Yahshua overlooking the Temple of Herod in Jerusalem

It all ended on Calvary and began in the Garden Tomb. Without this event, neither you and I would not be here today as friends and believers in Jesus. Christianity and the Moslem faith alike also would not exist today. It all occurred because it is the only known time the Universal God put a part of Its existence into three dimensional human time and the “Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:1)

Model of the Jerusalem at the time of the Trial of Yahshua (Jesus) - by Day of Discovery

We can try to understand what comprehend what happened that Resurrection morning, but don’t create too much expectation that you will be able to understand it, for it is part of the mystery of God.

That it actually occurred is testimony of the faith of those early believers that proclaimed it. They didn’t spend their lives in hardship, deprivation, and martyrdom just to believe in an intellectual cause, they believed in an ‘event’, and they believed it with all their hearts, minds and soul.

Let us turn our attention to the events which led up to the crucifixion. Galilee and Judea was astir, for it was a Sabbatical Passover that occurred every seven years. During this time, the land stood at rest, and the population was on a year long Sabbatical and eager followers of any messianic or Hasmonean aspirant to the throne found a hosts of followers to follow them on their mission. These were peak years for the Zealots cause with their obsessed goal to free Judea from Roman rule, and the Sicarii were always available to promote the cause of freedom even if it meant a quick assassination of an opponent.

We see Jesus heading to Jerusalem and for the first time He cautions his disciples to arm themselves, if nothing more than self-defense. Peter takes on the stance of a personal bodyguard. Prior to Jesus’ arrival word reaches him of the death of several Zealot patriots which give every appearance that the perimeters of Jerusalem, or at least the Old Town of Jerusalem, had been secured by a general uprising. Then the battering rams were brought into the Kidron Valley and soon toppled the strong tower of Siloam and with it the death of eighteen Zealot defenders.

The Trial of Yahshua (Jesus) before the Jewish Sanhedrin

There was always swift retribution to any aspirant to throne of David by the Romans, yet Jesus, recently anointed in Bethany, makes a peaceful yet highly visible entrance as a new claimant to the throne of David. There amidst the throngs and multitudes in Jerusalem. He immediately goes to the Temple, in a provocative show of force, throws out the money exchangers and the commerce in the temple courts suddenly ceases. For two days, the sacrificial system ceases and it appears that Jesus has full control of the Temple compound. He spends the time preaching, healing and in legal dialogue with the Pharisees, scribes and attorneys. With an estimated million attendees to the Passover, a two day shutdown was a major financial blow to the High Priest and Sadducee authorities. Yet the Sadducean Temple guards and the Roman cohort of troops (about 500) made no attempt to arrest him because they feared the people who were in sympathetic support of the ministry of Jesus.

Was Jesus an armed revolutionary? No He was not, though anti-Christian literature later would depict him as such. Understanding the political and seething cauldron that Jerusalem was in that day, the zealots as can be suspected (Luke 23:19) took advantage of the political environment to seal the perimeters of the city and stage a coup, hoping to force Jesus to make a rightful claim to the throne of David. Knowing his allegiance with the multitudes, his powers over nature, his ability to heal and raise the dead to life, there was every expectation that this claimant, Jesus, would succeed and lay full claim to the messianic legacy. Everything appears to go as planned by the zealots, yet Jesus, when He took control of the Temple complex, instead of making an armed political coup against the Sadducean temple guard and the Roman garrison in the Antonia Tower, he instead begins to heal the sick and minister to the spiritual and physical needs of the people. A live demonstration of the true “Kingdom of God” was demonstrated those two days prior to the Passover feast in the courtyard of the Temple.

That a revolt was thwarted is known by the legal swap of Bar-Abbes (Bar-Rabbin) (Son of the (Rabbi) Master) with Jesus and also due to two brigands “thieves” that were crucified with Jesus. The Zealot forces went into retreat without the full support of Jesus and the thousands of the supporters of His cause. Jesus had come as the “Prince of Peace” not as a fiery messianic war lord, like David. The revolt in the making fizzled out.

Caiaphas, the High Priest of the House of Annas

One of the most important characters in the life of Jesus and the early years of the Hebrew Nazarene Ecclesia was the high priest Caiaphas. Caiaphas was appointed High Priest by the Roman procurator Valerius Gratus (15-26 CE), the predecessor of Pontius Pilate about 18 CE. (Josephus, Antiquities, XVIII, iv, 3) This appointment came after a tumultuous few years of annual appointees of new high priests, which for reasons unstated by Joseph were not compatible with the Roman government.

The Ossuary of Caiaphas the High Priest found 1990

During this era the famous High Priest Annas (6-15 CE), the founder of the House of Annas, was still the primary controlling power broker in political and religious politics in Jewish affairs. It was in his position of brokering the power structure that he kept putting in his own sons and sons-in-law in the office of the high priest.

Annas, the son of Seth was appointed high priest in 6 or 7 CE following Joazar by the Roman legate Quirinius who came down to Judea to incorporate the territory of Herod Archelaus, the son of Herod the Great into the Roman province of Syria (Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, XVIII, ii, 1)

As High Priest, Anna was later deposed from the office of the high priest by the Syrian legate Valorous Gratus in 15 CE in which a rapid succession of high priests were appointed over the next three years:

Ismael, son of Phabi (XVIII. i, 2)

Eleazar (Alexander), son of Ananus (XVIII. ii, 2, Acts 4:6

Simon, son of Camithus (XVIII. ii, 2)

Joseph called "Caiaphas" (XVIII. ii, 2; iv, 3; Matt. 26: 3, 57)

Jonathan, son of Ananus (XVIII. iv, 3; "B. J." II. xii, 5-6; xiii, 3)

Theophilus, son of Ananus (XVIII. 5, § 3)

Caiaphas the High Priest

So we see between 6-30 CE, a period of thirty years, the office of the high priest was controlled by Anna, the founding father of the House of Annas for at least 28 of those years. Power, greed and control were being bred in high places in the leadership of the Jews. Yet that was not all, the office of the high priest was then under the control of two other sons of Anna during the tenure of the Syrian legate, Vitellius between 36-41 CE when King Agrippa I came to the throne of Judea which gave a sum total of thirty nine out of forty one years as the leading family in public and religious office.

Though Caiaphas was the titular High Priest at the time of the crucifixion of Jesus, the power behind the throne was his father-in-law, Annas as seen in the following texts.

Luke 3:1-3 – “Now in the fifteenth year (29 CE) of the reign of Tiberius Caesar (14-37 CE), Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea (26-36 CE), Herod being tetrarch of Galilee (4 BCE-39 CE), his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea (4 BCE-34 CE) and the region of Trachonites, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, while Annas and Caiaphas (18-36 CE) were high priests, the word of God came to John the son of Zachariah in the wilderness. And he went into all the regions around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins…”

Acts 4:5 – “And it came to pass, on the next day, that their rulers, elders, and scribes, as well as Annas the high priest, Caiaphas, John and Alexander, and as many as were of the family of the high priest, were gathered together at Jerusalem. And when they had set them in the midst, they asked, ‘By what power or by what name have you done this?”

It is the Bible Searcher’s goal to find the literal historical story in the scriptures. The passage in Luke 3:1-3 appears to be a difficult passage to defend and still keep the 30 CE date for the crucifixion and death of Jesus. In classical history, the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar would be 29 CE as his official reign was from 14-37 CE. According to the lives of the Imperial rulers of Rome by de Imperatoribus Romanis, Tiberius became clearly the official successor of Augustus Caesar in 4 CE, when he was adopted and received the powers of the proconsular and the tribunician office. Yet in 13 CE, his proconsular power was made co-extensive with Augustus and he in fact became co-regent with the Emperor of Rome. By the time Augustus Caesar died on August 19, 14 CE, the Principate of Rome was secure and Tiberius’ assumption of the imperial title to Rome assured

To accept this date, the beginning of the ministry of John the Baptist and probably the ministry of Jesus would have been 28 CE which would leave an eighteen month ministry for Jesus instead of the traditional three and a half year ministry.

The seat of the power politics in the final days of Jesus’ ministry when he was arrested and finally taken into custody of the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem is seen in the following:

John 18:12-14 – “Then the detachment of troops and the captain and the officers of the Jews arrested Jesus and bound Him. And they led Him away to Annas first, for he was the father-in-law of Caiaphas who was high priest that year. Now it was Caiaphas who advised the Jews that it was expedient that one man should die for the people.”

It is fascinating that as the text progresses in John 18, we see Peter secretly entering the “courtyard of the high priest” (John 18:15) while John, the “other disciple” moved freely around the courtyard because he was “known to the High Priest”. There Jesus was interrogated in the middle of the night by the “high priest” (John 18:19) about “His disciples and His doctrine”. “Then Annas sent Him bound to Caiaphas the high priest.” (John 18:24)

Here we have an interesting scenario in which the author, John, who was intimately known by the House of Annas states that Jesus was sent to “Annas first” and the place of questioning was in the ‘courtyard of the high priest” and there he was interrogated by the ‘high priest” and then Annas sent Jesus bound to Caiaphas the high priest.

It was after the raising of Lazarus in Bethany, the palace of the High Priest Caiaphas was the meeting room where the “chief priests, the scribes, and the elders of the people assembled” (Matthew 26:3-4) to plot the fate of Jesus. This palace according to tradition was located on the hill south of Jerusalem which was called the “Hill of Evil Counsel”. It was a Syrian traveler Theodosius Archidiaconus in 530 CE, who stated that the distance between the house of Caiaphas and the Hall of Judgment was 100 paces. ("Nuovo Bull. di Arch. Crist." vi. 184, Rome, 1900 cited in the Catholic Encyclopedia, “Caiaphas)

If the scribes were the Doctors of the Law and the elders were the members of the Sanhedrin, who then were the chief priests? In the religious and political governance of the Jewish people, there were seventy representative called ‘elders’ with a cabinet of fifteen which included a Council of Twelve and the three chief priests, the High Priest called the Nasi, the Deputy High Priest called the Sagan and the Chief Officer of the Religious Court called the Ab Beth Din. According to other traditions, the Sanhedrin had seventy-one members and others twenty three members. (‘Caiaphas’, Catholic Encyclopedia)

At this time, the High Priest (Nasi) was Caiphas and the Chief Officer of the Religious Court (Ab Beth-Din) was Gamaliel, the famed founder of the Pharisaic School of Gamaliel. The question, we then ask, did Annas retain the office of the Deputy High Priest called the Sagan? If Annas could keep one of his family in the Roman appointed office of the High Priest, he could retain the power of authority by having his family appoint him as the permanent Sagan. There is another interesting twist in history. After being deposed, according to the Syrian Christian Church, Caiaphas was converted to Christianity and identified as the historian known as Josephus Flavius. (Assemani, "Bibl. Orient." ii. 156, iii. 522; Solomon of Bassora, "The Book of the Bee," ed. Budge, tr. p. 94 cited in the Jewish Encyclopedia, “Caiaphas)

The Secret Disciple, Joseph of Arimathea

The trial of Yahshua was a drama of high stakes for the Sanhedrin and the Sadducean controlled priesthood. Caiaphas the high priest initiated the charges of treason against Jesus in order to drag the Roman procurator, Pontius Pilate into the plot to destroy Jesus. Under Roman law, treason against the Roman government was punishable only by death and the death warrant could only be decree by the legal Roman authority in the land. It was this price that Caiaphas demanded, but the demand also came with a price, blackmail by silence.

Joseph of Arimathea

According to the Memoirs of Pontius Pilate by Carlos Franzen, Caiaphas was in the receipt of secret intelligence that Pilate had been a member of a secret plot to assassinate Tiberius Caesar. (Jowett, George F, The Drama of the Lost Disciples, Covenant Publishing Co. LTD, 8 Blades Court, Deodar Road, London SW15 2NU, 1993, p. 20.) The coercion of the Roman Procurator by the High Priest sent fear in the heart of Pilate of his possible exposure to the long arm of the intelligence agents of the Caesar, a man ruthless in his own right. Pilate rise to fame came only through his wife, Claudia Procula, who was the illegitimate daughter of Claudia, the third wife of Tiberius Caesar, and the granddaughter of Augustus Caesar. (Jowett, George F, The Drama of the Lost Disciples, Covenant Publishing Co. LTD, 8 Blades Court, Deodar Road, London SW15 2NU, 1993, p. 20.) To ignore the urgent pleas of his wife, who through a dream foretold that disaster would be his end if he judged Jesus, speaks significantly of the severe political pressure that Pilate was in and the political Machiavellian maneuverings of Ananus or Caiaphas.

Within hours of the capture and dual trials of Jesus on the eve of the Passover, the city of Jerusalem was smoldering in unrest and seething discontent. The Roman guards were in high alert, the Temple garrison guards were on full dispatch and all the known associates of Jesus including nine of the twelve disciples had fled the city. Judas the Sicarii was hanging from a tree, either in suicide or murder. Nicodemus and Joseph alone had diplomatic immunity from the Sanhedrin and Roman protection. Peter had also fled when he discovered that he also turned traitor to Yahshua. Only John, the latter a relative of the family of the high priest stayed around. It is our first inclination that we give the Apostle Peter a lot of grief for his three denials of being an associate of Jesus, yet we must recognize the courage of this Galilean fishing businessman; he stuck around to observe in the crowded courtyard of the Sanhedrin in spite of the fear and omens that were spreading throughout the city.

There crucified on the tree on the Mount of Olives, only John and the three Marys; the mother of Jesus, Mary Magdalene and Mary Salome observed from a distance.

Nicodemus 8:11 – “But all those who were the acquaintance of Christ, stood at a distance, as did the women who had followed Jesus from Galilee, observing all these things.”

These other acquaintances of Jesus no doubt included Joseph of Arimathea, Nicodemus, the Bethany siblings plus many others. Mary the mother of Jesus may very well have been spared the last tortuous moments of Jesus’ life, as after he gave his mother to be under the custody of John the Beloved, the text states that “John led her away.” Nine out of ten who ever encountered the Roman flogging never lived to tell their story. Add to this the dehydration, the hypoglycemia with no nutrition, the mental torment, the crown of thorns piercing his head, his back sliced like ribbons of meat from the flogging led one Christian historian, George Jowett to write,

George Jowett - “Weighing all this as we must, we are not left in doubt that Jesus was as physically superb as He was mentally and spiritually.” (Jowett, George F, The Drama of the Lost Disciples, Covenant Publishing Co. LTD, 8 Blades Court, Deodar Road, London SW15 2NU, 1993, p. 22.)

Jesus was not all alone while he was hanging on the tree. Unless his body, the body of an executed criminal, was claimed by the next of kin, according to Jewish and Roman law, his body would be tossed into a common pit and the memory his Him would be obliterated from all memory. That a member of the Sanhedrin and a Roman Senator, also a known member of the Jesus’ Jewish family could walk without fear of molestation into the court of Pilate and request the body of Yahshua suggests the providence of the Almighty of placing prominent men in high places to service the Will of the Lord. Yet was Joseph of Arimathea totally immune to the power of the Sanhedrin? At this moment, he probably did make one consideration, his request to take possession of the body of Jesus would best be made in private audience with his friend, the Roman procurator, and bypass the intentions of Annas and Caiaphas, not only to kill Yahshua, but to destroy his body, and make his memory totally extinct.

The Bishop of Antioch writing in 180 AD quoted from the Apocryphal 'Gospel of Peter' stated this fact that Joseph of Arimathea was a close friend of Pontius Pilate and he requested that the body of one put to death had to be buried.

Gospel of Peter 2:2-5a – “Now there stood there Joseph, the friend of Pilate and the Lord, and knowing that they were about to crucify him he came to Pilate and begged the body of the Lord for Burial. And Pilate sent to Herod and begged his body. And Herod said, ‘Brother Pilate, even if no one had begged him, we should bury him, since the Sabbath is drawing on. For it stands written in the law: the sun should not set on one that has been put to death.”

The hours of the High Sabbath of the Passover had already begun on the eve of Abib 14. The families were gathering together to eat of the lamb shanks and bitter herbs as they celebrated that fateful day when their ancestors fled from Egypt. At this time the news of the burial of Jesus in a new tomb cut out of stone and fit for royalty struck the inner circle of the temple priests like lightning. As the uncle to Mary, Joseph of Arimathea ‘boldly’ went to Pilate to claim the remains of his great nephew, he denied the Sanhedrin the privilege of destroying the body of Jesus in an unmarked grave and to their shock, there now marked the tomb for all ages, a memorial, a place of pilgrimage and a holy spot for generations to revere.

Who was this man of mystery? The gospel story is so short and cryptic that without history of the Nazarenes and the Christians outside the history of Acts, the story of Joseph of Arimathea would never be known.

Joseph the Roman Decurio

Very soon after the death of Jesus, we find Joseph of Arimathea, called the “nobilis decurio” by Gildas “the Wise” Badonicus, arriving back to Britain and the land called Avalon. (quoted by John of Glastonbury, in his Acts of the Illustrious King Arthur, small edition, p. 55, quoted by Lionel Smithett Lewis, late Vicar of Glastonbury, St. Joseph of Arimathea at Glastonbury or the Apostolic Church of Britain, James Clarke & Co. Ltd, Cambridge, PO Box 60, Cambridge, CBI 2NT, 1922, 1955, 1988.pg. 73)

Mosaic of Joseph of Arimathea by the Holy Transfiguration Monastery

A Decurio of Rome was an officer in the Roman army who was also appointed to the position as minister of the mines. It was his responsibility to supplies the needed metals for the vast empire of the Romans. In Joseph’s case, he managed the lead and tin mining regions in southern and western Britain which included extraction, production, and shipping these metals until they reached the vast storehouses of the military and business interest of the empire. As such he was identified as a ‘Carnegie’ or an industrialist of the Roman world

According to Dr. C.R. Davey Biggs, states in his book Ictis and Avallo, that in the province of Spain that

Dr. C.R. Davey Biggs - “A decurio was established in every little mining centre, being charged with the care of the farms, the water supply, the sanitary arrangements, and the local fortifications.” (Dr. C.R. Davey Biggs, Ictis and Avallo quoted by Lionel Smithett Lewis, late Vicar of Glastonbury, St. Joseph of Arimathea at Glastonbury or the Apostolic Church of Britain, James Clarke & Co. Ltd, Cambridge, PO Box 60, Cambridge, CBI 2NT, 1922, 1955, 1988.pg. 73)

Joseph of Arimathea was a man of refinement, culture, education and with the business acumen to vault him to the highest levels of political and social life. In the Latin Vulgate, he was called a ‘Roman Decurio’. Jerome in his translation of the New Testament, called Joseph the “Nobilis Decurio”. He was a man esteemed in society, a nobleman, member of the aristocracy and a member of the Jewish Sanhedrin, the religious body with controlled the religious and political life of the first century Jews, a legislative member of the provincial Roman Senate, plus a political confidant of the governor of Judea, Pontius Pilate.

If there is any doubt of this statement about the importance of the office of the Roman Decurio in the Roman society, consider the testimony of Cicero, who owned a villa near the city of Pompeii before the might blast of the volcano Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE. Cicero claimed that the local city council of Pompeii was controlled by Decurios, who were recognized as ex-magistrates and important government officials of Rome. Their position was so esteemed that he stated “that it was easier to become a Senator of Rome than a Decurio in Pompeii.” Lionel Smithett Lewes, late Vicar of Glastonbury, St. Joseph of Arimathea at Glastonbury or the Apostolic Church of Britain, James Clarke & Co. Ltd, Cambridge, PO Box 60, Cambridge, CBI 2NT, 1922, 1955, 1988.pg. 56). In Roman society, Joseph of Arimathea would have taken the position of Town Counselor and a member of the Provincial Roman Senate of the Municipium or Colonia.

Joseph’s wealth was legendary. His estates were known to be vast including a palatial home in Jerusalem, a country villa outside Jerusalem, another estate at Arimathea. It could be said that he was probably the head leader of the whole region at Onomasticon, identified in the ancient records of place names as Ramathaim-Zophim, or Rama. This was the home of Elkanah and Samuel in the hills of Ephraim. In 145 BCE it was transferred to Judea. Today Arimathea is known as Ramalleh, where Arafat kept his half-bombed out Palestinian headquarters. Arimathea was located on the main caravan route between Jerusalem and Capernaeum in Galilee. (Jowett, George F. The Drama of the Lost Disciples, Covenant Publ., Co, 8 Blades Court, Deodar Road, London SW15 2NU, 1961, 1993 pg. 17-18 and Lionel Smithett Lewis, late Vicar of Glastonbury, St. Joseph of Arimathea at Glastonbury or the Apostolic Church of Britain, James Clarke & Co. Ltd, Cambridge, PO Box 60, Cambridge, CBI 2NT, 1922, 1955, 1988.pg. 73)

With this in mind, then the appointment of Joseph as a Decurio in Rome give him additional authority the mining district called the Mendips and the peninsula of Cornwall, by a King Arviragus of the British Silurian royalty in which he was intimately acquainted and may have been actually related. Joseph very well may have been an officer under of Pontius Pilate in Judea and as such, his rank and prestigious honor in Jewish society may have led to a close relationship between the two.

For the British and the Romans to engage in ancient commerce is well documented. As early as 1500 BCE, around the time of the exodus by the Israelites to Canaan, we also find a migration of Semitic people to the islands of the west. It was the 5^th century historian, Herodotus who referred to Britain as ‘the Cassiterides” as the source of the international tin trade.

Herodotus – “Of that part of Europe nearest to the west, I am not able to speak with decision….Neither am I better acquainted with the islands called the Cassiterides, from which we are said to have our tin…..It is nevertheless certain that both our tin and our amber are brought from those extreme regions.” (Herodotus Bk 3, 115)

Even the British Princes were brought up in the Court of Augustus Caesar and many of the Roman nobles were trained in the druidic universities of the Brits which were well known for their knowledge of the natural sciences. It was on the lands of the Silurian possession and under their control along the western Mendips region of Wales and Britain and the central part of Cornwall in ancient Britain that some of the richest tin mines in the whole world were found.

The Ancient Jewish Miners of Cornwall

Here was the land of the Celtics or Cymrics, a people of antiquity that scholars today still dispute their origin. All along the central region of Cornwall are ancient rude pits containing smelted tin. The most famous of these ancient mines is the Ding Dong Mine in West Cornwall. This mine along with the others is called by the locals, ‘Jews houses’ and legends of the ‘old men’, the ancient Jewish or Phoenician miners. In the region one hears the words, “Jews tin”, “Jews’ leavings”, “attall” and “attall Saracen” identifying these mines. (Hunt, Romances of the West, cited by Taylor, John w. The Coming of the Saints, Imagination and studies in Early Church History and Tradition, Methuen & Co. Ltd, 1909, 1985 reprint by Artisan Sales, PO Box 1529, Muskogee, OK 74402, 1995, p. 146)

The Dong Dong ‘Jew’s House’ Mine in Western Cornwall

That the word Saracen and Jew were intermixed with this population is well attested by all British historians. Even the names places in Cornwall give undeniable presence of this ancient people – names such as ‘Bojewyan’ (abode of the Jews), “Trejewas’ (Jew’s village) and ‘Market Jew” and the historical “Jewish windows’ in St. Neot’s church.

It was in the reign of King John of England who signed the Magna Charta in 1215 in which, the Camden’s Britannia stated,

Camden’s Britannia – “In the time of King John, the tin mines (were) farmed by the Jews for 100 marks,’ and later, ‘the Jews being banished they’ (the tin mines) ‘were neglected’. (Camden’s Britannia, vol. I, p. 9, cited by Taylor, John W. The Coming of the Saints, Imagination and studies in Early Church History and Tradition, Methuen & Co. Ltd, 1909, 1985 reprint by Artisan Sales, PO Box 1529, Muskogee, OK 74402, 1995, p. 146)

Herodotus stated that according to the Greeks, tin came from the ‘Cassiterides’ and the source of this tin came from islands ‘situated in the extremes of Europe toward the West.’ These people were known not to be the ancient Brits and at the same time they were not the sea-bearing commercial middlemen, the Phoenicians.

J.B. Cornish - “The oldest graves” according to the British historian of Cornwall, Mr. J.B. Cornish, “that have been found – those of the Harlyn Bay discoveries, near Padstow – are remarkable as showing that the earliest settlers in Cornwall and, as some think, the first tin workers, were buried exactly like the prehistoric Egyptians, in a crouching position on the left side with the knees almost touching the chin.” (Cited by Taylor, John W. The Coming of the Saints, Imagination and studies in Early Church History and Tradition, Methuen & Co. Ltd, 1909, 1985 reprint by Artisan Sales, PO Box 1529, Muskogee, OK 74402, 1995, p. 146)

It was a William Camden (1551-1623) who published a book, written in Latin in 1586 and translated to English in 1610 that was called, “Britannia”. It was here he stated,

William Camden – “The merchants of Asher worked the tin mines of Cornwall, not as slaves, but as masters and exporters.”

The investigation even goes deeper. It was the Cassiterides, whom Strabo living in 44 BCE wrote, as

Strabo – “bartering their tin, lead and skins for pottery, salt and brazen manufactures’. (Strabo cited by Taylor, John W. The Coming of the Saints, Imagination and studies in Early Church History and Tradition, Methuen & Co. Ltd, 1909, 1985 reprint by Artisan Sales, PO Box 1529, Muskogee, OK 74402, 1995, p. 147)

These tin miners called Jews or Saracens used a very distinctive pick-axes of ‘holm, box and hartshorn’. The scholar of antiquarian studies, Mr. Bellows of Gloucester, traveled to the Trans-Caucasus finding that the miners of the Kedabek mines in the Caucasus and at Tiflis were exactly like the shovel or spade and pick used by the Jewish miners in Cornwall. According to this antiquarian

John Bellows - “some of the Caucasian Jews claim to be descendants of the tribes which were taken captive by Nebuchadnezzar, while others are equally claim of their descent from the Israelites who were taken from Palestine by Shalmaneser.” (John Bellows, Kegan Paul, 1904, p. 210 cited by Taylor, John W. The Coming of the Saints, Imagination and studies in Early Church History and Tradition, Methuen & Co. Ltd, 1909, 1985 reprint by Artisan Sales, PO Box 1529, Muskogee, OK 74402, 1995, p. 146)

Modern historians of the Lost Tribes of Israel claim that the descent of the Jew-Saracen of Cornwall goes back to the Exodus, when under the cataclysmic conditions surrounding the Exodus a large number of Israelites scattered to other regions of the world including many who headed towards the west, around Spain and up the European coastline to the Isles of the West. These were called the Milesians, who went with a Scythian prince who was acquainted with Moses and healed by the rod of Moses when bitten by a viper, later migrated to Ireland and the British Isles.

Modern archeologists many times do not give credit to the extent of the wanderings of the ancient peoples of the world.

What was known is that bronze was a valuable commodity in the Roman Empire. Whereas copper was in easy supply across the empire, there were only a very few mines known that supplied tin and lead. Tin was extracted and dug from the ground in this western Cornwall peninsula in southwestern Britain and in the regions of the St.Michaels Mount - Image Copyright © UKT Photo Library Mendips region near Glastonbury lead was mined.

Ictis or St. Michael’s Mount off Cornwall

Being of kindred blood, Joseph was able to represent the interests of the Romans as well as the (Celtic or Cymric) political interests in the process of mining lead and tin from these lands. He would have had control of mining and shipping which would include access to shipping fleets to move the tin from Ictis (St. Michael’s Mount) on the southeast tip of the peninsula, and then across to France, where it was carried by animal pack to Narbonne, to the south of Marseilles, France and from there to Rome. In fact, it was in Ostio, the seaport of Rome that beneath an ancient chariot road, a Roman lead pipe was uncovered. A professor Russell Forbes cut off a section and sent it back to Britain for metallurgy analysis. Yes, this lead was from the Mendip mines near Glastonbury. Lead bars exhibited in the British museum coming from Mendip Hill near Glastonbury, were inscribed with the dates 49 AD and also inscribed with Britanicus, son of the Emperor Claudius and another dated 60 AD, is inscribed “British lead, the property of the Emperor Nero.” (Lionel Smithett Lewes, late Vicar of Glastonbury, St. Joseph of Arimathea at Glastonbury or the Apostolic Church of Britain, James Clarke & Co. Ltd, Cambridge, PO Box 60, Cambridge, CBI 2NT, 1922, 1955, 1988.pg. 51)

Photo of St Michaels Mount

The Pathway of the Tin Traders to St. Michael’s Mount off the coast of Marazon, Cornwall

From the ancient of days even past the era of the combined monarchy of David and Solomon, the land was inhabited by the Hebrews, called then as even today, Saracens. It was reported that archeologists have identified that the aqueduct in Jerusalem, attributed in the1920’s to King Solomon is lined by lead that has been spectrographically identified as being extracted from the tin mines in the Mendips Hills of Somerset. (Lionel Smithett Lewes, late Vicar of Glastonbury, St. Joseph of Arimathea at Glastonbury or the Apostolic Church of Britain, James Clarke & Co. Ltd, Cambridge, PO Box 60, Cambridge, CBI 2NT, 1922, 1955, 1988.pg. 50)

Sir Edward Creasy in his “History of England” stated that,” The British mines mainly supplied the glorious adornment of Solomon’s Temple.”…. “In those days the mines of south-western Britain were the source of the world’s supply of tin, and its export to Phoenicia provided the most suitable outlet for its use in the civilized Greek world.”

It is known that most of the tin trade between Cornwall and the Mediterranean lands was carried on by Jewish traders in Phoenician vessels. There are existing descriptions of this trade dating back from the sixth century BC. Was it not the Prophet Ezekiel who stated?

Ezekiel 27:12 – “Tarshish was thy merchant by reason of the multitude of all kinds of riches; with silver, iron, tin, and lead, they traded in thy fairs.”

By the first century AD, the reach of Roman power had made it necessary for traders to protect their sources. Jewish dealers were reduced to carrying ingots from Cornwall to Brittany by ship, then by horseback across France to the southern ports. It was the only alternative to travel by sea through Gibraltar, where every cargo would have been subject to tracing by the Roman authorities.

It was Julius Caesar himself, while with his troops at Bologna, Calais and Dover, wrote in 40 BCE about Britain, in his book called ‘Wars”

Julius Caesar – “The inland parts of Britain are inhabited by those, whose fame reports to be the natives of the soil…The island is well peopled, full of houses, built after the manner of the Gauls, and abounds in cattle. They use brass money, and iron rings of a certain weight. The provinces remote from the sea produce tin, and those upon the coast, iron, but the latter in no great quantity.”

It was Timaeus, who wrote the essay about 400 BCE, called the “Islands in the Ocean”

Timaeus - "Opposite to Celtiberia are a number of islands, by the Greeks called Cassiterides, in consequence of their abounding in tin, and facing the promontory of the Arrotrebae, are the six islands of the gods, which some persons have called the Fortunate Islands."

Pliny writing in ‘Natural History” talks about the tin of Cornwall.

Pliny – “It (tin) is extracted with great labour in Spain and throughout all the Gallic provinces, but in Britannia it is found in the upper stratum of the earth in such abundance, that a law has been spontaneously made prohibiting anyone from working more than a certain quantity of it.”

The Isles of Avalon and Ictis

The Island of Avalon and Ictis - On the western coast of Britain south of Bath in the present city of Glastonbury, the land was covered with small islands or mounds. Both Pliny and Diodorus Siculus give a description of this region.

Pliny - According to Pliny quotations of Timaeus, “Six days sail inland from Britain there is an island called Mictis in which white lead is found, and to this island, the Britons come in boats of osier covered with sewn hides”. (Timaeus quoted by Pliny, IV, 30, cited by Lionel Smithett Lewes, late Vicar of Glastonbury, St. Joseph of Arimathea at Glastonbury or the Apostolic Church of Britain, James Clarke & Co. Ltd, Cambridge, PO Box 60, Cambridge, CBI 2NT, 1922, 1955, 1988.pg. 73)

Diodorus Siculus – And then we have the quote of Posidonius (80 BCE) who when traveling to this region of Britain states that the tin miners from Balerion, the ancient name for Cornwall, carried their tin “to a certain island lying off the coast of Britain, called Ictis; for as the ground between is left dry at low tide they carry tin there in great abundance in their waggons.” (Posidonius quoted by Diodurus Siculus , V. 21, 22-31, cited by Lionel Smithett Lewes, late Vicar of Glastonbury, St. Joseph of Arimathea at Glastonbury or the Apostolic Church of Britain, James Clarke & Co. Ltd, Cambridge, PO Box 60, Cambridge, CBI 2NT, 1922, 1955, 1988.pg. 73)

Diodorus Siculus – “They that inhabit the British promontory of Belerium, by reason of their converse with merchants, are more civilized and courteous to strangers that the rest, These are the people that make the tin, which with a great deal of care and labour they dig out of the ground; and that being rocky, the metal is mixed with some veins of earth, out of which they melt the metal and then refine it. Then they beat it into four square pieced like a die and carry it to a British isle, near at hand, called Ictis. For at low tide, all being dry between them and the island, they convey over in carts abundance of tin.

“But there is one thing that is peculiar to these islands which lie between Britain and Europe: for at full sea they appear to be islands, but at low water for a long way they look like so many peninsulas. Hence the merchants transport the tin they buy of the inhabitants of Gaul, and for thirty days’ journey they carry it in packs upon horses’ backs through Gaul to the mouth of the river Rhone.” (Diodorus Siculus, bk, v, 1-4, 35, cited by Taylor, John W., The Coming of the Saints, Artisan Sales/Hoffman Printing, POB 1529, Muskogee, OK 74402. 1985, pg 143

It was at Ictis, now known as St. Michael’s Mount lying offshore from Marazon in Cornwall, that a Phoenician stone bowl was found by divers and identified by the archeologists at the British Museum. Here when the tides ran out, a sandy promontory went out to the island and the tin would be taken to that harbor and their placed in boats for transport to the coast of Gaul in western France today.

Here in the land of King Arthurian fame, not far from the later exotic bath houses of Bath, England, is a small town called Glastonbury revered as the most sacred site in Britain. Associated with a high mound that is visible for miles around, the Glastonbury Tor near the site of the later Glastonbury Abbey, the most famed cathedral in medieval England was surrounded by the Somerset Levels, some of the flattest lands in Britain. Due to massive drainage and a lower sea level today, these marshlands two thousand years ago hosted around ten islands that the ancients in skiffs would travel around from island to island. Glastonbury was called the Celtic name, Ynys Witrin, meaning the “Island of Glass” or the “Island of St. Gwytherin”.

The Glastonbury Tor

Here in this beautiful, safe and secluded area far away from the growing dissention in Judea and the building animosity between the Romans and the Jews, the secret disciple of Yahshua the Nazarene, His uncle, Joseph of Arimathea was to send the first message of “The Good News” to the farthest reaches of the then known world.

This was not the first time that Joseph of Arimathea had gone to Britain. There was considerable evidence in the genealogies of the British Menologies that Joseph not only lived in Britain but that his wife was probably of British descent. With all the known knowledge of this aristocratic uncle and foster-father of Jesus, we begin to find a thread to weave a tapestry of the life and times of this amazing apostle of God. As a Roman Decurio, he was in fact a tin merchant. According to traditions, he initially was in charge of the tin mines in Britain and when these mines began to fail, he traveled up to Britain to trade in tin that was mined along the central highlands of Cornwall. Was he a pure merchant or did he actually own his own fleet of ships is not known. That he was traveling along the ancient route of the Phoenicians through the Rocks of Gibraltar, up the coast of Spain and then on to Britain.

The central base of the tin merchants was the city of Massilia now called Marseilles, France on the Mediterranean Sea. Joseph no doubt was a frequent visitor to this city before traveling up the Rhone and then taking the overland route across Gaul (central France) to Morlaix in Brittany (Armorica) where off the coast is an island suitable for loading and unloading ships to traverse the English Channel to Cornwall. Good landing sites would have been St. Just in Roseland, St. Michael’s Mount off Marazon or taking the classic Celtic hide boats around Land’s End and sailing up to Glastonbury by the route of the Brue and Parrot Rivers. Here in a land that was never conquered by the Romans; the Lord of hosts was preparing a sanctuary and a retreat for the apostles and disciples of the Hebrew Nazarene Ecclesia of Israel.

Glastonbury, the Isle of Avalon

Jesus in Glastonbury

Joseph of Arimathea, being a Jewish merchant, would have made easy relations with his lost brethren of the tribe of Asher that had been working the tin mines for centuries. The ancient chroniclers testified that the Celts and the Israelites, who were able to converse in Hebrew and Greek, lived a highly sophisticated life. They were natural traders and in contact with many parts of the civilized then known world.

A legend quoted by S. Baring-Gould in his book, Cornwall, stated that “Joseph of Arimathea came in a boat to Cornwall and brought the child Jesus with him, who taught him how to extract tin and purge it of its wolfram. When tin is flashed the tinner shouts, “Joseph was in the tin trade”’ (Cornwall, S. Baring-Gould, p. 57 quoted by Taylor, John W. The Coming of the Saints, Imagination and studies in Early Church History and Tradition, Methuen & Co. Ltd, 1909, 1985 reprint by Artisan Sales, PO Box 1529, Muskogee, OK 74402, 1995, p. 144)

Yet according to the late Vicar of Glastonbury, Lionel Smithett Lewis, “The well known Cornish ones (legends), such as the Marazon one, always referred to Our Lord coming as a child with the Blessed Virgin Mary; the Somerset ones, to his coming as a lad with St. Joseph of Arimathea.” (Lionel Smithett Lewis, late Vicar of Glastonbury, St. Joseph of Arimathea at Glastonbury or the Apostolic Church of Britain, James Clarke & Co. Ltd, Cambridge, PO Box 60, Cambridge, CBI 2NT, 1922, 1955, 1988.pg. 53)

Even the word Glastonbury means the “The secret of the Lord” and the area called a “Secretum” which means a place of retirement. It was Reverend C.C. Dobson, Vicar of St. Mary in the Castle, Hastings, who compiled a lot of the common names to the area of Glastonbury in his book, Did Our Lord visit Britain? According to one tradition, Jesus and Joseph arrived in an area called the summer-land on a ship of Tarshish and lived in a place called Paradise. He continued when he stated, that Jesus “actually stayed some time in Glastonbury and built a wattle building.” (Dobson, Rev. C.C., Did Our Lord visit Britain? pg. 24, cited by Lionel Smithett Lewis, late Vicar of Glastonbury, St. Joseph of Arimathea at Glastonbury or the Apostolic Church of Britain, James Clarke & Co. Ltd, Cambridge, PO Box 60, Cambridge, CBI 2NT, 1922, 1955, 1988.pg. 52-54)

Even to this day, the area of Somerset is called ‘Summerland’. Within seventeen miles from the seaside town of Burnham is a farm called Paradise Farms in an area called Paradise on old ordinance maps in western Britain. According to Lewis in the north-east part of Glastonbury Tor is a spot called ‘Paradise’ and the ancient road leading to this area is called Paradise Lane.

The fact that Jesus did visit Britain and the region of Avalon is attested by non other than Augustine, the Bishop of Hippo and the notable doctor of the Roman Catholic Church when writing to Pope Gregory about 600 CE called the Epistolae ad Gregorium Papam, stated:

Augustine the Great – “In the western confines of Britain there is a certain royal island of large extent, surrounded by water, abounding in all the beauties of nature and necessaries of life. In it the first neophytes of Catholic Law, God beforehand acquainting them, found a Church constructed by no human art, but by the Hands of Christ Himself, for the salvation of His people. The Almighty has made it manifest by many miracles and mysterious visitations that He continues to watch over it as sacred to Himself, and to Mary, the Mother of God” (cited by Lionel Smithett Lewis, late Vicar of Glastonbury, St. Joseph of Arimathea at Glastonbury or the Apostolic Church of Britain, James Clarke & Co. Ltd, Cambridge, PO Box 60, Cambridge, CBI 2NT, 1922, 1955, 1988.pg. 86)

The Wattle Ecclesia built by Jesus and Twelve Anchorite Huts built by Joseph of Arimathea

That there would be built a later Ecclesia in the size and form of the Wilderness Sanctuary of Moses will be talked about later. The early historians are unclear of which ecclesia, the one built by Jesus or the later one built by Joseph and the twelve disciples who came to Britain about 36-37 CE. The former was more likely built like a solitary anchorite hut for meditation; the later one was built like a temple of worship. The former was built more likely near the Chalice Well where the later disciples called Anchorites lived, each with their own dwelling place called anchorite huts; the latter was built where the present ruins of the Glastonbury Abbey and the Chapel of Mary are located.

This ‘wattle and mud’ church or ‘wattle and daub’ ecclesia is verified by many ancient historians. They include: William of Malmesbury (12^th century) and his De Antiquities Glastoniae (The Antiquities of Glastonbury), Elvan of Avalon, who was a British scholar who was educated at the school at Avalon about 180 CE, and wrote, De origine Ecclesiae Britannicae (The Original Ecclesia of Britain, and Pitsaeus who wrote: Relat Hist. de rebus Anglicis Act., Capgrave writing: De Sancto Joseph at Aramathia, Haworth Castle writing The Magna Tabula of Glastonbury, Hearne writing John of Glastonbury and the British historians Gildas and Geoffrey. These all verify the stories of the mud and wattle places of worship by Jesus and Joseph.

Mud and Wattle Iron Age House Replica at St. Fagans

The hints on the life of Christ in Britain are few yet profound. It is Reverend Dobson who has suggested that having been taken as a lad by Joseph to Britain, Yahshua later came here in his youth and young manhood to visit Glastonbury as a place of retreat. The area was quiet, secluded and with a subdued beauty. Here was a place He could allow His mind to be filled with the images of His Father and commune in quietness. It was at this time, He erected his own small hermitage of mud and wattles and there he prayed and mediated in preparation for His ministry in Galilee and then to Jerusalem.

The Chalice Well at Glastonbury

In the early years before Glastonbury was named by the invading Saxon, this area was known by two names, “”Secretum Domini” or The Secret of our Lord and “Domus Dei” meaning The House or Home of God”. This wattle and mud temple carried with it the sanctity that Yahshua; the Son of God lived within it. Yet the Secret of our Lord represented His dowry or gift to remembrance to His mother, Mary. (Jowett, The Drama of the Lost Disciples, pg 144)

While being raised in Galilee and Judea, Jesus was fully immersed in the Torah. As all orthodox Jewish youth, He was to commit the Torah to memory and know all the 613 commandments of the Lord. Yet as He stated later in His ministry, He mission to this earth was to come to the Lost Tribes of the House of Israel. Though they may seem lost today, the whereabouts of the lost tribes was well known to the Jewish scholars of the 1^st century. Migrating from the land of Assyria between the 7^th to the 1^st century BCE, they were now found scattered from India to Britain with a few remnants as far away as China.

The Celtic Land of the Druids

The land of the Celts was a land of strong political and spiritual leaders. One of the first to greet Joseph of Arimathea when he return to Britain was Bran the Blessed, who was the Arch-Druid over all Britain and Wales. With our knowledge now of Druidism, we now see a vibrant and flourishing religious environment in which Glastonbury was in the center of several of the chief druidic centers of Britain: Caerleon, Salisbury, Bristol, Bath and Dorchester.

A Reverend R.W. Morgan, in his book, “St. Paul in Britain” gives a very thoughtful look at the Druids in Celtic Britain. Recognized to be Rome’s greatest opponent, the center of Druidism was in Britain and fanned out all over the continent of Gaul (France in central Europe). As the historian Hume said, “No religion has ever swayed the minds of men like the Druidic.”

The foundational philosophy was very similar to the Jews and the Gaelic language that they spoke was phonetically like Hebrew. Many scholars have come to believe that ancient Druidism, not the modern New Age druids, was more akin to the Hebrews of the Judges than the 1^st century Jews who through their Babylonian exile, had codified their beliefs and had become an isolated sectarian religion denoted best by their separatism from the rest of the world.

What religious principles we still have of the ancient Druids have come down to us as triads such as the

“Three duties of every man: Worship God; be just to all men; die for you country.”

The central belief in Druidism was the Trinity, yet it was not polytheistic. The omnipotent God was called the Duw, and was known as the One without darkness Who pervaded the universe. This was the God-head or the world of the Divine. The emblems of Druidism depict three Golden Rays of Light that emanate from the God-head. This closely approximates the fundamentals philosophy of the Divine as seen by the mystical Jewish sages. The world of the Divine was not composed of three persons but three emanations. These Three were:

Beli, Who was the Creator of the past, Taran, Who was providential God of the present and

Yesu, the coming Saviour of the future.

The oak tree was the sacred tree of the Druidic God-head and the mistletoe was growing on the oak was symbolic of the Trinity with its three berries representing the three aspects of the Divine One. Yet the most fascinating was that the Druids were anticipating the coming of the messiah called Yesu (in Gaelic) and Yahshua (in Aramaic) and that with His coming He would be known as “All Heal”.

Was it any wonder that when Joseph of Arimathea came after the death and resurrection of Jesus, the rulers of the land were anticipating his coming? They already knew the Saviour and Maschiach (Messiah) of the Jews. They knew His name and they also knew Him in person.

During the time of Yahshua’s visit, there were forty universities of higher learning, one in each capital of the forty tribes of the Druids in Britain. At times they were teaching upwards to 60,000 students and nobility in the country. The educational system was so profound that young scholars from Rome would go to Britain to be trained. For twenty years they were taught before they had completed all the arenas of higher education. This areas of study included include astronomy, arithmetic, geometry, jurisprudence, medicine, poetry and oratory.

Here in the land of Judea where the brightest scholars like Shaul and Luke studied at the feet of the greatest of Pharisaic scholars such as Gamaliel and Hillel, when Yahshua came back to Judea and Galilee, the Pharisees and Scribes had only one comment:

John 7:15 – “And the Jews marveled, saying, How knoweth this man letters, having never learned?”

Were the teachings of Jesus actually a combination of the profound knowledge of the Jews and the wisdom of the Druids?

The Nazarene Mission to Druidic Britain

The first recorded message of the risen Lord given to the British Isles is recorded in the History of Gildas, which stated:

History of Gildas (6^th century CE) - “These islands received the beams of light - that is, the holy precepts of Christ- the true Son, as we know, at the latter part of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, in whose time this religion was propagated without impediment and death threatened to those who interfered with its professors” (History of Gildas, section 8, 9, cited by Taylor, John W. The Coming of the Saints, Imagination and studies in Early Church History and Tradition, Methuen & Co. Ltd, 1909, 1985 reprint by Artisan Sales, PO Box 1529, Muskogee, OK 74402, 1995, p. 141)

The death of the Roman emperor Tiberius Caesar was in early 37 CE. Just prior to his death, Pilate was sent into exile. That Joseph could have returned any time after the death of Jesus in his rock hewn tomb near Jerusalem in 30 CE, would have been reasonable due to his business interests and responsibilities. Therefore it can be assumed that Joseph had to return back Britain on business to evaluate the tin mining operations which were under his custody by the Roman government soon after the resurrection and ascension of Jesus. There he took the ‘Good News” to the Arch Druid of Britain, Bran the Blessed and the royal members of the Silurian Tribe in southeastern Wales.

For many, the concept that Jesus went to visit, work and live for a few months or years during the “lost years” of Jesus’ youth is not totally out of question. The Talmud attests that Joseph of Arimathea was the son of Matthat (Mathat) ben Levi of Arimathea, and the younger brother of the Joachim/Heli, the father of Mary. If this were true, he was the uncle to Mary. By all evidence, Joseph the father of Jesus died while Jesus was a child, or at best in his teens. Under Jewish law, upon the death of a husband, the wife and children are placed in the custody of the next male kin of the husband. Therefore, Joseph of Arimathea would have become the guardian of Mary or paranymphos of Mary and her son, Yahshua, very early in His life.

The Bardic pedigrees of ancient Wales, the same King Arviragus, who is called Aballach, Avalloch or Evelake, is traced in the lineages of the Welch nobles and saints. In the ancient manuscripts, there are four royal British genealogies which trace to a King Bali and Anna, called the cousin or consobrina of Mary, the mother of Jesus. All four of these lineage link to King Arviragus. There is the Breton tradition that is told in the Hachette’s Guide Bleu Bretagne that is linked with the St. Anna, the mother of Mary and the grandmother of Jesus. According to this story, Anna was born of the royal Cornoualle bloodlines. She was the victim of wife abuse while she was carrying Mary and eventually fled by sea to Asia, landing in Jaffa and then moved up to Nazareth. It was there she gave birth to a little girl named Mary, who went she was fifteen years old was given to marry the Judaite, Joseph. At this time, she prayed that the Lord would take her back to Counouaille. The same angel took her back to Cornwall and finding her husband dead, divided the estate among the vassals working for her husband. There beside a well near the bay of Palue, she lived out her live. According to this tradition, Jesus as a youth came to visit with her. As such, St. Anna de la Palue is one of the chief patron saints in Brittany on the western coast of France. (Lionel Smithett Lewis, late Vicar of Glastonbury, St. Joseph of Arimathea at Glastonbury or the Apostolic Church of Britain, James Clarke & Co. Ltd, Cambridge, PO Box 60, Cambridge, CBI 2NT, 1922, 1955, 1988.pg. 62-63)

On the isle of Lammana is an ancient Priory, once part of the 12 Hides of Glastonbury. This area was divided into two regions, Parlooe and Portlooe where near a well called St. Anna’s well, is the Chapel of St. Anna by the old Looe Bridge. At least one scholar suggests that Lammana is actually Lan Anna, the Gaelic name for the Church of Anna. In the taxation rolls of Pope Nicholas IV (1288-1291 CE), Lammana was called Sancta Lamana (Holy Lamana) That the traditions of Brittany in western France and land of the Brits in western England are the same comes as no surprise that when Aurelius Ambrosias, the Roman general was defeated by British under Emperor Maximums Magnus in 387 CE

This genealogy is also attested in the genealogy of Joseph of Arimathea as compiled by Charlemagne, the Holy Roman Emperor, who was one of his descendants. The genealogy of Luke 3:23-24 would look like this:

Joseph ben Mattathias married to the daughter of Simon the Just

Janna (Janne Jannai) ben Joseph

Melchi (Melki) ben Janna

Levi ben Melchi

Matthat ben Levi of Arimathea

Joseph ben Matthat of Arimathea

Heli ben Matthat of Arimathea

Mary bat Heli ben Matthat

Yahshua ben Joseph, ben Mary

If we take the testimony of the revered Catholic Doctor of law, St. Augustine of Hippo, that a wattle church was built by the Hand of Christ Himself, then we also have testimony of Yahshua, the son of a master craftsman called a carpenter, Joseph, who was now utilizing the trade that was taught him as an apprentice of his own adopted father, Joseph. Cornish traditions abound in the whole region. Can we now suspect that Jesus had a great affinity and attachment to his great uncle, though by the time of his ministry in Galilee, his uncle was probably absent for long periods of time on his business as the Decurio of the tin and lead mines of Britain. That Joseph had returned in time for the Passover is attested in the gospel stories. That he was a member of the Sanhedrin that condemned his own nephew is attested in the secular historical records. That he risked everything, his wealth, power and civil and political position to fulfill his obligations as the guardian of Jesus by defying the Sanhedrin and claiming the body of his own great nephew is attested by both the canon and secular history.

The Abbey of Glastonbury- postcard

As we shall see later, the site of the church built by Jesus in dedication of his mother, Mary, was soon to be rebuilt by Joseph of Arimathea and a band of twelve who escaped from the shores of Caesarea and under severe hardship, landed near Marseilles, France.

From there they traveled the route of the ancient tin miners. From fellow travelers with Joseph of Arimathea left the city of Marseilles and traveled up the Rhone as far as the city of Arles and then a thirty day’ journey across France, the region known as Gaul. On this journey they went through the country of the Lemovices over to the sea-coast; on to Limoges and finally arriving in the province of Brittany at Vannes or Morlaix on the coast of the British Channel. It was then a four days journey sailing across the English Channel to Cornwall to a place called Ictis by the ancients, known today as St. Michael’s Mount. The final leg of the journey inland went across Britain to the British strongholds or they took a skill and traversed around the south end of Cornwall and up the Atlantic coastline to the island of Avalon where modern day Glastonbury is now located.

The church that was rebuilt by Joseph of Arimathea would later be encased in lead to preserve it and then a chapel dedicated to Mary, the mother of Jesus would be built over it. On the above picture of the Abbey of Glastonbury, the small chapel to the left attached to the sanctuary proper was the reputed site of the wattle ecclesia and then the rebuilt mud and branch larger ecclesia built by Joseph of Arimathea. This story will be told in Part Two of the history of the Hebrew Nazarene Ecclesia of Israel.

A more significant genealogical study can be found at What Happened to the Friends and Disciples of Jesus. In this introduction, as a BibleSearcher, I will conclude with the following observations.

Joseph of Arimathea, when compiling the historical documentation of the Jews with the historical documentation of the Culdee Celtic Christian Church in Wales and Britain, gives evidence he was a wealthy Jewish descendant of the House of David, who was selected by the Caesar of Rome to be a Roman Decurio and in charge of the mining, processing and shipping of the metal tin that was extracted since the greatest of antiquity from Cornwall, England.
Joseph of Arimathea is portrayed in the ancestral genealogies of the royal and nobility of Europe as being the brother to Heli, the thereby the great uncle to Jesus.
This fact is corroborated in the Talmud that Joseph of Arimathea was the younger brother of Mary’s father.
The evidence also presented that Joseph of Arimathea was the uncle also to Joseph the father of Jesus as well as the uncle to Mary. Therefore, Joseph and Mary were at least second cousins.
The British genealogies record that Joseph of Arimathea had a daughter called Anna, who was a consobrina, that is a relative or cousin to Mary the mother of Jesus.
British genealogies are record that Anna was of British descent and had two or three husbands, one of which was a Jewish tin trader from Cornwall.
Christian tradition states that Mary was the daughter of Joachim and Hanna. Hanna in the Christian tradition could easily have been Anna in the British Celtic genealogies.
Ancient British genealogies record that after the death of Joseph, Mary married the brother of Joseph, Cleopas.
As such ancient British genealogies also record that Mary, the mother of Jesus and Mary Cleopas were the same person.
All records including the Biblical records suggest that Jesus had at least four sibling brothers and two sibling sisters. They were either full siblings, half siblings or cousins by half blood.

Go to Part Three –

The Birth of the Hebrew Nazarene Ecclesia

Topics

From the Crucifixion to the Pentecost Revival

The Pentecost Revival in Jerusalem

The Birth of the Nazarene Ecclesia in Jerusalem

The Brothers of Jesus

James the Just, the Leader of the Nazarene Jerusalem Church

The Ossuary of James son of Joseph, brother of Jesus

Organization of the Jerusalem Nazarene Church

The Jerusalem Nazarene Leaders in the New Testament Scripture

Return to Beginning

Go to Part One

The Primitive “Apostolic” Nazarene Ecclesia

Go to Part Two

Jesus (Yahshua) and Joseph of Arimathea

Go to Part Three

The Birth of the Hebrew Nazarene Ecclesia in Jerusalem

Go to Part Four

Crisis in the Hebrew Nazarene Ecclesia –

The Sanhedrin and Rabbi Shaul are Coming

Go to Part Five

Joseph of Arimathea and the Friends of Jesus Flee to Caesarea

Go to Part Six

Final Exile of Joseph of Arimathea from Judea to the Isles of Avalon

Go to Part Seven

The Hebrew Nazarene Ecclesia after the Stoning of Stephen

Go to Part Eight

Antioch and Agrippa – The Nazarenes evangelize the world

Go to Part Nine

The Royal Family of Caradactus and the Roman Christian Church

Go to Part Ten

The Invasion of Rome to Britain and the Exile of the Royal Silurian Family to Rome

Go to Part Eleven

Roman Senator Rufus Puden, the Palladium Britannica and the First Bishop of Rome

Go to Part Twelve

Nero’s Persecution of the Jews and the Deaths of Paul and Peter

Go to Part Thirteen

The Death, Tomb and Ossuary of James the Just brother of Jesus, the high priest of the Nazarenes

Go to Part Fourteen

Murder of James the Just and the Blood Libel of “The Jews”, the House of Ananus

Go to Part Fifteen

Symeon ben Clopus, high priest of the Nazarenes, the cousin of Jesus

Go to Part Sixteen

The Royal Davidian and Priestly Zadokian lineage of Jesus, James the Just and Simeon ben Cleopas

Go to Part Seventeen

The Flight of the Hebrew Nazarene to the Wilderness of Perea

Go to Part Eighteen

The Pharisee and Scribes of the Jews

Go to Part Nineteen

The Excommunication of the Nazarenes by the Sanhedrin of Yavneh

Go to Part Twenty

The Last of the Nazarenes

Links

Roman Government in the Province of Judea

Provinces of Rome by Livius

The Province of Judea by Livius

Establishing the Province of Judea (6CE) by Livius

The Pontifex Maximus (the Roman High Priest) by Livius

Praetorian Prefect, the Roman magistrate by Livius

Provincial Governors of Rome by Livius

The Prefects and Procurators of Rome by Livius

The Procurators of Judea by Livius

Procurators in Judea by the Jewish Encyclopedia

Procurators in Judea by Bible History

Pontius Pilate the Procurator of Judea

Pontius Pilate by Livius

Pontius Pilate by the Catholic Encyclopedia

Herod the Great by the Jewish Encyclopedia

Herod the Great, the King of Judea

King Herod the Great by Livius

King Herod Archelaus by Livius

King Herod Archelaus by Jewish Encyclopedia

King Herod Agrippa I by Livius

King Herod Agrippa I by Jewish Encyclopedia

King Herod Agrippa I by In His Own

King Julius Marcus Agrippa II by Livius

King Julius Marcus Agrippa II by Jewish Encyclopedia

Herod Antipas by Livius

The House of Annas and Caiaphas – High Priests in Jerusalem

High Priest House of Annas by the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

High Priest House of Annas by the Catholic Encyclopedia

High Priest House of Annas by the Latter Rain

High Priest Caiaphas by Jewish Encyclopedia

Caiaphas by the Catholic Encyclopedia

Caesarea the City of Protection for the Disciples of Christ

Virtual Caesarea Maritima by Sebastos

Caesarea Maritima by Biblical Places

Caesarea by Crystal Links
Caesarea by Combined Caesarea Expeditions

Saintes Maries de la Mer on the Camarogues by Provenceweb

Saintes Maries de la Mer on the Carmaroques by Beyond France

Joseph of Arimathea, the Uncle of Jesus and the Roman Decurio

Joseph of Arimathea by the Jewish Encyclopedia

Joseph of Arimathea by Britannia

Joseph of Arimathea by Catholic Encyclopedia

Joseph of Arimathea by Rev. L Smithett Lewis

Joseph of Arimathea, the Holy Grail and the Turin Shroud by Daniel Scavone

Joseph of Arimathea by Arthur and Rosalind Eadle

Joseph of Arimathea by Robert de Boron

Joseph of Arimathea by David Nash Ford

Joseph of Arimathea and David’s Throne in Britain by Triumph Prophetic Ministries of the Church of God

Ancient Celtic Britain

The Tin Islands by Arthur and Rosalind Eadle

Museum of Welch Life, St. Fagans by National Museum and Galleries of Wales

The Sacred Megalithic Landscapes of Britain by Lisa Evans

Ley Lines from Glastonbury by Isle of Avalon

Glastonbury Ley Lines by Visit Glastonbury

Glastonbury, the Home of Joseph of Arimathea

Glastonbury Abbey Official Web Site

Visitor’s Guide to Glastonbury by Glastonbury Online

Glastonbury Circle Official Web Site

Virtual Glastonbury by Avalon Connections

Glastonbury County UK Official Web Site

Glastonbury Photo Library by Sarah Boait - Recommended Site

Glastonbury Photo Library

Archive of Glastonbury Pictures by Bill Glenn

Isle of Avalon by the Isle of Avalon

Glastonbury Lake Village by Somerset County Council

Lake Village Museum by Glastonbury Online

The Glastonbury Well Gardens by Glastonbury Online

Gog and Magog, the last of the Druidic Oak Groves by Glastonbury Online

Glastonbury Tor by Glastonbury Online

Panorama View from Glastonbury Tor by Heather and Barry Hoon

Sunset and Sunrise Pictures of Glastonbury Tor by Isle of Avalon

Ley Lines from Glastonbury by Isle of Avalon

Glastonbury Ley Lines by Visit Glastonbury

The Josephean Nazarene Mission to Celtic Britain

Glastonbury, the first Christian Church by Straight Talk

Christ in Glastonbury by Delphos

Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus by Mystic Realms

Early Christian Gravestones on the Island of Lundy by Mystic Realms

The Spread of Christianity to Britain by Mystic Realms

St. Patrick and the Irish Martyrs – Glastonbury Histories by Armine le S. Campbell

Orthodox Theology

The Arian Controversy and the Council of Nicea by Essene

Blasphemy by Jewish Encyclopedia

Celtic Villages of Mud and Wattle Construction

Building ‘model’ Residential Dwellings in the Holy Land by Monolith Designs

Building ‘model’ Wattle and Stick Residences by Monolith Designs

Building an Iron Age Residence by Trewern Outdoor Residential Centre

Paintings by Tiana Marie

Bookstore in the UK

Mount Tabor and Glastonbury Tor – Type/anti-Type

Israel Slide Show by Zola Levitt Ministries

Mount Tabor interactive Tour by Mustard Seed

Mount Tabor by Franciscan CyberSpot

Holy Land Interactive Tour by Mustard Seed

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