There was another edit cut, after which the scene was mostly unchanged. After a few moments a young man came in. Rapidly he spoke to Mary Magdalene. The other Mary came to stand beside her. The two women spoke with each other, then gathered cloaks, took up baskets and left with the young man.
The scene on the screen went black.
“They are going to prepare your body for burial,” Myers told them. “Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus failed to revive you. You were already dead when they tried.”
For a while, none of them spoke. Slowly, Jesus took in a breath. “I want to see it,” he said.
“See what?”
“My death.”
Chapter 38: On the Cross
Jesus’ statement stunned Myers and Tamara.
“It’s not pretty,” Myers told him. “Are you sure?”
Jesus only nodded.
Myers sighed, and then picked up the tablet he had been using to control the video display. A menu came up and he begin working his way to another of the stored video files. Without comment, he started the video.
This began right after Jesus had been lifted to the pole and the soldiers were busy working on the third man to die that day, the one who was fighting them in a losing battle. They could not hear his cries, but it was not hard to see the terror on his face and on his mouth open in a scream as the spikes were pounded into his wrists.
Tamara glanced over at Jesus. How would he take watching the Roman soldiers crucifying him? So far, there was no emotion on his face at all.
On the screen the view switched back to Jesus. A soldier was binding his ankles to the post. Tamara realized that was why Jesus could walk so well; there never had been nails driven into his feet! So many of the depictions of the Crucifixion showed spikes in the feet, often crossed. But then, most of those depictions also showed the spikes going through his hands, and she had known from the first that was not true.
The video continued for several minutes during which Jesus only turned his head slowly from side to side as if looking around. Several times his head drooped but picked up almost immediately. It was obvious that he was having trouble breathing. Tamara noticed two trickles of blood crawling down from his forehead. Blood was likewise leaking from the wounds in his wrists. He looked very tired.
Myers leaned towards Jesus to speak to him quietly. “This goes on for almost four hours. A few times you seem to be saying something.” As he said that, a Roman soldier came into view. He had a short stool of crude wood that he placed next to the post. Mounting it, he reached over and inserted a small wooden board into a grove atop the post. There was writing on it but hard to read. It looked as if other writing, probably in charcoal, had been wiped off and fresh letters applied. It was hard to make out the characters, and the view never closed in on the plank.
Jesus said, “The soldier laughed at me when he was up near me. He called me ‘King of the Jews.’ I guess that’s what the plank said.” He glanced at Myers and Tamara, and then explained. “It was the Roman custom. I could not see the other two who were with me.”
“The Gospels say that they were labeled as thieves,” Tamara said.
“A more accurate translation is bandits,” Myers said. “Do you know, Rabbi, who they were?”
Jesus sighed. “No. The Romans often crucified people who they thought were rebels or might be rebels. The Romans saved crucifixion for those convicted of sedition against Rome. Common thieves did not merit such.”
“Did you say anything to either of them?” asked Tamara.
“I don’t remember saying anything.”
Myers did something on the tablet and the scene sped up. Jesus looked surprised to see the soldiers moving around at high speeds and his head jerking from side to side. Those moving around were almost a blur.
Finally, as a time index at the bottom of the screen showed a setting he was looking for, Myers caused it to revert back to normal speed.
On the cross, Jesus’ face had taken on a paleness. His eyes hardly stayed open. He assumed the appearance of exactly what he was, a man dying. His lips moved silently. A few moments later a man’s back came into the picture. He held up a sponge speared by a branch and dripping to Jesus’ lips. It seemed that Jesus would not – could not – drink of it, and it was pushed harder until some of the liquid must have dripped into his mouth. Then the man withdrew.
“It was so hard to breathe,” Jesus said.
“You told us of Joseph of Arimathea’s plan to revive you,” Myers said. “Tell me, Rabbi, did you think it would work?”
Jesus looked between him and the image on the screen before answering. “I expected God to come to my aid. Yet I knew that it was God’s plan that I die. And would be resurrected in three days. The prophecies foretold of that.” He looked again at the pitiful figure on the cross. “But at that point I was not sure what to think. I wanted to beg of God that he end my suffering; oh, how I did suffer! I may even have called out to him. I am not sure.”
Turning a sorrowful face to the others, Jesus told them, “I am afraid that I was weak. I called out that I thirsted. I knew of Nicodemus’ plan. I knew that there would be something in the vinegar.” He sucked in air. “I could take it no longer. I greatly feared that it would take days for me to die up there. Or that they would break my legs. I could not let that happen. It would be against the prophecies. Those were God’s words given through prophets of old. I could not allow them not be fulfilled.”
Without comment, Myers touched the tablet a few times and the scene shifted to the inside of a cave. There were only two oil lamps and the light was poor. Still, they could see two men carrying in the body of a third. They rushed their actions, placing the body on a rock ledge with a pit dug next to it. They stood in the pit, one lifting Jesus’ head while the other took a small flask and tried to pour some liquid into his mouth. Several times they tried but got no reaction. The man was dead.
“Enough,” Jesus said wearily. “I have seen enough.”
“Later, your body was taken someplace else,” Myers told him. “When Mary Magdalene came to finish preparing you, she found the tomb empty. She believed that you had risen. She did expect that, did she not?”
“Yes. She understood the prophecies as well as I did. On the third day, God would lift up my body and I would give proof to all that his Kingdom had arrived.”
“Those who followed you believed that you had risen,” Tamara told him. “And that began a whole new religion.”
Jesus looked at her strangely. Then he shook his head sadly. “I believe in the Law of Moses, the Torah. In the prophets’ words passed down from ancient times. There was no need for a new religion. There is God, and His promise to our people! He would give us that land forever. And he would come soon to fulfill that promise. I wanted to prepare our people. I told them I was the Light and the Way, that they might listen to my words and obey.”
He stopped suddenly and looked from one to the other of them. “That was all I wanted. I never wanted people to worship me, only to follow God’s will.”
Chapter 39: What to do about Jesus
After the promise to follow up on the lives of the two Marys, Myers and Tamara walked back to his office.
“I could use a cup of coffee,” he told her.
“Maybe something stronger,” was her reply. “Can you believe him? How can a man sit there calmly and watch his own crucifixion?”
“Jesus has a strong will.”
“Still...”
Immediately he switched on the coffee maker.
“He seems so shocked that people would take his teachings and make a religion around them,” she said as she sat down.
“And misinterpret them. But it is not surprising that he was shocked at the outcome of his ministry. First off, he was a Jew. First, last, and always. His concern was always with the Jewish people. So much so that he was willing to give up his life for his people. He really did not think of the Kingdom of God as belonging to the Gentiles; it was to be a natur
al result of God’s covenant with Israel. Remember, those who wrote the Gospels had an agenda. They wanted Jesus to appeal to the non-Jewish world. To Rome, even. So they slanted his statements and actions that they reported in their writing.
“But some of his feelings came through. Remember Matthew 10:5? ‘These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not: but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.’
“And Matthew 15:24 when a ‘woman of Canaan’, a gentile, comes and begs him to save her daughter who was possessed by a devil. He wouldn’t answer her. When his disciples told him to send her away, he said, ‘I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.’ When she again begged him, he said, ‘It is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it to the dogs.’ By children, he means Israel. By dogs, he means gentiles like her.”
“And eventually he gives in,” Tamara added, “and heals her daughter.”
“Only when she tells him that even the dogs eat of the crumbs of the Master’s table.” He winked at her, and then continued, “So he heals a few gentiles! It was still the Jews that he was most concerned with. As to the heart and soul of Jewish faith – the Law of Moses – he was adamant that his mission was not to abolish it but to fulfill it. Matthew 5:17, ‘Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.’“
“Would you hand me that Bible there? Thank you.” She turned the pages until she found what she wanted. “The hatred of the Jewish people towards gentiles is well documented. At least, the Jews of old. I quote you from the Second Book of Moses aka Exodus.
“For mine Angel shall go before thee, and bring thee in unto the Amorites, and the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Canaanites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites: and I will cut them off. ...thou shalt utterly overthrow them, and quite break down their images. I will send my fear before thee, and will destroy all the people to whom thou shalt come, and I will make all thine enemies turn their backs unto thee. And I will send hornets before thee, which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before thee. By little and little I will drive them out from before thee, until thou be increased, and inherit the land.
“And I will set thy bounds from the Red sea even unto the sea of the Philistines, and from the desert unto the river: for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand; and thou shalt drive them out before thee. Thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor with their gods. They shall not dwell in thy land.”
“Yes, and Jesus also said, according to Matthew 10:34, ‘Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.’ And again, in Luke 12:49: ‘I am come to send fire on the earth... Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division.’
“Those were rough times, Tamara. And Jesus was a product of those times.”
“And then there is Joshua,” Tamara said. “He ran amok, destroying cities and killing all within. At Jericho, after knocking down the walls, he did a real number on the people inside.” She flipped the pages over to find the Book of Joshua, then read, “And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword, and they burnt the city with fire, and all that was therein: only the silver, and the gold, and the vessels of brass and of iron, they put into the treasury of the house of the LORD.”
“As I said, Tamara, rough times,” was his only comment. He took the Bible out of her hands and put it back.
For a while neither spoke, until Myers said, “You know, what he says does clear up a few things,” he began. “Like who was present at the crucifixion.”
“And the whole issue of the resurrection,” Tamara could not help herself from adding.
Myers nodded slowly. “Yes, there is that. So he never regained life, never arose from the tomb.
“There are many who believe that the Gospel stories of the resurrection were added by believers, and are not factual reporting of true events.”
“I have studied this subject some,” Tamara said, nodding in agreement. “And I was forced to come to the conclusion that much of what the Gospels say is added material. Or changed.”
“That’s pretty much accepted among scholars. The Gospels were written by believers for other believers, or potential believers, to read. They were not newspaper reports. They are not the words of those who were truly present at the events. It would be incredible if those who wrote the Gospels did not add elements or change them to suit their beliefs and purpose. The writers were only human, after all.”
After a pause, Tamara said, “So, we know the truth now. What do we do with it?”
Myers gave her a sharp look, then chuckled. “Do we know the truth?” He leaned over to take the coffee pot out of the machine. “Do we really know what happened two thousand years ago? One might argue that all we know is what a copy of Jesus has told us, and what we’ve seen via a machine the working of which only a handful of humans would understand and most would not believe. Don’t forget, we’re dealing with the unknown here. Any time you’re dealing with the quantum world, you’ve left the world of cause and effect behind. There is so much that is not known about quantum entanglement yet. It is one mysterious force of nature.”
“Oh, so you’re a theoretical physicist now?” she asked him good-humoredly.
He smiled. “I’ve picked up a lot from Fielding and Juliette and others. Did you know that Einstein described entanglement as ‘spukhafte Fernwirkung,’ or ‘spooky action at a distance’? What if there is something more spooky about this than particles entangling? There is evidence that some events on the quantum level exist in all possible states and only ‘collapse’ to one state when observed? Schrödinger’s famous alive and dead cat.
“What if there are other factors involved? Let’s say the belief of the operator of the Machine? What if the operator firmly believes that the object he is creating will be solid diamond. Then he tried to copy a lump of coal. Will the carbon in the coal become diamond when it appears in the chamber? Or will it stay just a lump of coal?
“Maybe what was created here was a Jesus who was totally human in all respects. A Jesus who was not resurrected because the operator of the Machine expected him to be nothing else? And that we see in the viewing of the past only what we expect to see? A dead man in the tomb instead of an awakening man?
“See what I’m getting at?”
“I’m seeing a headache coming on,” she said. “So, all that we’ve learned may not be anything more than what we expected to learn?”
“That is possible. But the counter-argument is that some of the objects copied have properties that were not expected. For example, when Dr. Brown used the Machine to observe T-Rex in the past, he was surprised to find that some of them had three fingered hands while others had two fingered hands. Current belief had been that all T-Rex had two fingered hands. How could he have come up with the three fingered version if he did not expect them?”
Tamara thought for a moment, and then smiled. “Did you know that when the original T-Rex fossils were found, it was believed that they had three fingers? Here, let me look it up.” She pulled out her smart phone, brought up the browser, and then typed in an inquiry. “Here it is,” she read from the screen. “When the Tyrannosaurus Rex was first discovered, the humerus was the only part of the forelimb known. In other words, the fingers were missing. For the initial mounted skeleton as seen by the public in 1915, Osborn substituted longer, three-fingered forelimbs like those of Allosaurus. In 1989, a complete forelimb confirmed that T-Rex had only two fingers.
“So, you see, Dr. Brown, being a biologist, is probably well aware of this bit of history. When he viewed T-Rex stomping around in their native jungle, it might have been in his subconscious that some had three fingers, or at least that concept existed in his mind. So his looking at f
erocious dinosaurs munching on smaller dinosaurs doesn’t prove anything. If you assume your premise.”
“You know, you are quite educated – for an auditor,” he said with a smile. He sighed, and sipped at his coffee. “I guess we could devise an experiment that would test this hypothesis that what you expect may just be what you get. But that still wouldn’t prove that we have an exact copy of Jesus. There are those believers who will simply say that we got an imperfect copy, while the real Jesus was happily resurrected back in 30 C.E., and is currently sitting at the right hand of God in heaven.”
“I’ll bet that what we have is an exact copy,” Tamara said sincerely with a shake of her head. “I’ve seen a happy, playful and very much alive Saber-Toothed Cat. And... I don’t know. I just feel that our Jesus is real.”
“As do I, Miss Graves, as do I.”
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