by Bear, Robert
Ned arrived without calling ahead. The staff showed him to Father Walter’s room. Ned knocked and entered a narrow room, barely big enough for a twin bed and a recliner. The old priest sat in his recliner by the window, a shadow of the man Ned remembered from more than a decade earlier.
“Hello, Father. I don’t suppose you remember me.”
Father Walters looked at him blankly.
I hope he hasn’t gone senile. “I’m Ned Jacobs. We met at St. Hilary’s shortly before you retired.” The priest still showed no sign of recognition. “You shared a secret with me, from the tunic cross.”
Father Walters suddenly became animated. “Ned, after all these years! Did you figure it out? Did it lead you to the Holy Grail?” The priest laughed and clutched Ned’s hand.
Ned smiled. “Not quite yet, Father, but I think I’m close to something.” Ned showed Father Walters the rubbing and explained how he’d found the Ogham inscription. “Can you tell me who translated the other one for you?”
“Oh, my boy, that was so long ago…” Father Walters lowered the footrest of the recliner and pressed the arms of the chair to help him stand. “Let’s see if I can find it.”
A bookcase stood nearby, packed chockablock with all sorts of books. Father Walters pulled out a battered old Moleskine notebook. He snapped the elastic back and opened the book. Glancing over Father Walters’s shoulder, Ned saw pages filled with penciled notes and sketches. As Father Walters flipped through it, newspaper and magazine clippings came loose and fluttered to the floor. He seemed not to notice. Ned stooped to gather them up. “Must be in here someplace,” muttered Father Walters to himself. “Somewhere.” Ned tucked the clippings back into the notebook as the priest continued to turn pages. “Ah, here it is.”
Father Walters showed Ned the page. Ned took out his phone and tapped the name into a web browser. The search results seemed to take forever to appear, but at last they came. “Ha. He still works at the British Museum.” Ned gave the Father a grin. “Want to come with me?”
Though Father Walters was eager, it took some doing to check him out of the home. “Luv, ’e’s too frail to travel,” the head nurse moaned.
“Would you deny an old man a bit of fresh air?” Father Walters protested. “You think I’m not in my right mind?”
After a complaint to the director, a ream of paperwork, a suitcase crammed with spare clothes and toiletries, and instructions to Ned about the old man’s medication schedule, they were finally on their way.
“It describes a location,” said the British Museum specialist. “Measured by paces from the altar of a place called Lammana Priory. Whatever that is.”
“Never heard of it,” admitted Father Walters.
Ned pulled out his laptop and looked it up. “It’s on Looe Island.”
“In Cornwall?” Father Walters asked.
“Where else?” Ned laughed. “The abbots of Glastonbury owned the priory at least since the Dark Ages. It’s also called Saint George’s Island, just off the coast.”
“Well, then, young man.” Father Walters stood, looking more spry than he had in the home. “Let’s get going.”
Within a few days of the old priest’s liberation from the retirement home, he and Ned were driving down the A387 toward the twin villages of East Looe and West Looe.
“We have the distances to pace out from the altar,” said Ned. “But how do we find the altar?”
“My boy, we don’t have to. It’s already been found.”
“It has?”
“The altar was found. But not whatever is buried at the site described in the Ogham message.”
“Right, right.” Ned shifted his grip on the wheel. “What do you mean the altar was found?”
Father Walters opened his Moleskine notebook and searched through the magazine clippings. “I have quite a collection of articles,” he said. “I seem to remember one… Ah, young man, here it is.”
He handed a clipping to Ned.
“Two years back,” Father Walters said, “I saw this article about an archeological dig on St. George’s Island. I’m always interested in things like that. It was part of a Time Team episode on Channel 4.”
Ned looked over the clipping. Under a bold headline—“Archeologists Uncover Christian Altar Dating from Roman Antiquity”—the photo showed several khaki-clad archaeologists with trowels and brushes, standing in a trench.
“It gives the location of the altar?” asked Ned.
“Precisely.”
“Ha!”
Ned found a marina in East Looe and rented a small motorboat. As they set out across Looe Bay, the sun glinted on the whitecaps. Ned turned to the priest. “Good thing the manager didn’t ask many questions. The island’s a wildlife refuge. No telling how long it would take to get permission to dig.”
Father Walters chuckled. “It’s often easier to obtain forgiveness than permission.”
Ned laughed, the wind ruffling his hair.
The island was not far from the harbor entrance. Ned steered the boat toward it.
The delight shining in the old man’s eyes must look something like his own, Ned thought.
They had done it! Decoded the clues. Solved the mystery.
Saint Joseph’s buried secrets would soon be theirs.
Author’s Afterword
Before I get started, let me give a word of warning: This afterword will have some plot spoilers. Please read the book first. I will cite some of my sources, but this is not a full bibliography. For more information, I invite you to visit www.makingofthelamb.com.
How did this book come to be written and what purpose does it serve?
The Making of the Lamb was first conceived as I was preparing for my baptism in 2004. I was doing quite a bit of sailing with my good friend, Austin Mill, and he gave me a small plaque for my sailboat honoring Saint Joseph of Arimathea. Joseph is the patron saint of sailors, miners, and funeral directors. Austin also introduced me to the Jerusalem Hymn, which sets in music the legend that Jesus traveled to Britain during his “missing” teenaged years, which are left out of the Bible. In the course of my travels with Austin, one of us got the idea that the legend would be a good basis for a novel.
I started researching with The Traditions of Glastonbury: The Biblical Missing Years of Christ: Answered (1983, revised 1987, 2005) by E. Raymond Capt. Then I delved into primary sources closer in time to the legend, going back as far as Gildas, the first British historian. I also encountered some works that fictionalized the legend: I, Joseph of Arimathea by Frank C. Tribbe (2000) and Uncle of God, The Voyages of Joseph of Arimathea by M. E. Rosson (2010).
As I kept going, both with the book and the preparation for my baptism, I read The DaVinci Code (2003) by Dan Brown and some non-fiction works that flesh out Code’s backstory that Jesus survived the crucifixion and went on to father a bloodline that can be traced through the Dark Age Merovingian kings. Among these is Bloodline of the Holy Grail by Laurence Gardner (1996). From my church’s adult formation class, I recognized the elements of Arian and Gnostic heresy. Heresies are studied in Christian formation classes because, by contrast, they give rise to a greater understanding of orthodox Christian belief. As I saw these books taking off in the popular culture, I watched distinguished commentators treat them as a valid alternative to traditional Christian teachings, perhaps equally valid.
That was when this book got its name and really took form. I realized that The Making of the Lamb could take the legend well beyond anything already written about Christ’s visit to Britain. What was needed was much more than an ancient travelogue. I realized that I had an incredible opportunity to show Jesus as a teenager in a distant land, struggling with his destiny to die such a horrible death on the cross. Such a Jesus could touch the emotions of my readers and thereby really drive home the significance of his death and resurrection.
My hope is that my readers will find this book fun, engaging, and thought provoking, regardless of whether they are Christians or not.
We read how the largest growing denomination now is “unaffiliated.” This book is tailor made for these questioning, doubting people, who sometimes fear walking into a church lest they be expected to drink the Kool-Aid.
One of the most surprising things I found from going to church was the level of discernment going on all around me. One of my favorite passages from the Episcopal Church’s Book of Common Prayer is from the prayer said for the newly baptized. We don’t pray for them to obediently accept and pass on canned proselytizations. Instead we pray for God to give them “an inquiring and discerning heart.” People who enjoy thought provoking books may be surprised to find out how much they can enjoy going to church.
Thought provoking fiction can be a great tool for evangelization. It can be a way to break the ice with potential newcomers. I hope readers and others will come to www.makingofthelamb.com, and post their experiences and ideas about this on the blog.
Is this portrayal of Jesus consistent with Scripture?
Putting Jesus front and center as a main character in a work of fiction creates a dilemma for a Christian writer. Conflict is the driving force for good fiction. There’s not much point to putting Jesus up against a mortal antagonist—that fight is going to be over almost before it starts. The only really worthy opponents would need to be divine, but Christian doctrine seems to belie any notion of discord among the members of the Holy Trinity. Perhaps that is why many Christian authorities frown on any fictional accounts of Jesus’s life. I put the spiritual tsunami into Chapter 14 to show how any sort of discord within the Trinity might unleash untold havoc on creation.
Another problem is that we want our fictional characters, even our heroes, to be flawed. But doctrine says that Jesus is the unblemished perfect man as well as the divine God. At first that may seem difficult to square with this novel’s truculent teenager, who screams his defiance from the summit of the Tor when he discovers his true destiny.
Nonetheless, there is a strong case to be made within Scripture for my portrayal of a teenaged Jesus. We need to start with the significance of Jesus’s incarnation. In his divine nature, he has been a coequal member of the Trinity since the beginning of all time. But at the time of his incarnation, he put aside his divine dignity to take our human nature upon himself. He came into our world as a helpless baby, and he had to be nurtured like any other baby through his childhood.
The last we hear about Jesus in Scripture before the onset of his ministry is at the end of the second chapter of Luke, when Jesus, at the age of twelve, tarries behind to teach in the Temple. His parents lose him for three days, much to their sorrow, and when they find him his Mother asks why he has dealt with them so (Luke 2:41-48). Rather than defend Jesus’s behavior, the gospel writer puts it in the context of natural human growth: “And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in the favor of God and man” (Luke 2:52). In other words, at the onset of his teenage years, Jesus in his human nature was an unfinished work with some growing to do.
Even as an adult, the Gethsemane episode on the eve of the crucifixion shows that Jesus submitted to death on the cross because he was obedient to God, the Father, not because he wanted to. When we see from the Bible how Jesus obediently suffered so much for our benefit, we can accept the concept of an adult Jesus living without sin, but do we even understand what it would mean to apply that concept to Jesus as a teenager? What would a “perfect” teenager ever do?
In the novel, Jesus suddenly discovers that everything he has lived for is being ripped out from under him. The promised throne of David is not going to be of this world. He will suffer a horrible death at an early age. He will never become the conquering heroic messiah of his people. Perhaps worse than the prospect of such personal pain and suffering is the emotional pain of knowing that he will die helpless to ward off the coming suffering for both his own Jewish people and the Britons, whom he has come to love. Despite all this, he starts traveling the path of obedience, which he knows will lead to Calvary.
Is our concept of perfection in Christ’s human nature so rigid that we would really deny Jesus the emotional space he needs, even as a teenager, to deal with all of this? I believe that if we do, we make so much of Jesus’s lack of sins that his human nature effectively becomes indistinguishable from the divine. Perhaps he can be Emmanuel, the God living with us, in a physical sense, but not with the same emotional connection. If Jesus had never struggled to accept his destiny, his sacrifice would seem less meaningful.
If Jesus had any human nature, then the teenaged Jesus portrayed in the novel would not have been the first righteous man to struggle with God. It’s not clear from the passage in Genesis whether Jacob wrestled with God or with an angel sent by God when he was on his way to meet Esau. In the Book of Job, God holds Job to be his worthy servant throughout the sound and fury of Job’s anger with God for all his tribulations. Ultimately, they are reconciled as God renders justice to Job. It is Job’s friends who are called to account for telling him to make an insincere repentance. Job is sometimes considered a figure in the Old Testament who actually foreshadows Jesus. In Putting God on Trial: The Biblical Book of Job (2004), Robert Sutherland provides an objective guide to the subtle nuances in the Book of Job that a reader needs to understand.
The question of how Jesus came to accept his destiny to die on the Cross is a great mystery of the Bible that wants exploring. This book does not purport to be a book of theology. It’s a novel, hopefully a thought provoking one. I have had people tell me with great fervor that Jesus must have been aware of his true destiny from his childhood. Others were equally fervent that Jesus knew nothing about that until the onset of his ministry. In debating this, we cannot help but realize the significance of Christ’s sacrifice. That is why I hope people will come to www.makingofthelamb.com and sound off on the blog.
Is Making of the Lamb Historically Accurate?
The job of the historical novelist is both to educate and to entertain. We create a story around known facts of history. Particularly when so much of the story deals with prehistoric people, it is necessary to take what is known and fill in many blanks. In this short space I discuss some of the issues I encountered, but I would also love to have people blog their questions and comments on www.makingofthelamb.com.
Some people have questioned the relatively advanced level of the late Iron Age portrayed in the book, but the archaeological evidence shows that the Britons of this period were remarkably sophisticated. The Celts at this time carried on trade over extensive networks. Julius Caesar admitted that their seafaring skills were superior to those of the Romans. They were adept with metals and all manner of crafts. The reeve system of their farms evidences a sophisticated division of labor. Iron Age Communities in Britain, An Account of England, Scotland and Wales from the Seventh Century BC Until the Roman Conquest (1974, 4th edition 2005) is Professor Barry Cunliffe’s advanced college-level archeological textbook. Cunliffe has also written a number of other books that do not require a background in archaeology, such as Britain Begins (2013). Other noted works include The Atlantic Iron Age (2007) by Jon C. Henderson and Exploring the World of the Celts (1993, reprinted 2002) by Simon James. Artifacts from Iron Age Britain and related exhibits can be seen in the British Museum in London, the Iron Age Museum in Andover, and the Jewry Wall Museum in Leicester.
The methods of navigation and sail rigging that I describe are more of my own hypothesis, because there is scant archaeological evidence on this. The lateen rig was known to the Romans by the middle of the first century BC. This fore-and-aft rig greatly improved the ability of sailing vessels to progress into the wind over square-rigged vessels, but the swinging gaff high above deck and the unbalanced force of a triangular sail would have been problematic for craft venturing far into the stormy North Atlantic. The lug rig would have been a relatively simple adaptation of the square rig. By adding a single spar along one vertical side of the square rig, a leading edge can be presented to the wind when the sail is swung into a fore-and-aft
position. At the same time, the force of the wind is much more balanced over the mast than with a triangular sail. An adaptation such as the lug rig would have been essential for the Celts to easily maneuver against the Roman vessels in battle without oars the way that Julius Caesar described.
Navigation certainly would have been problematic over one hundred miles of open water between the tip of Armorica and the tip of Cornwall. The compass had not yet been invented, and late-eighteenth-century mariners were still trying to find an accurate method for resolving longitude. Nonetheless, we know that ancient Phoenicians sailed vast distances across blue ocean waters. Indigenous Pacific islanders used wave patterns and ocean swells, and I hypothesize that the Celts might have supplemented their navigation this way when clouds obscured sun and stars.
Archeology tells us a great deal about how people lived, but not so much about what they believed. The druids abjured writing, particularly anything of a spiritual nature. Some of the tribes minted coins with Greek letters, and they had calendars, but we don’t have anything more substantial written down by the Celts themselves. Julius Caesar wrote about the druids in his account of his war against the Gauls, but one needs to take what he said with a grain of salt because the Celts were his enemies, and his annals were a propaganda piece against people he wanted to portray as barbaric. Irish folktales were written down centuries after the time of the druids by Christian monks who brought their own biases.
As I conceived this book, I knew that Jesus would have encountered druids if he stayed in Britain for any length of time, but everything I read about them just sent me in circles. I finally came across Jean Markdale’s book, The Druids, Celtic Priests of Nature (1999), and this became my guide to sorting out the pantheon of druidic deities and making some sense of them. Some of the concepts, such as the idea that they learned Greek philosophy, might very well be overly romanticized. On the other hand, we know that the Celtic people often crossed paths with the classical cultures of Greece and Rome and that each druid went through twenty years of training.
