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Saving the Savior -

Did Christ Survive the Crucifixion?

by Abubakr Ben Ishmael Salahuddin

 

http://www.tombofjesus.com/

 

 

 

From the Author

 

"Those who seek should not stop seeking until they find. When they find, they will be disturbed. When they are disturbed, they will marvel, and will reign over all. And after they have reigned they will rest."

 

Those are the words of Jesus Christ. When you read Saving the Savior, you may become disturbed. But then you will marvel. And what will you marvel about?

 

"After all, there is nothing hidden that will not be revealed, and there is nothing covered up that will remain undisclosed." (Jesus Christ)

 

You will marvel at the fact that despite 2000 years of cover-up by a tenacious (and sometimes vicious) Church, in your own hands you will have a book that clearly demonstrates what Jesus said: "...there is nothing covered up that will remain undisclosed."

 

And then you will "reign over all." Why? Because you will have knowledge and truth. But not a worldly "reign." Your reign will be the reign of a giving teacher to your eager students. And after your reign, you will rest--rest in the contentment that you have helped to liberate the mind and the soul by spreading truth.

explores the theory that Jesus Christ survived the crucifixion, traveled across what was then known as Asia, eventually settled in Kashmir, married, had children and lived to the ripe old age of 120 years. The book begins with a Foreword by Dr. Fida Hassnain, former Director of Archives, Archaeology, Research and Museums for the State of Kashmir in India. Dr. Hassnain is a great living scholar on post-crucifixion studies.

Introduces the reader to five major groups currently struggling over the identity of Jesus Christ: Revisionist Christian scholars, such as the members of the Jesus Seminar, who seek to re-define Jesus, based on new discoveries in Christian scholarship, more as a "prophet" than the "Son of God" Traditional Christianity, which is struggling to maintain the orthodox viewpoint of the figure of Jesus Christ; Eastern Religions and Philosophies that view Jesus more as an "avatar," or as an "enlightened Buddha" The world of Islam, in which a surprisingly intense battle is being waged over the figure of Jesus Christ; Atheists, Agnostics, and some secular humanists who view religion in general as a dangerous "opiate." Some believe that Jesus Christ never existed.

Introduction:

Offers a summary of some of the various books of Christianity, both canonical and non-canonical, such as the Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of Philip, Dead Sea Scrolls, the standard and accepted books of Christianity, etc.

Chapter I: "Jesus Who?" Christianity and the New Jesus:

Covers the intricate, intense, and fascinating struggles occurring within Christianity over the religious, spiritual and historical identity of Jesus Christ. Exposes the reader to the various exciting discussions occurring within Christianity, such as the views of Reverend Jack Spong ("Why Christianity Must Change or Die" 1998), who has called for a "second Reformation of Christianity," in order to "reformulate the Christian faith for a new era;" Dr. Thomas Sheehan ("The First Coming," 1986), who believes that Jesus came to destroy religion, not to create one; Dr. Robert Funk, the head of the Jesus Seminar, and other exciting information.

Chapter II: "They seek him here, they seek him there…":

Explores a controversial and hotly debated passage recorded in St. Irenaeus' (an early father of the Church), Against Heresies, which indicates that Jesus was seen alive in "Asia" during the reign of the Emperor Trajan, who ascended the throne in the year 98 A.D.

Click here for the full text of this chapter.

Chapter III: Wanted: Dead or Alive-The Fight for Jesus in Islam:

This is the first book that explores, in great detail, the battle within Islam over the status of Jesus Christ: Is he coming back physically in the "last days" to force Islam upon the world, as orthodox Islam teaches? Or is he dead and buried, as a new and growing force within Islam is now advancing? This chapter dissects the Arabic language debates that, in great part, form the center of this fascinating controversy within the Islamic world.

Chapter IV: Jesus the Buddha?

This chapter is also unique, in that it explores, for the first time, and in great depth, in the section entitled, The Buddhist Side and the Eastern philosophical bases for the "need" to bury Jesus, the deep philosophical questions that arise surrounding the Jesus-in-India theory. Also explored are the striking similarities between the teachings of the man in Buddhist literature known as "San Issa" and the teachings of Jesus Christ. Did Jesus Christ visit India before the crucifixion as well as afterwards? A fascinating comparison between Buddhism and Christianity is explored by examining a document of the Catholic Church's Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (formerly known as the Inquisition), and comparing its view of prayer and meditation with the Buddhist view. When you finish reading this section, you'll understand fully that the issue of a possible post-crucifixion life of Jesus Christ goes far beyond the realm of historical accuracy.

Chapter V: The Man who won't go away - Nicolas Notovitch:

In Saving the Savior, Nicolas Notovitch, a Russian traveler of the late 19th century, is dubbed, "The Man who won't go away" because all attempts to dismiss him as a "fraud" have always ended in failure. Read about the fascinating account of the travels of Nicolas Notovitch, and his discovery of ancient documents in the Buddhist temple of Hemis that mention the sojourn of Jesus Christ to India. See copies and translations of the written diaries discovered by Dr. Fida Hassnain, a modern living scholar, that prove, contrary to Notovitch's detractors, that Notovitch definitely visited the Hemis monastery and discovered the documents that record the presence of Jesus Christ in India.

Chapter VI: A Wrench in the Works - Mirza Ghulam Ahmad:

Mirza Ghulam Ahmad must be called the "father" of Jesus-in-India studies. This man almost literally threw a "wrench in the works" of the apocalyptic desires of both fundamentalist orthodox Islam and Christianity. The Christians are waiting for Jesus Christ to return from heaven "in power and glory" to impose the Kingdom of God. The Muslims are waiting for Jesus Christ to return from heaven, along with "Imam Mahdi," to "break all crucifixes" and impose Islam on the world. Mirza Ghulam Ahmad's book, Jesus in India, rocked both the Christian and Islamic worlds with its claim that Jesus Christ survived the crucifixion, traveled all the way to Kashmir in India, married, had children, died at the age of 120, and is buried in a tomb called the Roza Bal, that is visited and revered to this day by citizens of Srinagar. Read the details surrounding this discovery: actual detailed, long correspondence between Mirza Ghulam Ahmad and his understudy appears in Saving the Savior. Since his discovery, new information (as you will see in Saving the Savior) has since been discovered by other researchers.

Chapter VII. Jesus in Heaven on Earth:

This chapter exams the irrefutable proofs regarding the Israelite origins of the Kashmiri peoples. Examine hundreds of names (a "small" sample) that are found throughout Kashmir and Afghanistan that are also found in the Old Testament, thus proving an Israelite connection. The actual Bible verses are given so that the reader can check for himself or herself. Is this why Jesus went to Kashmir? Did he arrive in India to an Israelite community that had already settled there? Read about the Cohanim DNA tests that were performed by Tudor Parfitt and Niel Bradman of the Center for Genetic Anthropology in London that demonstrated that the Bene Israel Jews of India are descendants of the ancient ten tribes of Israel. "And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring…" (John 10:16). Did Jesus go to Kashmir to fulfill his commitment to bring the "other sheep" into the fold?

Chapter VIII: From Golgatha to Roza Bal - the Great Journey of Jesus Christ:

This chapter examines the trek of Jesus Christ across Asia, from Jerusalem to Damascus to Nisibis, Persia (Iran), Herat, Taxila, Murree and Srinagar, after his survival from the cross. The ancient documents that record his sojourn across Asia are covered in this chapter, as well as in Chapter IX.

Chapter IX: Saving the Savior:

 

This explosive and revealing chapter examines both the internal Biblical evidence that indicates that Jesus Christ survived the crucifixion, as well as independent evidence that exists within various traditions, including Hindu, Persian, Islamic, Tibetan and others. The actual original language text of ancient documents is displayed in Saving the Savior, along with English translations, revealing the presence of Jesus in India long after the crucifixion. Among the texts, translations, and other information revealed in this chapter are:

 

The Bhavishya Mahapurana

The Rauzat-us-Safa

Ikmal-ud-Din

The Book of Balauhar and Budasaf

The Tarikh-i-Kashmir

The History of Religions and Doctrines

The Tarikh-i-Kabir Kashmir

The Wajees-ut-Tawarikh

The Bagh-i-Sulaiman

Official Decree of the Grand Mufti

Signpost outside of the Roza Bal

The Carved Footprints inside the Roza Bal (with nail marks represented)

The Acta Thomae

The Ain-ul-Hayat

The Takhat Sulaiman monument

Chapter X. The Teachings of Yuz Asaf:

This chapter offers no commentary whatsoever from the author. This chapter features only the sayings and teachings of Yuz Asaf (otherwise known as Jesus Christ) from various texts, biblical and non-biblical. Incidentally, the author dedication near the front of the book reads:

This book is dedicated to the memory of Yuz Asaf (otherwise known as Jesus Christ) May he rest in peace. Amen.

The author does not intend to be flippant by the phrase, "otherwise known as Jesus Christ." If the theory of a post-crucifixion life of "Jesus Christ" is true, then for the large majority of his life, he carried the name Yuz Asaf. And, perhaps more importantly, Yuz Asaf is the name under which he was buried in the lush, peaceful, paradise-valley on earth, Kashmir.

Afterword:

 

The author reveals some incredible personal experiences of five individuals, two of whom he has met and interviewed personally. Find out what he was told!!

 

The Bhavishya Mahapurana

 

There are eighteen books of the Hindus called the Puranas. The ninth book, the Bhavishya Mahapurana, records an encounter that King Shalivahana had with Jesus Christ near Srinagar long after the crucifixion. This work was compiled by Sutta in the year 3191 of the Kaukikia Era. That corresponds to the year 115 AD. (If Jesus Christ died at age 120, this account was compiled five years before his death). Alongside the oral tradition of The Followers of Jesus in Afghanistan, this written account is perhaps the most important of any of the documents that record the presence of Jesus long after the crucifixion because it was written while Jesus, according to the theory, would still have been alive.

 

Christian scholars state that the only extant Gospels that may date to the first century are Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and Thomas. But they theorize that there may also have existed a Q document [see the discussion in Chapter 6 under the heading, "The Q and Jesus the Buddha - The Sources"] that pre-dated these Gospels, and that served as the source material for at least Matthew and Luke. This Q document is not available anywhere today, and though scholars assume the existence of such a document, we cannot know for certain whether this Q document actually existed prior to the compilation of the Gospels. So the Bhavishya Mahapurana could be considered the only extant book that represents an original document that recorded information about Jesus Christ during his lifetime. So it might be suggested that the Bhavishya Mahapurana might stand as a more reliable document than any of the Gospels, in terms of mention of the historical Jesus Christ. This is a very striking account:

 

"Shalivahana, who was a grandson of Bikrama Jit, took over the government. He vanquished the attacking hordes of Chinese, Parthians, Scythians and Bactrians. He drew a border between the Arians and the Mleacha (= non-Hindus), and ordered the latter to withdraw to the other side of India. One day, Shalivahana, the chief of the Sakyas, went into the Himalayas. There, in the Land of the Hun (= Ladak, a part of the Kushan empire), the powerful king saw a man sitting on a mountain, who seemed to promise auspiciousness. His skin was fair and he wore white garments.

 

"The king asked the holy man who he was. The other replied: 'I am called a son of God, born of a virgin, minister of the non-believers, relentless in search of the truth. 'The king then asked him: 'What is your religion?' The other replied, 'O great king, I come from a foreign country, where there is no longer truth and where evil knows no bounds. In the land of the non-believers, I appeared as the Messiah. But the demon Ihamasi of the barbarians (dasyu) manifested herself in a terrible form; I was delivered unto her in the manner of the non-believers and ended in Ihamasi's realm.

 

"'O king, lend your ear to the religion that I brought unto the non-believers: after the purification of the essence and the impure body and after seeking refuge in the prayers of the Naigama, man will pray to the Eternal. Through justice, truth, meditation and unity of spirit, man will find his way to Isa in the center of light. God, as firm as the sun, will finally unite the spirit of all wandering beings in Himself. Thus, O king, Ihamasi will be destroyed; and the blissful image if Isa, the giver of happiness, will remain forever in the heart; and I was called Isa-Masih.' After the king heard these words, he took the teacher of the non-believers and sent him to their pitiless land.'"30

 

Here again we see a teaching similar to the Gnostic, Buddhist and Afghani versions that we studied earlier, with Jesus here stating that personal acts involving prayer, self-purification, the practice of truth and justice and the practice of meditation would bring human beings to God. In none of those four versions has Jesus spoken about himself as the object of worship or as a mediator through which one must go in order to reach God. And again, this idea is contrary to today's Christian teachings.

 

The reader will notice above that the "holy man" used the indefinite article, "a" in describing himself as, "a son of God." Recall the discussion in the section, The Nazarenes (The Ebionites), of the Introduction of this book where I quoted verses of the Old Testament that mention Israel, Solomon, and David as God's "sons." As stated in that section, the Nazarenes referred to Jesus as "son of God," and they used that appellation to describe his spiritual status, not his literal position as the sole Son of God. Also recall the previous section on The Followers of Jesus where the head of that community, Abba Yahya, stated that Jesus bore the appellation, son of God, "because he had attained that rank through his goodness and sacrifices."

 

[Holger] Kersten states that the name "Isa," or "Issa", derives from the Syrian, Yeshu (Jesus), "being altered to conform to Musa (=Moses)." What is striking about the above account is that Jesus is mentioned by the name that he is known by in the scripture of Islam, the Quran. But the above document was compiled hundreds of years before the Quran was written. Also, the above document was written in Sanskrit, the language of the Hindus, a totally different religion. Since the name Isa appears in an ancient Hindu document as well as in the scripture of Islam, apparently it was a name that Jesus was known by in the East.

 

Although Kersten states that "Isa" is derived from the Syrian, Yeshu, the above verses seem to use the name Isa as an attributive name, and not as the actual personal name of the holy man. Because the reader will note that the holy man stated: "…man will find his way to Isa in the center of light." Then later the holy man refers to himself as Isa-Masih-the Isa Messiah. So could the word Isa have actually meant some kind of attribute of the Divine, and that this holy man had been sent as the "Isa Messiah" to reestablish this special Divine attribute in those whom he ministered to? The holy man, in fact, himself defines Isa as, "the giver of happiness," and does not seem to refer to himself by the name Isa. In short, he is the Messiah of Isa - or he is the Messiah for Isa? It seems that the holy man's mission was to teach spiritual practices that would lead to Isa, the giver of happiness, with the words "giver of happiness" being an attribute of God. As he states, "Through justice, truth, meditation and unity of spirit, man will find his way to Isa in the center of light." It appears that Jesus Christ was teaching a spiritual prescription for finding happiness "in the center of light," and the words "center of light" must certainly have been metaphorical words for the Divine - for God. The word "light" not only refers to physical light. In religious literature of various religions, the word "light" refers to guidance. So the "center of light" or the center of all guidance would be God.

- Sanskrit verses 16-33 of the third khanda of the Pratisarga parvan of the Bhavishya Mahapurana

 

Above is the transliteration of the Sanskrit verses of the Bhavishya Mahapurana. ... Please note that the verse numbers have been placed at the end of a given verse. So, verse 26 runs for two lines, and the actual number has been placed at the end of the verse on the second line. ...

 

Author Biography

 

Abubakr Ben Ishmael Salahuddin, author of Saving the Savior, more than anything else, is a passionate explorer of the realm of religion and spirituality, and a student of comparative religious studies. He was raised as a staunch, loyal Roman Catholic for twelve years of his life. Though a deep lover of his Roman Catholic religion (attending 10:00 a.m. mass every day for twelve years), he could not resolve in his mind and soul what he felt to be a deep injustice: that the prayers of Jesus Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, as recorded in the Holy Bible, had been rejected by God, and that God had decided that Jesus Christ must be crucified and killed on the cross despite those passionate prayers that he be saved from such an awful death.

 

Each Easter season, on Good Friday - the day that Jesus is said to have been killed - he would cry silently in his room as he thought about this deep injustice. He would cry until his stomach cramped and ached, so pained was he over the thought that God had rejected the prayers of his "son," Jesus Christ, according to the Holy Bible.

 

He realized, as he stated openly to the Roman Catholic nun of his seventh grade classroom, that "something is missing." Remaining thoroughly loyal to his religion, he nevertheless made a verbal commitment in public that, "I am going to find what is missing. Something is wrong."

 

After graduating from high school, he became actively involved in the social revolution of the 1960s in America. But during this time he never forgot his commitment, and continued exploring, reading and researching.

 

While attending the University of Illinois at Chicago, he met a Muslim named Muhammad Al-Bakri, who exposed him to the religion of Islam. In 1975, he accepted the religion of Islam. Though he had converted from Catholicism to Islam, he never for a moment forgot his commitment to find what was "missing" regarding the injustice of Jesus Christ having been nailed and killed on the cross.

 

Over a period of time (which included a series of rather mysterious circumstances) he came to be aware of the theory that Jesus Christ may have survived the crucifixion. Delving deep into the subject, and also praying and meditating over the matter, he slowly and meticulously gathered information on the subject, culminating, on December 10, 1999, in the introduction to the World Wide Web of his now popular, Tomb of Jesus Christ Website. A few months after the creation of The Tomb of Jesus Christ Website, he met Dr. Fida Hassnain. Dr. Fida Hassnain is the former Director of Archives, Archaeology, Research and Museums for the State of Kashmir, and lives in the city of Srinagar, the capital of Kashmir, and the city which houses the tomb of Jesus Christ. Dr. Hassnain graciously and enthusiastically agreed to work with Mr. Salahuddin on collecting ancient documents that mention the sojourn of Jesus Christ in India /Asia after the crucifixion.

 

Reviews: 

"In 'Saving the Savior,' Mr. Salahuddin moves well beyond the realm of speculation, and offers the reader (among other things) actual original-language documents from the East that tell quite a different story about the man, Jesus Christ, than that told by the Church" - Dr. Fida Hassnain, former Director of Archives, Archaeology, Research and Museums for Kashmir, India.

 

"A victory for truth!" - Mr. Gene D. Matlock, author of Jesus and Moses are Buried in India, Birthplace of Abraham and the Hebrews.

 

"I stayed with it for hours till I read your book through. I am most impressed and I believe you have written a book of great historical importance. The love, the search for unbiased honesty, all come thru to the reader again and again" - Sue Olsson

 

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