[Music] [Applause] [Music] 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 [Music] 1:20. His story began 2,000 years ago in the province of Galilee, a remote corner of the Roman [Music] Empire. [Music] [Applause] 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. [Music] 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 describes Jesus as a precocious 12-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 [Music] 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 [Music] 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 inconceivable to us, but my feeling is that 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 as redeeming sacrifice, not details about his personal life. That's something that we as modern people are more interested [Music] in. According to 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 a half centuries now, so it's an extremely difficult problem. Adding to the mystery surrounding the life of Jesus is the fact that for hundreds 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 100 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, have 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. Um, 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 changed 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 disagree, 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 mure 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 Lost 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 encountered the teachings of Buddha? More than 2500 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 Sedara Gaama 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 early years? Ancient writings do exist from both Persia as well as India that suggest Jesus did indeed travel to India. 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

[Music] bread. Where did Jesus gain his knowledge? Nobody knows. That 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 react so totally unlike the people who surround him? These are questions without answers. Could Jesus have been influenced by the teachings of Buddha? When we see similarities, the basic fundamental similarities like truth, nonviolence, 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, the meaning and the message is the [Music] same. India lies over 3,000 miles from [Applause] Palestine. How could Jesus have made such a monumental [Music] 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 Nicholas Notovich suggests he may [Music] have. In 1887, Notovich, a Russian journalist, traveled to Hemus, an isolated Buddhist monastery high in the Himalayan Mountains of Northern India. In his book The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ, Notovich claims that there he was shown secret manuscripts which detailed the life of a wandering prophet named Isa. Notovich was convinced by the manuscript and by the monks he consulted that Isa was in fact Jesus. According to Notovich, the arcane manuscript he was shown revealed that at age 14, Jesus traveled to India and studied Buddhism. After many years of study and

preaching throughout Asia. Jesus returned to Palestine carrying budh beliefs with him. While many scholars question the authenticity of not's account, he was not the only person who reported seeing the mysterious [Music] Scrolls. In the 1920s, a Hindu priest went up there. He went to the same Monastery in hemus. He had some of the passages translated, but not all of them, and then he published a book. The translation in the second book very closely paralleled not nich's translations. Other unconfirmed reports of the existence of the Issa manuscripts at hemus continued until 1939, but since then, their whereabouts have been shrouded Ed 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? Glastonberry

[Music] England setting a landscape tinged with the mystical amid prehistoric sacred [Music] 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 mountains green, and was the Holy Lamb of God on England's Pleasant pastures seen? 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 popular traditions 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 ARA may have stepped in. The gospels describe Joseph of ARA 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 tin, which was a very valuable commodity. Joseph was involved in the tin trade. That's how he became so wealthy and how he became so influential. In some early Latin versions of the gospels, Joseph of ARA is described as a decurion, a title given by Rome to mining officials. If Jesus was the nephew of Joseph of ARA, might he have journeyed with his uncle to England? The legends that you find in England are that Jesus traveled with Joseph of ARA along the southern coast of England 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 [Music] 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 had beliefs about a future Messiah, and in fact, according to one historian, they actually used the word yesu to label that Messiah. They had some ideas about the body and soul and other concepts that reflected later on in Christianity. As Christianity spread throughout England, the Druids discarded their pagan beliefs and converted. Did the Druids recognize the fulfillment of their Messiah prophecy in the story of Jesus? [Music] Intriguing as the story of Joseph of Arimathea and Jesus' journey to England is, Joseph remains a questionable character to many biblical scholars. Joseph of Arimathea, 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 materials and are not necessarily historical at all. For instance, we have no information about any place called arim. If the very existence of Joseph of AR is in doubt, why do the Legends persist? The problem 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 endures, however, for there is another tantalizing Legend associated with Joseph of artha and glastenbury. It is the 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

[Music] 2627 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, he carried 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 [Music] Jesus? When we return, did Jesus spend his lost years in the wilderness with a fanatically religious apocalyptic [Music] sect? The Dead Sea, 15 miles east of Jerusalem, at 1,300 feet below sea level, the lowest point on [Music] 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 [Music] Palestine. John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 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 redemption spread through Israel like wildfire. Multitudes journeyed to hear him preach and to be baptized by him. One of these was [Music] Jesus. In those days, Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 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 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 Kumran. 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 temple establishment; he wasn't part of the temple aristocracy. He probably had some contact with the Essene movement at Kumran, perhaps through John the Baptist. It was at Kumran 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 Kumran. Scholars believe the Essenes practiced a type of

[Music] baptism. The apparent connections between Jesus, John the Baptist, and the Essene Community have fueled controversy among biblical [Music] scholars. Could Jesus and John the Baptist have been influenced by the [Music] Essenes? Could Jesus have lived with the Essenes during his Lost 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 called themselves the children of light. Uh, there were many similarities between Jesus, uh, and how he lived, and also how the Essenes lived. They wore very simple clothing, they kept all of their goods in common, and then 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 Assyrians 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 idolatrous Romans was something they were prepared to fight to the death. [Music] The Assyrians moved their community to the Wilderness of Kumran because they believed that a war was rapidly approaching which would pit themselves against their [Music] enemies. The Assyrian 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 Essene asceticism, bathing, wilderness habitation, and purist ideologies, but they also have the militant final apocalyptic war vision of the Son of Man and 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. [Music] 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 the popular 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 [Music] 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 [Music] 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 years, 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 terror. 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 [Music] 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 [Music] 26:50. Now, if you notice in the gospels, some of Jesus' followers are carrying swords, and when he is asked, Should we carry a sword? he says, Carry two. 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 out the [Music] Romans. Now, one of the problems with the gospels and the 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 as a revolutionary, but these views are not universal. Most scholars do not see Jesus as a nationalist. What Jesus called for was 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 marginalized, the oppressed. But if Jesus were involved in a revolution, this could explain why a gap exists in our knowledge about his life. If Jesus was one of these quasi-aesthetic, daily-bathing, wilderness-dwelling, vegetarian 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 2,000 years since the death of Jesus. Countless stories and legends have tried to fill the gap created by the mysterious lost years. [Music] Why I think we're still fascinated by his missing years is 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 [Music] mission. Perhaps the mystery of the lost years of Jesus is a sacred chapter, one which we are not meant to read.

Jesus In India (BBC Documentary)

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