Other Legends

(Mainly Christian)

After all, I believe that legends and myths are largely made of 'truth', and indeed present
aspects of it that can only be received in this mode; and long ago certain truths and modes of
this

kind

were

discovered

and

must

always

reappear.

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien

Legends are the stories about people, places and events that are
written down in history. So the stories may be made up however the
occasions may be founded on actualities, however not completely. The
historical facts are used to make the theory/story more realistic to
make it interesting to read because people can relate to the basic
facts. Legends regularly pass on a lesson or moral and are described to
hold the qualities that are to be shared in a community.
A lot of people confuse legends with Myths. A legend is a narrative told
as a true story with people and locations clearly identified. In other
words the story of a legend is narrated like a historical event rather
than functioning as a symbolic narrative. The legend may contain
descriptions of historical events. Myth, on the other hand deals with a
religious explanation for a particular custom or event. Myths do not
follow any particular chronology to relate it to the present times. This is
because myths tell a timeless story having symbolic events, set in a
time before any history was recorded. The stories are about Gods and
Super human beings who make use of their special powers to make
things happen.1
1 http://www.innovateus.net/innopedia/what-are-legends

The reason why we took this topic was mainly because these legends,
myths and superstition laid the base for human behavior, i.e. sociology.
Legends are particularly taken into consideration because legends are
true facts with evident proof that they occurred. In my project, the
topic that I will take is about Jesus Christ, who formed Christianity. This
whole religion makes people act differently than a lot of other people.
There is a lot of written proof about the lord.

Jesus Christ: The Man With The Mission

That's how it is with legends. The greater they sound, the more must've got left out.
Tim Tharp, Knights of the Hill Country

According to legends and gospels, Jesus Christ was born in a barnyard

outside the city of Jerusalem under the North Star, in presence of the
three wise men. His birth was considered a Miracle because he was
born out of a Virgin.
His story is perhaps the most famous story on earth, yet people still
debate about his life. There are no "eyewitness" accounts written
about Jesus during his lifetime, so historians have to rely on
interpretations of the four main canonical gospel texts, mostly
scrawled several decades after his death.2
We know very little about the life of Jesus the Messiah before he began
his public ministry around the age of thirty. We don't know what he
looked like, if he had any hobbies, what his favorite color was, etc. We
can of course speculate that he did what other children, teenagers and
young adults of his time did and then probably eventually followed
2 http://www.livescience.com/3482-jesus-man.html

Joseph in his job as a carpenter. People have not only speculated about
these formative years but have fantasized about them. There are
countless apocryphal stories of mainly petty miracles supposedly
performed by the Christ child. But the Gospels of Mark and John don't
even

include

the

Christmas

story

of

Jesus'

birth,

beginning

straightaway with Jesus as an adult. In this they follow what some

scholars

have

suggested

is

the

ancient

pattern

of

beginning

biographies with the public lives of their subjects, skipping over

everything previous, regarding it as irrelevant.
The "Jesus" of history isn't a finished secret to Biblical researchers, who
regularly make a qualification between the man and the religious figure
portrayed in the sacred writings. Though a few books have recently
argued that Jesus never existed, the evidence that he did is persuasive
to the vast majority of scholars, whether Christian or non-Christian.
Early Life:
Jesus was born sometime just before 4 B.C. He grew up in
Nazareth, a small village in Galilee, as part of the peasant class.
Jesus' father was a carpenter and he became one, too, meaning
that they had likely lost their agricultural land at some point.
Jesus was raised Jewish and he remained deeply Jewish all of his
life. His intention was not to create a new religion. Rather, he
saw himself as doing something within Judaism.
From Age 12-30:
This age of Jesus still remains a mystery to a lot of people. This is
because the bible has no written account of jesus during those
years. In spite of the fact that comprehending what happened
amid these years would be exceptionally fascinating, the
Scriptures are totally quiet on them - recovery to say that Jesus
developed and got to be solid in stature, soul, intelligence and
support and was liable to the wishes of His natural folks.
Undoubtedly, most folks would ache for that to be a confirmation

they could apply to their own particular kids. Fundamentally, the

Scriptures are noiseless on these years all together not to
degrade at all from the terrifically imperative last three years of
Christ's natural service. This is clearly the time of His life which
God the Father and God the Holy Spirit would have us center our
confidence upon. In the event that we genuinely need to
comprehend why the Son of God came to earth, this is the place
we must look - and the four Gospels contain all the record we
know about. A lot of theories have been propounded on how was
Jesus life during those years. According to a lot of researchers,
Jesus travelled to the east to spread and increase his knowledge.
There have been legends about Jesus in Kashmir, Iran and Japan.

This is the route which was taken by Jesus according to the

theorists during these years. Also, there is a little proof that Jesus
lived

in

Japan.

When

Jesus

disappeared

from

Jerusalem,

sometime later, a man of the same age, with same teachings as

Christ evolved in Japan. For a few years, that man remained
there.

Then,

there

was

tale about

that

same

person

(considered by theorists) in India and later in Iran.

Everyone is entitled to his or her right to skepticism, but if you
fail to accept the challenge of considering this, you will be
depriving yourself of knowledge of an extraordinary puzzle. This
remarkable puzzle, which involves eighteen lost years or "Hidden
Years" in the life of Jesus, may well turn out to be a cornerstone
for understanding many enigmas about Christianity -- like the
long-ignored missing but somehow obvious clue in a mystery
that remains unsolved. Or perhaps somehow it will eventually be
proven a dead end by indisputable dating of documents, DNA
testing and other scientific tests and tools. Either way, none of us
will be the worse for the truly incredible journey to inquire and
discover what can be surmised about Jesus' Lost Years by taking
the questions right to the ancient temple of the Hindus called
Jagannath in Puri, India, where some say Jesus spent several
years (the "some" include the present spiritual leader of the
Hindu religion, the Shankaracharya) and a Buddhist monastery
high in the Himalayas in Ladakh, India, where an ancient scroll
has long been held to exist that purportedly answers all the
questions about the Missing Years of Jesus.3
In Fundamentalism, they call it a part of Jesus' life that God
doesn't think you need to know about, or God would have made
sure it was included in the Bible. On one page of the Gospel of
Luke Jesus is 12 years old in the Temple in Jerusalem and then...

3 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-davids/jesus-lost-years-mayfina_b_179513.html?ir=India&adsSiteOverride=in

nothing... nothing for 18 years until Jesus shows up at the River

Jordan to be baptized by John the Baptist.
Also, there are noteworthy mentions of Saint Issa in Hindu and
Muslim scriptures. People consider him to be Jesus Christ. In fact,
during the benediction at the Inauguration of Barack Obama,
Reverend Rick Warren referred to Jesus at one point by the name
Issa. Indeed, even the Buddhists are said to hide an exceptionally
old manuscript in a cloister high in the Himalayas called "The Life
of Saint Issa, the Best of the Sons of Men." The narrative of the
presence of that original copy fills in the missing years of Christ
and depicts his goes as a young fellow in India - and even has
Jesus admonishing the Hindus to quit worshiping symbols and
surrender the station framework - has been resoundingly
exposed in a great part of the Christian world for about a century.
It's long past due that the exposing stops. The excursion to India,
taking after the trail of the individuals who saw and deciphered
the original copy a few times, gives an exceptionally persuading
case that the composition exists, and that it dovetails flawlessly
with a not insignificant rundown of different sorts of proof that
place Jesus in India amid that time of his life. On the off chance
that genuine, that adventure of Jesus toward the East was
helpfully discarded from the New Testament. It was said that
Jesus mastered Buddhism while living in Tibet. However the
problem is that Buddhism didnt reach Tibet until the 17th
century.
Another hypothesis is by and large considered the probably by
customary

Christianity.

This

hypothesis

recommends

Jesus

stayed in his dad's (Joseph's) home and took in the family

business. This was the most well-known way for Jewish fellows to
take after. For Jesus' situation, it would mean he worked in his

dad's shop as a student until he completely took in the

exchange. This exchange is generally been held to be carpentry,
however was more probable stone cutting and building (the
Greek content backings this point). In any occasion, as indicated
by this hypothesis Jesus would have worked in the family
exchange until he was around 30 (Luke 3.23) and after that set
out in his service.
Another hypothesis proposes Jesus joined the Essenes in the
Dead Sea territory as a friar or separatist. This thought takes
after the generally held hypothesis that John the Baptizer was
one of the Essenes and that Jesus took after his cousin to the
Dead Sea caves to think about with him.
Exactly who were the Essenes? They were, for every viable
purpose, the Pharisee. They accepted to be heavenly they must
be isolated from the unholy. They held that the standard
Pharisees didn't go sufficiently far in their exemplary nature, so
they cleared out Jerusalem and development to study sacred
writing and carry on with the separatist life in the wild. It is from
this organization that we have the Dead Ocean Looks, for they
were productive copyists.
As indicated by some, Jesus' relationship with this gathering
would be the place he gathered his abhorrence for the practices
of the Pharisees who stayed inside of society. It might likewise be
from these that he and John the Baptizer received the ritual of
submersion.4

Age 30-33:

4 http://www.hcna.us/columns/30years.html

At the age of 30, Jesus apparently got baptized by Thomas and

started his preaching in Nazareth. Word spread far and wide and
he was considered the direct descendant of God. All the Christian
gospels have a written account of these three years of Jesus.
Death:
As indicated by the accounts, the fundamental charge against
Jesus was that he asserted to be the lord of the Jews. The Roman
warriors were ridiculing this thought when they dressed him in a
purple robe and squeezed a crown of thistles onto his head. This
was likewise the charge composed on the sign at the highest
point of the cross.
Be that as it may, the charge was false. The adversaries of Jesus
had prepared it by contorting the significance of the old Jewish
forecasts about the happening to the Messiah.
As

indicated

by

those

predictions,

the

Messiah

was

an

extraordinary future pioneer who might show up amid a time of

compelling edginess and emergency known as the End Times (or
Last Days). Helped by God, he would topple every single
fiendishness oppressor and set up an immaculate kingdom on
earth, where every one of the noble individuals could live
everlastingly in peace and satisfaction.
Amid

the

years

when

Jesus

was

growing

up,

numerous

individuals trusted that the End Times had as of now arrived, and
that the Messiah would soon show up. This conviction was
particularly solid in Galilee, the area of Palestine where Jesus
lived. Also, the conviction developed significantly more grounded
when John the Baptist started announcing that every one of the
predictions about the Messiah would soon be satisfied. Be that as
it may, those predictions could be deciphered in distinctive ways.
A few sacred writings, for example, Isaiah 53, delineate the

Messiah as a sincere peaceful individual who will set up the path

for the new kingdom by relinquishing himself to pay for
mankind's wrongdoings. Different sacred texts portray him as a
future descendent of King David, and delineate the new kingdom
as a cleaned adaptation of David's unique kingdom. These
references to King David brought about numerous regular
individuals to imagine the Messiah basically as a military pioneer,
whose first activity would be to arrange a rebellion against the
despised Romans and drive them out of the nation.
The Romans were completely mindful of the discontent in the
nation and the expectation for a savior. More mobs and uprisings
occurred in Palestine than in whatever other piece of their realm.
Due to the nonstop turmoil, they were dependably vigilant for
potential agitator pioneers. When Jesus began his ministry, he
didn't publicly call himself the Messiah. He probably realized that
it would be dangerous to do so, because even though he clearly
didn't plan any type of military action, the authorities could have
misunderstood his intentions and arrested him anyway. An
example of his cautiousness can be found at Matthew 16:20,
which says that "he warned his disciples not to tell anyone that
he was the Christ." (The word Christ is the English equivalent of
the Aramaic word for Messiah.)5

But despite his public silence about his plans, his teachings and
miraculous cures soon began to attract large crowds, and within a
short time many people in Galilee were thinking that he might be
the Messiah. As a result, when he and his disciples set out for
Jerusalem to attend the annual Passover festival, they were
accompanied on the trip by a large group of followers. It isn't clear
5 http://www.gospel-mysteries.net/crucifixion-jesus.html

how big this procession eventually became, because other groups

of festival-goers may have joined it along the way. But by the time
it reached Jericho it was apparently large enough to attract
considerable attention, for many people in the city heard that it
was coming and gathered along the road to watch Jesus go by.
According to Luke 19:11, during the last stage of the trip many of
the travelers were expecting the new perfect Kingdom of God to be
created at any moment. This is an indication of the high level of
excitement within the group at this time. This excitement was
sustained all the way to the end of the trip, so that when Jesus
reached Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, a large exuberant crowd
celebrated his entry into the city. Shortly after he arrived, he did
not like the dishonesty of the merchants, it angered him beyond
control and he attacked them physically in the temple court yard.
Some say that he was trying to trigger an uprising in the city.
Another group of scholars suggest that he was expecting god to
step in to create a better kingdom for the humans on Earth by
divine intervention. The main Gospels state that he was trying to
prepare his followers for his departing. Often, Christians blame the
Jews for his death, forgetting the fact that it was the Jew leaders of
THAT time who were to be blamed. These leaders saw the crowds
that gathered around Jesus, and they knew that many people were
calling him the Messiah. Mark 11:18 says "they feared him,
because the whole crowd was amazed at his teaching." But their
ultimate fear probably went deeper, because if growing numbers of
people believed that Jesus was the Messiah, he could eventually
become a serious threat to their authority.
The leaders hesitated to arrest Jesus because they were afraid of
the uproar the crowd would case because of this decision of theirs.

But, at some point they decided to get rid of him. They took the
help of one of Jesus 12 disciples and his most trusted man, Judas
Iscariot and seized him in the night when all his other disciples
were sleeping. After interrogating him the next morning, they
handed him over to the government (The Romans) stating that he
called himself a king, i.e. he was rebelling against the current king.
There was a rule in the Roman law, that if anybody rebels against
royalty, they would be punished by crucifixion. But the crucifixion
couldn't take place until the Roman governor Pontius Pilate gave
the final order for it, and the gospels indicate that he was reluctant
to do so. Apparently he realized that Jesus was innocent. Actually,
he had the power to release Jesus if he really wanted to. But in his
role as governor he often needed the collaboration of the Jewish
leaders. And in the end, he was more concerned with placating
them than with saving Jesus. Jesus was crucified in the streets of
Jerusalem and later died on the cross.

Resurrection:

For centuries many of the world's distinguished philosophers have

assaulted Christianity as being irrational, superstitious and absurd.
Many have chosen simply to ignore the central issue of the
resurrection. Others have tried to explain it away through various
theories. But the historical evidence just can't be discounted.
After more than 2 weeks of research, I have come to a conclusion
that the resurrection of Jesus Christ is either one of the most wicked,
vicious, heartless hoaxes ever foisted on the minds of human

beings--or it is the most remarkable fact of history. The New

Testament witnesses were fully aware of the background against
which the resurrection took place. The body of Jesus, in accordance
with Jewish burial custom, was wrapped in a linen cloth. About 100
pounds of aromatic spices, mixed together to form a gummy
substance, were applied to the wrappings of cloth about the body.
After the body was placed in a solid rock tomb, an extremely large
stone was rolled against the entrance of the tomb. Large stones
weighing approximately two tons were normally rolled (by means of
levers) against a tomb entrance. A Roman watchman of entirely
restrained battling men was positioned to protect the tomb. This
watchman fastened on the tomb the Roman seal, which was
intended to "keep any endeavor at vandalizing the mausoleum.
Anybody attempting to move the stone from the tomb's passage
would have broken the seal and accordingly brought about the rage
of Roman law.
Be that as it may, after three days the tomb was vacant. The
devotees of Jesus said He had become alive once again. They
reported that He appeared to them amid a time of 40 days,
demonstrating

to

Himself

to

them

by

numerous

"faultless

evidences." Paul the messenger described that Jesus appeared to

more than 500 of His adherents at one time, the larger part of
whom were still alive and who could affirm what Paul composed.
Such a large number of security safety measures were brought with
the trial, torturous killing, internment, burial, fixing, and guarding of
Christ's tomb that it turns out to be exceptionally troublesome for
critics to safeguard their position that Christ did not become alive
once again. Some of the important facts that persist are:
1. Broken Roman Seal: The roman seal that stood for the power
and

authority

of

the

Roman

Empire

was

broken.

The

consequence of a broken seal was very dangerous, because it

lead to crucifixion. All the believers of Christ were cowards and
hid themselves after Jesus crucifixion.
2. Empty Tomb: Both Jewish and Roman sources and traditions
admit an empty tomb. Those resources range from Josephus to
a

compilation

of

fifth-century

Jewish

writings

called

the

"Toledoth Jeshu." Dr. Paul Maier calls this "positive evidence

from a hostile source, which is the strongest kind of historical
evidence. In essence, this means that if a source admits a fact
decidedly not in its favor, then that fact is genuine."
3. The large stone blocking the entrance was moved: Those who
observed the stone after the resurrection describe its position as
having been rolled up a slope away not just from the entrance
of the tomb, but from the entire massive sepulcher. It was in
such a position that it looked as if it had been picked up and
carried away.

4. Grave clothes: In a literal sense, against all statements to the

contrary, the tomb was not totally empty--because of an
amazing phenomenon. John, a disciple of Jesus, looked over to
the place where the body of Jesus had lain, and there were the
grave clothes, in the form of the body, slightly caved in and
empty--like the empty chrysalis of a caterpillar's cocoon. That's
enough to make a believer out of anybody. John never did get
over it. The first thing that stuck in the minds of the disciples
was not the empty tomb, but rather the empty grave clothes-undisturbed in form and position.

5. Jesus appearance confirmed: Christ appeared alive on several

occasions after the cataclysmic events of that first Easter .
When studying an event in history, it is important to know
whether enough people who were participants or eyewitnesses
to the event were alive when the facts about the event were
published. To know this is obviously helpful in ascertaining the
accuracy of the published report. If the number of eyewitnesses
is substantial, the event can he regarded as fairly well
established.

THE SWOON THEORY: Another theory, popularized by Venturini

several centuries ago, is often quoted today. This is the swoon
theory, which says that Jesus didn't die; he merely fainted from
exhaustion and loss of blood. Everyone thought Him dead, but later
He resuscitated and the disciples thought it to be a resurrection.
Skeptic David Friedrich Strauss--certainly no believer in the
resurrection--gave the deathblow to any thought that Jesus revived
from a swoon: "It is impossible that a being who had stolen halfdead out of the sepulchre, who crept about weak and ill, wanting
medical treatment, who required bandaging, strengthening and
indulgence, and who still at last yielded to His sufferings, could
have given to the disciples the impression that He was a Conqueror
over death and the grave, the Prince of Life.

Conclusion

There are four conclusions about jesus life that can be taken into
consideration with the help of four essays namely, the four gospels.
(1) Jesus the greatest of prophets was a mortal like Elisha. (2) Jesus
according to Mark (based on a recently discovered passage) had sex
with a young man whom he raised from the dead. (3) The Essene
leader known as the Teacher of Righteousness (executed during the
reign of Jannaeus, 103 to 76 BC) was the seed for the Christ
legend. (4) The Gnostics were the earliest Christians. To those who
have put aside the production of ideas generated by Christians and
look at the period through the eyes of an historian, these conclusions
are consistent with the surviving record of that period. Moreover,
except for (4), other scholars have come to arrive at the same
conclusions.
This conclusion (that the bible is not to be taken as history)
reached by historians is fundamental for you to come to an
understanding of the following three essays and this guide you are
now reading. There are 4 basic reasons for finding the Gospels
fictive. First, is the silence of Paul. The Epistle (Pauls and others)

do not contain an account of the life of Jesus, and do not rely upon his
teachings. Since they are earlier than the Gospels, either they lacked
the source for Mark, or Mark wrote a work that creatively fulfilled
these gaps. But given the importance of such source, it is likely that
if there was a source document, it would have been widely
disseminated. The silence of the Epistle support as more likely that
there was no source document or such work was considered
unreliable. Second, the Gospel of Mark (the foundation for Luke and
Matthew) has been freely modified by them only in ways in which
they would consider it as an improvement. Each narrative implicitly
argues that the other is fictional. Secondly, based on the energies
of Randel Helms (a Christian), it is shown that the NT fulfills very
consciously the OT prophecies. The authors of the Gospels believed
that the life of Jesus (which was not recorded or known to them)
fleshed for the oracles of the OT. Such an approach assures that the
Gospels are fictions. Third, the numerous inaccuracies as to events
recorded by historians of that period and the failure of historians such
as Josephus to mention such a worthy figure as the Christ of the
Gospels for inclusion in their histories (assuming the Gospels to be
essential true).

Fourth, unless the world was much different back

then, things found in the Gospels simply do not occur. The dead are
not raised after 3 days; there are no demons to cast out; etc. The
work is mythic. For all these reasons the Gospels are held to be
fictions. It is a fiction about the Revealer of the Truths of Heaven. The
silence of the Epistles has been corrected by the Gospels. If the new
faith was to spread among the common herd, a narrative in the form
of history was needed.
The essays form a group on a theme. In the first essay, that
on Mark believing Jesus to be a mortal unto whom the spirit of god
had entered upon baptism, I examine the question of divinity as it

was understood by Mark and his contemperanous audience. The

conclusion is that the phrase the son of god means being selected by
god and given special powers, and there were many who made this
claim. Thus the debate of the early Christians on the nature of Christ
and todays position of the Unitarians as to Christ being mortal have a
foundation in the meaning of the phrase the son of god. The second
essay,Mark Describes Jesus Gay Affair, concerns a missing passage
from the Gospel of Mark which has been preserved in part in a letter
by Bishop Clemens of Alexandria. The Church in Alexandria thought
it best to censor Mark. The portion about Jesus visit to Jericho is
described in the letter of Clemens, c. 190 CE. The purpose of the
essay, besides embarrassing Christians, is to expose how freely the
Gospels were dealt with. If Marks production was either that of a
witness to the acts of Yahwehs dutiful Son and/or inspired by Yahweh,
then such radical changes as Luke and Matthew made of Mark would
be contrary to the intent of Yahweh. (One can indeed wonder how
the Church decided which passages to include and which of the over
dozen Gospels were truly inspired.) This second essay besides
implicitly containing these problems for Christians, serves the
purpose to publicize the discovery of Professor Morton Smith of the
letter by Saint Clemens. The third essay,Sources of the Jesus
Legend, deals primarily with two speculation, one that the Quamran
(Essene) communitys leader The Teacher of Righteous is the source
for the Jesus legend; and second that the Gnostics were the first
Christians. Their surviving scriptures are closer in content to those of
the Essenes. What the surviving records support is much different
than is taught in Sunday school and repeated on television.
These three essays and the one on the historical Christ form a
family that reveal the state of biblical scholarship. And as you will

see in the references in these essays, it is a state that many Christian

scholars and theologians acknowledge.