Mysteries of the Bible (1994–1998): Season 3, Episode 10 - The Lost Years of Jesus - full transcript
For thousands of years Christians have celebrated the birth of their saviour on December 25th.
Joseph son of David
Do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife
For the child conceived in her
Is from the Holy Spirit
She will bear you a son
And you are to name Him, Jesus
Matthew 1:20
His story began 2,000 years ago
In the province of Galilee
A remote corner of the Roman Empire
Since then across the continents
And throughout the centuries
In multitudes of Christian communities
The story of Jesus has been told and retold
In hundreds of languages
The narrative of His birth, His teachings
The miracles He performed
And His resurrection
More has been written about Jesus
Than about any other person in history
And yet the Bible says almost nothing
About most of His life
The time between Jesus birth
And the beginning of His ministry
Approximately 30 years later
Have been called The Lost years
During all this time there is
But one story in the Gospels
It describes Jesusas a precocious twelve-year-old
Discussing the Hebrew Bible
With rabbis in Jerusalem
They found Him in the temple
Sitting among the teachers listening to them
And asking them questions
And all who heard Him were amazed
by His understanding
And His answers
Luke 2:46
Aside from this single account
The New Testament is almost completely silent
About Jesus life until the beginning
Of His public ministry
What happened during those Lost years
Where was Jesus and what did He do
Then He went down with them and came to
Nazareth
And Jesus increased in wisdom
And in years
And in divine and human favor
Luke 2:51
The most we can say about him
In His early years
Is that He walked in silent
Solidarity with His people
That He was very likely a carpenter
A man who worked with His hands
That He lived a simple life in a peasant village
But even this is speculation
Based on the few tantalizing accounts
Related in the New Testament
Why does the Bible supply so little information?
Most of what we know about Jesus
Comes from the four Gospels
In the New Testament
Matthew Mark Luke and John
It seems sort of being conceivable to us but
My feeling is that the the evangelists
That's what they are they're bearers of
The good news
They're not biographers
They're not historians
Their sense of the importance of Jesus is
His spiritual message His redeeming sacrifice
Not details about His personal life
That's something that that modern
We as modern people
Are more interested in
According the most scholars the Gospels
As presented in the New Testament
Are not firsthand eyewitness accounts
Biblical scholars believe they were first
Compiled from oral traditions
As well as other earlier sources
And were first written down between 40 and 100 years
After the crucifixion of Jesus
Well the problem with the Gospels
In considering this historical Jesus
Is that....
You can't be sure what materials
Are historical and what aren't
And this debate has been going on for two
Two and half centuries now
So it's an extremely difficult problem
Adding to the mystery
Surrounding the life of Jesus
Is the fact that forhundreds of years after His death
Dozens of other Gospels were also written
There were probably close to 50 Gospels
That were actually written about Jesus
Within the first hundred
Years or so of His death
And only four of them actually made it into the Bible
Many of the Gospels not included
In the New Testament
Called the apocryphal Gospels has survived
There were many other things written
These of course never did find their
Way into this canon of Scripture
But do they throw any light on
The Lost years of Jesus not really
And they tell us
Odd little stories like Jesus killed birds
and brought them back to life
But these are totally irrelevant
There's another story about how
A little boy knocks up against Him in the street
And He strikes him dead
Now I'm thinking if I were compiling the Gospels
I'd leave this material out too
It took the church some 500 years
To come to terms with who Jesus was
In the various councils of the church
That met in those first 500 years
Issues about Jesus were discussed
And discussed and discussed
And it took that long
not many people are aware of that
And the Jesus that we think of today
Is this Jesus that came into existence
During those 500 years
The Jesus of faith
Historical sources beyond the Gospels
Do survive from the time of Jesus
But amazingly these two are mysteriously
Silent about the life and death
Which change the world
One of the biggest mysteries about Jesus
Is why none of his
Contemporaries wrote about him
There were many historians
And many writers who lived when Jesus did
And they knew about events in Palestine
When Jesus was living there yet none of them
Wrote about Jesus
There is very little to go on
We can to some extent reconstruct
His public life but even then
You will find that scholars greatly to scream
So it's very difficult to recreate Jesus at all
Every scholar seems to come up
With His own ideas
So when you actually then try to project
Back further than the Gospels
And try to recreate His hidden life
There is absolutely no way to do it
Unless we go with the milieu of the times
And speculate on what was possible
For Him to have done
For centuries people have yearned
To know more about the life of Jesus
In an attempt to fill in the last years
They have studied and
Searched and wondered
Did Jesus spend the time between
The ages of 12 and 30 living quietly in Nazareth?
Or is it possible that during this time
Jesus traveled studied and preached
Outside of Palestine
When we return
Could Jesus have journeyed to India?
And encounter the teachings of Buddha?
More than 2,500 years ago
In the verdant forests of northern India
An event occurred which like the birth of Jesus
Would transform human history
Seating himself under the outstretched branches
Of a blossoming tree
The young prince Siddhartha Gautama
Vowed not to rise until he had found the answer
To the mysteries of human existence
After a night of profound insight
He arose from his seat as Buddha
The enlightened one
Buddha spent the rest of his life
Traveling in India and elsewhere
sharing the message
Of his revelation
Could Jesus have been familiar
With the teachings of Buddha?
Is it possible as some believe
that He traveled to India
During His last year's?
Escaped alta documented in ancient writings
Do exist from both Persia as well as India
That Jesus did indeed travel to India
But we do not have 100% proof
That He was there
The proof however does lie in His teachings
When compared to sacred Buddhist writings
Some scholars find striking similarities
Between Jesus and Buddha
Like Jesus Buddha is said to
Have miraculously cured the sick
Walked upon water
And fed multitudes with only a few loaves of bread
Hohhot years old sign vision hair
Where did Jesus gain His knowledge
No body knows that it
Is simply explained away with miracles
From where did He get His high standard of ethics
Where did that come from
Why is He so different
And why does He reacts Oh totally
Unlike the people who surround him
These are questions without answers
Could Jesus have been influenced
by the teachings of Buddha?
And we see similarities the basic
Fundamental similarities
Like truth non-violence love thy neighbor
Service of the poor and downtrodden
Frugality simplicity in life
Away from ostentatious
These things are similar
in Christianity what Jesus taught
In Buddhism what Buddha taught
Love thy neighbor there may be words
May be different but the essence
Is the same meaning and the message
Is the same
India lies over 3,000 miles
From Palestine
How could Jesus have made
Such a monumental journey
It would have been very easy actually
For Jesus to travel to India there were
A lot of trade routes that existed
Between the Roman Empire which included Palestine
and Asia for example He could
Have taken the trade route that went
From Palestine through northern
Afghanistan and northern Pakistan
And then down to the west coast of India
Could Jesus have journeyed farther into
The interior of India
Perhaps even into the vast
Himalayan mountains
Of the far north
The controversial story told by Niklas Noir Ovitch
Suggests He may have
In 1887, Noir Ovitch
A Russian journalist traveled to hem assess
An isolated monestery
High in the Himalayan mountains
of northern India
In his book the unknown life of Jesus Christ
Noir Ovitch exclaims that there
He was shown secrethe manuscripts
Which detailed the life of a wandering prophet
Named ISA
Noir Ovitch was convinced by by the manuscript
And by the monks he consulted
That ISA was in fact
Jesus
According to Noir Ovitch the arcane Manuscript
he was shown revealed that at age 14
Jesus traveled to India and and
studied Buddhism
After many years of study and preaching
Throughout Asia Jesus returned to Palestine
Carrying Buddhist beliefs with him
While many scholars question
The authenticity of Noir Ovitch's account
He was not the only person who reported
Seeing the mysterious scrolls
In the 1920s a Hindu priest went up there
He went to the same monastery and
He had some of the passages Translated
but not all of them
And then he published a book
The translation and the second book
very closely paralleled
Not...not that this is translations
Other unconfirmed reports of the existence
of The ISA manuscripts at Hamas
Continued until 1939
But since then their whereabouts
have Been shrouded in mystery
The legends live on
and they continue to Grow
as each year book after book
Article after article is published
Presenting new and often controversial
Theories
Regarding the Lost years of Jesus
When we return, did Jesus travel to England?
And does the cup from the Last Supper
the Holy Grail
Hold the key which Could unlock the secrets
of His missing years?
Glastonbury England
Set in a landscape tinged with the mystical
Amid prehistoric sacred Springs
And dominated by a holy mountain
Glastonbury seems a natural place
To find traditions about
the Lost years of Jesus
The English poet William Blake
has left Us a startling image
And did those feet in ancient time walk
upon England's Mountain's green
And was the holy Lamb Of God
on England's Pleasant pastures scene
William Blake: Milton, a poem in two books 1804
In Blake's remarkable poem
Jesus is depicted walking the hills
and meadows Of Glastonbury
Far from His native land
The Glastonbury legend culminates in
the Year 63
With Joseph of Arimathea a disciple of Jesus
Founding the first Christian Church in Britain
According to this legend it is Joseph of Arimathea
Who provides the critical link
Placing Jesus in this land
One of the populartraditions
In the Eastern Orthodox Church and also
in England
Is that the Man known as Joseph of Arimathea
Was actually Jesus's great-uncle
By the time Jesus had reached His early teens
It appears that father Joseph had died
And that His great-uncle Joseph of Arimathea
May have stepped in
The Gospels Described Joseph of
Arimathea as rich and pious
The Glastonbury legends
Add that he was also involved in commerce
Between Palestine and ancient England
England at that time was part of
the Trade network that existed
England had 10 which was a very valuable commodity
Joseph was involved in the 10 trade
That's how he became so wealthy
And how He became so influential
In some early latin versions of the Gospels
Joseph of Arimathea is described As a de Kurian,
A title given by rome to mining officials
If Jesus was the nephew of Joseph of Arimathea
Might here journeyed with His uncle to england
The legends that you find in England are that
Jesus traveled with Joseph of
Arimathea
Along the southern coast of England
a through Cornwall
That's where all the tin mines were
And what you find in
many of the tin mining towns of England
Are these ancient traditions that Jesus
had stopped there With His uncle
The people who lived here at the time of Jesus
were the Druids.
And they may have been particularly receptive
to the Teachings of Jesus
For their religion bore certain
uncanny resemblances to Christianity
At the time that Jesus lived
The dominant religion of England was Druidism
The Druids they had beliefs about a future Messiah
And in fact according to one historian
They actually used the word Yaesu
To label that Messiah
And they had some ideas about
the body and soul and other concepts
That reflected later on in Christianity
As Christiany did spread throught out England
The druids discarded their pagan beliefs
and converted
Did the Druids recognize the fulfillment Of
their Messiah prophecy in the story of Jesus
Intriguing is the story
Of joseph of arimathea
And jesus journey to England is
Joseph's remains a questionable
character to many Biblical scholars
Joseph of Arimatea Who seems
to appear in all four Gospels
What can we say about him
I would raise the issue of whether he was
even Historical
The Gospels are peopled with characters
who seem to emerge
Out of other...other materials and
are not necessarily Historical at all
for instance we have No information
about any place called Arimathaea
If the very existence of Joseph
of Arimathea is in doubt
Why do the legends persist
And the problem when in people's minds
is Confusing literature with history
The Gospels are literature these traditions
Are literature history
Is made of much tougher stuff than that
The controversy indoors however
For there is another tantalizing legend
Associated with joseph of
arimathea and Glastonbury
It is a story of the holy Grail
The sacred cup from which Jesus drank
at the Last Supper
Then He took a cup
And after giving thanks He gave it to them saying
Drink from it all of you
For this is my blood of the new covenant
which is poured out for many
for the forgiveness of sins
Matthew 26:27
According to the Bible
After the crucifixion the body of Jesus was given
To Joseph of Arimathea for burial
The legend of Glastonbury relates that
Joseph then made a final journey
To England to spread the gospel
With him hecarried the cup from the Last Supper
The legend relates that Joseph buried
the cup somewhere in Glastonbury
There is another aspect of the joseph
of Arimathea story that is the cup
This becomes very important symbolism in
Palestine in the first century
In fact in Jewish revolutionary coins
The cup is the symbol of the first revolt against Rome
Could the Jewish revolutionary Image
of the cup
Possibly be a clue to an incredible
chapter in the missing Years of Jesus
When we return
Did Jesus Spend His last years in the wilderness?
With a fanatically Religious apocalyptic sect
The dead see
15 miles east of Jerusalem
At 1,300 feet below sea level
The lowest point on earth
Here 2,000 years ago in the forbidding
Landscape of the Judean wilderness
John the Baptist a zealous prophet
Spread a new message of salvation
To the Jews of Palestine
John the Baptist appeared in the Wilderness
Proclaiming a baptism of repentance
For the forgiveness of sins
And people from the whole Judean
Countryside
And all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him
And were baptized by him in the river Jordan
Confessing their sins
Mark 1:4
John's message of redemptions spread
Through Israel like wildfire
Multitudes journeyed to hear him preach
And to be baptized by him
One of these was Jesus
In those days Jesus came
from Nazareth of Galilee
and was baptized by John In the Jordan
And just as He was coming up Out
of the water
He saw the heavens torn apart
And the spirit descending like a dove upon him
Mark 1:9
All of the sources coalesce around
The point
That Jesus appeared
among the followers of John the Baptist
I think that is the only credible information
that you're going to find
As far as the early years of Jesus in the Gospels
What was the genesis of the unique concept of baptism
Part of the answer may come from a
Mysterious sect of ultra religious jews
Who lived in the wilderness surrounding
The Dead Sea
At a site called Qumran
They were called the Essenes
Many scholars have theorized that John
The Baptist and Jesus
May have at one time been members of their community
He wasn't part of the establishment
He wasn't part of the temple aristocracy
He probably had some contac with The Essene
Movement at Qumran
Perhaps through John the Baptist
It was at Qumran in 1947
That the Dead Sea Scrolls
The oldest known fragments
Of the Hebrew Bible were discovered
found among these holy scriptures were
Documents
Which describe the Essene Community
which lived at Qumran
Scholars believe the Essenes
Practiced a type of baptism
The apparent connections between Jesus
John the Baptist and the Essene Community
have fueled controversy among
Biblical scholars
Could Jesus and John The Baptist had
been influenced by the Essenes?
Could Jesus have lived with the Essenes
during His last years?
Scholars have detected other surprising
Parallels between Jesus and the Essenes
The Essenes were distinguished by their
love for each other
Their simplicity of life and their strict
adherence to the Laws of the Hebrew Bible
They call themselves
The children of light
There were many similarities between
Jesus and how He lived and also how the
Essence lived
They were very simple Clothing
They kept all of their goods in common
And that had someone essentially
distribute the goods according to need
They did not believe in acquiring
Material wealth
And these were all aspects of Jesus's ministry
That we know of today
But there was also a dark and fatalistic
Side to the doctrines of the Essenes
One of their documents known as the war scroll
Has led scholars to believe that
the Essenes were fanatically religious
Like John the Baptist and Jesus
They Rejected what they saw as the corruption of the Jewish priesthood
The occupation of the Holy Land by the
Abdallah Roman
Was something they were prepared to fight to the death
The Essenes move their community to
the Wilderness of Qumran
Because they believe that a war was rapidly
Approaching
Which would pit themselves against their enemies
The Essene leader in this conflict would
be a messiah
Described in the war scrolls as the teacher
of righteousness
So we have a whole group of bathers in
the wilderness
But in addition these are also revolutionaries
and freedom fighters
That is the unique quality of The
Dead Sea Scrolls
They combine both Essenes asceticism bathing
wilderness habitation in purest ideologies
But they also have the militant
final apocalyptic war vision
Of the Son of man coming on The
clouds of heaven to fight the
Final war against all evil on the
Earth that is in the war scroll
According to certain translations of the scrolls
The teacher of righteousness
is portrayed as a messiah
Some scholars have suggested that Jesus Himself
May have been the mysterious Teacher of
righteousness mentioned in the scrolls
Other scholars however point to apparent contradictions
Which contain Profound implications
Jesus could not even if He thought of
Himself as Messiah in some sense
He could not accept the popular
understanding of Messiah
Because it would be antithetical to everything
He Stood for
Because that popular and stained Messiah
would be some kind of warrior hero
From the house of David who would
come and destroy the enemies of Israel
This was the very
Thing Jesus was opposed to
When we return
Could Jesus have been actively involved
In the struggle against the Roman oppressors
And could this be a reason for the silence
Of the Gospels about the lost years of Jesus
Could there have been another aspect to
Jesus in addition to the Prince of Peace
And salvation as presented
In the New Testament
During His last year's the very people
He preached to
Were fighting The Romans for their lives
Perhaps even more importantly they
Fought for the conception of the one God
Upon which their religion was founded
The situation in Palestine was holy teror
it was horrendous
And we know This from a variety of sources
including The Dead Sea Scrolls
It was against this backdrop of violent
oppression that Jesus preached
In the Gospels Jesus is primarily
Portrayed as one who abhors violence
You have heard it said an eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth but I say to you
Love your enemies and pray for those
who persecute you
Matthew 5:38
But the Gospels also depict a distinctly
Different image of Jesus
Do not think That I have come to bring peace to the earth
I have not come to Bring peace but a sword
Matthew 10:34
Why does the New Testament present
conflicting views of Jesus
Some scholars point to various passages in the Gospels
Which they believe may contain hidden Clues to
the real nature of Jesus Mission to the Jews
Then they came and laid hands on Jesus
and arrested him
Suddenly one of those Who was
with Jesus
Put his hand on his sword drew it and
struck the slave of The high priest
Matthew 26:50
Now if you notice in the Gospels
Some of Jesus followers are carrying swords and
And when He is asked should we carry a sword
He says carry too
So some of Jesus followers are clearly
sword or knife people
One of His associates is called a zealot
Now we have also at this time a group
of people called zealots
And Jesus In fact harbored one
among His apostles
And this was a group that had come into
Existence sometime before the Common Era
Their whole idea was To drive up the Romans
Now one of the problems with the Gospels
And historicity of the Gospels is that
The authors are intent
On rescuing Jesus from the charge
For which He was clearly crucified
That is the Romans did not crucify blasphemers
But crucifixion was the Roman
punishment For political subversion
So He certainly was crucified after a revolutionary
But these views are not universal
Most scholars do not see Jesus as a nationalist
What Jesus called for what a transformation of human life
A new way of seeing a new way of hearing
A new way of relating to one another
And a call to greater inclusivity that included
The Poor, the women, children, the margin aided
the oppressed
But if Jesus were involved in revolution
This could explain why a gap exists
in our knowledge about His life
If Jesus was one of these quasi ascetic
Daily bathing wilderness dwellings
edge' Terian revolutionaries
Then obviously the revolutionary aspect
Could not have been played up in the Gospels as
we have them because
That would have made it impossible to circulate these documents
In a Roman oriented world
All of this may never be resolved
May remain ever mysterious
For the nearly two thousand years
Since the death of Jesus
Countless stories and legends have tried to fill the gap
Created by the mysterious Lost years.
why?
I think we're still fascinated by his missing years
because we all love a good mystery
Here we have history's most
famous man
And all of a sudden he vanishes
and He's gone for a long time
And then He reappears with a message
that changes the entire world
So it's natural for us to be very curious
as to what He did during that time
Who he might have met who He might have talked to
And what caused him perhaps to embark on His mission
Perhaps the mystery of the last years of
Jesus is a secret chapter
One which we are not meant
To read...
Do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife
For the child conceived in her
Is from the Holy Spirit
She will bear you a son
And you are to name Him, Jesus
Matthew 1:20
His story began 2,000 years ago
In the province of Galilee
A remote corner of the Roman Empire
Since then across the continents
And throughout the centuries
In multitudes of Christian communities
The story of Jesus has been told and retold
In hundreds of languages
The narrative of His birth, His teachings
The miracles He performed
And His resurrection
More has been written about Jesus
Than about any other person in history
And yet the Bible says almost nothing
About most of His life
The time between Jesus birth
And the beginning of His ministry
Approximately 30 years later
Have been called The Lost years
During all this time there is
But one story in the Gospels
It describes Jesusas a precocious twelve-year-old
Discussing the Hebrew Bible
With rabbis in Jerusalem
They found Him in the temple
Sitting among the teachers listening to them
And asking them questions
And all who heard Him were amazed
by His understanding
And His answers
Luke 2:46
Aside from this single account
The New Testament is almost completely silent
About Jesus life until the beginning
Of His public ministry
What happened during those Lost years
Where was Jesus and what did He do
Then He went down with them and came to
Nazareth
And Jesus increased in wisdom
And in years
And in divine and human favor
Luke 2:51
The most we can say about him
In His early years
Is that He walked in silent
Solidarity with His people
That He was very likely a carpenter
A man who worked with His hands
That He lived a simple life in a peasant village
But even this is speculation
Based on the few tantalizing accounts
Related in the New Testament
Why does the Bible supply so little information?
Most of what we know about Jesus
Comes from the four Gospels
In the New Testament
Matthew Mark Luke and John
It seems sort of being conceivable to us but
My feeling is that the the evangelists
That's what they are they're bearers of
The good news
They're not biographers
They're not historians
Their sense of the importance of Jesus is
His spiritual message His redeeming sacrifice
Not details about His personal life
That's something that that modern
We as modern people
Are more interested in
According the most scholars the Gospels
As presented in the New Testament
Are not firsthand eyewitness accounts
Biblical scholars believe they were first
Compiled from oral traditions
As well as other earlier sources
And were first written down between 40 and 100 years
After the crucifixion of Jesus
Well the problem with the Gospels
In considering this historical Jesus
Is that....
You can't be sure what materials
Are historical and what aren't
And this debate has been going on for two
Two and half centuries now
So it's an extremely difficult problem
Adding to the mystery
Surrounding the life of Jesus
Is the fact that forhundreds of years after His death
Dozens of other Gospels were also written
There were probably close to 50 Gospels
That were actually written about Jesus
Within the first hundred
Years or so of His death
And only four of them actually made it into the Bible
Many of the Gospels not included
In the New Testament
Called the apocryphal Gospels has survived
There were many other things written
These of course never did find their
Way into this canon of Scripture
But do they throw any light on
The Lost years of Jesus not really
And they tell us
Odd little stories like Jesus killed birds
and brought them back to life
But these are totally irrelevant
There's another story about how
A little boy knocks up against Him in the street
And He strikes him dead
Now I'm thinking if I were compiling the Gospels
I'd leave this material out too
It took the church some 500 years
To come to terms with who Jesus was
In the various councils of the church
That met in those first 500 years
Issues about Jesus were discussed
And discussed and discussed
And it took that long
not many people are aware of that
And the Jesus that we think of today
Is this Jesus that came into existence
During those 500 years
The Jesus of faith
Historical sources beyond the Gospels
Do survive from the time of Jesus
But amazingly these two are mysteriously
Silent about the life and death
Which change the world
One of the biggest mysteries about Jesus
Is why none of his
Contemporaries wrote about him
There were many historians
And many writers who lived when Jesus did
And they knew about events in Palestine
When Jesus was living there yet none of them
Wrote about Jesus
There is very little to go on
We can to some extent reconstruct
His public life but even then
You will find that scholars greatly to scream
So it's very difficult to recreate Jesus at all
Every scholar seems to come up
With His own ideas
So when you actually then try to project
Back further than the Gospels
And try to recreate His hidden life
There is absolutely no way to do it
Unless we go with the milieu of the times
And speculate on what was possible
For Him to have done
For centuries people have yearned
To know more about the life of Jesus
In an attempt to fill in the last years
They have studied and
Searched and wondered
Did Jesus spend the time between
The ages of 12 and 30 living quietly in Nazareth?
Or is it possible that during this time
Jesus traveled studied and preached
Outside of Palestine
When we return
Could Jesus have journeyed to India?
And encounter the teachings of Buddha?
More than 2,500 years ago
In the verdant forests of northern India
An event occurred which like the birth of Jesus
Would transform human history
Seating himself under the outstretched branches
Of a blossoming tree
The young prince Siddhartha Gautama
Vowed not to rise until he had found the answer
To the mysteries of human existence
After a night of profound insight
He arose from his seat as Buddha
The enlightened one
Buddha spent the rest of his life
Traveling in India and elsewhere
sharing the message
Of his revelation
Could Jesus have been familiar
With the teachings of Buddha?
Is it possible as some believe
that He traveled to India
During His last year's?
Escaped alta documented in ancient writings
Do exist from both Persia as well as India
That Jesus did indeed travel to India
But we do not have 100% proof
That He was there
The proof however does lie in His teachings
When compared to sacred Buddhist writings
Some scholars find striking similarities
Between Jesus and Buddha
Like Jesus Buddha is said to
Have miraculously cured the sick
Walked upon water
And fed multitudes with only a few loaves of bread
Hohhot years old sign vision hair
Where did Jesus gain His knowledge
No body knows that it
Is simply explained away with miracles
From where did He get His high standard of ethics
Where did that come from
Why is He so different
And why does He reacts Oh totally
Unlike the people who surround him
These are questions without answers
Could Jesus have been influenced
by the teachings of Buddha?
And we see similarities the basic
Fundamental similarities
Like truth non-violence love thy neighbor
Service of the poor and downtrodden
Frugality simplicity in life
Away from ostentatious
These things are similar
in Christianity what Jesus taught
In Buddhism what Buddha taught
Love thy neighbor there may be words
May be different but the essence
Is the same meaning and the message
Is the same
India lies over 3,000 miles
From Palestine
How could Jesus have made
Such a monumental journey
It would have been very easy actually
For Jesus to travel to India there were
A lot of trade routes that existed
Between the Roman Empire which included Palestine
and Asia for example He could
Have taken the trade route that went
From Palestine through northern
Afghanistan and northern Pakistan
And then down to the west coast of India
Could Jesus have journeyed farther into
The interior of India
Perhaps even into the vast
Himalayan mountains
Of the far north
The controversial story told by Niklas Noir Ovitch
Suggests He may have
In 1887, Noir Ovitch
A Russian journalist traveled to hem assess
An isolated monestery
High in the Himalayan mountains
of northern India
In his book the unknown life of Jesus Christ
Noir Ovitch exclaims that there
He was shown secrethe manuscripts
Which detailed the life of a wandering prophet
Named ISA
Noir Ovitch was convinced by by the manuscript
And by the monks he consulted
That ISA was in fact
Jesus
According to Noir Ovitch the arcane Manuscript
he was shown revealed that at age 14
Jesus traveled to India and and
studied Buddhism
After many years of study and preaching
Throughout Asia Jesus returned to Palestine
Carrying Buddhist beliefs with him
While many scholars question
The authenticity of Noir Ovitch's account
He was not the only person who reported
Seeing the mysterious scrolls
In the 1920s a Hindu priest went up there
He went to the same monastery and
He had some of the passages Translated
but not all of them
And then he published a book
The translation and the second book
very closely paralleled
Not...not that this is translations
Other unconfirmed reports of the existence
of The ISA manuscripts at Hamas
Continued until 1939
But since then their whereabouts
have Been shrouded in mystery
The legends live on
and they continue to Grow
as each year book after book
Article after article is published
Presenting new and often controversial
Theories
Regarding the Lost years of Jesus
When we return, did Jesus travel to England?
And does the cup from the Last Supper
the Holy Grail
Hold the key which Could unlock the secrets
of His missing years?
Glastonbury England
Set in a landscape tinged with the mystical
Amid prehistoric sacred Springs
And dominated by a holy mountain
Glastonbury seems a natural place
To find traditions about
the Lost years of Jesus
The English poet William Blake
has left Us a startling image
And did those feet in ancient time walk
upon England's Mountain's green
And was the holy Lamb Of God
on England's Pleasant pastures scene
William Blake: Milton, a poem in two books 1804
In Blake's remarkable poem
Jesus is depicted walking the hills
and meadows Of Glastonbury
Far from His native land
The Glastonbury legend culminates in
the Year 63
With Joseph of Arimathea a disciple of Jesus
Founding the first Christian Church in Britain
According to this legend it is Joseph of Arimathea
Who provides the critical link
Placing Jesus in this land
One of the populartraditions
In the Eastern Orthodox Church and also
in England
Is that the Man known as Joseph of Arimathea
Was actually Jesus's great-uncle
By the time Jesus had reached His early teens
It appears that father Joseph had died
And that His great-uncle Joseph of Arimathea
May have stepped in
The Gospels Described Joseph of
Arimathea as rich and pious
The Glastonbury legends
Add that he was also involved in commerce
Between Palestine and ancient England
England at that time was part of
the Trade network that existed
England had 10 which was a very valuable commodity
Joseph was involved in the 10 trade
That's how he became so wealthy
And how He became so influential
In some early latin versions of the Gospels
Joseph of Arimathea is described As a de Kurian,
A title given by rome to mining officials
If Jesus was the nephew of Joseph of Arimathea
Might here journeyed with His uncle to england
The legends that you find in England are that
Jesus traveled with Joseph of
Arimathea
Along the southern coast of England
a through Cornwall
That's where all the tin mines were
And what you find in
many of the tin mining towns of England
Are these ancient traditions that Jesus
had stopped there With His uncle
The people who lived here at the time of Jesus
were the Druids.
And they may have been particularly receptive
to the Teachings of Jesus
For their religion bore certain
uncanny resemblances to Christianity
At the time that Jesus lived
The dominant religion of England was Druidism
The Druids they had beliefs about a future Messiah
And in fact according to one historian
They actually used the word Yaesu
To label that Messiah
And they had some ideas about
the body and soul and other concepts
That reflected later on in Christianity
As Christiany did spread throught out England
The druids discarded their pagan beliefs
and converted
Did the Druids recognize the fulfillment Of
their Messiah prophecy in the story of Jesus
Intriguing is the story
Of joseph of arimathea
And jesus journey to England is
Joseph's remains a questionable
character to many Biblical scholars
Joseph of Arimatea Who seems
to appear in all four Gospels
What can we say about him
I would raise the issue of whether he was
even Historical
The Gospels are peopled with characters
who seem to emerge
Out of other...other materials and
are not necessarily Historical at all
for instance we have No information
about any place called Arimathaea
If the very existence of Joseph
of Arimathea is in doubt
Why do the legends persist
And the problem when in people's minds
is Confusing literature with history
The Gospels are literature these traditions
Are literature history
Is made of much tougher stuff than that
The controversy indoors however
For there is another tantalizing legend
Associated with joseph of
arimathea and Glastonbury
It is a story of the holy Grail
The sacred cup from which Jesus drank
at the Last Supper
Then He took a cup
And after giving thanks He gave it to them saying
Drink from it all of you
For this is my blood of the new covenant
which is poured out for many
for the forgiveness of sins
Matthew 26:27
According to the Bible
After the crucifixion the body of Jesus was given
To Joseph of Arimathea for burial
The legend of Glastonbury relates that
Joseph then made a final journey
To England to spread the gospel
With him hecarried the cup from the Last Supper
The legend relates that Joseph buried
the cup somewhere in Glastonbury
There is another aspect of the joseph
of Arimathea story that is the cup
This becomes very important symbolism in
Palestine in the first century
In fact in Jewish revolutionary coins
The cup is the symbol of the first revolt against Rome
Could the Jewish revolutionary Image
of the cup
Possibly be a clue to an incredible
chapter in the missing Years of Jesus
When we return
Did Jesus Spend His last years in the wilderness?
With a fanatically Religious apocalyptic sect
The dead see
15 miles east of Jerusalem
At 1,300 feet below sea level
The lowest point on earth
Here 2,000 years ago in the forbidding
Landscape of the Judean wilderness
John the Baptist a zealous prophet
Spread a new message of salvation
To the Jews of Palestine
John the Baptist appeared in the Wilderness
Proclaiming a baptism of repentance
For the forgiveness of sins
And people from the whole Judean
Countryside
And all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him
And were baptized by him in the river Jordan
Confessing their sins
Mark 1:4
John's message of redemptions spread
Through Israel like wildfire
Multitudes journeyed to hear him preach
And to be baptized by him
One of these was Jesus
In those days Jesus came
from Nazareth of Galilee
and was baptized by John In the Jordan
And just as He was coming up Out
of the water
He saw the heavens torn apart
And the spirit descending like a dove upon him
Mark 1:9
All of the sources coalesce around
The point
That Jesus appeared
among the followers of John the Baptist
I think that is the only credible information
that you're going to find
As far as the early years of Jesus in the Gospels
What was the genesis of the unique concept of baptism
Part of the answer may come from a
Mysterious sect of ultra religious jews
Who lived in the wilderness surrounding
The Dead Sea
At a site called Qumran
They were called the Essenes
Many scholars have theorized that John
The Baptist and Jesus
May have at one time been members of their community
He wasn't part of the establishment
He wasn't part of the temple aristocracy
He probably had some contac with The Essene
Movement at Qumran
Perhaps through John the Baptist
It was at Qumran in 1947
That the Dead Sea Scrolls
The oldest known fragments
Of the Hebrew Bible were discovered
found among these holy scriptures were
Documents
Which describe the Essene Community
which lived at Qumran
Scholars believe the Essenes
Practiced a type of baptism
The apparent connections between Jesus
John the Baptist and the Essene Community
have fueled controversy among
Biblical scholars
Could Jesus and John The Baptist had
been influenced by the Essenes?
Could Jesus have lived with the Essenes
during His last years?
Scholars have detected other surprising
Parallels between Jesus and the Essenes
The Essenes were distinguished by their
love for each other
Their simplicity of life and their strict
adherence to the Laws of the Hebrew Bible
They call themselves
The children of light
There were many similarities between
Jesus and how He lived and also how the
Essence lived
They were very simple Clothing
They kept all of their goods in common
And that had someone essentially
distribute the goods according to need
They did not believe in acquiring
Material wealth
And these were all aspects of Jesus's ministry
That we know of today
But there was also a dark and fatalistic
Side to the doctrines of the Essenes
One of their documents known as the war scroll
Has led scholars to believe that
the Essenes were fanatically religious
Like John the Baptist and Jesus
They Rejected what they saw as the corruption of the Jewish priesthood
The occupation of the Holy Land by the
Abdallah Roman
Was something they were prepared to fight to the death
The Essenes move their community to
the Wilderness of Qumran
Because they believe that a war was rapidly
Approaching
Which would pit themselves against their enemies
The Essene leader in this conflict would
be a messiah
Described in the war scrolls as the teacher
of righteousness
So we have a whole group of bathers in
the wilderness
But in addition these are also revolutionaries
and freedom fighters
That is the unique quality of The
Dead Sea Scrolls
They combine both Essenes asceticism bathing
wilderness habitation in purest ideologies
But they also have the militant
final apocalyptic war vision
Of the Son of man coming on The
clouds of heaven to fight the
Final war against all evil on the
Earth that is in the war scroll
According to certain translations of the scrolls
The teacher of righteousness
is portrayed as a messiah
Some scholars have suggested that Jesus Himself
May have been the mysterious Teacher of
righteousness mentioned in the scrolls
Other scholars however point to apparent contradictions
Which contain Profound implications
Jesus could not even if He thought of
Himself as Messiah in some sense
He could not accept the popular
understanding of Messiah
Because it would be antithetical to everything
He Stood for
Because that popular and stained Messiah
would be some kind of warrior hero
From the house of David who would
come and destroy the enemies of Israel
This was the very
Thing Jesus was opposed to
When we return
Could Jesus have been actively involved
In the struggle against the Roman oppressors
And could this be a reason for the silence
Of the Gospels about the lost years of Jesus
Could there have been another aspect to
Jesus in addition to the Prince of Peace
And salvation as presented
In the New Testament
During His last year's the very people
He preached to
Were fighting The Romans for their lives
Perhaps even more importantly they
Fought for the conception of the one God
Upon which their religion was founded
The situation in Palestine was holy teror
it was horrendous
And we know This from a variety of sources
including The Dead Sea Scrolls
It was against this backdrop of violent
oppression that Jesus preached
In the Gospels Jesus is primarily
Portrayed as one who abhors violence
You have heard it said an eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth but I say to you
Love your enemies and pray for those
who persecute you
Matthew 5:38
But the Gospels also depict a distinctly
Different image of Jesus
Do not think That I have come to bring peace to the earth
I have not come to Bring peace but a sword
Matthew 10:34
Why does the New Testament present
conflicting views of Jesus
Some scholars point to various passages in the Gospels
Which they believe may contain hidden Clues to
the real nature of Jesus Mission to the Jews
Then they came and laid hands on Jesus
and arrested him
Suddenly one of those Who was
with Jesus
Put his hand on his sword drew it and
struck the slave of The high priest
Matthew 26:50
Now if you notice in the Gospels
Some of Jesus followers are carrying swords and
And when He is asked should we carry a sword
He says carry too
So some of Jesus followers are clearly
sword or knife people
One of His associates is called a zealot
Now we have also at this time a group
of people called zealots
And Jesus In fact harbored one
among His apostles
And this was a group that had come into
Existence sometime before the Common Era
Their whole idea was To drive up the Romans
Now one of the problems with the Gospels
And historicity of the Gospels is that
The authors are intent
On rescuing Jesus from the charge
For which He was clearly crucified
That is the Romans did not crucify blasphemers
But crucifixion was the Roman
punishment For political subversion
So He certainly was crucified after a revolutionary
But these views are not universal
Most scholars do not see Jesus as a nationalist
What Jesus called for what a transformation of human life
A new way of seeing a new way of hearing
A new way of relating to one another
And a call to greater inclusivity that included
The Poor, the women, children, the margin aided
the oppressed
But if Jesus were involved in revolution
This could explain why a gap exists
in our knowledge about His life
If Jesus was one of these quasi ascetic
Daily bathing wilderness dwellings
edge' Terian revolutionaries
Then obviously the revolutionary aspect
Could not have been played up in the Gospels as
we have them because
That would have made it impossible to circulate these documents
In a Roman oriented world
All of this may never be resolved
May remain ever mysterious
For the nearly two thousand years
Since the death of Jesus
Countless stories and legends have tried to fill the gap
Created by the mysterious Lost years.
why?
I think we're still fascinated by his missing years
because we all love a good mystery
Here we have history's most
famous man
And all of a sudden he vanishes
and He's gone for a long time
And then He reappears with a message
that changes the entire world
So it's natural for us to be very curious
as to what He did during that time
Who he might have met who He might have talked to
And what caused him perhaps to embark on His mission
Perhaps the mystery of the last years of
Jesus is a secret chapter
One which we are not meant
To read...