Posted on 08/09/2008 9:09:34 PM PDT by afraidfortherepublic
MELBOURNE: It is possible that cricket, a game venerated all over the Commonwealth, is older than currently thought.
In fact, Jesus may have played the game (or a similar bat-and-ball combination) as a child, according to an ancient Armenian manuscript.
Long before the English launched cricket some 300 years ago, similar games were being played as early as the 8th century in the Punjab region, Derek Birley writes in his Social History of English Cricket.
But an Armenian scholar says there is good reason to believe that similar games were played in the Middle East long before that time.
Dr Abraham Terian, recently a visiting professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem as Fulbright Distinguished Chair in the Humanities, points to a rare manuscript as his source.
Terian notes that in the Armenian Gospel of the Infancy, translated into Armenian in the 6th century from a much older lost Syriac original, a passage tells of Jesus playing what may well be the precursor of cricket, with a club and ball.
Terian, who discovered the manuscript more than a decade ago at the Saint James Armenian Monastery in the Old City of Jerusalem, says he has now identified the same passage in a couple of other manuscripts of the same gospel of which some 40 copies exist in various archival collections in Europe and the Middle East, including the oldest copy now in Yerevan, the capital of the Armenian Republic.
The latter manuscript is dated 1239, whereas the undated Jerusalem manuscript is considerably later.
Quoting from his Armenian source, Terian says the gospel relates how Jesus, at the age of nine, had been apprenticed to a master dyer named Israel in Tiberias, on the shores of the Sea of Galilee.
"Jesus is instructed to watch Israel's house and not leave the place while the master goes away on a tour to collect clothes to be dyed. But no sooner has Israel left the house, than Jesus runs out with the boys," The Daily Telegraph quoted Terian, as saying.
"The most amazing part of the story of the nine-year-old Jesus playing a form of cricket with the boys at the sea shore, is that he would go on playing the game on water, over the sea waves," he added.
He gives the following translation: "He (Jesus) would take the boys to the seashore and, carrying the playing ball and the club, he would go over the waves of the sea as though he was playing on a frozen surface, hitting the playing ball.
They sang, "Ma-ary, mild, ca-all home your child..."
The problem was solved when, "He built them a bridge from the beams of the sun, so that they would play ball with me...."
I remember that the album cover (The Last Month of the Year) said that the Kingston Trio had carefully sought researched, translated, and arranged these very unusual old songs, some of the dating to mideival times, that comprised this album -- one of my all-time favorites.
Perhaps your ping lists would be interested in this article.
YMBSM!
Jesus was quoted as saying, “That was a wicked googly!”
Dunno about cricket, but I saw a Jesus doing yardwork up the street the other day.
My favorite album — Christmas, or otherwise. I have both the LP and the CD. I got the LP as a gift through the mail many years ago and it arrived with a small crack in the edge. I liked it so much, however, (and there was no way to exchange it) that I kept it and would hover over the arm on the turntable to give it a little push whenever it got stuck. The CD is much more satisfactory!
My children used to think that the picture on the allllbum was so funny, when they were growing up.
Thanks for posting.
YMBSM!
I’m afraid to ask what that means. Do I want to know? I hope it is nice.
Of course he did. His Father is an Englishman
Do not use potty language or references to potty language on the Religion Forum.
This sounds like the apocrophal “Protoevangelium of James” or “Infancy Gospel of James”, one of the books not included in the canonical Bible.
Gosh, 4 out of 15 posts zotted! This is worse than a Protestant vs, Catholic thread!
One was removed by request and three were removed for language.
It's in the Bible - it's actually in the FIRST THING in the Bible.
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For it is written:
"In the BIG INNINING..."
Probably so. But that does not detract from its interest. It is a very old document and a very old story.
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