I think that in some paranormal way Jack is Jacob on the island, which is why he asked Locke to help him and also why Ben tries to sabotage every attempt they make at getting off (he's under Jacob's order). I know that he was on the island before Jack (Ben was) and I find it hard to explain!
Did you find out what the newspaper clipping said in the flash forward? Apparently it's about a man that hung himself in New York, some people on the net reckon it was Michael as the funeral was in a black part of town.
3x22: Who Died?! Jeremy Bentham?
https://lost.cubit.net/forum/gallery/1_24_05_07_1_13_56.jpg
In 3x22, the season finale, "Through the Looking Glass", we find a very broken and strung out Jack. When he learns of someone's death, he nearly kills himself. He attends the visitation, and learns that no one else came. But, who died?! All we have is a blurry obit image. Who's death could have shaken Jack so profoundly? Some speculate the name on the obit is Jeremy Bentham.
Jeremy Bentham was an English jurist, philosopher, and legal and social reformer. He was a political radical and a leading theorist in Anglo-American philosophy of law. He is best known as an early advocate of utilitarianism and animal rights who influenced the development of liberalism.
He invented the Panopticon. The Panopticon is a type of prison building designed by English philosopher Jeremy Bentham in the late eighteenth century. The concept of the design is to allow an observer to observe all prisoners without the prisoners being able to tell if they are being observed or not, thus conveying a "sentiment of an invisible omniscience." In his own words, Bentham described the Panopticon as "a new mode of obtaining power of mind over mind, in a quantity hitherto without example."
He also lead the Jacobin Terrorist (Jacob reference?). The Jacobin Club was the largest and most powerful political club of the French Revolution. It originated as the Club Breton, formed at Versailles as a group of Breton deputies to the Estates General of 1789. At the height of its influence, there were between five and eight thousand chapters throughout France, with a membership estimated at 500,000. After the fall of Robespierre the club was closed.
Here's a partial transcript of the obit:
Man found -------
downtown loft
The body of J --- entham of
New York was --- shortly after 4
a.m. in the ---- of Grand
Avenue
------------------- at The
---------------------- loud
---------------------- man's loft.
-------------------- safety, he
----------------------- the
-------------------- the
-------------- a beam in the