- Excerpt

 

THE ABDUCTION:
The Sacred Legend of the Great Wall

by John F. Brinster

INTRODUCTION

John Brinster, a Princeton scientist and brain researcher, takes on the religious establishment and the irrationality of religion in this speculative account of the early life of Jesus of Nazareth.

With the premise that the baby Jesus was abducted and taken to China, and replaced in the manger by one of twin imposters, THE ABDUCTION criss-crosses two millennia with a combination of history, intrigue, and philosophy.

The excerpt outlines the teachings of "Jem," Jesus' name after being abducted. Jem was raised among Buddhists in Western China at the nexus of the Great Wall and the famous Silk Road spanning Asia to the Mediterranean.

More information about the book, "The Abduction," and author John F. Brinster, follows the excerpt. Enjoy!

 

 

---

The Story of Jesus/Jem

by John F. Brinster

Under the name of Jem, Jesus had now been in China for well over three decades. After reaching China with Chan Chan and his loyal servant in the first century, he was well cared for among other members of the large Chan Qian family. Because of the nature of the abduction and the unexpected abrupt change in the Chinese government during Chan Chan's absence, neither the family nor the Imperial Court was informed of the circumstances or nature of the events in Bethlehem. Many critical years had passed since Chan Chan had first left the area of Leoan and Wuwei on his ambassadorial quest for contact with the west. In the interim, there had been several complete reorganizations of the Imperial Court, and as a result of those changes, the family was no longer welcome in government. Upon his return he faced a totally different regime in effective control and in firm independent ruling leadership.

Abrupt changes in government were typical of all developing civilizations of the times from Rome to Beijing. Despite its close relationships and its many contributions in earlier years, the Chan Qian family, as a whole, became fully estranged from the ruling power of the Imperial Court and the center of government. The government of the Western Han Dynasty was not only newly established, its operations were also moved considerably farther away, partially to Xian. In effect, it was constantly in competition with its counterpart the Eastern Han Dynasty, the capital of which was now located far to the east, in Luoyang. The immediate focus of the separate ruling parties was on each other, for all the country knew that government organization appeared very uncertain and, in time, must again be integrated.

An official report of the hard-earned exploits to the west was no longer of interest to the Court that was now momentarily only concerned with political wrangling and competition for influential seats. In fact, the government was not merely in a state of flux; it was in utter confusion and the entire wall region was totally out of the special favor it had earlier enjoyed. No authority now in power could even remember the circumstances that led to the great ambassadorial mission to the west. Chan Chan constantly lived in fear of arrest since his return and his father, who had enjoyed the most influence and experienced the greatest participation in the government, died or perhaps was assassinated well before he returned to China. Without family participation in government, Chan Chan was looked upon as unfriendly and even alien by the new Court. He considered himself lucky to have escaped immediate induction into the military upon his return.

In an attempt to maintain political control, many new restrictive edicts were issues by the new court. There was new opposition to published literature and history and local citizens feared another period of censorship. Fortunately, Chan Chan had become aware of these changes through his many family friends still living in the outer regions even as he approached his homeland on his return from the west. He sensed that it would not be possible to arrange an audience or even be heard by any part of the new government. Certainly his plan for presenting the Messiah, brought all the way from Judaea, would have no interest or support and would now fall politically flat without purpose or might even backfire. Fearing for his very life as member of the former ruling court, he decided to stash the record of his journey, together with a small chest of jewels, in the nearest wall cavity before returning to his home so that he could first appraised the lay of the land.

When he approached the wall gate leading to his home in Leoan, he was stopped and his baggage searched. He was arrested, but soon released at the request of a nearby military officer from Leoan with whom he and his family were formerly acquainted. He was allowed freedom to travel to his family farm, where he could peacefully resume conduct of the family business without interference. Jem was permitted entry as his adopted son but his traveling servant was detained for possible induction into the local military garrison.

Jesus, who was now exclusively called Jem since his abduction in Jerusalem, was afforded the same full education available to all the other members of the Chan household and began to spend much of his time with the old Buddhist monk, Ogad. The monk, who long served as family spiritual advisor, lived not far from the family home. Buddhist shrines were beginning to be erected in the more populous regions as followers occasionally arrived from northern areas of India. Buddhists traveled the same general route that Chan Chan and most other early travelers found to most easily reach China from the Indus River headwaters.

The Indus River region of India had now become a well-occupied land area, and gradually a more important influence on growth of the western region of China. The five indo-European tribes of Bactria had seized control of the Kabul Valley from the Parthians. This was a key region of the road traveled by the earliest of Chinese traders, both eastward and to the west. Kadphises became the undisputed ruler of the Kushan Dynasty, now under its total control. These changes all took place since the travels of Grandfather Zhang Qian, who had much earlier set up a ruling body in the Kabul region in the name of China on his second historical westward journey.

The winds of change were everywhere at once. Back in the Mediterranean region that included Jerusalem, Agrippa, the nephew of Herod Antipa and grandson of Herod, the Great, was appointed king of Judaea by Claudius, the new Roman Emperor. Claudius was Caligula's uncle and became emperor by virtue of a strange accident. Following the assassination of Caligula, he ran away, frightened. Soldiers found him hiding behind a curtain in the palace and he was suddenly seen as a convenient head of government, but preferred a monarchy rather than a republic. Rome was constantly in turmoil with high level suicides and assassinations. Its upheavals and competition for power influenced its expansion interests now extended as far east as Mesopotamia and India. China, effectively separated by the Gobi Desert and other natural barriers, was still situated well beyond the Roman radar.

In China, because of his relationship by marriage to the Imperial Court, the new regent, Wang Mang, subsequently took power, declaring the Han Dynasty defunct. However, with the help of Liu Xiu and a civil war, the Later Han Dynasty was soon restored. Factors that supported these abrupt changes included severe flooding because of a natural change in the course of the Yellow River combined with a sudden widespread famine affecting much of the country. Civil strife was also created by dissatisfied groups of marauding peasants called the Red Eyebrows identified by red paint on their foreheads.

It was in these troubled times of unusual turmoil that the Chan Qian family lost the influence that it had long established with the earlier ruling powers of China and, with it, the elaborate plans for the Messiah that Chan Chan discovered in Bethlehem and so carefully brought back to China. He had endured major difficulties with naive optimism, hoping to lead the people of his country. He had returned to find that China was not only occupied with its many internal political problems but was again concerned with its determined dominance over Mongolia. It was additionally concerned with its new, unsettled military interests in Vietnam to the southeast. To add to political confusion, an envoy from the king of Japan suddenly arrived at the new Eastern Han capital of Luoyang, exchanging stories and gifts between the two quite different lands. To Chan Chan it seemed that everything possible that could go wrong for him had built up to work against his most carefully planned earlier objectives. Following the advice of his spiritual advisor, he had decided to give up all political ambitions and return to operate the family estate just as his father had done before him.

The rapidly increasing influence of the Buddhist religion of India began to spread more fully throughout China, first through the western wall regions, as it was opened more fully from the Indus, and then more centrally. At the same time, travelers from the west reported that Matthew, Mark, and others were beginning to celebrate the teachings of Christianity as promoted by Chan I, switched with Jesus in the manger, and believed to be the Messiah in Judaea. As their recognized spiritual teacher, Chan I was supported by increasingly large groups of followers even after death. He had claimed to be the Son of God, the creator of heaven and earth, and had died on the cross in Golgotha, Judaea, presumably in the interest of his people. Many modern Israelis believe that Golgotha is the site of today's Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the northwest part of the old city of Jerusalem called Bezetha.

The principal disciples, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, began to interpret the life of Jesus in writings destined to become the first books of the New Testament. It was part of Jesus' dying request to spread the word of his new cult. Much of the material was being derived from the sermons of another fellow disciple, Peter, and was quickly translated into Greek. Paul of Tarsus, a former Pharisee, was said to have abandoned his Jewish traditions, after being converted by a vision, to become the most active missionary for the spread of the new religion throughout the Roman Empire. The late period of the first century was not only a time when new spiritual concepts became important, but also a time of events that changed history. It was a period of Jewish revolt against the dominance of Rome. It was a period when the city of Pompeii was buried under mountains of volcanic ash. It was a period in which a subtle connection was established between China and Rome, totally unknown to the world except as recorded in the Book of Chan carefully hidden in the great wall.

In China, Jem, the uprooted Messiah of Bethlehem, was now mature and even beginning to age. He had begun to develop a very firm philosophy of his own, a belief somewhat based on his Buddhist training. He had traveled extensively along the regions of the Great Wall as well as in parts of more southern China, promoting his beliefs and administering to those in need. He had developed a considerable following among adherents in what others sometimes called New Buddhism. Buddhism, the name of which is derived from Buddha or "The Enlightened One," was based on the teachings of Siddhartha Gautama who lived a few centuries before Christ. Jem lived in a period in which new teachings were of keen interest everywhere in Asia, not only of Buddhism but also Confucianism and Taoism in China and the continued teachings of the prophets of the Old Testament to the west. People everywhere were looking for understanding. Teachings of the New Testament were just beginning to take hold. Only smatterings of Christianity were reaching as far as central China. It took many more centuries before the different philosophies of religion were more extensively disseminated and understood and their teachings sufficiently absorbed to become reasonably well known to one another.

In the early ages of China, even before the appearance of Confucius, the Chinese along the Yellow River spent a great deal of time worshipping their departed ancestors. They also expressed reverence to their mountains, rivers and to the soil that produced their food. In the spring, they asked the gods to favor them with good crops and in the fall expressed elaborate thanks for the harvest. China continued its development with three similar forms of religion, Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism. Buddhism developed as the most formal, Confucianism as a system of ethics and Taoism as a mixture of religion and magic. The Chinese felt that all three of these religions were roads to the same destination. They were all based on the fundamental idea that there is an inseparable connection between man and nature.

The Chinese observed both the beauty and the destructive powers of good and evil. They carefully and wisely observed the motion of the sun and the stars, the growth of plants, the flow of rivers, the violence of natural disasters, the ravages of floods and droughts. Their philosophers suggested that everything was determined by the interplay of two forces, "Yang" being positive and everything that is steadfast, warm and bright, "Yin" being negative and everything that is cold and dark, changeable and mysterious. It was believed that throughout a person's life these forces may alternate with different strengths, but when they are in harmony everything is good.

When Buddhism was first brought into China in the first century of Christ by monks like Ogad, they brought with it the basis of a rather formal religion with priests, prayer, images and in infinite number of gods and heavens. Under the modern government of Communism that is outwardly opposed to all three beliefs, the many old rites and practices of these religions were restricted and only recently brought back to some semblance of life. Early Buddhist monks made their way northward into China with other travelers, migrating through portions of the Silk Road from India. They later entered Tibet and taught a form of Hinduism with mystical doctrines and magic that led to its Lamaism. Wherever these religions went, they carried the highest ideals of non-violence, of respect for individuals, for tolerance for love of man, animals and nature. The Chan family witnessed the beginning of this profound social process and indeed were a firm part of it.

Jem, the would-be Messiah of Judaea, was caught up in the widening spiritual atmosphere in China in its developing years. His philosophy and his teachings were very straight-forward and clear. He admired and respected the transcendent forces of nature, indicating that man would never be able to fully understand its origin or the real meaning of life. He rejected the Jewish and Christian concepts of the existence of a humanlike god, the creator of all that exists, with infinite power over man and his world. He could not bring himself to believe that man contained a spirit called a soul, one that would live beyond death to enjoy an ideal heaven. He believed in the deep respect and honor of his ancestors and that, after death, their remains are used to constitute some form of new life. Remarkably, it was this forward-looking philosophy and profound understanding that he taught and preached throughout China with great success. It was little different from that of the more intellectual and informed minds of modern-day scientists and philosophers.

As the result of his widespread travels, Jem contributed much as one of the historians attached to the Han Court. His philosophy was looked upon as promises of freedom from pain and suffering. Although it was primarily an emotional effect, it had a direct influence on the body as well. His writing was later carried on by Ban Gu, who like Chan I in Judaea, was eventually put to death for his disloyalty and outright sedition. However, Jem continued his preaching and eventually developed a unique following throughout the entire realm of China.

It was rumored that Jem died as he lived. He was said to have been engulfed, together with a group of adherents, by a great flood of the Yellow River while in the process of preaching. However, his death is far from clear for the King of Nu, one of the countries of Japan, called Wa, later visited the Imperial Court at the Han capital of Loyang and reported a possible rescue at sea by one of the northern tribes. Rumors have it that Jem appeared in Aamori where a stone tomb now exists in his memorial, but it is not known if he actually lived or died there or if he returned to China and eventually to Judaea and Egypt as claimed by others.