Jesus In India — Page 23
J e s u s i n I n d i a 23 summarily, but there is no doubt that it is an ancient book, and was written at the same time as the other Gospels. Can’t we, therefore, view this book as an ancient chronicle and make use of it as an historical document? And can’t we conclude from this book that at the time when the event of the cross took place, people were not unanimous as to Jesus having died on the cross? Apart from this, the four Gospels themselves use metaphors describing a dead person as being asleep. It is not far from the point to suppose that coma has been described as death. As I have already mentioned, a prophet never lies. Jesus compared his three days’ stay in the tomb to the three days Jonah spent in the belly of the whale. This only shows that just as Jonah remained alive in the belly of the whale for three days, Jesus must also have been alive in the tomb for three days. It must be remembered here that the Jewish tombs in those days were not like the present-day tombs; they were spacious like a room and had an opening at one end covered with a big stone. I shall prove in due course that Jesus’ tomb, which has been recently discovered in Srinagar in Kashmir, is exactly similar to the one in which Jesus was placed in a state of swoon. In short, the verse I have just quoted shows that Jesus, after coming out of the sepulchre, went to Galilee. It is written in the Gospel of Mark that after coming out of the sepulchre, Jesus was seen on the road to Galilee, and in due course he met the eleven disciples who were at their meal; he showed them his hands and feet which bore wounds; they thought that he was perhaps a spirit. Then he said to them: ‘It is I myself; touch me and see for a spirit has no flesh and bones as I have. ’ Then he took a piece of broiled