The lord of all countries, Whom the Creator (Ahura Mazda) created the most glorious, Of the supernatural, venerable, divine beings. So may there come to us for aid, Both Mithra and the Creator (Ahura), the two exalted ones . . . [Khorda Avesta: Khwarshed Niyayesh 5-7; based on an edition by Karl F. Geldner: Avesta, The Sacred Books of the Parsis; Stuttgart, 1896; and my edited version of the 2002 digital edition by Joseph H. Peterson, which can be found at: avesta.org/ka/niyayesh.htm]
In the 200s CE, Manicheans wrote that Mithra was an original Savior who rescued “First Man” from the Darkness into which he had plunged. (Widengren, Geo Mesopotamian elements in Manichaeism (King and Saviour II): Studies in Manichaean, Mandaean, and Syrian-gnostic religion, Lundequistska bokhandeln, 1946, p. 10) The disciple Paul refers to a “First Adam” and a “Last Adam”: “The first man Adam became a living soul. The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.” (I Corinthians 15:45) Christian saint Augustine was once a Manichean but converted to Christianity when the Roman Emperor Theodosius I issued a decree of death for Manichaeans in 382 CE and shortly before the emperor declared Christianity to be the only legitimate religion for the Roman Empire in 391. (Foltz, Richard, Religions of the Silk Road; Palgrave Macmillan, 2nd edition, 2010, p. 71)
As in Judaism and Christianity, Zoroastrianism also has the concept of a prophesied Messiah-Savior who will come to make all things right. It is Saoshyant (pronounced soush-yant), literally meaning “one who brings benefit” and is often referred to as “The Beneficent One.” Saoshyant is considered to be the final savior of the world. (Avesta: Farvardin Yast 13:129) Jesus also spoke of such a final world-ending, heavenly being, but not so much as a benefactor as a gatherer of those who have used free will well:
The lightning comes from the east and shines as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of man . . . Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken; then will appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory; and he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. (Matthew 24:27-31)
As an aside here, let me share that the ancient Egyptians also had the concept and legend of a Messiah, and it was an immaculately conceived Messiah too, as in Mary and Jesus. In the Egyptian legend Isis immaculately conceives Horus, who overthrows the evil Set, who, out the same motivations as Cain, killed his brother Osiris, as Cain killed Abel. Eventually Set’s evil is overcome as Horus reigns in wisdom and goodness. Speaking of immaculate conceptions, there is a legend that Zoroaster’s mother, Dughdova, was a virgin when she conceived Zoroaster by a shaft of light from Heaven. Even Mithra was born of a virgin and on December 25th! Throughout the legends of world religions and theologies there are tales of virgin births. In Judaism, Sarah was in her nineties and had long ago experienced menopause (the cessation of a woman’s biological reproductive ability), yet she conceive, gestated, and birth the Lord-promised Isaac. Virgin births can be found most everywhere: Buddha was born of the virgin Maya after the Holy Ghost descended upon her; in Phrygia, Attis was born of the virgin Nama; the Roman savior Quirrnus was born of a virgin; in Tibet, Indra was born of a virgin; the Greek deity Adonis was born of the virgin Myrrha; in India, the god Krishna was born of the virgin Devaki; even Alexander the Great of Greece was supposedly born of a virgin mother. The idea that heavenly forces can affect earthly, physical outcomes is a concept found throughout spiritual literature. In Genesis chapter 6 we find that the celestial Sons of God could actually conceive physical babies with human women! These babies became known as the Nephilim, legendary giants.
Let’s get back to prophecies of coming or returning prophets and messiahs. In Judaism we also find prophets and prophesied prophets to come: “I will raise up for them a prophet like you [the Lord is speaking to Moses] from among their brethren; and I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him.” (Deuteronomy 18:18) And later in the book of Daniel: “I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion and glory and kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.” (Daniel 7:13-14) And in Malachi 4:5-6: “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord; And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.” And in Matthew 17:10-13: “Jesus answered and said unto them, Elijah truly shall first come, and restore all things. But I say unto you, That Elijah is come already, and they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed. Likewise shall also the Son of man suffer of them. Then the disciples understood that he spoke to them of John the Baptist.”
We also find this passage in the Jewish Bible or Christian Old Testament: “Behold, a young woman shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Imman’u-el,” which means “God is with us” (Isaiah 7:14), which was later Romanized as Emmanuel. In the New Testament we find: “All this happened to fulfill what had been declared by the Lord through the prophet, who said, ‘Look, the virgin will become pregnant and will give birth to a son, and they will give him the name Immanuel’—which is translated, ‘God with us.’” (Matthew 1:22-23)
Jesus is the fulfillment of this prophecy in Isaiah but then in the twenty-fourth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus gives the prophecy of the worldwide coming of the “Son of man” on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory, quoted earlier. Many of these prophecies appear to have two types of messianic occurrences: one is an incarnation of the Light of God that teaches and guides humanity but the other is a final, world-ending coming of a heavenly being that removes all darkness, evil, and temptation, and all return to the original light and love of the Creator or Creative Energies.
Chapter 5
Tales of the Young
Nazarene and the Magi
Beyond the Gospels there are few historical documents that provide evidence and detail of Jesus’ existence. The most famous and widely accepted as authentic comes from the writings of the historian Flavius Josephus (37 to 100 CE) who wrote the following description of Jesus in his Antiquities of the Jews, Book 18, chapter 3:
Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, is not extinct at this day.
In Book 20, chapter 200, Josephus wrote about the stoning of Jesus’ brother in 62 CE, including this line that clearly indicates the existence of both Jesus and his brother: “James, the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ . . .” See the publication James the Brother of Jesus: The Key to Unlocking the Secrets of Early Christianity and the Dead Sea Scrolls by American archaeologist and Biblical scholar Robert H. Eisenman, (Penguin, 1998). It’s worth noting that even the Gospels indicate that Jesus had brothers: “While he (Jesus) was still speaking to the people, behold, his mother and his brothers stood outside, asking to speak to him.”
