WHERE DID JESUS PREPARE FOR THE MINISTRY

By J.O. Kinnaman

From the book:   “Diggers For Facts”

It is next to the last day of the Feast of the Passover of the year 8 A.D. as our  calendar now  stands, and the Lectures  that were accustomed to be given at the University of Palestine during these days we progress. This was one of the oldest seats of Higher Learning in the world. It was in the Temple of Herod, the successor of the Temple of Solomon, and stood  upon the site of that world-famous structure.

In the audience, listening to the  lectures of the learned  was a young boy about twelve years of age. He had been  attending the lectures, and giving them more than passing attention. Occasionly as was  the privilege, He had asked a few questions. In the midst of this exercise, there came a time when  He dared to disagree with the lecturers. The debate was on, and the young boy was invited  to come to the lecture platform where He could  be better seen and  heard. These  learned men  were more  than  mystified  and pleased at  the  questions that  the  could  propound, and then answer Himself. In other words, there great “stir” in the literary  and  religious  circles. Who  was this boy could confound and  amaze the famous Faculty of the University of Palestine known  around the world?

About eight miles north of Jerusalem is Arimathea, also called Ramah, and at present  Ramallah. Josephus calls  it Amartha. It the  birthplace of  the  Prophet Samuel.  The  place is on  the  Nazareth Jerusalem caravan route, or road. It was always the first stopping place of caravans traveling north from Jerusalem. Of course,  the family would  stop  there  on their way to Jerusalem, and returning from it. This was the country estate  of Joseph of Arimathea, the  uncle  of Mary mother of Jesus. Joseph was the youngest brother of Mary’s father. We shall not at this time and place enter into the discussion  of relationship of Joseph to Jesus, but accept it as a fact that Joseph Arimathea was the uncle of Jesus.

It was  incumbent upon  the Jew  to remain only three or four days at the seven days feast. Joseph and Mar y, and the   boy  attended the  Passover, and undoubtedly stayed  with friends in the city, while the boy stayed  with his uncle  Joseph in the town house of the councillor. They started back home,  evidently, without  communicating with  the boy, thinking  that He would  be with his uncle, and  that they would  all meet  at Arimathea. But upon  reaching the country home of Joseph, they found  the boy was  not there, nor  did  He arrive  the  following  day. Another  night came and  passed, and still no boy. Now the worried mother and  her  spouse retraced their  steps to the city, and found  the boy at the afternoon lectures, talking with the learned, and aged  instructors.

When the  mother came up  to  Him,  she  gently rebuked  Him. In some astonishment He  replied: “How  is it that you sought me? Know you not that I must be about my Father’s business?”

The last that the Gospels have to say about the boy is found  in Luke 2:52. I  wish  to call the attention of young  fathers and  mothers to the 51st verse  of the second chapter of Luke. I suggest  to them,  that in the face of conditions as they now are, the young parent study  diligently  this verse,  yea,  ponder over  it, and carry it into practice.

Again I say Luke 2:52 is the last mention of the boy in the New Testament. There  is a lacuna of 18 years during  which  time the New Testament is absolutely silent  concerning the whereabouts and  activities of Jesus. It has been  the popular tradition for centuries that He lived in the village of Nazareth, Galilee, worked at the carpenter trade  until He took up His Galilean Ministry. It is also  the popular notion  that Jesus was not an educated man,  and  that  He was  a very poor man. In addition, it is popularly conceived that Jesus, as the oldest  of the family, had the numerous family of Joseph and  Mary to support. This is all popular tradition, fostered  by the Catholic church from its very beginning but, in reality, does not contain one shred of factual  truth.  Let us examine the subject for a moment, and see what common sense and archaeology have to say.

You will recall that the Magi sought to find the Babe in Palestine, and finally they located Him. Matt. 2: II says: ”And they  came  into the house and  saw  the young  child  with  Mary his  mother; and  they  fell down and adored him; and opening their treasures they offered  unto him gifts, gold, frankincense and myrrh.” Who were  the Magi? We shall not enter into a discussion regarding them. They were philosophers, learned men from the East. They were more powerful and  richer  in this world’s goods than  any monarch upon any throne at that period of history. At least one of them came from India. The last sentence is enough to give the traveler of today a wide hint. The greatest wealth today in the world is to be found in India. There lives there  today one  man  who  could  pay off all the World War debt of all the countries involved, and not miss  the change! I  am  not exaggerating in this statement. One of the Magi was from Babylonia. Who the third one was is still a matter of dispute. Anyway, they were  very rich,  and  very  powerful. The gifts mentioned in the above  passages are symbolical in the East. What  is really said  there  is that  they gave into  the  hands of Joseph what would today be considered a fortune, with  the stipulation that it be held in trust for the child. This latter  statement is a general tradition  that will not cease in the East.

Jesus  raised  Lazarus  from the dead. Why did He do that for him, and  not for thousands of others of His own generation?

You will recall  that  when Lazarus reached the doorway of the tomb,  and  stood  there  all bound  up in his grave  clothes, Jesus did  not  rush  forward  to release him as one would  expect. He simply told the crowd  around Him: “Loose the  man  and  let him go.” Was Jesus hard hearted? No. He wished to teach us a lesson, and  that was the objective  of the whole procedure. Jesus did  what  no  man  could  do;  He raised  Lazarus  from  the  dead, and  brought him  to the door  of the  tomb. When  Lazarus  reached that point, Jesus  did  not  need  to help  him  further;   his friends could  do the rest, that ability lay within their power. God will not do for us what we can do for ourselves, or our friends  can  do for us. Would  God do anything  d ifferent for His own  Son? Would God miraculously educate  His Son, and  thus deprive  the learner of the  human pleasure of learning? Jesus experienced the routine  of the  boy and  man  of His time.  Attaining an  education was   the  common experience of Jesus’ day as it is at present, popular opinion  notwithstanding.

Working  upon  the  problem of the  education of Jesus was  led  upon  a long  journey  through  many countries. I shall give in outline only the route and a few incidents of that  journey.  I started from  the catacombs beneath the  city of Rome,  and  went  to Egypt. The trail led from Egypt to India. In India is the oldest  University  known to man.  It is a Rock Hewn University. The date  of its founding  is unknown, or at least,  unrevealed. Its Faculty is a group  of the most learned men on  the  globe. If the  Occidental Psychologist just knew the psychology that these men have forgotten, or ceased to practice, or teach,  the first thing  that  the  Western philosopher would  do would  be  to, burn  all the  text and  reference books they have upon  the subject. I merely wish to say that the writer  was  shown records which,  he was  told, were  the school records of Jesus of Nazareth;  that He studied there  for three  years,  and  then went  into what is now Tibet. He did not complete the course, as we would  say today. On to Tibet went  the writer, but he was  not allowed by the  British to cross  into the country that forms  the “roof of the world.”  Then back to Palestine. The journey was not yet ended, for it continued to call for a trip to the British Isles.

It has been  established that Joseph of Arimathea was a very rich man in the Roman  Empire. He stood high in the social order of Palestine. He was a member of the Sanhedrin, and a councilor. He made his money in tin. There was  only one  place known to the merchants of antiquity where this  metal  could  be obtained, and that place was that which is now Wales. This metal  was  necessary for the making  of bronze and  other  compounds known to antiquity.  Tin was one  of the major  metals in the Temple  of Solomon and it all came  from England. Even when Jesus was a boy, his uncle, Joseph of Arimathea, was the Tinplate King of the Roman  Empire. He either owned or controlled  fifty-one percent of the tin output of Wales, and he had his own fleet with which  to distribute the metal. He had his regular ports of call in the whole of the Empire.

If we  may  follow  Tradition  and  records, Jesus visited England twice during his life. He visited it once as a mere boy, going with his uncle on a trip to the tin mines. How long He stayed  on this first trip we have no way of knowing, or even  estimating. It seems to have been merely    pleasure trip, or an adventure for the boy.

The  second trip  was altogether a  different proposition. Whether this trip was  made before  or after  his Eastern  journey  is not known. Personally,  I would  favor  the  English  trip  as  being  before the Eastern  journey. There  are  several  reasons for this supposition.

Most of us get our picture of the early English from the  writings  of Caesar.  Caesar would  have  made  a very good war correspondent of the present time. He saw   only  that  which his  prejudices and   bigotry allowed  him to see and report. The impression that is given our  boys and  girls in our secondary schools, and  our  men and  women of our  colleges and Universities is all wrong. The popular notion is exactly one  hundred percent wrong!  Many of the  greatest universities of all time were  to be found  in England, and  the most learned men  were  on the faculties of these  seats of learning. The professors were  called Druids. There were, according to British records,  forty of  these Universities in  the   British Isles accommodating more  than sixty thousand students. All these students were of the best families of the Isles, and  some from  foreign  countries. The  courses of study were  varied,  but comprehensive. When  I  use the word comprehensive, I also mean  extensive. The basis of all study was  the attempt to know as much as possible concerning the First Cause of the Universe and  its ramifications wherever  investigation might lead. Abstract  philosophy as diametrically opposed to Natural philosophy, was pursued  to the last ultimate as far as human comprehension had the ability to do so. The time  consumed in completing a University career was twenty years:

In the Department of Theology and Philosophy the ultimate  nature of phenomena was  closely  studied and  speculated upon ;  not  in  the  manner of  the Sophists of  Greece, but  with  that  observant an introspective comprehensiveness that characterizes the real savants of India. To illustrate what  I  mean: The basic Druidic belief in the First Cause was in the form of Trinity. Never did the idea of polytheism enter into  their  teachings.   The    Godhead,  as a comprehensive idea, way  named Duw, the  one without  darkness who  pervaded and  encompassed the universe. The emblem or symbolism of Druidism was the three golden  rays of Light; these  represented the aspects or persons of the Trinity emanating from the  Godhead. These  three  aspects of Trinity were known as Beli, who was the Creator as relating to the past, Taran, the controlling principles of the present, and Yesu, the coming Savior as related to the future. The oak tree was the symbol of the Godhead and the mistletoe with its three white berries emanating from the parent  oak represented the three  aspects of the Trinity. It was especially associated with the coming Savior Yesu , and  the  title assigned to it was  the “All Heal.”

Thus Druidism anticipated  Christianity, and pointed  to the coming Savior under  the very name  by which He was known  when He did arrive. When one studies Druidism closely, the  more on  become impressed with  its  apparent relationship to  the revealed  religion as set forth in the Mosaic Law.

The most ancient Welsh literature informs us that Hu Gadarn, the  mighty, was  the great  apostle of Druidism in Britain .  He  was contemporary  of Abraham,  born  in Babylonia  at about the  time  that Abraham was  born,  and he brought into Britain the worship  of the one  God,  which  was  known  in the East as the “Holy Wings,” the “Logos,” and  the “Voice.” These ideograms of the “ineffable name we find used only three times in the whole Bible: once in the Old Testament when  the burning  bush  spoke  to Moses in reply to the question Moses asked, and twice in the  New  Testament when Jesus said: “Before Abraham was, I AM”; and  just outside the Garden of Gethsemane, when Jesus said to the Temple Guard, who  had  come to find Him, “I Am he!”  The word translated “I AM” in the Old Testament in reply to the inquiry of Moses was  the  Egyptian Puk-Nu-Puk;  the New Testament word  is the Greek’  which  means  I AM; the personal pronoun “he”  does not appear in the Greek  text. When the Temple  Guards  heard  the words  of Jesus, they realized that  they stood  in the presence of Divinity, and  this   presence literally knocked them  down.

Hu Gadarn brought  to the British Isles the doctrine of the  Patriarchs as  presented by Seth,  and  Enoch, which was the original Monotheism and Messianism. Hu Gadarn was the first man of whom  we have record to express his thoughts in poetry, and  was  the originator of that form of expression known as Triads. He introduced writing into Britain, and taught the art of manufacturing glass.

It is difficult to say just how old this Welsh literature is, but we do know that it antedates the Christian era. In many respects its depth of spirituality and devotion to God surpass anything found in the Old Testament. In one  outstanding respect it is superior to the Hebrew Scriptures; it teaches the idea of the Trinity in full, while  the Old Testament writers  seem not to be acquainted with it at all.

It appears that in Britain alone  Monotheism and Messianism survived  in its purity until the coming of the Messiah, and that the British were never converted to Christianity, for as soon as they heard  the story of Jesus, they knew that their YESU had come.

Now this question is fully confronting us: “Did Jesus live and  study  in Britain?” First we  must  state with all candor that we  know of no definite documentary evidence to support the claim, though there  are many  documents that may be interpreted to this effect. British records of that time do not exist; not that  writing was  unknown, but because all instruction in  the  schools and   Universities was imparted orally. No secret order  today guards  more zealously its secrets than did the Druids the teachings of the schools. Nothing was ever  committed to any system  of writing, or record. Yet we are not left at the mercy  of tradition and  legend  for there  are weighty considerations that bear upon  the question and give inferential support to the affirmative in regard  to the question.

As the first step in the search for the truth, we must look for evidence of His absence from Palestine. The first straw of evidence in this regard is the utter silence of the  New Testament concerning the life of Jesus between the  ages of twelve and  thirty. History regarding Him during that period is an absolute  blank. But there are two distinct implications in the Gospels concerning this period.

John  the Baptist and Jesus were  first cousins, and must   have  known each  other during their  early boyhood. Yet when Jesus  appears upon the banks of the  Jordan where John  was  baptizing, the  Baptist seems scarcely to recognize Him. Finally he  does realize  who  the stranger is, and  exclaims: “Behold the Lamb of God!” Now if Jesus had  been  living in Nazareth  all the years,  John  would  surely  not have appeared puzzled as to the identity of his own cousin. Then later, John  sent  two of his disciples to Jesus to make  a peculiar query: “Are you  he  who  should come or look  we  for another?” Apparently  the two had   not   met   for  years, since John displays a profoundly  imperfect knowledge of the One whom he was proclaiming.

Then  in  Matthew  17:24, we  have  a  perplexing scene if we  rely upon  the  English  translation from which  to form our  picture; but when  we study  the original tongue  in which  the incident is related, the conversation there set forth becomes plain.

The tax referred to was  not the Temple Tax as is assumed by the  majority  of commentators, but an entirely different tax. Jesus seems to have the correct idea concerning the tax He was here  called  upon to pay. The Temple tax was always paid with the Hebrew shekel, a coin especially coined for that purpose. The Temple Tax could  not be paid with any other form of money. Jesus uses  two words  for this tax: “octroi” which was a customs tax on all imports and exports passing  through  the country. Such duty formed  part of the Government’s income. All strangers coming into the country  had to pay this tax, the didrachma, a Greek coin worth about sixteen cents  in our present money. The word translated “tribute” was the Roman poll-tax. These two last named  taxes could be paid in the coin that was current, but the Temple  tax could not be paid in anything but the especial coin provided by law for that purpose. Peter paid the tax with the Greek coin called the stator. If this be true, then Jesus must have been considered a “stranger” by the customs officers of the city who should  have known Him all His life. Why this situation? The answer must be that Jesus  had  been  out of the country for some years.

The British tradition  is that Jesus visited England twice: once as as mere  boy accompanying His uncle Joseph of Arimathea, and later as a youth who came to a  beautiful retreat where He might  study  and meditate. The tradition  localizes the spot  as that of Glastonbury. Here Jesus built a small wattle house in which to live. If there were ever written records, they were destroyed in the great fire of 1184 which wiped out  the  great Abbey  and  its  famous library of a thousand years of the history of Glastonbury. All we can  hope  to find will be scattered references in the works  of ordinary and  later  historians; and  that  is exactly  the  case. One  such  remarkable case  is an extant letter of St. Augustine to Pope Gregory in which he states that  there  is a church  in Britain that  was constructed by no human art, “But by the hands of Christ Himself.” St. Augustine arrived upon British soil during the year 597 AD. This great and famous church father found in the western part of Britain a powerful British Church with its own organization of Bishops. We have  not space to carry this  phase of the investigation further, for it would require a large book to cover the subject even partially.

How long Jesus lived in Britain, tradition does not attempt to say nor even hint. Whether Jesus had just come from India, Tibet, or the British Isles when  He appeared upon the banks of the Jordan, we have no way of knowing. But that the Savior was a stranger to John the Baptist, and those with him, cannot be misinterpreted.

Three  years after  the death of our Lord upon  the cross, Joseph of Arimathea and his eleven companions fled  from Jerusalem  under the persecution of Saul (St. Paul) and in 39 AD. settled at the  foot  of Glastonbury Tor where there is a wonderful well of water known as the Chalice Well. It received  this name because tradition says that Joseph cast the Holy Grail into it. Here the wattle church was built by Joseph. Later it was  cased in lead  covered boards, and then a stone church was erected over it, thus preserving the original just as the cabin of Lincoln is preserved today.

The tradition  of our Lord’s Home (Domus Dei) is very strong and persistent in all England, and has been since 449 when St. Patrick came to Glastonbury as its first Abbot. There is a hymn, written by William Blake (1757-1828), which  is an English favorite,  and as popular as the National Anthem. It reads  as follows:

JERUSALEM

And did  those feet  in ancient time

Walk  upon England’s mountains green?

And was  the  Holy Lamb  of God

On  England’s pleasant pastures seen?

And did  the  Countenance Divine

Shine forth upon our clouded  hills?

And was  Jerusalem builded here

Among  those dark Satanic  mills?

Bring  me  my bow  of  burning gold!

Bring  me my arrows of desire!

Bring  me my spear! O clouds unfold!

Bring  me my chariot of fire!

I will not  cease from mental fight;

Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand

Till I have  built  Jerusalem

In England’s green and  pleasant land.

Courtesy of Covenant Report.

British-Israel World Federation (N.Z)

P.O. Box 56-142 Auckland 3  New Zealand