Jesus In India — Page 22
22 J e s u s i n I n d i a would be wrong to say that Jesus had actually died. True, words to this effect are of course found in the Gospels, but this is only the kind of mistake which the evangelists have also made in the recording of several other historical events. In the light of their research, commentators of the Gospels admit that the books of the New Testament can be divided into two parts: i. The religious teaching which the disciples received from Jesus; this constitutes the essence of the teachings of the Gospel. ii. Historical events, like the genealogy of Jesus, his arrest and his being beaten; the existence at the time of a miraculous pond, etc. , were recorded by the writers on their own authority. They were not revelations but were written down according to the writers’ own perceptions. At places, we find gross exaggerations, for instance, it is stated that if all the miracles and works of Jesus were put into writing, the world would not be big enough to accommodate them. What a hyperbole! On the other hand, it would be quite in keeping with common parlance to describe as death the traumatic shock suffered by Jesus. This kind of expression is almost universal. Whenever a man escapes from such a near-fatal experience, without any hesitation he is considered to have been given ‘a new life’. One thing more worth attention is that in the Gospel of Barnabas, which should be available in the London library, it is written that he was not put on the cross, nor did he die thereupon. We could very well point out that though this book is not included in the Gospels and has been rejected