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قراءة كتاب A Layman's Life of Jesus
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A LAYMAN'S LIFE
OF JESUS
BY
MAJOR S. H. M. BYERS
OF GENERAL SHERMAN'S STAFF
Author of "With Fire and Sword," "Sherman's
March to the Sea," "Iowa in War Times,"
"Twenty Years in Europe," and
of other books
NEW YORK
THE NEALE PUBLISHING COMPANY
1912
Copyright, 1912, by
The Neale Publishing Company
PREFACE
Every book should have a purpose. The object of this little volume is to try and harmonize, in a sense, and bring nearer to us, the story of the Master. It is free from the fog of creed, and the simple picture of the Times and the Man may help to waken new interest, especially with the young in the greatest tale of the world.
S. H. M. B.
Des Moines, Sept. 3, 1912.
CONTENTS
| PAGE | |
| CHAPTER I | 7 |
|
Palestine two thousand years ago. The Little Land of Galilee. An Oriental Village. The Boy Carpenter. |
|
| CHAPTER II | 12 |
|
A Boy of Babylon. The Founder of Judaism. Philo, the Philosopher. An out-door Man. The Poet-Carpenter. Staying in the Desert. The Silence of History. Where was Jesus in these silent years? |
|
| CHAPTER III | 23 |
|
Christ still a Jew. Is the Child's escape at Bethlehem still a secret? Performing wonders. A strange age. Rome still in the thrall of Heathendom. Augustus dead. Tiberius the Awful. Palestine itself half Heathen. A Religious Enthusiast. Jesus is ceasing to be a Jew. A church tyranny. Subjects of Cæsar. Human suffering counted for nothing with the Romans. The Jews are longing for the New Time when God might come and rule the world in Pity. An age of Superstitions and Magic. Laws of Science unknown. Nobody even knew that the world was round. |
|
| CHAPTER IV | 41 |
|
The Fairy Prince. His Home is everywhere. John the Baptist is preaching down by Jericho. The young Jesus hears of him and goes a hundred miles on foot to see him. A stranger steps down to the River to be baptized. Look quick, it is the Lamb of God! John is put to death in a palace by the Dead Sea. A Woman's Revenge. |
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| CHAPTER V | 55 |
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An Oriental Wedding, and the first miracle. Jairus. "Little Maid, Arise." The Light of the World. The Poet of the Lord. Do we know what a Miracle is? |
|
| CHAPTER VI | 67 |
|
A wandering Teacher. Lives in a borrowed house at Capernaum. The Testament Books, fragments written from memory. The whole Law of Life boiled down to Seven Words. He visits Tyre by the Ocean. Walking on the Sea. A hard saying, and not understood. His friends begin to leave Him. They demand Wonders, Miracles. Raffael's great picture. |
|
| CHAPTER VII | 82 |
|
Jesus goes alone and on foot to Jerusalem, to try and prove Himself. In six months they will kill Him. The rich Capital no place for Socialism. "If thou be Christ, tell us, plainly." He is a fugitive from a city mob. The Raising of Lazarus. Again the people are following Him. The great Sanhedrin is alarmed. "This Man has everybody believing on Him. He will create a Revolution yet." Jerusalem is in political danger, anyway; so is the Roman Empire. Everything seems going to pieces. "This Man has too many Followers; we must kill Him." Judas is hired to betray Him. |
|
| CHAPTER VIII | 94 |
|
The last supper. Leonardo's great picture. Betrayal. With a rope around his neck the Savior of mankind is dragged before a Roman Judge. The scene at Pilate's palace. Pilate's wife warns him. The awful murder and the End. |
A Layman's Life of Jesus
CHAPTER I
Palestine two thousand years ago. The Little Land of Galilee. An Oriental Village. The Boy Carpenter.
One of the beauty spots of the world, a couple of thousand years ago, was the little land of Galilee, in upper Palestine. That was a land for poets and painters.
Lonesome, deserted, and little inhabited as it seems now, there was a time when this little paradise of earth had many people and many handsome cities. "In my time," says Josephus, "there were not less than four hundred walled towns in Galilee." Nature, too, was lavish in its gifts to this little land. There were green valleys there, picturesque mountains, clear blue lakes, running brooks, and grassy fields. An Eastern sun shone on the province almost all the time. There was no winter there. Like a diamond in the very heart of this beautiful land sat the town of Nazareth, "The Flower of Galilee." Close by the village were the hills that fenced in the upper end of the plain of beautiful Esdralon. Figs grew there at Nazareth, and oranges, and grapes luscious and bountiful as nowhere else. The flower-lined lanes stretched from the village clear down to the blue lake of Galilee, only a dozen miles or so away. It must have been a delight to live in a climate so delicious, in a land so lovely.
It all belonged to Rome then, as did the whole country known as Palestine. The Romans had divided the land into three provinces,—Galilee, Samaria, and Judea, with its splendid city of Jerusalem, then one of the noted capitals of the world. Governors or kings were appointed for these three provinces by the emperors at Rome; they were usually Orientals.
Just now two sons of Herod the Great, oftener known as "the splendid Arab," are ruling there. The one named Herod is at Jerusalem; his brother