Mormons have a unique theology concerning marriage. Doctrine & Covenants 132 is a revelation to Joseph Smith stating a man can have multiple wives. On the other hand, the Book of Mormon states that a man should have just one wife. Polygamy expert Anne Wilde and Christ’s Church apostle David Patrick will talk about these scriptures and more fully explain their beliefs that polygamy is a celestial principle.
David: The very next section is section 131. And it reads verse one, “In the celestial glory there are three heavens or degrees. And in order to obtain the highest A man must enter into the order of the priesthood meaning the new and everlasting covenant of marriage. And if he does not, he cannot obtain it. He may enter into another, but that is the end of his kingdom. He cannot have in an increase.” So, there’s a law, you live the law, you get the blessing. What is the blessing the celestial kingdom? One of the rules is you’ve got to be married. And so, Mormon doctrine in itself basically says an unmarried Jesus wouldn’t make it into the Celestial Kingdom.
Do you think Jesus was required to be married?
In our final conversation with polygamy expert Anne Wilde, Anne will discuss the surprising popularity of Ogden Kraut’s book “Jesus Was Married.” Christ’s Church apostle David Patrick will also add his final thoughts on why this is such an important and influential book over the past 50 years.
Anne: At BYU, the religion professors were being asked, was Jesus married? And I’m not going to mention names of the professors but there were two of them that said, “Well, you know, we’re not supposed to talk about this. We’ve been advised.” So anyway, to lay a little groundwork, the next day or two, after we took them down to the Seventies Bookstore, Brother Whitehead calls out and he says, I sold all 10 of those copies. Can you bring me 20 more? So we did, and we couldn’t figure out why. And I don’t know if Brother Whitehead knew until later. What was happening is that these religious professors found out about Ogden’s book down there and Ogden was friends with them. And so they knew the book was coming out. So what they did was they tell the students “As religion professors at BYU, we’re not supposed to say one way or the other. But there’s a book down and Seventies Bookstore if you want to go down and get that, that has the whole story. And so he sold 20 and then 50 more. And then we just kept taking them down there because of BYU students were coming down and buying. So I just thought it was kind of ironic because about the same time you know. And we have sold thousands of copies of that. It’s been an eighth printing. Its Ogden’s best-seller.
Some believe Mormon theology REQUIRES Jesus to be married. Do you? Do BYU religion professors still imply that Jesus was married?
Wheat & Tares 
D&C 132 doesn’t reflect the original text. It is a copy of a copy and the original text doesn’t exist anymore. There are internal inconsistencies that show that it has been altered and therefore cannot be relied on as a guide for our conduct or theology.
I think some people don’t understand how history works. Here is how history works. Documentary sources or artifacts (like coins or inscriptions) provide a basis for stating what likely did or did not happen in the past. String enough likely facts together and you have a historical narrative. Reality (human nature, science) provides some constraints on the likelihood of facts even when supported by historical documents. Just because Herodotus said something doesn’t mean we here in 2019 accept it as fact because our view of reality is somewhat more refined. If you have no reliable documents or artifacts that bear on a particular person or event in the past, you really can’t say anything about it, except for the very broad constraints reality offers. Jesus wasn’t from Mars. You can confidently say that without any documents to support your claim.
Here is how history doesn’t work. A church has doctrines (or a person has beliefs). It would be nice or convenient or comforting if events in the past conformed to those beliefs rather than contradicted them. Wave hands. Voila, it MUST have been the case that X (where X conforms to my doctrines or beliefs).
Look, by the same reasoning Paul MUST have been married. Except he wasn’t. We have several authentic letters of Paul and know more about him biographically than just about any other NT figure, and he plainly (based on his own statements in authentic letters) was not married.
Well, since I am gay and automagically excluded from the highest degree of the Celestial Kingdom, why would I even care if Jesus was married? Or anybody else , for that matter. This is a natural response to such egregious levels of theological discrimination.
If you believe in the principle of eternal progression, you might also believe that if you did not get married in this life, you’ll have a chance to get married in the next. So even if marriage is a requirement for the Celestial Kingdom, that does not necessarily mean that marriage is required in this life.
Maybe you don’t believe in eternal progression. Maybe you believe that our entire eternal reward is based on what we do between the ages of 8 and mortal death. Therefore, you would believe that you have to be married in THIS life to reach the CK. If you believe this, can you also acknowledge that life is full of many random events and actions that might precludes one from getting married. It’s hard to believe that these sometimes arbitrary circumstances will hold back the eternal progression of those who die single.
Example: I have a friend who waited for her missionary while attending BYU. He returned. They dated. They got engaged. The week before their wedding, he told her that he was gay. They broke up. She was emotionally damaged goods and has never dated again. She is 53 and I’m confident she will die single. She does not want to go through something like this again. So she has no chance?
Just because Paul was single at the time he wrote his letters, does not mean he was never married. I mean, how else did he get his bad attitude toward marriage than from having a horrible one? Just kidding, I think. He could have been widowed, and living at a time when about 1/3 of women died in childbirth or from complication after giving birth, his chances of being a widow were pretty good. In order to preach in the synagogue, a Jewish man had to be, or have been married. But, Paul didn’t start out preaching in the synagogue but started out persecuting the Jewish followers of a cult, nor do we have any stories f him actually preaching in a synagogue. So, I would say, the jury is still out on whether or not Paul was ever married.
As far as Mormon doctrine requiring a belief that Jesus was ever married, who cares? I agree with skdadyl above. I don’t agree with the Mormon doctrine of marriage, not because I happen to be gay, but because the role of women under the celestial harem concept is so insulting to women. No thanks on being one of 50 odd women in my husband’s harem, being barefoot and pregnant and unable to leave the harem to even talk to my children for eternity. Just, no thanks.
And it would most likely not even be my current husband because by the time all the male children who die before the age of 8 are given their 50 wives, there won’t be any women left for those of you who made it to adulthood.
Well, the inconsistency of Mormon Doctrine (theology) is shown by this. My question is how did Jesus get to become (a) God before going through all of the hoops we have to jump through if we are to become gods? Our claim is the we have to come to earth to be tested, gain a mortal body, get all the ordinances (including temple marriage), die, then judged, then become gods. So did Jesus already do this before he came here to earth as man/god? Maybe Jesus had already been to an earth before. Maybe he was married, just not on this planet. Or since he was the firstborn, was it just favoritism by a doting father that he became co-god. And where did John the baptist get his authority (priesthood) to baptize Jesus? Lots of questions!!
Was Jesus married? Probably. There are lots of people mentioned throughout the Bible whose wives we never hear of. It is hard to imagine a male of that time and culture whose family didn’t arrange some sort of marriage for him.
What I wanted to touch on, however, was the unique aspect of Mormon marriage doctrine. Commonly I hear members and leaders claiming that the unique aspect of Mormonism is that a family can be together forever. Yet the idea of seeing and being reunited with loved ones after death is already widely believed, and was widely believed before Joseph Smith came along or before whenever the LDS leadership actually began emphasizing that aspect of Mormonism. The uniqueness of Mormon teachings on marriage is that being together with loved ones in the afterlife requires a good deal of ordinance work either done in person while alive or by proxy if dead. In fact it requires one being able to go into a very expensive, very exclusive, and actually quite rare (when you think of the world’s population) building. In Mormonism, the message seems to be more so that families can’t be together forever than the reverse. If you aren’t an extremely devout Mormon in this life or if your work doesn’t get done for you after you die, then tough cookies. The news that Mormonism brings doesn’t seem very good at all when it comes to being reunited with loved ones in the afterlife when compared with predominant belief systems about the afterlife throughout much of the world. The soul isn’t as free as mainstream ideas would have us believe and God is much more demanding and nitpicky about the fine details of ordinances (baptism, confirmation, initiatories, endowment, and sealing) than common beliefs think.
All males born into the Tribe of Levi automatically got the priesthood. John the Baptist was a Levite, hence that’s how he got priesthood.