Page 276 of 319
15 In the twenty-first century B.c.E., when nuclear weapons were first used on Earth, Abraham was blessed with wine and bread at Ur-Shalem in the name of the God Most High— and proclaimed Mankind’s first Monotheistic religion. Twenty-one centuries later, a devout descendant of Abra- ham, celebrating a special supper in Jerusalem, carried on his back a cross—the symbol of a certain planet—to a place of execution, and gave rise to another monotheistic religion. Questions still swirl about him—Who really was he? What was he doing in Jerusalem? Was there a plot against him, or was he his own plotter? And what was the chalice that has given rise to the legends about (and searches for) the “Holy Grail”? On his last evening of freedom he celebrated the Jewish Passover ceremonial meal (called Seder in Hebrew) with wine and unleavened bread together with his twelve disci- ples, and the scene has been immortalized by some of the greatest painters of religious art, Leonardo Da Vinci’s The Last Supper being the most famous of them (Fig. 122). Leon- ardo was renowned for his scientific knowledge and theo- logical insights; what his painting shows has been discussed, debated, and analyzed to this day—deepening, rather than resolving, the enigmas. The key to unlocking the mysteries, we shall show, lies in what the painting does not show; it is what is missing from it that holds answers to troubling puzzles in the saga of God and Man on Earth, and the yearnings for JERUSALEM: A CHALICE, VANISHED