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   THEre ARE Various Versions of THE CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH of Jesus Christ, SO to be  INTELLECTUALLY HONEST, I MUST GIVE each VERSION AT LEAST some mention.

illegitimate ESSENE CHILD At QUMRAN AND MAR SABA

      On this, page 4 of a 5 page series, I'll first give a very short review the previous 3 pages, which you are free to skip if you have read and understand them all.  First we considered a Latin Infancy Gospel in which Christ was born fully aware that he was God, the "light of the World," shining so brightly in a cave that a Jewish mid-wife was unable to enter the cave until Christ, by some process or other, shaped himself into the form of a human baby.  But when the midwife looked into the baby's eyes, Suddenly, a great light came forth from his eyes like a great flash of lightning."

      Then we considered another Infancy Gospel in which Jesus as a child discovered that all he needed to do was speak, and whatever he said happened immediately.   He could not control his temper, however, and a lot of his playmates died who angered him.  An embarrassed teacher discovered that he could not teach Christ anything, because Jesus knew much more than he did about even the alphabet.

        Next we read about the Child Jesus in the Seventh-day Adventist prophetess' book Desire of Ages who was absolutely "perfect" (for his age) as a child and youth.   The only sinless person who ever walked on earth (except perhaps for some angels). As a twelve-year-old he visited Jerusalem and saw in the Passover lamb his own future.   But he had constant temptations from the evil people in Nazareth, and even from his own supposed brothers, who were older than him and not really  his brothers, but children of Joseph by a previous marriage. Since God, not Joseph, was Jesus' "Father", Jesus had no choice but to smile sweetly through all this, to avoid sinning and spoiling our "Salvation".

      A more normal Jesus was presented to us by Professor Norman Bull MA PhD in Jesus of Nazareth, a school book published in Great Britain by Hutton Books.  Certain that Jesus was indeed a "Carpenter" and the "son of a Carpenter" with a mother and six other children to feed besides paying both Roman and Temple taxes after Joseph died, Bull presents a Jesus who was too busy working at his trade to do much sinning.  He is sure Jesus attended synagogue school which was free to Jewish boys from age 5 to 13, but after that had no money for continued schooling.  The "Silent Years" from age 13 to 30 were filled with hard labor in Nazareth, but then the younger brothers of Jesus were old enough to run the Carpenter shop, and Jesus was free to get baptized by John and become the new "Messiah of the World".

      The weakness of Dr. Norman Bull's argument and proposal that Jesus was indeed a "Carpenter" and the son of a carpenter is in the fact that this is supported by only two texts, Mark 6:3 and Matthew 13:55,56 which are both phrased as questions. These are the same two texts that list Jesus' brothers and sisters, but we can check on them because they appear in many other texts.  Nowhere else in the New Testament, however do we see Jesus lifting a board or helping to construct a building.  However, as a symbolic "builder" of a religion and even the astrological "House" of Pisces, there is considerable support.

      In contrast to those "Silent Years", supposedly spent in hard labor at a tiny Galilee village called Nazareth is the unanimity with which all the gospels proclaim that Jesus' real ministry started at a place  geographically quite close to Qumran,  Bethabara on the Jordan River, near the city of Jericho.   A place where one can visit when political conditions are favorable, but not a tourist attraction because it is on the border between Israel and Jordan. 

Jesus' Baptism by 

John the Baptist

John 1:28 "These things were done in Bethabara beyond

Jordan, where John was baptizing."

29 The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, 

Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.

30 This is he of whom I said, After me cometh a man which is preferred

before me: for he is before me.---etc.

(Here the Baptist describes what he apparently saw the day before,

when Jesus came to be baptized by him among others --)

     

32 "And John bare record, saying, I saw the Spirit descending 

from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him."

In one of the gospels, but not in John's account here, everyone

present saw the dove, and in three gospels, but not in John's 

account here, also saw the heavens split open, and God's voice 

was heard, proclaiming "Thou art My beloved Son, in whom 

I am well pleased." Matthew 3:16-17, Mark 1:7-11, Luke 3:21-22

THE THIRD DAY

Those of us trying to get an accurate account here, possible

with stenographer John's account, but not with the others, we

now have 1) Day 1: Baptism (with or without a split-open heaven)

2) Day 2: (next day) The first "Lamb of God" remark by the Baptist

3) Day 3: (again the next day after) Another "Lamb of God" remark.

John 1:35 "Again the next day after John stood, and two of his

disciples; 36 And looking upon Jesus as he walked, he said, 

Behold the Lamb of God.'

37 And the two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus."

Qumran Monastery,

Where lived the "Lambs of God."

      By the time Norman Bull published his book in 1968, he knew about the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Qumran monastery.  He did speculate that John the Baptist may have been an Essene, but failed to make the connection that Jesus also might have been one. Even though the teachings of John the Baptist in Luke 3:7-15 and in Matthew chapter 3  are identical with those of Jesus throughout the Gospels and quite similar to those in the Dead Sea Scrolls.

       We in the 21st century are quite used to Jesus being called a "Lamb of God", particularly so since the author of Revelation calls him that repeatedly.   Indeed 26 times clearly, and perhaps a 27th time.  But at Qumran to be a "Lamb of God" was not complementary.

       Here's what Dr. Barbara Thiering has to say about John the Baptist's remark in Jesus and the Riddle of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Harpur 1992).  In this book Dr. Thiering, among other things, presents a good case for Jesus being an Essene, and living parts of his life at or near the Qumran monastery.   She also insists that a lot of practices common in the Roman Catholic church after Constantine and the Council of Nicea in 325 AD had their beginnings among the Essenes at Qumran.

       Page 350. "As the institution of lay celibacy grew and diversified (among the Qumran Essenes), several classes were formed.   Vows of varying lengths were taken, indicating different degrees of discipline.   Those who took the hardest and highest vows of periodic abstinence from marriage belonged to the Essene order of Judah, under the David, while those who took lesser degrees belonged to the order of Zebulun, whose meeting place was at the literal Nazareth in Galilee.   Their superior was the David prince. ---they used the route from Mar Saba through the Wilderness, and were given the image of "sheep" as they were "shorn" (had a hair-cut and shaved) on resumption of marriage."

     "Although the prince was the chief Nazirite, the king in his peaceful role could act under the Nazirite rule, so being called the "Lamb" (arnion).  Thus the David was both the Lion and the Lamb (Rev. 5:5-7)"

     "Another man in the (Essene) village could act  in the place of Raphael (an angel), as if he was a levitical cardinal.   This was a graduate of a celibate community, one of the "orphans", often illegitimate children who had been handed over at birth  and brought up to the higher discipline of the order of Levi, renouncing marriage altogether.   He also was called a "Lamb", but the word amnos was used.   His immediate supervisor was Sariel (another angel), the superior of Raphael, so, as Sariel was called "God", he was called the "lamb of God" (John 1:36).  His full celibate order held the ideal of the Suffering Servant, the "lamb led to the slaughter", who atoned for the sins of the others by his severe suffering under ascetic discipline (Isaiah 53:4-9 , amnos v. 7; 1QS 8:1-4)."

       "Consequently, when John the Baptist hailed Jesus as the "lamb of God" (ho amnos tou theou) who takes away the sins of the world" (John 1:29), he meant that he was illegitimate, one who should be under full celibate discipline, and so could act as a levitical cardinal in a village, atoning for others, and having the right to give absolution.   When John said the next day "behold the lamb of God" , leaving out the following phrase (John 1:36), he meant that he had deprived him of the right to give absolution, as the schism ("heavens opened" in other than John's account) had occurred."

       The schism is shown in John's gospel in 1: 37 "And the two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus." And 40-51 in which Jesus also attracts Andrew, Simon Peter, Philip, and Nathaniel to follow him as their new "Messiah" instead of John the Baptist.  By being critical and precise in the way she was reading these texts that had puzzled scholars for centuries Dr. Barbara Thiering was starting to understand where the pieces fit in a puzzle which, when solved, revealed a Jesus that lived at and near Qumran, not in far away Nazareth of Galilee. Note that Jesus was meeting Andrew, (John), Simon Peter, Philip, and Nathaniel here at the Jordan near Jericho and Qumran, not on the shore of the Sea of Galilee.

The Gospel of John and 

Strange Geography

        To all modern scholars like Professor Norman Bull the writer of the Gospel of John does not seem to know his geography.   Nor how long it would take to walk from  John the Baptist's baptizing site near Jericho to Jerusalem and then to Galilee. Here's some examples.   Professor Bull has already told us in his book that Nazareth in Galilee is 128 km from Jerusalem.   That's a week's walk under ideal conditions.   Yet we read in John 1:28 "These things were done in Bethabara beyond Jordan, where John was baptizing." 29 (still at Bethabara) "The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith---'" 35 (still at Bethabara) "Again the next day after John stood, and two of his disciples ---" 43 (starts walking toward Galilee, perhaps reaching Jerusalem)"The day following Jesus would go forth into Galilee, and findeth Philip, and said unto him, Follow me."  2:1 (and in two days is 128 km north, in Galilee) "And the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee; and the mother of Jesus was there---" (possible in a modern car, difficult on horseback, but walking? virtually impossible!)

     Note that Cana on the above map is even farther from Jerusalem on the above map of Galilee than Nazareth and might take even more time to walk to by Jesus and his now 4 followers than the 128 km shown by Norman Bull in his book Jesus the Nazarene.  Jesus at Qumran could, according to Thiering's explanation, be from Nazareth in Galilee because that's where the Essene order of Zebulun had their actual geographical headquarters, and still be at Qumran.   And Mar Saba could also be thought of as a part of Nazareth because it was on the route this particular group of Celibate Nazirites took to go from Qumran to Jerusalem.

       Barbara Thiering comments on this in her book on page 37-38. "This gospel is strangely inconsistent about locations: it can be bafflingly vague about where things happened, yet give exact distances in stadia where they do not seem to be needed.   In one place it says that the disciples, rowing in a boat to Capernaum, travelled to a spot at 'twenty-five or thirty stadia".  Mazin is thirty stadia from Qumran and twenty-five from the Queen's house, which acted as an outer boundary to Qumran."

       "In another episode at Capernaum in John's gospel, a net of fish was dragged two hundred cubits (one hundred yards) to the shore.  This was the length of the channel at Mazin, leading up to the watergate."

      "John's gospel also says that Bethany was fifteen stadia from Jerusalem, using the plural form of the name.  Ain Feshkha is exactly this distance from Qumran.  It reproduced the original Bethany, at about this distance east of Jerusalem, when the locations were moved to Qumran."

       In 1992 and 1993, after reading Dr. Barbara Thiering's book, I actually visited these Essene sites, and paced out the measurements made by the author of John's Gospel 1900 years ago, as did Dr. Barbara Thiering before she wrote her book.  Below is my picture of the ruins at Khirbet Mazin with is two hundred cubit channel, and my hand-drawn picture of how it might have looked when Jesus' "fishermen" fished for men, not fish, here along the shore of the Dead Sea.

Two Nazareths 

One 14 km from Qumran, One in Galilee

Two Seas of Galilee

One near Qumran (the Dead Sea), One 150 km distant from Qumran

Two Capernaums

One on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, one on the shore of the Dead Sea

Two Samarias

One 3 Km south of Qumran monastery, One many km north of Jerusalem

Two Bethanys

One fifteen stadia south of Qumran, one fifteen stadia south of Jerusalem

Two Jerusalems

The "New" Jerusalem at Qumran, the "Old" Jerusalem 30 km distant.

      Once Dr. Thiering figured out that the author of John's gospel was always, without deviation, speaking about the places near Qumran renamed for their far-away counterparts,  John's strange geography made complete sense, and could be followed without any difficulty.  And the precise measurements in cubits and stadia helped to identify which Essene site was being discussed.

"Walking on the Water"

"John's version - at Khirbet Mazin"

     John 6:15 "When Jesus therefore perceived that they would come and take him by force, to make him a king (the David Messiah), he departed again into a mountain alone."

       16 "And when even was now come, his disciples (John Mark) went down into the sea, 17 And entered into a ship, and went over in the sea (the Dead Sea NOT Galilee) toward Capernaum (Khirbet Mazin).  And it was now dark (and as is shown by "time codes", sundown Friday night), and Jesus was not come to them."

     18 "And the sea rose by reason of a great wind that blew. (the "wind" was caused by Simon Peter, who was worried about breaking the Sabbath!)

     19 "So when they had rowed about five and twenty or thirty furlongs (about 3 km), they see Jesus walking on the sea, and drawing nigh unto the ship: and they were afraid."

     20 "But he said unto them, It is I; be not afraid."

     21 "Then they willingly received him into the ship: and immediately the ship was at the land whither they went."

    As Barbara Thiering has shown in her book on page 37, 38, this 25 -30 furlongs is the distance from either the Qumran monastery or the Queens House to Khirbet Mazin.  A mountainous hill between Ain Feshkha and Khirbet Mazin made it faster and easier to cover this distance by rowboat than walking.   Jesus walked over the hill, the disciples rowed.  He appeared to "walk on water" the final 200 cubits because he was walking on the jetty at the Essene building there which reached out into the Dead Sea.

Net Full of Fishes-John 21

    

    Although John starts his gospel at John the Baptist's baptisms at the Jordan river, the other 3 gospels start their stories at Khirbet Mazin with Jesus inviting Andrew, Simon Peter, and James and John the "sons of Zebedee" to become "Fishers of Men" instead of fishes.   In this artistic picture I drew and later colored on 11-24-1992, I've tried to reconstruct what was there in 29 AD.   The fishing boat is in the 200 cubit channel with its accompanying jetty where priests (and sometimes Jesus) could "walk on water".

      Later, after Jesus crucifixion and resurrection, John did do a story about Simon Peter and a "Net full of Fishes," --- hauled 200 cubits to shore.

      John 21:3 "Simon Peter saith unto them, I go a fishing.  They say unto him, we also go with thee.  They went forth, and entered into a ship immediately; and that night  they caught nothing.

     4 But when the morning was now come, Jesus stood on the shore: but the disciples knew not that it was Jesus (supposedly dead, you know).

     5 Then Jesus saith unto them, Children, have you any meat?  They answered him, No."

     6 And he said unto them, Cast the net on the right side of the ship, and ye shall find.  (That's where one of Herod's stewards was waiting to be baptized).  They cast therefore, and now they were not able to draw it in for the multitude of fishes. (symbolically, the millions that would become Christians are represented).

      7 Therefore that disciple whom Jesus loved (John Mark, the author of this story) saith unto Peter, It is the Lord.  Now when Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he girt his fisherman's coat unto him, (for he was naked,) and did cast himself into the sea. 

       8 And the other disciples came in a little ship; (for they were not far from land, but as it were two hundred cubits.) dragging the net with fishes."

      Giving the distance the net was dragged was important in this Essene baptismal system, because where you were baptized determined your rank and authority in their hierarchy.   Sort of like the difference between being a "Lamb of God" and being a "Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world."      

Jesus' BETROTHAL

AT AIN FESHKHA

      Once one accepts what Dr. Barbara Thiering found out in her research, that Jesus' Essene companions are renaming places in the Qumran area with the names of other far-away places important to the Jews (and to today's tourists) we can locate the Cana of John chapter 2 as being Ain Feshkha, a few kilometers from Bethabara on the Jordan River near Jericho, not in far-away Galilee at least a week's walk away.  Jesus is turning his back on John the Baptist's opinion that he should remain celibate for the rest of his life as an illegitimate Essene monk -- a mere Lamb of God, and showed up with Mary Magdalene on his arm for an Essene betrothal ceremony.  John the Baptist was NOT invited to perform this ceremony, but it was performed instead by a person called Lazarus in John, and Zebedee in the other gospels.   As one of the twelve apostles his name became Simon Zelotes.   But he is better known by historians of that era as Simon Magus, the most famous Gnostic of that century.

      It would simplify things if we could definitely say that Jesus spent all those years between 13 years old and 30 years old training as a monk in the Essene monastery and becoming a levitical Cardinal as John the Baptist here suggested, but Jesus' life was never that simple, as we shall discover on our next page.  

     

Jesus' Troublesome Brothers

John Chapter 7 Decoded

        Ellen G. White, Seventh-day Adventist prophetess and author of the popular religious book Desire of Ages fell into a Jesuit trap designed to make Mary, Jesus' mother, an ever-virgin by making Jesus' brothers not her children but only those of Joseph.  They were, wrote Ellen White, older than him and trying to make him do things he shouldn't be doing as a "Perfect Child" of his Father, who was really God, not Joseph.   Norman Bull, as we saw later, saw Jesus as a carpenter, forced to support a large family when Joseph died.  His younger brothers would not be any problem to him, and he finally trained them to take over the carpenter business, so that he could become a Rabbi, and go out with his 12 disciples "saving the world."   In this case Ellen White was closer to the truth than was Norman Bull, who knew about the Essenes, and should have guessed that Jesus was an Essene, not a carpenter.

     Ellen White got her cues from John chapter 7, but failed to note that these events occurred in the middle of Jesus' 3 1/2 year ministry, not in his childhood and teenage years.   Now we know that John's "Galilee" was only 6 km south of Qumran, not 118 km north of Jerusalem, the story makes much more sense.

      John 7:1 "After these things Jesus walked in Galilee (confined his activities to the Khirbet Mazin area); for he would not walk in Jewry (Qumran or Jerusalem), because the Jews (opposing Essene political party) sought to kill him (bring his career as an Essene Messiah to an end).

      2 "Now the Jews' feast of tabernacles was at hand." (Also the Essene version, that would bring a lot of pilgrims to the Qumran monastery).

      3 "His brethren (real brothers, symbolic "brethren" makes no sense here) therefore said unto him, Depart hence, and go unto Jerusalem (the "New" Jerusalem, Qumran), that thy disciples (potential disciples, the pilgrims) may also see the works that thou doest."

      4 "For there is no man (who wants a political career) that doeth anything in secret, and he himself seeketh to be known openly.   If thou do these things, (miracles, parables, discourses), shew thyself to the world (the crowds of pilgrims visiting the Qumran monastery).

      5 "For neither did his brethren believe in him." This is the verse that the Trinitarians (and Ellen White) will misinterpret retrospectively to make Jesus brothers not believers in his divine birth  -- the truth is even more unpalatable, they agreed with certain high priests, that he was ILLEGITIMATE, not really of the bloodline of king David.   The point?   One of them, James, 6 years younger than Jesus, should instead be the David Messiah.  Because no one questioned that James' father was Joseph, the descendent of King David.

     6 "Then Jesus said unto them, My time is not yet come: (time to be crucified? Maybe.) but your time is alway ready (You'll get your time after I'm not Messiah any more).

     7 "The world cannot hate you; (because you have no political office), but me it hateth (because I'm a public figure), because I testify of it, that the works of it are evil --(an example? the sermon on the mount)

     8 "Go ye up (the 6 km walk) to this feast; for my time is not yet full come --(I'm still working on my speech!)

      9 "When he had said these words unto them, he abode still in Galilee (in the Khirbet Mazin area, helping Peter baptize Gentiles).

      10 "But when his brethren (politically motivated younger brothers) were gone up (the 6 km walk to Qumran), then went he also up unto the feast, not openly (no band, no political banners, no advertising), but as it were in secret (perhaps dressed as one of the Gentile pilgrims).

      As Barbara Thiering traces the political and religious careers of Jesus' younger brothers throughout the book of Acts, it becomes obvious that there was sibling rivalry, and that certain irregularities regarding Jesus' birth were periodically used against him.   Which may have had a lot to do with an even more secretive part of Jesus' lifetime spent in India, Tibet, and Kashmir.  Both before and after the 3 1/2 years recorded in the 4 Gospels.    

 

Dr. Robert Flewelling Holt, MD   Doctor Holt's alma mater, Loma Linda University
       Dr. Robert Holt md, mph, who spent a lot of the money he made as an Emergency Room Physician in various North Carolina Emergency Rooms, including Ahoskie, Onslow Memorial Hospital in Jacksonville, Sampson County Memorial Hospital in Clinton, Bladen County Hospital in Elizabethtown, Good Hope Hospital in Erwin, and Cherokee Indian Hospital in Cherokee, traveling all over the world doing research on the Essenes, and the origins of the Bible and of Christianity,--has been to both Qumran by the Dead Sea and Kashmir in the Himalaya Mountains.  And also the Damascus in Syria, where Saul of Tarsus had the experience described in both Acts and his epistles as being blinded by a light and a vision of Jesus and then cured of blindness 3 days later.  He has also visited the ruins of Phillipi, Athens and Corinth in Greece, and the Isle of Patmos, where John  wrote the letters in Revelation to the seven churches.     

Isaiah's Prophecy Fulfilled:

at Qumran and in Kashmir

The respected and official "History of the Kashmir Kings" by Kahlana Sent to me all the way from India by Suzanna Olsson, whose picture I have shown above.
      The story of Jesus Christ in Kashmir starts in 25 AD, when he was appointed or elected King of that small Himalayan nation.  But he was apparently living a while before that in Pakistan, in the city of Taxila. Where he was chosen to be the husband of a princess, the princess Amritaprabha, the daughter of King Gopadditya..   The story begins on page 33.   His  name in those days and in that location was Prince Meghavahana.

  The Story Continues 

as a teenage Jesus  walks through India

  INDEX to healthark.com