Many ancient cultures testify that people in the olden days already had ideas about the afterlife and leaving the body during near-death experiences. In particular, such references can be found in the early texts from the time of Jesus Christ.
Assessing the life of Jesus in terms of his historical personality and the documented evidence of his life in the Gospels, the German researcher Thomas Fuhrmann came up with an interesting hypothesis. He suggests that Jesus’s mission may have been a consequence of a profound near-death experience earlier in his life. Fuhrmann analyzed the statements of Jesus on the Grayson scale – used in the scientific community for evaluating the near-death experience – and found that they matched a lot of the scale’s criteria.
Referring to quotes from the Gospels, the researcher draws attention to the fact that Jesus saw a bright light, communicated directly with God (saw and heard otherworldly things), had ideas about future events (foresight), and urged his disciples to evaluate their actions from the point of view of the Kingdom of Heaven, or the afterlife. He also preached peace and love, and felt a sense of oneness with the world, nature, and God – sensations characteristic of people who have gone through a near-death experience.
Jesus contrasted the flesh and the spirit (mind-body dualism), which can also indicate that he had had an experience of leaving the body. But the most interesting match is that with the criterion of passing the “point of no return” on the Grayson scale, after all, Jesus was fully convinced that God had sent him to Earth to fulfill His mission. This statement bears a clear resemblance to the testimony of people who have had near-death experiences, who claim they were sent back to Earth to complete their affairs.
Do you think that Jesus could have had a profound near-death experience that became the starting point of his faith?
The study was published in the European Journal of Science and Theology in October 2020.
