Mick Hartley

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The Other Gordon Strachan

They certainly know how to put together a compelling argument, these Church of Scotland ministers:

Jesus Christ could have come to Britain to further his education, according to a Scottish academic. Church of Scotland minister Dr Gordon Strachan makes the claim in a new film entitled And Did Those Feet.

The film examines the story of Jesus' supposed visit, which survives in the popular hymn Jerusalem.

Dr Strachan believes it is "plausible" Jesus came to England for his studies, as it was the forefront of learning 2,000 years ago.

"Coming this far wasn't in fact that far in the olden days," Dr Strachan told BBC Radio 4's The World At One. "The Romans came here at the same time and they found it quite easy."

Dr Strachan added that Jesus had "plenty of time" to do the journey, as little was known about his life before the age of 30. 

Well, I'm convinced. Perhaps in his gap year…

[And Did Those Feet….Gordon Strachan….must be a football joke in there somewhere.]

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7 responses to “The Other Gordon Strachan”

  1. Anthony Cole Avatar
    Anthony Cole

    What kind of minister are you, Gordon Strachan?
    You said that Jesus came to Englad to study Astronomy and Geometry from the Druids, are you crazy?
    “The Creator of the Universe” would learn from human beings? What kind of doctrine are you teaching? Have you ever read the Bible? Do you have any idea who was, is and will be Jesus?

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  2. DaninVan Avatar
    DaninVan

    ‘Ang on, Anthony, He must have been doing something for the missing thirty odd years. Who’s to say it wasn’t in Brighton, eh?

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  3. Frank Avatar
    Frank

    In official church doctrine Jesus was unaware of his divinity until his mission started, at the time of his absense he would be a young man with wealthy relatives and a claim to be exiled prince to the Jews.
    The Druids could certainly have tutored such a young man and tought him leadership, oratory astronomy healing music and possibly even magic. In Britain at the time we had an advanced honour based legal system, equality between the sexes, and Jesus returned to the holy land with new ideas on such topics that would been his everyday experience while here.
    The best research on the subject is by Dennis Price, author of The Missing Years of Jesus, the greatest story never told.
    I personally suspect that the church knew full well of Jesus visiting Britain and of early Christains establishing the first church here in around AD 60, however at a time when to have even one heathen thought was considered dangerous for ones immortal soul, how could the church acknowledge that Jesus himself had lived amongst the pagan Brits, had no problem with us, and in fact owed much to our kindness.

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  4. Mick H Avatar
    Mick H

    Not quite the kind of comments I’d envisaged, but there you go.

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  5. Nick Avatar
    Nick

    And did those feet in ancient times….? is a serious question!
    Dull people finish school and go to work downt‘ mill!! But what do bright young people do today?
    They get an education, learn a trade, go see the world. Today it’s Thailand, in my youth it was Australia and New Zealand (by boat). So why should young people in ancient times be any different?
    We know travel in the ancient world was widespread, long before the Roman invasion: The Scottish kings claim their dynasty was founded when Princess Scota, a daughter of the Pharaoh in Egypt fetched up in Ireland.
    The Bronze Age (2000 years of world history) would probably not have happened as we know it today, if it were not for Cornish tin and copper!!!
    Rhodda’s Dairy, leading manufacturers of Cornish Cream, will tell you that the recipe came from the Lebanon with the Phoenician tin traders around 500 b.c. Valerian; a tall red flower that grows like a weed around Cornwall also arrived here by the same route.
    I am sorry to annoy anyone from Saffron Waldon (the home of English saffron?) but I am sure that Cornish housewives were using saffron in their cooking and getting it from the Holy Land long before the 12th century crusades. More recently, (only 1400 years ago) we know that St. Petroc went on pilgrimage from Bodmin to India.
    We have no way of knowing if Jesus ever visited England, but we can’t disprove it either:-
    My guess is that the distance from Nazareth to the Sea of Galilee is about the same as the distance from Launceston to the North Cornish coast.
    Now in the days before the motor car, take an intelligent young lad who grows up in Launceston, goes to chapel and learns his bible stories, serves his time as an apprentice and becomes a first rate carpenter. Unless he has travelled widely, such a guy will know all about repairing farm wagons, wooden ploughs, making doors, window frames, furniture and roof trusses, building barns and all things rural. He is not likely to know anything about sea fishing, or boat building. And as for being woken up by a raging Atlantic storm on his first trip out in a small open boat, he is highly likely to wet himself.
    So what does the Bible tell us about Jesus? Well, age 12, he is a bright young lad presented at the Temple in Jerusalem. Later, around the age of 30 he re-appears as a carpenter from Nazareth. At the start of his ministry, we hear of him on the shores of Galilee, telling professional fishermen how to fish. “Caste your nets on the other side …” On another occasion Jesus sleeps in the boat when a raging storm blows up. We are told he is not bothered by this and calms the storm. This is not the behaviour of a rural country lad.
    Once the teenage Jesus has served his apprenticeship, what will be more natural than to sign on with Uncle Joseph as a ship’s carpenter and see the world before settling down. With such experience, he will know how to spot a shoal of fish. He will be used to sleeping through an Atlantic storm and will have assessed the seaworthiness of the boat he’s in. He will also have enough experience to read the wind and clouds and predict when a storm is likely to abate.
    This man is an experienced seaman who is highly likely to have followed the Tin trade to Cornwall. Once here, who knows what he might have learnt of our ancient ways!!

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  6. Dom Avatar
    Dom

    “…and tought him leadership, oratory astronomy healing music and possibly even magic.”
    Is there a missing comma between “oratory” and “astronomy”? No, forget I asked.

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  7. DaninVan Avatar
    DaninVan

    Yanni?! Is that you? 🙂

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