|
February 25th, 2002
Received by H.
Cuenca, Ecuador.
My dear brother:
I wish to take advantage of this opportunity in order to clarify
some doubts that are bothering you. They are not major problems
but it is worthwhile dedicating some time to them.
First, from your adolescence on, you could not understand, how
Jesus "forced" his disciples to leave their homes and
to abandon their wives and children. Was that not cruel and irresponsible?
We have advanced in our story to such a point that we may now answer
this question.
Firstly, you know that a great part of Jesus' public ministry took
place in Galilee. In other words, his disciples who were all from
the area of Galilee or from adjacent lands, rarely left their homes
for a long time, and during a great part of Jesus' ministry they
had the opportunity to visit their families and even to spend whole
weeks with them.
As to their financial support, we have seen that, in Nathanael’s
case, he was a wealthy man, whose absence did not leave his family
without income. He had employees and lands, and his family could
always make sure of their sustenance and even more.
In the case of Zebedee’s children, you also know that their
father ran plantations and some fishing boats. He was not, therefore,
a poor man, and could afford the “luxury” of sending two
of his children to accompany the Master and to live with him.
Single people, who accompanied Jesus, did not have to worry about
their families, since their brothers took care of the well-being
of their parents, so, even on the Master’s journeys to Judea
or the Decapolis, there was never the situation that the absence
of his disciples from their homes would have caused problems.
We have also seen the case of Peter and of Philip, both were fishermen,
married and with children, not rich people, but neither were they
poor. And here the great heart of John Zebedee is demonstrated,
who committed himself to take care of the boats of both, to man
them and to send them out to work. Therefore, even after deducting
the additional cost caused by the payment of other people's labour,
there was always more than enough left for their families. I believe
that this has calmed your doubts.
Yesterday I watched with a smile how you hunted for information
on Bethsaida through the whole of the Internet. You remembered that there
were presumably two villages of the same name. In one of them, Peter,
Andrew and Philip were born, and it was supposedly located south
of Capernaum or Kpar Nahum. The other village, or rather, the other
town, was north of the lake, a little distant from the shore, and
it had been fortified by Philip the tetrarch, who baptized her "Bethsaida
Julias."
You remembered that I had told you how Jesus, Peter, and Andrew
had crossed the lake toward the opposite shore, obviously referring
to Bethsaida Julias. Then, Jesus and his four “zealot”
disciples returned walking to Kpar Nahum, crossing the river Jordan,
where they met Matthew. Once again, the reference indicates without doubt
the town of Bethsaida Julias.
And then your doubts began. Had you received this badly? Had you
confused the two Bethsaida? But if it was so, the story no longer
made much sense. How then could they have met Matthew in his customs
stand, if in fact they returned from Bethsaida, south of Kpar Nahum?
Because in this case, they would not have crossed any borderline.
Now I tell you that the existence of two settlements of the same
name at the same lake is a conjecture of scholars. And it is a false
supposition.
In reality there was only one village by the name of Bethsaida,
that village that I indicated to you. Philip really beautified the
place, but what he did was to build a walled acropolis on the high
part, leaving the small village of fishermen outside the walls of
the new town.
At the present time the ruins are at a distance of some miles from
the lake, in a valley. But you also have read that in the ancient
times the lake extended more to the north, forming a large bay.
I am happy that the information on the excavations at that place
in Israel has calmed you down. I am not happy that you doubted,
but rather that you have checked having received the information
correctly.
H.R.: Frankly, I didn't doubt you, but myself. I am
aware of how easy it is to introduce my own thoughts, and I admit
that this scares me at times. These are doubts of me and not of
you.
Well, at least you have now verified a fact, and perhaps it may
serve you so that you will have a little more trust in yourself.
This trust is a very important ingredient for you to receive well.
This is all for now. God bless you,
Judas
|
