A Skeleton in God's Closet

by Paul L Maier

  According to “absolutely unimpeachable evidence” uncovered by Radford Morrison and Associates, Professor Jonathan E. Weber of Harvard University, who made the original discoveries in Israel, arranged for a secret series of tests of the artifacts found near bones purporting to be those of Jesus. The tests were conducted at the Smithsonian Institution and other selected laboratories under the supervision of Dr. Sanford McHugh. All laboratory analyses of datable artifacts, particularly thermoluminescence, point to origins from c. 25 BC at the earliest, to c. AD 60 at the latest, plus or minus minor error margins—dates which accord very well with information from the now-famous “Joseph papyrus.”

  Sandy knocked on Jon’s door. “Time to get up, bucko,” he said. “And don’t ask about the morning’s news. We’re it!” He thrust the Post under Jon’s widening eyes, adding, “Welcome to hell!”

  Again the phone rang. Sandy was of a mind to leave it off the hook, but for some reason he answered it. Then he passed it on to Jon. “It’s the White House.”

  “This is Sherwood Bronson, Professor Weber,” said the president, a touch of pique in his voice. “I thought we had an agreement that you’d give me your results before going public.”

  “We certainly did, and I respected that, Mr. President. I learned the complete results only yesterday, and I did try to call you last night. But no one answered.”

  “You did? Oh, that’s right. My wife and I were at the Kennedy Center.”

  “I’d planned to give you a full briefing today, if possible, but Mr. Radford Morrison had other plans, as you know.”

  “How in blue blazes did he find out about the tests and the results?”

  “We’ve no idea. A mole at the Smithsonian? A wiretap? Who knows?”

  “Didn’t they find anything suspicious or wrong in the tests?”

  “Afraid not. At least not yet.”

  There was a long silence, finally broken by the president. “Well, what now? Are you simply going to stand there, with your arms hanging down, and let the faith of a hundred eighty million Americans go down the tube?”

  How very quaint and provincial, thought Jon. What about the faith of ten times that many outside the United States?

  “Well, that was unfair of me,” said the president. “We’re all on edge. I thought of convening a blue-ribbon panel of psychiatrists and psychologists and charging them with the task of finding a way to help our citizens through this crisis. Do you think that’d be a good idea?”

  “With all due respect, not really, Mr. President. I think I have a better one. I’ll be announcing it at a press conference the day after tomorrow. I hope you and the nation will find it helpful.”

  “Oh? Good . . . good. But in the meantime, is there any way I can help you?”

  “Yes, there certainly is. To implement our plan, I’ll need a secluded office somewhere—no bugs—and three or four clear phone lines—no wiretaps. Could you arrange that? The long-distance tab could get formidable, but we’d reimburse—”

  “Done!” the president replied. “And don’t worry about the bill—this is in the national interest. You can use an office in Blair House as soon as you like, and we’ll have extra phone lines in there about forty-five minutes from now.”

  “Thank you, Mr. President!”

  Jon’s first call at Blair House was to Harvard, where he asked his secretary, Marylou Kaiser, and ICO general secretary, Charles Ferris, to drop everything, hop the next shuttle to Washington, and plan to stay overnight.

  His next call went to Jennings. Jon spilled his pent-up fury into the phone: “Austin, do you remember that sly-and-skulking snake of a journalist from the U.S. named Morrison? The one who wanted to do a book on our dig?”

  “Yes, I seem to recall him. But he looked more like a weasel than a snake, didn’t he? A weasel with jaundice?”

  “Whatever! Yes, that’s the one! Well, the bilious little pup found out our results somehow, and published them in this morning’s Washington Post. The other media are now saturated with the story. You’ll read about it in the next Jerusalem Post. So things are in an uproar over here, and I’m calling you for permission to unveil Phase III now, rather than waiting till I get back to Israel.”

  “Oh yes, by all means! But do you have agreements from all concerned?”

  “We’re working on those now.”

  “Go for it, lad! There, that proves I can speak American too, not?”

  “Cheerio, Austin!” said Jon. “I’m ringing off.” Two could play that game.

  Marylou Kaiser and Chuck Ferris walked in just four hours later. “What took you so long?” asked Jon, a little smile tugging up the corners of his mouth. Then all three set to work at telephones, calling a long list of names on various continents.

  That afternoon and all the next day, the calls went out across the nation and across the world. To reach the object party was like a Byzantine intrigue in some cases, a quick success in others. Kevin Sullivan, for example, was on the line in just two minutes, and he called back an hour later with word that the pope, though horrified at news of the test results, most heartily approved Phase III and implored God’s blessing upon it.

  The inevitable press conference, on December 29, was held in the grand ballroom of the Shoreham Hotel, where presidential inauguration galas regularly took place. The vast hall was filled with media people from across the world, as well as academic, religious, and political luminaries who had abandoned their holiday plans to come to Washington for the occasion. For that reason, Jon’s opening statement was apologetic. “I deeply regret, ladies and gentlemen, that your year-end festivities, when you should be with your families, have been interrupted by this press conference. Certainly Professor Austin Balfour Jennings, director of the Rama excavation, and I would never have been so thoughtless. But when a certain columnist, without any authorization, published results of the Smithsonian test series, we had no choice, particularly in view of the at-times hysterical response here and abroad.

  “Nor shall the columnist be nameless. However he came by the information, Radford Morrison has violated either the law or basic ethics, or both. His implications that our test series was ‘secret’ and would probably have remained so but for his ‘investigative reporting’ are absolutely false! We fully intended to announce the findings, and shall do so now.

  “An epitome of the test results is being distributed to you at this moment. If you fail to receive a copy, please raise your hand and one of the pages will accommodate you. I’ll entertain your questions shortly. First, I’d like to introduce the other person on the dais here—Dr. Sanford McHugh, of the Smithsonian Institution.

  “Now, I must strongly emphasize that, although our various samples registered an age of origin approximately in the first century AD/CE, we have not abandoned our research into the authenticity of the cavernarea discoveries at Rama. A greatly augmented program of excavation there has been decided upon that will eventually expose the entire first-century town. This is the start of what we call ‘Phase III’ at this dig. Phase I—so named in retrospect, of course—were the campaigns conducted by Sir Lloyd Kensington and Austin Balfour Jennings. Phase II was the discovery of the cavern tomb and its artifacts, tested as of this point. Phase III is what we plan from now on. And I’ll have more to say about that in my closing statement.

  “After reading the epitome, I’d urge all of you to postpone any conclusions until after the final phase of this enterprise. We’ve been dismayed by many of the responses to Rama and horrified by others. Rumors have been added to assumed ‘facts,’ resulting in conclusions that are poorly conceived and sensationalistically expressed. Truth suffers. If two unethical members of the press—one in Israel, the other here—had acted responsibly instead, the masses would have been spared much agony. Lives have been lost, as you certainly know. And so, ladies and gentlemen of the media, I appeal to your integrity and sense of responsibility. I’m now open for questions.”

  “Jeffery Sheler, U.S. News & World Report.
I’d like to explore your personal reactions to this latest test series, Professor Weber. Were you shocked that all the items tested to the first century? Or not so surprised?”

  “Not so surprised.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Since the radiocarbon tests in Arizona dated back to that time frame, it would have been extraordinary not to find all materials from the same locus similarly datable. . . . Yes?”

  “Tadaki Arioshi, Tokyo Shinbun. But why, then, does this not prove all your finds to be genuine?”

  “First-century artifacts, let me explain again, could have been ‘salted,’ that is, planted there as a fraud. In that case, the perpetrator would hardly have been foolish enough not to use first-century materials throughout. That’s why I wasn’t too surprised by the results. . . . Yes?”

  “Everett Sinclair, Toronto Globe and Mail. Could you explain to us what thermoluminescence means?”

  “Let’s have Dr. McHugh answer that one. Sandy?”

  Sanford McHugh tilted the microphone a bit and responded, “Back in 1664, Robert Boyle discovered that a diamond would emit a faint glow in a darkened room when he warmed it with his hands. That was the earliest demonstration of thermoluminescence. Now, natural clay has traces of radioactive impurities, such as uranium and thorium, which emit radiation that gets trapped inside the clay. But when the clay is formed into pottery and then fired, the heating process releases all this stored radiation in the form of visible light, hence ‘thermoluminescence,’ leaving zero radiation energy left in the pottery.

  “In time, though, the radiation builds up again at a constant rate, and when the pottery is heated a second time in the laboratory, the amount of luminescent glow can be measured to determine the age of the pottery since its original firing.”

  “I, ah, think I caught that,” Sinclair responded. “But how accurate is this method, Dr. McHugh?”

  “Plus or minus 10 percent, certainly, and probably plus or minus 5. . . . Yes?”

  “Tom Brokaw, NBC Nightly News. It would seem, Dr. McHugh, that if a forger were able to ‘borrow’ all the props from first-century sources—ceramics, parchment, papyrus—the one thing he could not bor-row was the writing—the ink, if you please—”

  “Yes. That’s true enough.”

  “Well, then, what did your tests reveal about the ink?”

  “Three different inks came to light: one in the so-called ‘Joseph papyrus,’ a second in the ‘Nicodemus postscript,’ and the third on the titulus. Only the last could provide the sort of quantity we required for analysis, and even that was too slight for radiocarbon testing. Instead, our most successful analysis came via PIXE—Particle Induced X-ray Emission Analysis—which showed it to be a pure carbon ink, made from lampblack or soot. A liquid adhesive was added to stabilize the carbon: gum arabic. The other two inks appear to be the same, the ‘Nicodemus postscript’ just a shade brownish-black.”

  “Was that formula typical for ink in the first century?” Brokaw inquired. “And what about the color or tonal range, including brown?”

  Sandy looked to Jon, who returned to the micro-phone and said, “Yes, it’s a common formula for that era, and all three color tones fall within the spectrum we find in the Dead Sea Scrolls.”

  The questioning went on for an hour and a half. Jon knew it was time to close when the questions waxed theological, and Doris Dinwiddie’s was the last he fielded. An aging but widely read columnist for the Hearst chain with several presidential scalps dangling from the considerable circumference of her belt, she was predictably provocative: “Professor Weber, don’t you think it’s high time that all of you stop your heroic efforts on behalf of a dying Christianity? No one on God’s green earth could have faked all this. I mean, you have the smoking gun—you have the very bones of Jesus Christ! So why don’t you give them—and the Christian faith—as dignified and decent a burial as you can?”

  A raucous commotion and some hissing boiled up in the ballroom. “Your assumptions are premature, Miss Dinwiddie,” Jon replied, evenly. “Quite apart from that sector of Christianity which believes only in a spiritual resurrection and therefore remains unaffected, the majority belief in a physical resurrection is not suddenly invalidated at this point. I’d think twice before sounding any death knell for the one religious system on earth whose origins, like those of its parent Judaism, involved real people in historical contexts, rather than being rooted in the misty fables of mythology.”

  The acerbic newswoman shot back immediately: “I wonder if your obvious bias in favor of Christianity shouldn’t disqualify you from a leadership role in this enterprise?”

  Slapping a lid on his inner seething, Jon responded, almost gently, “In view of our discoveries, Miss Dinwiddie, how do you think the world would have reacted had I been biased against Christianity?”

  The moment of silence was followed by prolonged applause. Now it was time for his closing statement. Jon nodded to the pages and said, “We’ll now distribute a brief outline of what we’ve termed Phase III.

  Besides completing the Rama excavations, we intend to establish an international congress of scholars who will review all of the methodology and findings at Rama from the first Kensington days until the present, as well as any discoveries from this point on. Membership in this congress is being decided through nomination from our ICO, the International Academy of Archaeology, the Society of Biblical Literature, and the American Academy of Religion, as well as their British counterparts. The leadership of the world’s primary Christian church bodies will have representation, ranging from the pope and the Eastern Orthodox patriarch to all other church bodies with at least five million members. Observers from Judaism, Islam, and other world religions will also be welcome.

  “Page five in your handout sketches the division of labor in various sectors and panels.”

  Jon then commented on each of the following:

  I. SCIENTIFIC SECTOR

  PANELSCHARGES

  ARCHAEOLOGY Review and advise on all past, present, and future excavations at the Rama site.

  ANALYSIS Review and advise on all past, present, and future testing of the Rama artifacts and remains, as well as any yet to be discovered.

  LINGUISTICS/PALEOGRAPHY Analyze all Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, and Latin inscriptions discovered as to script, vocabulary, syntax, and grammar.

  II. INVESTIGATIVE SECTOR

  INVESTIGATION Probe the history and ownership of the Rama site, as well as the personal backgrounds of the principal excavation staff. Review forgery techniques attempted in the history of art and archaeology.

  III. THEOLOGICAL SECTOR

  OLD TESTAMENT Research burial customs, eschatology, and all relevant religious/cultural data.

  INTERTESTAMENT Same

  NEW TESTAMENT Same, all three panels to explore a revised theology of the Resurrection if Rama is finally deemed authentic.

  “After months of review and deliberation,” Jon continued, the final conclusions will be published in a monographic series, and doubtless be widely translated. Now it’s very late and time to close. I thank you for your patience, ladies and gentlemen.”

  Just as Jon and Sandy were leaving the emptying ball-room, a slender figure with white hair approached them. “I . . . I acted too hastily in Cambridge,” Joshua Scruggs Nickel confessed. “I was upset then, Jonathan. I know you’re trying to . . . to do the right thing in all this.”

  “Well, thank you, Mr. Nickel. That means very much to me.”

  “But won’t you have tremendous expenses now with your international congress?”

  “Yes, indeed!”

  “How do you propose to underwrite it all?”

  “Our telephoning in the last two days brought pledges of cooperation and financial support from many church bodies and scholarly societies.”

  “Well, you can count me in again too. At double my previous subsidy.”

  NINETEEN

  Shannon Jennings was about the only joy Jon savored over the next clutt
ered months back in Israel. Their love, carefully pruned by separation, was blooming again luxuriously, at least during the rare moments when they could escape the now-crowded dig, questions from the press, and meetings with the scholars’ congress in Jerusalem. The patrolled, electric fence held back the curious at Rama, but hired helicopters fanned overhead several times each week, generating television footage via zoom lenses. Inside the fence, Jennings was now commander-in-chief of his largest archaeological army to date, his staff tripled in size with experienced excavators supplied by the Phase III effort. Jon helped Jennings coordinate it all, dictating memos to himself on a microcassette recorder, as he darted from one sector to the next. Rama was rapidly giving up her secrets.

  None of the secrets, however, proved “sensational.” All new artifacts dated unspectacularly to the eras where they belonged, and most of first-century Rama would soon be exposed. Jennings, how-ever, greeted each new find like a doting parent, reverently dusting it off as a fresh trophy for his bulging collection.

  Specialists from the Archaeology Panel were given carte blanche to explore the entire dig. They fully endorsed the methodology and record-keeping, and selected very few artifacts for further testing. Samples nearly always were returned with identifications close to what Jennings or Naomi Sharon had proposed. “Well, this whole dig is a magnificent window into the first century,” commented Dr. Walter Rast, one of the panelists who had dug for years in Jordan. “But what else would you expect of Austin Balfour Jennings?”

  The focus of the world’s interest, of course, was the cavern tomb area, where Clive Brampton and Jon were in charge. Inside the grotto, their spoonful-by-spoonful, well-nigh thimbleful-by-thimbleful scouring of the interior yielded nothing more than additional dust, bat guano, and cave debris.

  “Well, may that cursed cavern rest in peace!” Brampton sighed. “Lord knows it’s given the world enough to chew on!”