The Testimonium

by Lewis Ben Smith

  “DAD!!” He threw open the door and embraced his father, who stood there grinning, with his mother right beside him. “How on earth did you get here? How long have you been here?”

  His father released him, and Josh’s mom stepped up and hugged him too.

  “It’s good to see you, son!” he said. “After we saw the news of the explosion, your mother and I were sick with worry, even after you called. Then Brother Bowers called and asked if we would like two tickets to Naples, leaving later that night. Who could turn down such an offer?”

  Josh nodded. That would be just like Brady Bowers, a deacon in his father’s church who had made a bundle in the dotcom boom of the nineties and gotten out before it went south. He had dedicated his life to Christian charities and church planting, and was one of his dad’s closest friends. Josh looked at the familiar faces of his parents and found his eyes welling up with tears. Thank you, Brother Brady! he thought.

  “You have no idea how glad I am to see you two,” he said. “It’s been a very tough few days.”

  His dad nodded sympathetically. “I’ve been watching every bit of news coverage I could,” he said. “We saw the big press conference from the airport, and then caught your remarks to the press right before we boarded the plane.” The old pastor grinned. “Those were some downright eloquent statements—a couple of them seemed a bit familiar!”

  Josh grinned. His dad always had a way of making him feel better just by being there. “I suppose I must have picked something up after being dragged into church three times a week for my first eighteen years!” he said.

  His mother looked at the room. “Those museum folks must like you,” she said. “This is a lot nicer than our room!”

  Josh laughed. “They have been very gracious hosts,” he said.

  About that time his phone rang. It was Luke Martens. “Did your folks find you all right, Josh?” he asked.

  “Woke me from a sound sleep,” he said.

  “Your mother wanted to bring you breakfast at seven thirty,” he said, “but I talked her into giving you another three hours. Why don’t you all come down to mine and Alicia’s suite? We’ve ordered a big brunch.”

  “That sounds good,” said Josh, suddenly realizing he had not eaten in nearly twenty-four hours.

  “Isabella is coming too,” said Martens. “She called a little while ago and had just woken up. She wants to meet your folks.”

  “Great!” said Josh. “Is Duncan coming too?”

  “No, but we can watch him on television,” said Martens. “He was on one of the Sunday morning shows in the States—they taped it late last night, but we recorded it on our DVR so we could watch it with you guys.”

  “Awesome!” said Josh. “I’ll be down shortly.”

  He turned to his folks. “Feel free to have a seat on the couch,” he said. “I’m gonna jump in the shower and wake myself up for a minute, and try to make myself presentable. Then we can go down and eat with the Martens.”

  He disappeared into the bathroom, and his mother leaned over toward his father and whispered: “I bet that Italian girl is going to be there! Josh never cares if he is presentable or not!”

  Ben Parker looked down at her with a small grin. “You’re an impossible woman!” he said.

  A half hour later, they walked into the suite where Dr. Martens and Alicia were staying, to find Isabella had beaten them there. Josh introduced her to his parents and then firmly placed himself between Isabella and his mother, determined to shield her from the third-degree inquisition he knew would be forthcoming for as long as possible. Isabella looked much more relaxed and comfortable, having exchanged the large bandage on her head for a smaller, simpler Band-Aid. The lines of stress and grief had eased somewhat, although she was still more somber and grim than the vibrant young archeologist Josh had met on Capri two weeks before.

  The group of six arranged themselves on the sofa and easy chairs and Luke Martens turned on the TV and DVR. The program had aired several hours ago in the States. It was the popular morning show hosted by none other than the impeccably groomed Tyler Patterson.

  “Good morning, world!” he boomed his familiar greeting. “And welcome to the Sunday Morning Report! The whole world is abuzz with debate about the Testimonium Pilatus, the two-thousand-year-old Roman scroll that was discovered in the island of Capri two weeks ago today. Is it authentic? Does it truly prove that Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead? Or is it part of a da Vinci Code–style plot on the part of the Church? Here in our studio to discuss the matter is Pastor Joel Wombaker, host of Blessed and Getting Better, America’s number one Sunday Christian broadcast, and Dr. David Hubbard, renowned atheist spokesman. Joining us from Italy are Dr. Duncan MacDonald, Catholic priest and a member of the original excavation team, and former Antiquities Board member Maria Tintoretto. Welcome to you all! Now, Father MacDonald, you were one of the original team members. Why don’t you tell us why, in your opinion, the Testimonium is absolutely genuine.”

  The screen split and Duncan appeared, wearing a khaki shirt with his clerical collar. “Good morning to ye, Tyler!” he said in a sprightly fashion. He enjoyed using his Scottish accent to lull verbal opponents into thinking he would be an easy mark before closing in with a devastating response to their argument. “Now bear in mind, laddie, that the actual chamber was discovered by Giuseppe Rossini and Isabella Sforza. I was not called into the site until the next day. However, the minute I got in there and looked around, it was very obvious that everything in that chamber had been left in place for many, many centuries. The stone dust that had filtered down from the steps overhead had created a two-inch-deep layer over everything, and the only part of it that was disturbed was where Dr. Sforza and Giuseppe had entered the tomb and cleaned the dust from Tiberius’ writing desk—which, I am proud to add, was recovered earlier today from the site of the blast, damaged but with the Tiberius letter still attached and intact!”

  Josh smiled at that. So the Tiberius letter had survived! He supposed it was a good thing they had not even tried to detach it from the top of the desk. He refocused his attention on the screen.

  “The reliquary where the Tiberius scroll was found was in the very back of the chamber and was the last item removed,” the priest was saying. “Being leaned against the back wall, it was covered with a very thick layer of dust, and had been partly buried in a dirt slide, so that we could not even tell what it was at first. Once we got inside it, we did discover that rats had chewed up most of the contents of the reliquary, which proved to be a bitter disappointment. However, there was a small locked compartment up by the top shelf that looked intact. We actually moved the entire cabinet into the mobile lab before we tried to open it.”

  “So how was it the rats were not able to get into this compartment as easily as they had the rest of the cabinet?” asked Patterson.

  “Well, I did say it was locked, didn’t I?” said MacDonald. “Fortunately, we had discovered the key, an exquisitely worked item, in Tiberius’ writing desk earlier that week. With a little lubrication we were able to insert the key and get the tumblers to move, and the door sprang open. The compartment had solid wooden walls which extended to the very back of the cabinet. The only way the rats could have gotten in would have been to chew a hole directly behind the compartment, and they had already opened a large hole near the bottom which was all they needed to go in and out. Rats don’t eat papyrus; they just use it to line their nests. Apparently there were enough other documents in the rest of the reliquary to give them all they needed!”

  “Pastor Wombaker, what thoughts would you like to add?” Tyler interrupted the priest.

  “I think the Testimonium is a wonderful discovery, which proves to the world what the Church has been saying all along—that Christianity rests on a firm foundation of reliable history,” said the TV preacher, flashing his famous grin. “All the fellas who have been trying to put Jesus back in His tomb for the last twenty years or so have all got egg on their faces this morn
ing!”

  “Indeed?” said Patterson. “Dr. Hubbard, do you have any egg on your face today?”

  “No sir,” said the atheist. “I am on a low-cholesterol diet. But seriously, Tyler, this whole thing stinks to the high heavens. I mean, first, as soon as the discovery is made, they fly in a Vatican representative and the son of a rural Evangelical preacher to do the excavation? What kind of science is that?”

  “Just as solid as hiring an evolutionist to excavate dinosaur bones!” snapped MacDonald. “Listen here, laddie, I am one of the most experienced handlers of ancient papyrus in the whole world, and young Dr. Parker is almost as good as I am! We were called in for our scientific credentials, not because of our religious beliefs!”

  “If anyone believes that, I have some ocean front property in Kentucky I’d like to sell them!” snapped Hubbard. “Now, sir, I don’t doubt that you know your ancient documents and inks pretty well. That would make it pretty easy for you to fake them, now wouldn’t it?”

  “You can’t fake C-14 dates, laddie,” replied MacDonald. “Nor can you fake twenty centuries’ worth of atomized stone dust! Every single test we ran on the dust from that chamber showed it was two thousand years old!”

  “Dr. Tintoretto, you were a member of the Board of Antiquities that oversaw the excavation. You are also an outspoken critic of this discovery. Can you tell us—were there any irregularities in their field techniques that would have created a window for a hoax of this magnitude?”

  “Certainly there were! The excavation director left the site overnight, leaving these two Christian cultists in charge of the excavation during that time. Who knows what they could have gotten up to while she was gone?” the Italian scholar sneered.

  “Now see here!” snapped MacDonald. “It is perfectly normal for the lead archeologist to report in to her supervisors. During the time Isabella was gone, Dr. Apriceno was busy removing centuries of dust deposits from the chamber, after taking samples from every surface to make sure that there was no question of disturbance.”

  “It’s rather convenient, for the Church’s purpose, that those samples are all destroyed now, isn’t it?” she asked in a mocking tone.

  MacDonald’s voice was quiet, dead calm, and seething with rage. “Considering that eight people are dead, three of them dear friends of mine, and that every bit of testing would have confirmed the authenticity of our finds, I would say it is decidedly inconvenient!” he snapped.

  “Well, let me pose this question to our two doubting Thomases,” said Patterson. “If the carbon dating next week shows the scroll to be two thousand years old, will that satisfy you that it is genuine?”

  “Not really,” said Hubbard. “It only proves that the papyrus is that old. It proves nothing about the writing on it!”

  MacDonald was opening his mouth to respond when Tyler cut him off. “Well, folks, time for a commercial break! When we come back, more on the investigation into the bombing at the Naples Museum. Thank you, Father MacDonald, Dr. Hubbard, Dr. Tintoretto, and Pastor Wombaker!”

  The four scholars were all trying to talk to each other at once when the program cut to commercial. Martens cut the TV off. Josh shook his head.

  “Desperate people are pretty sad, aren’t they, son?” his dad asked.

  “You can say that again,” Josh replied.

  “Well, you have made at least one convert,” said Isabella, handing Josh a newspaper. It was the Chicago Tribune’s international edition, and she had it opened to the op-ed page. “It seems our friend Mr. Eastwood has been pretty impressed with your discovery and commentary.”

  Josh looked at the column, entitled, “Confessions of a Former Atheist.”

  “Well, I’ll be,” he said as he began to read.

  CONFESSIONS OF A FORMER ATHEIST

  BY ANDREW EASTWOOD, FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT

  One does not have to be a Christian to understand the power of Jesus' words; simple in vocabulary, cosmic in scale, stately in their rhythms and deep in their impact, they changed the world. But most of the world’s Christians will immediately tell you that their faith does not rest upon Jesus’ eloquence as a speaker, or his skill as a philosopher, or even his reputation for working miracles. From the time of the Apostle Paul, the central claim of Jesus’ followers has been that this Galilean rabbi who lived two thousand years ago was in fact the virgin-born Son of God, sent to reconcile a lost humanity with a loving Father by sacrificing Himself, and then conquering death after it had claimed Him. Such an extraordinary claim demands extraordinary proof, and the proof that the Church has pointed to for twenty centuries is the story of the empty tomb and the Risen Christ, seen by his followers for forty days, then ascended into heaven to await the End Times.

  I was raised in the Church, but like most young people, when I went off to college I shed my religion like an old pair of socks. Eager to chase women and anxious to be thought of as an intellectual heavyweight, I drank deeply from the wisdom of my professors, who told me that Christianity was nothing but another fertility cult, similar in its claims to dozens of other mystery religions of the time, and that if there was a historical Jesus, he bore no resemblance to the Suffering Savior of the Gospels. That secular perspective liberated me from the oppressive morality my parents tried to force on me, freeing me to make love to whoever I wanted, drink as much as I wanted, and to convince myself that I was the captain of my fate, the master of my soul.

  But over the years, I found that lifestyle increasingly empty. Some of the confident claims of my college professors did not bear up under scrutiny—the so-called resemblances between Christianity and other fertility cults, for example, I found to be either manufactured or greatly exaggerated. And, I will admit, the faith and confidence of those who had remained in the Church intimidated me. They seemed to be happy and fulfilled in a way that I was not.

  Still, I remained confident that the Gospels were largely fairy tales. If believing in such nonsense made my friends happy, more power to them. I was too smart to fall for the story of a magical carpenter who healed the sick, rose from the dead, and then disappeared into the sky. Even in my spiritual loneliness, I felt confident in my intellectual superiority to those who bought into such simple myths.

  But when I was sent to Naples to report on the discoveries at Capri, I was forced to reexamine my beliefs and my skepticism. What if the Gospel stories really were true? I did not want to accept it. I found myself hoping that Pilate’s tale would show that Jesus’ body really had been stolen, or burned, or removed on government order, so that I would know once and for all that my skepticism had been well-placed. Well, we all saw how that worked out. The Testimonium, which in this reporter’s opinion passes the bar of authenticity with flying colors, shows that the early Church did not base its claims of a Resurrection on wishful thinking and mistaken identity. Something miraculous really did happen in Jerusalem in 33 AD, the Sunday morning after Passover.

  And something miraculous happened in my life as well. As I heard the words read by Dr. Parker Saturday afternoon, fifteen years of carefully cultivated skepticism and secularism collapsed within me like a house of cards. I found myself leaving the press conference, filing my obligatory story, and then seeking out the nearest church. There, for the first time since I was eighteen, I knelt at the altar and spoke to the Almighty. “Hello, God. It’s me, Andrew. Remember me?”

  It turns out He did.

  <<>>

  GARCIA: Got an interesting bit of intel from the North African data stream, Colonel.

  BERTRAND: What’s shaking in the world of bad guys, Dingo?

  GARCIA: Looks like “the Ethiopian” may be on the move, sir.

  BERTRAND: Abbasside? No one has heard a peep about him in five years. Are you sure?

  GARCIA: No, sir, not a hundred percent, but chatter is indicating that a high-ranking operative has move
d from Somalia northward to Libya in the last twenty-four hours, seeking ID papers and a passport to the European Union. The info is fragmentary and garbled, and we weren’t able to intercept a photograph, but the physical description we intercepted matches what we know of Abbasside, and the deference the everyday jihadist drones are showing to him indicates that he is pretty high up the food chain. I’ve collated the information and will be forwarding it to you momentarily via secure email. There’s only two or three of the highest ranked AQ leaders still at large, and he is the only one we suspect of holing up in that corner of the globe.

  BERTRAND: Good work, son. Any idea of his destination?

  GARCIA: Could be London—scuttlebutt says that there is some sort of op supposed to go down there this summer. MI6 is scrambling to penetrate the local affiliates and see if they can figure it out. My gut tells me Italy. The attack there last week failed to take out its target, and the chatter among monitored AQ cells indicates a high degree of concern that this scroll will be damaging to Islam.

  BERTRAND: I think London is more likely, personally, but by all means monitor all the chatter from known Italian cells as well. And keep data mining and see if any other possible targets might be in the works. We do NOT need another successful terror attack, given all the unrest in the region. Excellent work, and thanks for keeping me in the loop. Keep a status report coming every twelve hours, or more often as events warrant.

  GARCIA: Aye, sir! Signing off!

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  After watching the talking heads bicker for a while, Josh heard a knock at the hotel room door, and when Alicia answered it, two waiters entered the room pushing silver service carts piled high with dishes of food. The Martens’ suite had a good-sized dining table, although with the six of them it was a bit cozy. As they took their places, Josh noticed with some trepidation that his mother took the place directly across from Isabella.

  The food was delicious, and all of them were hungry. Josh could feel the soreness leaving his body as the hot, nourishing Italian foods, rich in cheese, butter, and garlic, filled him with warmth both literal and metaphorical. After the wrenching events of Friday and the draining press conference on Saturday, he felt as if he were slowly returning to normal. After some routine chitchat about the weather and the beauty of the city of Naples, Josh’s dad turned to Isabella.