© 2009 Jan Herca (license Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0)
The torrent of information from The Fifth Revelation is impressive, and only thanks to it have many of us been able to glimpse, for the first time, some things that had not even occurred to us Christians.
One of these things is the existence of many “silenced” apostles or disciples, followers of Jesus who were of great importance in the early stages of the rise of Christianity, but who, over time, were forgotten. They were not mentioned by early Christian writers, or were deliberately marginalized.
One such case was that of David Zebedee, whom we had never heard of because we thought the Zebedee brothers were just two brothers, James and John. A special and separate mention should be made of the numerous women, great believers and followers of the Rabbi, of whom we have no news and of whom The Fifth Revelation does mention. Women such as Nalda, the Samaritan woman whom Jesus asked for a drink; Ruth, Jesus’ younger sister; Perpetua, Peter’s wife… Some women even formed a group of twelve “apostles” of whom people like Paul of Tarsus and other followers evidently did not want to hear about, but who undoubtedly must have played a very special role in the early Christian community (and if you don’t believe me, read Paul’s letters and Acts carefully and see the enormous reference to female names that exist).
But this topic of “silenced” women gives rise to much more and will require a special article for them, later on, when the topic arises throughout the novel.[1]
Today I’d like to talk about another eternally “forgotten” person whom “The Fifth Revelation” seems to be trying to rescue from oblivion: Abner.
Abner (born 16 BC - died 11/21/74) was a Nazirite member of the Nazirite colony at En-Geddi, and for a time its leader. The Nazirites, whom we have already discussed in an article dedicated to the Jewish religious groups of the time, were a small organization of believers who took very special vows of purity, which conferred upon them a very high social distinction, since they shared the honor, along with the high priest, of being the only ones allowed to enter the Holy of Holies in the Temple of Jerusalem. In this sense, Abner should be seen as a highly respected person, even by the Jewish clergy, at least until he became a follower of Jesus.
Abner became a close friend of John the Baptist within the Nazirite order. Abner had been the recognized head and leader of this Nazirite colony, probably until his partiality for John caused him to lose that leadership position (LU 135:2.4 and LU 142:8.1). He was the foremost of John’s disciples, his right-hand man. He had a group of John’s disciples under him, all from Judea. Abner was a native of Sebaste in Samaria, but he could not have been a Samaritan; he was a Nazirite. He was simply born in Sebaste (LU 144:9.1).
Abner became a fervent believer in Jesus and his staunchest ally, even more so than the apostles themselves. In fact, Jesus entrusted him with the leadership of the seventy evangelists (LU 144:7.4). Abner was associated with Andrew when Jesus’ twelve and John’s twelve worked together (LU 146:3.9). (It is worth remembering here that Andrew, not his brother Peter, held the leadership position of the apostle group during Jesus’ lifetime, although the situation later changed.) Besides the Johnan apostles whom Abner led, he eventually formed a group of fifty disciples around him (LU 163:0.1). The Urantia Book tells us that his work as a preacher and that of his associated disciples was more far-reaching than that of the apostles, even going so far as to send disciples to Alexandria during Jesus’ public life, where a group of followers of the Master was formed (LU 162:9.2).
After Jesus’ death, Abner became the head of the church in Philadelphia, as Jesus’ brother James had become the head of the church in Jerusalem (LU 166:5.1-2), and the two had serious disagreements. He also did not maintain good relations with either Peter or Paul (LU 166:5.3), which explains why none of the later gospels mention him by name. Abner, in these disputes with some of the apostles, enlisted Lazarus of Bethany and his sisters, who sold their property and moved to Philadelphia (LU 168:5.3). He was also supported by David Zebedee (LU 171:1.5), and had the support of Nathanael, who lived in Philadelphia for a year (LU 193:6.4). This would explain why neither David Zebedee nor Nathanael ever appear as protagonists in the book of Acts, and in the case of David, why he is not even mentioned in the gospels.
Abner did an immense amount of preaching work eastward, just as Paul did westward. In fact, Abner had a more eastern, or Babylonian, view of Jesus’ teachings. Abner maintained close contact with the eldest son of Cymboithon, the headmaster of the famous Urmia academy where Jesus taught for several months (LU 134:6.15), but he apparently did not choose the disciples he sent to Urmia carefully, because they caused much unrest in the academy, and it was later forced to close its doors.
The Urantia Book seems to have nothing but praise for Abner, unlike its many criticisms of Paul of Tarsus. It does mention Paul as one of the great universal religious teachers, but only because of his great impact, not because his teachings were correct. The Urantia Book says of Abner’s disciples: “During the later years of Abner and for some time thereafter, the believers at Philadelphia held more strictly to the religion of Jesus, as he lived and taught, than any other group on earth” (LU 166:5.6).
Abner lived to be 89 years old and died in Philadelphia on November 21, 74 A.D. (LU 166:5.7). It is very striking that the writers of The Urantia Book only give the date of death of this follower of Jesus and no one else, not even among the apostles. They undoubtedly do this in recognition of this misunderstood man, whom they clearly place above Paul in terms of fidelity to the Master’s message. Because The Urantia Book insists so much on the differences between Abner’s preaching and Paul’s (LU 171:5.6), it is evident that it prefers Abner. In The Urantia Book, Abner is almost as prominent, if not more so, than Peter and the twelve; One need only see what very moving last words Jesus addressed to him (LU 171:3.2): “My son, I know you will be true to the kingdom, and I pray the Father to grant you wisdom that you may love and understand your brethren.”
What happened to this Christian Church promoted by Abner and his disciples, as well as by the apostle Nathanael and others? The Urantia Book drops some rather mysterious information: “The Eastern version of Jesus’ message, although it remained more faithful to his teachings, continued to follow Abner’s uncompromising attitude. It never progressed as the Hellenized version did, but finally collapsed within the Islamic movement.” (LU 195:1.11). Within the Islamic movement? Were there contacts and intermingling between primitive Christianity and Islam? Well, there may well be, if we look at the pioneering studies that some experts like Günter Lünling have conducted on the subject. On this matter, which is worthy of a specific in-depth article (at another time), I’ll just leave here a couple of web links and a quote, so that anyone who wants to delve deeper:
«It is well known that the Bible is not a homogeneous product of a single mind, but rather presents a great diversity of ideas brought together rather casually and often transmitted in a dubious manner until their definitive inclusion in the codex of the Old or New Testament. Until now, however, the same view has not been applied to the Koran, which is commonly accepted as the creation of a single man, Muhammad - his exact name was Mohamed ben Abdallah - in the 7th century (except, of course, those who attribute to it a directly divine origin).»
«The German theologian Günter Lüling, from Erlangen, has carried out a thorough exegetical investigation of the Quranic text. He reaches a conclusion practically unheard of in current historiography, but no less convincing: the central core of the Holy Book of Islam consists of a certain number of early Christian songs that were later modified and enriched with other ideas.»
«Lüling’s first publications in this regard date back to 1970. They were initially rejected by other theologians and orientalists. Today, however, Lüling has a diverse following among prestigious German, French, and English orientalists.»
Was The Urantia Book, dating back to 1934, already anticipating with its paragraph 195:1.11 what is beginning to be discovered by modern Islamic exegesis?
¶ References
¶ External links
¶ Notes
This novel, «Jesus of Nazareth», is a biography of the Master based on The Urantia Book that is in preparation by the author. ↩︎