Papal Decree (31 page)

‘Do you think I have any idea what you’re talking about?’ Gavache interrupted.

A discouraged Ben Isaac frowned. ‘September 14, 5
B.C
. A Saturday. The first day of the Feast of Tabernacles.’

What the fuck.
Gavache didn’t need precise dates. He forced himself to keep his mouth shut and not show his skepticism.

Jesus was prepared from an early age to assume an important role. He was a descendant of Abraham, David, and Solomon, who had ordered the building of the Temple. He was expected to restore the glorious time before the exile, the glory of Israel. But the Jerusalem that Jesus knew was not the Jerusalem of the Old Testament. That city had fallen under the yoke of Babylonia, which razed the city and destroyed the Jewish Temple. The Ark of the Covenant had been lost forever in the sixth century
B.C
. The Jerusalem of Jesus’s time was reconstructed from scratch by the Jewish rulers of the Hasmonean dynasty in the second century
B.C
., and the Temple was reconstructed by Herod the Great a year before Jesus’s birth.

Herod wanted Him dead, not because he was a lunatic, but because Jesus was a noble Jew who had been proscribed with all His family. Herod had to eliminate any possible challenge to his throne.

‘For the Jews the word
Messiah
didn’t mean the chosen one or the one sent by God.
Messiah
simply referred to the heir from the house of David. Joseph was also an heir, and Jacob before him,’ Ben Isaac continued.

‘But why Jesus? Did He know he was an heir to the throne?’ Gavache didn’t understand.

It wasn’t difficult to find the answer in the Bible. The accounts place the family of Jesus in Bethlehem, later in Egypt, Nazareth, Jerusalem, Caesarea, Cafarnaum, Jericho, Betabara, Enom, Betsaida, throughout the Jordon valley and along the Sea of Galilee, among many other places. Jesus’s family, a royal family, was in permanent flight. In one place His father was a carpenter, in another a stonemason, an artisan – always manual crafts, which those sent by Herod never paid attention to. Joseph never stayed in one place too long. Of course, this information was not explicitly mentioned in Holy Scripture, since the authors of the gospels wanted to emphasize the importance of the virgin birth, of conception without sin. From the beginning the intention was to emphasize Jesus as the Son of Man, the Messiah, a man greater than all other men who could perform miracles as if He were the Son of God Himself. Everything else was history.

‘In the middle of the night, without warning, Father awakened us. It was time to leave again,’
Ben Isaac quoted.

‘Is that in the Bible?’ Gavache asked.

Ben Isaac shook his head no. It wasn’t necessary to cite the source of the quotation. For Gavache it was a completely different picture of Jesus from what he knew.

The life of Jesus bounced back and forth until his adult years. He became a renowned and respected rabbi because of His humility and wisdom until … John the Baptist. Gavache frowned and redoubled his attention at this point in the account.

John the Baptist was Jewish, the son of the priest Zacarias and Elizabeth. He was born on the outskirts of Jerusalem in Ein Kerem, six months before Jesus, and began his Nazarite education at the age of fourteen in Ein Gedi.

‘Nazarite education?’ Gavache asked.

‘Yes, the consecration of someone to God. It involved some physical sacrifices, never cutting one’s hair, never drinking wine, never touching a corpse, never eating meat. One had to maintain a purified state against all temptations,’ Ben Isaac explained, with the patience of Job. ‘Jesus was also a Nazarite.’

‘Jesus the Nazarite, as opposed to Jesus from Nazareth, the Nazarene,’ Gavache deduced, absorbed in the story. ‘A Messiah consecrated to God?’

‘See how it all connects,’ Ben Isaac tossed out.

Jesus was fascinated by John the Baptist for his abnegation, but even more for his personality. He saw a wandering preacher who advocated baptism instead of fanatical extremism. Like all the Jews of his time, John had a preoccupation with purification by water. Even today archaeologists are constantly discovering the basins for ritual baths, the Jewish
miqwa’ot
. Practically every Jewish house had one, and any traveling Jew that entered one had to be purified. They had to dip themselves in a pool, which was filled with spring water, but, before going in, they had to wash their hands and feet, especially the lower limbs, which were the source of impurity. After dipping, their feet and head were rubbed with purifying oil. The woman who anointed Jesus in the house of Simon the Leper in Bethany two days before the Crucifixion, according to the canonical gospels, was just performing a Jewish ritual with ancient roots.

‘Okay, they took a lot of baths. What does that have to do with anything?’ Gavache asked.

‘The baths were Jewish rituals. John the Baptist performed the same ritual in the Jordan River, but for gentiles,’ Ben Isaac explained.

‘And baptized Jesus,’ Gavache added.

‘But this didn’t have the enormous outcry that the apostles and His followers claimed it did. The majority didn’t understand what had happened. Not even John understood.’

Jesus was a flexible, open, intelligent man, a rabbi, a master, a healer of souls, a preacher who greatly admired John’s methods. John the Baptist was an enormous influence. In reality John marked a break with the past. After him, Jesus intensified his rituals and preaching, presenting variations that were not pleasing to conservative believers. Jesus created a new branch of Judaism, a kind of sect. When John was beheaded by Herod Antipas, Jesus was his natural successor.

‘John never performed a miracle,’ Ben Isaac said, and then sighed deeply, as if in sorrow. ‘Neither did Jesus. The Jesus who gave sight to the blind and cured cripples exists only in the Bible.’

‘How boring. And where does Bethlehem and Nazareth fit into all this?’ Gavache asked, disillusioned.

‘The authors of the New Testament had to emphasize that Jesus was the Savior, the Anointed One, the Son of God, Emanuel, and that there was no doubt about this. The prophets of the Old Testament had pointed the way and described the steps to follow. He would be born in Bethlehem, flee to Egypt, return, and be called the Nazarene. But, as you noted, they confused “Nazarene” with “Nazarite.” ’ Ben Isaac smiled slightly. ‘The only time that He stepped foot in Nazareth, as an adult, he was poorly received. People wanted to kill him. Do you think that would have been possible if he had belonged to one of the good families of the region?’

‘What a confusing story.’ Gavache was speaking in general, not referring specifically to Ben Isaac’s account, which made sense. ‘Why did Pontius Pilate wash his hands of all this and order the Jews to decide?’

‘That’s more nonsense,’ Ben Isaac replied. ‘Do you know who the dominant force in the so-called civilized world was from 27
B.C
. through the next four hundred years?’

‘I assume you’re referring to the Romans.’

‘You assume correctly. Do you know what happened during this time?’

Gavache shrugged. He was an expert on life, not history.

‘Roman expansion, which lasted for several centuries, and in the case of the Eastern Roman Empire, more than a millennium.’ Ben Isaac counted off on his fingers. ‘The birth and death of Jesus and of Paul of Tarsus, the author of the Epistles. During this time the canonical and apocryphal gospels were written, and a new religion was born, Christianity.’

‘In other words?’

‘In other words, everything happened under Roman influence. There are no originals of the sacred texts, only transcriptions of unknown authorship and motivation. Christianity is a patchwork quilt, based on historical misrepresentations. Why do you think the Vatican is always so attentive to archaeological discoveries? Always so quick to refute or control any new fact unearthed? Because they’re living with a time bomb. They know that everything they have established is based on a lie. The New Testament is a purely political document, created to control the people. I think it also aimed to control the Jews, only they didn’t succeed.’

‘And why do you think they didn’t succeed?’ Gavache asked.

‘Because they knew the truth.’ Ben Isaac got up now and paced the room. The subject annoyed him. ‘Pontius Pilate wasn’t the good, courteous man the Bible portrays, nor was he intelligent. He was a bloody man with wicked instincts, a perverse schemer. He never washed his hands or let the Jews decide Jesus’s fate. Washing the hands was a Jewish ritual of purification, not Roman, the
netilat yadaim.
Barabbas, whom the Jews chose to free in Jesus’s place, according to the New Testament, was a Zealot, from a violent, fanatical sect of Judaism, different from the Nazarites, though they shared some methods. Barabbas had killed Roman soldiers, a serious crime; today he would be considered a terrorist. The Zealots led innumerable rebellions, always put down by the Romans, and in their final hour committed suicide en masse – men, women, and children. Pilate would never have freed a killer of Romans. It’s not only improbable but impossible.’

‘That doesn’t necessarily mean he didn’t wash his hands of it,’ Gavache insisted.

‘How does the Bible say that Jesus died?’ Ben Isaac asked.

‘Crucified.’

‘Exactly,’ Ben Isaac answered, as if expressing an obvious truth that Gavache didn’t get. ‘If you had doubts, the Crucifixion was proof that Pilate never washed his hands. He was the one who condemned Him, and not others.’

Gavache was confused, and Ben Isaac realized it.

‘Crucifixion was always a Roman sentence, not Jewish,’ he explained. ‘If he’d been condemned by the Sanhedrin, the Jewish council, the punishment would have been death by stoning.’

‘A devil of a choice,’ Gavache said ironically.

‘But He wasn’t sentenced to the Jewish punishment, was He?’ Ben Isaac ignored Gavache’s comment. ‘Jewish participation in the death of Christ was greatly exaggerated.’

‘You mean they had nothing to do with His death,’ Gavache said.

‘Not only did they have nothing to do with it, they tried to help Him.

‘When the Roman soldiers and the Temple Police arrested Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives, they didn’t bring him before Pilate. The first stop occurred during the night at the house of Caiaphas, the high priest of the Sanhedrin, in front of the Praetorium, the governor’s palace. It wasn’t at the Temple or the place where the Sanhedrin met, which indicates an informal meeting, not an audience. Also, the Sanhedrin never met at night. One of its members was Joseph of Arimathaea, who aided Jesus along the route of the cross and offered his tomb to receive His body.

‘It was the beginning of Passover, the celebration of the freeing of the Israelites from Egypt, and the Sanhedrin never condemned anyone to death during this period. It was prohibited,’ Ben Isaac continued. ‘There are many indications in the Bible that suggest that the Jews never at any time mistreated Jesus.

‘The prophet said that the Messiah would enter Jerusalem on the back of a donkey, and the crowd would hail him as the Son of David. Jesus did that in the final days of His life, but the event was not as grand as Holy Scripture describes. The Romans reinforced all the gates of the city during Passover. If the event had had all the significance the Bible gives it, Jesus would never have entered the city without being arrested. It was a capital crime for a nobleman to proclaim himself king of the Jews. Another story has Jesus expelling the money changers and sellers of doves from the Temple. It was obviously an insignificant event, exaggerated by the apostles and the writers of the gospels. Any major altercation within the Temple would have called the attention of the Temple Police, and there’s no reference to this having taken place. Jesus couldn’t have created a great scandal without being expelled from the Temple and the city itself by the authorities.

‘Or killed?’ Gavache suggested.

Ben Isaac shook his head. ‘The maximum would have been jail awaiting sentencing. As I told you, during Passover, there were no executions.’

‘But that’s not what happened. They did execute Him,’ Gavache contradicted him.

Ben Isaac didn’t reply; he stopped suddenly, as if he were revealing too much. Too late. Gavache noticed.

‘It’s possible they didn’t have Him executed,’ Ben Isaac finally said, leaning back in the chair, defeated. ‘It’s possible that the evangelists and Paul changed certain events and exaggerated others, blaming the Jews and speculating about what they didn’t know. Only Saint John the Evangelist and Saint Matthew knew Jesus. No one else witnessed anything that occurred. All the other accounts are based on hearsay. There is also the problem that the evangelists relate conversations that occurred in private without any witnesses. How could they have known what was said?’

Gavache sat down in a chair next to Ben Isaac. ‘None of this means that Jesus wasn’t crucified.’

Ben Isaac sighed. ‘Do you know what documents the lady just carried out of here?’ he asked sorrowfully.

Gavache didn’t know.

‘An inscription placing Christ in Rome in
A.D
. 45 and a gospel written by Him around the same year,’ he said.

Gavache listened without expressing an opinion. He was used to stories being a string of lies. In his profession he had caught many charitable souls, defenders of morality, some prominent in society and politics, with their hands in the cookie jar, caught doing the very thing they criticized and even prosecuted publicly. Everyone lied for one reason or another, or for no reason at all, because it was easy to complicate life, maybe a human need. The church had no reason to be any different, and wasn’t.

‘Do you believe what was written in the gospel?’ Gavache asked.

‘I don’t know. It has the same errors as the others – contradictions, incoherencies, coincidences. It’s a testimony in the first person up to the final days before the Crucifixion, with some interesting information – mysterious, even – and other news. It gives Him a real human dimension that’s different from the other gospels. He seems to have been in search of a state of permanent illumination. Perhaps it was His consecration to God from the cradle that nurtured this. He said,
I am not the son of God, but the way to Him.
The gospel places Him in Jerusalem at the time of the Crucifixion … and then ends abruptly.’