Fifth Gospel:The Odyssey of a Time Traveler in First-Century Palestine

by William Roskey

  “I think not, my friend,” I said, “but I thank you for your concern.”

  “But,” he urged, “if you’ll forgive my saying so, you appear ill equipped to defend yourself. I noticed immediately back down the road that you carry no sword or spear, no club or bow.” I’ll just bet you did, I thought.

  “I am a man of peace. I don’t believe in violence.”

  “All the more reason to wait for dawn and to travel with me.” His rotted yellow teeth were bared in a predatory smile.

  “No,” I said firmly, “I appreciate your concern, but I must be moving on. Peace be with you.”

  “Very well,” he said. “Then I insist upon accompanying you for your own protection.”

  “It’s hardly necessary, but do as you wish,” I replied, casually putting my right hand on the back of my neck.

  “Then it’s settled! But before we continue, please allow me to ah … attend to the call of nature first.” He motioned for me to sit on a large rock. “I’ll be back in just a moment.” Then it was certain. He had at least one accomplice hiding in there. Before he disappeared into the thicket, he gave a quick look up and down the road. All clear.

  He had tried the easy way first, attempting to lure me off the road, and have me set upon from behind while I followed him through the blackness of the thicket. I hadn’t risen to the bait. Now he and his friend or friends were going to do it the hard way. I didn’t need my Apache blood to know that the attack would be lightning fast and that they didn’t plan on letting me live. I sighed heavily and once again berated myself for not listening to Clarence. Only seconds after I took out my Colt Peacemaker, the three of them came boiling out of the thicket like giant, crazed hornets. Speaking of giantism, one of them was easily six and a half feet tall. He was as hairy as a gorilla and wielded a club three times the thickness of a baseball bat. He scared me. The second had a spear poised, and my faithful traveling companion had his Roman short sword in his hands. I could have taken any two of them on, armed with only my knife. That’s how good and how thorough my training had been. But all three at once? Colonel Samuel Colt was going to have to save the day.

  My first shot caught Goliath in the forehead, felling him like an oak tree, and the second shot hit the man with the spear squarely in the center of the chest. Automatically I lined up Ferret Eyes in my sights, but eased up my pressure on the trigger. The two deafening explosions and their consequences had rooted him to where he stood, frozen in shock. His bulging eyes were riveted on the Peacemaker, which he had seen belch fire and thunder and death twice in one second. He dropped his sword. Neither of us moved for a very long time. My mind was spinning. I had really gone and done it this time. I had really botched things up. Not here in the past even a day, and I had already killed two men through my own stupidity, and before me stood a man who had just had nineteenth century technology demonstrated in such a graphic way that he was never going to forget it. Did this mean that I’d have to kill him too? Dr. Namuh would probably insist upon it. I had never killed a man in cold blood. Without exception, from Korea on down to the two men who now lay at my feet, the only times I had ever killed were when I had to to save my own life. Wait a minute. Forget what Dr. Namuh would say; what would Clarence do? I uncocked the gun and replaced it in my shoulder holster.

  From my traveling bag I extracted the entrenching tool and tossed it over to Ferret Eyes. “Bury them, say nothing to anyone of this, and you may live.”

  He got down on his knees. “Oh, yes! Yes, mighty sorcerer! Had I but known you knew the secret crafts of the Egyptians and the Chaldeans, we would have never …”

  “Obviously,” I observed drily. “Now I charge you most solemnly never to speak of this to anyone. If you do, you will surely die.”

  “Never, mighty sorcerer,” he sniveled, prostrating himself before me. “On my mother’s grave, I …” The rest of his babbling was lost on me for I had spun on my heel and continued down the road, leaving him to bury the dead.

  I went on my way in remorse, beset with a strange and heavy disquietude that I could not dispel for the life of me. Within hours of my arrival, I had violated three rules of time travel. I had killed. I had demonstrated advanced technology. I had let the witness live. Well, I told myself, the man was terrified; he probably never would speak about the incident to anyone. Even if he did on some occasion, his fears allayed by the influence of the grape, tell someone, he’d never be believed. Even if he were believed, the listener would chalk it up to magic. It would never occur to them to try to make their own firearms.

  But in killing those two men, had I altered history? Had they lived, might not one of their descendants have become a factor in some important historical event? Might not one of the descendants they now would never have be a da Vinci? A Bach? A Hitler? Or, would these two men just have been killed by travelers or other highwaymen stronger than themselves anyway? My head began to spin. But wait, I asked myself, the fact that I was still here—didn’t that in itself prove that I hadn’t altered history? All thoughts of this nature ultimately lead in circles, and entertaining them for any appreciable length of time is an excellent way to lose your marbles. Thrusting them out of my mind with a great effort, I gazed up at the full moon as I walked along and wondered about the man from Nazareth and who and what he really was.

  26

  I saw no one else along the way as I followed the road paralleling the Jordan until the river emptied into the Sea of Galilee; then I struck westward along the coast and hit the outskirts of Capernaum at about dawn. A bustling fishing port on the northwestern shore of the Sea of Galilee, it was the logical place to start. Although they were originally from Bethsaida, it was here that Jesus was supposed to have recruited Peter and his brother Andrew, along with their business partners, James and John, the sons of Zebedee. It was at Capernaum’s quayside, while Matthew was bent over his customs ledger, that Jesus had simply said, “Follow me,” to the tax collector, and the man immediately rose and did just that for the remainder of his life. In addition, Capernaum is but twenty miles from Nazareth, where Jesus spent the first thirty years of his life, a period remarkable for the fact that no one really knows anything at all of it. If time and circumstances permitted, I could do a little research in that area. Most importantly, though, Capernaum was Jesus’ base of operations, the place to which he always returned, the place, Mark says, where Jesus felt most “at home.”

  The nervous energy that I’d been running on since I’d left Clarence’s house and drove down to Oak Ridge was finally beginning to give out on me. You can only run on adrenalin for so long. Sleep. That was the first order of the day.

  Even at this early hour, the town was starting to stir. There were a number of women in the street carrying pitchers of water gracefully balanced on their heads, and tough and swarthy looking fisherman with bleary eyes were heading down toward the docks. I stopped one of the latter and asked him where I might find a good inn. Eyeing me suspiciously (I think it was my very unusual accent), he directed me to a rather large affair, whitewashed, and built around a central courtyard, with small rooms opening onto it. The roof was composed of red tiles, unlike the roofs of the dwellings around it; no humble roof of wattling covered with beaten earth for this edifice. Clearly, had there been a first century Michelin Guide, this place looked like a good bet for a five-star rating.

  An attractive but stern-looking young woman answered my knock. Her complexion was dark and smooth, and her raven hair framed a face that would have even been beautiful had it not been for the hardness in her dark appraising eyes.

  “Yes?”

  “I’m a traveler in need of lodging. Have you any rooms available?” She didn’t answer my question; instead, she seemed to only intensify her scrutiny.

  “For how long?”

  “That I cannot say,” I replied, spreading my hands. Silence for a time, and then, with those shrewd black eyes still measuring me, she responded a second time, yet still not answering my question.

/>   “You are a merchant then?”

  I should mention here that, in those times, it was not at all unusual for a trader to travel to a distance province or country and spend a year there negotiating sales before returning to his home to execute the orders. James even refers to this in Chapter 4, Verse 13.

  “No, I am not,” I smiled. “I am more of a pilgrim, actually.” She frowned and began to close the door. I put my foot in it.

  “I would, of course, pay you in advance.”

  “The daily rate, Sir Pilgrim, is two denarii,” she said in a supercilious way. “It has been my experience that few self-righteous, prayer-babbling vagabonds are able to afford our accommodations.” Those black eyes watched transfixed as I extracted two shiny silver shekels from my bulging coin bag.

  “Excellent,” I said, not batting any eye, “please permit me to pay you for four days in advance. If I leave before then, you need only give me my change, and needless to say, should I decide to stay, I’ll continue to pay you in advance. Will that arrangement be satisfactory?”

  “Most satisfactory, sir,” she replied smiling, every inch the transformed woman. “Welcome to my humble inn. May your stay be a pleasant and prosperous one.”

  “Peace to all in this house,” I intoned as I crossed the threshold.

  My room was clean by anyone’s standards, and the mat upon which I was to sleep was almost new. Good, I wasn’t yet enough of a first century man to peacefully coexist with lice. I used my bedroll as a pillow, and under it stashed my Colt.45, journal, and money. I slept like a baby for a solid eight or nine hours and, when I awoke, felt completely refreshed and relaxed. Just plain old fashioned sleep is, and has always been one of the most potent wonder drugs around. It’s cheap too.

  I walked into the front room of the innkeeper’s quarters to find a slightly overweight young man with a shock of prematurely graying hair preparing to go out. He turned and beamed.

  “Ah! You slept well, I trust? Anna told me she took in another guest early this morning. You would be he, according to her description.”

  “Yes, I slept very well, thank you. You are …?”

  “Bartholomew,” he replied with a friendly bob of his head, “master of this inn. Anna is my wife. At least,” he paused to consider in mock seriousness, “I think I am master of this inn. I must ask Anna about it. I get confused sometimes.” His eyes twinkled. I liked him.

  “I am Lightfoot. I come from a land far to the west, which I’m quite sure you never heard of. In any case, that’s unimportant. My king has sent me here to learn all I can about a man—one Jesus of Nazareth, a preacher. Perhaps you can help me.” At the sound of Jesus’ name, Bartholomew became very animated.

  “Perhaps we can help each other. Please accompany me on my constitutional before the evening meal, Lightfoot.” He rolled the name awkwardly around his mouth. “Lightfoot … what manner of name is that? Egyptian? Phoenician? Syrian?”

  “Western.”

  “Just so. Western,” he nodded, satisfied. We went through the door and began walking at a sedate pace, passing many fishermen going home for the day. Bartholomew walked with his hands clasped behind his back, his eyes gazing thoughtfully off into the distance.

  “Yes, perhaps we can help each other. You see, we’ve had many travelers, pilgrims one might even say, stop at the inn. This Jesus has suddenly come out of nowhere, out of complete obscurity, and has begun a ministry of some sort. He came through here several weeks, no; it’s been closer to two months ago now, and even recruited some local men. I regret that I did not hear him speak the few short days he was here. I was off visiting my brother and his wife in Baskama. By the time I’d returned, they’d all gone. They traveled south and have picked up many followers, or so I’m told. Of late, many of our guests who have come up from Samaria and Judea tell quite remarkable tales of this Jesus. The stories grow more frequent and, might I say, more incredible with each passing day. The passion that the man arouses, both for and against him, is powerful indeed. Now scarcely an evening meal goes by without heated arguments erupting among our guests. I have consistently remained neutral though. A prudent businessman must.

  “A professional innkeeper must never favor one side over another in a debate among his clients. You, Lightfoot,” he was still having trouble pronouncing my name, “are obviously a man of the world, a man who has traveled far, a man of much learning. I perceive that you have spent much time in many inns. You know how important the role of the innkeeper is.” I nodded gravely, and he continued.

  “You see, the professional innkeeper must never stifle the free exchange of ideas. On the contrary, it is his sacred duty to society to encourage it. It is only through learning from his fellows that man progresses.” Bartholomew’s manner approached pomposity, but you just couldn’t dislike the little guy. He was exactly the kind of character that Don Knotts has always been so good at portraying. “An innkeeper,” he went on, “must be a philosopher to be sure, but he must also be an excellent moderator, ensuring that everyone has his opportunity to be heard, a Solomon-like judge who sees to the proper presentation of each case, a listener with the patience of Job of old, a referee to prevent physical harm from befalling those who get, ah, shall we say, overenthusiastic in their arguments, a man with the wisdom and insight of—”

  “You said we might be able to help each other?” He frowned at the interruption, but only for a fleeting instant.

  “The last few weeks have been like no others in memory. I have talked with people who have claimed that they have seen Jesus heal the sick, restore sight to the blind, cleanse lepers, and perform all manner of miracles. Others say that they have seen him, and all they beheld was but an ordinary man, except that this one speaks in riddles, making no sense. Some say he is a great prophet surely come from God; others say that he is a blasphemer who must be put to death. Some even say,” and at this, Bartholomew stopped in the middle of the road, dramatically looked over his shoulder and around in all directions, then stage-whispered, “that he is the Messiah!”

  “What do you think?”

  He put an index finger to his temple and resumed walking. “I don’t know. Even in my short lifetime, I have seen several men who have held great sway over people, men who claimed to be the Messiah, who worked wondrous ways with words, much like a fine musician does with the notes on the scale. Artistry. Sheer artistry. Yet, alas, all of them turned out at last to be frauds that had to be stoned. I have seen eight or ten such men like this; perhaps I shall see eight or ten more. This particular man seems to be the least likely candidate of all. He keeps company with tax collectors, drunks, thieves, and prostitutes. Hardly what one would expect of the Holy One of God, the Messiah,” He shook his head. “I don’t know. I cannot say. I only know that if, I mean to say, what if he is the Messiah? What if, only a few days journey from where we now stand, the most momentous events in the history of the world are now taking place? I can’t bear it, Lightfoot! I must find out!”

  “Then come with me,” I said. “We’re both after the same thing.” He shook his head ruefully.

  “It isn’t as simple as that, my friend. You don’t know my Anna. I have brought up the matter several times recently, and she becomes enraged. I was hoping that perhaps you might intercede for me. You are obviously a man of means, or so my wife says, and she is always right about such things. In addition to that, now it turns out that you are a highly placed advisor to a king in a foreign land, come here solely to seek out and observe this Jesus. You,” he coughed nervously, “could perhaps discuss the importance of your mission with my wife. That may well influence her enough to accede to my request to let me seek out this man so that I may see him for myself, since it is well known that a woman respects a stranger’s opinion more than her own husband’s.”

  “I’ll be happy to. But what if this doesn’t work?”

  “Perhaps you could tell her of your intention to hire a guide, a local person who knows the country and the people and the language b
etter than yourself.” I stared at him. It wasn’t a bad idea. Not a bad idea at all. Misunderstanding the reason for my silence, he hastily added, “Not that your knowledge of our language is bad, you understand. It’s just that your accent may make it difficult for some to understand you. Then too, my knowledge of local customs and so forth may well prove to be quite useful to you.”

  The more I thought about it, the more convinced I was. Bartholomew could be useful. Not only in the ways he was suggesting, but also as a man Friday of sorts. He could take care of the logistics, procuring food and lodging, transportation, and the like, leaving me more time to devote listening to and observing Jesus. Yes, I thought, it wasn’t a bad idea at all.

  “Oh,” he waved a negligent hand, “you wouldn’t have to pay me much. A nominal sum would suffice. To be honest, I’d do it for free. It’s just that Anna puts so much stock in money that I fear, in the end, that will be the only argument that will win her over.”

  I was still lost in thought, trying to analyze the additional complications a companion might pose to a time traveler. As long as he didn’t go rooting through my belongings, and as long as he respected my right to privacy when I needed to work on my reports …

  “You needn’t really pay me at all, Lightfoot,” he blurted. “Just tell the woman that you’ll be paying me, and, when I return home, I’ll just tell her that on the way back I was set upon by bandits, and that all my wages were stolen!” He looked at me anxiously.

  “I’ll pay you. What do you think would be a reasonable price?”

  He beamed and spoke briskly. “Ah, well. That would depend to a large extent upon the length of the trip. When I’ve considered going by myself, I’ve thought that a month should be more than sufficient to determine whether or not this man is really the Messiah.” I frowned in reply.