“For God so loved the world…”
This famous verse is the most concise expression of Christianity. So, if God so loved the world, did his only begotten son ever attempt to take his message to the world? The gospels tell us that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, grew up in Nazareth, did his business in Galilee, Judea and surrounding areas, and was crucified just outside of Jerusalem. His entire life transpires within a one-hundred-mile radius of his birthplace.
But did it?
Apart from two fleeting mentions in Luke—first as the 12-year-old debating scholars at the Temple, and then the baptism by John at age 30—the gospels are loudly silent about Jesus’s formative years, adolescence, and young adulthood, a period commonly known as the missing years. Inevitably, many legends have proliferated in this huge information gap. But where the gospels are mum, other sources shout from heaven. For instance, the non-canonical Infancy Gospel of Thomas, a biographical book about the childhood of Jesus (not to be confused with the Gospel of Thomas), contains myriad miracles and accounts that are also referenced in the Qur’an, albeit peppered with fanciful and oftentimes malevolent supernatural events…probably the reason it was altogether left out of the Christian canon.
So, what did Jesus do? Where did Jesus go? What did Jesus say? Here’s a list of a few places he is thought to have visited, most of which are never mentioned in the Bible. If you think you can add to them or shed more light, we’d like to hear from you in the comments.
1. Hades
Where did Jesus spend the night of Good Friday? To quote televangelist Joel Osteen, senior pastor of Lakewood Church, “The Bible indicates that for three days, Jesus went into the very depths of hell. Right into the enemy’s territory. And He did battle with Satan face to face. Can you imagine what a showdown that was? It was good versus evil. Right versus wrong. Holiness versus filth. Here the two most powerful forces in the universe have come together to battle for the first time in history. But thank God! The Bible says Satan was no match for our Champion. This was no contest. Jesus crushed Satan’s head with His foot. He bruised his head. And He once and for all, forever, defeated and dethroned and demoralised our enemy!”
This was the Easter service message on 23 April 2000. Many believers are equally certain that Jesus descended into hell. (See Article 5 of the Apostles’ Creed: “He descended into hell. The third day he arose again from the dead.”)
However, some Bible teachers and scholars hold that there is no textual basis in the New Testament for claiming that Jesus was preaching to souls imprisoned in hell between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. As a matter of fact, the clause “descended into hell” does not appear in The Old Roman Form—the earliest creed of the Roman Church. But there is a textual basis for saying, “I say to thee, this day shalt thou be with me in paradise.” (Luke 23:43). One does not get the impression that Jesus is talking about a defective place from which the thief must then be delivered by more preaching. While the notion that Jesus descended into hell is not in itself heretical, the belief that Jesus engaged Satan in an epic battle in hell to complete the work of atonement most certainly is. In Acts 2:31 we read, “Foreseeing this, he spoke of the resurrection of Christ. For neither was he left in hell, neither did his flesh see corruption.” Turns out that Jesus went to hades, which in the Greek signifies the world of the departed—paradise for some, pain for others. When the Apostles’ Creed took its English form in the sixteenth century, “hell” meant hades as such, rather than the final state of the lost (which Jesus called ‘gehenna’) as it always is today.
2. England
And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England’s mountains green:
And was the holy Lamb of God
On England’s pleasant pastures seen?
Thus opens England’s de facto national anthem, first published as the poem ‘And Did Those Feet in Ancient Time?’ by William Blake in 1808 and later set to music as the celebrated hymn ‘Jerusalem’ by Sir Hubert Parry in 1916. It has since become a staple of modern British culture. The hymn memorialises the enduring legend that, as a boy, Jesus travelled to England with his sailor-trader great-uncle Joseph of Arimathea on a merchant voyage to procure Cornish tin.
A deeper level of this narrative is suggested in the documentary ‘And Did Those Feet’, which explores the story behind the legend. In the film, Scottish researcher Dr Gordon Strachan says it is plausible that Jesus may have visited Britain to further his learning. Dr Strachan was a Church of Scotland minister, theologian, university lecturer, and author, as well as a trained architect and researcher of ancient church history and contemporary spirituality, and widely regarded as a radical thinker with unorthodox views. He claims in the film that Jesus may have travelled to Britain during his lost years to study with the Druids, and also explores how St Augustine happened upon the legend on his visit to England in 597 CE. When he heard that Jesus built a chapel in Glastonbury, he wrote to the Pope to tell him about it.
3. Kenya
If ever you were to encounter a native of Vihiga County in western Kenya, come prepared for the anecdote of your life, because they love to recount the story of the time God himself, taking the form of his only begotten son, passed through their land. They even have as evidence a preserved vestige revered as a cast of his foot in case you are inclined to be a Doubting Thomas.
The stone, called Gevera, bears distinct footprints as well as imprints of a machete and a padlock. It also bears faint markings of the numerals 2, 5, 14, and 17. Residents believe the marks were left by Jesus and his disciples when they visited the nearby Itenji village. The machete imprint is alleged to have been made by the sword Peter used to cut off the ear of the soldier who tried to arrest Jesus. The padlock apparently secures the Ten Commandments that God gave to Moses. The symbolic import of the digits on the rock is attached to the end of days as outlined in Revelation. The rock also has visible writings whose message visitors from around the world have failed to decipher, “...not unless by the power of God,” say locals.
4. India
In downtown Srinagar, a decrepit stone monument constructed in the traditional fashion of Kashmiri multi-tiered sloping roofs peers bashfully from the anonymity of a street corner. This modest shrine, known locally as Rozabal, is reputed to accommodate the corporeal remnants of one of India’s most important visitors of all time.
According to Islamic tradition, Jesus survived the crucifixion and swiftly got out of Dodge. A growing number of fanatics now believe that in Srinagar is incontrovertible proof that he sat out his last days in Kashmir, and his remains are interred within this underwhelming erection in a city littered with mausoleums. Officially, the ossuary with a gravestone covered in green cloth belongs to Youza Asaph (or Issa Yuz Asaph, according to the controversial Ahmadiyya sect, the main proponents of Rozabal), who was a medieval preacher. But zealots claim that it is in fact the final resting place of Jesus of Nazareth. Meanwhile, halfway up a mountainside to the north of town, and occupying a spectacular location, is another intriguing, if less renowned, relic. These ruins of a monastery from antiquity are a pale shadow of its former glory; because it was here, some say, that Jesus—in the company of prominent religious leaders of the day—attended a famous Buddhist conference in 80 CE. The circumspect tourist might be pointed to the exact spot where he sat.
In one of the more dramatic episodes of his known life, the gospels chronicle a mysterious sea odyssey that Jesus and his disciples embark on (Matthew 8:28-34, Mark 5:1-20, Luke 8:26-39). He gets on a boat, encounters a life-threatening tempest, expels the demons Legion from a possessed man—sending them into a herd of pigs which plunges off a cliff—and comes face to face with a people shrouded in mystique, in a place that is never again mentioned: the land of the Gadarenes. Who are these people some translations call the Gerasens? Where is this place? Why does Jesus chance life and limb just to reach them?
Bible scholars concur that the Story of the Sea and the Storm is one of the most important narratives in the gospels because it recounts the only time Jesus ministered to Gentiles. It also sets the theme for his mission: his message is for the entire world. The Sea of Galilee, a small lake in northern Israel, provides the backdrop for this adventure. But archaeologists and researchers dispute its likelihood on account of the improbability of the kind of powerful squall described as occurring there, and the size of boats typically plying the lake 2,000 years ago enduring it. The evidence points to a sort of coverup, and other details, e.g. the large herd of swine, are also incongruent with Jewish life. The Gadarenes and their land must therefore be domiciled elsewhere.
Now it emerges that a Jewish colony has been living in Mallorca, Spain since the Assyrian exile begun by Tiglath-Pileser III in 733 BCE and completed by Sargon II with the destruction of the kingdom in 722 BCE. They call themselves Gaditanos – Gadites. So, Jesus, apparently throwing on his Messianic hat, traversed the Mediterranean to fulfil that office’s third agenda: restoring the lost tribes of Israel. But the best-laid plans of mice and deities…Luke 8:37 reveals that the voyage to Spain went much worse than Jesus expected: “And all the multitude of the country of the Gerasens besought him to depart from them…and he, going up into the ship, returned back again.” Jesus failed to reinstate the lost tribe of Gad. As the cookie crumbles, the big secret surrounding the coverup of this adventure to the land of the Gadarenes is that it was a failed mission.
6. Tibet
In 1887, a Russian war correspondent called Nicolas Notovitch visited India. From there, he crossed into Tibet, and then speedily to the lamasery (monastery) of Himis to nurse a broken leg. While there, he happened on an ancient Tibetan text, ‘Life of Saint Issa, Best of the Sons of Men’ and published it in French as ‘La Vie Inconnue De Jesus Christ’ (Life of Saint Issa) in 1894. The book claimed that during his missing years, Jesus was in India and Tibet, studying with Hindus and Buddhists, before returning to Judea. It was an instant best-seller in Europe and America and generated plenty of controversy.
Inevitably, it also caught the eye of scholars, who utterly destroyed Notovitch. His Achilles Heel? Lack of a manuscript for corroboration, not even photographic evidence. Notable among his critics were Professor F. Max Müller, the great Orientalist and editor of the epoch-making ‘Sacred Books of the East’ series of translated Eastern scriptures, and Professor J. Archibald Douglas, a professor of English and History at the Government College in Agra. (He actually went to Himis to interview the head lama, who informed him that Notovitch had never been there and that no such document existed!) Müller wrote: “Taking it for granted that Mr Notovitch is a gentleman and not a liar, we cannot help thinking that the Buddhist monks of Ladakh and Tibet must be wags, who enjoy mystifying inquisitive travellers, and that Mr Notovitch fell far too easy a victim to their jokes.” Faced with this cross-examination, Notovitch allegedly confessed to fabricating his evidence. The consensus among modern scholars is that Notovitch’s account of the travels of Jesus to India and Tibet was a hoax. Indeed, if Jesus visited Tibet, he did so in the expanse of one man’s fertile (and very profitable) imagination.
7. France
What if the Holy Grail was not the elusive cup of legend that held Jesus’s blood, but was instead a blood-line?
This idea was first suggested by British journalists Henry Lincoln, Richard Leigh, and Michael Baigent in their 1982 bestseller ‘Holy Blood, Holy Grail’ before Dan Brown picked it up and went to town with it. They postulated that the “royal blood” (sang real) is that of Jesus. Apparently, he did not die on the cross after all, and ended up marrying Mary Magdalene, had a child, Sarah, and his bloodline secretly survived into the Merovingian dynasty and beyond. There is a rich vein of tradition in Provence that says Mary Magdalene settled there and raised a daughter named Sarah. Monuments to her and her shipmates abound, her legend stretching back nearly 2,000 years. Jesus died an old man in France, where he fled with his family to escape persecution, and was buried near Rennes-le-Château, a little town on the Pyrenees.
And then the bottom falls off completely. On Monday 26 February 2007, at a press conference to promote a documentary he had produced, Oscar-winning director James Cameron announced that he had discovered the tomb of Jesus. And right there on the table in front of him was proof: Jesus’s burial box, which he had removed from the Jesus family tomb in Jerusalem.
Building on this, French author, researcher and documentalist Christian Doumergue published ‘La Tombe Perdue: Le Corps Du Christ Repose-T-Il Dans Le Sud De La France?’ resulting from years of research. The book probes what happened to Jesus after his burial, and he presents even more surprising answers than Cameron’s documentary evokes. Looks like Jesus is not resurrected in the sense that Christianity understands it. Using several means at her disposal, the story goes, Mary Magdalene reached out to Tiberius Cæsar to have words about the inequitable death of Jesus. His response may be contained in an ancient manuscript domiciled in the French National Library in Paris.
The text is called The Avenging of the Saviour. In it, a woman called Veronica shows up to meet Emperor Tiberius. A further study of the text reveals her to be Mary Magdalene. In short, she converts the Emperor to Christianity, after which he constructs an underground sanctuary in the south of France. Was this intended as Jesus’s tomb in atonement for his death as Mary Magdalene requested? The text gives that impression. Besides, some traditions regarding Mary Magdalene’s arrival in France have her travelling in the company of a mummified body. If Jesus had a tomb, concludes Doumergue, it would not be in Israel but in the south of France. Did Jesus visit France albeit posthumously?
8. Japan
The small hamlet of Shongo in Aomori Prefecture bills itself as “Kirisuto no Sato” – Christ’s Hometown. Which is curious because no church can be found within a 30-mile radius. But that doesn’t stop residents from claiming it as the final resting place of the son of God (as well as God’s other son’s ear). How did this happen?
According to an arcane set of manuscripts known as the Takenouchi Documents, it was not Jesus who was crucified on Golgotha as widely reported, but rather his younger brother Isukiri. Jesus escaped the Romans—and death—by switching places with him, taking only a lock of his mother’s hair and Isukiri’s severed ear as he fled across the frozen wildernesses of Alaska and Siberia to Japan. After settling down in Shingo to a quiet life of growing garlic in what turned out to be his second coming (he had previously been to Japan at age 21 to study theology, returning to Judea 11 years later…by way of Morocco), he married a local farmer’s daughter, sired three children with her, and died peacefully at the age of 106. His tomb can be found at the flat top of a hill there, right next to the one containing his brother’s ear. Many of the village’s inhabitants believe they are his descendants.
9. Lebanon
"Jesus saith to them: Fill the waterpots with water. And they filled them up to the brim. And Jesus saith to them: Draw out now, and carry to the chief steward of the feast. And they carried it. And when the chief steward had tasted the water made wine, and knew not whence it was, but the waiters knew who had drawn the water; the chief steward calleth the bridegroom, and saith to him: Every man at first setteth forth good wine, and when men have well drunk, then that which is worse. But thou hast kept the good wine until now." (John 2:7-10)
Jesus’s miracle of transmuting water into wine is sure to meet the approval of many not just because it was his first, but because we all approve that Jesus reckons some wine every now and then is not a terrible idea after all. What we all cannot agree on, however, is the location of this miracle. Most Bible interpretations place it Cana in Galilee, in the uplands just west of the lake (for obvious reasons). But some people, particularly Lebanese Christians, say it took place in Southern Lebanon, 6.2 miles southeast of Tyre. Eusebius Pamphili, an early exegete and bishop of Caesarea Maritima, historian of Christianity, and Christian polemicist, also shared this view. In this Cana (also spelt Qana or Kana), exist natural rock-dug caves carrying ancient inscriptions proclaiming that Jesus’s first miracle took place at a wedding ceremony in one of them.
An interesting insight into this story comes from authors Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln in their best-selling book ‘Holy Blood, Holy Grail’. Jesus is specifically “invited” to this wedding—which is slightly curious because he had not yet embarked on his ministry. Why then is he particularly concerned about the wine running out? One also wonders why Jesus’s first major miracle could have been spent on such a banal purpose. More curiously, his mother also just happens to be present! So why should two guests take on themselves the responsibility of catering, customarily reserved for the host? The gospels are silent on Jesus’s marital status but call him “Rabbi”. Rabbis, then as now, were married; there is no tradition of celibacy in Judaism, and Jesus and his disciples were dedicated to practising Jews. If he was not married, someone would have noticed. At no point does Jesus himself advocate celibacy in the gospels. On the contrary, he declares, “For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they two shall be in one flesh.” (Matthew 19:5). Holy Blood, Holy Grail posits that the wedding at Cana was actually Jesus’s own wedding, and to Mary Magdalene for good measure. (Makes sense to get married just before embarking on his ministry.) Ergo, it would indeed be his responsibility to replenish the wine.
Matthew 2:13-14 records the flight of Joseph, Mary, and the infant Jesus to Egypt after an angel appears to Joseph in a dream to warn of the impending Slaughter of the Innocents. Little is disclosed of their stay there except that a few verses later, an angel again appears to Joseph to proclaim that Herod is dead and it’s time to pack up and head home. But extra-Biblical sources point to a three-year sojourn. Egyptian authorities now offer a tour package retracing the biblical route of the holy family from Bethlehem. And if you thought sweet baby Jesus was just a bosom-clutching freeloader, the Infancy Gospel of Thomas weighs in with this account of how he more than paid his way on the epic journey with a display of ability that would put to scandal Dænerys Stormborn of House Targaryen (first of her name):
"And, lo, suddenly there came forth from the cave many dragons; and when the children saw them, they cried out in great terror. Then Jesus went down from the bosom of His mother, and stood on His feet before the dragons; and they adored Jesus, and thereafter retired."
This familiarity with Egypt births an intriguing theory concerning Jesus’s famed supernatural abilities. In 177 CE, the Greek philosopher Celsus wrote what is considered the earliest known comprehensive criticism of Christianity. The book survives exclusively in quotations from it in a refutation written by Church Father Origen of Alexandria in 248 CE. He refers to a statement by Celsus that poverty drove Jesus to Egypt in search of employment. It was there that he learned “…certain arts for which the Egyptians are famous. Afterwards, returning from thence, he thought so highly of himself, on account of the possession of these [magical] arts, as to proclaim himself to be a God.” Like all Egyptian-trained sorcerers of the day (see Exodus 7:11, 22; 8:7), Jesus became famous for his ability to cast out demons and cure the mentally ill, skills likely imparted in Egypt.
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