Has Jesus Always Walked Among Us?

 

Is Jesus living in the physical world among us today, under a different guise, still guiding us in the flesh back to our ultimate humanity? And has he always been among us, living as different masters in different places and times, teaching the same lessons and living the same example?

The resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth is the key lynchpin to the Christian faith... not only because salvation is dependent upon it, but because a living Christ continues to impact the world and makes religion relevant. So, for Christians, Jesus is alive! But if we should one day learn that the spirit and soul of the corporeal Jesus of Nazareth has always lived on the earth among us, how does that change things?

The historical figure of Jesus of Nazareth, as a teacher and miracle worker, was someone who mastered the art and science of manifestation. Physical death, it would seem, would be a matter of choice for such an individual. Self-healing would likely be an on-going, nearly constant practice for someone like this. Would such an individual choose to die? Or would he merely decide to disappear from one locality, one culture to re-emerge with a different identity in another place and time? Would death just be a convenient cover?

It would seem possible that an extraordinary individual such as Jesus may be responsible for many of the ‘near Jesus’ figures in our historical record. A curious aspect of the searches being undertaken is a complete lack of concurrency among these figures... that is to say that near Jesus figures in history are never contemporaneous with each other.

Furthermore, there are hints of a pattern in many locations, and the timing of such appearances. In the examination of ‘walking Jesus’ figures in central Asian history, there emerges a pattern of locally famous yogis or gurus or enlightened individuals doing miracles and teachings in which the figure is located in a culture for about 30 years, but no more than 50, and then ‘dies’, usually in some noteworthy fashion.

Then in our readings, we find that a similar individual is then reported in another culture several decades later, and again, is there for around 30 years whereupon the pattern repeats with yet another death.

So...does Jesus yet walk among us? In my thinking, if he does, he would not be advertising it. Jesus would likely be living on the down low, walking and talking, but probably not staying too long at any given location.

Below is a minor extraction of six of the many hundreds of parallels to the life and acts of Jesus the Essene. These are the most easily located examples. These six wandering sages were all called “Son of God” in their own times and cultures, performed public miracles that crowds witnessed, and left behind small circles of disciples who claimed they still appeared after death.

These may be history’s original “Jesus blueprint” — appearing centuries before the Gospels were written. Yet these are but a small sampling among hundreds of such historical profiles in dozens of languages.

Hermes Trismegistus – Egyptian-Hellenistic - ~300 BCE–200 CE

Taught “The Kingdom of God is inside you” (*Corpus Hermeticum*)
• Gave elixirs that healed and granted immortality
• Rose from death in the Asclepius dialogue

Pythagoras – Greek - 570–495 BCE

• Appeared in two cities at once
• Calmed storms, prophesied, talked to animals
• Taught “all things in common” and soul immortality

Empedocles – Greek, Sicily - 490–430 BCE

• Raised a woman from the dead
• Healed plague victims, stopped hurricanes
• Declared “I am a god among you” then vanished in fire

Zoroaster - Ancient Persia - ~1500–1000 BCE

• Virgin birth, 40-day desert temptation
• Gave sight to the blind, cast out demons
• Invented heaven/hell, resurrection, final judgment

Buddha - Northern India - 563–483 BCE

• At age he 12 stunned temple scholars
• 47-day fast, devil temptation
• Fed 500 with one bowl, walked on water (Mahāyāna)

Apollonius of Tyana - Roman Empire - 15–100 CE

• Jesus’ contemporary
• Raised dead girl in Rome, healed blind and lame
• Vanished from courtroom, appeared resurrected to disciples

Six men. Six centuries. One identical pattern.
Crowds saw the miracles. Disciples wrote the stories. The Roman Empire and Church tried to erase them. Yet every single motif in the Gospels was already being taught in the flesh — long before Jesus of Nazareth.

from the Substack of Clif High on November 8, 2025