Unknown Life of Jesus Christ New Edition 2009 Publication

Author(s): Nicholas Notovitch, Virchand R Gandhi, Kumarpal Desai
Publisher: World Jain Confederation

Page 25

- The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ form. Long before that, in India dough effigies were offered in "sacrifice.") In the Essene practice, each person moulded the effigies with his own hands, while praying and concentrating deeply on the traits he wished to have corrected, feeling that it was being transferred into the image. The effigies were made of five substances: powdered frankincense, flour, water, olive oil, and salt. When these had dried, they were taken to the tabernacle whose altar was a metal structure with a grating over the top and hot coals within. The effigies were laid upon this grating and burnt by the intense heat. As they burned, through the force of the heat the olive oil and frankincense liquefied and boiled or seeped. upward. This fragrant liquid was called "the blood” of the sacrifice. It was this with which Moses consecrated the tabernacle, its equipment, and the priests, not animal blood. And it was just such a "lamb" whose "blood” was sprinkled on the doorposts in Egypt.
For the Passover observance, the Essenes would bake a lamb effigy using the same ingredients-except for the frankincense they would substitute honey and cinnamon. (Or, lacking honey, they would use a kind of raisin syrup.) This was the only paschal lamb acceptable to them therefore, to Jesus and His Apostles.
Consequently, the Essenes refused to worship in Jerusalem, but maintained their own tabernacle on Mount Carmel. They did not have an actual building on Mount Carmel, but a tent-tabernacle made according to the original directions given to Moses on Mount Sinai. They considered the Jerusalem temple unacceptable because it was a stone structure built according to Greco-Roman style rather than the simple and humble tabernacle form given to Moses-a form that symbolized both the physical and psychic makeup of the human being. Further, the Jerusalem temple was built by Herod who, completely subservient to Rome, disdained Judaism and practiced a kind of Roman agnostic piety. Because of this, the temple was ritually unclean in their estimation. They placated the Jerusalem Temple priests by sending them large
24