The title is more ambitious than I am going to really cover in this post (i.e., a full exploration of Jesus' place of birth and ministry), but I am going to use a phrase from a few days ago to open up the thought a bit more as to why it might make sense for Jesus to not have ever visited this world.
There are a couple posts I am currently thinking through in terms of looking at this idea from different angles, so this one will largely just serve to introduce the concept or idea in its own setting, and then we can go from there in terms of some specific aspects of the idea in future posts to see what might or might not make sense.
First, a quick reminder about how, logically, we arrived at the idea of Jesus potentially having not been on this world. The use of 'logically' is kind of funny in the context of what I am writing here, I know (I am not sure any of this seems logical to others in the sense of 'reasonable'), so what I mean here is more like 'internally consistent', as in eliminating as many contradictions as possible.
In the story that has come out over the last several months, there have essentially been a series of domino-type effects that a decision or choice has made. As in, if we assume one thing to be true, then that has implications for other related things. So, in some of these cases, the thread I have been following has been dictated by necessity, with the understanding that if the knock on effect or the next domino in line doesn't make sense, then we would obviously need to pull back on that earlier story element and look for an alternative solution.
As a bit of an analogy to this approach, I remembered a book series I loved reading as a kid called "Choose Your Own Adventure". In those books, you would be faced with choices at certain stages in the story. As a simple hypothetical example, you would be reading about Jack, and he would either need to take the bus to the museum to meet up with Professor Wu, or hop on a train to follow-up on some other lead. If you chose Professor Wu, you turned to pg. 55 to continue the story there, and if you hopped on the train, you went to pg. 26.
Right, so you would have all of these decision points, and you would eventually be led to an ending, and some of them were good, and some were bad/ disastrous. As I would read the books, I would keep my fingers in the pages at various important decision nodes so that if I didn't like where things were going, I could go back to that particular decision and choose the other option (this likely led to my indecisive nature, or was a symptom of it!). Sometimes I would have to work back through a few decision nodes to get back to better ground.
Anyway, probably a silly analogy, but that is kind of how I view this. I have a lot of fingers in pages right now, meaning I am aware of various 'choices' I have made in terms of exploring some things, just as I am aware of the implications of those choices that need to be explored as well to determine if we are on to something 'good' or that makes sense, or a dead end. In some cases I have made some modifications on some details as I revisit things based on later thoughts or examining those next choices or dominoes. I have not yet, however, had to fully backtrack on the major elements, but that is largely because I am still chasing down the current set of implications. It may be once we get to the end of those, we'll have to seriously reconsider things, or we'll like where things have ended up. I don't know. At least the journey and thoughts are documented so we know places to go back to if things go awry.
Anyway, get on with it, Bill, and back on topic.
We arrived at the point of exploring the idea of Jesus not having lived on this Earth, because I have placed Jerusalem (the OG) as Tirion, and that is obviously not here. If the Jerusalem isn't here, than that means Jesus didn't live here, either. I placed Jerusalem as not being here, because I consider it one of the two Holy Places that we will be gathered back to and that this gathering consists of being taken to somewhere that is not on this Earth.
This had a major knock-on effect by then placing Lehi and his family as also not having originated from this Earth, which was at first a major problem for me. You can even go back to a post in December, "Jerusalem and Ether's words potentially challenging its location as Tirion", and see me working through the issue. At the time, I decided to keep going with the notion that Tirion is Jerusalem, and thus Lehi and his family came from Valinor. In follow up posts, I was able to work out a solution as to how Men would have been in Tirion in the first place (having arrived there from Numenor as part of the Holy Order), at least to enough of my own satisfaction as to keep going with this overall framework.
Subsequent thoughts and posts have continued to support this idea, though not without a few unresolved topics and ideas. One of those is the idea of Jesus, then, needing to be placed on Valinor rather than this Earth.
Anyway, that is how we got here. So, what I want to do is explore if that makes sense on its own, as I have done for the other dominoes or implications along this thread, and not just as a narrative necessity or convenience. Again, that is going to largely be in follow-up posts, but I wanted to introduce a very interesting phrase to kick that off.
The Calilean Butler
Last Friday morning I had several interesting dreams. I am going to spare you most of that right now, which at one point involved me being offered to wear a helmet in the shape of Lightning McQueen (not the red version of McQueen, either, the Dinoco Blue version), and just focus on one of a few phrases that came later on.
I was looking at a sheet of paper (in the dream) and I was reading the most clever series of word-plays I had ever seen. It was really good. Unfortunately, I don't remember any of it other than the last two words, but I remember at the time in the dream thinking that what I was reading was just epic.
Those last two words that came through to my waking life were: Calilean Butler.
Calilean was pronounced as one would say Galilean, as in one who came from Galilee, but just now replaced with the C at the front. Thus, when I read it, I inferred this as referring to Jesus (Galilee's most famous resident), and that same inference carried through to waking life. I am going to focus on the "Calilean" aspect of the phrase for now, and then conclude with just a thought or two on the Butler.
After I woke up, just to be sure there wasn't actually an existing word for "Calilean" I did an online search. I was surprised to see there is in fact that word, but I am fairly certain it isn't what we are looking for. Here is what Google gave me:
I mean, it's a vehicle, and those have come up before, but I don't think this is what we are after. This is a Cali Lean, by the way, which I didn't know was a thing until my search. So although not helpful here, you are at least armed with this knowledge so that if you were to see such a vehicle driving by, you can roll down your window and yell "Sweet Cali Lean!" like you are in the know, or something. I'm sure the driver will be impressed. Or maybe you are now tempted to make such a modification on your own car.
We'll stick with Calilean as in sounding like Cali-lee-an, and a play on words for Galilean, for our purposes.
As you know my procedure by now, my first instinct was to take this new word to Eldamo and see what I could find. And in this case, since I understood this word to be a place (i.e., Calilee/ Galilee), that is how I looked up the word. It turned out to be pretty enlightening.
Cal or Cali can mean something like 'to shine' or 'bright, radiant, etc". We have a few potential things to look up for the latter part of the name. If we keep it as the English/ Greek form (vs. the Hebrew version), we have potentially "li" or "ili/ ile" to look up. Both of those are promising. "li" is "people, folk" and "ili/ ile" goes along nicely with "shine" by being a form of "star".
By the way, "Gal" in Elvish is pretty much the same as "Cal", so Galilee is going to mean the same thing in Elvish as Calilee. I suspect the C replaced the G for a few reasons, one being to encourage me look up the word in the first place.
Anyway, with those combinations we have either "Bright/ Shine People" or "Bright/ Shine Star". Or both, and that is kind of where my mind is at, honestly.
So, Galilee can be translated as referring to a 'shiny' people and a shining star.
What I am going to suggest is that Galilee, just like the OG Jerusalem, refers to a place not on this Earth, as suggested by its name (a bright star), and also refers to the people who inhabited it - shiny people.
That last point might seem strange - this notion of 'shiny' people, but it could make sense. I think I mentioned this before in past posts, but will do so again here briefly. The Book of Mormon spends some time describing people's skins as 'white' and 'dark' or 'black'. My belief is that this doesn't really have anything to do with the color of the skin, but rather with the radiance of the Beings in question. There would have a radiance to the bodies of those in Tirion/ Valinor, and this accounted for the 'whiteness' of the Nephites, as well as for the capability of the bodies of the Lamanites, or those who became cursed, to lose at least a portion of that radiance.
I know, it's out there, but again it is probably the least of our worries right now. The word "White", if you look it up on Etymonline, the first definition you will get is "bright, radiant, clear, and fair". You will also get later in that definition "to shine" and "light".
Thus, when Nephi is describing Mary in Jerusalem, for example, and he calls her "fair and white" (in 1 Nephi 11), I don't think he is describing skin color or making a big deal about that. Rather, he is describing a radiance or brightness to Mary.
So, in this story, the Lehites came from a people who were radiant and bright, descendants of those Men Alma discusses in Alma 13 whose 'garments' (bodies) were made 'white' and entered into Tirion-Valinor (the rest of the Lord). Thus, to be consistent, if Jesus also was born and lived in that same land, it would be accurate to say that he lived among a radiant and bright people, in a radiant and bright land: Galilee, by translation.
This name of Galilee would have been carried by Jesus' apostles in their ministry to the lands of the Gentiles, which would have included our own, and that is why we know of such a place, and why a region would have been named after it, much like Jerusalem was (no contemporaneous evidence outside of the Bible exists for a place called Galilee, by the way, as with most Bible places and stories).
Anyway, this is all to say, that the concept of Galilee, from solely an etymological view, based in Elvish, would seem to at least give us another reason to not fully disbelieve the notion of Jesus' ministry being among those in Valinor-Tirion, and not our own world. But we will see.
On the Butler reference, I figured this was a reference to a servant of Jesus. A look at Etymonline for Butler has meaning focused solely on wine, and then expanding to sort of a head servant of a household:
"cup-bearer, butler, officer in charge of wine," . . . The word reflects the position's original function as "chief servant in charge of wine." It gradually evolved to "head, servant of a household." In Old French, the fem. boteilliere was used of the Virgin Mary as the dispenser of the cup of Mercy.
I thought it was interesting to see the feminine version of Butler in Old French was used of Mary herself, and had to do with the cup of mercy. My guess is that to the extent that wine related to this Butler, it would be in a similar fashion - mercy and redemption, but not necessarily just figuratively. Jesus appears to have brought wine directly from Valinor, potentially (I am working through a kink or two I've noticed recently based on his words in Bountiful, which I will call out in another post), so there could be something to that.
In any case, I interpreted this Butler as both being a Galilean (from that land), but also as a servant to the Galilean (Jesus). I suppose Butler could also itself refer to Jesus as well, since he bore a cup and placed himself as a servant, so that is a possibility as well. You could either have the Butler be a servant of Jesus, or Jesus himself, in this reference, then. My sense had been the former idea, but there isn't much to go by, honestly.
Anyway, that is what I have for today on that topic. Next, I think I want to look at how Jesus' words regarding Gentiles (and his refusal to visit or speak to them) might further support this story of him not being here on this world.
Lastly, however, that "Calilean Butler" phrase was followed by two other short phrases. I am just capturing them here in case they become related at some point.
The first phrase was: "Nothing Left to Lose". Mat Kearney's songs were a somewhat regular thing during my 2019/2020 'words' (as in sometimes the would wake me up playing in my head in the early hours of the morning), and I think this may have been a reference to that after doing a search on the phrase. Here is the song just in case:
The second phrase was: The City of the Gods. No other context on that one, though my sense was that this applied to Tirion, though if you do a search on it, you will find an ancient city in Mexico.
Oh, one other thing: There is also the possibility that the "Calilean" has an additional meaning or word-play referring to Galileo, the person. I am not sure on that (just as I am not sure on anything), but that thought did cross my mind. Galileo is well known for his work on astronomy, physics, etc., which obviously come into play with some of the topics here with outer space, weird physics like Black Holes, and all that. He is also well known because his views, findings, and beliefs challenged traditional orthodoxy of his day. He was proclaimed a heretic and put under house arrest for challenging the Catholic Church and the official narrative of creation.
Anyway, it could be that official narratives and orthodoxies are going to be overturned at some future point, as will our understanding of our world and its relation to the cosmos, and that this Butler might be involved.
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