2nd Elijah-Elisha-figures: John the Baptist & Jesus (continued)

The Conspiracy Hypothesis*

THE JUDEO/CHRISTIAN CYCLES

SECOND END-TIME (A.D. 21 - A.D. 132): The Time of John the Baptist and Jesus
(Continued)
| Beast and False Prophet | Hadrian | Disaster | Second Rebellion of the Jews (c. A.D. 132) | Time of the End
| Messianic Expectations Almost Fulfilled | Christianity: This Era’s Jews? |
The Timing of Jesus’ Mission

Melchizedek and Abraham may have been some sort of template for, or archetype of, the Elisha/Elijah pairing, but they do not appear to fit the pattern in many respects. However similar pairing is evident in all of the previous epochal revelations and elsewhere in The URANTIA Book where it portrays teachers elevating truth on the planet: Caligastia and Daligastia, Adam and Eve, Van and Amadon, Adamson and Ratta. It must be pointed out, however, that the dates of these previous truth expanders does not appear to correlate with the current millennial cycles. These seem to have begun with the bestowal of Melchizedek. However other millennial cycles probably have been in existence all along.

MELCHIZEDEK
Inspired painting by “Caroline/Aisha”
(click image to view full-size in new window)

Melchizedek lived on our planet from his arrival date in B.C. 1980 to within seventeen years of the first millennial transition date (B.C. 1869), and Abraham’s life spanned it. But Jesus’ life -- as was also John the Baptist’s -- was drastically cut short. The Jewish era-end, millennial transition date was just one year over a hundred years after the crucifixion.
We can only guess at what the optimal length of stay for such bestowals might be since it appears that Melchizedek was forced by circumstances to terminate his mission early, as well. The two reasons we are given for his having departed when he did are both that the surrounding tribes and his immediate associates “were beginning to reverence him unduly and with highly superstitious fear” and also that he “wanted to leave the scene of his earthly activities a sufficient length of time before Abraham’s death to insure that the truth of the one and only God would become strongly established in the minds of his followers” (1922 C). Aging was not a factor since his body was designed to last much longer. (ref. 1015)
Jesus would have grown old over that same period of time, but in-as-much as he possessed a perfected personality, engaged in life-enhancing meditation (see Jesus-Style Meditation) and lived in a relatively pollution-free time, he could have been expected to live fairly long. His genetics were sound, as well (ref. 1344 D to 1345 B). Currently the oldest person on the planet is believed to be Marie Bremont, a Frenchwoman who recently celebrated her 115th birthday. The Guiness World Record (limited to longevities which are fully authenticated) is 122 . However people are believed to have exceeded the 150-year mark. There was after all an ordinary mortal alive at the transition point -- the greatest Rabbi of his time, Akiba ben Joseph -- who lived to be 98 years old.
Whether the post-Bestowal and post-Teacher Son life-spans of 300 to 500 (see 564 D) years would have been applicable to his situation, because of his high degree of mortal perfection, is unanswerable. To have survived to the millennial transition year (A.D. 132), Jesus would have had to have attained the age of 138, not an impossibility under the circumstances.
We must acknowledge the fact that Michael knew exactly what to expect before he ever bestowed himself on Urantia (earth). Even if he did not literally foreknow how it would all play out (and he probably did, but that did not deter him), he would have had to have realized that he stood about the same chance of escaping early, mortal death as a collie dog would, which was put in a cage with wolves in order that such contact would make them “nicer”. Homosexuality and adultery, for instance, were capital crimes among the Jews then, calling for stoning. Even healing on the Sabbath was a legal offense. The leaders, The URANTIA Book says, were bloody-minded legalists who had strong, personal, vested interests in maintaining the religious status quo. Rome would rubber stamp the decisions of the Hebrew courts unless known imperial interests were at stake. It must be realized also that few if any of them had Thought Adjusters in all likelihood. These indwelling God-fragments only came to be universally bestowed after Pentecost (ref. 1187 C). This is not to say that there were none among the people, but by their actions in condemning Christ the leaders either had none or ignored them. The same might be said regarding their following of later “Messiahs”
What our end-time drama presents us with in Jesus’ time is a situation where the heroes come onstage and are killed during the first act. But the show must go on!
It was apparently more important -- given his shortened life-span -- for Jesus to have started the clocks on the bi-millennial anniversary of Melchizedek’s arrival, so that he would leave his family and go forth as an unencumbered man of the realm on exactly that year (A.D. 21), than for him to be present in the flesh on or after the A.D. 132 millennial transition date. If he had been an ordinary, mortal “Elisha”, the year A.D. 21 would not have mattered. John and he would have started later and played their parts through until last act, in the second century. But since his was a supernal bestowal the timing of the supernal input had to be observed even at the cost of missing the planetary transition date entirely, it seems, if that was what the circumstances required -- which they did!
The “Beast” and the “False Prophet”

We can find parallels of the “Beast” and the “False Prophet” in such individuals as Herod (whom Jesus once called a “fox”, a word which can have the value of 666, the number of the “Beast” in Revelations -- but, of course, Jesus spoke the word in Aramaic, not in English); the High Priest, Caiaphas, who personally demanded that Jesus be executed; Pontius Pilate, who acceded to the Sanhedrin’s demands to crucify Jesus against his own better judgement; and even such figures as Simon Bar Kochba, a self-proclaimed “Messiah” who brought about the final destruction of the Jewish nation.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

A B C D E F G H I

J K L M N O P Q R

S T U V W X Y Z

FOX=666

But in a broader sense the “False Prophet” was the organized Hebrew religion of the era, as represented by all those who tried and condemned Jesus; and the “Beast” was the Roman Empire which executed him, and persecuted his followers for centuries.
However there is one particular Roman Imperialist who came upon the scene at exactly the millennial transition date, who fulfilled prophecies in Daniel which appear immediately after those concerning and fulfilled by Antiochus IV Epiphanes at a historical point which the prophecy calls the “time of the end”, and who more than any other single individual brought about the transition from the Judeo to the Christian dispensation!
Hadrian

The scene opens in Jerusalem. The year is A.D. 130 -- only two years before the millennial transition, in the first third of the century which historian Philip Schaff called a bold line drawn by God. “between the century of miracles and the succeeding ages. There is no other transition in history,” he writes, “so radical and sudden, and yet so silent and secret” (The History of the Christian Church).
Roman Emperor Publius Aelius Hadrianus with his imperial entourage is paying an official visit of state as part of a longer tour of

Roman Emperor Hadrian

the realm undertaken for the admirable intention of noting the condition of his subjects and providing improvements where needed.
The Jews were in dire straits. They had not recovered from the destruction wrought upon them by Titus in A.D. 70. The charred, stone ruins of the Temple still stood nearby the wooden structure where religious rites were being conducted until such time as the Temple could be restored. Many Jews were said to be reduced to living in hovels and caves.
We must use our imaginations to see the married, but childless Emperor accompanied by his Greek boy-lover, Antinous --

Antinous

at least that is how the gossips reported it -- along with a couple of centurions, tramping through the weeds, peering up at the huge, well-joined stones, kicking aside bits of antique rubble, and likely joking about the powerful God of the Jews who could not even prevent a fire in his own house. We must imagine

Hadrian’s Wife, Sabina

this scene because we do not know for a fact that Hadrian actually visited the Temple mount. But he was an avid builder and would have been interested in the architecture. Also, according to one of his biographers, Stewart Perowne, Hadrian considered himself to be a second Antiochus IV Epiphanes. As such, he might have been attracted to the site which his hero had decorated with statuary, thereby causing such a fuss. It is possible that, given what we know about Hadrian, it was exactly at that moment when the world’s most powerful man, while standing amidst the ruins of Yahweh worship, first envisioned and loudly proclaimed his superiority over all previously known gods. Was any more evidence needed to show him that the only true god was military power? It was that which conquered nations, it was that which maintained the peace among them!
Hadrian was touched by the plight of the Jews. But their superstitious, ritual surgery -- circumcision -- was patently barbaric and unhealthy, and it disregarded the feelings of the young boys who were subjected to needless pain. Perhaps recalling Antiochus, Hadrian, as well, outlawed it. For the best of reasons.
New Jerusalem

But Hadrian had even more good intentions. He decided to give the Jews back what they had lost: Jerusalem. But he would improve upon it and rebuild it into a new Jerusalem -- a jewel of a pagan city, which he would even name after himself, Aeila Capitolina: the first part referring to his family name, his gens, and the second to honor Jupiter. His New Jerusalem would have shrines to all the lawful gods so that the people of the city could learn to behave like proper subjects, and perhaps even aspire to citizenship. All they needed was some straightening out -- an attitude adjustment. The Jews, he may have told himself, were as good an any subjects (at least they had the potential of so-being) and deserved the best that he and Rome could give. A mighty empire took care of its people.
Hadrian understood that man, himself, was supreme. And belief in gods just led them astray. He, himself was more of a god than theirs was … after all, was he not as Emperor of Rome the most exemplary of men? As far as that went, had he not been proclaimed to be a god by the Senate? It was no more than words, but it did help with the people, making his edicts into divine pronouncements. The gods, if left to their own devices, ultimately brought only disgrace and ruin such as he saw on every side here in Judea. He, himself, was more powerful than any god, certainly more omnipotent than this Yahweh. All he had to do was speak the word, and Jerusalem would be rebuilt! What mere “god” could do that?
“So be it!”
Disaster

Shrines were going up as he rode out of the city. Jerusalem quickly forgotten, Hadrian turned to Egypt. But then, the unthinkable! Antinous dead! Drowned in the Nile … some said murdered by Hadrian, himself. But then, if that were true, why did the emperor cry like a woman?
And why, then, did he proclaim the boy to be a god, and build a shrine to house his bones, and then a whole city on the bank of the Nile to house the shrine? Why did he commission more shrines, and within them marble statues of the boy, and plant them like gardens all over his realm?
The Second Rebellion of the Jews (c. A.D. 132)

Back in Rome, still suffering from his loss, word reached Hadrian that the unthankful Jews had rebelled. Even at that moment they were under the leadership of some long prophesied hero named Bar Kochba whom they called “Messiah", of whom it had been foretold that he would regain their national glory! The Hebrews were slaughtering his

Simon Bar
Kochba coin
c. A.D. 132

garrisons! They had proclaimed the freedom of Jerusalem, and were minting coins bearing the likeness of the rebel, dating them year 1. This could not under any means be tolerated.
Life had lost its savor. He did not ask for this war. He did not even want this war; but Hadrian, like a jealous husband learning of his wife’s infidelity, reached out with the long arm of his legions and destroyed everything of hers which he could possibly touch! Before the year (A.D. 132) was out “Palestine”, which he renamed to reflect its pre-Jewish possession by its former inhabitants, the Philistines, was in shambles. City walls had been cracked open like so many eggs, and tens of thousands of Jews were spilled out dead. The very flower of Jewish manhood, at least those not already killed in their futile attempts at defense, hung by the thousands on crosses dotting the beautiful Galilean hills like plague sores across the breasts of a lovely woman. They were the wilting remains of an adulterous lover’s bouquet, which had been discovered and flung in pure rage by an avenging spouse!
The “Time of the End”

Any Jew could be bought for the price of a dog at the glutted slave markets in Gaza!
Of their precious Temple, Hadrian made sure that not one stone stood upon another. In his great beneficence, however, Hadrian granted a boon and allowed the Jews to return on one

Modern Jews at “Wailing Wall”

day only each year to bemoan the bitter fruits of their infidelity. Other than that, as signs erected throughout Palestine declared, any Jew caught in the land would be executed!
For some unknown reason Christian historians and eschatologists seemed to have been looking the other way when Hadrian passed by. Possibly it was because of Josephus’ eyewitness account of events during Titus’ day (c. A.D. 70) which prevented them from looking beyond. More likely they were willing to overlook the man’s Hitler-like final solution to the Jewish problem because he had been nicer to their sect than many Roman emperors both before and after, and had brought about an easing of the persecutions. For Hadrian, however, this was more likely a result of his feelings for the laws of the land than of mercy to the ridiculous Christ-followers, who wore the symbols of a brigand’s execution dangling from their necks. All he did was ensure that there would have to be presented some kind of evidence against them at their trials. Unsubstantiated accusations that they were Christians were insufficient. After all they were Roman subjects. Some were even citizens.
And the Christian exegetists who were actually looking for someone who would reprise Antiochus Epiphanes’ role, have missed the boat, too! Perhaps because Hadrian was more anti-Jew than anti-Christ! He ended up so highly regarded by Christians that a number of popes would assume his name (“Adrian”) when they were elected to be Vicars of Christ. It was, in fact Adrian IV who a millennium later would order the execution of the “Elisha” of the Middle Ages! Yet they only needed to look in the Bible to see him as the Jewish endtime “Beast”. In a prophecy in the Book of Daniel immediately following that concerning Antiochus IV Epiphanes, it says:
[“ … the time of the end: because it is yet for a time appointed.]
“And the king shall do according to his will; and he shall exalt himself, and magnify himself above every god, and shall speak marvelous things against the God of gods, and shall prosper till the indignation be accomplished: for that that is determined shall be done.
“Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers, nor the desire of women, nor regard any god: for he shall magnify himself above all. But in his estate shall he honour the God of forces: and a god whom his fathers knew not shall he honour with gold, and silver, and with precious stones, and pleasant things. Thus shall he do in the most strong holds with a strange god, whom he shall acknowledge and increase with glory” (Daniel 11:35-39).

Stewart Perone, in his biography of Hadrian (Hadrian) says that:
“it was Hadrian who made the triumph of Christianity inevitable. He did not intend this result: but by elevating a young favorite into godhead he reduced polytheism to absurdity … By obliterating Jerusalem of the Jews he ensured that when monotheism prevailed it would prevail in Christian form.”
Thus, the Most Highs rule in the affairs of mankind!
Messianic Expectations Almost Fulfilled

The irony of all this is that the Jews came so close to realizing all of their national ambitions. Jesus’ kingdom was not of this world, but its spread had definite social impact.

Roman Byzantium

Within three hundred years of Jesus’ crucifixion Rome was nominally Christian, and Emperor Constintine moved its capitol to Byzantium, (which he renamed Constantinople -- now Istanbul), because he liked its oriental ambiance -- at least this reason has been put forth seriously.
Hadrian probably just misunderstood the Jewish nature. It is quite unlikely that he intended any slight or disrespect to them with his plans for Aeila Capitolina -- quite the contrary! He only wanted to do good things for them.
It would have only taken a minor attitude adjustment on his part -- had he been taught by Jesus or presented with his unadulterated teachings by a true apostle -- for him to have rebuilt the city as a Jesusonian Jewish city and restored the Temple according to Hebrew specifications -- the type of adjustment which the Spirit of Truth, when willingly accepted, supplies. He wanted to promote peace -- “Pax Romana” -- not war! And he once tried to secure civil order in Rome, itself, by offering the Christians to elevate their Jesus into the Roman pantheon of gods (it was refused). Hadrian was a highly intelligent man and given his nature, would have listened to Jesus if time and conditions had given him that opportunity. Nor would he have likely dismissed Jesus’ words of power out of hand. Hadrian was in no way a Pontius Pilate. And he was a man who desperately thirsted for the righteous waters of eternal life. Near his death, which occurred as implied in the prophecy (“shall prosper till the indignation be accomplished”) less than six years after the war the emperor wrote of his soul:

“Animula, vagula, blandula,
Hospes, comesque, corporis;
Qu� nunc abibis in loca,
Pallidula, rigida, nudula?”
(“Sorry-lived, blithe-little, fluttering Sprite,
Comrade and guest in this body of clay,
Whither, ah! whither, departing in flight,
Rigid, half-naked, pale minion, away?
--E. Cobham Brewer 1810–1897)

Daniel understood, and The URANTIA Book confirms, that “the Most Highs rule in the kingdoms of men”. And Jesus said that it would be the Most Highs who would “overthrow this nation” of the Jews. Hadrian was to a certain extent their pawn. But, of course he made his own choices.
Jesus had also realized that:
“the rejection of the spiritual concept of the Messiah, the determination to cling persistently and blindly to the material mission of the expected deliverer, would … bring the Jews in direct conflict with the Roman armies, and that such a contest could only result in the final and complete overthrow of the Jewish nation.” (1913 A)
They would no longer be protected as an “independent people with a special spiritual mission on earth”:
“Even the Jewish leaders subsequently recognized it was this secular idea of the Messiah which led directly to the turbulence which eventually brought about their destruction” (1913 B)

No less an authority than Robert Chazan, Schever Professor of Hebrew and Judaic Studies and Chair of the Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University, bears this out in his study of Jewish persecution by the First Crusade (European Jewry and the First Crusade, University of California Press, 1987):
“Early Jewish history shows anti-Jewish violence that is either political or socioeconomic in origin. The Assyrian, Babylonian, Seleucid, and Roman assaults on Palestinian Jewry and its religious institutions all flowed from political tensions. Empires that generally espoused a doctrine of tolerating minority communities and faiths broke with that general policy when they perceived the Jews as politically rebellious and threatening. Even the two instances of decrees outlawing Jewish religious practice -- the Antiochene decrees of the 160s B.C.E. and the Hadrianic decrees of the 130s C.E. -- do not reflect an ideological commitment to the extirpation of Judaism on the part of the Seleucid and Roman authorities; rather they bespeak a desire to suppress political rebellion by striking at its religious roots.”

Let’s pretend for a moment that the Jews had accepted Jesus. And that Hadrian, born-of-the-spirit as a result of a contact with Jesus or his undiluted teachings (which would have been possessed by his followers if there had been more time for their inculcation), rebuilt a Jesusonian/Jewish city and restored the Temple. This, in turn, became a house of worship and prayer for all nations instead of “a den of thieves” -- under the Jesusonian/Jewish priesthood (or at least the Temple caretakers if priests no longer existed). Let’s further pretend that Constintine chose Jerusalem, for its oriental ambiance instead of Byzantium, and moved his capitol there. It could have been brought about that way with the aid of the Most Highs. And why not? The Jews, if they had accepted Jesus, would have been the light bearers of the next bi-millennium. There would have been no “Christianity”, as such.
There would be no Eastern and Western Catholic Church. The church at Rome would have never have gained ascendancy over the other European churches. And every year at Succoth and Passover Jesusonian Jews, Jesusonian Muslims, Jesusonian gentiles, and Jesusonians of all religions would perform their annual pilgrimage to the Holy City to mingle and worship together in the Temple.
There would have been no “Dark Ages”, no Crusades, no Inquisition, possibly no Hitler … who can even guess what the social systems of such a world as this would be like? Surely the Most Highs would have more greatly enjoyed supporting good choices rather than enforcing sanctions against bad ones.

We who are not Jewish should also remain aware that modern Jews played no part in making those bad choices nearly two millennia ago!

Christianity: This Era’s Jews?

It is beyond a doubt that the time is fast approaching when Christianity will be faced with similar choices to make. Like the Jews who demanded a military leader rather than understanding that social growth always follows spiritual uplift, Christians have mistaken ideas linking the Second Coming of Christ to the next stage of spiritual transformation. They believe that any transforming spiritual uplift to the social, economic, and political systems of the world will only follow upon his promised return, nothing else!
The URANTIA Book makes clear that a human, experiential, living New Revelation of Jesus, manifested in and by the lives of his followers who are “born-of-the-spirit”, who “dare to depend solely on Jesus and his incomparable teachings”, and who are “exclusively devoted to the spiritual regeneration of men [and women]” (2082 C-D and 2084 A) is what will change our world for the better. The question is, will Christians who expect only the Second Coming be able to recognize and participate, or will they, like the Jewish leaders of old, refuse “to receive the light of heaven” as it will be manifested in our day, and thereby seal “their doom as an independent people with a special spiritual mission on earth?”(1913 B)
Presently The URANTIA Book tells us that “the Christian churches … stand as great, but wholly unconscious obstacles to the immediate advance of the real gospel -- the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth” (2085 A). And that Christianity “stands in need of new contact with the uncompromised teachings of Jesus; it languishes for lack of a new vision of the Master’s life on earth” (2982 C). “Descriptive words,” it tells us, “of things beautiful cannot thrill like the sight thereof, neither can creedal words inspire men’s souls like the experience of knowing the presence of God (2083 C). The members of the Sanhedrin which condemned Jesus would not have lived to see the sweeping socio/political changes which would have occurred if they had not condemned the Son of God. These changes happened anyway, but without their people and away from their homeland. Nor will today’s Christians likely be alive on earth to view the “social, moral, economic, and political reorganization of the world” (2083 A) which will be brought in by this new revelation presented by mortals not much different from you and I, but who manifest Jesus in their lives, causing a needed change in the hearts of nearly everyone on earth. The question is, will Christianity be a functioning part of it, or will it condemn itself to the backwater of growth and progress and watch as the living truth goes forward carried in other hands and hearts?
The Messiah is here again now, not outwardly, but he is here either already invited inside or still knocking at the doors of every heart on earth. Will he be crucified again, and his followers persecuted? Or will a newly restored Christianity do what the Jews could not: carry the truth into a second bi-millennium? Either way, sometime around the coming millennial transition date (A.D. 2132) those alive should expect to witness the cleansing of the sanctuary prophesied in Daniel (ref. Dan. 8:14) as the result of the mission of a future “Elisha”, who will also bring a new and more real dimension to the teachings of “another and greater John the Baptist” whom The URANTIA Book tells us to expect (1866 A)!
The next Elijah will proclaim “the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (though probably not in those exact words), but it will be up to the next Elisha to bring in this “return to the high spiritual concepts of Jesus, who proclaimed that the kingdom is the will of his heavenly Father dominant and transcendent in the heart of the believer”. And none of this, we are told in The URANTIA Book, will have anything to do with either ’the visible church on earth or … the anticipated second coming of Christ.”(1866 A)
The first Elisha used bloody and murderous means to destroy the Baalite corruption and thus help restore Yahweh worship among the Jews. Hopefully we have moved away from such barbarism and the next Elisha will be able to use more spiritual means. Still, The URANTIA Book says that sometimes force must be relied upon to unseat evildoers. These passages amplifying the lesson to be derived from Jesus’ cleansing of the temple (see 1891 A) must have been included by its supernal authors for a reason pertinent to the times of their revelation!
But whether by Christians or by others, the end result will be a restatement -- a reliving -- of Jesus life by means of humans’ own making (as empowered by the spirit), which will “undo the work of [Jesus’] early followers who went about to create a sociophilosophical system of belief regarding the fact of Michael’s sojourn on earth” (1866 B). Thus, the “temple” or “sanctuary” will be cleansed for a fourth time.
The oncoming bi-millennium will be typified by the worldwide (planetary), organic, living, and spiritual Divine-human family, rather than the theological organizations which have dominated religion in the past!
(NEXT:) “THIRD END-TIME (c.A.D. 1132): Peter Abelard and Arnold of Brescia”