17- LOST IN THE TEMPLE?

Jesus Christ: An indigo child?

RACHEL We are passing through the streets of Nazareth in the company of Jesus Christ, covering his second coming to earth. For today’s interview our audience has asked us to look into those long years when Jesus led a hidden life.

JESUS But I never hid myself, Rachel! Galilee was a remote area, sure, but everybody there knew me.

RACHEL I believe our audience is referring to the years when you were hidden away in India.

JESUS In India?

RACHEL Yes, there are some people who claim that, when you were young, you lived in Kashmir and that there you became a master of Eastern wisdom.

JESUS Now that’s a good one! Look, Rachel, only once did I ever reach the northern border, up there by Tyre and Sidon. As a kid, the furthest I ever went was to Jerusalem, three days south of here, to celebrate Passover there.

RACHEL You’re no doubt referring to your first trip, when you were twelve years old and got lost in the Temple

JESUS Yes, that time I got lost because of my curiosity. The thing is, for a Galilean boy like me, seeing Jerusalem for the first time was … how to explain it? It was such a big city, with so many people, so many buildings, and the Temple!

RACHEL The Temple of Jerusalem one of the marvels of the ancient world.

JESUS When I beheld that marvel, I escaped from my parents, and I went running down the esplanade and got lost among the crowds of people. I found some groups of young guys listening to some old men who were telling stories. I joined one of the groups to see what I might learn. I can still remember that.

RACHEL I remember that also.

JESUS But how can you remember that, Rachel?

RACHEL You’re telling us a story we know well, the one where you as a child were arguing on a par with the doctors of the law.

JESUS On a par, no. I was there listening to them. I asked a few questions.

RACHEL Because of that famous account, many people considered you a child prodigy, a brilliant lad, a genius.

JESUS I was no prodigy, Rachel. What I had was curiosity. At that age, twelve years old, a child wants to know everything.

RACHEL And at that age you already knew what your mission would be. You were already aware of what was awaiting you.

JESUS That day what was awaiting me was a tremendous scolding! It took my parents a long time to find me in the crowds of people. And then I was being scolded all the way to Nazareth!

RACHEL Please let me insist on this question, Jesus Christ, and I would ask you not to dodge it. At that age you already knew, right?

JESUS Knew what?

RACHEL You knew the divine mission for which you had come into the world. You were human, but you also had a divine consciousness. You knew.

JESUS I knew what all kids at that age know.

RACHEL But everything that you were going to do was already written down in the sacred books. You already knew.

JESUS Everything that I was going to do? I didn’t know anything, Rachel. What was I to know?

RACHEL But in your consciousness…

JESUS Listen, Rachel. God gives each one of us a book full of blank pages, and we keep writing in it, some with better script, others with crooked lines. In that first journey to Jerusalem, I had filled up only twelve pages, the first ones of the story of my life. The others were still blank.

RACHEL Friends in our radio audience, are you satisfied with what Jesus is saying? It seems to me you’re not. I suspect that at this stage in our interviews we all have more questions than answers. And so we promise you that we’ll be back with more interviews with Jesus Christ. Emisoras Latinas. Rachel Perez. Nazareth.

MUSIC

ANNOUNCER Another God is Possible. Exclusive interviews with Jesus Christ in his second coming to Earth. A production of María and José Ignacio López Vigil, with the support of the Syd Forum and Christian Aid.

*More information about this polemical topic…*

The legendary “hidden life”
Since very little is known about Jesus’ early years, that period is spoken of as his “hidden life”. During that time he was supposedly preparing himself and training for the great mission that he would have later on.
Many fanciful speculations have arisen from people’s attempts to characterize as “mysterious” what must have been an absolutely normal rural life, with nothing marvelous or special about it. In 1976 a book called Jesus Lived and Died in Kashmir was published, and it was soon translated into several European languages. Its author, Andreas Faber-Kaiser, claims to present historical data to the effect that Jesus did not die on the cross, but rather was cured of his wounds and fled with his mother Mary all the way to Kashmir, to the north of India. He chose that spot far removed from his homeland because he supposedly had spent his youthful “hidden” years there. According to the book he died in Kashmir at an advanced age.
Fantasizing about the hidden life of Jesus, as well as about the public years of his life, reaches its climax with the saga The Trojan Horse, a series of nine books written by the Spaniard Juan José Benítez; they are purely fictional stories that are often taken as history by unsuspecting readers.

Coming of age
In Jesus’ time boys began to fulfill the obligation of journeying to Jerusalem for the Passover feast at the age of thirteen, but it was the custom of the Israelites from the provinces to take them there at age twelve, so that they would become accustomed to fulfilling the precept a year before they were obliged to do so. Participation in the feast of Passover with all the people was a way of celebrating the lad’s coming of age. From that point on he became a genuine Israelite, for an Israelite was considered to be first and foremost “one who goes up to Jerusalem”.

The Jerusalem Temple
When Jesus went to Jerusalem for the first time, they were just finishing the reconstruction of the Temple, a work that had been begun by King Herod the Great some twenty years before. For the reconstruction many precious materials were used: yellow, black and white marbles; stones worked artistically by great sculptors; cedar panels brought from Lebanon to make coffered ceilings; and precious metals such as gold, silver and bronze.
All the entrances to the Temple had gates that were plated in gold and silver. In the atriums or patios that surrounded the main building there were great golden candelabras. The most splendid place of all was the sanctuary, the central part of the Temple. The white marble façade was covered with sheets of gold that were as thick as a denarius coin. A young country boy would have been totally dazzled and confused before such a display of wealth and luxury; he could never have imagined anything of the sort in his home village.

A schizophrenic personality
The traditional theology presents Jesus as one person possessing a divine nature and a human nature. These two natures would have made it possible for Jesus to possess a double consciousness. As God he would know everything; even as a child would have detailed knowledge of what was going to happen to him during his whole life. But as a man he would be obliged, like every human being, to discover things slowly and to discern his mission little by little.
Dogma proposes a man with two kinds of consciousness, one omniscient and the other limited – a sort of God disguised as a human. Or maybe a human who conceals a god within. Such ideas are rooted in Aristotelian philosophy and were made dogma centuries ago, but they end up making Jesus into a kind of schizophrenic, or perhaps a candidate for bipolar syndrome.