The Post-Easter
Jesus – His Empty Tomb and Resurrection
In this
section we are dealing with the heart and soul of what Christianity is all
about. As
For I handed on to you as of first
importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in
accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised
on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to
Cephas [i.e., Peter] then to the twelve.
Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one
time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. Then he appeared to James [the brother of the
Lord], then to all the apostles. Last of
all, he appeared also to me. (1 Corinthians 15:3-8)
And to reinforce the importance of his
resurrection he told them further that:
Now if Christ is proclaimed as
raised from the dead, how can some of you say there is no resurrection of the
dead? If there is no resurrection of the
dead, then Christ has not been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, then
our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain. . . . But in
fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have
died. For since death came through a
human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being;
for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ. But each in his own order: Christ the first
fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he hands over the
kingdom to God the Father, after he has destroyed every ruler and every
authority and power. For he must reign
until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For God has put all things in subjection
under his feet. (1
Corinthians 15:12-27 passim)
Modern
scholarship, however, questions the existence of his empty tomb on the Sunday
following his burial the preceding Friday.
Even on the initial discovery of the empty tomb by Mary Magdalene and
the other Mary, who ran back to tell his disciples about the disappearance of
his body, some of the guards who had also observed that the tomb was empty “went into the city and told the chief
priests everything that had happened.
After the priests had assembled with the elders, they devised a plan to
give a large sum of money to the soldiers, telling them, ‘You must say, ‘his
disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep.’ If this comes to the governor’s ears, we will
satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.’
So they took the money and did as they were directed. And this story is still told among the Jews
to this day.” (Matthew 28:11-15). This
story even persisted long afterward.
Concurring in a theory first published by Hermann Samuel Reimarus in
1778, Albert Schweitzer wrote in 1906
that Jesus’ disciples decided after his death “Why not then continue
this mode of life? They would surely
find a sufficient number of faithful souls who would join them in directing
their hopes toward a second coming of the Messiah, and while awaiting the
future glory, would share possessions with them. So they stole the body of Jesus and hid it,
and proclaimed to all the world that he would soon return. They prudently waited, however, for fifty
days to make this announcement, in order that the body, if it should be found,
might be unrecognizable.”[1] Another tale of removal surfaced during the 2nd
century that claimed it was the gardener who had an available tomb close to his
vegetable patch. He told those who took
him from the cross to place him there.
Then fearing that crowds of people coming to the site might trample his
garden he moved him to another tomb.[2] The 20th century Jesus Seminar
scholars reject the idea of the empty tomb altogether. The majority voted all four gospel stories
using black beads meaning “This information is improbable. It does not fit verifiable evidence; it is
largely or entirely fictive.”[3]
One of their well-known members, John Dominic Crossan, even “suggested that
Jesus may not have been taken down from the cross and buried properly,
according to Jewish custom; or that, if his body had been taken down, it may
have been thrown in a ditch, covered with lime, and left for carrion for
animals.”[4]
The
second attempt by historians to explain the empty tomb was to assume that Jesus
didn’t actually die on the cross but fell into a coma from which he later
revived. The most well known of these
resuscitation speculations was written in a two book volume by Herbert Paulus
in the early 19th century.[5] As recounted by Albert Schweitzer in his book
on the historical Jesus: “The lance thrust merely served the purpose of a
phlebotomy [a medicinal letting of blood].
The cool grave and the aromatic unguents continued the process of
resuscitation, until finally the storm and the earthquake aroused Jesus to full
consciousness. Fortunately the
earthquake had also the effect of rolling away the stone from the mouth of the
grave. The Lord stripped off the grave
clothes and put on a gardener’s dress which He managed to procure. That was what made Mary, as we are told in
John xx.15, take him for the gardener.
Through the women, He sends a message to His disciples bidding them meet
him in
A later 20th century writer, Hugh
Schonfield, believes not only that Jesus survived his crucifixion but that he
also (possibly with the assistance of Joseph of Arimathea and others, not
including his disciples or the women he was closest to), was responsible for
seeing that all that had been foretold by the prophets about the Messiah was
fulfilled by him. “It is well to remind ourselves that Jesus was positive that
he was the Messiah of Israel and applied himself in a remarkable manner to
carrying out the predictions as he understood them. . . There can be no clear
proof but we are entitled to imagine him, as we have done, regaining
consciousness after he was taken from the tomb, and using these precious
minutes to beg his friends to deliver a message to his disciples. He would repeat what was so much a part of
him, the Scriptures relating to his suffering and revival. ‘Tell them these things’ he may have urged.
‘They must believe. Tell them that when
I have risen I will meet them in
As they entered the tomb, they saw a young
man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were
alarmed. But he said to them, “Do not be
alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of
(Mark 16:5-8)
At this point Mark, the earliest of the gospel
writers, ends his account. Additional
endings were added later to be more in keeping with the other gospel writers’
confirmation of the empty tomb by his disciples and his post-Easter appearances
to them and to others. The fact that the
other gospel accounts of the empty tomb and appearances display marked
dissimilarity attest to their not copying stories from each other or from
Mark’s gospel. As discussed earlier,
however, both Matthew’s and Luke’s gospels do contain passages not found in
Mark but in an unknown document scholars have named the Q gospel. There is a reference in that gospel that
reports Jesus as saying, “Unless you carry your own cross and follow me, you
are not worthy.” However, a footnote on
this passage by the editors states that: “The Romans crucified two thousand
Jews during the rebellion that followed King Herod the Great’s death in 4
B.C.E., so Jesus’ followers were well-acquainted with crucifixion even before
his death. It was a common practice in
these executions to have the condemned person carry his own cross to the place
of crucifixion.”[8] There are no references in that document
however to Jesus’ death and resurrection.
It is
not surprising, however, that in spite of the unanimous reports by all of the
gospel writers that the tomb where Jesus was laid on Friday was found empty on
Sunday morning that the Jesus Seminar
scholars were skeptical not only about the empty tomb but also about his
subsequent appearances to Mary Magdalene, his disciples and others. These New
Testament historians nearly always attribute any identification of Jesus as the
Messiah or the Son of God as editorial redaction since all of the gospels were
written 40 to 60 years after his death and resurrection and therefore represent
embellishment of stories claiming him to be divine. Therefore, “On the basis of the aggregate
evidence of these stories and reports, the Jesus Seminar agreed that the resurrection of Jesus did not involve
the resuscitation of a corpse [and] If the resurrection of Jesus did not
involve the resuscitation of a corpse and if a christophany [a vision of
Christ] had developed out of an angelophany [a vision of an angel], it follows
that: Belief in Jesus’ resurrection did
not depend on what happened to his body. . . In view of the nature of the
appearances and the late emergence of stories representing the resurrection as
physical and palpable, the Seminar concluded: The body of Jesus decayed as do other corpses. All the evidence, when taken together, seemed
to suggest that The resurrection was not
an event that happened on the first Easter Sunday; it was not an event that
could have been recorded by a video camera.
The Seminar followed this trail of evidence to its conclusion, which
they formulated as follows: Since the
earlier strata of the New Testament contain no appearance stories, it does not
seem necessary for Christian faith to believe the literal veracity of any of
the later narratives. [9]
(The above portions highlighted in bold type are shown in red type in the
quoted document signifying “The historical reliability of this information is
virtually certain. It is supported by a
preponderance of evidence.”)
To
counter the conclusions stated above by the Jesus Seminar scholars one has only
to note that 1 in 3 persons living on earth today identify themselves as
Christian (about 2.1 billion out of 6.3 billion people) and ask how it would be
possible for this explosive growth to occur without the testimony of many
hundreds of eyewitnesses to the reality of his resurrection 2,000 years
ago. Surely something earth-shaking and
unforgettable occurred in
From the readings of Edgar Cayce, for example,
we read that Mark’s gospel, the earliest to be circulated, was written by John
Mark, the son of Marcus and Josie. His
mother Josie was the sister of Jesus’ mother Mary. Further we learn that John Mark was healed of
an infirmity at age twelve by his associations with his cousins John the
Baptist and Jesus. He was the one at whose house Peter the apostle came when he
was released from prison and also was a companion of Peter in his travels after
Jesus’ resurrection. Later he was an associate and companion of the apostle
Paul and Barnabus. He was the first
compiler of a letter that became know as Mark in collaboration with the eye
witnesses Peter and Barnabus. Cayce goes
on to tell us that Mark’s gospel was written during the year 59 A.D. during
Mark’s 34th year.[10] Matthew’s gospel, as noted earlier, borrowed
heavily from Mark’s gospel. However, the
Cayce records also tell us that there had been some distribution of the acts,
life and deeds of Jesus that “had been carried to many of the various
[Christian] groups before Mark’s was accepted, and before Matthew’s was given
was written some eighteen years later. [i.e.,
77 A. D.] [Furthermore, we are told that while Matthews and Mark’s gospels share many of the same sayings and stories –
the Q Gospel perhaps] Matthew was written from the churches in Pamphylia while
Mark wrote from
In
another of Cayce’s readings we are told that the gospel of Luke was actually written
by a kinsman of Luke named Lucius, whose name was often confused with that of
Luke. Moreover, they frequently traveled
together and after the conversation of Saul (thereafter known as Paul) they
both were closely associated with him and his activities. Hence not only the
gospel of Luke but also the book of Acts, which is primarily about Paul and his
journeys, was written by Lucius.[12] Although neither John Mark, Luke, or Lucius
was among the original twelve apostles of Jesus, all were among the seventy
disciples sent out two by two’s to heal the sick and preach the good news of
the kingdom according to Luke’s gospel (Chapter 10:1-17) just as the original
twelve were sent out two by two’s described in all three of the synoptic
gospels. They therefore undoubtedly were
among the many eye-witnesses to Jesus’ post-Easter appearances. Cayce does not tell us who wrote John’s
gospel although tradition attributes it to the beloved disciple, John, to whom
Jesus from the cross gave the responsibility of caring for his mother. Cayce affirms that at the time of Jesus’
ascension, fifty days after his resurrection, she became a dweller in his home
near
The most compelling reason, however, for accepting the
general validity of the gospel stories concerning Jesus’ death and resurrection
is not to question whether or not the gospel writers were eye-witnesses to
these events but rather to recall briefly the stories told in the gospels about
Jesus before Easter Sunday – i.e., the
nature of the pre-Easter Jesus that prefigured the post-Easter Jesus. Therein Jesus is described as a man who could
not only heal the infirm and sick, restore the sight to the blind, who on two
occasions fed crowds of 4 to5 thousand people with a few loaves of bread and
pieces of fish, and who changed water into wine, but also a man who could walk
on water, still the winds and the waves on the Sea of Galilee, and who on more
than one occasion would simply disappear when the Jewish authorities tried to
seize him. To describe “What Manner of
Man is This” who could do all these things Marcus Borg – one of the Jesus
Seminar scholars – simply says that “The most crucial fact about Jesus was that
he was a spirit person, a mediator of
the sacred; one of those persons in human history to whom the Spirit was an
experiential reality.”[14] In his footnote to this quotation he further
explains that “In Christian terms, Spirit
is synonymous with God, so long as
God is understood as an experiential reality and not as a distant being.”[15] In other words although God is a transcendent
being, he is also immanent not only within Jesus but within all of his
creation. Borg uses the word panentheism
to emphasize this dual nature. Jesus talks about his “Father which art in
Heaven” and then tells us about his immanence by announcing that “the kingdom
of heaven is within you” (Luke
Dr.
Borg goes on to explain that Judaism has had a long history of people who were spirit persons: “Abraham and Jacob had
visions of God and other paranormal experiences.”[16] Many of their prophets like Isaiah and Elijah
were also inspired by the Spirit of God. “Closer to the time of Jesus there
were a number of Jewish holy men or spirit persons. Best known are Honi, the Circle Drawer, and
Hanina ben Dosa, both of whom were famed for their contemplative prayer and
their ability as ‘miracle workers’.”[17] There are also instances in the Old Testament
of men being taken up into heaven without tasting death. For example, when Enoch was 365 years old, he
“walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him.” (Genesis
The
resurrection of Jesus, on the other hand, was of an entirely different
character. When Mary Magdalene stood
weeping outside the empty tomb Sunday morning, a man she assumed to be the
gardener said to her: “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” and
“she said to him, “Sir, if you have taken him away, tell me where you have laid
him, and I will take him away.” Then
Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned to him and said to him in Hebrew,
“Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher). Jesus
said to her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the
Father. But go to my brothers and say to
them, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.”
(John 20:15-18). Edgar Cayce explains
this further in one of his readings: “The body that was seen by the normal or
carnal eye of Mary was such that it could not be handled until there had been
the conscious union with the sources of all power, of all force. But afterward – when there had been the
second, the third, the fourth and even the sixth meeting – he then said [to
Thomas] ‘Put forth thy hand and touch the nail prints in my hands, in my
feet. Thrust thy hand into my side and
believe.’ This indicated the transformation.
For as indicated, when the soul departs from the body (this is not being
spoken of the Christ, you see),it has
all the form of the body from which it has past, yet it is not visible to the
carnal mind unless that mind has been, and is, attuned to the infinite. Then it appears, in the infinite, as that
which may be handled, with the appetites, until these have been accorded to a
unit of activity with universal consciousness.
Just as it was with the Christ body, ‘Children do you have anything here
to eat?’ This indicated to the disciples and the apostles present that this was
not transmutation but regeneration, recreation of the atoms and cells of the
body that might, through desire, masticate material things; hence fish and
honey were given.”[19]
Sometimes this regenerated body is called the “glorified body”.
What you so does not come to life unless it
dies. . . So it is with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable, what is raised is
imperishable. It is sown in dishonor, it
is raised in glory. It is sown in
weakness, it is raised in power. It is
sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a physical body, there is also a
spiritual body. Thus it is written, “The first man, Adam, became a living
being; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual that is first,
but the physical, and then the spiritual.
The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from
heaven . . . Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we will also
bear the image of the man of heaven.”[20]
When
the two men who the Lord met and talked with him on their walk to Emmaus
returned to
The Post-Easter Jesus – The Early Church
At
their last supper together Jesus told his disciples that to fulfill the
prophesies it was necessary for him to leave them and return to his Father’s
house: “Because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your
hearts. Nevertheless I tell you the
truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the
Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.” (John 16:
4-7) “When the Advocate comes, whom I
will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father,
he will testify on my behalf. You are
also to testify because you have been with me from the beginning.” (John
15:26-27). As Jesus told his disciples
at his ascension to “stay in the city until you have been clothed from power
from on high”, they returned to
“Now
there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in
Following the bestowing of the Holy Spirit on
the apostles and the rest of the 120 present in the upper room in Jerusalem on
the day of Pentecost it should be noted that nearly all others, who shortly
thereafter were baptized in the name of Jesus and received the gift of the Holy
Spirit, were Jews. Even all of the
original twelve apostles were Jews.
Likewise, before Jesus was crucified he sent out the twelve apostles two-by-twos
and instructed them: ‘Go nowhere among the Gentiles and enter no town of the
Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel’ (Matthew
10:5-6) Thus these early, largely Jewish, followers of Jesus continued the
practice of circumcision of newly born male children, the observance of the
laws prescribed by the Torah and the observance of the Passover and other
feasts required of all Jews.
Nevertheless, the behavior of some of them continued to upset some of
the Sadducees and priests in the temple.
For example, one day when the apostles Peter and John were going up to
the temple at the hour of prayer, they observed a man lame from birth being
carried to the temple gate so that he could ask for alms from those entering
the temple. When he saw Peter and John about to go in the temple, he asked them
for alms. “But Peter said, ‘I have no
silver or gold, but what I have I give you; in the name of Jesus Christ of
Nazareth, stand up and walk And he took
him by the right hand and raised him up.; and immediately his feet and ankles
were made strong. Jumping up, he stood
and began to walk, and he entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and
praising god. . While Peter and John
were speaking with the people [who witnessed his instant healing] the priests,
the captain of the temple, and the Sadducees came to them, much annoyed because
they were teaching the people and proclaiming that in Jesus there is
resurrection of the dead. So they
arrested them and put them in custody until the next the next day, for it was
already evening. But many of those who
heard the word believed; and they numbered about five thousand.”[23]
It
soon became apparent simply because of the numbers of those who had been
baptized in the name of Jesus and who lived in
Not
long afterward “Saul, still breathing
threats and murders against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest
and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus so that if he found any
who belonged to the Way, men or women,
he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.
Now as he was going along and approaching
Damascus, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice
saying to him, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?’ He asked, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ The reply
came, ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.
But get up and enter the city and you will be told what to do.’ Saul got up from the ground, and though his
eyes were open, he could see nothing; [the men who were with him] led him by
the hand and brought him to Damascus.
For three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank.” (Acts
9:1-9) Then the Lord contacted a
disciple in Damascus by the name of Ananias and instructed him where to find
Saul and lay his hands on him that he might regain his sight. “But Ananias answered, ‘Lord, I have heard
from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints in
Jerusalem; and here he has the authority from the chief priests to bind all who
invoke your name.’ But the Lord said to
him, ‘Go, for he is an instrument whom I have chosen to bring my name before
the Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel; I myself will show him
how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.’ So Ananias went and entered
the house. He laid his hands on Saul and
said, ‘Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on your way here, has
sent me to you that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy
Spirit.’ And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and his
sight was restored. Then he got up and
was baptized, and after taking some food, he regained his strength.” (Acts 9:
13-19). Thus began the career of the man
who unquestionly had more influence on the spread of early Christianity than
any other man. This dramatic change from
an ardent opponent of the followers of Jesus to one of its most eloquent and
inspirational leaders is known to history as the conversion of St. Paul. (Saul was his Jewish name and Paulus was his Roman name.)
Following
his stay in Damascus after his conversion and baptism Paul first went to Arabia and then
came back to Damascus (Galatians
1:17). According to Acts, his preaching in the local synagogues
got him into trouble there, and he was forced to escape, being let down over
the wall in a basket (Acts 9:23).
Then three years after his conversion he went to Jerusalem where he met James,
the Lord’s brother, and stayed with Simon Peter
for fifteen days (Galatians
1:13–24). According to Acts he then apparently attempted to join the
disciples and was accepted only owing to the intercession of Barnabas
— they were all understandably afraid of him as one who had been a persecutor
of the Church (Acts 9:26–27).
Again, according to Acts, he got into trouble for disputing with
"Hellenists" (i.e., Koine
speaking Jews) so he was sent back to Tarsus.
Meanwhile, in spite of Paul’s charge by the risen Christ to “bring his
word before the Gentiles” the mission to the non-Jewish world actually begins
with Phillip, one of the newly chosen deacons, who went to the city of Samaria
and proclaimed the Messiah and the good news of the kingdom to the people
there. Those who believed what he said,
both men and women, were baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. “Now when the apostles in Jerusalem heard
that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them
[and] they laid their hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit. Now after Peter and John had testified and
spoken the word of the Lord, they returned to Jerusalem, proclaiming the good
news to many villages of the Samaritans.” (Acts 8:14-25 passim)
Next
Peter was called in the Spirit to contact a man named Cornelius who lived in
Caeserea, not far from Damascus in Syria.
Cornelius in turn had a vision to contact a certain Simon who was called
Peter who at the moment was lodging with Simon, a tanner, whose house was by
the seaside in Joppa. So he then sent two of his slaves there to tell Peter
that their master “was directed by a holy angel to send for you to come to his
house and to hear what you had to say. So Peter invited them in and gave them
lodging.” (Acts 10:22-23). The next day
in accordance with his vision Peter and some of the believers at Joppa set out for Caesarea to meet with Cornelius.
Upon his arrival he “found that many had been assembled; and he said to them,
‘You yourselves know that it is unlawful for a Jew to associate with or to
visit a Gentile; but God [in a vision] has shown me that I should not call
anyone profane or unclean. So when I was
sent for, I came without objection.” (Acts 10:27-29). Peter then proceeded to tell them about the
life of Jesus of Nazareth, how he was put to death by crucifixion, but rose
again on the third day and appeared “not to all people but to us who were
chosen by God as witnesses, and who ate and drank with him after he rose from
the dead. He commanded us to preach to
the people and to testify that he is the one ordained by God as judge of the
living and the dead. All the prophets
testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of
sins through his name. While Peter was
still speaking, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the word. The circumsised believers who had come with
Peter were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even
on the Gentiles, for they heard them speaking in tongues and extolling
God. Then Peter said, ‘Can anyone
withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit
just as we have?’ So he ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus
Christ. Then they invited him to stay
for several days.” (Acts 10: 41-48).
“Now those [Jews] who were scattered because of
the persecution that took place over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia,
Cyprus, and Antioch, and they spoke the word to no one except Jews. But among them were some men of
“Then
certain individuals came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers,
‘Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be
saved,’ and after Paul and Barnabus had no small dissention and debate with
them they and some of the others were appointed to go up to Jerusalem to
discuss this question with the apostles and the elders. When they came to
Shortly thereafter Barnabus and Paul
accompanied by Silas and Judas who were chosen by the apostles and the elders
to deliver their findings orally and by letter to the church at
Following this hearing, Paul continued his
preaching, usually called his "third missionary journey" (Acts
18:23–21:26), traveling again through Asia Minor and Macedonia,
to Antioch and back. He caused a great uproar in the theatre in Ephesus,
where local silversmiths feared loss of income due to Paul's activities. Their
income relied on the sale of silver statues (idols) of the goddess Artemis,
whom they worshipped; the resulting mob almost killed Paul (Acts 19:21–41)
and his companions. Later, as Paul was passing near Ephesus on his way to Jerusalem,
Paul chose not to stop, since he was in haste to reach Jerusalem by Pentecost.[41]
The church here, however, was so highly regarded by Paul that he called the
elders to Miletus to meet with him (Acts 20:16–38).
When they came to him, he said to them: ‘As a captive to the Spirit, I am on my
way to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there, except that the
Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city that imprisonment and persecutions
are waiting for me. But I do not count
my life of any value to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry
that I have received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the good news of God’s
grace. . . When he had finished speaking, he knelt down with them all and
prayed. There was much weeping among
them all; they embraced Paul and kissed him [knowing] that they would not see
him again.” (Acts 20:17-38 passim), From Miletus he sailed to Syria and landed at
Tyre. From there he went briefly to Ptolemais and then on to Caesarea where the
prophet Agabus predicts Paul’s imprisonment soon after entering Jerusalem. This third missionary journey was circa
54-57 A D,
Upon his arrival in Jerusalem, the Apostle Paul provided
a detailed account to James and the Elders regarding his ministry among the
Gentiles and they praised God for the report which they received. Afterward the
elders informed him of rumors that had been circulating, which stated that he
was teaching Jews to forsake observance of the Mosaic law
and the customs of the Jews, including circumcision. To rebut these rumors, the
elders asked Paul to join with four other men in performing the vow of
purification according to Mosaic law, in order to disprove the accusations of
the Jews. Paul agreed, and proceeded to perform the vow. He then laid
plans for another missionary journey, intending to leave Jerusalem
for Rome
and
Not only was
Followers of astrology are fond of pointing out
that the sign of Pisces (meaning “fish”) is also used to designate the era
beginning with the birth of Jesus in roughly 1 A D and being succeeded around
the year 2,000 by the age of Aquarius (which is the sign in the zodiac following
Pisces due to the precession of the equinox in a counter-clockwise
direction.) The sign preceding Pisces
was Aries, the Ram, which symbolized the lamb whose blood was smeared over the
doorpost and lintels of all Jews the night before their exodus across the
Even some of the Christian
apostles remaining in
Even some of the Christian
apostles remaining in
Later
another one of the apostles, James, the Lesser, was put to death in 62 A D by
the high priest Annas, the son of the Annas who had presided at the trial of
Jesus.
Great Revolt that began as a result of Greeks sacrificing birds in
front of a local synagogue in
The historians “Eusebius and Epiphanius preserved a tradition that
the
The
churches established in
the Jews in