Saturday, December 22, 2007

The untold stories of Jesus Christ

By Donn Morgan Kipgen

We all know about Christianity and Christmas as they have always been. We heard about the wonders and divine spirits of Christmas all through the age. The irresistible and intoxicating spirit of Christmas has now become a universal festivity like the New Year. Ironically, both the particular dates X-mas, i.e. 25th December, and the New Year i.e, 1st January, have been relatively quite new; both are less than 200 years old, but the spirits of them have been observed over 1000 years ago. Apart from the Holy Bible, millions of books, journals, booklets, documentaries, essays, articles, etc have been printed all over the world in thousands of languages/dialects. However, none has been written about a historically acceptable adulthood life and activities of Jesus Christ in details. Like His uncomfirmable chronological date of birth, about 12 years of Jesus’s mid-life has so far being unknown and unrecorded. Somewhere between the age of 19 to 30 years, or even more, the personal record of Jesus Christ is still being unaccounted for and historically remains mysteriously obscure. Even the Holy Bible has no detail account of Jesus’s whereabouts nor specifically mentioned His adulthood’s professional and religious activities. For this divinely gifted and blessed Son of God, Jesus would have been the most able and well-known carpenter or religious teacher of highest degree in all parts of Judae and neighbouring Roman-controlled nations if He were to be thus so from 18 to 30 years of age. But then, that was not to be the case scenario nor was He a well-known highly gifted youth of divine guidance in those particular areas which would be good enough to be mentioned in the Books of the Holy Bible. Since Judae, i.e. present day Israel, Lebanon, Palestine, and parts of Jordan and Syria, was under the Roman Empire, all important socio-religious records and anti-Roman activities were carefully noted down. Even the time period of Jesus’s birth has been ascertained since it happened during the Roman Census recording year during the puppet reign of King Herod. The Biblical account of Jewish children being put to sword enmasse to wipe out the chance of a new born blessed Child who would topple King Herod’s Dynasty was curiously unrecorded by contemporary historians. That search and killed story might have been an exaggerated and obscure historical event. If only 123 Apocryphal Books of Gospel were being added to the New Testament which has just 27 selected Books of Gospel, the indepth historical account of Jesus Christ should have been known. The term ‘Apocryphal’ was derived from the Greek word ‘apocrypha’, meaning ‘Hidden Away’. Whereas the New Testament was translated fully into Latin by Erasmus in AD 1516, it was St. Jerome who made the first formal translation of the Holy Bible from Greek to Latin in around AD 400.

Now, why was there no Biblical account of the early life, i.e. from teenage to adulthood, of Jesus Christ until His brief mission on Earth with His 12 Disciples? His year of birth was said to be around AD 4 or 5 and His death being anywhere around AD 29 to AD 32. Jesus was said to be much revered and honoured even by His earthly parents. Joseph and Mary fully knew that their divine and non-biological boy child was the Son of God in Heaven and as such would not have used Him as an obscure carpenter-apprentice of Nazareth, thus totally unknown, unlettered and unseen for over 15 years period as a recluse. Of course, Jesus was sent to the nearby Jewish religious school as mandatory at an early age. However, Jesus did not ended up as a young Rabbi of high standard who attracted attention. On the contrary, Jesus was against the religious principles of the Jews, especially the high priests. Where was Jesus Christ before He started His own divine teachings with a bang at around 30 years of age. Where did he get His diverse forms of teachings and communication skills? Some learned religious scholars even suggested that Jesus even came to India. It does sound far-fetched but at the same time it accounted for two vital reasons. Jesus Christ’s middle life, about 10 to 12 years had been still historically unaccounted for. Apart from one of the 3 wisemen being said to have come from India, Jesus had the spiritual leanings of Hinduism and Buddhism as clearly shown in His Gospels. Did Jesus really came Far-east upto the Himalayan mountain range, probably the Hindukush, after His teenage life in Judae? His totally revolutionary religious teachings and principles aroused the minds of the Biblecal scholars in recent years.

Where was the birth place of Jesus and who really were the 3 wisemen or the Magi and what really could be the bright guiding star? The Church of Nativity in Bethlehem is considered as the spot where Jesus was born about 2000 years ago. It came into limelight a couple of years ago when a dozen of Palestinian (Christian) gunmen sought a ‘divine’ protection against the air-land assaults carried out by the Israeli elite Golani and Nahal Brigade commandos, with AH-46 Apache helicopter gunships wiping out scores of militants, by entering the Holy Church of Nativity building. A manger-like stone cradle is placed right inside the Church which is said to be the exact place where Jesus was born. With the whole world watching live on TV over the near monthlong siege, not a single shot nor RPGs were fired upon the Church of Nativity despite the Palestinian gunmen incessently fired upon the elite Israeli commandos, whose commanders knew the consequences of the Operation Blue Star, i.e the bloody assault upon the Sikh’s holiest Golden Temple in 1984. The gunmen finally surrendered after they all ran out of ammos and food supplies. The enormous respect and unprecedented restrain shown by Israeli armed forces on both religious and humanitarian grounds were remarkable.

Now, who were the 3 wisemen or Magi who were guided by a bright celestial object to the birth place of Jesus Christ as mentioned vaguely by the Gospel of St Mathew? According to some Biblical researchers, they were Casper (Gaspar of India), Melchior (Melkon of Persia) and Balthasar of Arabia who went to gift Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh to new born Christ in Bethlhehem. However, there have been no real historical accounts of these 3 ‘Kings’, better known as the wisemen or Magi. Actually, the historical existence of Jesus Christ has been fully accepted, as mentioned in the Bible, by all world historians as late as the 19th century AD. However, it was undeniable fact in the Middle Age Christendom and even hundreds of years before. What about the guiding star? Was it the Halley’s Comet? Well, a new research shows it could be the equally famous Comet Hale-Bopp which was seen recently about 2000 years after his birth! Is this a sign to wat-ch out or a fact to be noted down as written in the Bible. Well, it can be anythi-ng, divine or natural. Mer-ry X-Mas to one and All.

The Sangai Express

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