“Yes. The man who buried Christ.” Father Donovan opened the volume revealing pages in ancient Greek, and looked up. “For centuries the Vatican has feared rebuttal of Christ’s role as the Messiah. And this book provides many reasons why.” Stealing a quick glance at Santelli, Donovan braced himself not to falter or let his voice waver. So far, it seemed that the cardinal was satisfied with his performance. “Though portrayed as Christ’s advocate in the New Testament, in fact Joseph of Arimathea was secretly working to undermine Jesus’s ministry. You see, Jesus posed a substantial risk to the Jewish elite. Though he smartly avoided confronting the issues of Roman occupation, he had harshly criticized Jewish authority, particularly those priests who had turned God’s house into a travesty. In exchange for donations, the Jewish priests were allowing pagans to make sacrifices on the temple’s holy altars. They had turned the temple’s sacred courtyards into a marketplace. The temple embodied Jewish faith. Therefore, to faithful Jews like Jesus, its steady decline marked the slow death of religious tradition.”
Charlotte recalled Matthew’s portrayal of Jesus entering the Jewish temple, ransacking merchants’ and money changers’ tables. Understandably, Jesus hadn’t been keen on the holy place being used as a mall.
“Jesus had certainly found fault with the Jewish ruling class,” Donovan went on, “and he wasn’t afraid to let them know it. It was no surprise that it was the Jewish priests who’d sent their own guards to apprehend him. After Jesus was executed, Joseph of Arimathea was chosen by the Sanhedrin to approach Pontius Pilate to negotiate the release of the body. Convinced by Joseph that it would prevent Jesus’s fanatical followers from removing the body from the cross, Pilate granted his request.”
Charlotte knew body language. Though Donovan was telling his story confidently, his eyes were shifting. She recalled Giovanni remarking that removing a criminal from a cross would have been unprecedented. No crucified body had ever been recovered. But given the threat Jesus posed to the Jewish aristocracy—who seemingly had everything to lose should the system be challenged—Donovan’s explanation seemed plausible. “But why would Jesus’s followers even want to steal his body?”
“In order to declare a resurrection and portray Jesus as divine.”
“So Joseph of Arimathea procured the body to protect it?”
“That’s right.” Donovan forced himself to look at her.
Now she was put in a divisive position. There was an obvious question that needed to be presented at this juncture. Her eyes shifted to the laptop screen where the reconstructed image of the crucified man seemed to be watching vigil over the proceedings. “And the resurrection?” She swallowed hard. “Did it really happen?”
Donovan grinned. “Of course,” he replied. “The body was secretly placed in Joseph’s tomb—a location unbeknownst to Jesus’s followers. But three days later it had disappeared.”
“Was it stolen?”
Donovan felt Santelli’s judicious gaze digging into him. “That’s where the Bible is correct, Dr. Hennesey. Four separate New Testament accounts tell us that three days later Jesus rose up from the tomb. Then he reappeared to his followers and ascended to heaven.”
Charlotte didn’t know what to think. She certainly wasn’t one to believe everything in the Bible, and her early-morning brush-up reading had reminded her why. One passage in particular that described Jesus’s physical death on the cross had driven that point home. It began with Matthew 27:50:
Jesus shouted again with a loud voice and gave up His spirit. Suddenly, the curtain of the sanctuary was split in two from top to bottom; the earth quaked and the rocks were split. The tombs also were opened and many bodies of the saints who had gone to their rest were raised. And they came out of the tombs after His resurrection, entered the holy city, and appeared to many.
Reflecting on it, she saw something disturbingly contradictory to the Easter story. It was this passage that first mentioned “His resurrection”— with no three-day gap or burial having taken place. It made her wonder: if it was Jesus’s spirit that had already risen during the moment of death on the cross, then what part of him could possibly have emerged from the tomb three days later? A lifeless, spiritless shell? If bones were actually left behind, should that have surprised anyone? And what about all those other reanimated saintly corpses? Why had no other historical account made reference to so many resurrected bodies? She thought she knew the answer. Because it wasn’t a physical resurrection. The words laid out in the gospels were being misconstrued. Looking over at the Vatican’s second-incommand, she saw a seasoned bureaucrat who would hear nothing of interpretation. Though she needed to continue cautiously, she still had to address the obvious: “But what about this ossuary, the crucified corpse... and this symbol of Christ? Does this book say what it all really means?”
Composed now, Donovan leafed through the Ephemeris Conlusio almost to the end, carefully setting it back in front of her.
Studying the pages, Charlotte took in detailed drawings of the ossuary and its contents.
“After Joseph’s secret deal with Pilate,” Donovan explained levelly, “the disciples caused quite a stir in Jerusalem when they discovered that Jesus’s body had gone. The body’s disappearance allowed them to claim a resurrection had occurred. Naturally, Pilate came down hard on Joseph of Arimathea, insisting that he fix the problem.” Donovan pointed to the ossuary. “And that’s when Joseph concocted this idea.”
Charlotte tried to compute what it actually meant. “If these bones aren’t Jesus’s...”
Smiling, Donovan spun his hands, encouraging her to think it through. “. . . That means Joseph of Arimathea must have replaced the body?” “Absolutely.”
She thought she heard Santelli sigh in relief.
“According to Joseph’s account, he acquired another crucified corpse— one of two bodies that still remained on a cross atop Golgotha,...a criminal who had been killed the same day as Jesus. The body was subjected to standard Jewish burial rituals and allowed to decay for a year.”
“Thus wiping out the second man’s identity.” If Donovan was making this all up, he was doing a hell of a good job.
“Yes. A brilliant fabrication intended to prove Christ never left the tomb. A desperate attempt to discredit early Christianity in order to preserve the Jewish aristocracy.”
She let that sink in. Father Donovan’s argument was pretty good, plus he possessed what he stated to be a real document to back up his story. And it did agree with the inconsistencies she’d cited earlier, particularly the odd genetic profile and the clubbed knees. The skeleton could have belonged to some convicted criminal from a backwater Roman province. But the fact still remained that the writings in this ancient book were, quite literally, all Greek to her. The priest’s interpretation was all that she had to go by. Maybe that was how he had planned it. But why? She looked at him sharply. “It’s obvious Joseph’s plan failed. So why is it that no one previously discovered all this?” As soon as she’d asked the question, she felt herself tighten up. Was she pushing too hard?
Donovan shrugged. “I believe Joseph of Arimathea died or was killed during those first twelve months, before the body was finally prepared. Perhaps the Sanhedrin or the Romans murdered him. We’ll never really know. Let’s
