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1.0 Preamble
There is a whole set of mysteries about Jesus Christ — aka Jesus
the Christ, Jesus the Messiah; or in various Hebrew-language variations,
Yahushua (literally, "Yahweh saves" or "Yahveh is salvation"), Yahshua, Yeshua,
Yesua; or in Greek, Iesous; in other languages, e.g., Isa, Issa — that
could allow us to create a category that we call in this website the Jesus
Mysteries.
... people seem fascinated by the mysterious and puzzling parts of the Bible.
This fascination really isn't new, because people have been trying for
centuries to "decode" the Bible — such as figuring who (or what) is
represented by 666, the "number of the beast" in the Book of Revelation. We may
never know (until the end of time, perhaps) how to decode 666, but this hasn't
stopped people from speculating.
People also love to speculate about other "coded" passages — such as John
21:11 [that is, The Gospel According to John, Chapter 21, Verse 11], which mentions that Jesus' disciples caught exactly
153 fish in their net. Was John simply reporting a literal fact (there were 153
fish in that net), or did 153 mean something else? Many great minds in Christian history were certain that the
number had deep spiritual meaning, but no one can agree on just what it was.
— J. Stephen Lang, Bible Secrets and Mysteries (Wheaton, Illinois: Tyndale
House Publishers, Inc., 2005)
2.0 YouTube Videos
Here are two sets of video clips from the popular video hosting site, YouTube... one set is a presentation by Dr. Craig Blomberg about the historical Jesus,
in which Dr. Blomberg assessed the past and present scholarly trends in the
search for the historical person of Jesus; this particular YouTube video comes
in 6 parts, probably due to the 10-minute limitation placed by YouTube. Dr.
Blomberg is apparently a specialist in the parables and the writings in the
Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles (both of these Biblical books are
said to have been written by a certain Biblical-time medical practitioner named
Luke). The Blomberg presentation is part of an August 2004 series called "Let
There Be Light".
The other set is from the John Ankerberg Show ... Dr. Ankerberg discussed with
two others — namely, Dr. Gary Habermas of Liberty University
(Lynchburg, Virginia) and Dr. Craig A. Evans of Acadia Divinity College
(Wolfville, Nova Scotia; "The Graduate School of Theology at Acadia
University") — five recent books on the historical Jesus. The books are:
The Gospel of Judas, The Da Vinci Code, The Jesus Dynasty, Misquoting Jesus,
and The Jesus Papers.
Tags: God Religion Spirituality Christianity Bible New Testament Jesus Christ
Reurrection Da Vinci Code Gospel of Judas News History
3.0 Postscript
It is doubtful that we would ever solve all the mysteries surrounding Jesus that in this website we have chosen to categorize as the Jesus Mysteries ... unless Jesus Himself solves the whole thing for us! In any case, let us not fall into anything resembling what I have referred to as The Fringe' ... and in the matter of the Jesus Mysteries, the Fringe includes not only the New Age Movement that uses Biblical terms and ideas, but also other apparently 'mainstream' religions that also use many Biblical terms and ideas but have deviated from the Bible in very significant ways — you know who you are! — so that there is little need even to name these religions since their presence is so obvious.
Please do not assume or conclude that, just because I present many views (in
the form of textual notes and video clips) on this website, it means that I am
in agreement with or that I believe in the views offered-proferred ... That
would be displaying such a parochial and provincial attitude, towards this
website and towards me as well!
As an ex-military officer, I assure you that I am in the habit of reading,
viewing and digesting lots of stuff that I don't necessarily believe in ... We
call all the stuff we read, view and digest, 'military intelligence' ... The
same applies with 'business intelligence' in the business world, of course.
Our aim, as usual, is to find out what others (including our friends, enemies,
competitors, suppliers, strategic partners, business partners, etc.) believe in
... In order to do that effectively, we have to 'get out of the way', so to
speak ... we have to remove our humongous ego! ... else we will never ever
really have gotten started in our journey of exploration and discovery of the
Mysteries of the World
.
Here is a sentiment that I am wholeheartedly in agreement with ...
As I sit down to redo this book for an American audience, what rises before me
is last night's dream: I'm in a broad and beautiful land among many trees. It's
night. I look up at a huge old tree that's dark against the starry sky in its
detail of twig and branch. There is room enough here for all of us, I realize,
here in this big, intricately textured park. But I see that some want to cut
down the trees and level it out, so huge throngs of people can gather to gaze
up at the sun's glare. I watch dark twigs fingering the remote, untouchable
stars. A voice speaks: "Don't turn this into a Copernican Garden."
Waking up, I remember that I went to sleep wondering how to put this book
together. And I take "Copernican Garden" to mean a parking lot vista where
masses gather to honor the bright sun of traditional science with its old rules
as the center of the universe.
So I will not cut down the trees and level this book out. It is between you and
me [or you and I], a conversation as we stroll along in a moonlit fractal
garden past webby connections of thought that merge to patterned insight. Here
hidden delights nestle in scaling patterns of self-similar but never quite
repeating beauty. Here the tree of life hold stars in its branches. No matter
how huge, this garden stays human-sized because we have a place in it, you and
I. No need to cut down the connective forest and level things out for that
bright Sol [sun] of left-brain logic whose daytime dazzle — so
close and glaring — can blind us to the myriad constellations
beyond.
[...]
— Katya Walter,
Tao of Chaos
Sub-title:
Merging East and West
(1994, 1996)
Here is an observation (adapted) made in the Acknowledgement page of a book ...
It takes many minds to produce a book [including an e-book, of course].
Although most authors [especially of non-fiction books and articles] would
prefer not to admit this fact, fundamentally they are merely 'synthesisers' of
accumulated knowledge.
The process of synthesising may unveil a new reality map, or paradigm, which,
in due course, will be used by future pioneers to unveil further paradigms.
This principle was summed up by Sir Isaac Newton when he remarked: "If I have
seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants".
[...]
— Christian von Nidda,
Our Secret Planet
(2005)
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Mysteries Blog
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to our webpages and 'web articles'
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As stated in our
Mysteries Blog
, the 'Mysteries of the World' Website does NOT aim to sensationalize any
particular 'Mystery', although we will examine and explore all possible
viewpoints pertaining to each 'Mystery' — including the fringe
AND the mainstream.
We will, of course, come to a conclusion (eventually!) about each 'Mystery' ...
even if that conclusion may eventually turn out to be 'as yet unresolved' or
'unexplained to our satisfaction'.
