I am here, Jesus:

Yes, I am here, as you perceived spiritually when I came into the room, and you see that your spiritual perceptions are being opened up with continual and constant prayer for the Divine Love and the earnest longing of your soul for at-onement with the Heavenly Father.

I am here tonight to write about my father, Joseph, and you may be absolutely sure of its veracity. In the first place, there is proof in the New Testament to show that about nine months before the crucifixion my father was alive, and that is, during the year 29 (A.D.) I was preaching in Capernaum, and the Jews asked each other, "Is not he the son of Joseph and Mary whom we know?" -- a quotation from the sixth chapter of John, line 42, which shows that they referred to my father as still living.

My father's identity as Joseph of Arimathea was concealed in a name which in Hebraic means "father of the prophet," and although there was at the time of my ministry a town in Judea from which Arimathea was a corruption, yet the evidence is clear that a name was used that would indicate my father's identity.

Furthermore, in later years, a century or more after my death, the idea became popular with the Christian leaders to make the world believe that my mother never had any children, and they stated that my brothers James and Jude, who later believed in my work, were not my brothers but my cousins. And they concocted this story whereby my mother, Mary, had a sister by the same name, Mary, who married the brother of my father, Joseph, and that this supposed brother was called Cleophas or Alphaeus. So that, what the Bible refers to when it mentions Alphaeus, the father of James and Jude, was not a mention of my father but of my father's so-called brother by that name. In that way, these later writers hoped to induce Christians to believe that my mother had lived as a virgin all her life and that my brothers who are mentioned in the New Testament were merely cousins. And in this, my father's desire for concealment of his identity helped these later writers in their attempts to eliminate my father from the Biblical scene after my supposed visit to the rabbis in Jerusalem at the age of twelve, an incident which I have already stated in one of my messages to Mr. Padgett to be entirely false.

The Doctor* has been asking himself some questions arising from the implications of my message regarding my father and it is indeed revolutionary in its impact upon the usual conception of my relationship with my family, but I can assure him that this message is authentically written and to continue further, I may state that my father after having seen my materialized body and the Divine Love which entered into his soul as a result of my materialization caused a great breakdown in his beliefs about my mission and he began to see it in its spiritual sense; and after many years, when his great confusion and bitter disappointment had subsided, he gained in faith in my mission as the Messiah and he did some evangelizing with some of the disciples on several of the islands off the coast of Greece, notably Patmos and Cyprus, and he did after many years make his way to Great Britain, but he died soon thereafter and the supernatural event connected with the flowering of a branch has no factual relation to the events which mark his stay in the island empire.

In addition to these events in the New Testament which later writers distorted or eliminated completely in order to have the narrative accord with their own preconceived notions as to my Messiahship and Divinity, there are many more that need to be explained; and one is that I did speak on the bread of life, which should be interpreted as the Divine Love, but I never said that my flesh or my blood should be consumed in order for my followers to attain salvation. That, also, was interpolated in order to justify in the New Testament the concept of the transubstantiation, which I previously wrote through Mr. Padgett to be completely erroneous and particularly vexatious to me.

In addition, I should like to say that never did I state in the Gospel of Mark and, in fact, neither did he or any other of my disciples ever state, or write, to the effect that I compared Gentile children to dogs who should not receive the food which was to be given to the children, meaning Jewish people. This incident is supposed to have taken place on the coast of the Mediterranean near Tyre and Sidon and, in truth, there is a basis for the account but it has been badly distorted and mangled in the telling.

There was, indeed, a Gentile woman who sought me out to have me cure her sick daughter, and she addressed me as Rabbi, for she knew that I was of the Jewish nation. I told her to approach, although some of my eager disciples wished to chase her, and I asked her why she asked help of a Jewish rabbi, being herself Gentile, and I asked her whether she knew that Jewish rabbis would tell her that food should not be taken from the children and given to the dogs. Her response was substantially what is described in the Gospel, and through her faith I was indeed able to cure her ailing daughter; but I have been quoted thereafter, through badly garbled accounts, that I considered Gentiles as dogs. This, too, is an incident of the errors which should be brought to the attention of readers of the New Testament, for the impression it leaves about humans and spirits is that I made racial distinctions between souls, which is false and has done considerable harm to my mission.

I think I have said enough for tonight and I shall close, but I want to tell you to keep on praying earnestly for the Divine Love and I shall continue to help you obtain the truths that have never before been given to mankind since they were told with the revisions of the 1st and 2nd century (A.D.) church writers. These are the signs that reveal that I am in rapport with you to a great extent, depending upon your capabilities and the amount of Divine love in your soul. I also wish to point out that in other ways than in revelations on the Gospels you are being guided by me and the Celestials, and in addition to the plane ticket, I may mention the Christmas money obtained through unexpected evening work, advance knowledge that you would not be dismissed November 30 as you surmised you would, and the healing of your cyst on the back of your neck. And so, I will say again, have faith in me and in the Celestials, and continue to pray to the Father for His Love. And with all my love and blessings to you and the Doctor,* I shall sign myself

Your elder brother,

Jesus of the Bible,
Who asks you to have more and more faith, for continued results.

___________________________________
* Dr. Leslie R. Stone.