Article 31 — The Lost Years of Jesus Christ
The Lost Years of Jesus Christ: Where might Jesus have gone after the crucifixion?
The Goal of the Wise — Door Number Thirty-One
Read aloud in English
Did the story of Jesus truly end after his appearances to the disciples, or might he have pursued a little-known mission?
The Gospels report the events of the crucifixion and the appearances of Jesus after it.
But in the thirty-first Door of The Goal of the Wise, Abdullah Hashem Aba Al-Sadiq (From Him is Peace) explores the hypothesis of a much longer period of Jesus’s earthly life.
The promise made to the disciples
The chapter draws in particular on the Gospel according to John, chapter 14.
There, Jesus promises to prepare a place for his disciples and to come back for them.
The author interprets this promise within the framework of a continuation of his mission after the crucifixion.
According to the book, Jesus is said to have continued meeting his companions and to have wished to take them with him.
The Secret Book of James
The book also examines the Secret Book of James, an ancient text belonging to non-canonical Christian literature.
This document reports teachings attributed to Jesus and addressed to certain disciples.
The author regards it as an element that makes it possible to explore little-known events.
The limits of traditional accounts
Religious texts do not always provide a detailed chronology of every period of Jesus’s life.
These silences have given rise to many hypotheses.
The book proposes its own interpretation, which must be distinguished from established historical conclusions.
Jesus and faithfulness to his companions
One of the important themes of the chapter concerns Jesus’s love for his disciples.
The author presents Jesus as a guide deeply attached to those who followed him.
This faithfulness would explain, in his reading, the continuation of his efforts to guide them.
Conclusion — A story still to be discovered?
The thirty-first Door invites us to examine the ancient traditions concerning the life of Jesus after the events of Golgotha.
Do the accounts we know represent his whole story, or only the part that has been passed down to us?