RRR HHHEEE EEEAAALLL TTT JJJ EEESSSUUUSSS GARNER TED ARMSTRONG RRR TTTHHHEEE EEEAAALLL JJJ EEESSSUUUSSS GARNER TED ARMSTRONG COVER PHOTO: DOUBTING THOMAS BY CARAVAGGIO. WHEN JESUS ROSE FROM THE DEAD, THOMAS REFUSED TO BELIEVE IT UNTIL HE HAD SEEN AND PUT HIS FINGERS INTO THE NAIL MARKS IN JESUS’ HANDS, AND PUT HIS HAND IN HIS SIDE. JESUS LATER APPEARED TO THOMAS AND ASKED HIM TO TOUCH HIS WOUNDS. THOMAS THEN SAID ‘MY LORD AND MY GOD’. JESUS SAID THAT THOMAS BELIEVED BECAUSE HE HAD SEEN, BUT SAID THAT THOSE WHO BELIEVED BUT DID NOT SEE WERE BLESSED. 2 CONTENTS Introduction Chapter 1 The Birth of Jesus: The Greatest Story Never Told Chapter 2 Jesus the Creator--His Former Life Chapter 3 Jesus’ Childhood, Education and Early Life Chapter 4 Jesus and His Family Chapter 5 Jesus in Palestine--The Historical Facts Chapter 6 What Jesus Looked Like Chapter 7 Jesus and John the Baptist: Incongruous? Chapter 8 Choosing His Disciples Chapter 9 Water into Wine Chapter 10 Encounter with Satan Chapter 11 Jesus’ Faith 3 Chapter 12 Miracles and Healings-- Signs of His Messiahship Chapter 13 Demons Chapter 14 “That which is born of the Spirit is Spirit” Chapter 15 The Kingdom Parables Chapter 16 Confronting the Pharisees and Sadducees Chapter 17 Was Jesus a Lawbreaker? Chapter 18 Satan and Judas--The Mental Perversion Chapter 19 The Day the Earth Shook Chapter 20 A Step Through Stone 4 Introduction: Meet the Real Jesus It’s time you met the real Jesus. It’s time you knew Him as He was: sometimes brusque, abrupt and authoritative. Always thoughtful, philosophical and profound. It’s time you knew that Jesus could be the kindest and most gentle human being on earth, showing boundless love, mercy and forgiveness to those who genuinely asked for it and were in a repentant spirit. But it is time to recognize that Jesus could also radiate blazing anger and could hurl swift, incisive indictments at all posturing egotists, self-righteous religionists, simpering crowd followers, or even at His own beloved disciples when they got out of line. It’s time you knew that Jesus perspired just as you do; that He grew desperately hungry and tired; that He almost starved to death on one terrible occasion; that He suffered through the entire panorama of human temptations, passions and emotions which are common to us all; that He enjoyed food and drink; that He appreciated feminine beauty. 5 It’s time you knew that Christ could cry, shout, laugh and sing; that He could enjoy the rough camaraderie of men of His own age in an out-of-doors camp, or appreciate the glittering setting of fabulous feasts in the most palatial of estates. It’s time that you realized that Jesus was not a vagabond; that He was a professional builder in the construction business, combining the technology of “modern,” first-century engineering with the art of the skilled craftsman. It’s time you knew the Jesus who was admired by officers high in the Roman army, who became a puzzle to Pilate, who was hated by the Pharisees, greatly beloved by His disciples, held in awe by the masses, detested by Judas, deeply admired by a proud mother, intensely loved by John, rebuked by Peter, and who was just as intensely human as you are. Few know that Jesus was not born on or anywhere near December 25; --that, as a boy, Jesus learned a profession; that He became the senior member in a construction partnership; that He owned at least one and probably two homes of His own; that He paid taxes. --that Jesus slept indoors most of His life and frequently spent the night in the homes of very wealthy people, including Romans as well as religious opponents. --that He was a personal friend of con artists, soldiers, fishermen, cheats, liars, thieves, crooked politicians, religious leaders and prostitutes. 6 --that Jesus did not come to save the world some two thousand years ago, that He has not been trying to save it since, and that He is not trying to save it today. --that Jesus did not die of a broken heart; that He was not crucified on “Good Friday”; that He was not resurrected on “Easter Sunday”; that neither Jesus nor His disciples ever celebrated (or taught anyone to celebrate) Christmas or Easter. --that Jesus had to prove to doubting disciples by incontrovertible evidence that He had truly been resurrected. --that Jesus Christ is alive today, is planning to return to earth and has actually begun His “countdown” from heaven! If your own values are those of the common person, the real Jesus may insult you, shock you, please you, challenge you, inspire you, surprise you, make you wonder. But He will never bore you. 7 Chapter 1 The Birth of Jesus: The Greatest Story Never Told Jesus was born sometime in the late summer or early autumn of 4 B.C. The first time I ever made this statement to anyone I was viewed with a combination of doubt, incredulity, hostility and outright pity. “How in the world could Jesus have been born before Christ?” I was asked. It so happens that the present system in the Western Christian- professing world of counting years either prior to or subsequent to the event of our Savior’s birth was not established until the work 8 of Dionysius the Little, many, many centuries this side of the event. In the events surrounding Jesus’ birth, God managed to move a whole empire by causing the world leader of that time to establish an entirely new government bureau (the taxing and census bureau) which finally resulted in Joseph and Mary ending up in Bethlehem at the time of Jesus’ birth! Part of the requirement of the vast worldwide census-taking was each family returning to the city of its origin (“And all went to be taxed everyone (into) his own city” (Luke 2:3-4), so since the Bible claimed Joseph was of the lineage of David (as both genealogical records in Matthew and Luke prove) he had to journey with his wife who was in an advanced state of pregnancy from Nazareth to Bethlehem, which is called the “city of David.” The census in Palestine took place in our faulty chronological reckoning about the year 4 B.C. From early on, Mary understood that she was pregnant. She knew the meaning of the interruption of the normal menstrual cycle; after all, hadn’t an angel actually told her this would happen? Though it must have been nearly unbelievable, and there surely must have been moments of doubt, Mary’s training and deep religious education, including the quality of her own character and the deadly seriousness of the impending persecutions and her knowledge of glances of those in her own community, must have all been weighing heavily upon her mind as she contemplated her gradually changing form, slightly swelling belly, and growing breasts. Even though there probably had been many sessions between husband and wife, poring over those prophecies they knew referred to what was happening within the body of Mary herself, explaining why this shocking transformation in their own private 9 lives had turned their little world upside down, they did not have perfect understanding of many vague references later revealed by the gospel writers, and by Jesus Himself. Naturally, Joseph and Mary had been living with the pain of growing notoriety ever since friends and relatives learned of Mary’s pregnancy. They were fully prepared to accept it, as Mary’s humble statement, “Behold, the. handmaiden of the Lord,” clearly shows. Still, it was tough, and they were as human as you and I. Oh, there were close friends and relatives who knew the truth. After all, Elizabeth and Mary were cousins, and Elizabeth was carrying the baby who would grow up to become John the Baptist—both remembered the remarkable occasion when the two babies had reacted so obviously when the two expectant mothers met. Joseph and Mary could spend time with such people, away from the smirks and knowing stares of the hypocrites. But suffered when friends talked behind their backs; they hurt when former friends shunned them; they Probably had second, or even third, thoughts about the tremendous burden they had assumed, as would any other normal human beings. But they had the courage to see it through. It may have seemed a cruel twist of fate, to be required by the Romans to travel all that distance during the final, crucial month of pregnancy. It is clear that Joseph and Mary were not acting out any special predestined fulfillment of prophecy, or they would have seen the predictions that Christ was to be born in Bethlehem, and would have tried to travel earlier, at an easier time, and to have arranged accommodations more suitable than the hasty, last ditch improvisation of a manger. 10