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THE KEY OF KNOWLEDGE.
able that he might have given up the ghost, as John records, assumed the deva-body in one of the heavens, and thence descended to this world to hold converse with his disciples. Nor is there anything in the nature of an impossibility in this idea on the score of time, for the process of being born in heaven does not resemble that of birth in this world, inasmuch as the deva-birth takes place without conception and instantaneously, and is like the waking up of an individual from sleep. Thus, this explanation also is not altogether beyond the range of possibility, though, in the absence of any reliable historical record, the subject must necessarily remain enshrouded in mystery. The fact is that the number and nature of the contradictions which abound in the accounts of the resurrection of Jesus leave no doubt in the mind that they are the outcome of design, and suffice to show that the narratives were not intended to be read historically
Passing on to a consideration of the alleged ascension, we notice the same kind of discrepancies about the event as are to be found in the description of most other incidents in the life of Jesus. How many of the disciples. of Jesus understood the true sense of the doctrine is not easy to determine. The evangelical accounts are all full of discrepancies and contradictions, though this is a circumstance which leads us to infer that the discrepancies are the outcome of design rather than of perjury, or fabrication. The fact is, as we have repeatedly stated before, that the gospels were never intended to be read in an historical sense. I Matthew and John, it will be seen, do not lend support to the
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