A profile of Margaret Starbird, one of the most prominent proponents of the theory that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married.

She’s been writing about this for years, but…

Things changed in the spring when “The Da Vinci Code” by Dan Brown hit the best-seller lists. It claimed Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married, and that they had created a royal bloodline in France.

Brown cited the first two of Starbird’s five books in his novel as evidence supporting the idea that Jesus was married. Those titles, which Brown said helped inspire his book, are: “The Woman with the Alabaster Jar” and “The Goddess in the Gospels.”

That’s when the phone at Starbird’s house in Steilacoom started ringing like crazy. “That’s what put me on the map,” she said.

Since then, her speaking engagements across the country – including some at Christian churches – have doubled. Her book sales have soared 10-fold. She was interviewed in November on an ABC News special called “Jesus, Mary and da Vinci.”

While still controversial and unorthodox, the idea that Jesus and Mary were married has moved into mainstream discussion. And so has Starbird.

A couple of quick points:

First, the sources that these folks use – primarily gnostic writings, especially those discovered at Nag Hammadi – are seen by most scholars as valuable for what they tell us about 2nd-4th century gnosticism, but not for anything they purport to tell us about Christian origins. Most of them are clearly dependent on the synoptics or John and are gnostic riffs upon same.

Secondly, you can judge Starbird’s assessment of the gospel accounts for yourself, and as you do so, consider two things: what motive would the evangelists have for supressing a marriage between Jesus and Mary? Judaism was not an anti-sexual or anti-marriage tradition, to say the least. Secondly, wonder why, to these people, some parts of the gospels, or at least their interpretations, are gospel truth, while others – that is, the parts that provide the basis for orthodox Christianity – are not.

And, I highly recommend Phillip Jenkins’ The Hidden Jesus for a good synopsis of scholarly thinking on the gnostic materials, as well as John Meier’s A Marginal Jew, which is pretty harsh about this tendency to date the gnostic materials, or even their purported “core” sources far earlier than they deserve.