Metaphysics and the Marriage of Jesus - or, how fundamental assumptions shape and determine Christianity

Our fundamental assumptions concerning the nature of reality (i.e. our "metaphysical" assumptions) have a decisive effect upon our perceptions and interpretations - such that when our metaphysics rules-out something, then it is often unperceived - or, if perceived, then regarded as impossible. 

This is, I presume, why the marriage of Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene (who is the same person as Mary of Bethany) is either unnoticed by readers of the IV Gospel (called "John"), and/or why each mention of it is interpreted-away - despite that there is ample and coherent reference to the marriage and its profound spiritual significance in that Gospel.  

The reason is not far to seek; because most Christians have the fundamental assumption that Jesus cannot be married, because Jesus is mystically conceptualized (in an Athanasian-Trinitarian fashion) as one of the three persons of the One Godhead - and, as such, marriage to a human being is so impossible as to be absurd. Consequently, each and every mention of the marriage of Jesus and Mary must mean something else; and the only task is to suggest what these references might mean. 

The same applies to reading the IV Gospel itself. As I described at the beginning of Lazarus Writes; when mainstream, orthodox, traditional Christians read this Gospel; they do so by implicitly but decisively subordinating it to the numerical majority "consensus" of the rest of the New Testament - first to the Synoptic Gospels (especially Matthew and Luke), and/or the Epistles (especially Pauline) and to some parts of the Revelation/ Apocalypse. 

My understanding, that the IV Gospel is the only eye-witness, earliest, and qualitatively most authoritative source concerning Jesus - is regarded as idiosyncratic, and indeed arbitrary. Therefore; the New testament, and whole Bible, are being read in terms of fundamental assumptions concenring the weight and validity of its components, that washes-away anything stated in the IV Gospel, or omitted from it, that is regarded as significant but contradictory to the majority of Books. 

By assumption, therefore, the IV Gospel must be explained in terms that harmonize it with other parts of the Bible that have, through history and as maintained by the churches, been accorded primacy. 

Another assumption relates to how we personally each ought to read The Bible - including the IV Gospel. 

It is assumed that we ought to defer to and obey some external authority in allowed ways of reading or understanding the Bible. 

Which particular authority we ought to defer to is a matter of contention between Christian denominations and churches (e.g. church tradition, or current authoritative church teaching as a whole or of specific persons, or some version of theology, or current linguistic and historical scholarship...). 

Among among those Christians who state that the Bible is its own authority and ought to be understood as inerrant and literally true; there are prior assumptions as to whether this means the Bible as a whole is true, or the New Testament primarily, or parts of the New Testament. 

And the "correct" way of understanding the Bible is likewise a prior assumption. Should its ultimate meaning be understood in an overall sense of mutual cohesion? Or a Book at a time. Or does truth reside in the Bible verse by verse - or even word by word? And do the words ascribed to Jesus, have the highest authority?

Even those denominations that assert we ought to read the Bible for ourselves by personal revelation, invariably insist upon some particular interpretations, at least for church members we aspire to have good standing in the institution. 

My point here is that our understanding of what is significant and what it means, is structured by assumptions that we all have before we consider the nature of God or Jesus Christ, the truth of Christianity; and before we read The Bible or seek guidance from any external source.

This is just a fact of things: our fundamental metaphysical assumptions have structured our Christian faith, determine what counts as evidence, and shape what that evidence means.  

We cannot choose not to have fundamental assumptions. 

Therefore your choice and my choice as Christians; lies in whether we acknowledge and become aware of the fact of prior assumptions; or - as is more usual - to deny and refuse to discuss the fact.  

 

NOTE ADDED: A further example of a prior-to-Christianity and fundamental structuring assumption is the nature of God-the-creator. Most theologically-minded Christians insist that God is and must be an Omni-God that created ex nihilo. Such a person's entire Christianity is built within such assumptions; such that (for example) "God is Love" is conceptualized within the metaphysical assumption that the loving God must be the Omni-/ ex nihilo-God; such that whatever Love means to them (their conceptualization of the nature of Love) is subordinated to the imperatives of the Omni-/ ex nihilo-God. Yet, such persons usually refuse to admit that their metaphysical assumptions regarding God Just Are prior-to, and therefore not derived-from, Christianity.