The Testimonium (49 page)

She sighed. Joshua’s God got on her nerves sometimes, but she could not turn down this strange young man who had captured her heart, “Very well,” she said, “but I make no promises about how I will react!”

He smiled and kissed her again. “I don’t ask for promises,” he said. “Just an open mind. I have never felt anything like this before—the way you make my heart sing when you walk into the room, and the way I forget to breathe when you look at me. I don’t want to live another day that you are not a part of my life.”

A part of her wanted to shout, ‘Then why bring your God into it?’ But she knew Josh well enough by now to know that his God went where he did, and that if she was going to make room in her heart for Josh to stay, she would have to find a place for his God too. So instead of shouting, she sighed and said, “You make things complicated, you know!”

They sat together after that for a little while, sipping green tea and watching as the guests slowly left, then Josh paid the bill and they took the elevator together. They got off on his parents’ floor and stopped in to see how the elder Parkers were doing.

Ben Parker came to the door in an atrocious pair of Bermuda shorts and an obviously new T-shirt showing the skyline of Capri on it. “Hello, son!” he said with a big smile. “And you too, Isabella! Have you youngsters had a nice evening?”

“We were talking to a reporter, Dad,” said Josh. “He seems like a decent sort, and we decided to give him our first exclusive interview.”

“Ah,” said Reverend Parker. “Was it that young Eastwood fellow who wrote the editorial you showed me yesterday?”

“None other,” said Josh. “He has written the best coverage of our discoveries from day one, so we thought we would share our first exclusive with him.”

“Probably a good pick, then,” said his dad.

“Reverend Parker,” said Isabella, “why is your television unplugged and turned to the wall?”

The old minister laughed. “Well, my wife made the mistake of turning it on after nine PM, and she found some of your local programs a bit too—um, revealing for her taste!”

Isabella laughed. The rather explicit and raunchy nature of Italian TV had been part of her cultural background since she was a teen, but her visits to the States had taught her that American TV only hinted at things Italian TV showed.

“I guess it would take a little getting used to,” she said.

The pastor nodded. “I don’t think she has any intention of getting used to it,” he said. “However, she has had great fun telling all fourteen members of her senior ladies’ Sunday School Class about it! I think she is still on the phone!”

He paused, and sure enough, Joshua heard his mother’s voice coming from the bedroom of their suite, saying: “I am totally serious, Evelyn! Naked as a jaybird—in a cereal commercial, no less!”

Josh rolled his eyes, and said “Well, I guess I had better leave you two for the night. Rest well, Dad!”

“I will, son. Would you like for your mother and I to come to the funeral service tomorrow?” he asked.

Josh nodded. “I’ve never spoken at a funeral before,” he said. “I could use the moral support.”

He walked back toward the elevator. It came to him suddenly that he was absolutely exhausted. He looked at Isabella. “Are you going to be all right?” he asked her.

“Physically, I need a good night’s sleep, and maybe one more of those Percocets,” she said. “Emotionally, I just don’t know how well I can deal with burying poor Giuseppe tomorrow. I am still so angry! One of the best and kindest men I have ever known murdered so senselessly.”

“Evil is a hard thing to come to terms with,” said Josh. “It is bad enough to lose someone, but when they are taken from you maliciously—well; it makes it hard to believe that there is justice in the world.”

She nodded. “I think that is one reason I have such a hard time embracing your God,” she said. “I still think He should be able to fix everything, so that what happened to our friends never happens again!”

“He will, in His own time,” said Josh. “I really believe that.” The elevator stopped at his floor, and he leaned in for one last kiss. “Goodnight, love. Rest well.”

She watched the closing doors hide his face, and then turned away, watching the lobby come rushing up toward her through the glass side of the elevator. She let out a long sigh. In so many ways, Joshua was the perfect man—in some ways, even more so than Marc had been. She could imagine the two of them sharing an exciting life together, working on digs, collaborating on papers, and yes, raising several children. But could she come to share his unshakeable faith in a loving God—a God who came to earth as a carpenter two thousand years before? She had been asking herself this question for a week now, and still had not come up with a satisfactory answer.

Remembering her promise, she stopped at a bookstore on the way back to her apartment and bought a Bible. She knew she had one buried in the boxes at her office, but had not kept one in her home since she was a little girl. She had never read any of the Gospels straight through for her own pleasure, although she had been required to read them for a Biblical archeology course she had taken in college. Even growing up in the Catholic Church as a girl, reading entire books of the Bible had not been encouraged—although short passages were included in the missal nearly every Sunday.

She went home and showered, then pulled on an old, comfortable T-shirt and some terrycloth shorts to sleep in. She took a long drink of cold water and a single Percocet to ease the throbbing from her sore muscles. Turning on her bedside lamp, she found the Gospel of John and began to read: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The Word was with God in the beginning, and through Him all things were made . . .”

* * *

Joshua was exhausted, but still too keyed up to sleep. He flipped through the channels, avoiding the racy programs that had scandalized his mother, and finally found an English language news station. He caught up on events back home—the baseball scores showed him that the Rangers had opened their season with a nice winning streak, but it appeared the Mavericks were not going to make the playoffs yet again. He sighed. It was sad when a storied franchise entered a rebuilding phase.

He flipped over to one of the late-night talk shows. Will Mayor was on every Sunday night back in the states, and his show was just starting on one of the international movie channels. He was a foul-mouthed, sarcastic atheist who loved nothing better than bashing religion and right-wing politicians at every opportunity; he was one of the few entertainers that actually made Josh angry. But the panel of guests included the irrepressible Joel Wombaker, and the Smithsonian’s Biblical archeologist, Andy Henderson, in addition to an American starlet named Sandee McClusky and the ever-grouchy atheist, David Hubbard. This ought to be interesting, Joshua thought. The program was just beginning, and the
Testimonium
was the topic.

“Now let’s just suppose,” said Mayor, “that this papyrus really is two thousand years old, and was really written by Pontius Pilate. Does that prove that the Christians have been right this whole time about their magical Jewish carpenter being the Son of God? I vote no, but since we have a certified fundamentalist idiot here, I’ll let him speak first. Pastor Wombaker, let’s get your take on this!” He rolled his eyes as he looked down the table at the evangelical preacher.

Wombaker simply flashed his famous smile at the cable TV icon. “Well, Will, I’m just blessed to be here tonight, and I know that, for someone like you who has based his whole life on the proposition that God is NOT real, this must be a really tough time! So you can keep right on calling me an idiot, because I am a fool for Christ through and through!”

Mayor laughed. “Well, on that at least we can agree!” he said.

Wombaker went on. “I remember you bluntly asserting in your little mockumentary about religion a few years ago that—and I quote—‘the Gospels aren’t eyewitness testimony!’ And I also noticed you did not give the token Bible scholar you were interviewing any time to respond to that blanket assertion. So I am going to respond right here and now. We have now found eyewitness testimony, sir, and it confirms the Gospel accounts to a degree that we never even hoped for! So it is in a spirit of Christian charity that I offer, here and now, a washcloth for you to wipe that egg off your face.” He produced a white cloth from his suit pocket and offered it to the talk show host, and the studio audience roared with laughter. Josh smiled. This was too good to miss!

Mayor, meantime, looked as if he had taken a bite out of a green persimmon. But, not willing to be upstaged, he smiled and felt around his mouth. “No egg here, pastor!” he said. “You still haven’t proven that this mystery papyrus is the real deal, and even if you do, it just means that the folktales the Gospels were based on might have gotten a few details correct.”

Wombaker shook his head. “You, my friend, are living in an Egyptian river if you believe that! First of all, the discovery and excavation of the
Testimonium Pilatus
was painstakingly recorded, and the preliminary tests of the dust and pollen from the chamber show that it originated in the first century AD. Even though many of the samples were destroyed, the scroll itself has been preserved, and the media told us this morning that some other relics from the chamber have also been recovered. If the dust is two thousand years old, and the artifacts in the chamber are two thousand years old, and the scroll itself dates back two thousand years, then what we have is historical confirmation of the most important claim of the Christian faith—that Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead, which in turn proves that He was who He claimed to be all along!”

“Oh, please!” snapped Hubbard. “What a crock of bull! You know and I know, pastor, that we live in a day and age in which digital media can be manipulated and faked more easily and with less chance of detection than ever before. With much of the physical evidence conveniently destroyed, all the claims that this Dr. Parker and Father MacDonald and their cohorts are making will boil down to the tests on the papyrus itself. And I imagine that it may be two thousand years old—that doesn’t mean the writing on it is! I also have no doubt that this hoax was years, maybe a century or more, in the planning. Recover an old piece of papyrus from some ancient document at the Vatican, use an ancient ink formula to do the writing on it, and plant it at Capri to be found. And then, hey presto! Here we have proof that the great fraud of the ages, organized religion, is no fraud at all!”

Mayor smiled. “That certainly would make a great plot for a novel,” he said. “Dr. Henderson, you have handled papyrus documents all your life, and you are leaving for Italy tomorrow to examine this papyrus yourself. Would you be able to detect a fake such as my pal Hubbard here has described?”

Henderson was a dark-haired, rather intense Californian whose reputation in the world of classical archeology was legend. He had spent ten years examining the vast collection of ancient documents at Qumran, and had also assisted in analyzing a more recent cache of Gnostic material found in the deserts of Egypt in 2009. Josh had read his work on that discovery with great interest, and met the man personally on a couple of occasions.

“Well, Will, first of all, it would be pretty easy to detect modern writing on an ancient papyrus. Virtually all ancient inks used some form of charcoal for coloring, and charcoal is easily datable. There were only two or three varieties of ink available during the first century, all of which are easy to date using C-14. If the ink is not right, the writing is probably faked. But I will say, based on what I have seen so far—and I have viewed all the video and photographs of the excavations at Capri—that I have seen nothing which indicates any fraud, recent or otherwise, associated with the discovery of the chamber. Now I am no Christian, but as a historian and archeologist I will say that your dismissal of the Gospel accounts is a bit cavalier. They may not be eyewitness testimony, but they certainly could be! The Synoptic Gospels were all most likely completed within forty years of the time of Christ—some, like Pastor Wombaker here, can make an argument for an even earlier date—and even John’s Gospel was still written at the end of the first century. If the early accounts of the Apostle John living to a great old age were true, then that Gospel could certainly have its roots in his testimony about Jesus. I have worked with the Gnostic Gospels extensively in the last decade, and I can say with some authority that none of them date to within a century of the actual lifetime of Jesus of Nazareth, and many of them were written two or three hundred years later. Does that automatically mean the Biblical Gospel accounts are true? No—but this latest discovery, if it is authentic, will show that they are far more accurate than critics like you have been willing to acknowledge.”

Mayor obviously didn’t care for the direction this conversation was taking. “Well,” he finally conceded, “even if Pilate wrote this thing, I think it is worth recording that he never claims to have personally seen what happened at the tomb that morning. Everything he records is second-hand testimony from a band of ignorant and frightened soldiers who were obviously shaken up by something. But who knows what it really was? Maybe aliens kidnapped the body of Jesus!”

The pretty young starlet had been waiting for a chance to jump in. “Aliens!” she said. “That would certainly explain all those weird miracles stories, wouldn’t it? I think the topic of Jesus and space aliens could make a really good movie!”

Wombaker interjected: “That would make more sense than an archeological find of this magnitude being a plant! But, Will, you are truly a jewel of denial tonight! Maybe they should make a movie about you!” The audience laughed again, and Mayor muttered an obscenity under his breath.

Hubbard jumped into the gap. “You know, Will, I would be more willing to believe that Jesus of Nazareth was a space alien than I would to think that he might be the Son of a fictitious God. At least science is friendly to the possibility of alien life!”