More Than a Skeleton

by Paul L Maier

Joshua shook his head sadly and replied, “Jon, Jon: how very sad! How close you were to the kingdom of God! Quite apart from the blasphemy involved, you—”

  At the pious language Jon lost control completely. “Okay, let’s cut the crap, Ben-Yosef! Let’s both try the route of honesty instead and quit the pious palaver, okay? Let me ask you a few questions. And the first is this: what did you do with Shimon’s body so that it wouldn’t be inconveniently around when you ‘raised’ his twin brother from the dead?”

  Joshua only stared out over the Sea of Galilee, silently, sadly.

  A chill of horror rippled through Jon at what he had just said. His mouth, again, had run off in its own rogue direction without first consulting his brain. A large sector of that mind still stubbornly believed—especially in view of the many other signs and wonders Joshua had apparently accomplished for which he had no answers. If Joshua turned out to be the returned Son of God after all, he himself had just uttered the worst sort of blasphemy imaginable and could now look forward to burning in hell. His entire future—in this life, and in that which is to come—now seemed to depend on what Joshua said next.

  But Joshua said nothing. He only smiled faintly at Jon and shook his head dejectedly. Finally he responded, “This is very tragic, Jon. I had really hoped that you would be my St. Paul—to systematize and teach and preach the revitalized good news after I return to my Father.”

  Jon was now at the very edge of the precipice. Should he recant what he had just said—at least until he had all the answers—and thus not jeopardize his soul’s salvation? Or should he continue to press his case?

  Before making the greatest decision of his life, he found that his mouth again seemed already to have done so for him. “I thought we were trying honesty, Joshua, not myths, fantasies, and fables. I ask you again, what did you do with Shimon’s body?”

  Again there was no reply for what seemed a young eternity. Joshua continued staring out at the Sea of Galilee. Every second that ticked by in time seemed an hour in suspense.

  Suddenly Joshua’s face darkened as he turned to Jon and said, “Baruch and I removed Shimon’s body the night after his burial and placed it in an unmarked grave near Nazareth. Baruch, of course, crawled inside the tomb the night before he was ‘raised,’ and I wrapped him in grave cloths.”

  A terrifying, frigid chill spread upward and downward across the vertebrae of Jon’s spine. He now had the truth, but the truth was awful, glacial, wintry. For months he had searched for the truth, but now that he had it, he hated it. He had trouble thinking clearly, a problem evidently not shared by his tongue, which seemed to continue independently. “Good, Joshua! Bravo for your honesty! Then, of course, you replaced the stone at Shimon’s tomb. Were you and Baruch the only two in on the plot? Or were all of the Twelve involved?”

  “No, just Shimon, his brother, and I. The rest know nothing.”

  “Did you kill Shimon . . . poison him somehow?”

  “No! Although he would have been ready to sacrifice his own life for the cause. But he didn’t have to: a cancer of the blood did it for him.”

  “The ‘cause.’ What cause?”

  “That’s a long story. I may tell you later. Or I may not.”

  Jon shook his head in disbelief. “What about all your other so-called miracles, Joshua? How did you ever bring them off? How, for example, did you ever control the weather and stop the storm that day we were all up here?”

  Joshua laughed and replied genially, “Oh, that was the simplest of all my signs! Just before returning inside here that day, I stepped out the back door, looked at the western sky, and saw a great band of blue chasing the line of storm clouds directly overhead. I knew the squall would be over in minutes. It was all a matter of timing.”

  “But what about calming the waves on the Sea of Galilee?”

  “You got that from the Gospels, Jon, not from me. The waves were still choppy, but we were too high up to notice.”

  Jon shook his head slowly in amazement at how ready they had all been to accept the supernatural. “But what about all the heal-ings?” he asked. “Some people actually were healed, weren’t they?” “Of course they were! Some healings, to be sure, were only apparent—like those claimed by your American faith healers and tent evangelists. Others were purely psychosomatic. Still others I hypnotized over their problems. For others, again, plain good counseling did the job.”

  “Wait a minute: medical people checked out some of your cures, and they claimed that physical diseases were often involved.”

  “They were indeed. But I also know medicine very well and was able to make quick diagnoses in many cases: fevers about to break— that sort of thing. I can’t tell you how often plain aspirin helped me out! The reports of my healings got exaggerated in the retelling, of course, and they took on a life of their own.” He stopped, grinned, and added, “I was really amazed that all of you didn’t do a more scientific job in following up on the healings.”

  “I agree. It was the weakest point in our whole investigation. But what about that blind man at the Pool of Siloam? Shannon swears it was a miracle.”

  “Schmuel Sikorsky? Oh, yes, he too was in on the plot.”

  “Hold it! I thought you said only you and the Levine twins were involved.”

  “We were the only ones involved among the disciples. Schmuel wasn’t a member of the Twelve.”

  “Well, how in blazes many more are there?”

  Joshua laughed and said, “I’d love to dazzle you with our numbers, Jon, but that’s it. Since Shimon died, there are only three in this world who know the truth. Make that four, since now you know also.”

  While shuddering at the implications of the last, Jon said, “But how did Sikorsky bring off his supposed blindness?”

  “Cleverly. In public, he put a neutral salve in his eyes to make them look rheumy and infected. What a noble sacrifice Schmuel made for our cause: feigning blindness and begging for years near the Dung Gate in Jerusalem to establish his credibility!”

  “What is this cause, I ask you again?”

  “Later, maybe—I tell you again.”

  “Well . . . how did you get Schmuel involved in your plot?”

  “The Levine twins, Schmuel Sikorsky, and I were all members of the Class of ’94 at the Technion.”

  “Sikorsky! I didn’t notice his name in the graduation program. Bad slipup on our part!”

  “Bad indeed! We used his versatile talents in many ways. His best act was to play the part of a madman, from whom I would drive out evil spirits. But you saw our performance that day at the Brook Kidron, didn’t you?”

  “How in the very devil did you know that?”

  “Shimon saw you in the bushes, so we hauled out our big act just for your benefit. Nice of us, was it not?”

  Jon merely shook his head. Even as he was firing his fusillade of questions, he asked himself, Why is Ben-Yosef telling me all this? And what sort of danger am I in at hearing it? But since truth was rolling out like a crystal stream, far be it from him to play beaver and build a dam to halt the flow.

  “What about the water into wine at the wedding celebration here in Galilee?” Jon continued.

  “Shimon had arranged that ahead of time. There was this huge jug full of real water, out of which the guests were served following my ‘miracle.’ But the spigot was connected to a tank full of wine— a magician’s trick. We did several of those.”

  Jon nodded, then shook his head back and forth. “Oh,” he said. “I almost forgot to ask: what about my flying pen on Nicodemus night at Bethany?”

  Joshua laughed heartily. “Again, that was Shimon’s idea. I thought we’d never get to use it, but you were putty in our hands. We had built a very strongly focused electromagnet into the wall at the end of the patio, and I simply flipped on the switch with my elbow.”

  Jon felt like a fool, though a worried fool who seemed to relish throwing caution to the winds. He shook his head ruefully, then said, “What about your apparent o
mniscience, Joshua? How, for example, did you know all those details about my past?”

  Joshua held up his hands modestly and said, “That was nothing at all. When you became famous in the Christian world, Jon, I started building a big file on you, knowing that our paths were bound to cross one day.”

  “But what about your . . . incredible linguistic abilities? I know a lot of languages. But to be able to speak them all, and without an accent? No one can do that. How did you?”

  “With the help of the devil, Jon,” he said, looking directly into his eyes without the slightest trace of a smile.

  “What?!”

  Joshua nodded. “Only Satan could put such perfect speech into my mouth.”

  Jon merely stared at him.

  Joshua then shook with laughter. “Only spoofing, Jon! Using the devil—that’s for your American religious novelists, not I. Both of my parents were virtual geniuses in biochemistry. In their research, they were pursuing amino acid compounds to enhance brain function, especially memory. They arrived at a perfectly balanced formula that promoted the multiplication of neural axons and dendrites, which, as you know, are the basic units in how the brain is wired and communicates. It also enhanced the electrochemical transmissions within the nerves themselves. First, of course, they tried their preparation on laboratory rats. The results were dramatic!”

  “Rodent geniuses?”

  “Nothing less: one trip through a maze to find the food and they had it memorized. Then my parents tried it on themselves and found remarkably enhanced awareness and increased mental capacity with no side effects. What they didn’t know was that my mother was pregnant with me at the time, and it had a much greater effect on my own neural development.”

  “So that explains your intelligence?”

  “Yes, and also my enhanced sense of hearing. I’ve never understood why people who speak with an accent can’t hear the differences in the way they speak. I hear it immediately and can mold my speech to the local dialect with no effort whatever. Languages, too, were a snap for me, including all the dialects and idioms—”

  “Like the word snap you just used. Okay, and that also explains your phenomenal IQ as a child, your winning the Israel national Bible quiz at a tender age, and the like.”

  “Oh, you learned about that too? Good for you!”

  This was becoming almost friendly, thought Jon, despite the underlying hazards involved. But part of his mind was already hard at work on his available options. With eleven of the Twelve about to arrive who were not part of Joshua’s plot, they should be able to help him overpower Joshua, if necessary.

  But for now he had to keep talking, so he asked, “Why didn’t your parents prepare a scientific paper on their magnificent discovery and give it to the world?”

  “Two reasons. First, does the world really need another Joshua Ben-Yosef, let alone the hordes of weird geniuses that would result?” They both laughed. Jon actually appreciated his self-deprecating humor. “And the other reason?”

  “My parents actually were writing a book on the subject, along with suggested safeguards to prevent the globe from hatching a corps of overgifted freaks. But . . . but they were both killed before they could finish the manuscript.”

  “Yes . . . that tragic terrorist attack near Netanya.”

  Joshua looked down sadly, shook his head, and said, “Well, no . . . that’s the official story we put out . . . again, for the cause.”

  “So? What really happened?”

  The muscles on Joshua’s jaws tightened. “My father and mother were taking a vacation tour of Germany while I was at summer camp here in Israel. One evening, near their own camping spot in eastern Bavaria, they saw a huge bonfire burning into the evening sky. They went over to investigate and were horrified to see that it was a gathering of neo-Nazi skinheads celebrating some pagan rites that were a throwback to the Third Reich. Someone discovered them in hiding and they were dragged into the open. When those neo-Hitlerites learned that they were Jews and from Israel, no less, they held a mock trial and sentenced them to death. They were Jewish Christ-killers who had desecrated their sacred rites.” Joshua’s head dropped to his chest, tears in his eyes, as he added, “Then they . . . they hanged them . . . from a rope they had strung between two pine trees.”

  “How . . . utterly . . . horrible!” commented Jon, in shock. “I think I read something about that years ago. Well . . . there you have humanity at its very worst—except to call beasts like that ‘humans’ is to give them too much credit!”

  Neither man spoke for some moments. Then Jon commented,

  “Still, Joshua, I don’t see this as a motive for what you’re trying to do in revitalizing Christianity by your . . . interim return as a fake Christ. If you were going to attack the faith, then maybe I could see some indirect motive here, however twisted. But you—”

  “I am going to attack the faith, Jon—or at least your Christian perversion of the true faith.”

  “What?!”

  “Well, on second thought, I don’t really like that verb attack. Better to say that I’ll be reforming your faith and leading it to better ends. And what an event this is going to be! It will be the most dramatic moment in all of Christian history. This coming Sunday, with fifteen thousand leaders of all Christendom gathered inside St. Peter’s Basilica to hear the words of their Lord and Master returned in person, I will announce that ever since the year 325 C.E. and the Council of Nicaea, Christians have had it all wrong. They have taken God’s Messiah and turned Him into God Himself or even something of a second god. But now, no less than the Messiah Himself will disclaim all that. He will call it blasphemy and idolatry, a reversion to polytheism! He will ask all Christians everywhere to return to the mother faith of Judaism, the belief in one true God and the only God.” Joshua quit speaking and merely smiled at Jon. Jon was almost paralyzed with shock. He groped for words and finally found a few. “But . . . but Christians don’t regard Christ as a second god, Joshua. They’re monotheists, just like Jews, and—” “Tell that to the Trinity, Jon, not to me.”

  “What you’re planning at St. Peter’s is just a warmed-over version of what Arius taught—the heretic who was condemned at Nicaea.”

  “I know who Arius was, Jon. And I’ll tell you this: Arius was closer to the truth than what became orthodox Christianity. How did Arius put it in Greek? Ein hote ouk ein: ‘There was a time when he was not’—when Jesus was not? Hence he was not eternal with the Father.

  “I have a great dual goal, Jon: to return Christianity to Judaism, and to rehabilitate for Jews a very human Christ that they can appreciate and revere again once He is stripped of the divine baggage you Christians have loaded onto Him. In time, they’ll start to separate the noble rabbi from the memories of horror Christians have inflicted on us Jews for the past twenty centuries. I know it can be done, Jon! And then, with a revived Judeo-Christianity, we can finally meet the Muslim challenge and overcome it.”

  “You can’t be serious, Joshua! You’re dreaming dreams that no one will ever follow.”

  “That’s what they said about Abraham, about Moses, about Elijah, and about Jesus. As I recall, all their dreams turned into reality, didn’t they? So will mine.”

  “All your objections to traditional Christology have answers, Joshua, and they’re solidly based on the biblical sources. I could demonstrate the proofs of Jesus’ divinity to you for hours, and that Nicaea only declared what the church has always taught. But let’s debate theology over lunch. Right now, please unpack more of your motives for this . . . monumental hoax. Why in very blazes did you and the other three warp your lives so drastically in sacrifice for ‘the cause’? Again, what cause could ever be important enough for that?” “Well, that’s a rather long story, Jon. But before I tell it, would you like some sort of refreshment? Coffee? Tea?”

  “Kind of you, Joshua! Yes, I’d like some coffee if you have it. Black.”

  While Joshua went out into the kitchen to prepare it, Jon had a life
-or-death decision to make, and less than a minute in which to make it. Having revealed so much, Joshua could never let him emerge from the lodge alive, he knew: that would scuttle everything to which Ben-Yosef had devoted his genius. Basic instincts of self-preservation yelled inside Jon to run for the door! Take the chance while Joshua was in the kitchen!

  But there was so much more to learn about why this frenzied four had tried to dupe the world, so many other issues to probe. A little more dialogue, a few more secrets to pry out of Joshua . . . then he could make a dash for the door.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Joshua walked in from the kitchen with a tray and set it on a table between them. It was laden with two mugs, a silver carafe of coffee, several bagels, cookies, and sweets. Why is Ben-Yosef doing this? Jon wondered. Why did he leave me unguarded?

  “All right, Jon. Let’s pick up where we left off. You wanted to know more about our cause, correct?”

  “Yes . . .”

  “Shimon, Baruch, Schmuel, and I were all classmates at the Technion, as you know. One evening the four of us were sipping wine at a restaurant on Mount Carmel overlooking the Mediterranean. When the conversation finally wound its way around to religion, I brought up the statistical problem. I said, ‘Gentlemen, we have a wretched, wretched paradox here: Judaism gave the world monotheism— a very precious gift! And yet the other two monotheistic religions, which have received this gift, vastly outnumber Judaism, the giver. There are two billion Christians in the world and one billion Muslims, but only sixteen million Jews. Is that fair, my friends? Is that in any way fair? Do you realize that there are 125 Christians in the world for every Jew?’

  “They grumbled, of course, as I expected them to. Shimon suggested that medieval pogroms and the Nazi Holocaust had something to do with it, and that’s when I told them about my parents. They were livid, and Baruch asked, ‘What can the four of us do about this?’ And that’s when I started sketching the first outlines of our cause. It was motivated not just by the horror inflicted on my dear parents, but by the millions of other hells imposed on my people over the last twenty centuries, from the destruction of Jerusalem to the ovens of Nazi Germany. As Jews, we’ve been treated with contempt, thrown into ghettos, victimized in pogroms, forced to convert, discriminated against, gassed, and then burned— by the millions! That 1– to –125 ratio shouldn’t surprise anyone!