The Valtorta Enigma - Volume 1

The Valtorta Enigma - Volume 1

RAI 2012 Cover Page
Work Details
Author	Jean-François Lavère
Full title	The Valtorta Enigma - A Novelized Life of Jesus?
Pages	339
Publication	March 2012
Publisher	Rassemblement À Son Image éditions
ISBN	978-2-36463-025-3
Distribution	Bookstore - online sales - Publisher's site

Originating from ten years of research, this work by Jean-François Lavère is the first of its kind to study the veracity of the thousands of details provided by the account of Maria Valtorta.

It demonstrates the astonishing and often unknown erudition shown by the mystic (places, historicity of characters, archaeology, arts and techniques, customs, fauna and flora and, of course, chronological consistency). It attempts to show that Maria Valtorta often provides details known only by a few specialists, or even, in some cases, completely unknown at the time of writing and confirmed since.

Summary of the work

• Preface - 11 -
• Preface - 19 -
• Condemned by the Church? - 25 -
• A life of Jesus poorly novelized? - 35 -
• In search of precious pearls - 54 -
• There is a time for everything... - 67 -
  • Dating the major events of Jesus' life. - 68 -
  • A little bit of mathematics... - 69 -
  • A good sketch is better than a long speech - 70 -
• Equal to the greatest geographers? (p. 82)
  • The pyramids of Khafre and Menkaure have disappeared! - 84 -
  • The petrified forest of Cairo - 87 -
  • Bethsaida, a fishing village in the middle of the land! - 88 -
  • Investigation in Phoenicia - 89 -
  • The cyclopean ruins of the ancient city of Hazor - 93 -
  • Did Maria Valtorta visit Antioch? - 94 -
  • A bWater panoRamah (Judea) in the center of Judea - 100 -
  • The Arbel gorges and the horns of Hattin - 106 -
  • And so many other "forgotten" sites... - 110 -
  • Distant view of Jerusalem and the Temple - 115 -
  • On the way to Sycaminon - 116 -
  • The hot springs of Hammat Gader - 116 -
• And Jesus traveled all the towns and villages - 122 -
  • Travel on land - 122 -
  • Travel on the water. - 124 -
  • Some clarifications about the method followed - 124 -
  • A totally unexpected result - 125 -
  • The transport of the dying Jonah on his pallet - 127 -
  • From Bethsaida to Cana. - 127 -
  • The journey from Nazareth to Caesarea on the Sea - 129 -
  • Cruise along the Phoenician and Syrian coast - 130 -
  • From Ptolemais to Antioch - 132 -
  • Roman bridges, milestones, farrier workshops - 134 -
  • Jesus' travel in Palestine - 138 -
• The eyewitnesses - 140 -
  • The twelve Apostles - 141 -
  • After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others - 143 -
  • Timon, synagogue leader in the Jordan valley - 144 -
  • Philip, the bad son turned evangelizer - 144 -
  • The deacon Nicolaus of Antioch rehabilitated? - 145 -
  • They cast lots, and the lot fell on Matthias - 146 -
  • Margziam, the evangelist of Aquitaine. - 148 -
  • A certain Joseph called the Just - 152 -
  • The Sanhedrin packed the room - 153 -
  • The Roman notables - 156 -
  • Do not meddle in this just man's affairs - 157 -
  • Who was Plautina? - 159 -
  • Converted to Christianity - 159 -
  • Plautina and Saint Lucina - 160 -
  • A mother named Albula and her daughter Flavia - 161 -
  • Jesus' Jewish friends - 163 -
  • Joanna, princess of Bether - 163 -
  • Joseph the Elder - 164 -
  • Nicodemus, prince of the Jews - 165 -
  • Manaen, Herodian notable - 166 -
  • Lazarus, the faithful and devoted friend - 168 -
  • And all the others, known or unknown - 170 -
  • The astonishing destiny of Thusnelda the barbarian - 170 -
  • A strange Good discovery near Pompeii. - 172 -
  • Lord, give me this Water, that I may thirst no more. - 173 -
  • How were people named in Israel? - 179 -
  • The identity of Roman citizens - 180 -
  • Good use of computer science - 181 -
• Twenty talents to free John the Baptist ... - 182 -
  • The value of currency under Tiberius - 182 -
  • Judas sells Aglae's jewelry - 184 -
  • The problem of talents - 185 -
  • A bold hypothesis - 186 -
  • Back to the sale of Aglae's jewelry - 190 -
  • The pig adventure - 192 -
  • The bride's dowry - 192 -
  • The parable of the talents - 193 -
  • Thirty denarii, the price of a common lamb - 194 -
  • The shekels of Chanania - 196 -
  • The tribute to the Temple paid in Adar - 197 -
• Land of wheat and barley, vines, figs... - 198 -
  • Well-stocked vegetable gardens - 198 -
  • Flowers in abundance - 199 -
  • The bWaterx flax fields of Lazarus - 200 -
  • Reflections on rice, oats and rye - 201 -
  • The agaves - 202 -
  • The prickly pears of Sychar - 203 -
  • The onagers and eagles of the Judean desert - 204 -
  • Crocodiles in the Sharon plain - 205 -
  • When the chameleon is also involved - 208 -
  • One dog hides another - 209 -
  • But where did the cat go? - 210 -
• An exhaustive architectural inventory - 212 -
  • Expert in Jewish, Greek and Roman monuments? - 212 -
  • Jerusalem, its gates, its palaces and its Temple - 213 -
  • Rachel's tomb - 216 -
  • Jacob's well at Sychar - 218 -
  • The Solomon’s Pools - 219 -
  • The tomb of the Maccabees in Modin - 220 -
  • The tomb of Hillel in Meiron - 220 -
• De Re Rustica... - 227 -
  • Plowing, harvesting and threshing - 227 -
  • When Jesus repairs a plough - 229 -
  • An edifying lesson in carpentry - 230 -
  • A painting class - 231 -
  • The making and working of purple dye - 232 -
  • Wine rejoices the heart of men - 235 -
  • Resin in the wine - 237 -
  • The vendAngels on a ladder. - 238 -
  • Mastery of fire in the first century - 239 -
  • It is market day - 240 -
• Is it permitted to heal on the Sabbath... - 242 -
  • Phylacteries, fringes and tsitsits - 242 -
  • The High Priest's garment - 243 -
  • The law of the orphan heiress and the marriage of Mary - 244 -
  • When Jesus was twelve, they went up to the Temple - 245 -
  • The Law and the 613 precepts - 247 -
  • The Sabbath distance - 248 -
  • You shall be holy, for I am holy - 251 -
  • The lunisolar calendar and the embolismic year - 253 -
  • The major Jewish festivals - 254 -
• This word was hidden from them - 259 -
  • The solution of exegetical "problems"? - 259 -
  • Bis repetita placent... - 260 -
  • The merchants driven out of the Temple - 261 -
  • The two multiplications of the loaves - 263 -
  • The two questions on the greatest commandment - 264 -
  • The sinner woman and the two "Marys" - 265 -
  • A lost biblical verse... - 269 -
  • A translation that seems problematic... - 269 -
  • The adulterous woman and mysterious signs on the ground - 271 -
  • John and the attempt to elect Jesus king - 272 -
  • The leaven of the Pharisees - 274 -
  • Song of Songs 6:12 interpreted? - 275 -
  • A somewhat obscure phrase... - 275 -
  • The Parable of the Lost Drachma - 276 -
  • A slightly obscure verse from Luke - 277 -
  • Capernaum, Chorazin, Bethsaida: the cursed triangle - 277 -
  • My yoke is easy - 279 -
  • The perverse and adulterous generation - 280 -
  • Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit - 281 -
  • Who is my mother? Who are my brothers? - 282 -
  • To "hate" one's father and mother "holy"ly - 282 -
  • The testimony of the Blessed Gabriel M. Allegra - 283 -
  • The testimony of Father Roschini - 284 -
  • The Bible omnipresent in Jesus' teaching - 284 -
• "If this is not true... it is well imagined" - 287 -
  • The kinship of Jesus - 287 -
  • Jesus, his brothers and sisters - 289 -
  • The rapid rise of Christianity around the Mediterranean - 291 -
  • A certain Publius Quinctillianus - 292 -
  • Valerius and Valeria, a torn Roman couple - 293 -
  • Ethanim, the 7th or 8th month? - 296 -
  • The date of the first gospel writings - 297 -
  • Birth of Jesus and death of Herod - 301 -
  • The fifteenth year of Tiberius' reign - 302 -
  • On the Primacy of Peter - 303 -
• The four gospels in one? - 305 -
  • Quintilian's hexameter - 307 -
  • A true evangelical compendium - 309 -
• Come and see... - 310 -
  • The time of Confessions - 311 -
  • Do not give your pearls to pigs - 313 -
  • Let he who can understand, understand - 315 -
• Appendix 1 - 321 -
• Appendix 2 - 325 -
• Appendix 3 - 330 -

Preface to the work

For Monsignor de Cazenave, secretary of the Syro-Francophone Synod, who wrote the preface to the work, Jean-François Lavère demonstrates that the work of Maria Valtorta "is of extraordinary origin otherwise it would simply be inexplicable and even unthinkable from the point of view of scientific objectivity." He places it alongside "two other great enigmas of Christian history: one relating to Christ himself and the other to the Holy Virgin, his Mother. I mean the Shroud of Turin and the ‘’Tilma‘’ of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Again, it took until our time, with scientific tools and rigor, to stumble upon facts extremely resistant to the logic of phenomena. Science exhausts itself refining the analysis of facts and the more it advances, the more it stumbles upon its own Contradiction in the requirement of its own logic. There comes a moment when, to escape the absurd, one must correctly place the hypothesis of the supernatural and the meaning of its emergence in the field of experience."

"Our time, like never before, overflows with books! A list of causes defended by them would quickly be made, the best as well as the worst, always by the expression of a thought communicated in the engraved word, to pass it on to others and convince that what is shared is important for the author and the reader. The stake for the author here is clearly apologetic: to scientifically prove that a work is inspired by God, that this God is the one of Christian Revelation, and that this Christian Revelation is addressed today to our contemporaries to deliver an important message that the Catholic Church should greatly value since it is a charism that has often accompanied and enlightened its own history.

This book is admirable in more than one way because it looks carefully, scientifically, at one of the great enigmas little known in our time: the case of Maria Valtorta, probably the greatest visionary in the history of Christianity! The consequences are considerable because the fundamental illumination Jean-François Lavère brings in this work is based on objective facts accessible to exact science linked to the most recent discoveries, mainly archaeological. For the reader the conclusions will speak for themselves!

This remarkable work could not have been done fifty years earlier. Maria Valtorta died in 1961 and The Gospel as Revealed to Me was 'inspired' to her during the darkest years of the War. Pope Pius XII, reigning Supreme Pontiff at the time, issued a positive Discernment on this publication: Publish the work as is. There is no need to give an opinion on its origin, whether extraordinary or not, those who read will understand. The word of a Pope is not without value and is based on the feeling that the Pontiff shares with his contemporaries that this text is orthodox. Pius XII, more than anyone, guarantees that the work does not betray the canonical Gospels nor the Magisterium of the Catholic Church, thus he advises this reading... Pius XII, however, prudent as befits his duties, specifies: There is no need to give an opinion on its origin, whether extraordinary or not. The Holy Father did not have at that time the objective analytical tool that would allow him to affirm the supernatural origin of the work, yet he did not close the door to this hypothesis and even pushed in a direction revealing his inner feeling: those who will read will understand!

Today things have indeed changed. Science has progressed incredibly in half a century and the computer has revolutionized research in all fields, unifying knowledge, classifying, coordinating analysis data, which has allowed immense progress notably for phenomena concerning us here: archaeology and astronomy. For fifty years, since the end of the last (sic!) War, the state of Israel has encouraged all-out digs on most Jewish and Christian sites on its territory, precisely the one Jesus and his Apostles walked some two thousand years ago. A much more advanced knowledge than fifty years ago has emerged, giving us a multitude of new and precise places and contexts of the way of life of what specialists call Late Antiquity.

This is precisely the strength of the prodigious and patient work of Jean-François Lavère. Indeed, he highlights an astonishing concordance between recent scientific discoveries and the visionary descriptions of Maria Valtorta which extend over thousands of pages, without erasures, without Contradictions, and in a unity of time and place demonstrated by very rigorous research. All this half a century ago: from the depths of a sick bed, without documentation and without any link to a scientific community, this Woman 'sees' live and somewhat in abridgment, describing what some scholars much later deduce laboriously from an archaeological datum two thousand years old! Names of villages in Aramaic, towns and monuments disappeared and now found, knowledge of customs and habits, decorations, costumes... a whole context that the author of this work amply proves is impossible unless one makes room for what the ‘seer’ herself affirms: it is God who shows her, it is Jesus who dictates the teachings that accompany and illustrate the Gospels without ever betraying them, in their cultural context and often with a moving poetry consecrating the union of the True, the Good and the Beautiful that springs from Christ like a Water from its source.

One clearly sees that Pius XII’s remark: there is no need to give an opinion as to its origin, whether extraordinary or not no longer holds fifty years later: this work is of extraordinary origin otherwise it would simply be inexplicable and even unthinkable from the point of view of scientific objectivity. It is indeed astonishing to note that science can be so rigorous that in order to remain logical it must, if it wants to remain honest, posit as hypothesis the existence of a supernatural origin to a chain of events where the law of causality which underlies all science is not questioned but actually invalidated by the very facts it analyzes. Every miracle falls within this kind of process. In the case of Maria Valtorta, after reading this brilliant work, science – which is the tool all the more efficient as it brings forth unknown facts hidden for two thousand years – finds itself not overwhelmed by epistemological subtleties but confronted with a brutal Contradiction with its own experience: how could this simple Woman have known what was buried for two thousand years and resurfaced half a century after her!

This real enigma joins in this field two other great enigmas of Christian history: one relating to Christ himself and the other to the Holy Virgin, his Mother. I mean the Shroud of Turin and the ‘’Tilma‘’ of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Again, it took until our time, with scientific tools and rigor, to stumble upon facts extremely resistant to the logic of phenomena. Science exhausts itself refining the analysis of facts and the more it advances, the more it stumbles upon its own Contradiction in the requirement of its own logic. There comes a moment when, to escape the absurd, one must rightly place the hypothesis of the supernatural and the meaning of its emergence in the field of experience.

Yes, our time is fascinating and complex! The development of science and technology brought us the best but also the worst, well-being but also often forgetfulness of God. It has even been said in the West that ‘God is dead’... Some Churches have emptied... Christian influence has gradually been marginalized by a humanism cut off from its evangelical roots. And yet remain the great enigmas of Christianity with all the force of a Divine Providence that accompanies the people of believers: the Shroud of Turin does not prove the Resurrection of Christ Jesus but still withstands scientific investigation increasingly demanding as a permanent question mark postulating a ‘space’, a ‘beyond’, which makes this prestigious relic an acceptable witness to strengthen Christian faith before the world. The Tilma of Our Lady of Guadalupe also testifies to us, thanks to contemporary science unable to explain phenomena resisting it like an impassable wall for its analysis, that the Mother of Jesus is legitimately the Mother of Saints and sinners. Mary will probably one day be recognized as co-redemptrix of men by the Grace of her Son; she is invested within the communion of Saints with a special Mission at the end of times as Saint John announces in his Apocalypse.

As for the “enigma,” the third one, that of Maria Valtorta, fifty years after her death it remains an enigma for science, testifying to the Supernatural that has brought forth this masterful work for us. Yes, for us who await the Return of Christ in the difficult times that must precede it, where ‘the faith of many will grow cold’, where a time of persecutions predicted by many prophets must come. This testimony of a simple and humble Soul is offered to us as a journey twenty centuries back, to allow us to rediscover the roots of our faith on the steps of the One who walked on earth and waters and who today still walks in our footsteps, always Living, always here, Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah, son of David and Savior of men.

May I be allowed lastly to mention the judgment of Padre Pio, himself a miraculous witness of Christ whom he carried within during his lifetime. This Saint did not need science nor technological advances to advise his spiritual children about The Gospel as Revealed to Me: you cannot, you must read it! » Enlightened by the Holy Spirit, could he have advised reading a work not from God? And if it is from God, should its ‘instrument’ not be carefully and quickly examined by the Church as an authentic witness of Jesus? Should the Church not be the privileged relay of the Word of Christ who continues to incarnate even in our troubled times, manifesting His solicitude in charisms? Whereas recently Pope Benedict XVI called Christians to rediscover the spirit of primitive Christianity, would it be unreasonable to do so also through the work of Maria Valtorta knowing that it was commissioned by Paul VI for the Vatican library and that Cardinal Stanisław Dziwisz testifies to having often seen a volume of The Gospel as Revealed to Me on the bedside table of the holy Pope John Paul II?

In any case, many thanks to Jean François Lavère for this considerable labor which highlighted the reliability of Maria Valtorta’s ‘revelations’. Thanks to this indispensable work, their supernatural origin appears here legitimately established, following the analysis of great theologians like Monsignor Roschini, who expressed their perfect orthodoxy. As for the Fruits which, according to Holy Scripture, allow us to judge the tree, they are many and of quality, received by those who testify to having better understood Christ’s Love and benefited from multiple Graces through contact with this obviously inspired work… which leads to an authentic spirituality where the True Tradition inspired by the Lord to his first Disciples resurfaces and which we must absolutely rediscover when the tares threaten to choke the good grain! Many saints have announced a coming renewal: a return to a poor, modest and virtuous Church manifesting true unity far from the disheartening quarrels born of nostalgia or repulsion towards our grandmothers’ Church! Christ appeared to Maria Valtorta not to invite us on a curious tourist walk but to show us the way of this renewal!”

On this Ash Wednesday 2012,

+ Monsignor Johanan-Mariam

Author's preamble

"O man of little faith, why did you doubt?

Our first contact with the work of Maria Valtorta, in the early 1980s, took place at the initiative of a priest friend. He had already read The Gospel as Revealed to Me three times when he affirmed to us, with all the authority permitted by his doctorate in theology: “I have found no theological error in The Gospel as Revealed to Me, I strongly recommend reading it to you.” My wife immediately followed this enlightened advice and began reading. Very quickly, not wanting to keep her discovery to herself, she kept urging me to share it with her. After some false excuses like, “Not tonight darling, I’m too tired...”, I ended up tolerating, whether willing or not, her plea that I listen as she read a chapter aloud to me each night, while I ‘distracted’ myself with crossword puzzles...

Confident in my supposed intellectual faculties, it took me just a few pages to “understand”, as many other “learned and scholarly” had done before me, that it was just one of those “pseudo revelations invented by a mystic with an overactive imagination.” As Henri Poincaré so aptly noted, “To doubt everything or to believe everything are equally convenient solutions, both of which dispense us from reflection.” From then on my “reason” took over, and I soon became exasperated by all those “useless, apocryphal and unverifiable” details that spoiled my listening ability. How many times then, annoyed, did I ask my dear wife: “Okay, enough, skip the details, get to the facts...” risking to spoil her own enjoyment! However I still lent a more or less distracted ear to this “golden legend” partly to not displease her, partly out of respect for the recommendations of this priest friend, and a little also “to hear what happens next”… But my abandonment was not complete; I did not accept to “become like a child” again, and the “treasure” thus remained totally hidden during the entire first of the ten volumes of the work.

God cannot deny Himself, nor can the truth ever deny the truth

... Then came the second volume, and those few luminous words of Jesus (vision of February 9, 1944): “I wish to give to those who believe in Me a vision brought to the truth of my stay on earth ” And a few pages later (dictation of February 4, 1944): “The more you are attentive and precise (in describing what you see) the more important will be the number of those who come to Me... This implies that the descriptions must be known .” I then noticed in the notebooks that already on January 25, 1944, Jesus had given “this sweet advice” to Maria Valtorta: “Remember to be meticulous to the highest degree when you repeat to them what you see. The slightest trifle has value and is not ‘yours,’ but ‘Mine.’ (...) In the contemplations, you observe much but, in your haste to write (...) you sometimes omit certain details. You must not do that. Write them all down as footnotes, .”

These few sentences struck me like a shock. I, who kept complaining about “those superfluous descriptions”, suddenly learned that these “useless and overabundant” details that had nourished my disbelief were precisely given to strengthen my faith! The descriptions were not futile burdens, just offered for admiration “of spirits sensitive to poetry”; they were above all intended to be examined by reason, and given to comfort Faith... It was therefore through the study of these details that the “learned and scholarly” could support their belief in the truthfulness of the teachings contained in the work transmitted by Maria Valtorta.

We are punished by what we sin against

I had doubted greatly... So I now had to study thoroughly. That day, since a means was indicated to me, I decided to be absolutely clear, and I seized the hand that was offered to me. I just had to systematically verify, with all scientific rigor possible, every detail provided in the work, analyze its credibility or coherence or accuracy, to judge the overall truthfulness of the work by applying the ancient principle of Ambrosiaster: “Everything true comes from the Holy Spirit, whoever expresses it.”

I must confess that when I made this decision, my skepticism towards the work was not yet completely dissipated: “In a month or two, and after analyzing about a hundred details,” I thought, “I will definitely see if all this is truthful or contains errors.”...

But as the saying goes Dubitando ad veritatem pervenimus, I was far from imagining then that this study would reveal to me a multitude of hidden treasures, to the point of making me glimpse “the splendor of Truth” of which Saint John Paul II so well spoke...

Who does not dream of finding a treasure?

The search for Truth can be compared to a treasure hunt. And in this investigation, as in any treasure hunt, to maximize chances you need to choose your basic equipment: a reliable map, a good metal detector and a sturdy pickaxe.

The map is the Holy Scripture with, at the center, the Gospels. Those who go searching for the Treasure without this map will bitterly experience that all that glitters is not gold. Most often, they will find only flashy and deceptive trinkets—the modern idols against which Benedict XVI has warned us: “money, thirst for possession, power and even knowledge”... The Scriptures, however, show us the true Path that leads to Truth...

The detector that will allow us to extract nuggets of Truth from the fields of error and lies is called faith. Faith guides us step by step in our search, and directs us towards Truth as the compass needle once helped the sailor follow his heading. When faith shows us clearly enough where the Truth lies, it is time to truly discover it and admire its beauty.

Then the pickaxe can intervene to clear all that still hides it from our sight. In this parable, the pickaxe is surely reason. With it, we can dig, clear, sift. And suddenly comes joy, dazzling light: the treasure bursts forth, illuminating the Spirit with its thousand fires.

But we must always keep in mind that in this quest for Truth, faith must always precede reason, as Pope John Paul II recalled: “Only faith allows penetrating the mystery, of which it favors a coherent understanding”... Then the signs present in Revelation “give more strength to reason because they allow it to conduct its search within the mystery by its own means, of which it is rightly jealous; on the other hand, they invite it to transcend their reality as signs in order to receive the ultimate meaning they bear”. (...) “Faith and reason are like two wings that allow the human spirit to soar towards contemplation of the truth.” (...) “Man attains truth through reason, because, enlightened by faith, he discovers the profound meaning of everything.”

Private revelations, visions and Apparitions related to the gospel message can be seen as annotations on the map. Often they illustrate Scripture, embellish its reading, or facilitate its understanding. But the map, the Scripture, is written once and for all. Nothing can be added to it nor removed: that would distort it or even make it unreadable. This is what the Church explains when declaring Revelation closed. Guardian of the content and preservation of the Message, “the Church watches over its treasure like a mother over her children.” It is therefore her duty to pass judgment on all that concerns the Deposit entrusted to her.

And that is why it is also lawful and prudent, if not indispensable, before diving into the detailed study of a document like The Gospel as Revealed to Me, to have a clear view of the Church’s position on it. Otherwise, paraphrasing Saint Paul, how would the message transmitted by Maria Valtorta “be useful if it brings us neither revelation, knowledge, prophecy, nor teaching”?

Let us therefore first see what the Church’s judgment really is on Maria Valtorta’s work."

Notes and references

Note: Quotations from the work of Maria Valtorta on this page currently use machine-translated text and will gradually be replaced by the official English translation. Until then, the official translation may be consulted through the reference link provided with each quotation.

Analysis of the historical, cultural, and literary context of Biblical texts to better understand what they meant at the time they were written and how they can be interpreted today.

Writing that defends a Doctrine against criticism, objections, or doubts.

Writing that defends a Doctrine against criticism, objections, or doubts.

Gift conferred by divine Grace for the common good.

Authority in matters of faith and morals exercised over the Catholic faithful by the pope and all bishops in communion with the pope.

Gift conferred by divine Grace for the common good.

In a Christian sense, study concerning God and divine things in the light of Revelation.

In-depth research on God, faith, religious Doctrine.

Second part of the Bible, from the coming of Jesus Christ until the Apocalypse.