High Stakes Page 2
As we will see throughout this book (as well as others on Jesus), many of the facts of Christ’s life are based on the Bible. That is well and good to a point. After all, for many years it was the only source we had that had any substantial accounts of even a portion of Jesus’ life. But most people have not done a lot of research on the Bible and how it came into being, just as they have not researched how Christianity came into being. The Bible is considered a holy book and the word of God by many Christians, but as many scholars have pointed out, the Bible can contain errors, inconsistencies and downright falsehoods!
We must remember that historically the Bible did not take its form until the Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D. That is some three hundred years after the life of Christ. Now, three hundred years is a long time, but on top of that we must also realize that it was put together by the early Catholic Church and was edited, rewritten, purged of what the early Church deemed heretical, and manipulated for their own agenda. Do you realize that even today no one knows who actually wrote the four gospels of the New Testament!
Biblical scholars believe that Matthew, Luke and Mark were written by the same writer, for the writing style is similar as are the stories, and that John was written by another writer because the writing style is different and also brings in new portions of Christ’s life. I don’t know about you, but I envision a little monk about a hundred or so years after Christ writing these stories that we know as the gospels of the New Testament. I am not going to go into a long treatise on how the Bible was written or put together other than to say that as far as the New Testament is concerned, its beginnings and writings are highly suspect, highly prejudicial, and were formulated and edited by the early Christian Church. In other words, as usual, man put his hand in it and messed it all up.
The Bible was written and edited in a time of extreme ignorance, in which the general populace was basically uneducated and illiterate. The early Christian Church was also at that time in the throes of formulation, with constant infighting and politics coming into play as Pauline Christians (those following the beliefs of Paul), Jewish Christians (those following the beliefs of Christ’s brother James), and Gnostic Christians (those following the premise of gnosis) vied for position and power within the Church structure. It all came to a head and was finally decided when the Roman emperor Constantine adopted Pauline Christianity as the Roman state religion in the early fourth century.
When Christians claim that the Bible is their source of truth for making extraordinary claims such as the virgin birth, then they must realize that the educated people of today (we are no longer dealing with an uneducated populace) demand extraordinary proof. The old adage that “if it’s in the Bible, it must be true” does not persuade all the followers anymore. Biblical scholars have found too many errors, lies and inconsistencies in the Bible for it to remain an unchallenged and only source for truth. Too many archaeological discoveries have been made that back up their findings and even put a whole new light on the time of Christ.
I do not depend upon the research of obviously biased Christian scholars, for their work is tainted with their beliefs; nor do I accept the biased work of skeptics or anti-Christian scholars. I always try to find more objective scholars who don’t have an ax to grind one way or the other and who are really just looking for the truth. In this day and age, sometimes they are hard to find.
Getting back to the virgin birth of Christ, Francine says that it was not a virgin birth and that Joseph impregnated Mary. Francine further states that this does not take away Jesus’ divinity because in reality God is the one who makes any impregnation possible for any child and chose Mary to be the mother of Christ—his direct report and messenger. That is probably a logical deduction in light of the fact that we all choose our own mothers and fathers when we incarnate, and I know of no virgin births that are on record as having taken place. Francine states that the writers of these gospels of Matthew and Luke used the mythology of virgin births to make the birth of Christ seem more divine and didn’t want the mythology of other religions’ virgin births superseding Christ’s birth.
The Bible actually confirms this in a way. According to Matthew and Luke, Mary and Joseph were supposedly aware of the divinity of the child who would be born to her and also that they were to name him Jesus. Now, if this were so, why would they question Christ’s actions? In Luke 2:42–51 we read about Christ in the temple at twelve years of age preaching to the teachers and how his parents, Mary and Joseph, had lost him and then found him preaching and rebuked him about his absence. I find verses 49–50 most interesting, especially where Jesus tells his parents he is here to do his Father’s business and they do not understand. Why would they not understand? Didn’t they know he was the Messiah and a divine messenger from God? Joseph knew from an angel in a dream (Matthew 1:18–24) and Mary knew from a visitation by the angel Gabriel (Luke 1:26–38). Do you now see how the Bible can be inconsistent?
Many religions seem to want an immaculate birth with no male intervention. Women were looked on as less than nothing at the time of Christ’s birth. It seems women were elevated when it was useful to the patriarchs of society, and when they were not needed women were seen as unclean. If you want to look at it spiritually, it’s always God’s hand that brings us into being. We come into an earthly life when we need to perfect ourselves for God or, as in the case of Christ, we are on a mission for God.
The reason that Joseph is depicted as confused in the Bible is because he was so much older than Mary and he thought it wasn’t possible for him to have children. Mary was only sixteen and he was close to forty, which in that day was very old. If you look at it in this light, we could all be conceived by God’s immaculate hand to make sure we got here on earth to learn. If God wants to make it happen, it will happen. It’s called divine intervention.
Look at Elizabeth, Mary’s sister, who gave birth to John the Baptist at an age when women were supposedly past the reproductive age. John was born about six months before Christ and was his cousin and eventually became the great prophet and baptizer who was the “voice crying in the desert.” John also foretold that Christ was the true messenger and Messiah. Both Christ’s and John’s families were prominent in the community because of their royal lineage, and many saw John as the possible Messiah.
Christ was born in the month of June, according to Francine. Early Christians had noted his birthday at various times, including during the months of May and April. The early Church fathers finally settled on December 25 because this was the high holy day for the Romans celebrating their sun god and it was their winter solstice (ours is December 21). Romans celebrated this holiday as a time of rebirth and renewal, so the Church, as they have in so many instances, took a pagan holiday and Christianized it. This is but one example that shows how the Church changed dates and times and facts to fit into their own political and moneymaking agendas; but we will get more into that later.
The Bible also tells us of the visit of the Magi at his birth and of the star of Bethlehem and angels visiting the shepherds proclaiming his birth. Again, Matthew and Luke give us these stories about his birth while Mark and John are silent on the matter. In the Gospel of Matthew we learn of the Magi, or three wise men, who come from the East following a star and arrive at the court of King Herod and ask, “Where is he that is born king of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the east, and are come to adore him” (Matthew 2:2). Now, Herod was upset about this news because he was the king of the Jews and didn’t want any usurpers running around taking his crown. He tells the wise men to go find this child and come back to him with his whereabouts so that he can also adore him; but as we all know he intends to dispose of the child so that his supremacy is not threatened. The wise men go from the court of Herod and, following the star, come to Bethlehem (to fulfill a prophecy), where they find the Christ child and adore him and give him frankincense, gold and myrrh. We then are told that the wise men and Joseph both got messages in their sleep—the wise men to not
return to Herod, and Joseph to flee to Egypt because Herod would kill Jesus if he didn’t. According to Matthew, Joseph and Mary take the child and flee to Egypt.
Now, here again we run into inconsistency in the Bible. In the Gospel of Luke, Joseph and Mary take the child to the temple to be blessed and sanctified and then return to Nazareth. In the Gospel of Matthew, the three of them flee to Egypt in fear of Herod’s anger. They can’t be in two places at the same time, so which one is right? Not only that, but if they did take the baby Jesus to the temple, would not Herod know of it, especially since he was looking for the child? Luke says that after the temple purification they returned to the city of Nazareth in Galilee and Christ grew up, making no mention of going to Egypt to hide from Herod. Now, since Herod did not die until almost four years later, why didn’t Luke even mention the fact that Herod was a danger to the child Jesus? Was this story of Matthew a complete fabrication of the facts so that prophecy could be manipulated to apply to Christ? Many scholars think so.
Matthew specifically states that Herod killed all the male children who were two years of age and under in Bethlehem in the hope of destroying the newly born “king of the Jews” (Matthew 2:16). This act supposedly fulfilled another prophecy. Matthew then states an angel came to Joseph in a dream while he was in Egypt hiding and told him to go back to Israel (to fulfill another prophecy) because Herod was now dead. He then takes Mary and Christ to Nazareth (to fulfill yet another prophecy), where Christ grows up. Now, it seems clear here that the Gospel of Matthew was written with the obvious intent to fulfill Jewish prophecy as far as the Messiah is concerned, for it states each prophecy as it occurred. The Gospel of Luke does not do this and is a much more peaceful narrative.
Luke does not mention the star of Bethlehem or the wise men present at Christ’s birth, only the shepherds to whom angels appeared to announce Christ’s birth with a heavenly light. Matthew does not say anything about angels proclaiming the birth to shepherds (perhaps because there was no prophecy concerning angels proclaiming his birth). These two distinct accounts about Christ’s birth and the several years after come into conflict with each other, especially as to the role of Herod and the danger to Christ. It seems probable that if King Herod had wanted Jesus dead, he could have killed him at any time during his first four years. The city of Nazareth was about sixty-five miles from Jerusalem while Bethlehem was very close to Jerusalem, so either was within easy distance of Herod’s reach.
As you will see, this is perhaps the first of many conflicting accounts of Christ in the New Testament. It is these conflicts that create the possibility of untruth and downright fabrication that Biblical scholars are constantly pointing out. Can we trust these biblical accounts when they seemingly give different versions that go against each other? Scholars who defend the Bible will constantly use the argument of “omission” in their defense. In this case they might say that Luke just omitted the part about Herod and Joseph and Mary fleeing to Egypt. These types of arguments strain our credulity because the “omission” is so important and significant.
Francine says that the Gospel of Luke is fairly accurate and that in this section of Matthew there is indeed fabrication for the sake of prophecy. In other words, whoever wrote this portion of the Gospel of Matthew completely made up the story about Herod and the flight to Egypt. She says there are parts of both accounts that are incorrect, but that Luke’s account follows what actually happened more accurately. She states that there was a supernova in the sky at the time of his birth and that many came to adore and give homage and gifts to the Christ child—almost like a modern-day baby shower. The three Magi, she states, were actually three wealthy merchants from the surrounding area and there were no angels proclaiming his birth to shepherds. She also relates that Christ was indeed taken to the temple to be blessed and sanctified according to Jewish law and custom.
The childhood of Jesus is addressed very little in the gospels. The Gospel of Luke gives us one account of Christ teaching in the temple at the age of twelve, but that is all that is related by any of the gospels. The story of Jesus teaching in the temple confirms what I wrote earlier and is another example of how Jesus’s contemporaries viewed him and held him in an exalted state. Do you suppose that a little ragtag boy would be allowed in the temple to even listen to the elders there, not to mention actually teaching them? Of course not, but Christ was of royal lineage and came from a wealthy family and would have been treated with some deference and allowed into the temple. When, as I related earlier, his parents found him and he told them that “I must be about my father’s business,” they did not understand. But it shows that Christ knew in some way that he was going to be a leader and teacher of men. You must realize these were the elders, the theologians of the Sanhedrin (lawmakers of Israel), and that they were held in rapt attention listening to a boy of royal heritage teaching them. Any other boy would have been viewed as an unruly, ostentatious, poor beggar kid who would have been thrown out of the holy council. They couldn’t and wouldn’t have thrown out a child of royal blood.
Even then he was trying to give the real truth to the Sanhedrin. The Gospel of Luke says he was twelve years old, but my guide says he was around ten years old when this incident took place. I don’t think it’s that important except it shows the infused knowledge that Jesus had and that he knew he was on a mission for God. This is so obvious in his aforementioned statement about his father’s business. He meant, of course, God and not Joseph.
Before this incident in the temple, Jesus was like a normal Jewish boy who helped his father by working in a large compound for making furniture. As a child he would play with his brothers and two sisters and other friends and relatives like his cousin John, who would later be the Baptist. Among the friends he played with was Mary Magdalene, whom he did know as a child because she was from another fairly wealthy family. Jesus and Magdalene were actually childhood sweethearts, even if it was puppy love at that age. I will address later how Mary Magdalene became confused with Mary of Bethany and was branded a harlot.
There was an awful story that circulated for a time that Jesus shot birds with a slingshot for fun. This isn’t even reasonable for an entity created by God as a direct report. Francine says that a bird he found was in bad shape with a broken wing and he healed it. This was the first time he used his healing powers. Francine also says as a boy he healed a rabid dog. This didn’t seem to surprise anyone, because they all knew by infusion or observance that this was a child blessed by God.
As Jesus grew up he was allowed to have tutors and went many times to the temple to learn Jewish ritual law and the Hebrew language; but he, as well as most people in the area, spoke and wrote in the Aramaic language. As Jesus became more educated, not only in Jewish laws and traditions by his visits to the temple, but also in other subjects and philosophies by his tutors, he became more and more restless. Although he helped his father in his furniture business and was learning the skills of carpentry and furniture making, he knew he was destined for more.
Francine says that between the ages of fourteen and fifteen, he told his parents that he wanted to travel and study other countries and their religions. Both Mary and Joseph were not thrilled with this idea, but Jesus insisted that it was necessary for what he had to do. They reluctantly agreed and sent him with two house hold workers and two of his brothers, James and John, and gave him a good supply of money. In that day, it was not unusual for young teenagers to take on the responsibilities of adulthood. Women were often married at a young age and started having children because life spans were so short. Boys quickly became men and started working to help support their families, or even started their own families.
Thus we have the end of the childhood phase of Christ’s life, and Jesus would now enter into a period of traveling and learning in preparation for what was to come. This period has long been termed “the lost years of Jesus,” but it was to be perhaps the most gratifying and happy period of his life. These were the years in which he lea
rned his great background of wisdom and philosophy that he would put forth in his teachings, which, as we all know, changed the world.
CHAPTER 2
The Lost Years of Jesus
CAN YOU IMAGINE how frightening it must have been for Jesus at the age of fourteen or fifteen years old to leave his home and go out to explore the world? Frightening and exhilarating in that he could now expand his horizons beyond the towns of Nazareth and Bethlehem and the city of Jerusalem. No longer would he be mired in the everyday boredom of a small town such as Nazareth, doing work that he knew was not for him in his father’s furniture business. He was off on a great adventure and knew inside that he had to learn and gather as much information as possible from the many cultures and people that he would meet along the way.
Before we get into the actual travels of Jesus, though, let’s discuss something that really has not been discussed by theologians or scholars regarding Christ—that is, the whole premise of his having psychic abilities. Don’t you find it interesting that no one in the world of academia or theology has really brought up this idea? Whether it is because they feel they will be ridiculed by their colleagues or whether, in the case of theologians, they will be deemed heretics, it really doesn’t matter, the fact is that no one has ever really addressed it and just common sense makes it blatantly clear that Christ had to have some, if not many, psychic abilities or talents.
Since I myself am psychic, perhaps I can recognize the outward appearances of psychic ability more than most. It is perfectly clear to me that Christ manifested psychic powers. Maybe scholars and theologians either don’t recognize these manifestations of psychic abilities or are afraid to make any conclusions about them, and therefore never bring them up in their studies. But the fact remains that there is overwhelming evidence in the writings about Jesus that he had psychic ability.