5 WTF Facts About Jesus Hiding in Plain Sight on His Wikipedia Page
Just about everyone can agree on exactly one thing about Jesus: He was a real guy. Everything after that is some degree of myth, legend or oral history. There’s so much we don’t know — can’t know about this man. But that hasn’t stopped people from making wild speculations about him (and his ding-dong) and swearing it’s true.
Here are a few things from Jesus’ Wikipedia page that the casual fan will be surprised to learn…
We Know Way Too Much About His Neener
How many historical figures have their baby dong data in the third paragraph of their Wikipedia page? I can think of exactly one off the top of my head. Very early on, this page tells us “Jesus was circumcised at eight days old.” Uncharacteristically, Wikipedia doesn’t even bother to slap a “citation needed” on this one; we’re just supposed to accept it as fact that The Big Man got his tuber pinched just over a week into his stint as God’s son.
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That’s not all Wikipedia has to say about his foreskin either; there’s an entire page dedicated to it. Unfortunately, this is a really big deal to the Christian faith. It’s essentially the first time that Jesus bled, making it kind of the starting line for humankind’s race to salvation. But as this page states, the four canonical books are of dubious historical accuracy. So like why not just say he bumped his head, or got stung by a bee or something? Why did we have to trim his dinghy?
Quick: You Have 1.5 Seconds to Come Up With a Name for Jesus’ Brother!
What did you come up with? Mary and Joseph, who had considerably more time than that, settled on Joses. “Jesus and Joses” sounds like a fake animated series on 30 Rock, but nope, that was a real duo.
I’m not exactly a Biblical scholar, but I don’t think I’m alone in assuming Jesus was an only child. The reality is that there were a bunch of li’l rascals running around the Of Nazareth household. After Jesus popped out, God allowed Joseph to try his hand at conception, and it turns out he was pretty darn good at it. According to the Bible, Jesus had four brothers — Joses, James, Judas and Simon. As for sisters? Yeah, he had those. But we don’t know how many and we definitely don’t know their names. It’s really just the brothers that the Bible is interested in.
What makes these dudes important, exactly? They’re known as the adelphoi, which translates to “of the same womb.” Basically, there’s a chance some residual godliness rubbed off on them while they were floating around in there.
Somebody Come Get Their Mans
There’s at least one instance that paints a picture of, frankly, a real wackadoo. As Wikipedia puts it, “Jesus’s mother and brothers come to get him because people are saying that he is crazy.” If that sounds funny as hell, you’re in luck, because once again there’s a whole page dedicated to The Mental Health of Jesus. So much of the stuff this guy gets into sounds like something you’d see on a Manhattan-bound N train.
The particular incident referred to above happens soon after Jesus starts Rabbi-ing. He gets into a big ugly confrontation with his neighbors, and Mary, Joses and the boys are called in to subdue him. Then, in the face of support from his family, the J-man starts yelling about how his followers are his real family. That must’ve been tough for Joses to hear while he’s catching strays from his big bro (and Mom and Dad’s obvious favorite).
He Pulled a ‘Home Alone’
The only story about Jesus’ childhood that made it into the canonical gospels is an extremely funny little anecdote about a 12-year-old Jesus on vacation with his family. Technically it was a pilgrimage to Jerusalem for Passover, but you get the idea.
After making the long trek home from an exhausting pilgrimage, Mary, Joseph and their whole extended family suddenly realized: They left without Jesus! They all shared a collective “I thought he was with you!” moment, and Mary and Joseph decided they had to sprint back to Jerusalem. They searched the city for three days before they finally found him, hanging out with a bunch of old men at a Temple. He explained simply, “I must be in my Father's house,” which probably got Joseph good and steamed.
The Relics
Not that it’s slowed down Christianity much, but the Romans swept through and sacked the everliving fuck out of Jerusalem in the year 70 A.D. As a result, we have no official Jesus memorabilia that the Vatican can chuck up on the walls like it’s a Hard Rock Cafe. As paranormal investigator Joe Nickell puts it: “Investigation after investigation has shown not a single, reliably authenticated relic of Jesus exists.”
And yet loads of churches have made wild claims about the crucifixion merch they’ve gotten their paws on. Jesus got pegged with three big nails — four tops — but there are at least 30 metal spikes around Europe that claim to be the “holy nails” that were inside of the Everlasting Father. Same goes for the wood that made the cross. There are also a few crowns of thorns floating around claiming to be the real deal, and even more thorn crowns that claim to have simply touched the OG crown. They call those third-class relics.
But it all comes back to foreskin. As we’ve written before, there are up to 18 flaps of human leather floating around the world that people claim are the “Holy Prepuce,” aka the sacred foreskin. They just cannot stop talking about this guy’s dongle! I don’t know, man, if the religion inspired by my death insisted on calling my wife a prostitute, I’d probably ask them to keep my foreskin out of their mouth.
