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caravans

19 paragraphs · about 9 minutes

Every paragraph the index cites under caravans, once, in the order of the book. Beside each stand the entries that cite it.

Paper 79 · Andite Expansion in the Orient

3. Dravidian India

79:3.7The Dra­vid­i­ans were among the ear­li­est peo­ples to build cities and to en­gage in an ex­ten­sive ex­port and im­port busi­ness, both by land and sea. By 7000 B.C. camel trains were mak­ing reg­u­lar trips to dis­tant Mes­o­po­ta­mia; Dra­vid­ian ship­ping was push­ing coast­wise across the Ara­bian Sea to the Sume­rian cities of the Per­sian Gulf and was ven­tur­ing on the wa­ters of the Bay of Ben­gal as far as the East In­dies. An al­pha­bet, to­gether with the art of writ­ing, was im­ported from Sume­ria by these sea­far­ers and mer­chants.

Paper 121 · The Times of Michael’s Bestowal

2. The Jewish People

121:2.2Many of the great high­ways join­ing the na­tions of an­tiq­uity passed through Pales­tine, which thus be­came the meet­ing place, or cross­roads, of three con­ti­nents. The travel, trade, and armies of Baby­lo­nia, As­syria, Egypt, Syria, Greece, Parthia, and Rome suc­ces­sively swept over Pales­tine. From time im­memo­rial, many car­a­van routes from the Ori­ent passed through some part of this re­gion to the few good sea­ports of the east­ern end of the Med­i­ter­ra­nean, whence ships car­ried their car­goes to all the mar­itime Oc­ci­dent. And more than half of this car­a­van traf­fic passed through or near the lit­tle town of Naz­a­reth in Gal­i­lee.

Paper 122 · Birth and Infancy of Jesus

7. The Trip to Bethlehem

122:7.7The inn was over­crowded, and Joseph ac­cord­ingly sought lodg­ings with dis­tant rel­a­tives, but ev­ery room in Beth­le­hem was filled to over­flow­ing. On re­turn­ing to the court­yard of the inn, he was in­formed that the car­a­van sta­bles, hewn out of the side of the rock and sit­u­ated just be­low the inn, had been cleared of an­i­mals and cleaned up for the re­cep­tion of lodgers. Leav­ing the don­key in the court­yard, Joseph shoul­dered their bags of cloth­ing and pro­vi­sions and with Mary de­scended the stone steps to their lodg­ings be­low. They found them­selves lo­cated in what had been a grain stor­age room to the front of the stalls and mangers. Tent cur­tains had been hung, and they counted them­selves for­tu­nate to have such com­fort­able quar­ters.

Paper 123 · The Early Childhood of Jesus

1. Back in Nazareth

123:1.6It was mid­sum­mer of this same year that Joseph built a small work­shop close to the vil­lage spring and near the car­a­van tar­ry­ing lot. Af­ter this he did very lit­tle car­pen­ter work by the day. He had as as­so­ciates two of his broth­ers and sev­eral other me­chan­ics, whom he sent out to work while he re­mained at the shop mak­ing yokes and plows and do­ing other wood­work. He also did some work in leather and with rope and can­vas. And Je­sus, as he grew up, when not at school, spent his time about equally be­tween help­ing his mother with home du­ties and watch­ing his fa­ther work at the shop, mean­while lis­ten­ing to the con­ver­sa­tion and gos­sip of the car­a­van con­duc­tors and pas­sen­gers from the four cor­ners of the earth.

Paper 124 · The Later Childhood of Jesus

3. The Eleventh Year (A.D. 5)

124:3.3Je­sus spent con­sid­er­able time at the car­a­van sup­ply shop, and by con­vers­ing with the trav­el­ers from all parts of the world, he ac­quired a store of in­for­ma­tion about in­ter­na­tional af­fairs that was amaz­ing, con­sid­er­ing his age. This was the last year in which he en­joyed much free play and youth­ful joy­ous­ness. From this time on dif­fi­cul­ties and re­spon­si­bil­i­ties rapidly mul­ti­plied in the life of this youth.

Paper 126 · The Two Crucial Years

5. The Financial Struggle

126:5.8The close work at the car­pen­ter’s bench dur­ing this and sub­se­quent years de­prived Je­sus of the op­por­tu­nity of min­gling with the car­a­van pas­sen­gers. The fam­ily sup­ply shop had al­ready been taken over by his un­cle, and Je­sus worked al­to­gether in the home shop, where he was near to help Mary with the fam­ily. About this time he be­gan send­ing James up to the camel lot to gather in­for­ma­tion about world events, and thus he sought to keep in touch with the news of the day.

Paper 127 · The Adolescent Years

3. The Eighteenth Year (A.D. 12)

127:3.1In the course of this year all the fam­ily prop­erty, ex­cept the home and gar­den, was dis­posed of. The last piece of Ca­per­naum prop­erty (ex­cept an eq­uity in one other), al­ready mort­gaged, was sold. The pro­ceeds were used for taxes, to buy some new tools for James, and to make a pay­ment on the old fam­ily sup­ply and re­pair shop near the car­a­van lot, which Je­sus now pro­posed to buy back since James was old enough to work at the house shop and help Mary about the home. With the fi­nan­cial pres­sure thus eased for the time be­ing, Je­sus de­cided to take James to the Pass­over. They went up to Je­ru­sa­lem a day early, to be alone, go­ing by way of Samaria. They walked, and Je­sus told James about the his­toric places en route as his fa­ther had taught him on a sim­i­lar jour­ney five years be­fore.

127:3.2–6 · five paragraphs not cited here ·

127:3.2In pass­ing through Samaria, they saw many strange sights. On this jour­ney they talked over many of their prob­lems, per­sonal, fam­ily, and na­tional. James was a very re­li­gious type of lad, and while he did not fully agree with his mother re­gard­ing the lit­tle he knew of the plans con­cern­ing Je­sus’ life­work, he did look for­ward to the time when he would be able to as­sume re­spon­si­bil­ity for the fam­ily so that Je­sus could be­gin his mis­sion. He was very ap­pre­cia­tive of Je­sus’ tak­ing him up to the Pass­over, and they talked over the fu­ture more fully than ever be­fore.

127:3.3Je­sus did much think­ing as they jour­neyed through Samaria, par­tic­u­larly at Bethel and when drink­ing from Ja­cob’s well. He and his brother dis­cussed the tra­di­tions of Abra­ham, Isaac, and Ja­cob. He did much to pre­pare James for what he was about to wit­ness at Je­ru­sa­lem, thus seek­ing to lessen the shock such as he him­self had ex­pe­ri­enced on his first visit to the tem­ple. But James was not so sen­si­tive to some of these sights. He com­mented on the per­func­tory and heart­less man­ner in which some of the priests per­formed their du­ties but on the whole greatly en­joyed his so­journ at Je­ru­sa­lem.

127:3.4Je­sus took James to Beth­any for the Pass­over sup­per. Si­mon had been laid to rest with his fa­thers, and Je­sus pre­sided over this house­hold as the head of the Pass­over fam­ily, hav­ing brought the paschal lamb from the tem­ple.

127:3.5Af­ter the Pass­over sup­per Mary sat down to talk with James while Martha, Laz­a­rus, and Je­sus talked to­gether far into the night. The next day they at­tended the tem­ple ser­vices, and James was re­ceived into the com­mon­wealth of Is­rael. That morn­ing, as they paused on the brow of Oli­vet to view the tem­ple, while James ex­claimed in won­der, Je­sus gazed on Je­ru­sa­lem in si­lence. James could not com­pre­hend his brother’s de­meanor. That night they again re­turned to Beth­any and would have de­parted for home the next day, but James was in­sis­tent on their go­ing back to visit the tem­ple, ex­plain­ing that he wanted to hear the teach­ers. And while this was true, se­cretly in his heart he wanted to hear Je­sus par­tic­i­pate in the dis­cus­sions, as he had heard his mother tell about. Ac­cord­ingly, they went to the tem­ple and heard the dis­cus­sions, but Je­sus asked no ques­tions. It all seemed so puerile and in­signif­i­cant to this awak­en­ing mind of man and God—he could only pity them. James was dis­ap­pointed that Je­sus said noth­ing. To his in­quiries Je­sus only made re­ply, “My hour has not yet come.”

127:3.6The next day they jour­neyed home by Jeri­cho and the Jor­dan val­ley, and Je­sus re­counted many things by the way, in­clud­ing his for­mer trip over this road when he was thir­teen years old.

127:3.7Upon re­turn­ing to Naz­a­reth, Je­sus be­gan work in the old fam­ily re­pair shop and was greatly cheered by be­ing able to meet so many peo­ple each day from all parts of the coun­try and sur­round­ing dis­tricts. Je­sus truly loved peo­ple—just com­mon folks. Each month he made his pay­ments on the shop and, with James’s help, con­tin­ued to pro­vide for the fam­ily.

Paper 128 · Jesus’ Early Manhood

6. The Twenty-Fifth Year (A.D. 19)

128:6.3The fam­ily fi­nances were in the best con­di­tion since the dis­ap­pear­ance of Joseph’s es­tate. The fi­nal pay­ments had been made on the car­a­van re­pair shop; they owed no man and for the first time in years had some funds ahead. This be­ing true, and since he had taken his other broth­ers to Je­ru­sa­lem for their first Pass­over cer­e­monies, Je­sus de­cided to ac­com­pany Jude (who had just grad­u­ated from the syn­a­gogue school) on his first visit to the tem­ple.

128:6.4–10 · seven paragraphs not cited here ·

128:6.4They went up to Je­ru­sa­lem and re­turned by the same route, the Jor­dan val­ley, as Je­sus feared trou­ble if he took his young brother through Samaria. Al­ready at Naz­a­reth Jude had got into slight trou­ble sev­eral times be­cause of his hasty dis­po­si­tion, cou­pled with his strong pa­tri­otic sen­ti­ments.

128:6.5They ar­rived at Je­ru­sa­lem in due time and were on their way for a first visit to the tem­ple, the very sight of which had stirred and thrilled Jude to the very depths of his soul, when they chanced to meet Laz­a­rus of Beth­any. While Je­sus talked with Laz­a­rus and sought to ar­range for their joint cel­e­bra­tion of the Pass­over, Jude started up real trou­ble for them all. Close at hand stood a Ro­man guard who made some im­proper re­marks re­gard­ing a Jew­ish girl who was pass­ing. Jude flushed with fiery in­dig­na­tion and was not slow in ex­press­ing his re­sent­ment of such an im­pro­pri­ety di­rectly to and within hear­ing of the sol­dier. Now the Ro­man le­gion­naires were very sen­si­tive to any­thing bor­der­ing on Jew­ish dis­re­spect; so the guard promptly placed Jude un­der ar­rest. This was too much for the young pa­triot, and be­fore Je­sus could cau­tion him by a warn­ing glance, he had de­liv­ered him­self of a vol­u­ble de­nun­ci­a­tion of pent-up anti-Ro­man feel­ings, all of which only made a bad mat­ter worse. Jude, with Je­sus by his side, was taken at once to the mil­i­tary prison.

128:6.6Je­sus en­deav­ored to ob­tain ei­ther an im­me­di­ate hear­ing for Jude or else his re­lease in time for the Pass­over cel­e­bra­tion that evening, but he failed in these at­tempts. Since the next day was a “holy con­vo­ca­tion” in Je­ru­sa­lem, even the Ro­mans would not pre­sume to hear charges against a Jew. Ac­cord­ingly, Jude re­mained in con­fine­ment un­til the morn­ing of the sec­ond day af­ter his ar­rest, and Je­sus stayed at the prison with him. They were not pres­ent in the tem­ple at the cer­e­mony of re­ceiv­ing the sons of the law into the full cit­i­zen­ship of Is­rael. Jude did not pass through this for­mal cer­e­mony for sev­eral years, un­til he was next in Je­ru­sa­lem at a Pass­over and in con­nec­tion with his pro­pa­ganda work in be­half of the Zealots, the pa­tri­otic or­ga­ni­za­tion to which he be­longed and in which he was very ac­tive.

128:6.7The morn­ing fol­low­ing their sec­ond day in prison Je­sus ap­peared be­fore the mil­i­tary mag­is­trate in be­half of Jude. By mak­ing apolo­gies for his brother’s youth and by a fur­ther ex­plana­tory but ju­di­cious state­ment with ref­er­ence to the provoca­tive na­ture of the episode which had led up to the ar­rest of his brother, Je­sus so han­dled the case that the mag­is­trate ex­pressed the opin­ion that the young Jew might have had some pos­si­ble ex­cuse for his vi­o­lent out­burst. Af­ter warn­ing Jude not to al­low him­self again to be guilty of such rash­ness, he said to Je­sus in dis­miss­ing them: “You had bet­ter keep your eye on the lad; he’s li­able to make a lot of trou­ble for all of you.” And the Ro­man judge spoke the truth. Jude did make con­sid­er­able trou­ble for Je­sus, and al­ways was the trou­ble of this same na­ture—clashes with the civil au­thor­i­ties be­cause of his thought­less and un­wise pa­tri­otic out­bursts.

128:6.8Je­sus and Jude walked over to Beth­any for the night, ex­plain­ing why they had failed to keep their ap­point­ment for the Pass­over sup­per, and set out for Naz­a­reth the fol­low­ing day. Je­sus did not tell the fam­ily about his young brother’s ar­rest at Je­ru­sa­lem, but he had a long talk with Jude about this episode some three weeks af­ter their re­turn. Af­ter this talk with Je­sus Jude him­self told the fam­ily. He never for­got the pa­tience and for­bear­ance his brother-fa­ther man­i­fested through­out the whole of this try­ing ex­pe­ri­ence.

128:6.9This was the last Pass­over Je­sus at­tended with any mem­ber of his own fam­ily. In­creas­ingly the Son of Man was to be­come sep­a­rated from close as­so­ci­a­tion with his own flesh and blood.

128:6.10This year his sea­sons of deep med­i­ta­tion were of­ten bro­ken into by Ruth and her play­mates. And al­ways was Je­sus ready to post­pone the con­tem­pla­tion of his fu­ture work for the world and the uni­verse that he might share in the child­ish joy and youth­ful glad­ness of these young­sters, who never tired of lis­ten­ing to Je­sus re­late the ex­pe­ri­ences of his var­i­ous trips to Je­ru­sa­lem. They also greatly en­joyed his sto­ries about an­i­mals and na­ture.

128:6.11The chil­dren were al­ways wel­come at the re­pair shop. Je­sus pro­vided sand, blocks, and stones by the side of the shop, and be­vies of young­sters flocked there to amuse them­selves. When they tired of their play, the more in­trepid ones would peek into the shop, and if its keeper were not busy, they would make bold to go in and say, “Un­cle Joshua, come out and tell us a big story.” Then they would lead him out by tug­ging at his hands un­til he was seated on the fa­vorite rock by the cor­ner of the shop, with the chil­dren on the ground in a semi­cir­cle be­fore him. And how the lit­tle folks did en­joy their Un­cle Joshua. They were learn­ing to laugh, and to laugh heart­ily. It was cus­tom­ary for one or two of the small­est of the chil­dren to climb upon his knees and sit there, look­ing up in won­der­ment at his ex­pres­sive fea­tures as he told his sto­ries. The chil­dren loved Je­sus, and Je­sus loved the chil­dren.

Paper 128 · Jesus’ Early Manhood

7. The Twenty-Sixth Year (A.D. 20)

128:7.13The day af­ter this dou­ble wed­ding Je­sus held an im­por­tant con­fer­ence with James. He told James, con­fi­den­tially, that he was prepar­ing to leave home. He pre­sented full ti­tle to the re­pair shop to James, for­mally and solemnly ab­di­cated as head of Joseph’s house, and most touch­ingly es­tab­lished his brother James as “head and pro­tec­tor of my fa­ther’s house.” He drew up, and they both signed, a se­cret com­pact in which it was stip­u­lated that, in re­turn for the gift of the re­pair shop, James would hence­forth as­sume full fi­nan­cial re­spon­si­bil­ity for the fam­ily, thus re­leas­ing Je­sus from all fur­ther obli­ga­tions in these mat­ters. Af­ter the con­tract was signed, af­ter the bud­get was so ar­ranged that the ac­tual ex­penses of the fam­ily would be met with­out any con­tri­bu­tion from Je­sus, Je­sus said to James: “But, my son, I will con­tinue to send you some­thing each month un­til my hour shall have come, but what I send shall be used by you as the oc­ca­sion de­mands. Ap­ply my funds to the fam­ily ne­ces­si­ties or plea­sures as you see fit. Use them in case of sick­ness or ap­ply them to meet the un­ex­pected emer­gen­cies which may be­fall any in­di­vid­ual mem­ber of the fam­ily.”

Paper 133 · The Return from Rome

9. In Mesopotamia

133:9.1The car­a­van trip across the desert was not a new ex­pe­ri­ence for these much-trav­eled men. Af­ter Ga­nid had watched his teacher help with the load­ing of their twenty camels and ob­served him vol­un­teer to drive their own an­i­mal, he ex­claimed, “Teacher, is there any­thing that you can­not do?” Je­sus only smiled, say­ing, “The teacher surely is not with­out honor in the eyes of a dili­gent pupil.” And so they set forth for the an­cient city of Ur.

Paper 134 · The Transition Years

1. The Thirtieth Year (A.D. 24)

134:1.1Af­ter tak­ing leave of Gonod and Ga­nid at Charax (in De­cem­ber of A.D. 23), Je­sus re­turned by way of Ur to Baby­lon, where he joined a desert car­a­van that was on its way to Da­mas­cus. From Da­mas­cus he went to Naz­a­reth, stop­ping only a few hours at Ca­per­naum, where he paused to call on Zeb­e­dee’s fam­ily. There he met his brother James, who had some­time pre­vi­ously come over to work in his place in Zeb­e­dee’s boat­shop. Af­ter talk­ing with James and Jude (who also chanced to be in Ca­per­naum) and af­ter turn­ing over to his brother James the lit­tle house which John Zeb­e­dee had man­aged to buy, Je­sus went on to Naz­a­reth.

134:1.2–5 · four paragraphs not cited here ·

134:1.2At the end of his Med­i­ter­ra­nean jour­ney Je­sus had re­ceived suf­fi­cient money to meet his liv­ing ex­penses al­most up to the time of the be­gin­ning of his pub­lic min­istry. But aside from Zeb­e­dee of Ca­per­naum and the peo­ple whom he met on this ex­traor­di­nary trip, the world never knew that he made this jour­ney. His fam­ily al­ways be­lieved that he spent this time in study at Alexan­dria. Je­sus never con­firmed these be­liefs, nei­ther did he make open de­nial of such mis­un­der­stand­ings.

134:1.3Dur­ing his stay of a few weeks at Naz­a­reth, Je­sus vis­ited with his fam­ily and friends, spent some time at the re­pair shop with his brother Joseph, but de­voted most of his at­ten­tion to Mary and Ruth. Ruth was then nearly fif­teen years old, and this was Je­sus’ first op­por­tu­nity to have long talks with her since she had be­come a young woman.

134:1.4Both Si­mon and Jude had for some time wanted to get mar­ried, but they had dis­liked to do this with­out Je­sus’ con­sent; ac­cord­ingly they had post­poned these events, hop­ing for their el­dest brother’s re­turn. Though they all re­garded James as the head of the fam­ily in most mat­ters, when it came to get­ting mar­ried, they wanted the bless­ing of Je­sus. So Si­mon and Jude were mar­ried at a dou­ble wed­ding in early March of this year, A.D. 24. All the older chil­dren were now mar­ried; only Ruth, the young­est, re­mained at home with Mary.

134:1.5Je­sus vis­ited with the in­di­vid­ual mem­bers of his fam­ily quite nor­mally and nat­u­rally, but when they were all to­gether, he had so lit­tle to say that they re­marked about it among them­selves. Mary es­pe­cially was dis­con­certed by this un­usu­ally pe­cu­liar be­hav­ior of her first-born son.

134:1.6About the time Je­sus was prepar­ing to leave Naz­a­reth, the con­duc­tor of a large car­a­van which was pass­ing through the city was taken vi­o­lently ill, and Je­sus, be­ing a lin­guist, vol­un­teered to take his place. Since this trip would ne­ces­si­tate his ab­sence for a year, and inas­much as all his broth­ers were mar­ried and his mother was liv­ing at home with Ruth, Je­sus called a fam­ily con­fer­ence at which he pro­posed that his mother and Ruth go to Ca­per­naum to live in the home which he had so re­cently given to James. Ac­cord­ingly, a few days af­ter Je­sus left with the car­a­van, Mary and Ruth moved to Ca­per­naum, where they lived for the rest of Mary’s life in the home that Je­sus had pro­vided. Joseph and his fam­ily moved into the old Naz­a­reth home.

Paper 134 · The Transition Years

2. The Caravan Trip to the Caspian

134:2.1It was the first of April, A.D. 24, when Je­sus left Naz­a­reth on the car­a­van trip to the Caspian Sea re­gion. The car­a­van which Je­sus joined as its con­duc­tor was go­ing from Je­ru­sa­lem by way of Da­mas­cus and Lake Ur­mia through As­syria, Me­dia, and Parthia to the south­east­ern Caspian Sea re­gion. It was a full year be­fore he re­turned from this jour­ney.

134:2.2For Je­sus this car­a­van trip was an­other ad­ven­ture of ex­plo­ration and per­sonal min­istry. He had an in­ter­est­ing ex­pe­ri­ence with his car­a­van fam­ily—pas­sen­gers, guards, and camel drivers. Scores of men, women, and chil­dren re­sid­ing along the route fol­lowed by the car­a­van lived richer lives as a re­sult of their con­tact with Je­sus, to them, the ex­traor­di­nary con­duc­tor of a com­mon­place car­a­van. Not all who en­joyed these oc­ca­sions of his per­sonal min­istry prof­ited thereby, but the vast ma­jor­ity of those who met and talked with him were made bet­ter for the re­main­der of their nat­u­ral lives.

134:2.3Of all his world trav­els this Caspian Sea trip car­ried Je­sus near­est to the Ori­ent and en­abled him to gain a bet­ter un­der­stand­ing of the Far-East­ern peo­ples. He made in­ti­mate and per­sonal con­tact with ev­ery one of the sur­viv­ing races of Uran­tia ex­cept­ing the red. He equally en­joyed his per­sonal min­istry to each of these var­ied races and blended peo­ples, and all of them were re­cep­tive to the liv­ing truth which he brought them. The Eu­ro­peans from the Far West and the Asi­at­ics from the Far East alike gave at­ten­tion to his words of hope and eter­nal life and were equally in­flu­enced by the life of lov­ing ser­vice and spir­i­tual min­istry which he so gra­ciously lived among them.

134:2.4The car­a­van trip was suc­cess­ful in ev­ery way. This was a most in­ter­est­ing episode in the hu­man life of Je­sus, for he func­tioned dur­ing this year in an ex­ec­u­tive ca­pac­ity, be­ing re­spon­si­ble for the ma­te­rial in­trusted to his charge and for the safe con­duct of the trav­el­ers mak­ing up the car­a­van party. And he most faith­fully, ef­fi­ciently, and wisely dis­charged his mul­ti­ple du­ties.

134:2.5On the re­turn from the Caspian re­gion, Je­sus gave up the di­rec­tion of the car­a­van at Lake Ur­mia, where he tar­ried for slightly over two weeks. He re­turned as a pas­sen­ger with a later car­a­van to Da­mas­cus, where the own­ers of the camels be­sought him to re­main in their ser­vice. De­clin­ing this of­fer, he jour­neyed on with the car­a­van train to Ca­per­naum, ar­riv­ing the first of April, A.D. 25. No longer did he re­gard Naz­a­reth as his home. Ca­per­naum had be­come the home of Je­sus, James, Mary, and Ruth. But Je­sus never again lived with his fam­ily; when in Ca­per­naum he made his home with the Zebe­dees.

Onward

Cited alongside: Jesus, James (brother of Jesus), Joseph (father of Jesus), Ur