Previous Lives of the Master

In order to put this section in proper perspective it is necessary to make the distinction between Jesus, the man, and the Heavenly Man, the Christ. Jesus was a man born circa 4 bc in Bethlehem (some scholars say in Nazareth) while the Christ is the Only Begotten Son of the Father and a member of the Holy Trinity. In discussing possible previous lives of the Master we are referencing his soul and not previous lives of the man, Jesus. Earthly personalities are strung like a strand of pearls that are worn around the neck of one’s immortal soul. This is not to deny that the man, Jesus, during his life on earth 2,000 years ago was, or at some point became, the incarnation of the Christ who was crucified, died, was buried, and subsequently appeared in a resurrected form and ascended back to his Father’s house in heaven. Indeed, it is that sequence of events that forms the basis of the Christian religion and gives all Christians the hope that we too may one day follow in his footsteps. “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life; No one comes to the Father but by me.”[1]

Some contemporary Jesus scholars, however make a distinction between the “historical Jesus” and the “Jesus of faith”. One of these scholars, Marcus J. Borg, uses the terms the “pre-Easter Jesus” and the “post Easter Jesus” to more clearly distinguish between Jesus, the man and Jesus, the Son of God, who was elevated by the body of believers in the early years and centuries following his death and resurrection to his status as “the Only Begotten Son of the Father and a full member of the Holy Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Indeed, it was after reading his book, Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time, in which he makes a compelling case for the basis of this distinction that provided the impetus for my writing this essay[2].

The material from the Edgar Cayce readings and books based on these readings that form the primary basis for this section do not deny that the Jesus who was born in Israel 2000 years ago was (or at some point during his life on earth became) the Christ (i.e., the Heavenly Man and the Son of God), but it extends the time period required to make the transition from his first appearance on earth as a mortal to his eventual return to His Father’s house after his resurrection. (In fact, according to the Cayce readings, it took his soul thirty-two incarnations before completing his cycle of appearances here on earth.) Since he is for Christians the role model by which we are shown the destiny each of us may ultimately attain, it is not surprising that his first incarnation on earth, according to Cayce, was as the first man, Adam. Thus he may truly be called the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last man. It is worth recalling, however, that the Hebrew word translated as “Adam” can also be translated as “mankind”. It is not surprising therefore that the Cayce material relates that Adam (i.e., mankind) first appeared on earth in five separate locations. Each of the five locations ‘represented a different race of man (red, yellow, white, black and brown).[3] The readings explain, though, that only one of these incarnations was by the soul of the man who later appeared on earth as Jesus. The other four incarnations were by souls who were also “sons of God”. As noted earlier, when the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind, he reminded him that he should have remembered “when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy [as co-workers with Him during the creation because Job was] born then and the number of your days is great.”[4] Similarly, Edgar Cayce, in one of his self-induced trances, tells us:

All souls were created in the beginning and are finding their way back whence they came.[5]

Recall also that the Heavenly Man (i.e., the Christ and the Only Begotten Son) is a member of the Holy Trinity and therefore a cosmic character on an equal footing with the Father and the Holy Mother. As such, he is a prototype of the ideal human being who combines both male and female natures. Consequently, Cayce tells us that the first man (Adam) and the first woman (Eve) were twin souls who were created as spiritual beings in the heavenly realms prior to their incarnation on earth in bodies of flesh.

Many religions and earlier civilizations not only have creation myths but also have stories about heavenly beings incarnating in human forms and how they, or their descendants, eventually return to the heavenly realms. In one of my essays I use the example from Greek mythology of the god Prometheus, who made human beings out of clay but was subsequently chained to a rock on a mountain top by Zeus as a result of his stealing fire (i.e., light or knowledge) from the heavenly realms and bringing it down to mankind. Then after thousands of years of imprisonment on earth he was finally released by Hercules (Greek Heracles) and was allowed to return to immortal life with the other gods.[6] . In Joseph Campbell’s book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, he gives hundreds of examples of a folk-hero who receives a call to adventure, begins a perilous journey and after many trials and tribulations discovers a lost treasure or hidden truth that he brings back for the benefit of his people. He shows how each of these tales represents what he calls a “monomyth” whereby the hero becomes a symbolic carrier of the destiny of every man. A similar example is found in the New Testament when Jesus reminds his followers:

I came from the Father [the world of spirits] and have come into the world [of matter]; again I am leaving the world and going [back] to the Father.”[7]

Similarly, the Christian story condenses into one life the descent of the Heavenly Man to be born of the Virgin Mary by becoming impregnated by the Holy Spirit as the man, Jesus, 2000 or so years ago. As an adult he then undergoes the trials and temptations faced by all men and after his death by crucifixion overcomes his mortal nature by his resurrection from death and subsequent ascension back to the spirit world from which he originally came. He thus combined in one life what takes most men at best a number of lives to achieve. His one life thus symbolizes, like Joseph Campbell’s Hero with a Thousand Faces, the journey of everyman, who must undergo trials and temptations in this world in order to bring back to his fellow men the treasure he has discovered (in this case, the nature of God and his heavenly kingdom) before being permitted to return to his Father’s house.

Before listing some of the previous incarnations of the soul of Jesus let us speculate on the number of souls that may be required in the universe to perform a similar life cycle on planets that may be similar to our own. It was only a few hundred years ago that men believed that the earth was the center of the universe and that all the sun, moon, planets and all the stars revolved around it. The universe, as we now know through the use of modern telescopes, space probes and other scientific instruments is incredibly vast wherein our sun, although the center around which the earth and the other known planets revolve, is only one star among the now estimated 200 to 400 billion other stars in our own little corner of the universe known as the Milky Way galaxy. Even with conventional telescopes we have been able to identify thousands of other galaxies and in recent years by the use of radio telescopes we have been able to hear, however faintly, the background radiation that accompanied the “big bang” at the creation of our universe now estimated to be about 15 billion years ago. As little as 300,000 years after that initial gigantic explosion, wispy matter could be seen that confirms the formation of nebulae and stars at a very early stage. By use of the Hubble telescope in orbit above the atmosphere of the earth we have been able to focus on a very small section of space that is like looking through a soda straw eight feet long. Even in that minute section of space many galaxies can be identified. It has been estimated that there are at least 100 billion galaxies in the universe If we then multiply this number of galaxies by the lower level of 200 billion stars estimated to be in our galaxy, we arrive at the staggering number of at least 20 sextillion stars in the universe. (That’s 20 followed by 21 zeros.) If each star has only one habitable planet during its life cycle that reaches a human population equal to that currently on earth ( over six billion) that would mean there would be 6 billion times 20 sextillion people in need of salvation (i.e., 120 followed by 30 zeroes).

The only way to deal with a problem of this magnitude is to hypothesize an incredible number of souls in the unseen world of Heavenly Hosts to deal not only with the problem of bringing salvation to this number of people but also of a corresponding number of Sons of God to assist in the process of creation. Perhaps we can now better appreciate why the Hebrew word, elohim, used in the book of Genesis could just as readily have been translated into English by the word, “gods” or “celestial beings” rather than simply as by the word, “ Lord “ or “God”. In spite of this proliferation of possible numbers of creatures similar to ourselves on other planets throughout the universe and the numberless Sons of God required in its creation, the dichotomy between the concepts of polytheism and monotheism, i.e., between many gods and one God, is only an apparent one. Simply recall that the God above all gods is both immanent throughout all of creation as well as transcendent over it. To paraphrase Pascal: “God is like a circle whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.” Recall also that before the process of creation can take place the Unspeakable, Transcendent Root of All Being must begat One, who then begats Two, who then begats Three from which the process of creation can then proceed.[8] This three-in-one is none other than the Heavenly Man, the Cosmic Christ, the Logos, without whom, as John’s gospel reminds us, “was not anything made that was made.”[9] Likewise, the Nicene Creed affirms that this Heavenly Man is “the only Son of God . . . begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father, [and] through him all things were made.”[10]

However, there is always a mystery connected with opposites like ”transcendent and immanent”, “immortal and mortal”, “one and many”, and “universal and particular”. That is why there is always a need for a third idea or concept to reconcile them. The essence of the ancient mysteries taught by so-called esoteric schools and societies, by various philosophers and even by some religious groups is to be able to transcend these irreconcilable opposites. From the standpoint of this essay the reconciling element is the son of God who descends to earth in the form of a man to be as a role model and teacher of the way by which each of us may return to the home of ‘Our Father which art in heaven” from which each of us as souls left to pursue our own desires many years ago. The parable of the prodigal son is a perfect example of one who left his father’s house and wasted all of his father’s inheritance before awaking to his deplorable state. He than sought to find his way back home and beg his father’s forgiveness. His father not only forgave him but gave him his best robe, a ring for his finger and shoes for his feet. He even killed a fatted calf in order for all to eat and make merry. When the son who had never left his father’s house objected to this treatment of the prodigal, his father replied: “It is fitting to make merry and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive, he was lost, and is found.”[11] We are all like the prodigal son and hence in need of a savior. As St. Paul reminds us:

“All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God”[12]

It is not surprising therefore that a number of the incarnations of the soul of the man, Jesus, were extraordinary men who exemplified the powers of God working through them. For example, in the seventh generation after his life as Adam the soul of the Master, according to the Cayce records, reincarnated as Enoch. The Old Testament doesn’t tell us much about him other than that he was the son of Jared, that he was the father of Methuselah, had other sons and daughters, and that he lived to be 365 years old before God took him without tasting death.[13] The New Testament makes two references to him. The first one merely repeats the story told in Genesis:

By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death; and he was not found, because God had taken him. Now before he was taken he was attested as having pleased God.[14]

The second reference reveals him to be a prophet who warns about the Lord’s judgment on all who have forsaken his ways and commandments:

It was of these also that Enoch in the seventh generation from Adam prophesied, saying, “Behold, the Lord came with his holy myriads to execute judgment on all, and to convict all the ungodly of all their deeds of ungodliness which they have committed in such an ungodly way, and all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.”[15]

It is understandable then that an apocryphal book belonging to the intratestamental period also bore the name of Enoch.[16] It thus forms a part of what was referred to earlier in this essay (page 2) as “apocalyptic eschatology”. In fact the translator of the book claims the its “influence on the New Testament has been greater than that of all the other apocryphal and pseudoepigraphical books put together . . .[and that its doctrines had] an undoubted share in molding the corresponding New Testament doctrines.”[17] Not only is it probable that the quotation above from the book of Jude is based on this book of Enoch but some “biblical scholars believe it contains the earliest recorded revelation of the second coming of Christ. [It is also] considered to have been Paul’s constant reference book; John was quite affected by Enoch, especially in Revelation; and Peter’s letters in the New Testament reflect considerable influence of Enoch”[18]

Closely related to, and quite possibly the same entity as, the legendary Enoch is the god-man known to the Egyptians as Thoth, to the Greeks as Hermes or Hermes Trismegistus (the thrice blessed) and to the Romans as Mercurius (i.e., Mercury). Later writers “believe Thoth to have been a great Egyptian king, a teacher of mankind who left books of magic and mystery behind him.”[19] The Edgar Cayce readings place both Hermes and the incarnated soul of the Master in Egypt at the same time as the great pyramid at Giza was built. A number of similarities between the characteristics attributed to Hermes and the post-Easter Jesus (i.e., the Christ) lead researchers to the conclusion that Hermes was an incarnation of the Master. “Early Christian leaders are known to have been interested in Hermes Trismegistus and the Hermetic writings. St. Augustine, for example, believed in the extreme antiquity of Hermes. Lactantius, in the fourth century, taught that the Hermetic writings were based upon the work of an Egyptian seer whose references to a ‘son of God’ were prophetic of Christ. He compared wording in the Hermetica with certain passages in the Gospel of John, and others have noted their striking similarity. Clement of Alexandria cited 42 books written by Hermes. Nearly all of these books were lost, however, in the subsequent burning of Alexandria and its famous libraries. In one of the few Hermetic texts we still have today, Hermes is called the ‘shepherd of men’ and the redeemer or revealer. A theme found in the Hermetic writings is that of a heavenly Man who descends to earth from time to time to reveal knowledge of the Father, after which he ascends or returns to God, the Father. In a Naassene document cited by Hippolytus of Rome around A.D. 200 Hermes is called the Logos and identified with both Adam and Christ.”[20]

Another incarnation of the Master was as Melchizedek, the prince of Salem, without father, without mother, without days; he was not born and he did not die. Abraham paid tithes to Melchizedek. We first read about him in the Old Testament book of Genesis after he went out to meet Abram ( before God renamed him Abraham) after his miraculous victory over King Chedorlaomer and his many armies.

“And Melchizedek , King of Salem, brought forth bread and wine; and he was the priest of the most high God. And he blessed him, and said, ‘Blessed be Abram by God Most High, maker of heaven and earth; And blessed be God most High, who has delivered your enemies into your hand!’ And Abram gave him a tenth of everything.”[21]

In this encounter with Melchizedek two acts were performed which much later became very important to both Jewish and Christian traditions: the payment of tithes and the sacrificial nature of bread and wine when furnished by the priesthood. At the last supper Jesus had with his disciples before his death and crucifixion he specifically instructed them that the breaking of bread symbolized the breaking of his body and the drinking of wine symbolized the shedding of his blood “which is shed for many”.[22]

His name appears again in a prophetic psalm that uses the name “Lord” to describe both God and his Messiah (i.e., the Christ man). Jesus himself uses this psalm, ascribed to David, to show the Pharisees that the Messiah was a universal being that stood between David and the Lord and that he could therefore not just be his lineal descendant.

Now when the Pharisees were gathered together Jesus asked them a question saying: “What do you think of the Christ? Whose son is he?” They said to him, “the son of David.” He said to them, “How is it then that David, inspired by the [Holy] Spirit, calls him Lord, saying:

The LORD said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand till I put

Thy enemies under thy feet”.[23]

“If David calls him Lord, how is he his son?” And no one was able to answer him a word, not from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions.[24]

In the New Testament letter to the Hebrews the author confirms the connection between Jesus (as the resurrected Christ or Messiah) and his likeness to the earlier high priest, Melchizadek who is described as being “without father or mother or genealogy, and has neither beginning of days or end of life, but resembling the Son of God he continues a priest forever.”[25] We are also told by the entranced Cayce that Melchizadek was the author of the book of Job, which, as noted earlier, is considered one of the books of “Wisdom” literature in the Old Testament.

The next two incarnations move from the legendary roles of Enoch and Melchizadek to two of the key figures in the dramatic story of Jacob’s sons and their families migrating from Canaan to Egypt (circa 1,700 bc) and then their dramatic return after having lived for three hundred or so years as virtual slaves under the control of various pharaohs. These key incarnations were as Joseph and as Joshua.

The story of Joseph, as told in the book of Genesis, is a familiar one. His father Jacob (later renamed Israel) had twelve sons for whom the twelve tribes of Israel were named. By Leah (the older daughter of Laban, who was his mother’s brother) he had Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar and Zebulun; by Leah’s maid, Zelpah, he had Gad and Asher; by Rachel (the younger daughter of Laban) he had Joseph and Benjamin; and by Rachel’s maid, Bilhah, he had Dan and Naphtali.[26] Since Joseph was the first born of his beloved wife Rachel, his father loved him more than any of his other brothers. Consequently, “they hated him and could not speak peaceably to him.”[27] When Joseph told them that he had a dream that his sheaf of grain stood upright among those sheaves of his brothers, they decided that the dream meant he was destined to rule over all of them even though he was younger than any of them except for Benjamin. One day, therefore, when he approached the place where they were pasturing their flocks, they conspired to kill him. Fortunately for Joseph a caravan of Ishmaelites bound for Egypt was passing by. So they decided instead to sell him to the Ishmaelites for twenty shekels of silver. They then killed a goat, dripped his robe in its blood, took it back to their father, and told him that Joseph had been devoured by a wild beast.

After spending several years in Egypt, after a series of fortuitous circumstances, Joseph was asked to interpret a dream the pharaoh had about seven fat cattle being devoured by seven lean cattle which appeared no fatter even after they had eaten all of them. Joseph told pharaoh that the dream foretold seven plenteous years of crop production would be followed by seven years of famine. Pharaoh not only believed Joseph’s prophecy but placed him in charge of storing a fifth of all the grain produced in the good years in order to feed his people during the seven years of famine. He then placed Joseph over the entire land of Egypt second only to Pharaoh himself. He also gave him in marriage to Asenath who bore him two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim. True to Joseph’s prophecy the seven years of plenty were followed by seven years of famine that was spread beyond Egypt even into Canaan. Thus it was that all of Joseph’s brothers (except Benjamin) came to Egypt to buy grain. On their first trip they didn’t recognize Joseph but on a subsequent trip he made his identity known. He then persuaded them to bring their father, younger brother and all of their families and servants to Egypt, thus fulfilling the dream that had so angered his brothers years earlier. After their father died they were fearful Joseph would take revenge on them for the evil they had done him as a young man. Joseph, however, forgave them and said:

You meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive as they are today. So do not fear, I will provide for you and your little ones.[28]

Joseph lived to be one hundred and ten years old and was buried in Egypt. Before he died, however, he made one last prophecy:

I am about to die; but God will visit you and bring you up out of this land to the land which he swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.[29]

“Admittedly, the biblical story of Jacob and Joseph contains elements of folklore . . . . . . Nevertheless, the biblical account is more than fiction. In its broad outline, as well as in many of its details, it agrees with the historical setting of the second millennium B.C.”[30] According to the biblical account “the time that the people of Israel dwelt in Egypt was four hundred and thirty years.”[31] Because of the importance of Joseph’s position under the pharaoh they were treated well for perhaps 100-150 years. However, then “there arose a new king in Egypt, who did not know Joseph.”[32] As a result, for the next three hundred years or so “the Hebrews were reduced to the status of state slaves and were put to work building the store cities of Pithon and Rameses in the Delta.”[33]

The story of their eventual deliverance out of Egypt by Moses is also a familiar one: - his being placed among the reeds on the bank of the Nile as a baby to avoid the Pharaoh’s edict to kill all the newborn sons of the Hebrews; his subsequent discovery and adoption by the Pharaoh’s daughter; his flight as a man across the Nile into the land of Midian to avoid being killed by the Pharaoh after he had killed an Egyptian for beating a fellow Hebrew; his marriage while living there to one of the daughters of Reuel (also known as Jethro); and his encounter with God (YHVH) at the burning bush, that the fire did not consume, who spoke to him saying:

I have seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters; I know their sufferings, and I have come down [to earth] to deliver them out of the hand of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey . . . [Therefore] Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring forth my people, the sons of Israel, out of Egypt.[34]

According to the biblical account the eighty year old Moses finally succeeded (after the many plagues Yahweh caused to be inflicted on the Egyptians) in leading not only the descendants of Joseph’s family but also “a mixed multitude”[35] of other peoples, all of whom were known by the name of habiru, which was “probably equivalent to the biblical name Hebrew [who] belonged to the larger floating class of semi-nomads to whom established groups applied [this] descriptive term.”[36] The biblical account states that in number there were “600,000 men, in addition to women and children”[37] which would have meant that there were possibly a total of 2.5 to 3 million people involved in the exodus out of Egypt. However “this is obviously an exaggeration, for it does not square with the information in Exodus 1:15-20 that two midwives served the whole Hebrew colony. . . .[Thus] Undoubtedly the band of slaves [leaving Egypt] was comparatively small.”[38] Nonetheless, not long after they had begun their trek to “the promised land” at a place named Rephidim they encountered armed opposition from Amalek and his people. So Moses chose Joshua, one of his strongest young men, and said to him, “Choose some men for us and go out, fight with Amalek. . . So Joshua did as Moses told him, and fought with Amalek. . . [and with the assistance of Moses standing on the top of the hill with the staff of God in his hand] Joshua defeated Amalek and his people with the sword.”[39]

“Hereafter, Joshua is often found in the company of Moses, and he is referred to as Moses’ ‘minister’ as they approached Mount Sinai.[40] He presumably accompanied Moses up onto the mountain when Moses received holy revelations and directions from God. As they came down, Joshua alerted Moses to the noise in the Israelite camp, where the people had begun idolatrous worship. And when Moses communicated with God in the newly constructed tent or tabernacle, Joshua was there. His recorded presence at such times fits the premise of the Cayce readings that Joshua was Moses’ interpreter.”[41]

In order to make strategic plans for the conquest of Canaan, Moses sent Joshua, Caleb and representatives from the other ten tribes of Israel to spy out the entire area. After an extended survey they came back with a report to Moses that it was indeed a land that flows with milk and honey. “Yet the people who live in the land are strong and the towns are fortified and very large and besides, we saw the descendants of the Anak there . . . . [who] came from the Nephilim, and to ourselves we seemed like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them.”[42] Since Joshua and Caleb were the only ones in favor of going forward with plans for a military conquest of the area, the timetable for invasion was put on hold indefinitely. In fact because of the unwillingness of a majority of the leaders the whole generation of those involved in the exodus from Egypt was spent in the largely desert peninsula of Sinai. Moses died and was buried there at the ripe old age of 120. We are also told that of the adult men who left Egypt with Moses only Caleb and Joshua were alive to help reclaim the land promised by the Lord to Abraham and his descendants.[43] Before Moses’ death, however, he asked the Lord to name the man best qualified to lead his people into their promised land: “So the Lord said to Moses,

Take Joshua son of Nun, a man in whom is the spirit, and lay your hand upon him; have him stand before Eleazar the priest and all the congregation, and commission him in their sight. You shall give him some of your authority , so that all the congregation of the Israelites may obey.”[44]

Having made an unsuccessful attempt to enter Canaan from the south while Moses was still alive, Joshua decided to begin his attack on the Promised Land by crossing the Jordan river from the east side thus driving a wedge between the north and south territories of Canaan. He chose a spot just north of the Dead Sea about five miles southeast of the city of Jericho. Because of seasonal rains, however, the Jordan was flooded. He then, reminiscent of Moses crossing the Red Sea, called on the Lord to stop the flow of the river until the Israelites were safely across.[45] “After the crossing they stopped at Gilgal on the west side of the Jordan. Twelve stones had been taken from the river’s bed and were set up in a circle at Gilgal as a memorial to the miraculous crossing. The Israelites paused here and performed the ritual of circumcision on all males to symbolize the renewal of their covenant with God and the completion of the delivery from Egypt into the Promised Land. And for the first time in Canaan, the Passover feast was observed.”.[46]

“The city of Jericho lay ahead and appeared impregnable. Following the directions of Joshua, however, the Israelites circled Jericho each morning for six days, +with seven priests in their midst carrying the Ark of the Covenant and blowing on rams’ horns. On the seventh day they circled the city seven times, the priests blew a long final note, and the the Israelites shouted. The city walls are then alleged to have crumbled, with the sacking and destroying of Jericho following. . . . . Now followed a systematic and bloody conquering of many of the cities of the promised land. Joshua primarily concentrated on the cities in the hills, avoiding the flat ground where the better equipped chariots of the Canaanites would be at an advantage. One by one the Israelites took Ai, Bethel, Shechem, Gibeon, Aijalon, Libnah, Eglon, Hebron, Debir and Hazor. Although some cities, such as Jerusalem, had been bypassed, the Israelites were now largely in control of the Promised Land of Canaan.”[47]

“A long time afterward, when the Lord had given rest to Israel from all their enemies round about, Joshua summoned all Israel their elders and heads, their judges and officers, and said to them, ‘I am now old and well advanced in years; and you have seen all that the Lord your God has done to all these nations for your sake, for it is the Lord your God who has fought for you. Behold, I have allotted to you as an inheritance for your tribes those nations that remain, along with all the nations that I have already cut off, from the Jordan to the Great Sea to the west. The Lord your God will push them back before you, and drive them out of your sight; and you shall possess their land, as the Lord your God has promised you. . . . Now therefore fear the Lord, and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness; put away the gods which your fathers served beyond the River, and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. And if you be unwilling to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell; but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord’. . . . And Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua and had known all the work which the Lord did for Israel.” [48]

Following the allocation of the conquered lands of Canaan among the twelve tribes of Israel there developed a loose confederation that was held together not only by the annual observation of the Passover celebrating their deliverance from slavery in Egypt but also by the not infrequent requirement to band together militarily to repulse or subdue attacks from other groups outside of their tribal confederation, Although there was no central ruling authority during this period, there was a successive reign of twelve judges until the establishment of a monarchy. This transition from a loose confederation of tribes to a more centralized form of government was necessitated by the introduction into the coastal area of Palestine early in the 12^th century B. C. by the Philistines of the use of iron. “They held the secrets of smelting the new metal and guarded their monopoly so effectively that they were able to keep other small nations, like Israel, at their political mercy.”[49] During the last days of the confederacy the Israel’s sacred Arc of the Covenant was captured by the Philistines, who also killed all the priests (the sons of Eli) who were attending it. .To combat this threat Samuel, the last and greatest of the judges, appointed Saul as a ruler over the entire confederation.[50] Although Saul was successful in battles with the Ammonites and even in defeating a small garrison of Philistines, he eventually lost the support of his mentor, Samuel, and more importantly he also lost the support of Yahweh who remained the true king of the tribes of Israel. He subsequently was confronted and defeated by a much larger Philistine army on the plain of Jezreel near Mount Gilboa and in humiliation committed suicide. Shortly after Saul’s death his younger and popular rival, David, was anointed king at Hebron. Not only was David successful in breaking up the Philistine’s control of Canaan, but “ he waged successful wars against Moab, Ammon, Edom, Amalek and Aram (Syria), and he concluded a treaty with the Phoenician king, Hiram of Tyre. So he became recognized as the ruler of an empire that stretched from the Lebanon mountains to the very borders of Eqypt, from the Mediterranean Sea to the Desert of Arabia.”[51] David “established a dynasty destined to last more than four hundred years.”[52] However, “neither before or after the time of David did Israel exceed this zenith of political power.”[53]

In addition to David’s military victories it was crucial that he unite the loose confederation of tribes that existed under King Saul and also that he centralize the worship of Yahweh which was at the heart of that which distinguished the people of Israel from those in other tribes and nations in the area. To unite the northern tribes still ruled by Ishbaal, one of Saul’s sons, and his own southern tribe of Judah he shrewdly moved his headquarters from Hebron, a city he had ruled as king for seven years, to Jerusalem which was right on the boundary between the northern and southern tribes. He also wisely “rescued the Ark of the Covenant from the place of oblivion in which it had rested since the fall of the confederation sanctuary at Shiloh and brought it to Jerusalem with great pomp and ceremony .. . . . . . He wanted to replace the old Tent of Meeting with a splendid royal temple patterned after the temples of other nations. However, the conservative religious tradition of the Confederacy was voiced by the prophet Nathan, who argued that Yahweh had not dwelt in a house since the time of the Exodus. So David wisely conceded to the prophet that this was going too far – for the time being at least. He contented himself with reorganizing Israel’s religion in other spheres, especially temple music”[54] To emphasize the importance of temple music David appointed 288 skilful musicians with a man called Asaph as his chief musician.[55] Asaph was named by Edgar Cayce in one of his trances as an incarnation of the Master. He not only presided over the musicians and singers in the Tent of Meeting but he also prophesied under the direction of David himself. Prophesies were expressed through words set to music accompanied by the playing of harps, psalteries and cymbals. Twelve of the psalms found in the Old Testament are also attributed to Asaph.[56]

Even after the death of David and the crowning of his son, Solomon, as king of Israel, Asaph continued to be the chief musician who was among those who presided at the dedication of the temple in Jerusalem built by Solomon. It was a magnificent and awesome ceremony that consisted of 120 musicians who played on cymbals, psalteries and harps and sang songs of praise to the Lord. According to the scriptures the priests could not continue ministering in the temple since it was inundated by a cloud caused by the glory of the Lord.[57] After the death of Solomon the nation again divided into two groups; one was known as the Kingdom of Israel consisting of ten of the original twelve tribes while the two remaining tribes in the southern portion consisted of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin and was known as the kingdom of Judah. The northern kingdom of Israel lived through a series of leaders until it was overrun by Assyria in 721 bc and its inhabitants were scattered over a wide area never again to occupy their former territory. The people who lived in the kingdom of Israel are still referred to as :the ten lost tribes of Israel. The southern kingdom of Judah survived until it was overrun by the Babylonians in 587 bc and the following year Solomon’s temple was destroyed and many of its inhabitants who were not killed were deported to a sort of prison camp in Babylonia (sometimes called Chaldea). Thus the last vestige of a separate Hebrew kingdom disappeared.

It wasn’t until Cyrus of Persia conquered Babylonia in 539 bc that their period of forced exile was ended.. “The following year he issued the Edict of Restoration by which all Babylonian Jews could return to their homeland and the Temple could be rebuilt in Jerusalem at the expense of the royal treasury.”[58] Not only were funds made available to rebuild the temple but all the furnishings of the temple that had been taken back to Babylon were also to be returned to Jerusalem along with more than 42,000 Israelites who had been held in captivity as well as over 7,000 of their male and female servants.[59] In spite of some opposition by those who had not been deported to Babylon the temple was finally restored in the year 515 bc at the beginning of the reign of Darius I in accordance with visions of the original temple written down by the prophet Zechariah.

One of the key figures in the rebuilding of the temple and refurnishing it was one of the high priests named Jeshua (also called Joshua in the books of Haggai and Zechariah. The two names are actually the same; Jeshua is the Aramaic form of the Hebraic word “Joshua” and the same as the Greek word “Jesus”). As Edgar Cayce in one of his trances tells us: “ Know that the same soul entity that became Jesus born in Bethlehem was Jeshua who reasoned with those who returned from captivity in those days when Nehemiah, Ezra, Zerubbabel were factors in the attempts of the reestablishing of the worship of God, and that Jeshua, the scribe, translated the rest of the books written up to that time.”[60]

Another incarnation of the soul of Jesus named by the entranced Cayce was as Zend, the father of Zoroaster. The date of Zoroaster’s birth is uncertain but c current book by a well-known historian believes that he lived around 1,200 bc.[61] Although the religion that he founded is practiced by fewer than 200,000 today largely by the Parsis in India and by a small group in Iran. (Ancient Bactria in Persia was its original home.) However, it still “merits careful study because of the attention it has received in the history of Western thought, and because of the influence which many scholars believe it exercised on other religious cultures. Christianity claims to be the heir of the prophets of Israel. If there is any truth in this claim, it is no less heir to the Prophet of ancient Iran, little though most Christians are aware of the fact,”[62] The teachings of Zoroaster may also have been a factor in the decisions to permit the return of the Jews from Babylon to their homeland since Darius and probably also Cyrus were Zoroastrians.[63]

The Pre-Easter Jesus – Palestine Prior to His Birth

The last incarnation of the soul, some of whose lives on earth we have examined in the previous section, was the man called Jesus of Nazareth who, of course, is the principal reason for writing this essay. To give a better perspective of the circumstances surrounding his birth, however, let us recapitulate briefly the history of the Jews from the time of their return to Jerusalem from the Babylonian exile in 538 bc and the events that foreshadowed their expectation of a messiah (Hebrew: ; Greek: , English: ) being born to restore Israel to her former glory as a nation under King David. Since Persia was the ruling power in the area, the Jews resettling in Judea enjoyed a relatively untroubled period until “the rise to power of one of the greatest military leaders in the history of civilization, Alexander of Macedon (336-323 bc) [better known as Alexander the Great]. He swept over not only territories formerly held by Persia from the Aegean Sea to the Persian Gulf but on eastward through Afghanistan until he reached the Indus River in present-day Pakistan . . . . According to legend, Alexander stood weeping on the banks of the Indus River because there were no more worlds to conquer.”[64] He died three years later (323 bc) by his own hand.

“Alexander dreamed of one world – a world bound together by Greek culture. Believing that Greek learning was superior to all other, he considered it to be his divine mission – for he was honored also as a god – to leaven ancient civilization with Greek scholarship, art and manners. [After his death] his vast empire was partitioned among his generals with the eastern portions in Mesopotamia and Syria going to Seleucus and Egypt came under the sway of Ptolemy. Once again, Palestine was caught in a struggle between the powers of the Fertile Crescent, this time with the capitols located at Antioch (Seleucid) and Alexandria (Ptolomaic). Alexander’s policy of spreading Greek culture through the world was continued by the leaders of these two sections of his empire, despite the political rivalry between them.”[65] The infusion of Greek culture including even their language permeated not only all countries conquered by Alexander but to Israel in particular it eventually resulted in a clash with their central faith – the reliance on the command of Yahweh that “Thou shall have no other gods but me”,

Initially, Palestine was under the control of the Ptolemies in Alexandria. In contrast to the aggressive Selucids in Antioch they made no attempt to force Jews into cultural conformity. However, in 198 bc Antiochus III, the Syrian king, won a decisive victory over Ptolemy V near the source of the Jordan River, which brought Palestine under his control. His successor, Antiochus IV (175-163 bc), continued his predecessor’s policy of imposing Helenistic culture on his realm. He was also known as Antiochus Epiphanes because like Alexander he claimed to be a god. “He did not object to people having other gods and following local religious customs. But the test of political loyalty was the worship of Zeus, and this meant submission to the absolute authority of the king – [who was theos ephanes, meaning] ‘god manifest’. No policy could have been better calculated to stir up trouble in Palestine. For the cardinal tenet of Israel’s faith from the very first was the jealousy of Yahweh - his determined refusal to have a place beside any other god, and his ardent intolerance of idolatry in any form.[66] Jewish resentment against Antiochus “rose to a pitch of rioting when the most sacred office, that of the High Priest, was auctioned off to the highest bidder, , , , [As a result of the Jews’ rioting and their stubborn defiance of his will, Antiochus] issued orders for the outlawing of Jewish religion and the complete Hellenization of Jewish life. According to the edict, mothers who circumcised their children were to be put to death, copies of the Torah were to be burned, and observance of the Sabbath or possession of a copy of the Torah were made capital offenses. To carry out his plan to exterminate Judaism, in 168 bc he marched his troops into Jerusalem. The Temple was desecrated by the erection of an altar to Zeus over the altar for burnt offerings in the Temple court; and it was further defiled by sacrificing swine upon it. Pagan altars were built in the land; Jews were forced to make sacrifices to Zeus and to eat swine’s flesh. And Antiochus’ troops policed the country to see that the royal edict was obeyed.”[67]

As a result of this attempt to Hellenize the entire countryside of Israel, a spark was struck in 167 bc in Modein, a small town in the hill country a few miles northwest of Jerusalem, “when a Syrian officer demanded that local citizens comply with his order to make a pagan sacrifice. Mattathias, a village priest, flatly refused. Filled with rage at the sight of a Jew who had come forward to make a sacrifice, Mattathias killed both the Jew and the Syrian officer who had issued the order. He and his five sons fled to the hills, where they gathered around themselves a band of loyal Jews’ . . Their battle cry was the shout of Mattathias: ‘Let everybody who is zealous for the Law and stands by the covenant come out after me.’ On his deathbed he commissioned his oldest son, Judas [given the name, for ‘the hammer’] to carry on. Despite overwhelming odds Judas and his band of recruits soon won a surprising victory over Antiochus’ general and demanded a peace treaty. On the twenty-fifth day of the month of Kislev (December), 165 bc he rebuilt the altar of the Temple and restored the service of Jewish worship, thereby inaugurating the Hanukkah (Rededication) feast, or the Feast of Lights, which Jews still celebrate around Christmas time.

Thus began the Maccabean wars, carried on successively by the brothers Judas, Jonathan and Simon. What began as a resistance movement eventually flared up into a full-scale war. Favored by international developments, especially Rome’s increasing intervention in eastern affairs, the energetic, zealous Jews were able to achieve a century of relative independence from foreign powers that lasted until the coming of the Roman ruler, Pompey to Jerusalem in 63 bc.”[68] The differences, however, between those Jews remaining loyal to the commands of Yahweh and those adopting the pervasive Hellenistic philosophy continued to foment turmoil during the years of rule by the Hasmoneans. One of the documents written in this intertestamental period describes the situation:

“In those days lawless men came forth from Israel and mislead many, saying ‘Let us go and make a covenant with the Gentiles round about us, For since we have separated from them, many evils have come upon us.’ This proposal pleased them, and some of the people eagerly went to the [Syrian] king. He authorized them to observe the ordinances of the Gentiles. So they built a gymnasium in Jerusalem, according to Gentile custom, and removed the marks of circumcision and abandoned the holy covenant. They joined with the Gentiles and sold themselves to do evil.”[69]

Among these “lawless men” were a sect of the Jews called the Sadducees. This priestly aristocracy, who were in charge of the temple in Jerusalem, had functioned as a ruling elite for several centuries prior to this period. Since the Sadducees “were interested in the priestly status quo, oGG

they advocated a policy of collaboration with foreign rulers and even a certain compromise with Hellenism, provided the Temple services were permitted to continue.”[70] Some of those who remained loyal to the Jewish laws and customs and were among those who assisted Mattathias and his sons in overcoming Antiochus were known as the Hasidim (or the Chasids). Their “zeal for the Torah brought them into conflict with all Jews who wanted to collaborate with foreign rulers. Like the author of the book of Daniel, they believed that the present age was under the domination of wicked powers. And they anticipated the time when God would intervene to establish his Kingdom thus restoring the Holy Land to his people.”[71] Some historians believe that the Hasidim were responsible for a number of the so-called “dead sea scrolls”, the first of which were discovered in a cave in 1947. Even though they later split into the two groups that became known as the Pharisees and the Essenes,[72] they both remained dedicated to the appearance of their ( the messiah – meaning one who is anointed with holy oil) descended from the line of King David, who will usher in the Messianic Age predicted by many of their prophets and scriptures. For example, in the apocalyptic Book of Daniel (written 166 bc) he writes:

“I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a Son of Man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion and glory and kingdom, that all peoples, nations and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away,, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.”[73]

Although the heavenly figure in the above passage from the book of Daniel can be interpreted as symbolizing the entire covenant community, “yet in a broad sense this is a messianic passage, for the Hasidim are the standard-bearers for the Kingdom of God. In their faithful martyrdom they bear witness to the Kingdom that God will inaugurate with power and glory at the end of the times [or the age]. They live and die in anticipation of the messianic age, which the writer believed would soon dawn.”[74] (Daniel himself “belonged to the Hasidim whose religious faith demanded loyalty to the Torah at any cost. We should keep in mind that he was writing at a time when even the possession of a copy of the Torah was a capital offense.”[75]

The cause and date of the split of the Hasidim into the sects known as the Pharisees and the Essenes is not a matter of historical record, but their philosophical differences were discussed earlier in this essay.[76] However, one historian states that “Sometime between 175 and 170 [bc] a bitter conflict must have arisen within the Chasid [i.e. the Hasidim] camps; the Community split into bitterly hostile factions under leaders known as ‘the Unique Teacher’ and ‘the Man of the Lie’. The latter rallied the majority to his side; there were sharp clashed and fierce violence. The minority [i.e., the proto-essenes] left and established themselves in the Syrian desert [probably in the area where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered near Qumran]”[77] Another historian places the split a few years later “when the Hasidim – or a part of their group – defected when Alcimus, whom they trusted, was appointed High Priest in 162 BCE. This move on their part turned out to be naïve; Alcimus’ Syrian allies massacred sixty of them in one day (1 Maccabees vii 2-20).”[78] Still a third writer believes that “the historical origins of this separatist group [i.e., The Essenes] seem to lie in the period of the Maccabees. At that time, Jonathan, the brother of Simon, accepted the office of High Priest [160 bc] even though he was not a member of the correct sacerdotal family. Another priest, known in the [Dead Sea] scrolls as the Teacher of Righteousness, protested Jonathon’s appointment and was forced into exile with his followers. So intense was this groups’ hatred of the Hasmoneans [who ruled from 134-37 bc] that they actually rejoiced when, in 63 BCE, Pompey conquered Jerusalem and defiled the temple they considered already polluted by the ministrations of their priestly opponents.”[79]

“The members of this sect [the Essenes] saw themselves as the privileged recipients of the true covenant, the message of Moses and the Prophets now interpreted correctly in light of the preaching of the Teacher of Righteousness. They kept aloof from their co-relgionists, never entering the Temple and, since they followed a solar rather than a lunar calendar, observing the great festivals on different days from the rest of the nation. A solar calendar was particularly appropriate for a group which saw itself as the Sons of Light. They felt obliged while in this world to live in continuous worship and strict ritual purity in anticipation of the approaching Final Battle. Then they would join with the celestial Sons of Light against the forces of darkness and evil. These sectarians, to the outside a quiet scholarly community sequestered by the Dead Sea, lived their days studying and commenting on scripture in order to perceive therein, hidden to all but the True Israel (that is, themselves), the divine plan for the end.”[80] Although the celibate community of the Essenes and their administrative headquarters were located at Qumran, they had a number of other settlements in Palestine that consisted of both men and women and their families. (It was mentioned previously that John the Baptist was probably an Essene and that his cousin, Jesus, may well have been one also.[81] Their families may also, therefore, have been Essenes.) Their primary place of worship was thought to be on Mt. Carmel, the same location where Elijah was said to have triumphed over the prophets of Baal. “According to Josephus the Essenes had settled ‘not in one city but in large numbers in every town’ ( Philo speaks of ‘more than four thousand living in Palestinian Syria’ ( and more precisely ‘in many cities of Judaea and in many villages grouped in great societies of many members’ ([82]

The rejoicing by the Essenes and others after Pompey conquered Jerusalem was short-lived, however. Shortly after his three month long conquest of Jerusalem he slaughtered twelve thousand Jews.[83] Pompey was later defeated by Julius Caesar who then appointed Antipater the Idumaean as chief minister of Judea with the right to collect taxes. Antipater later made his sons Phasael and Herod the Governors of Jerusalem and Galilee respectively. His pro-Roman politics, however, led to his increasing unpopularity among the devout, non-Hellenized Jews, and he was poisoned in 43 bc.. Julius Caesar was subsequently murdered by Brutus and Cassius in 44 bc and was succeeded by Mark Antony and Caesar’s nephew, Octavian. “Herod was determined to be King of the Jews and sole ruler of the land of Israel. In 40 BC he traveled to Rome and managed to convince Antony and Octavian to declare him ‘King of Judea’. They recognized that Herod was the only one capable of solidifying rule in Palestine and standing with them against the Parthians, who had invaded from the east. He returned to Palestine and began to subdue Galilee in the north, moved south into Samaria, and finally, with Roman legionary support, laid siege to Jerusalem. He ruthlessly slaughtered all who opposed him.. . . . . In 31 BC there was a devastating earthquake in Judea that left thirty thousand dead. Those who despised Herod and all he represented saw it as the beginning of God’s judgment upon the Jews for accommodating themselves to Roman rule. Octavian defeated Antony the same year, and one of his first acts as the new Emperor Augustus was to confirm Herod’s title, ‘King of the Jews’.[84] . . . Herod’s mother was Jewish but his father Antipater was a foreigner from Idumea to the east. To solidify his claim to be King of the Jews he married Mariamne, who was a descendent of the family of priests known as the Hashmoneans. although her family could not claim Davidic descent. Although he was a cruel leader, because of his massive building projects he was know to history as Herod the Great. Not only did he build a theater and amphitheater and his own extravagant palace in Jerusalem but also “in 22 BC Herod began construction of the new port city of Caesarea, named after Emperor Augustus. It was a vast and lavish twelve-year project that included a beautiful artificial harbor, a theater overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, a large hippodrome amphitheater, and his own royal palace. [Also] a massive temple to the goddess Roma and the honor of Augustus overlooked the harbor. . . . . Herod’s greatest project, began around the same time in 20 BC, involved a wholesale remodeling of the Temple in Jerusalem and an extensive expansion of its courts. According to Josephus he employed ten thousand workers to carry out the work. He never lived to see it completed but spared no expense to ensure that its extravagant beauty, accented with marble, gold, tapestries, and Corinthian columns, would rival any temple in the Roman world. ……Herod had nine wives and several dozen children. Jealousies, domestic quarrels, and fits of murder characterized his reign. In 7 BC he had his two older sons strangled and three hundred of their supporters murdered because he feared plots against him. The sons were royal heirs to the throne, children of his beloved Mariamne. Sometime later he had Mariamne executed on charges of committing adultery with his sister’s husband… . . In a final act of madness he had hundreds of leading officials and their families imprisoned in the hippodrome with orders that they be killed at his death so that every family in Jerusalem would have something to mourn when he passed. These orders were never carried out but they show the degree of Herod’s insane depravity at the end.”[85] .

The Pre-Easter Jesus – His Conception

There is no disagreement about Jesus’ mother. Both Scripture and Tradition agree that her name was Mary (Hebrew –Mariam) and that she was a very young woman when she became pregnant. The controversy centers around who his father was. The Gospel of Matthew puts it straightforwardly: