The Third Day

“You’d be laughed out of the building,” I said. “And those who didn’t laugh would assume that you’re an infiltrator, a part of the conspiracy, another cog in the vast machine the US government has created to hide the truth from the unwashed multitudes.”

“Exactly,” said Lavon. “Now multiply this phenomenon a thousand fold. Whatever your camera ends up recording, it won’t change anyone’s mind, one way or the other. You’re smart enough to know that.”

Now, my curiosity was piqued. I had not thought about it in this way before.

Bryson didn’t say anything, which got my mind turning.

“You have another plan,” I said.

He didn’t respond immediately, so I repeated my question.

“Yes,” he finally admitted. “Juliet and I recognized your point early on. Once I make the initial recording and get the lay of the land, the next step will be to set up a viewing platform, so that others may witness the truth for themselves.”

I sat back in my chair and took another slug of wine. This was insane.

Lavon was even more blunt.

“Have you completely lost your mind?” he said.

He gestured toward Markowitz.

“Just look at us! One man in our party barely escaped being flogged to death a few hours ago. Our female colleague is facing God knows what sort of degradation at the hands of Herod and we can’t do a thing about it. And the three of us, though safe for the moment, have no idea when, or if, we’ll ever be able to go home.”

“I understand your concerns,” said Bryson, “but it was never our intention to open this world to the masses. We planned to invite only professional historians and other subject-matter experts, under carefully supervised and controlled circumstances.”

Lavon rolled his eyes. “How on earth are you ever going to ensure control? Forget about us and just look at yourself. This was going to be easy. You planned to come here and record a few hours of video — what could be simpler? But then you plunked yourself directly into the middle of a skirmish you could not possibly have known about ahead of time.”

“That was bad luck, to be sure.”

“That’s the point,” I said. “You’re always going to overlook something that turns out to be important. It’s the same thing your wife said about that trading algorithm Jonah Markowitz paid you to develop: there are too many variables. You’re guaranteed to get blindsided somewhere.”

“No, I’m not,” said Bryson. “Once we’ve scouted the area, we’ll know who will be where, and when. After that, we’ll be like that guy in Groundhog Day who knew precisely when the waitress would drop the plates. We’ll be able to steer clear of any danger.”

I wasn’t sure about the we part, but chose not to comment.

And that wasn’t the half of it. Even if his historians came back to the first century, saw what Bryson expected them to see, and published their findings in the most prestigious academic journals, Aunt Mildred in Kansas was never going to take the word of some liberal Commie Harvard egghead. The whole thing would reek of yet another left-wing plot to destroy America from within.

On the other hand, if the good professor’s guests saw what they did not expect to see, would they publish their findings, or would they dismiss their observations as an optical illusion, or a mind trick of some sort driven by the subtle shifting of the brain’s neural connections as a result of quantum transformation?

For the moment, though, I decided it was best to keep such thoughts to myself. Lavon wasn’t finished.

“And when one of your experts decides to run off and have a closer look, like our friend here did in the Temple?” he asked. “What then? Or are you going to keep them chained to their observation posts the entire time they’re here?”

Bryson shook his head, flummoxed with his inability to make lesser mortals comprehend a seemingly straightforward concept.

Lavon, though, didn’t let up. “There’s one more thing that I can’t figure out, Professor: how did you know when to come back?”

Bryson acted surprised. “All four Gospels record that Jesus died on the Friday before Passover, do they not?”

“Nice try.”

We both laughed, though I wasn’t entirely sure why.

“You are correct in that Jesus died on a Friday,” Lavon continued. “But the question remains: which Friday, and which Passover?”

Bryson cast the archaeologist an exasperated glance, but didn’t otherwise respond.

“You see,” said Lavon, “this is the odd thing: we’re talking about the most significant event in recorded human history; but no one knows for sure, within a decade, as to when it actually occurred.”

This was news to me.

“A decade?” I said.

Lavon explained. “Pilate governed Judea from 26 to 36 AD, which gives us a ten or eleven year window. That’s really all modern scholars can be certain about.”

“There are no other clues in the Gospels?” I asked.

“None that are very helpful,” replied Lavon. “Luke says that Jesus was about thirty years old when he started his ministry, but that was just the author’s way of saying he was a mature adult and thus worthy of being taken seriously, not that he was 30 x 365 1/4 days old.”

“Not some young hothead, then,” I said.

“Right. Luke also ties the beginning of Jesus’s ministry to the ‘fifteenth year of the emperor Tiberius,’ but historians continue to debate whether that count should start when Augustus died, or when Tiberius became co- emperor with his elderly stepfather a few years earlier. No one really knows for sure.”

This not knowing was becoming a common theme. We both turned our attention to the Professor, waiting for him to explain.

“As you’re surely aware,” said Bryson, “Passover always occurs on the same day of the year in the Jewish calendar, the 15th of Nisan. That date, though, varies from year to year in our Gregorian calendar due to the differences between a lunar and a solar reference point.”

“Yes, just like Easter,” said Lavon. “Go on.”

“During Pilate’s term as governor, the 15th of Nisan never occurred on a Monday, Wednesday or Friday. I also concluded that Tuesday was too far removed to match the Gospel accounts.”

Lavon nodded. “I would agree.”

“Fortunately, that allowed me to eliminate five of the eleven possible candidates: the years 28, 31, 32, 34 and 35. Also, since the Gospels specifically state that Jesus died before the Passover, I could scratch the two years it fell on a Thursday as well — 27 and 30.”

“That still leaves four possibilities,” I said. “How did you narrow them down?”

“From my reading of the Gospels, the most plausible day was a Saturday, which coincided with the Sabbath.”

“That would still give you multiple options,” said Lavon. “I’ve read decent arguments for all three.”

“Yes: 26, 33 and 36,” said Bryson. “From a probability standpoint, though, I ruled out 26 as too early, and 36 as too late. That left 33 …”

“Which is obviously wrong,” I said. “I thought you said this was the year 29.”

“It is.”

“So when is the Passover this year?” I asked.

Lavon began laughing. “Sunday.”

“What’s so funny about that?” I asked.

“It means their days are mixed up this month,” he replied.

“You see; if this is the correct year — and everything we’ve seen so far tells us it is — then something is out of kilter. Under Jewish law, the Passover carried restrictions similar to those of the Sabbath. No one could do any work, which means that if the Passover were truly on Sunday, the women could not have gone to the tomb with the