help with the catering.
So it's likely the wedding was one of some close connection of his.
My guess is that Mary, his mother, is the bride. Sure, she was married
before, but there were years in which Joseph is not mentioned, giving
Joseph plenty of time to succumb to some accident or disease. So she's
remarrying. Etiquette probably requires her son to attend the wedding,
but he doesn't like her remarrying, or at least he doesn't like her new
husband. The comment above may mean, "Now you're married into someone
else's family and are part of that family, not Joseph's/my father's."
I think it sounds good . . . however, the wedding could quite plausibly
have been that of any of Jesus's relatives or disciples.
Fran
Lavolta Press
http://www.lavoltapress.com
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