Scott Wolter: Kathleen McGowan Coppens Could Be a Descendant of Jesus and Mary Magdalene

1/10/2015

Due to some previous commitments, I may or may not be able to review America Unearthed as it airs this evening. I will do my best to review it, but depending on time it may have to wait until tomorrow. But as we wait for this evening’s episode, in which Scott Wolter investigates Cleopatra’s Needle in Central Park, it’s amusing to take a look at his response on his blog this week to comments speculating about Kathleen McGowan Coppens’s mental health.

Regular readers will remember that McGowan (the name she went by until recently) claims to be the lineal descendant of the Holy Bloodline founded by Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene. She says she receives visions from Mary Magdalene. She divorced her husband to marry ancient astronaut theorist and Ancient Aliens pundit Philip Coppens, and she took over his position on Ancient Aliens after his untimely death. Since McGowan’s claims directly feed into those of Scott Wolter, and she is a colleague of Wolter’s colleague Alan Butler, in theory her claims ought to be important “evidence” for Wolter’s own Holy Bloodline theories, the subject of the upcoming America Unearthed two-part season finale.

The Holy Bloodline myth derives from the semi-fictional pseudo-history book Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, which used poor scholarship and unreliable sources to develop the idea that Mary Magdalene married Jesus and had children by him who eventually gave rise to the Merovingian royal house. The claim has little textual support beyond some ambiguous Gnostic references to the pair kissing. Peter of les Vaux-de-Cernay, writing in the Historia Albigensis 10-11 before 1218 said that the Cathars considered Mary Magdalene to be the “concubine” (but not wife) of Jesus, not because they had special knowledge but because they identified the pair with the incident of adultery in John 8:3. The other support for the claim comes from the special veneration given to Mary Magdalene in southern France, where a medieval tradition, first recorded by Sigebert of Gembloux in the Chronicon sive Chronographia (entry for 745) around 1112, says that Mary Magdalene traveled to Gaul and was buried at Aix, and later Vézelay. While this legend grew like kudzu in France (becoming a key chaper in the famous Golden Legend), it was clearly not the original tradition, nor does it have anything to do with holy children. The Eastern churches held that the Magdalene was buried in Ephesus (Modestus in Photius, Biblioteca 275), which even Western writers—in France no less!—agreed with until the High Middle Ages. Gregory of Tours, for example, writing in his In gloria martyrum 1.30 in the sixth century CE reported on the Magdalene’s grave at Ephesus.

So what does Wolter have to say about McGowan Coppens?

I have never met Kathleen so I have no opinion about her. She's seems like a nice enough person during her appearances on the two Oak Island episodes that I watched, but I know nothing else about her.

I don't think it's fair to say she's not a legitimate researcher simply because she believes she is descended from J & M; she might very well be. Just as it's also possible there could be thousands of other people who are. Neither you or I know the answer to that.

Is that the reaction of someone looking for the Jesus Bloodline? Here we have someone who says she’s an actual Jesus descendant and Wolter isn’t even trying to test her DNA? Surely, if he truly believes that the Knights Templar brought the Jesus genome to America and bred European Jesus descendants with Native people (as he writes in Akhenaten to the Founding Fathers), we should find substantial similarities between the DNA of the Native American Jesus spawn and McGowan Coppens.

While a match would not prove either claim, failure to find a match would do much to logically disprove one or both claims, so perhaps that’s why we aren’t likely to see anyone agitating for this very obvious step toward confirming or disproving the largely baseless Holy Bloodline claim.

98 Comments

McGowan claim

1/10/2015 04:49:05 am

Kathleen ,McGowan stopped actively claiming to be the descendant of Jesus Christ a long time ago. She is billed as a researcher on documentaries. Check out her Facebook and website, she never refers to the descent claim at all.

1/10/2015 04:52:11 am

And McGowan's descent claim was, if I am correct, more to do with reincarnation and spirituality than with actual lineage, with the DNA of Jesus Christ being generated through this fashion.

1/10/2015 04:57:40 am

Of course, Kathleen McGowan isn't going to stop selling her books because she has stopped peddling her claims to be descended from Christ - any more than Henry Lincoln is going to stop selling "The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail". Henry Lincoln's (revised) position on the bloodline theory is that it was ONLY A HYPOTHESIS - NOT FACT - as he has been continuously repeating on podcast interviews since 2006.

1/10/2015 05:01:07 am

"McGowan stopped actively claiming to be the descendant of Jesus Christ a long time ago."

But has she ever retracted it?

"McGowan's descent claim was, if I am correct, more to do with reincarnation and spirituality than with actual lineage, with the DNA of Jesus Christ being generated through this fashion."

In other words, even stupider than it appears on the surface.

Albert W. L. Moore, Jr.

11/14/2016 05:12:36 pm

Point, point.

Jason Colavito link

1/10/2015 05:03:39 am

McGowan actively reiterated the claim to be a descendant of Mary Magdalene on her personal blog a few months ago. She may not use it on TV, but she still uses it with her fans.

1/10/2015 05:13:26 am

She has never retracted the claim.

Clete

1/10/2015 10:10:33 am

Wouldn't it be interesting if she has twelve fans.

Casey DuHamel link

1/11/2015 07:04:40 am

I used to be an internet friend of KMC to the point we were going to have lunch together when I was going to go to San Francisco. Unfortunately, I gave her an acknowledgment in my book. My co-author and I always suspected something was not quite right given KMC was prone to temper tantrums at the slightest provocation on her yahoo forum and she very much has illusions of grandeur. She got into a hell of a financial mess regarding hosting a guided tour to France with noted author Tim Wallace-Murphy (I think he is suing her, but don't quote me on that). She has "stalked" and harassed her detractors and is infamous for her foul mouthed tirades. She has made outrageous claims as to attempts on her life and kidnappings due to her "clandestine knowledge". She is well known for stretching the truth. I am a victim of her inane temper and irrational behavior. What would have to ask her "Would Jesus, your 58th grandfather, behave like that?" To quote a wonderful fellow and friend of mine who also happens to be an expert on all things esoteric, especially Rennes-le-Chateau and has appeared on the Nat Geo channel: "KMC is a Grade A asshole." She was Philip's Yoko Ono. She actually said that! When Philip (or Fillip) tragically passed away, she likened herself to Yoko Ono, posting such ridiculousness on her Facebook page. 70% of all people that can trace their origins back to medieval Germany, France, and Britain can trace back to Charlemagne. This, in Grail theory, means all those millions of people can trace back to the "Holy Bloodline". I think KMC gave up when she realized she wasn't JC's only 58th great grandchild!

1/11/2015 09:19:07 am

Please tell us more about yourself, Ms. DuHammel. I would very much like you learn about the nature of your interest in and acquaintance with KMC.

Conrad M Cummings link

12/14/2018 06:23:00 pm

Read my Chronicle Blog and understand that it is Trurh even if I'm not an accomplished writer...I am #9 of the nine and last of the 9 brothers of creation...here's a little truth concerning the aggregate of creation... conradmcummings.simplesite.com

terry the censor

1/10/2015 04:51:55 am

The headline is misleading. Wolter is suspending judgement about Coppens' ancestry, taking no position. That explains his lack of interest in her DNA.

But your broader point is good: fringers with theories about people of extraordinary descent NOT using DNA analysis to test their hypotheses.

Wolter making claims about bloodlines but not presenting genetic evidence. UFO abduction proponents such as David Jacobs and Barbara Lamb claiming there are thousands of alien hybrids among us, but showing little interest in testing the biological material they claim to possess (see Jack Brewer's interview with Jacobs).

Step it up, fringers! The bigfooters got their samples analysed and the results published in Nature!

1/10/2015 05:02:35 am

"The headline is misleading."

How so? Wolter literally says McGowan "very well could be" a descendant of Jesus and Mary Magdalene.

1/10/2015 06:25:43 am

> Wolter literally says McGowan "very well could be"

EP, you take that out of context of a paragraph were he says he just doesn't know. Wolter explicitly says "Neither you or I know the answer to that." Wolter doesn't take a position.

He takes no position.

FrankenNewYork

1/10/2015 08:13:52 am

Not stating a position is not the same as not having one. Wolter not trying to follow up on McGowan's claim points to his (probable) thinking that it would not be fruitful, because it's false. If someone were looking for the fountain of youth and a contemporary peer claimed to hold a map to the location, or a map to the map, I would equate disinterest in the map to serious doubt about it's authenticity and value. If it "very well could be" real why not pursue it?

1/10/2015 08:22:00 am

Wolter said she could be. Jason said Walter said she could be. Unless one has difficulty attending to the plain sense of English words, there is nothing misleading about Jason's headline.

1/11/2015 05:34:09 am

@EP
> Unless one has difficulty attending to the plain sense of English words...etc.

Please tell us how the "plain sense of English" turns "Neither you or I know the answer to that" into a positive claim of knowing.

1/11/2015 09:20:09 am

Please tell me where Jason attributes to Wolter a "positive claim of knowing".

1/11/2015 10:40:02 am

Come on, EP, you are arguing disingenuosly, as well you know. Your position is sustained by omitting Wolter's explicit disavowal of knowledge, which I have quoted twice now.

99.9 percent of what Wolter says is nonsense. There is no need to tendentiously press that to 100 percent.

(I was going to say, "We needn't sniff every noodle in Wolter's logic casserole," but I am afraid his apologists would accuse me of using 33rd-level Illuminati food imagery.)

1/11/2015 10:55:12 am

When it comes to reading comprehension, I'm happy with people either judging for themselves, or choosing between the opinion of Jason and myself on the one hand, and terry the censor's opinion on the other :)

SouthCoast

1/12/2015 03:24:52 pm

Shouldn't that be "Is it possible, as some believe, that McGowan 'very well could be',",etc.? That seems to be the usual formulation in such cases!

Joe Scales

1/12/2015 12:11:48 pm

Here is Wolter's quote Terry:

"I don't think it's fair to say she's not a legitimate researcher simply because she believes she is descended from J & M; she might very well be. Just as it's also possible there could be thousands of other people who are. Neither you or I know the answer to that."

Wolter is taking a position. You state he is not taking a position simply because he states "Neither you or I know the answer to that". No. What he is actually doing is falling back on the fallacy of appeal to ignorance (argumentum ad ignorantiam) to defend McGowan's claim to be a descendant of Christ. It is this sort of faulty reasoning he often, and admittedly, falls back upon when challenged. Quite frankly, a true student of history could make a compelling inductive argument that her claim could not possibly be true, and at the very least, her basis for doing so is quite suspect. But to embrace such foolishness and defend it by use of fallacy is the very reason why Wolter cannot be trusted and his own claims must be seriously scrutinized.

1/12/2015 02:09:06 pm

> What he is actually doing is falling back on the fallacy of appeal to ignorance (argumentum ad ignorantiam)

*sigh*

The appeal to ignonance is nowhere in Wolter's statement. You do not understand the fallacy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance

At worst, Wolter is mystery mongering. That is, he is implying that since the truth of the issue cannot be known, the truth of the matter is therefore an open question -- despite a total lack of positive evidence. All of fringedom is plagued by this kind of equivocaton, especially their so-called "documentaries."

Please stop this silliness, everyone. It's embarrassing.

1/12/2015 03:05:57 pm

terry, just to be clear that there are no hard feelings, let me say that I completely agree with you. I hate it when people namedrop fallacies but don't even bother to make sure they understand them or apply the right one to the case at hand.

It's like a minor form of Internet cancer, I'm afraid.

1/12/2015 04:23:15 pm

@EP
> It's like a minor form of Internet cancer, I'm afraid.

Cancer? Can't we just say "flu"? Far less distressing!

1/13/2015 03:17:00 am

No Terry. You're just thinking one line at a time. Wolter is saying McGowan could very well be such a descendant, because no one can basically prove otherwise. Because this form of appeal to ignorance doesn't fit your wiki research examples, I can understand your being perplexed. However, Wolter relies upon this fallacy often and last month came right out and told Jason "there is also no evidence to prove my assertions are wrong" in the Great Wall of China discussion. Is that a better wiki fit for you?

1/13/2015 03:35:55 am

To better sum that up, Wolter is using the appeal to ignorance to defend McGowan's claim of truth to the assertion.

1/13/2015 06:59:21 am

@Joe

I'm sorry, Joe, but you must brush up on your fallacies. By your account, every time a skeptic suspends judgement, that skeptic is making a positive claim! That is paradoxical. Socrates and Sextus Empiricus will have worked in vain!

If you can, get Sextus's "Outlines of Pyrrhonism," also translated as "Outlines of Skepticism." All anyone needs to read is Book 1 (the other two books are more technical demonstrations of the ideas in the first book).

Pyrrhonism was the basis for the skepticism of Montaigne and Descartes, among others (see Popkin's "History of Skepticism" and Broughton's "Descartes' Method of Doubt," both excellent books). Though Pyrrho lived 2300 years ago, his attacks on dogmatism are still useful: they help illuminate both the methods of Socrates and those of modern science.

Good luck.

1/13/2015 09:28:10 am

That would be both a hasty generalization fallacy as well as red herring Terry. Wolter is not truly suspending belief. He is justifying McGowan's by the appearance of what you believe to be skepticism. I think you know I'm right, deep down, hence the red herring. That or both reading comprehension and critical analysis on your part would in fact be lacking. Either way, no need to continue.

1/13/2015 09:30:31 am

Oh wait Terry. Forgot Strawman.

Carry on...

tmara

2/15/2015 12:41:01 pm

the "bigfooters" were never published in Nature. the results were questioned and the conclusions dismissed because of chain of evidence issues and improper analysis. the results were published on their own website DeNovo and were (and might still be)navailable on a pay to read basis.

sandra preston link

7/17/2015 01:22:39 pm

i don't care for scott wolter,,i believe if he found anything he would turn it over to the powers that be..and if he told me something wasn't so,,i would hold it suspect..i don't watch him,and i can't listen to his voice

Dan

1/10/2015 04:58:53 am

I am the author of those two anonymous posts about McGowan. The second one, which details her recent history was gleaned primarily from a USA Today article that predated the release of one of her books:
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/life/books/news/2006-07-17-magdalene-book_x.htm

My first post was approved within minutes of my posting and appeared on the site almost instantaneously. That's the one that Wolter replied to, as quoted above. My second post took hours to get approved, and I thought for a while the Wolter might find it too detailed and censor it, but he let it go. He didn't respond to the larger and more substantial post.

I get the impression that a lot of his ignorance regarding subjects about which he should be fully versed is just intellectual laziness. As Jason makes clear in this post, he most certainly should know who is Kathleen McGowan -- I mean it takes about 30 seconds on google to get her entire life history.

Another example is when I engaged him on twitter and compared his silly "archeological" finds with something very real and very important like Baffin Island. He hadn't even heard of the Baffin discoveries. That's shocking to me, and frankly a very clear sign that he's not really serious about his stated goals -- finding actual pre-Columbian contact. The evidence is there, he's just looking in all the wrong places.

1/10/2015 05:05:10 am

My impression is slightly different. It's not that he's unserious, it's just that he's unsystematic, and because he relies on other fringe researchers for his information (and thinks of the mainstream as a conspiracy) he doesn't know what's going on beyond the fringe.

1/10/2015 05:08:07 am

I'd throw intellectually criminal stubbornness and unwillingness and/or incapacity to engage in even the most elementary self-criticism.

1/10/2015 05:25:20 am

The Jesus Bloodline nonsense has spawned a whole cottage industry of books that fall into various categories - literal acceptance of the theory (eg, Margaret Starbird one of many) - novels (eg, Dan Brown one of many) - and Mary Magdalene being wife of Christ, New Age Goddess parallel to Isis and Astarte, with various spiritual soothsayers claiming that Mary Magdalene is communicating to the world through them introducing a new World Enlightenment that incorporates the Divine Feminine (eg, Gloria Amendola one of many).

1/10/2015 05:36:35 am

Further to those claiming to have inside information about the life of Jesus and Mary Magdalene through mediumship, check out the books by Claire Heartsong

Complete List

1/10/2015 09:05:09 am

America Unearthed, Episode List
http://thetvdb.com/?tab=seasonall&id=265052

Kal

1/10/2015 09:25:09 am

According to the Bible, one of the original sources of Jesus, he wasn't married and didn't have children, and didn't have an affair with Mary Magdeline, because he never sinned. He was married to the church, not to any people. All of the speculation about this bloodline thing comes from the middle ages when the French, or some frenchmen, coopted the idea to make their fraudulent claims sound royal. One of them even put that bs in their museum of history. It is as mythological as the holy grail cup, also from fantasy much later. Jesus wasn't from Europe. He was from Isreal. If someone claims they have a blood connection to Jesus they are nuts, and if someone claims it's spiritual DNA, it sounds like a bad science fiction story. Not all of ya may buy the Bible as literal or anything, but even figuratively there is no record before the middle ages of Jesus shacking up with any women. Then he would have sinned. Now if he had step brothers, which he might have, thone of them could have married, but the kids would have been Joseph's descendants.

Only later in history did they equate Mary Magdeline and the other Mary with the woman caught in adultery. If they're implying she was caught in adultery with Jesus, that would be blasphemous. That is not the case. The actual woman in that story was never named. But there are some later fiction books that claim the story itself was false. This is their way of backing out of it. No, there is no Holy Bloodline.

1/10/2015 10:15:45 am

1. The Bible does not state that Jesus was unmarried, nor that he had no children--it doesn't mention ANYTHING about his marital state. There would be no debate if it was that clear.

2. He couldn't have been married to "the Church" because "the Church" was founded by Peter AFTER Jesus' death. He would have been married to "the Temple" if anything.

3. The story of the unnamed prostitute in no way even pretends to name Jesus as a partner in her adultery, so equating Mary Magdalene with the unknown prostitute is in no way blasphemous; in fact the conflation had a more openly sexist purpose. Prior to the time period in which the conflation occurred, women had more power in both secular and holy circles--not that they were accepted into the priesthood, but they played a more assertive role than afterwards.

4. The concept that having sex within the contexts of marriage is sinful is also something that long postdates the writing of the books of the Bible, and therefore at the time the gospels were written, Jesus having children would not have been the least bit blasphemous and in fact would have been considered to be faithfully following one of God's earliest commands, namely "Go forth and multiply." At the time, the importance of Mary's virginity was not that she would have been sinful for sleeping with Joseph after marriage, but that she was pregnant with a child that had no father and BEFORE she married Joseph; in short, her being a pregnant virgin was emphasizing the miraculous, not denying the sinfulness.

Not to mention that if there was record in the Bible of Jesus having a wife and kids, there wouldn't BE a modern concept that it's wrong and sinful.

None of this means that there's a Holy Bloodline. It just means that your claims for evidence against the existence of a Holy Bloodline is as weak as claims that there is. I go by Occam's Razor--in the face of a complete lack of evidence for there being a Holy Bloodline, the assumption requiring the fewest assumptions is that there is no bloodline, since assuming there is one would assume that there is one and that it was for some reason deliberately covered up, at a minimum. So no, no Holy Bloodline, but don't get a swelled head about your reasoning, since it's deeply flawed and them what lives in glass houses shouldn't be flinging stones about.

McSion Descendant

1/10/2015 10:09:39 pm

V is wrong on all counts. Had Jesus Christ been married it would have been known.There is nothing in early Christian texts to suggest that. The marriage of Jesus Christ and that he had offspring is a modern myth.

1/11/2015 09:21:00 am

Yes, because we obviously know everything about the life of Jesus... LOL

mike

1/27/2015 06:28:01 am

wow, where can I begin your comments are so evident of no knowledge whatsoever of anything Biblical to the point of humour.

"He couldn't have been married to "the Church" because "the Church" was founded by Peter AFTER Jesus' death. He would have been married to "the Temple" if anything." WRONG any believer in Christ is called the Bride , in Hebrew tradition the groom pays a price for his bride , goes away to prepare for the wedding party and only proceeds when the Father is satisfied that all things have been fulfilled. Christ is coming back again for His Bride.

"The story of the unnamed prostitute in no way even pretends to name Jesus as a partner in her adultery, so equating Mary Magdalene with the unknown prostitute is in no way blasphemous; in fact the conflation had a more openly sexist purpose. Prior to the time period in which the conflation occurred, women had more power in both secular and holy circles--not that they were accepted into the priesthood, but they played a more assertive role than afterwards"
Where can I even start with this one ? Do you write contracts or something or is doublespeak your specialty ?

'The concept that having sex within the contexts of marriage is sinful is also something that long postdates the writing of the books of the Bible, and therefore at the time the gospels were written, Jesus having children would not have been the least bit blasphemous and in fact would have been considered to be faithfully following one of God's earliest commands, namely "Go forth and multiply.' WRONG even the wording is wrong , are you in the second grade ?
Too stupid of a comment , I let it speak for itself "Not to mention that if there was record in the Bible of Jesus having a wife and kids, there wouldn't BE a modern concept that it's wrong and sinful."

You can only be forgiven if English is not your first language and then again not completely.

sandra link

7/17/2015 01:41:03 pm

do we have a sample of jesus's blood for comparison?

Uncle Ron

1/10/2015 10:17:18 am

One of the principle themes in Jason's writing is how we cannot trust translations, secondary sources, and hand-me-down oral traditions. Repeatedly we have seen how ancient stories were revised to fit an agenda or a changing political climate.

Those who originally wrote about the life of Jesus had a vested interest in his being divine, having died on the cross and then having been resurrected; it is likely that they would have left out all those "mere mortal" aspects of his life so as not to dilute the "God's Son" story line. Later the church, when compiling the acceptable canon of Christian literature, suppressed any "blasphemous" writing they felt was inconvenient.

Personally, I don't believe any of it but his having been married, had children, and/or somehow escaped the crucifixion is just as plausible as his having died on the cross, returned to life, and bodily ascended to heaven. It was, is, and always will be a story with an agenda.

1/10/2015 10:25:09 am

Not dumping on you Kal. Just suggesting an alternative viewpoint.

1/11/2015 07:15:21 am

You are missing the point, Uncle Ron. Dying on the Cross and being resurrected is the core of the central aspect of Christianity - it's all about the Atonement and the reconciliation of Man with God.

Where is any of that to be found in a mortal Jesus who survived the Crucifixion, got married and started a family?

Gerald Sinclair

1/11/2015 12:56:02 pm

Your last line is the only true one out of all the billions of words written on this subject and it always amazes me that people think that for some reason scribes of yesterday were any more honourable than the woeful standard of journalists today.
When I was younger and doing a check on this subject from memory I found 4 or maybe 5 religions that had the virgin birth, ascent to heaven theme, that December 25th is in fact the Birthday of Mithras (who Paul originally worshipped as a Roman Citizen), that at Nicea they decided which Gospels would suit their purpose (so much for the Bible being the word of God) going forward, which included the marginalisation of females, and throws doubt on the Magdalene profiling, and I discovered the quote of a Pope who at an orgy toasted "It has served us well, this myth of Jesus Christ"
You add in other factors like Paul recruiting by changing previous principles (e.g. circumcision, which was more likely because of health reasons than religious ones anyway, sand under a foreskin can be unpleasant) and what you have is an olden day example that seems awfully close to a modern day re branding and marketing exercise.

1/11/2015 06:18:03 pm

Gerald Sinclair,

If Jesus Christ was really married and there really is a Jesus dynasty – so what? It does not really satisfy, does it?

Are you going to peddle for the need for a Rex Mundi?
Is this going to be your life's agenda?

7/17/2015 01:49:51 pm

i believe in jesus..i believe his teaching were rewritten and concepts added to his...i believe we shall never know the real truth until he comes back and tells us..how we know what's added and what's left,well,your guess is as good as mine..i believe that the powers that be would put their grubby hands on anything that we hold sacred to use to control..we are all gods children and we are all his descendants..

1/11/2015 12:38:11 pm

Karl I find this whole subject pretty boring, so have never bothered delving into it in detail, but my understanding is under Jewish Law at the time it would have been impossible for Jesus to hold the positions he did if he was not married.
As I also cannot buy the mystical son of god tale, on face value it appears highly likely that the world is flush with descendants of Jesus and Prof Hugh Montgomery does a good job of tracing where the others ended up in his God King series of books.
From what I have heard re McGowan it is not very probable she is one of them.

1/13/2015 04:31:44 am

Hugh Montgomery is a goofball comparable to Laurence Gardner

mick mack

1/27/2015 06:34:41 am

where is the world is your proof that Paul worshipped Mithras ? Paul states that he was an Israelite a zealot for the Law. He would have never even acknowledged Mithras as a god, are you kidding me ? As far as far as the Bible goes we could stitch the whole New testament just from the quotes from the early Church Fathers before Nicea or any other councils. Quit trying to be an historian, you are a failure.

7/17/2015 01:35:57 pm

did jesus have any half brothers?

James Morison link

1/10/2015 11:00:00 am

According to Steve Olson, if Jesus does have any modern descendants, then most and maybe all of us would be among his descendants. It is based on a theoretical analysis which has been criticized. His Wikipedia article has a link to his analysis. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Olson_(writer)

1/11/2015 05:51:29 am

Christianity was not built on the idea of a mortal Jesus Christ who needed to have a lineage to keep things going. That's nowhere to be found.

1/11/2015 02:05:35 pm

Of course not the story would not have lasted more than a few months in that case, but that does not mean it is not the actual truth, and frankly is much more probable to be the truth than the subsequent Goebbels type spin.

As Seneca the younger 4 BC - AD 65 supposedly said "Religion is regarded by the masses as true, by the wise as false and by the rulers as useful"
Earlier Lucretius 94BC - 49BC supposedly said "All religions are equally sublime to the ignorant, useful to the politician, and ridiculous to the philosopher"
Quotes on religion do not get more accurate than that and there is a wealth of historical evidence to back them up in any society in the world you would care to look at perhaps except China, but the adoption of the Confucius philosophy and dogma served much the same purpose for the rulers.
Constantine (depending on who you read) could well be a pragmatic example of the above using his Co Emperor Licinius's persecution of Christians as an excuse to unseat him and become sole Roman Emperor. He was not a Christian himself at the time and it depends who you read whether he did ever become one or if he did whether he renounced it on his death bed, in any event he initially simply found it expedient and useful. to defend the very people he himself had previously fought.

Bottom lone is we have not learnt much over the centuries have we?

1/11/2015 06:43:03 pm

Gerald Sinclair,

The bottom line is that there is no known world religion dependant upon any genealogy or family tree.

I go back to the time when Holy Blood, Holy Grail was first published in 1982 - the universal response to the book from all quarters was that "Christianity would not have panned out the way it did if anything in that book is correct". That was the standard response to Holy Blood, Holy Grail when it was first published

1/11/2015 07:15:47 pm

I correct myself here - there are the genealogies found in the Gospels. Christianity is dependant on a Family Tree, A bit of explaining of Christianity shows that Jesus Christ was a Second Adam who rectified Original Sin - the Cross that Jesus Christ was crucified and died upon was parallel to the Tree in the Garden of Eden and Original Sin. The Resurrection was the rectification of the sin of Adam and Eve. Jesus Christ was sent to redeem us from Original Sin.

Bearing this in mind, the possibility of a married Jesus Christ who married and procreated becomes even more an impossibility and explains the absence of any reference to his being married in the Gospels.

1/11/2015 07:21:01 pm

Jesus Christ's Mission to save Mankind from Original Sin easily explains the idea of the Virgin Birth found within the framework of the genealogies in the Gospels.

People find the idea somewhat confusing but it's all rather easy to understand once you ascertain what the New Testament is all about.

1/11/2015 07:38:18 pm

The concept of Original Sin within Christianity instantly explains the attitude of the Papacy towards birth control, homosexuality, abortion, etc.

The concept of Original Sin within the New Testament is very similar and almost parallel to the belief systems of the Gnostics who held that the world was created by a an evil creator god, and only through the Word of God, the gnosis, could Mankind be saved. Therefore even more of an impossibility that the Jesus Christ of the Gospel of Philip had carnal relationship with Mary Magdalene to a body of religion that held matter was evil and spirit was good.

T Man link

1/10/2015 12:43:23 pm

Much more interesting than the Jesus/Magdalene myth is Pierre Plantard, his so-called Priory of Sion and those behind the myth. A complex fraud was perpetrated upon the authors of HBHG and it originated in the underground, occult, parapolitical (fascist) right. Further, Plantard was the vehicle for which this group - The Alpha Galates and its mag, Vaincre - desired to bolster their occult bonafides. It was nothing more than a collection of Memphis Misraim, Martinist and Rosicrucian members who concocted the Merovingian canard to legitimize their own occult (and political) myths above those of other underground groups for recruitment purposes - even before the HBHG authors stumbled upon it and failed miserably at interpreting what they had found.

1/10/2015 02:42:24 pm

cool story bro

1/10/2015 09:56:40 pm

Wrong on all counts, T Man, Plantard was a loser even among the esoteric classes.

Suzanne Olsson link

1/11/2015 04:41:22 am

I will contribute my comments here because I feel directly involved. I also feel directly involved in the comments that Kathleen McGowan makes about her “holy lineage” because I was there and probably a huge influence on her ideas. It all began when she was a member of Laurence Gardner’s forum, supporting his books and ideas about “Bloodlines of the Holy Grail.” There was a burst of activity on the bloodline theme about this time.
The earliest mention in modern times seems to have been L’Or de Rennes (later re-published as Le Trésor Maudit), a 1967 book by Gérard de Sède, with the collaboration of Pierre Plantard. Over time many picked up the theme and wrote books about it. ‘The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail’ (retitled Holy Blood, Holy Grail in the United States) by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln. Margaret Starbird, Donovan Joyce, Andreas Faber-Kaiser, Barbara Thiering, Karen King, Bettye Johnson, and many others. But all stopped short of actually naming a real-life descendant until Michael Foss and Laurence Gardner appeared on the scene. When the lineage of Michael la Foss was proved to be falsehoods, the entire theory was met with mockery and ridicule. Even when Dan Brown wrote The DaVinci Code he hinted at modern descendants but left it to researchers to do the modern research necessary, primarily DNA trails to establish some kind of potential lineage.
I had my own forum at the same time as Gardner. I brought to the world the research from India and Kashmir- a family claiming they had the original scrolls showing their descent from Jesus (Issa). I published my research on that forum and in the first editions of my book. As the result, Laurence Gardner and I had become friends and remained close until his death. He supported my work. He guided and helped me. We were on radio shows together discussing our ideas. I was frightened to make any public claims because after the LaFoss incident, I feared ridicule and feared making a mockery of serious research. To be brief, I became interested because my family bloodline goes directly back to Baldwin, First King of Jerusalem. He was a French knight who led the First Crusades to the Holy land. He was a Merovingian. I wrote about this in the opening chapter of my book. You can read this at amazon.com, the ‘See inside the Book’ feature. It will appear for you there.
I lived in India, Pakistan, and Kashmir for several years. I became aware of an entire religion founded over a hundred years ago based on the claims that Jesus went to India, married and had children there, and has a grave there to this day. I met a family who claimed to be direct descendants of Jesus and had ancient scrolls to prove it. More than anything in the world I wanted to see those scrolls, to copy them and to look for names that might be familiar to us in the west. I had email contact with the patriarch of the family, Bashrat Shaheen. We were to meet and he was willing to submit his family to DNA tests to see if he was related to the man in the tomb, and if we too might be related. I had permission from the Chief Minister of Kashmir to do the DNA testing. I was in contact with National Geographic applying for Grant money to help pay for the expensive DNA tests. We were on the brink of changing history. An entire population in Kashmir was holding their breath and counting on us to go forward with this- hoping it would bring Kashmir to the attention of the world and help this poor State. That Dan Brown came out with his book was helpful because it peeked interest in the DNA Project.
All this was discussed freely on my forum and Laurence Gardner’s forum. Kathleen McGowan was also a member of these forums, often under various aliases. I didn’t know at the time. I never heard of her. Someone who was a member of several forums sent me information that Kathleen McGowan was copying information from my forum and re-posting it on hers as her own work. So I joined her forum under an alias and watched. Sure enough it was true. We even set “bait” to see if she would take it, and sure enough things I printed would appear on her forum a few days later as her original material. Then I confronted her. At this time she was not yet a “Magdalene” heir, neither psychic nor spiritual, nor any other way. She self-published ‘The Expected One’ without a hint that she was the reincarnation of Magdalene. As Jason has pointed out previously, at this time she was still involved with being a hereditary witch, a priestess of Isis who brought back secrets from the Emerald tablets in Egypt, an astrologer, a numerologist who was a good friend of Linda Goodman (This is another can of worms for McGowan. I tried to sort out the comments left at ‘Lindaland’..where KMG first admits they never met and only had a ten minute phone conversation one time. But after Goodman’

Only Me

1/11/2015 05:01:53 am

"An entire population in Kashmir was holding their breath and counting on us to go forward with this- hoping it would bring Kashmir to the attention of the world and help this poor State."

This raises a huge red flag for me. It is eerily similar to the reaction to the alleged "ancient alien" cave art discovered in the Bastar region last year.

As for Kathleen McGowan-Coppens: does anyone take her seriously?

1/11/2015 05:35:37 am

Dear 'Only Me'- The claims in Kashmir actually date back to about 1000 AD. The tomb of Yuz Asaf was well known, was visited by hundreds every year- these pilgrims left donations. There was a public court fight over who had the rights to these donations, the heirs or the caretakers..The court records till exist in the archives.. In addition, there was a "rod" placed inside the sracophagus..and ancient scrolls with the rod identifying it as the Rod of jesse. it then listed descendants from Jesse , father of King David, to Jesus, buried in the tomb. I cannot imagine who-how-why-such an historically accurate Jewish document appears in Kashmir 2,000 years ago.

1/11/2015 09:27:15 am

"An entire population in Kashmir was holding their breath and counting on us to go forward with this- hoping it would bring Kashmir to the attention of the world and help this poor State."

I seriously doubt that Kashmir is populated exclusively by gullible idiots. I also seriously doubt that the entire population of Kashmir cares about or even is aware of any project of yours.

1/11/2015 11:20:29 am

Mrs. Olsson, I'm afraid your response didn't alleviate the red flags I see in your original comment. Allow me to explain.

1) You said the claims that the Yuz Asaf tomb belonged to Jesus began around 1000 AD. You also said a rod and 2,000 year old "Jewish document" were found in the tomb. Barring an earlier opening, that tells me the tomb is *at least* 2,000 years old. So, who was associated with the tomb in the millennium prior to the birth of the claims the tomb belonged to Jesus?

2) Let's say the family you wish to subject to DNA testing are proven to be descendants of the man whose remains are in the tomb. All that proves is that they come from the same bloodline. It does *not* retroactively and definitively prove the remains are those of Jesus himself.

been there done that

1/17/2015 01:04:43 pm

you would be surprised just how many people buy every word that comes out of her mouth. very sad.

1/11/2015 05:59:37 am

The claim that the remains of Yuz Asaf in the shrine of Roza Bal in Srinagar are those of Jesus of Nazareth started with Mirza Ghulam Ahmad in his book Masih Hindustan Mein first published in Urdu in 1908.

1/11/2015 02:10:50 pm

Suzanne I read your email elsewhere before I came here, quite a few questions but the main one is if Jesus went to Kashmir why was the religion or sect you are talking about only formed 100 years ago?

Suzanne Olsson

1/11/2015 05:37:35 am

oh dear- I see that part of my post has dissapeared....it is not complete. If I can find 'Part 2' I will post it..

1/11/2015 05:47:03 am

Gerard de Sede did not take the Jesus Bloodline theory seriously. He called the authors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail "the gags and gang" and called the Jesus Bloodline "the myth of orifices"

De Sede used Plantard for his first book L'Or de Rennes but kept repeating the parchments were genuine because they were a major selling-point.

1/11/2015 07:20:50 am

1. No marriage mentioned. Since we have no record, it wasn't important enough to mention, at least in the council of Mycea versions. No mention, he wasn't married.

2. The Church is the bridgeroom of Christ in the gospels after acts. Jesus taught this to Paul. He is not literally married but it is a spiritual thing, the love of Christ for humanity.

3. No record in the Bible or the Gnostic texts or others that the church confirmed mention anything about Jesus having children. The blasphemy would come of one takes the literal and wrong version of later made up stories about the unfaithful woman.

4. Mary Magdeline is not the woman caught in adultery. She is the one who washed his feet. She was not married to him.

5. That Pinard story is the one I also heard of.

Nobody is tossing stones at glass houses or dissing the improbable truth, but the concept of having no evidence at all, is not evidence that it is there.

These stories are fun hoaxes. Even madmen in sanitariums claim to be royal. It doesn't mean they are.

1/11/2015 02:22:24 pm

Kal in problematic terms it is equally probable that what you are defending is also a hoax, but much more likely to be a manipulative one than a fun one.
In rigorously analysing any subject one can only be taken seriously if one does that for both sides, otherwise like climate change zealots you are simply espousing belief, and belief by definition is one sided.
In fact the use of the word belief is usually code for "I have made up my mind and nothing you say, or any facts or evidence you show, will change it."
Rationality and logic on the other hand explore all sides without prejudice - not much common ground there.

1/11/2015 06:16:00 pm

Gerald Sinclair,

If Jesus Christ was really married and there really is a Jesus dynasty – so what? It does not really satisfy, does it?

7/17/2015 02:02:41 pm

every way we turn,,seems a leap of faith is required..at this time i choose not to take a leap of faith as to a bloodline...please excuse my lack of skill on the computer,,my IQ is not as high as most of you

1/11/2015 09:22:14 am

This thread is going places :D

1/11/2015 03:13:11 pm

For Kal- welcome to the world of apocrypha. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Testament_apocrypha

1/11/2015 06:13:48 pm

Welcome to the world of anything goes and throw out the need for evidence

1/12/2015 01:37:08 am

My original post did not appear in its entirety- probably due to a cut and paste error because I wrote the original in 'Word' then tried to copy it here..then questions followed and I did begin to answer them, believing that is the polite and appropriate thing to do....however, this is Jason's thread and I do not want to overwhelm or presume to take over the thread in any way. If I could delete the original, especially because it is incomplete, then I would do so. Apologies to Jason and all.

chv

1/12/2015 05:20:07 am

To ironically take a page from Bigfoot researchers (or at least semi-credible ones) if a piece of evidence is either inconclusive (or in the case of a Jesus bloodline - nonexistent) then it has to be dismissed. Yet wolter doesn't do this. He collects vague rumors as if they were truly valuable.

John

1/12/2015 05:22:24 am

No, please continue.

1/12/2015 06:44:18 am

My earlier post was a reply to a four question rant earlier and not connected to the one on the apocrypha, although that is likely where I was going. The other posters addressed the gnostic texts and apocrypha. I didn't need to.

You cannot prove a belief in something, but a belief is not really an opinion. It is my opinion that the bloodline thing is a hoax.

It is my belief that Christ died and was resurrected and did not sin, so did not even marry. It is also not a hoax, as Christianity is not opinion, but a faith, to which there are many followers. It is not self help. It is that Jesus took upon the sins of the world and already saves by grace.

I would not be pretentious enough to ascribe this to you all, since you clearly are somewhere else in your beliefs, and some of you are just trolling, and that is okay.

You can have an opinion that the bloodline is real, but the mainstream, and likely the church, does not think there is anything to it.

'A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.' Duluth area nun, 1950s.

Even so, this whole bloodline thing is not a belief or a faith. It is an obvious false hoax. It is a deception. You can argue the rest must be also, but it will not convince actual belief.

Also come now, you expect logic and rationality from a belief, when you could just say believe and then it shall come. Even on the X Files they 'want to believe', but there they meant 'they want it to be true not just an opinion'.

A belief is based on some truth or faith. An opinion is based on some facts but not necessarily proven ones. What we have here is a lot of opinion.

1/12/2015 10:51:25 pm

I doubt any conversation about hypothetical bloodline of Jesus can go much further. However, would you please comment on the "DNA of GOD" Project? That is, efforts to rescue the DNA from any remaining Biblical tombs such as Abraham and Sarah. How do you feel about this? What do you think the results would do for mankind? Everything? Nothing?

1/13/2015 03:39:54 am

"remaining Biblical tombs such as Abraham and Sarah"

LOL

Tony

1/13/2015 06:51:40 am

I suggest Kathleen McGowan's DNA be tested to see if she's related to the equally nutty Tila Tequila. Who knows, they might even be the same person.

1/13/2015 09:05:32 am

This is the Cave of the Patriarchs...I hope one day to do archaeology survey of the cave, much the same as with pharonic tombs- including DNA studies.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_of_the_Patriarchs

1/13/2015 09:48:46 am

Clearly you don't understand the nature or purpose of DNA testing. Or of the Cave.

Dave Lewis

1/16/2015 12:39:25 pm

Hi Suzanne!

I'd love to hear more about your experiences with Kathleen McGowan.

Oriana

1/14/2015 01:28:24 am

Jason, I used to enjoy reading your blog for the factual information it provided in the midst of other people's wild claims. But lately you have resorted to just trashing and, well, bitching. You seem like an intelligent young man -- don't you have more important and more constructive things to do in your life?

ADecendentofMary

3/10/2015 03:53:45 pm

The true descendants of Mary and Jesus hide, and keep hiding. Doctors know, we know, the watchers know, and the world wants to know. Why do they hide? Joan of Ark, Jesus, John the Baptist... all murdered to stop the divine judges, and kings from ruling. Also to prevent bringing out the Messianic age. Why would anyone not want Utopia? Utopia is not for those who lust earthly things. Satan deceives making us think it is the Apocalypse, when it is truly the birth of enlightenment. I know how to prove it. It was well hidden, but I found it.

3/11/2015 12:50:32 pm

@ADecendentofMary I know mary and you are no mary, you could be a duck or a quack. not buying what you are selling, go back to hooking

11/14/2016 05:08:18 pm

One must, as an elementary deduction, draw an adverse reference from the refusal to produce a DNA sample for review by, say, Bryan Sykes and Oxford Laboratories.

Yoona Park

12/15/2016 05:20:49 pm

I never thought of these people claiming to have had visitations from Mary Magdalene.
I am Mary Magdalene who is 34 weeks pregnant with Jesus' baby girl. Never had my thoughts or heart have been with these people. Liars . Blasphemous liars. Not has my spirit been with them. Must have been an impersonating, imitating, lying spirit. Discern people.

12/16/2016 09:45:04 am

Yoona Park -- Let us know when your holy water breaks.

Muse

12/10/2020 10:37:49 am

New info on old topic that hasn't quite gone away- McGowan claims being descended from Jesus and Magdalene. Going back in time, she had a Yahoo 'group' (popular before Facebook & Twitter took off) and so did Sue Olsson. Soon there were accusations from Olsson that McGowan was reading her posts and stealing them, claiming they were her own. She morphed from being a fictitious Linda Goodman friend-and a self-proclaimed witch and self-ordained minister into a descendant of Jesus....then also claimed secret scrolls and "visions" as her sources ( Sue Olsson did not get any credit, although she was the actual source for much of McGowan's info). McGowan beat Olsson to publishers and stole her thunder, which included families in India who claimed to be direct descendants of Jesus), leaving Olsson standing by helpless and defeated as an "also ran." Then the standard McGowan viscous attacks started against Olsson, accusing her of everything from death threats to plagiarisms. Eventually Olsson faded away. McGowan tried everything to continue making money and gaining attention, including getting paid for public tours several times year, attempts to get a TV series or a film made about her and her books, begging start-up money on Facebook for a publishing company that has not materialized, and now most recently trying to sell a line of jewelry. Meanwhile quietly in a small eastern city, Olsson continued building on her original research. This includes DNA tests of herself and her illustrious bloodlines around the world. The results? She has verified everything in her bloodline through DNA and through public records of her ancestors, and is now the closest human being on earth to prove genealogy to within 50-100 years of Jesus, even down to having Ashkenazi Jewish gg grandparents from the Levant (Israel) because Jesus and probably Magdalene would have been Jewish. That just makes sense. It appears that Olsson was right all along, as have been the premise of books like 'Holy Blood, Holy Grail', 'Bloodline of the Holy Grail', "Woman with the Alabaster Jar" and many others that built on the theory of a recoverable bloodline extending back to Jesus. Olsson even found her ancient gg grandmother in a place named Gaul, India, connected through trading routes to Gaul, France. She wondered (on her Facebook pages) where her ancient DNA gg grandmother came from in India, and through relentless research she found her. The trade routes brought many to India, from Julius Caesar to Alexander the Great, who married the beautiful Persian princess Roxana there (that bloodline ended when all were killed.) Romans, Jews, and Asians have mingled bloodlines for thousands of years, and obviously some entered the European ruling dynasties. It all fits! Through DNA, we now have the clearest understanding ever of such bloodlines and dynasties. If Olsson ever gets DNA from Roza Bal tomb, and from Machpelah Cave of the Patriarchs, we will have the final pieces to the puzzle and know who are really descendants of Jesus. My money is on Olsson.

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