Killing Jesus: A History

by Bill O'Reilly

  The fishermen themselves are even sturdier, with thick hands and forearms heavily callused from a lifetime of working the nets. The sun has made their faces leathery and deeply tanned. It is a tan that extends over the entire body, for those who fish with cast nets (as opposed to the larger dragnets or multilayer trammel nets) must often jump into the water to retrieve their catch, and so prefer to work naked.

  Jesus narrows his search to two empty boats. He has met the owners before and now sees them washing and stretching their twenty-foot-wide cast nets in preparation for the next voyage. The two men take care to eliminate knots and tangles, while also replacing any sinker weights that have fallen off. Though he knows next to nothing about fishing, Jesus walks down the pier with confidence and steps into one of the empty craft. No one stops him.

  As he gazes back toward the shoreline, Jesus can see the raised central roof of the town synagogue a block from the water. It stands taller than the homes and waterfront administrative offices, reminding him that Capernaum’s citizens worship God and hold a teacher like him in great reverence.

  A fisherman in his early twenties walks to the boat. Simon, as he is known, is a simple, uneducated, impulsive man. He knows Jesus from their previous meeting during the summer, as he and some others were fishing for the tropical musht fish in the warm mineral springs down the coast, near Tabgha. At the time, Jesus had called upon Simon and his brother Andrew to join him as he preached his message throughout Galilee and to save souls by becoming “fishers of men.” While Simon had initially accepted that call to evangelism, he also has a wife and mother-in-law to care for. The task of being one of Jesus’s disciples and spreading the word about his message is difficult to balance with his need to make a living. His commitment to Jesus has flagged.

  But now Jesus is back, standing before him in his boat.

  Simon doesn’t tell him to leave. He just asks Jesus what he wants. Jesus tells Simon to push the boat away from the dock and drop anchor a little way offshore. The spoken word carries easily across the lake’s surface, and Jesus knows he will be heard by one and all if he teaches from a place upon the water.

  Simon is exhausted and dejected. He has been up for twenty-four hours straight, sailing his small boat out onto the lake and dropping his nets again and again. His back aches from his leaning over the side to pull those nets in. He has been in and out of the inland sea countless times, without success. He needs a drink of water and a meal. He needs a soft bed. But most of all, he needs to pay his taxes, and last night did nothing to help this, for he did not catch a single fish.

  Perhaps Simon has nothing else to do at this moment, or perhaps he can’t face the thought of returning home to his wife and mother-in-law empty-handed. Perhaps he hopes the teacher will say a few words that will lighten his burden. Or maybe he just feels guilty for reneging on his original commitment. Whatever the reason, Simon undoes the knot connecting his boat to its anchorage, pulls the rope toward himself, and pushes away from the pier.

  Jesus has been standing this whole while. But when Simon’s boat floats just far enough from the shore that Jesus can be clearly heard by one and all, he takes a seat, adopting the traditional pose for teaching.

  Thanks to Simon and his boat, Jesus is soon regaling the entire waterfront at Capernaum with his insightful words. As always, people are overcome by his charisma. One by one, they stop what they are doing to listen.

  “Put out into deep water,” Jesus tells the weary fisherman when he is finished speaking, “and let down your nets for a catch.”

  “Master,” Simon responds, “we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything.”

  Sending his boat out into the deep water is the last thing Simon wants to do, yet he also feels powerless to say no.

  So with Jesus sitting calmly amidships, Simon hoists the small sail and aims his boat for the deepest waters of the Sea of Galilee.

  * * *

  A short time later, Jesus and Simon are catching so many fish that the nets start to break. The sheer volume of carp, sardines, and musht threatens to capsize Simon’s small craft, and he is forced to signal to James and John, the partners in his fishing cooperative, to come help.

  Rather than rejoice, Simon is terrified. From the moment Jesus first stepped into his boat, something deeply spiritual about his presence made Simon uncomfortable. He feels unholy in comparison, even more so after hearing Jesus’s teachings about repentance and the need to be cleansed of all sins. Simon wants this man out of his life immediately. He throws himself onto his knees atop a pile of writhing fish and begs Jesus to leave him alone. “Go away from me, Lord. I am a sinful man.”

  “Don’t be afraid,” Jesus tells Simon. “From this day on, you will catch men.”

  * * *

  And so it is that Simon—whom Jesus renames Peter, meaning “rock”—becomes Jesus’s first disciple. Peter cannot explain why Jesus has selected him—not the local rabbi, not the most pious teachers in Capernaum, not even some of the more devout fishermen—for this honor. Other disciples soon join him, including Matthew, Capernaum’s despised local taxman, who oversees all collections for Herod Antipas.

  By early in the year 28, Jesus has selected twelve men to follow him and learn his teachings as disciples, so that they may one day go out alone into the world and preach his message.

  Four of the apostles—Peter, Andrew, James, and John—are fishermen. Jesus has specifically singled out men from this calling because their job requires them to be conversant in Aramaic, Hebrew, Greek, and a little Latin, which will allow them to speak with a wider group of potential followers.

  All of the children are from Galilee, except one. He is from a town called Carioth—or “Iscariot,” as it will one day be translated into the Greek of the Gospels. His name is Judas. He speaks with the polished accent of Judea’s southern region and is so good with money that Jesus selects him as the group’s treasurer instead of Matthew. Jesus chooses Judas as one of his twelve disciples3 and refers to him openly as a friend. One day that will change.

  Galilee is a small region, measuring roughly thirty by forty miles. Its cities are interconnected by a series of ancient highways and Roman roads4 plied daily by traders, pilgrims, and travelers. Capernaum is a savvy choice for a base of operations, as the fishing community is constantly sending out its product to far-flung markets, and those who hear Jesus speak in and around that city spread the news about his ministry when they travel to places such as Tyre and even Jerusalem to sell their baskets loaded with salted fish. Crowds begin to find him on those days when Jesus ventures out from Capernaum to preach. He is not always on the move, for his disciples still have jobs and families to support. But as the months pass and his popularity grows, when Jesus does preach, the crowds that gather to hear him grow in size. The Nazarene teaches in synagogues and in open fields, in private homes and along the lakeshore. Men and women abandon their labors to hear him speak, and vast audiences crowd close together to hear Jesus’s simple message of God’s love and hope.

  Not everyone adores him, however. It would seem that a lone man preaching such a noncombative message would not present a problem for Rome or its henchman Antipas. The Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, has a palace in Caesarea, just a day’s ride from Capernaum. Thanks to Roman spies, word has reached Pilate about a potential Jewish rebel. The spies of Herod Antipas are also keeping a close eye on Jesus, whom they perceive to be a consort of and successor to John the Baptist. The Jewish religious authorities in Jerusalem and Galilee, particularly the law-centric Pharisees, are now watching him closely for any violation of religious law, and they seek to debunk his teachings. They mock him for drinking wine with sinners and for selecting a much-despised tax collector, Matthew, as a disciple. And when news of supernatural healings performed by Jesus begin to make the rounds in Galilee, the religious authorities become even more alarmed.

  But Jesus does not back down.

  Instead, he asserts himself. For the poor and oppressed peop
le of Galilee, the sermon he will soon preach from a mountainside outside Capernaum will define their struggle in a way that will never be forgotten.

  * * *

  “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven,” Jesus begins. “Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted.

  “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

  “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

  “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.

  “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

  “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.

  “Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

  Jesus is sitting, letting his powerful speaking voice carry his words out to the massive crowd. There are Pharisees among the people. And no doubt they are stunned as Jesus sets forth his own interpretation of religious law. What begins as a message designed to remind the men and women of Galilee that their current circumstances will not last forever soon becomes a lengthy poetic dissertation on adultery, murder, false oaths, alms to the poor, loving one’s enemies, and even, most shockingly, defying the powers that be.

  Jesus is telling the crowd that they should defer to God in all matters. And the words he speaks are like an emotional rejuvenation in the hearts of these Galileans, who feel oppressed and hopeless.

  “This, then, is how you should pray,” Jesus tells them. No one speaks. The crowd leans forward, straining to listen.

  “Our Father, who are in heaven, hallowed be your name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.”

  It’s all there. Everything that a peasant in Galilee can relate to as a part of life under Roman rule: the need to rely on God, the worry about daily nourishment, the constant struggle to stay out of debt, and, finally, a reminder that in the midst of this cruel life, succumbing to the temptation to lie, cheat, steal, or sleep with another man’s wife is a false act that will only lead people farther and farther away from God.

  The crowd is stunned as Jesus finishes. The speech is less than two thousand words long. Yet there is great power in its brevity. “The Sermon on the Mount,” as it will come to be known, may be the most important speech in history.

  The crowds follow Jesus down the mountain that day, through the tall spring grass and around small limestone boulders, past the fields of new wheat, trailing him all the way back to Capernaum.

  There, soon after entering the city, a most amazing thing happens: the Roman military officer in charge of Capernaum declares himself to be a follower of Jesus.

  Jesus is astonished. This admission could end the man’s career or even get him killed. But Jesus turns to the centurion. “I tell you the truth,” he says with emotion. “I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith.”

  * * *

  Three months after the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is in the home of a local Pharisee. He has been invited to dinner to discuss his teachings. The Pharisee, Simon, does not like Jesus. And even though Simon invited Jesus to dinner, he is demonstrating his contempt for him by not playing the role of a good host. Though Jesus walked the four dusty miles from Capernaum to Magdala in sandals to be here, Simon has not provided him with water to wash the dust from his feet, as per custom. Simon did not offer him a respectful kiss of greeting on the cheek or anoint him with olive oil upon his arrival.

  The Pharisees number some six thousand members throughout all of Judea, and their name means “separated ones,” in reference to the way they hold themselves apart from other Jews. There is no middle class that falls in between the royalty of the state and the religious teachers. Farmers, artisans, and merchants all constitute the lower class. The Pharisees, who have appointed themselves guardians of Jewish religious law, believe that their interpretations of Scripture are authoritative. Wherever they go to teach in synagogues, this is considered to be true. But now Jesus has chosen to interpret the Scriptures himself. And that is threatening to the establishment, as the people of Galilee are eagerly listening to Jesus. So Simon the Pharisee has invited the Nazarene to a gathering of friends, to see if he can trap him into saying something blasphemous.

  A young woman enters the room silently. She is a prostitute who has heard Jesus speak. She has been invited by Simon as part of his elaborate plan to test the Nazarene. The moment is obviously awkward, for rarely does a woman of ill repute enter the home of a holy Pharisee. Nevertheless, Mary of Magdala5—or Mary Magdalene, as she will go down in history—now stands behind Jesus. In her hands, she holds a very expensive alabaster jar of perfume. Where she got the money to buy it is left unasked.

  It is well known how Mary makes her living, for there are few secrets in the small villages and towns of Galilee. But Mary has come to believe in the love and acceptance preached by Jesus. Now, overcome with emotion, she bends down to pour the aromatic perfume on his feet. But she begins to sob before she can open the jar. Mary’s tears flow freely and without shame, and her face is pressed close to the feet of the Nazarene, which are still coated in road dust from his walk to the Pharisee’s house.

  Mary’s tears continue, and they mix with the perfume she applies to Jesus. She then dries his feet with her long hair, even as she kisses them as a sign of love and respect.

  Jesus does nothing to stop her.

  “If this man were a prophet,” thinks Simon the Pharisee, “he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is: a sinner.”

  “Simon, I have something to tell you,” Jesus says as Mary opens the alabaster jar and pours more perfume on his feet. The smell is enchanting and powerful, filling the room with its flowery sweetness.

  “Tell me, teacher,” Simon replies smoothly.

  “Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet,” Jesus tells the Pharisee. “You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. Therefore I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—for she loved much. But he who has been forgiven little, loves little.”

  Jesus looks at Mary. She lifts her eyes to see his face. “Your sins are forgiven,” Jesus tells her.

  If Simon was looking for a chance to catch Jesus in a theological trap, now is the moment. Sins can be forgiven only through sacrificial offerings. In the eyes of the Pharisees, even the baptisms performed in the Jordan River do not officially forgive sins. And now Jesus is saying that he has the authority to obliterate sin.

  Mary Magdalene

  The other friends of Simon who have come to dinner this evening are dumbfounded by Jesus’s words, particularly since he has spoken them in the presence of such a prominent Pharisee. “Who is this who even forgives sins?” they ask one another.

  “Your faith has saved you,” Jesus tells Mary of Magdala. “Now go in peace.”

  She goes, but not for long. Mary isn’t selected by Jesus to serve as one of his twelve disciples, but she follows them as they travel and never returns to the life she once knew. In the end, Mary will be a powerful witness to the last days of Jesus of Nazareth.6

  * * *

  The last days have come for John the Baptist. He has been in the dungeons of Machaerus for two long years. The dank cells are carved into the rocky hillside, and, in fact, some are nothing more than caves. The floors, ceilings, and walls are impenetrable rock. There are no windows in his cell; the only light comes through small slits in the thick wooden door. The rectangular doorjamb is framed by haphazardly chiseled stones stacked atop one another and sealed with mortar. It is a place of solitude and silence, damp and chill, where hope is hard
to maintain through month after month of sleeping on the ground and where one’s skin grows pale from never feeling the warmth of sunlight. Now and again it is possible to smell the aromatic bushes that Antipas planted between the castle and the lower city, but the scent is just as quickly swept away on the desert wind, taking with it the brief sensation of beauty. The living hell of the prison has been preying on John’s mind. He is now beginning to doubt his initial faith in Jesus as the Messiah. He desperately wants to get word to Jesus and be reassured by him.

  John the Baptist in prison sends his disciples to Jesus

  John the Baptist has attracted many disciples of his own, though he has also exhorted men to return to their fields and their farms rather than follow him through the wilderness. But at least two such men have come to see him, and now they listen as John sends them on a mission. “Ask him,” the Baptist says, referring to Jesus, “‘Are you the one who has come, or should we expect someone else?’”

  The months in isolation have given John time to reflect on his ministry. He is still a young man, not yet forty. But the longer he remains in prison, the more it appears that he might eventually be executed. His life’s work has been to tell people about the coming of a messiah, and now he wonders if it was all in vain. Perhaps Jesus is just another great teacher, or another man like him, intent on preaching about the coming of God. John’s own disciples have come bringing news of Jesus’s great speeches and the large crowds that seek him no matter when or where he preaches. They’ve told John that Jesus is unafraid to eat and drink with the tax collectors and whores and that some of these sinners change their ways after listening to his words of redemption. These disciples have also told John that Jesus has healed the sick and caused men who were completely deaf their whole lives suddenly to hear.