Christ Conspiracy_ The Greatest Story Ever Sold - Acharya S [50]
Doherty addresses the problem of these so-called sacred sites:
In all the Christian writers of the first century, in all the devotion they display about Christ and the new faith, not one of them ever expresses the slightest desire to see the birthplace of Jesus, to visit Nazareth his home town, the sites of his preaching, the upper room where he held his Last Supper, the tomb: where he was buried and rose from the dead. These places are never mentioned! Most of all, there is not a hint of pilgrimage to Calvary itself, where humanity's salvation was consummated. How could such a place not have been turned into a shrine? Is it conceivable that Paul would not have wanted to run to the hill of Calvary, to prostrate himself on the sacred ground that bore the blood of his slain Lord? Surely he would have shared such an intense emotional experience with his readers! Would he not have been drawn to the Gethsemane garden, where Jesus was reported to have passed through the horror and the self-doubts that Paul himself had known? Would he not have gloried in standing before the empty tomb, the guarantee of his own resurrection? Is there indeed, in this wide land so recently filled with the presence of the Son of God, any holy place at all, any spot of ground where that presence still lingers, hallowed by the step, touch or word of Jesus of Nazareth? Neither Paul nor any other first century letter writer breathes a whisper of any such thing.
It is in reality inconceivable, particularly in consideration of the religious fanaticism evident even today, that such zealots as Paul and the other early Christians who were purportedly "dying for the faith" in droves were completely disinterested in such sacred sites and relics.
As to the value of the present sites claimed to provide evidence of the Christian story, it should be noted that, much to the dismay of the Christian orthodoxy, the Kashmir vale in India lays claim to the grave sites of both Moses and Jesus, who, as the wandering prophet Yuz Asaf, allegedly lived there for many years following his resurrection. The evidence may seem convincing to the uninitiated; however, "Yuz Asaf" is basically the same as "Joseph," which was often a title of a priest and not a name. In addition, some have attempted to place Jesus's "lost years" in India and/or Tibet, where the traveler Nicholas Notovitch purportedly received a text by Tibetan monks concerning Jesus's life and times. Notovich claimed that the contents of this text were written "immediately after the Resurrection." The manuscript itself was purported to date from the second or third century after the Christian Era and was certainly was not composed "immediately after the Resurrection." Even if it genuinely dated from the early centuries, the text itself says at the beginning, "This is what is related on this subject by the merchants who have come from Israel," thus demonstrating not that "Jesus"-or "Issa," as he is called there-lived in India but that the Jesus tradition was brought to India and Tibet by the extensive trading and brotherhood network that readily allowed for such stories to spread. The Notovich text has a cheery view of the Jews, throws the entire onus of the crucifixion on Pilate and the Romans, and was apparently written as not only Jewish but Buddhist propaganda, as evidenced by the following passage, designed to elevate Buddha above Jesus: "Six years later, Issa, whom the Buddha had chosen to spread his holy word, could perfectly explain the sacred rolls." One notable aspect of the text, however, is its pro-women exhortations, which are surely neither Jewish nor Christian.
Furthermore, it should be noted that there were innumerable "traveling prophets" throughout