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

by William Roskey

  Such was the tenor of my thoughts during those weeks. Nothing new or creative or original. Just the same thoughts that everyone mulls over somewhere between the cradle and the grave. Only my thoughts became an obsession. Looking back on it now, I can see that the problem was, to paraphrase St. Augustine, that I was trying to understand so that I could believe, instead of believing so that I could understand. Later I would realize just how apt Bartholomew’s description of me had been; I was indeed blind.

  So I drifted along, mechanically interviewing people, watching and listening to the Nazarene, and keeping records. Bartholomew remarked upon my turning inward, but respected my privacy. (Incidentally, when his self-appointed hitch of thirty days was up, he continued to stay with me as I followed Jesus. I said nothing about it, and neither did he.) I was so preoccupied those days that I often forgot to eat or even to sleep. On more than one occasion, Bartholomew found it necessary to shake me after I’d been sitting motionless for hours, staring unseeingly into the embers of our campfire. Then he’d tell me to get some sleep. But just as often, I wouldn’t go to sleep. I’d just roll onto my back, stretch out, and continue staring and thinking. But then my gaze would be on the cold brilliant stars as they wheeled in the vastness of outer space.

  I felt as if I was waiting for something but didn’t know what. Then it happened.

  We were on a hillside about three miles outside of Capernaum. It was early afternoon, and the sky was bright and sunny, a rich cobalt blue with rounded heaps of brilliant white puffy cumulus clouds. A cool and gentle breeze blew off the nearby Sea of Galilee. We and between 900 and 1000 others were reclining on the grassy slope in blissful coexistence with a few large herds of sheep which were grazing on it. Jesus was telling the story of the man who had prepared a great feast for his friends and sent out his servants to tell them that it was ready, at which point they all began to make excuses, saying that they had more immediate concerns that had to be attended to.

  For no particular reason, I glanced back over my shoulder and saw a dazed man on the fringe of the crowd. His eyes firmly fixed on Jesus; he stumbled forward purposefully, with all the single-minded determination of a salmon swimming upstream during spawning season. He was totally oblivious to the people he was tripping over and bumping into. If he wasn’t in a state of shock, he was close to it.

  He was a very well dressed man, and I noticed that most of the crowd seemed to know him and respectfully made way so that he could get through the press.

  “Who’s that?” I asked Bartholomew.

  “That’s Jairus,” he answered, “the head of the court of elders in the synagogue at Capernaum, a man much respected and loved. Something seems to be very wrong.”

  We watched him distractedly for a moment before it hit me. Thanks to the Bible reading sessions with Cindy, I knew exactly what was wrong! His daughter was dying! He was coming to ask Jesus to heal her, but, on the way back to his home, a servant would intercept them with the news that she had died. This was, quite literally, the chance of a lifetime.

  “Bartholomew, do you know where Jairus lives?”

  “Of course,” he shrugged, “Capernaum is not exactly Rome, you know. Everybody knows where everybody else lives. Especially where a man of Jairus’ station in the community lives.”

  “Bartholomew, I can’t explain now. There’s not enough time. But you’ve got to take me there just as fast as you’re physically able to run. In fact, faster,” I said, springing to my feet. He opened his mouth, but I cut him short with an impatient wave of my hand. “There’s no time, Bartholomew! Trust me! This is vitally important!! Run like the Evil One himself is right at your heels and gaining!” As he rose, he saw the urgency in my eyes, and he heard it in my voice. He just nodded and took off in a lope, which, at my urgings as I ran one step behind, turned into a dead run.

  Well, he wasn’t in shape, and that’s putting it charitably. The little innkeeper/philosopher was puffing like a steam engine before we’d run a mile. His short and bandy little legs pumped like pistons, but the cyclic rate began to slow drastically at about a mile and a half out.

  “Faster, Bartholomew, faster! Don’t let up now! Go! Go! Go!” I was now running alongside him, yelling these and similar encouragements into his right ear. With a visible effort, he picked up the pace again, his chest heaving like a blacksmith’s bellows, and huge drops of sweat popping out on his forehead like transparent grapes. At two miles, the features on his face were twisted into a look of sheer torture.

  “Come on, Bartholomew! Don’t give up on me now! There’s Capernaum right there! Just ahead! Just get me to Jairus’ house! Go! Go! Go!”

  The little guy’s effort was a valiant one. Although his run was little more than a tenth the distance run by the original marathoner (who, as you’ll recall, dropped dead after giving the Athenians the news), Bartholomew put in ten times the effort. Which is, I thought as I ran along beside him, yet another and better definition of courage. A man of courage is a man who gives it all he’s got, regardless of how much that is, regardless of whether he wins or loses, and regardless of whether anyone ever takes notice of his effort.

  Soon after we entered Capernaum, Bartholomew dropped like a sack of wet cement. There was such an air of finality about the way that he went down that I didn’t even try to get him up. If he could just give me accurate directions, that would be enough. I knelt over him and grinned.

  “Surprised even yourself, I’ll bet! You’re quite a guy. Bartholomew. You can just rest here until you’re all right, then meet me at Jairus’. How do I get there from here?” Between gasps, he told me, then I was off and running.

  A scant three minutes later I pounded into the courtyard of the house that I took to be Jairus’ residence, and the moaning and wailing issuing from an open door confirmed it. I stopped and leaned against the wall for a moment to catch my breath and collect my thoughts. While I’d been running, I’d been trying to formulate a plan but had yet to come up with one. The only thing I knew for certain was that I had to confirm that the girl was really dead before Jesus arrived. Secondly, I wanted to be right there to see him raise her up.

  My breathing began to slow, but still I had no plan. I looked over my shoulder. If Jesus came immediately and if he walked at a fairly quick pace over the terrain I had just run, I figured I had maybe forty minutes or so. There was no more time to think, to plan. I’d just have to play it by ear. I took a deep breath, tried to compose myself, and stepped across the threshold.

  There were ten people in the dimly lit room. As my eyes adjusted to the gloom, I saw that three of the ten were professional mourners. Like the true leeches that they were, they had wasted no time in getting here, and they were all trying to outdo each other in terms of decibels. Two others I took to be servants, and the remaining five seemed to be friends or neighbors. It was one of the latter who approached me.

  “Peace be to all in this house,” I intoned, and he bowed in acknowledgement.

  “Are you a friend of the family?” he asked in a voice that seemed to come up from a sepulcher.

  “The girl’s parents have sent for Jesus of Nazareth,” I replied, neatly evading the question, “and I must see her immediately.”

  He looked me over from head to toe. “You then, are this Jesus of Nazareth, of whom we have heard so much?”

  “Please,” I said, ignoring this question as well, “I must see the girl now. Time is of the essence.”

  The man shrugged and spread his hands, palms up. “Time is no longer of any importance. The child died shortly after her father left here nearly two hours ago.”

  “Where is the child?” I said abruptly. The moaning and wailing from the three professionals was beginning to get on my nerves, as was this man’s total lack of concern over time or whether I saw the little girl or not. Even as I asked the question, I knew that Jesus, Jairus, Peter, James, and John were taking, long quick strides as they hastened on their way here. Again, the man examined me from head to toe.


  “You are this Jesus of Nazareth?”

  “No, I am not.”

  Another fatalistic shrug of the shoulders and spread of the hands.

  “Then why …” That did it. I just could not afford to waste any more time like this. I clamped one hand on his shoulder in a vise-grip and pointed to the three mourners with the other hand as I looked him straight in the eye. My voice was even and steady as I spoke.

  “Friend, those people have already got their next engagement booked for them if you don’t take me straight to that child, and I mean now.” Sometimes when I’m under intense pressure or am about to lose control, I’m told, my eyes tend to take on a wild look. That’s how they must have looked then, because even in that darkened room, I saw the color drain from that man’s face as if someone had pulled a plug. I released my grip and followed him through another door, down a short corridor, then through yet another door.

  Unquestionably, the child lay in the stillness of death. I had been in the presence of death before and often enough to feel that it hung like an oppressive pall in this room. The mother knelt, sobbing uncontrollably, while an older woman held her heaving shoulders and tried to console her. An attempt doomed of course, to futility, but sometimes there’s nothing we humans can think of to do except something futile. We stood behind them, and they hadn’t heard us enter. With a curt nod, I dismissed my reluctant guide.

  I was fully aware of each precious second as it ticked by. In my mind’s eye, I kept seeing Jesus, Jairus, and the rest on the way, each step bringing them inexorably closer to this room. I cleared my throat loudly.

  “Excuse me,” I said authoritatively, “but I have come to examine the child.” Well, it was the truth.

  The older woman half-turned and simply replied, “leave us.”

  “But my good woman—” I harrumphed.

  “The child is dead. The child has been dead for two hours now. Go.” Her eyes were dry, if a bit red-rimmed, and the lines etched on her face told of a woman who was a tough customer indeed. She had it in her mind to protect the mother who was blinded by grief, and she appeared to be eminently suited for the task. I picked my words carefully.

  “Jesus of Nazareth is on his way here.”

  “Jesus?” the older woman asked. And, at the mention of his name, the mother turned toward me for the first time. Then she looked at the older woman and nodded.

  “Yes,” she said, “Jairus went to find him, but … it’s too late now.” She looked like she was going to break down again, and that was the last thing I needed, so I tried to keep the ball rolling.

  “Yes, Jesus is on his way and will be here momentarily. I have come on ahead of him. Will you permit me to examine the child?”

  “But, sir … as my neighbor has just told you, she is dead.”

  “I come from a land far to the west, a land where our medical knowledge is far more advanced than even that of Rome’s.” Well, that was true too. “As you may know, there are some diseases which slow all the body’s functions to such a point that a state which mimics death occurs. Perhaps that is the case here.” I could see it in her eyes. She clutched at the straw of hope I held out. Her neighbor could see the effect of my words too and was having none of it. She sprang to her feet.

  “How dare you! Who do you think you are, that you can hold out false hopes to a woman sick with bereavement! Swine!” she spat, advancing menacingly toward me, “I’ll see you flogged!”

  “Woman!” I thundered. “Listen to reason! You owe this woman and her daughter that much! If I am right, perhaps the child yet lives, and she can be healed. If you are right and the child is indeed dead, well, I can do no harm.” I wasn’t about to say that if the child were dead, then Jesus might be able to raise her anyway. That, I felt, would have been a bit too much to ask these two women to believe at that point. If the older woman was concerned about me hurting the mother by holding our false hopes that would have really had me thrown out of the house.

  A long, long moment of absolute silence ticked by while the two women studied my face. Finally, the mother rose to her feet. “Very well, examine her then. You have my permission.” She and her neighbor stood over me, virtually breathing down my neck, as I knelt to look at the little girl.

  “Hand me that lamp,” I said to neither of them in particular. The mother moved quickly and handed me the bronze lamp that had been sitting on top of a stand in the approximate center of the room. Like nearly all lamps of the time, it burned olive oil; the cost of any other type of oil was astronomical.

  I had great difficulty in prying open the child’s eyelids, a bad sign, since the first muscles to be affected by rigor mortis are the smallest—those of the eyelids. Considering the climate and the fact that the girl had supposedly died two hours before, this most likely was the onset of rigor. Having pried the eyelids open, I brought the lamp right up next to her eyes. The pupils were fixed and dilated. Bad.

  Not that I really expected to hear anything, I nevertheless eased her bedclothes out of the way and put my ear on her tiny chest, right over her heart. I almost recoiled from shock when my ear touched her bare skin; it was so unnaturally cool. I listened for a full minute. Not the slightest flutter. Next I checked her throat for a carotid pulse. Nothing.

  I plucked a long hair from my head, then held it first directly under one nostril, then under the other, then over her lips. A minute in each of the three places. Nothing. Had I had a mirror with me, I knew she wouldn’t have fogged it. That did it. Or did it? I knelt there for a moment hesitating. Had I done everything? Jesus, Jairus, and the disciples would be here soon, and I was distinctly feeling the two sets of eyes of mother and neighbor boring through my back. Pressure. What else, what else?

  Then I had it. Post-mortem lividity.

  When the heart stops pumping, the blood, of course, stops flowing. And once it stops flowing, like any other liquid at rest, it will obey the law of gravity and settle to the lowest level it can. This is what causes post-mortem lividity. The settling is expedited by the dilation of blood vessels in death, and the result is purplish discoloration of the parts of the body nearest the surface on which the body is resting. The process begins as soon as the blood stops circulating, and the discolorations begin making their first visible appearance anywhere from thirty minutes to four hours after death, depending on a number of factors, like how much blood the person has lost, if any, the manner of death, and so on.

  I gently turned the girl over on her stomach, and pulled and tugged the bedclothes out of the way. There it was. The purplish splotches on her buttocks, lumbar region, and the posterior parts of her arms, legs, and shoulders. That meant that she’d been dead for at least half an hour. I put my finger on a splotch on her shoulder and pressed. Her skin became white. When I took my finger away, the lividity reappeared. This meant she hadn’t been dead for any longer than about five hours because after four or five hours, the blood clots, and pressure won’t make it move. With a heavy sigh, I pulled the clothes back to their original position and again laid the girl on her back. The child was dead. At least by every sign I could see. I began to rise, then stopped. This was important. This was vitally important. Could I be wrong?

  After all, I was no physician, and even twentieth century M.D.’s had been known to sign death certificates for people who were subsequently revived by alert ambulance drivers, nurses, boy scouts, or other physicians. There have even been a few cases when the “deceased” has spontaneously revived without any assistance from anyone. Such instances were rare, to be sure, but most embarrassing to any M.D. who’d pulled the sheet over the face of the person a few moments before and had uttered the solemn pronouncement. I must be certain. I reached out and touched her waxen cheek. Her facial muscles were stiffening as the rigor mortis spread. Well, you might say that if a person shows no vital signs, if rigor mortis has begun to set in, and if there’s post-mortem lividity, then that person is dead. And normally, I’d be the first to agree with you. But this wasn’t a nor
mal moment.

  As I knelt there, I felt the full weight of two thousand years of human history on my shoulders. I thought of the thousands who would die for the Nazarene, from the sands in the center of the Roman Colosseum in the first century to squalid prison cells in Red China in the twentieth century. I thought of the countless millions in my own time and those still further in the future, whose lives of quiet desperation and agonizing futility could be given meaning, dignity, hope, and joy if it could be proven that Jesus was indeed the Son of God. I thought of these things and more, not the least of which was finding peace for my own troubled soul. For this mission had changed me. In precisely what way, I didn’t know. All I knew was that things would never again be the same for me.

  I knew what I had to do. I would sever the carotid artery, an act that, if performed on any living human being, was guaranteed to render the subject unconscious in five seconds, and dead in twelve seconds, or so I was told by Riley, the CIA close combat instructor, during the training that Clarence had arranged for me. Time. Time. Time was running out. I had to act quickly.

  In retrospect, my decision to do this seems irrational, even to me. In my own defense I can only say that I was “killing” someone who had been dead for two hours, and that I had to be certain about Jesus, not beyond any reasonable doubt, but beyond all doubt, else this whole project was pointless. In first century Palestine, as in twentieth century America, there were a number of people who could apparently foresee the future, perform seemingly miraculous healings, and who could speak quite impressively. Simon Magus was such a person in those times, (Acts 8:9-24) and the twentieth century versions write books and appear on radio and television. But how many can raise someone from the dead? This kind of evidence was priceless. Time. Jesus would be here at any moment, and I had to get the two women out of the room. I made a show of cocking my ear to one side.

  “I can hear him now,” I announced. “Please go and greet him at the door, and show him in quickly,” I ordered matter-of-factly. To my great surprise and relief, they readily obeyed. A moment. I only had a moment. I drew the British commando knife from the neck scabbard between my shoulder blades. Although its color was flat black, its surfaces being blued so it wouldn’t reflect any light, its appearance was deceptive. It was made of the finest grade of surgical steel and designed precisely for what I was going to use it—instantly severing major arteries. Without hesitation, I brought the knife to her throat and did the job.