27/11/2009

And Did Those Feet, a new documentary being launched at the British Film Institute today, claims that Jesus travelled extensively in England, built a church in Glastonbury and learnt mathematics from the Druids.

The documentary explores the legend set out by William Blake in his hymn Jerusalem, which begins with “And did Those feet in ancient times walk upon England’s mountains green? And was the Holy Lamb of God on England’s pleasant pastures seen?”

The documentary suggests that Jesus did indeed visit England with his uncle, Joseph of Arimathea, a tin merchant who did business in Cornwall. Former BBC religious correspondent Ted Harrison and Church of Scotland minister and Edinburgh university architecture history lecturer Dr. Gordon Strachan made the film.

Harrison said, “There is a very much closer connection between early Christianity and the classical Greek and Roman world than previously thought.

“If somebody was wanting to learn about the spirituality and thinking not just of the Jews but also the classical and Greek world he would have to come to Britain, which was the centre of learning at the time. He would have come to learn astronomy and geometry, which was being taught at “universities” by the Druids.”

Regarding the church in Glastonbury, Harrison said, “The concrete evidence is this reference by St Augustine that at Glastonbury there was a small building or church that was put up by Jesus, built by the hand of the Lord himself. But the medieval Glastonbury Abbey has been built on top of it.”

Meanwhile, British producer Kent Walwin is making a film titled Young Jesus that has him travel to the Indian subcontinent in search of the Three Wise Men.