Jesus Married Mary Magdalene, Had Two Children - Says Lost Gospel Found In British Library

A new book titled 'The Lost Gospel' has claimed that Jesus married Mary Magdalene and they had two children together, also alleges there was an unknown plot on Jesus' life 13 years before his crucifixion and an assassination attempt on Mary Magdalene and their children.

READ ALSO - So What If Jesus Was Married?

According to Dailymail, a professor of religious studies Barrie Wilson and historical writer Simcha Jacobovici have based these claims on a manuscript dating back 1,450 years which they discovered in the British Library.

They spent months translating the ancient text and have controversially said that the original Virgin Mary was Jesus's wife, not his mother.

Further claims from 'The Lost Gospel: Decoding the Sacred Text that Reveals Jesus' Marriage to Mary Magdalene' will be released on Wednesday, including the names of the two children.

The book also elaborates on Jesus's alleged connections to top political figures in the Roman Empire such as Emperor Tiberius and his best friend, the soldier Sejanus.

But the Church of England said the work shares more in common 'with Dan Brown (author of the Da Vinci Code) than Matthew, Mark, Luke or John.'

It provides the first translation from Syriac into English of ancient manuscript, The Ecclesiastical History of Zacharias Rhetor (of Mytilene).

This has been at the British Museum and then the British Library for nearly 170 years and will lead some to question why it was not translated before now.

Syriac is a dialect of Middle Aramaic that was once spoken across much of the Fertile Crescent and Eastern Arabia and first appeared in the first century AD.

Mary Magdalene was a prominent figure at the two most important moments in the story of Jesus - the crucifixion and the resurrection.

She is remembered in popular culture as a prostitute and was portrayed by the Catholic Church as the ideal penitent because she supposedly anointed the feet of Jesus.

But, although she is mentioned in each of the four gospels in the New Testament, it does not once allude to the fact that she was a prostitute or a sinner.

'The Lost Gospel' is not the first account to claim that Jesus of Nazareth married Mary Magdalene. Nikos Kazantzakis made the same suggestion in his 1953 book The Last Temptation of Christ.

In 2012 a fragment of ancient papyrus was also discovered which is thought to support the explosive suggestion.

The scrap of papyrus claimed Jesus had a wife, and caused a holy row of words in the Vatican over its authenticity - but U.S scientists say it's genuine.

The centre of the Coptic document contains the bombshell phrase where Jesus, speaking to his disciples, says 'my wife', which researchers believe refers to Magdalene.