It is not quite right to say that celibacy was condemned in the Jewish tradition.  It is more accurate to say that the idea of celibacy is foreign to Judaism.  Jewish law indicates that it is the obligation of every person to marry and have children.  However, there are at least some exceptions to this.  The Talmud argues that a person whose “soul is bound up with the Torah and is constantly occupied with it” may remain celibate (Maimonides, Laws of Marriage 15.3).  This argument could certainly have been based on the biblical example of Jeremiah, a celibate prophet who was ordered by Yahweh not to marry (Jeremiah 16:1-4).  Moreover, there was a group that was active in Jesus’ time that practiced celibacy (at least according to the testimony of Josephus), namely the Essenes, thought by most scholars to be the authors of the Dead Sea Scrolls.  Some scholars believe that either or both Jesus and John the Baptist (who is also never said to be married) were influenced in their celibacy by the example of the Essenes.  Moreover, the Essenes were not alone in their practice of celibacy in the Judaism of the time.  In De Vita Contemplativa Philo of Alexandria (ca. 20 B.C.E. – 50 C.E.) speaks of the Therapeutae who seem to be a celibate community (see esp. Contemp. 68, but also 21-39).  Thus even though the religion remained strongly pro-marriage the reality is that Hellenism’s more suspicious attitudes toward sex, marriage, and procreation do seem to have had an impact in this area on Jewish thinking and practice.

It is also true that celibacy would not have been quite as unusual in early Christianity as Brown suggests. One could cite the obvious example of Paul, about whom (unlike Jesus) there is explicit testimony regarding his celibacy (see 1 Cor. 7).  There is also evidence in the gospel of Matthew for the practice of celibacy among at least some early Christians, in the famous passage about becoming “eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 19:12).  If early Christians were practicing celibacy, they were probably following someone’s example, and it is not at all unlikely that this someone was Jesus. 

Certainly it is true that it would have been highly unusual for a man of Jesus’ age to be unmarried, and that lacking evidence to the contrary most people would assume that he was married.  But this is hardly conclusive with respect to Jesus’ marital status, given the number of exceptions one can cite to the claim that marriage was compulsory and universal.