A Skeleton in God's Closet

by Paul L Maier

  Montaigne studied the material handed him for some time. “Aha!” he said, at last. “This is Aramaic from the hill country. We have an old lexicon in our archives that should help us.” He left his office and returned several minutes later with an ancient tome in hand. Then he set to work. Remembering how he, too, had craved the luxury of someone not looking over his shoulder, Jon excused himself and explored the library of the École Biblique.

  Montaigne summoned him an hour later. He had cracked at least half of the “untranslatables.” Here, obviously, was another linguistic prodigy, and with such a scholar one must be honest.

  “Père Montaigne,” said Jon, “I will now give you photographic copies of the entire document. I beg of you two things. One, please be kind enough to give us your translation so that we can compare it with ours. And two, please let no one see this document, or learn of it, until we confer again. The text will explain this urgency.”

  “Certainement,” he replied with a quizzical expression.

  The moment he took his leave, Jon noticed Montaigne’s silver spectacles tilting down toward the photocopy.

  Toward evening, when Jon returned to Ramallah, Jennings told him that Frank Moore Cross had called, suggesting translations for some of the words and phrases in question. “He hasn’t gotten them all yet, but he’ll get back to you.”

  “Fine,” said Jon, as he read what Jennings had written out. Between Montaigne and Cross, most of the gaps in translation could be filled, and he could now type up a more accurate version of the document.

  At supper, Shannon, Brampton, and Cromwell ate next to Jennings and himself. Jon saw their eyes daring him to renege on his promise to reveal the translation that night. After a final course of Jericho dates, Jon faced them directly and pleaded, “One more night? Please? I have to coordinate the new information we have from Cross and Montaigne. Just after breakfast tomorrow, I swear it? All right?”

  Their forced assent was anything but enthusiastic.

  “Don’t take the bus in the morning,” Jennings advised. “Stay here, and we’ll drive out to the dig later in the Land Rover.”

  Jon sat at the desk in his room. As his fingers addressed the keyboard of his laptop, he quivered at the significance of what he was typing—words that would change the future. These were lines that would render every book on Christianity in the world obsolete, including his own best seller. And that effect was only superficial. This shift was seismic, elemental. Nothing could be the same after this became public knowledge.

  Another howl from a jackal skewered the night air. Was it the same beast? Was this some mascot of Ramallah? Or of hell? But this time, the mournful cry was answered by a whole chorus of ululating yowls, moaning a canine lamentation at life. Or fate?

  “It’s a paradigm for the future,” Jon muttered, intentionally using one of the most trendy theological buzzwords of the century.

  ELEVEN

  We’ll have to change our nickname,” said Jon, in the workroom after breakfast. “‘The Quintet’ is too bland. Something like ‘The Fateful Five’ might do—well, maybe not—but after I read this, you’ll certainly see why. I know this sounds pompous and bombastic, but it’s true nevertheless. This document could change Western civilization. Maybe parts of Eastern too. I need your pledge, under oath, that you’ll not reveal a syllable of this to anyone for now. Do I have it?”

  All nodded emphatically.

  Jon, who was not looking for hands on Bibles, continued, “This translation still has several gaps, but we’re now sure of the main flow of the text. Which is . . .” Jon took up his typescript and read: “‘Joseph, son of Asher, to Nicodemus, son of Shimeon, peace! I hope you are well, friend. I was not sorry to leave Jerusalem, even though you wanted me to stay. Arimathea, the home of my youth, serves me well also in old age. I seek only the peace of God before I stand in His presence. To find that peace, I write you. A painful stone is lodged in the sandal of my soul, and I must remove it. Do you remember the rabbi Yeshua [Jesus] whom we buried in my tomb a score and seven years ago during the—’

  “We’re not sure of the next word, but it looks like a Hellenism in Aramaic—hegemonya—‘during the [hegemony, governance] of Pontius Pilatus? I could not sleep after the Passover that night. I feared that the noble rabbi, a man of much suffering, would not have the rest that should come to him after his pain. My servants heard rumors in the city that the priests had a plot regarding his body. I feared they might harm or mutilate it. Later I learned that they only wished to seal the tomb. O that I had known! Not many hours before cock crow, my servant Eleazar and I went to the sepulcher. We removed the body of Jesus and returned the stone to its place. We put the body onto a donkey cart, covered it with logs of olive wood, and returned to my house in Jerusalem. The evening after Shabbat [Sabbath] we drove the cart to Rama where we—’

  “We don’t have the next word either, but we think it means ‘buried again’—‘where we reinterred the rabbi in the sarcophagus I had ordered for myself, but not yet taken to Jerusalem. Only later did I learn of the excitement over the empty tomb. Before my Lord, I do not know why the priests did not examine the tomb before they sealed and guarded it. It was empty on the first day of the week because it was empty already the day before. When I returned to Jerusalem, I found you and the other followers of the Nazarene in such great joy over what you thought his resurrection, that I could not drown by truth the very—’

  “We don’t know the next word—‘I could not drown by truth the very [blanks] that had overcome your sorrow. Forgive me, dear friend. My health is poor, my eyesight dim. Before I die, I must seek your pardon for hiding the truth these many days. When you read this, I may be dead. If so, I shall be buried not in the sarcophagus with my name, for Jesus is there, but in another tomb. May the Lord give you wisdom to use these words properly or to destroy them. Be in peace. Farewell, beloved friend.’”

  The room was deathly silent. All eyes—some filmed—were staring at Jon vacantly, almost as if he personally had authored the document that would tear Easter from the world’s calendars. Almost defensively, he added, “And now comes Nicodemus’s note at the bottom of the letter: ‘I, Nicodemus, am here at Rama for Joseph’s funeral on the eighth of Elul [September 10]. I cannot express the great disturbance of my mind and heart. But Joseph’s reasonings for withholding the truth are also my reasons. I am burying this letter next to the tomb of Jesus. The truth is now in the hands of El-Shaddai [the Mighty God]. If He wills, the truth will come to light. If not, then it may be His will that The Way [Christianity] survive, for it is a teaching of hope. Amen.’”

  Jon laid his typescript on the table.

  Shannon dropped her head and wept. Clive sat as if he had been fettered to his chair, eyes glazed, his skin sallow and jaundiced. Jennings remained silent as a living corpse.

  Dick Cromwell struggled for logic and coherence. “You . . . you mean, then, that the bones we found are not Joseph of Arimathea, but . . . but Jesus? ”

  Ever so slowly, Jon nodded. “At least, that’s what this letter claims.”

  “Oh, my Lord! Jesus? ”

  They sat in a circle of shock for several minutes before anyone said another word. Jon watched in knowing sympathy as Shannon, Clive, and Dick recapitulated his own experience in responding to the wrenching revelation. Were they believers who affirmed the bodily resurrection of Christ? he wondered. He had certainly been raised to believe that. If so, this was the most corrosive information they could ever hear. But even if they had doubts or were outright skeptics, the Easter concept had been such a part of Western culture that nothing could be the same henceforth.

  Jon now broke the silence. “Under any other circumstances, this would be one of the greatest archaeological discoveries ever—no, the greatest. But when you have two billion Christians believing that Jesus rose from the dead . . .”

  He did not finish the sentence. A hush hovered over the room again for endless moments.

  “I just thought of
something . . . something rather inane,” Cromwell admitted.

  “Be our guest.”

  “Remember those buttons that used to show up on college campuses in spring? ‘NO EASTER THIS YEAR: THEY FOUND THE BODY!’ Well, we’ve gone and done just that!”

  Again there was mortal silence.

  And again, Jon broke it. “Now, of course, the process of authentication becomes heroic! If this gets out, the Christian world is going to scream for tests of every kind. Which is also why we have to keep this under wraps until all the tests have taken place.”

  Jennings finally came to life. “Oh, there will be dozens of tests before we’re through! Dozens! But let’s start with internal evidence, Jonathan. Read the whole translation again, and let’s all of us search for any flaws.”

  When he had finished a slower, more deliberate reading the second time, Brampton inquired about the one chronological clue in the text. “They claimed to bury Jesus ‘a score and seven years’ earlier. That’s twenty-seven years, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Well, relate that to the coin we found and see if it all jibes.”

  “Good thought,” Jon replied. “Scholarly consensus leans to the years AD 30 or 33 for Jesus’ crucifixion, but I’ve always argued for 33. So 27 years after 33 would bring us to AD 60 as the time this letter was written. Our coin, you’ll recall, dates to 58 or 59, so it all fits.” He paused, touched the tips of his fingers together, and then added, with a smile, “But the earlier date for the crucifixion—AD 30—doesn’t fit, so score one for 33!”

  “Beautiful, Jon,” commented Shannon, acid in her voice. “Go strut your chronological stuff—over the dead body of Christianity.”

  “Sorry, Shannon. I . . . just got carried away for a moment. I think we’ve all got to stay more objective about this and not leap to any conclusions, however compelling they may seem.”

  “Ah yes,” Jennings agreed. “Tests, tests, and more tests! Only then the conclusions.”

  Claude Montaigne had called, and his appointment with Jon was set for the following afternoon. He greeted Jon in a state of high agitation, his Gallic forehead wrinkled with furrows. “Voici . . . my translation,” he said, handing it over to Jon. “But I have many questions, mon ami. ”

  He now fired a volley of further queries about the dig and the discovery, and Jon provided a full description. When they moved on to writing analysis, Montaigne commented, “Yes, it looks like premier siècle—first century—but do let me look at the original, s’il vous plait. ”

  “Why, of course. Shall we go to the Rockefeller? Can you get away?”

  “Certainement. ”

  A ten-minute walk brought them to the museum laboratory. Nikos Papadimitriou smiled when he saw Montaigne. “Ah! I’m glad that you are involved, Père Claude.”

  “Kalimera, Nikos!” said Montaigne, for whom Greek was an active sixth language.

  Nikos quickly opened the safe at Jon’s request and drew out the papyrus, now safely ensconced between plates of glass, and then left the room. Jon beamed a strong lamp over the text and handed Montaigne a magnifying glass. The black ink of the lettering showed up clearly, as did the brown-black of the Nicodemus response.

  The French scholar studied the document for some time before he said anything. Then he and Jon broke into spirited dialogue over the problem words and phrases, and finally compared the two script styles with various lines of Aramaic from different centuries on a chart Montaigne had brought along.

  “The writings on this document do look very much like our first-century sample, don’t they?” Montaigne offered. “Have you sent a copy to Frank Moore Cross at Harvard?”

  “We’re sending him a fax as soon as Cromwell, one of our staffers, photographs the papyrus now that it’s flat. He’s coming in anytime now.”

  “Good. Well, both script styles seem to be Herodian or the Roman period up to, perhaps, the Bar-Kokhba revolt.”

  “So we have a time frame of about 40 BC to AD 135, Père Montaigne?”

  “Oui. Probably only one man on earth could nar-row that frame . . . and give us better definitions at places where I have question marks in the translation.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Alexandros, the former archimandrite of St. Catherine’s monastery at Mount Sinai. He’s devoted his life to Aramaic, even the dialects.” Montaigne smiled wistfully and added, “I hate to admit that he knows more Aramaic than I do. But he does.”

  “I’d love to discuss every syllable of this text with him personally, if possible.” Jon strummed his fingers on the table, then turned and said, “Israel and Egypt are at peace. Couldn’t I drive to St. Catherine’s from here?”

  “Oui. There are two routes. One is the highway: no problem. But if you take the wadi route, which is shorter, then you must have . . . how do you say it . . . power on every wheel?”

  “Four-wheel drive?”

  Montaigne nodded, and said, “And you must also have provisions in your car. I would be glad to arrange an appointment for you. Alexandros has helped us before.”

  “I’d be greatly obliged to you, Père Montaigne.”

  “Ah, does Nikos know what this document is? Or claims to be?”

  “No, he hasn’t pressed us, probably out of professional courtesy. I told him I’d discuss it with him once we’re sure of the translation.”

  Then Montaigne shook his head slowly and said softly, “So far, I’ve dealt with this only as a scholar, mon ami. I’ve not even begun to . . . to respond to this as a theologian. Or as a Christian.”

  “Nor have I, Père Montaigne. Nor have I!”

  The moment he saw Jon drive off, Claude Montaigne stepped back inside the Rockefeller and returned to Papadimitriou’s office. “Oh, Nikos,” he said, nonchalantly. “I want to look at one more item on that papyrus.”

  “Help yourself, Père Montaigne. It’s still on the laboratory table. We’re waiting for the Rama photographer.”

  Alone inside the laboratory, the smallish Dominican performed the most risky act in his other-wise sheltered, scholarly life. Hands trembling, but with the tenderest care, he lifted the top plate of glass off the papyrus, set it aside, and then cut a rhombus-shaped fragment from the bottom of the papyrus, using one of the laboratory scissors. He inserted the fragment into a small envelope, which he then slid into his coat pocket, all the while glancing furtively through the lab’s window divider at Papadimitriou, who had his back turned. Since the bottom edge of the papyrus was chipped and serrated anyway, no one would notice anything amiss. Montaigne replaced the glass, smiled at his success—small but potentially strategic—and left the Rockefeller.

  When Jon returned to Ramallah, Jennings closeted him in his room and said, “While you were gone, Nottingham returned from Jerusalem with Dr. Itzhak Shomar’s report on the . . . on the remains.” Now that these had a catastrophic new identity, he could not bring himself to say “bones.” “Shomar, you recall, is the Rockefeller’s pathologist.”

  “Does Noel have any idea what this is all about?”

  “No. He assumes those are the remains of Joseph of Arimathea.”

  “And Shomar?”

  “Noel told him nothing.”

  “Good! Let’s keep it that way as long as possible.”

  Jennings handed him Shomar’s report, which was thirty-five pages in length. Before he opened it, he asked, “Does it address the problem, Austin?”

  “It does.”

  “How?”

  “Read for yourself, Jonathan.”

  The pathologist’s report, however innocent and unknowing, now carried overwhelming import. If the papyrus were authentic, there was one piece from a different puzzle that did not at all fit. The bones suited Joseph of Arimathea handsomely—the name on the sarcophagus, after all—but not a Jesus who was a young man—33 to 36—when he was crucified. Nottingham had insisted on an age range of 50 to 60 for the skeletal remains, numbers that now assumed critical importance.

  While Jennings
went out to fetch a bottle of sherry, Jon perused the report. He was on page five when Jennings returned. “Nothing much different from Nottingham’s preliminary so far,” he commented.

  “Read on.”

  “Here are some interesting points: ‘The bones show slight calcium deprivation, though not of a serious nature.’ Hmmmm. ‘The teeth show no dental caries of any kind.’”

  At page twelve, Jon suddenly sat up straight in his chair and took a long sip of wine. “Listen to this, Austin: ‘The distal ends of the right and left radius show a grooving or abrasion of some kind, as does part of the metatarsal assembly. While this may be due to dietary deficiency, the similarity of this defect in all four extremities is strange.’”

  “The wrist ends of both arms and the middle foot bones grooved?” Jon exclaimed. “As from nails? As in crucifixion? ”

  “What else?” Jennings groaned.

  Jon continued reading. Several pages later, he stopped, looked up, and said, “Listen to this: ‘There is also a lateral scoring on the upper side of the seventh left rib, which tapers from a width of 2.5 to 1.7 centimeters. The cause of this abrasion, whether naturally or artificially induced, is not determined as of this writing. The latter, however, must be suspected, since this phenomenon is not paralleled in my experience.’”

  Jon closed his eyes and quoted from John’s gospel: “‘But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once blood and water came out.’ Shomar just gave a perfect description of the imprint of a spear’s head!”

  “Read on, Jonathan. You’ll find more shovelfuls to heap on the grave of classic Christianity,” said Jennings, a dour, woebegone expression clouding his features.

  Some minutes later, Jon said, “No, that’s about it. Well, wait, here’s the final evaluation section.” He read further to himself, then out loud.

  “In terms of the absolute age of these remains, methods of radiocarbon, fluorine, and other procedures for bone datings were not attempted, as such determinations must be decided upon by Professor Jennings. With his permission, however, a small portion of the left femur was subjected to amino-acid racemization. Assuming a temperature history inside the cavern at Rama parallel to other such caves in Israel at this latitude and altitude, the analysis suggests a bone age of 1,940 years BP [before the present] with an uncertainty factor of 15 percent. As to the age of the individual at death, however, a preliminary report suggesting an attained age range of 50 to 60 should be revised downward, since there is less dental and joint wear than was first suspected. Furthermore, the extraphytic accretions—i.e., spurs or knobbing from calcium deposits—on the spinal vertebrae, acetabular fossa, and other joints are not as pronounced as would be the norm for advanced age. A more appropriate range for age at death would be 35 to 45.”