Graham Simmans - Jesus after the Crucifixion: From Jerusalem to Rennes-le-Château

JESUS AFTER

THE

CRUCIFIXION

From Jerusalem to Rennes-le-Chteau

Graham Simmans

Bear & Company

Rochester, Vermont

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

T o Ingrid Riedel-Karp I give thanks and appreciation for her excavation work in Egypt, research at Rennes-le-Chteau, and the completing of this book. I give much appreciation to my friend, agent, and editor, Tuvia Fogel, for his broad vision, help, and support.

I express my grateful appreciation for the work of Mr. Paul Remeysen in making extensive examination of the text draft and cross-checking with original source material during a period of many weeks.

I am grateful for the encouragement and help from my many friends and helpers during my fifteen years of research work in Rennes-le-Chteau, Egypt, Israel, and Jordan. In particular, I thank my close and valued friend and archaeological partner Professor Bastian Van Elderen, who died at his home in August 2004 and is here remembered with gratitude for the close collaboration in Egypt.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

T here is a desperate need among many people today, especially the young, for a sense of purpose and direction, for a way to give more meaning to their life. It is my belief that the whole world, and Christians in particular, have a burning desire for new spiritual truths.

A thousand years ago, the Christian world expected the Second Coming of Christ, for that was how it had interpreted the prophecies in the Bible. It did not happen. Today again, as we enter the third millennium, many people of Christian belief expect a Parousathat is, for Christ to come again. The orthodox version of this Second Coming, firmly believed in the Middle Ages, was that he would arrive astride the clouds of heaven. Then there is the idea that he survived the cross and is buried somewhere from whence, at the right time, he will rise again as a living being of power and wisdom. But many Christians today have come to a new, different understanding. To them the Second Coming means the Spirit of Jesus will enter every human mind, thus enabling a new heaven and a new worlda more divine form of lifeto come into being.

If we want to know which of these eschatological visions of the Second Coming is more likely to come about, nothing can help us more than a greater knowledge of the events of the beginning. Archaeological discoveries such as the Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran and the gnostic gospels at Nag Hammadi have brought those times and people closer to us. I feel sure that new document finds are still to come that will further strengthen our understanding of the origins of Christianity. In fact, one understanding of the Second Coming could be the appearance of something that, as though coming directly from Jesus, will explain exactly what he taught and meant. If such a thing appears, the new era of enlightenment could be closer than we think.

But lets begin at the beginning. Early Christianity was still very much rooted in the cultures of the region where it was born. The geographical proximity of Palestine and Egypt made it inevitable for the people in these regions to exert cultural and religious influences on each other over centuries. We are told that Moses was raised as an Egyptian prince. Certainly at the royal court of the pharaoh, ideas about leadership of a nation, law, and order would have formed in his mind at an early age. He would have witnessed the Temple worship, the magic of the priests, and the deep mysticism of Egyptian religion. In fact, all this was present in the makeup of Judaism. Psalms in the Bible carry traces of Egyptian hymns to the sun god Ra (Amun/Aton).

The religious ideas of Mesopotamia, Phoenicia, and other countries also penetrated into the Jewish faith. It is important to note that the first five books of the Hebrew scriptures, attributed to Moses, were actually written at least six hundred years after his time, during and after the Babylonian captivity. Early Jewish Law was greatly influenced by the law of Babylon.

Thus the wisdom and insight of many centuries and people went into the scriptures of the Law and the Prophets of Israel, which the young Jesus studied to become a rabbi. His background and education were entirely Jewish and his disciples were Jewish. His intention was not to create a new faith or change the basic Jewish creed, but rather to use this creed as a vehicle of enlightenment and love. We in the West tend to forget this. He was a teacher rather than a redeemer.

Then, with the conversion of Saul/Paul of Tarsus, early Christian teaching blossomed into the Greco-Roman world. Pauls theological skill was to integrate aspects of non-Jewish thinking into what he thought to be the message of Christ. The Hellenistic-Roman Empire, extended eastward by Alexander the Great, was the ideal medium through which to spread the new creed all over what was then the whole known world.

Alexanders dream may appear unrelated to early Christians, but it was in fact the first conscious attempt at globalization, and Christianitys universal project (catholic comes from the Greek katholicos, meaning universal)though this may surprise somewas more political than spiritual in its profound nature. In spite of initial resistance, including terrible persecution of Christians, Romes great empire of mixed races, cultures, and religions eventually embraced the Christian message of charity, redemption, and access to Paradise after death. Christianity spread ever wider and became the cradle of European civilization.

For the most part, the Fathers of the Church of early centuries never met, and it is not surprising that differences in interpretation and dogma soon developed. Each of the four canonical gospels was written for its own locality; the four were not intended to be read side by side, as we encounter them today. It is now certain that the gospels we have were written not by the apostles themselves, but by others in their name.

The early Fathers were determined that theirs should become the supreme religion, but they could not possibly have guessed that it would achieve such astounding success so widely and so fast. St. Mark sparked amazingly rapid growth in Christianity between AD 45 and 55 in Egypt, as did others in Rome and Greece. This book will, among much else, attempt to show part of this startling progress.

Few people realize that in the early days there were many forms of Christianity, whose followers I like to call the forgotten Christians. During the long period of their repression and torture and of the destruction of so-called heretical Christian writings (roughly from the late second to the late fourth century), thousands of these other Christians (perhaps the original Christians?) fled to the desert, moved by deep faith and a search for direct communion with God. Today, many wrongly believe that this was an abdication of responsibility. In fact, the desert was for them a place of temptation and of devils, and great courage was required to live there.

Important new finds of a large (one mile by one mile) Christian community of the early centuries of this millennium have been traced in the Wadi Natrun Desert in western Egypt. More than one hundred buildings, some partly intact and each about forty yards square, are hidden in the sand, as are about eight large mud-brick constructions. This site was never completely lost, but knowledge of its true extent is totally new.