SPRINGVILLE — Vern G. Swanson, director of the Springville Museum of Art, had already been researching the premise that Christ was married when Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code" came out in 2003.

During the controversy that followed, Swanson decided to complete his nearly 30-year project and publish his research in a 537-page book. In "Dynasty of the Holy Grail: Mormonism's Sacred Bloodline," he declares that not only were Christ and follower Mary Magdalene husband and wife, but that Joseph Smith, founder of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is their direct descendent, sometimes called Christ's vessel.

LDS booksellers have already found the art in the book controversial. Among the controversies is a full-color illustration of a century-and-a-half-old painting by 19th century French artist Gustave Moreau of a nude that may have been of Mary Magdalene. The nudity is meant to symbolize chastity and the Christian church.

The painting "La Licorne," or "The Unicorn," fits the image of Mary Magdalene with her crown, symbols and robe, Swanson says. She is pictured with a white unicorn, the symbol of her tribe, Ephraim.

Swanson's intent in using the painting — to show Mary Magdalene's association with the biblical tribe of Ephraim — probably differs from the artist's intent, Swanson said.

Swanson illustrated the book with other historic paintings, both modern and ancient, taking liberties with traditional images used throughout the book "for our purposes."

Another plate, a stained-glass window in St. Mary's Kilmore's Church in Scotland, is of Christ and his bride. While the image is considered symbolic with the woman representing the Christian church, it could also be taken as a literal wedding picture of Jesus and Mary, Swanson writes.

Swanson's book claims that the LDS Church plays a significant role in the Holy Grail for which researchers have been searching for centuries. Whether or not the Grail is Christ's bloodline continues to be debated among the world's researchers.

Some say the Grail is the cup used at the last supper, while others say it's the cup that held his blood when he was crucified. Swanson and other researchers claim that a cup or vessel is traditionally the symbol associated with the Grail, but that the Grail is Christ's bloodline.

Through Joseph Smith, Swanson writes, the LDS Church has both the power of God, which believers call the priesthood and the bloodline, which Joseph of Aramethia claimed anciently. That sect of British Isles Christians joined with the Catholic Church in the mid-Fifth Century, Swanson writes.

He cites common genetic codes within Christ, Magdalene and Smith of the biblical tribes of Judah and Ephraim "that mark the true heir, and line, of (religious) authority."

Swanson quotes the 1963 journal entry of Harold D. Ethington of Sandy, then an LDS missionary, who on his first visit to the Salt Lake Temple met with a group of other missionaries in an upper room with then-apostle Joseph Fielding Smith. One missionary asked if Christ was married.

"Yes," Joseph Fielding Smith is reported to have replied. "To Mary Magdalene. But don't teach it."

(Ethington confirmed the story to the Deseret Morning News.)

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E-mail: rodger@desnews.com