Jesus In India — Page 35
CHAPTER ONE 25 was a miracle, it was no ordinary thing; but it would be wrong to say that Jesus, the Messiah, had actually died. It is true, that words to this effect are found in the Gospels, but this is only the kind of mistake which the Evangelists have also made in the record- ing of many 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: 1. One part is the religious teaching which the disciples received from Jesus, the Messiah, may peace be on him; this con- stitutes the essence of the Gospel. 2. And the second part are the historical events, like the gene- alogy of Jesus, and his being arrested and being beaten; and the existence at the time of Jesus, the Messiah, of a miraculous pond, etc. These are those matters that were recorded by the writers on their own authority. So these are not revelations but have been written down according to the writers' own perceptions. And at places, we find also gross exaggerations, for instance, it is stated at one place that if all the works done by Jesus, the Messiah, meaning the miracles he showed, were put into writing in books, the world would not be big enough to accommodate those books. What an extreme exaggeration. Quite apart from this, it would be quite in keeping with com- mon parlance to describe as death the traumatic shock suffered by Jesus, the Messiah. This kind of expression is found in almost all peoples. Whenever a man escapes from such a near-fatal experi- ence, without any hesitation he is considered to have been given 'a new life. And there is no artificiality associated with this type of an expression among the people of any nation or country. After all these matters, one thing more worthy of attention