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Preface
While believing in the Bahá’í Revelation (of which further reference will be made) which asserts, “Religion must agree with Science and Reason”, I find nothing incongruous in jesus’ unusual birth. Phantom conceptions have been acclaimed many, many times down the ages. There is no end to the mysteries, and the possibilities of the human body—much less of the workings of the Divine Creator.
It seems to me that some of us need to think of, and reverence more clearly the MAN Jesus; the humanity of Jesus, the vehicle through Whom God manifested Himself to humanity.
After centuries of hearing the story of the miraculous birth of Jesus, it has become very difficult for many people to consciously realise that the greatest miracle of that birth lay in the reality of Jesus’ manhood; that He was a man subject to the same temptations of the flesh as any man of his day.
And because I will be pointing out differences and variations in the Gospels, as we have them today, compared with what was known in the first century of Christianity, is no reflection on the value or the beauty of the Gospels. Rather, it is my sincere desire to awaken the reader to the knowledge that both Jesus and Bahá’u’lláh were Manifestations of and from God. As such, they are educators of mankind; and we should welcome a knowledge of what They taught, what They did, and what They suffered at the hands of men.
The artist’s introduction of a halo aroundjesus’ head really detracts from the MAN Jesus Whose forehead wept actual tears of blood, caused by the Crown of Thorns pressed into His head. As St Paul reminded Timothy, (1 Tim,2:5) “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and man, the MAN Christ Jesus.” (A.V.)
Bah’u’llah is equally as explicit when He says: “Even as He saith; ‘I am the servant of God. I am but a man like you’ ”* And again when He says: “Man is my mystery, and I am his mystery.”**
- G.W.B. p53
- G.W.B. 177
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Christianity seems to have lost the historicalJesus, the human Jesus,
in the theologicaljesus. If we could, in our minds, imagine ourselves
present in an audience which Jesus was addressing, we would see and
hear speaking someone we regarded as an ordinary man from the
village. All Manifestations of God, seen by men, have appeared to
be as other men. The telling difference always—and it is always! rests in the MIND of the Manifestation. Jesus strove to convince the
people of this fact. John 14:11-15, makes this abundantly clear. He
records Jesus as saying: “Believe me when I say that I am in the Father
and the F ather in me; or else accept the evidence of the deeds
themselves. In truth, in very truth I tell you, he who has faith in me
will do what I am doing; and he will do greater things still because I am
going to the Father. Indeed anything you ask in my name I will do,
so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything
in my name I will do it.”
“If you love me, you will obey my commands; and I will ask the F ather, and He will give you another to be your Advocate Who will be with you for ever—the Spirit of Truth.”
That Jesus was a man and felt as any man would feel under similar circumstances is vividly protrayed by the account of the scene in Gethsemane, Matthew 26:37-39. “Anguish and dismay, came over him and he said to them (his friends) ‘My heart is ready to break with grief. Stop here and stay awake with me.’ He went on a little, fell on his face in prayer, and said, ‘My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass me by. Yet not as I will, but as Thou wilt.’”*
Such a cry could come only from the lips of a man almost daunted by what he could see lying ahead of him. The distinguishing quality of a Prophet or Manifestation of God, is His possession of innate and intuitive knowledge. But being a man, he knows what to expect from His fellow men who, having seen and heard still will not believe in Him. ‘
Bahá’u’lláh makes a similar claim, and gives the same assurance when He says: “. . . out of the essence of knowledge I gave thee being, why seekest thou enlightenment from anyone beside Me? Out of the clay of love I moulded thee, how dost thou busy thyself with another? Tum they sight unto thyself, that thou mayest find ME standing within thee, mighty, powerful and self—subsisting.”**
- The New English Bible New Testament
- *Arabic hidden Words,13
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In the following pages I hope to make it clear that while accepting
the Gospels as the only reliable written evidence we have of the life
of Jesus as the Son of God, they cannot be taken as being absolutely
accurate; nor as an infallible record of His life and work.
In the course of Bible study and research into the life, teachings and times in which jesus taught, I have been assisted by two books which are still in my possession, and which I studied over sixty years ago, namely; “The Old Testament and Its Contents”, by Professor Robertson, D.D. and, “The New Testament—Its Writers and Their Messages”, by GP Hunter, B.A. Also, I have freely used “Hastings Dictionary of The Bible”, and of added value to me were, “The Meaning of The Dead Sea Scrolls”, by A Powell Davies; Edmund Wilson’s, “The Scroll from The Dead Sea”; and H.H. Rowley’s, “The Dead Sea Scrolls and Their Significance.” And while the KingJames Authorised Version of The Bible is my preference in Christian Scripture, for purposes of a simple, everyday understanding of them I have taken quotations from ‘The New English Bible New Testament’.
In the preparation and writing of this book, I have kept in mind some challenging words of Bahá’u’lláh: “For the faith of no man can be conditioned by anyone except himself.”*
Every man must seek truth for himself; and that these few pages may help the seeker in his search, is the writer’s aim.
Eric Bowes
- ‘Gleanings from The Writings of Bahá’u’lláh.’ p143
