Some two thousand and change years ago, in a remote village in Galilee, a thirteen-year-old carpenter boy at the very best may have learned an “eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” from the Torah and how to make plows and yokes from his father. This boy-Jesus- disappears into oblivion only to reappear seventeen years later as a prophet exemplar talking with the wit and wisdom of Confucius, preaching with the enlightenment of Budha, vetting with the pragmatism of Vyasa, manifesting the wisdom of Socrates, the politics of Plato, the logics of Aristotle and the inimitable rhetoric skills of Cicero.
How did and where did this metamorphosis happen? What made him say what he said and what made him do what he did, is the subject of my book JOSHUA the Odyssey of an Ordinary Man
Evicted from a Synagogue, in Galilee, a dejected and disillusioned Jesus must have travelled to Egypt to the Library of Alexandria: the library at its glory where all the knowledge of the universe ensembled in one place under one roof in one dialect -the fulfillment of the great Alexandrian dream. (In those days Egypt was was at its glory and abundance and people from all the neighboring countries travelled to Egypt when they had famine, pestilence, flood or draught.) After studying here for four years, an inquisitive Jesus travelled to Rome where he learned upfront the rough outer shell and the soft underbelly of his occupier; and resolved to submit what is due to Caesar and what is due to God- the extreme expression of his pragmatism. In Rome he mastered the Ciceronian technique of rhetoric with the power of parables. In Greece, he walked the footprints of the great philosophers and gained the wisdom of Hellenistic enlightenment, the experiment of Democracy and Plato's vision of a Republic. His exploration of Babylonia was reawakening and gave him in-depth knowledge of the origin of the Jewish beliefs themselves, of Creation, of Eden, of the Great Flood and origin of the Torah itself. It all started in Babylon, he reckoned.
The next leg of his Odyssey was an arduous journey to the Far East via the silk-route through the Khyber Pass to the University of Taxila in India where he learned the Vedas, The Upanishads, Hindu philosophy, Buddhism, Confucianism, transmigration of souls, reincarnation and the extreme practice of non-violence. The final leg of his sojourn was in Madhura under the tutelage of the Vyasa. It was here at the hermitage of Vyasa that Jesus met Sukanya- the most mysterious personification of a woman being. Sukanya mesmerized and gripped Joshua.
After seventeen years of travelling and studying from the philosophers of the East and West, an enlightened Jesus returned home to preach a new philosophy of life rooted in love, resilience and non-violence.
From the very early days of my life as an altar server, the life Jesus had gripped me. After prolonged years of college education, four undergraduate degrees, four postgraduate diplomas and four Fellowships in Medicine and Cardiology my attention turned to Jesus only by age of forty-five. For the preparation of this manuscript, I travelled through each of the places as narrated in this book, some places multiple times. I tried to read all the religious, historical, philosophical and literary texts from those civilizations; The Gilgamesh, The Rig Veda, The Testaments, The Iliad, The Odyssey, The Maha- Bharata, The Ramayana the Bhagwat Gitas, Confucius, The Testaments, The Greek playwrights etc. This preparation consumed fifteen years of my life. And then the writing started, which lasted for three years. Thus, “Joshua the Odyssey” took shape.
From very early days on I had developed love for non-violence and extreme repulson for atrocities against the women. In the most ancient religion of Hinduism, a woman does not deserve freedom at all; in Judaism a woman is valued only three fifth of a man and in Islam the status is not any better either. In that context my admiration for Confucianisn, Jainism and Buddhism are supreme that they treated women respectfully and believed in non-violence. In India right from the seventh and sixth millennia BC, onwards, Jainism and Buddhism deep rooted in love and nonviolence flourished.Among the long array of philosophers of the world starting from Akhenaten, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Confucius, Vyasa and Zoroaster, Jesus is the first ever philosopher who stood for the freedom and voice of women and the meek. At one juncture, when Jesus was confronted with a situation where a group of men were gathered around a harlot with stones in their hands ready to charge, a bold Jesus stepped into the ring, gripped the woman by the wrist and turned around challenging the crowd “who amongst you without sin may cast the first stone”- a challenge more prevalent today where the religious fundamentalists are running amok shouting, “My god is mightier than yours.”
Previously I have published two works on the life and times of Jesus: JOSHUA- The Odyssey of an Ordinary Man in 2013 and JESUS- The Unknown in 2015. Both the works were too voluminous and criticized as over researched and with vast narrative digressions. I have answered those criticisms positively, abridged the book by one hundred pages and now presenting it to you as a more precise and enjoyable read. I submit this book in the memory of the many millions of women of the world that are cut, mutilated, stoned, burned, and buried alive in the name of Gods and Prophets.