Cross bones

28

“HOW DO BIBLICAL SCHOLARS OR HISTORIANS INTERPRET THEJesus family?” I asked, keeping my voice steady.

“The historical view is that Jesus, his four brothers, James, Joseph, Simon, and Jude, and his two sisters, Mary and Salome, were the biological children of Joseph and Mary. The Protestant view is that Jesus had no human father, but Mary had other children by Joseph.”

“Making Jesus the eldest sibling,” Ryan said.

“Yes,” Jake said.

“The Vatican sees Mary as a perpetual virgin,” I said.

“No siblings allowed,” Ryan added.

Jake nodded. “The Western Catholic view is that the others were first cousins, offspring of Joseph’s brother Clopas, who was also married to a woman named Mary. The Eastern Orthodox view is that God is the father of Jesus, Mary remained a virgin, and the brothers and sisters are the children of Joseph, a widower, by a previous marriage.”

“Making Jesus the youngest.” Ryan was infatuated with birth order.

“Yes,” Jake said.

My mind cataloged.

Two Mary’s. Salome. Jude. Joseph. And someone named Matthew.

Something fluttered in my gut.

“Weren’t these names common, like Joe or Tom today?” I asked.

“Very,” Jake said. “Anyone hungry?”

“No,” I said.

“Yes,” Ryan said.

We trooped back to the kitchen. Jake laid out cold cuts, cheese, flat bread, oranges, pickles, and olives. The cats watched as we helped ourselves. Ryan skipped the olives.

When we’d sandwiched up, we moved to a picnic table in the dining area. We talked as we ate.

“Mary was the most common female name in first-century Roman Palestine,” Jake said. “For men it was Simon, followed by Joseph. Uncovering ossuaries with these names is no big deal. Whatis a big deal is the co-occurrence, the finding of the names in a single tomb. That’s the mind-blow.”

“But, Jake-”

“I’ve studied published catalogs of Jewish ossuaries. Of the thousands of boxes stored in collections all over Israel, only six are inscribed with the name Jesus. Of those six, only one is inscribed ‘Jesus, son of Joseph.’ And now ours.”

Jake shooed a cat.

“Ever hear of onomastics or prosopography?”

Ryan and I shook our heads.

“The statistical analysis of names.” Jake popped an olive into his mouth and talked through the depitting process. “For example, among his catalog of published ossuaries, an Israeli archaeologist named Rahmani found nineteen Josephs, ten Joshuas, and five Jacobs, or James.”

Jake palmed the pit and popped another olive.

“Another expert studied registered names in first-century Palestine and came up with figures of fourteen percent for Joseph, nine percent for Jesus, and two percent for Jacob. Crunching these numbers, a French paleoepigrapher named André Lemaire calculated that only 0.14 percent of the male population of Jerusalem could bear the name ‘Jacob, son of Joseph.’”

Pit out. Olive in.

“Based on the assumption that every male had approximately two brothers, Lemaire calculated that roughly eighteen percent of the men named ‘Jacob, son of Joseph’ would have had a brother named Jesus. So over two generations, only 0.05 percent of the population would likely be called ‘Jacob, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus.’”

“How many people lived in first-century Jerusalem?” I asked.

“Lemaire used a figure of eighty thousand.”

“Of whom about forty thousand would have been male,” Ryan said.

Nod. “Lemaire concluded that in Jerusalem during the two generations before seventyC. E., no more than twenty people could have fit the inscription on the James ossuary.”

“But not everyone ended up in an ossuary,” I said.

“No.”

“And not every ossuary was inscribed.”

“Astute points, Dr. Brennan. But the mention of a brother is rare. How many Jacobs, sons of Joseph, had a brother, Jesus, who was famous enough for that relationship to be marked on their ossuaries?”

I had no answer so I replied with a question.

“Do other name experts agree with Lemaire’s estimate?”

Jake snorted. “Of course not. Some say it’s high, others say it’s low. But what are the chances of this whole cluster of names in one tomb? The Marys, Joseph, Jesus, Jude, Salome. The probability must become infinitesimal.”

“Is this the same Lemaire to whom Oded Golan first revealed the James ossuary?” I asked.

“Yes.”

My eyes drifted to the heel bone with its peculiar lesion. I thought of Donovan Joyce and his bizarre theory of Jesus living on to fight and die at Masada. I thought of Yossi Lerner and his bizarre theory of Jesus’ bones ending up at the Musée de l’Homme in Paris.

Believing it was Jesus, Lerner had stolen the skeleton we were calling Max. But Max’s age at death had proven Lerner wrong. My skeletal estimate put him at forty to sixty. That estimate also made Max too young to be the octogenarian who had penned Grosset’s Jesus scroll.

Now Jake was suggesting another bizarre theory, and another candidate. Jesus had died by crucifixion, but his body hadn’t risen, it had remained in its tomb. That tomb had become the final resting place of the Jesus family. That tomb was in the Kidron. Looters had found that tomb and stolen the James ossuary from it. Jake had rediscovered that tomb and recovered the remains of ossuaries and individuals the looters had left behind. I had blundered onto a hidden loculus in that tomb, and found a burial no one else had. The shrouded bones of Jesus.

My stomach went from a flutter to a knot.

I lay down my sandwich. One of the toms began a slow ooze toward it.

“Was James well-known in his day?” Ryan asked.

“You better believe it. Let’s back up a bit. Historical evidence suggests Jesus was born to a lineage known as Davidids, direct descendents of David, a tenth-centuryB. C. E. king of Israel. According to Hebrew prophets, the Messiah, the final king of a restored nation of Israel, was to come from among this royal line. The Davidids, with their radical revolutionary potential, were well-known to the Herod family, who ruled Palestine at the time, and to the Romans, right up to the emperor. These ‘royals’ were watched very closely, and at times, hunted down and killed.

“When Jesus was crucified in thirtyC. E. for his claim to messianic kingship, his brother James, next in the Davidid line, became top dog in the Christian movement in Jerusalem.”

“Not Peter?” Ryan asked.

“Not Peter, not Paul. James the Just. That fact is not widely known, and rarely given proper consideration. When James was stoned to death in sixty-twoC. E., for basically the same kind of messianic claims as Jesus, brother Simon stepped up to the plate. After a forty-five-year run, Simon was crucified under the emperor Trajan, specifically because of his royal lineage. Guess who came up to bat next?”

Ryan and I shook our heads.

“Athird relative, Judas, took over the movement in Jerusalem.”

I thought about that. Jesus and his brother claimants to the messianic title of King of the Jews? Okay. I could buy into a different political perspective. But what else was Jake suggesting? Jesus still in his tomb?

“How can you be certain that the Kidron tomb dates to the right period?” My voice sounded tense. I felt suddenly edgy.

“Ossuaries were only used from about thirtyB. C. E. to seventyC. E. ”

“One of the inscriptions is in Greek.” I waved a hand at the Tupperware lying on the counter. “Maybe these people weren’t even Jewish.”

“The mixture of Greek and Hebrew is very common in first-century tombs. And ossuaries were used only for Jewish burial.” Jake anticipated my next question. “And almost exclusively in and around Jerusalem.”

“I thought Christ’s tomb was under the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, outside the Old City,” Ryan said, rolling a slice of Muenster around a pickle.

“So do a lot of folks.”

“You don’t.”

“I don’t.”

“Jesus was from Nazareth,” I said. “Why wouldn’t the family plot be there?”

“The New Testament indicates Mary and her children took up residence in Jerusalem following the crucifixion. Tradition has it Mary died and was buried here, not up north in Galilee.”

There was a long silence during which the tom slunk to within inches of my feet.

“Let me understand this.” The cat skittered backward at the sound of my voice. “You’re convinced the James ossuary inscription is real.”

“I am,” Jake said.

“And that the thing was looted from the tomb we visited.”

“Rumors have always placed the ossuary’s origin in that location.”

“And that that tomb was the final resting place of Jesus’ kin.”

“Yes.”

“And that the lesion in this shroud calcaneus suggests one of the tomb’s occupants was crucified.”

Jake nodded silently.

My eyes met Ryan’s. They found not a hint of a smile.

“Have you shared your theory on this tomb with Blotnik?”

“I have. Though obviously not the crucified calcaneus. You just found that. I still can’t believe it.”

“And?”

“He blew me off. The man’s a pigheaded cretin.”

“Jake?”

“You’ll see when you meet him.”

I let that go and switched tacks.

“You snitched specimens from the bones adhered to the smashed ossuaries and from the bones dumped on the tomb floor and sent them for DNA testing. When?”

“I held samples back when I turned the collection over for analysis and reburial. I sent them off for testing right after our phone conversation. Your comments confirmed what I hoped. mtDNA might show maternal relationships among individuals in the tomb, and aDNA might at least tell gender.”

Again, my eyes went to the bones on the counter. A question formed in my mind. I wasn’t yet ready to pose it.

“Normally, bodies were left for one year to decay, then the bones were collected and sealed in ossuaries, right?” Ryan asked. “Then why was the shroud person left in the loculus?”

“According to rabbinic law, a dead man’s bones had to be collected by his son. Perhaps this man had none. Perhaps it had to do with his manner of death. Perhaps some crisis prevented the family from returning.”

Crisis? Like the execution of a dissident and the suppression of his movement, forcing his family and followers underground? Jake’s meaning was clear.

Ryan looked as if he might have something to say, but kept it to himself.

I got up and retrieved the article containing the foot-bone photos. Crossing back to the table, I noticed the header at the top of each page.

N. Haas. Department of Anatomy, Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School.

My mind jumped on it. Think about Max. Masada. Anything but the heel bone and its disturbing lesion.

“Is this the same Haas that worked at Masada?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

I skimmed the article. Age. Sex. Cranial metrics. Trauma and pathology. Diagrams. Tables.

“This is quite detailed.”

“Flawed, but detailed,” Jake agreed.

“Yet Haas never wrote a thing on the Cave 2001 skeletons.”

“Not a word.”

The Masada skeleton was never reported, spirited out of Israel, stolen from a museum, smuggled to Canada. According to Kaplan, Ferris claimed it was that of a person of historic importance, discovered at Masada. Jake had admitted to hearing rumors of such a skeleton. A volunteer excavator had confirmed the discovery of such a skeleton. Kaplan’s photo had sent Jake flying to Montreal, then Paris. Because of Max, I’d been persuaded to come to Israel.

Lerner thought the skeleton was that of Jesus. He was wrong. The age at death didn’t work. Jake was suggesting the real thing lay on the counter behind me.

So why the decades of intrigue over the Masada skeleton? Who was this man we were calling Max?

I pictured Max, stolen and probably lost forever.

I pictured my wild ride in Jake’s truck.

I pictured my ransacked room.

Anger flared.

Good. Use it. Focus on Max. Avoid the impossible coincidentally found in a Kidron tomb. The impossible lying in Tupperware on a kitchen counter.

“The Masada skeleton’s gone for good, isn’t it?” I asked.

“Not if I can help it.” Something crossed Jake’s face. I couldn’t say what. “I’ll talk to Blotnik today.”

“Blotnik has juice with the Hevrat Kadisha?” Ryan asked.

Jake didn’t answer. Outside, a goat bleated.

“What are you thinking?” I asked.

Jake frowned.

“What?” I pressed.

“There’s something bigger at stake.” Jake rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands.

I opened my mouth. Ryan snagged my gaze, gave an almost imperceptible head shake. I closed it.

Jake dropped his hands, and his forearms slapped the tabletop.

“This is more than the usual reburial bullshit. The Hevrat Kadisha had to have received a heads-up. They followed us to the Kidron because of the Masada bones.” One long finger began worrying crumbs. “I think Yadin knew something about that skeleton that scared the crap out of him.”

“What sort of something?”

“I’m not sure. But sending an emissary all the way from Israel to Canada? Trashing a hotel room? Maybe even killing a guy? That’s more than Hevrat Kadisha.”

I watched Jake convert a small hill of crumbs into a long, thin line. I thought of Yossi Lerner, Avram Ferris, and Sylvain Morissonneau.

I thought of Jamal Hasan Abu-Jarur and Muhammed Hazman Shalaideh, the Palestinians parked outside l’Abbaye Sainte-Marie-des-Neiges.

I didn’t know the players. I didn’t know the field. But my instincts told me Jake was right. The game was deadly, the goal was Max, and the opposition was determined to win.

Always the same question. Who was Max?

“Jake, listen.”

Throwing out his feet, Jake slumped back, crossed his arms, and looked first at Ryan, then at me.

“You’ll get your DNA results. You’ll get your textile analysis. That’s the tomb. That’s important. But for now, let’s focus on Masada.”

At that moment Ryan’s cell phone sounded. He checked the screen, and strode from the room.

I turned back to Jake.

“Haas never reported on the cave skeletons, right?”

“Right.”

“What about field notes?”

Jake shook his head. “Some excavators kept diaries, but notes as you and I think of them weren’t protocol at Masada.”

I must have looked shocked.

“Yadin met with his senior staff each evening to discuss the day’s developments. The sessions were taped and later transcribed.”

“Where are those transcripts?”

“The Institute of Archaeology at Hebrew University.”

“Are they accessible?”

“I can make a few calls.”

“How are you feeling?” I asked.

“Tip-top.”

“How about we swing by the big U and poke through old files.”

“How about we take the shroud to Esther Getz then hit the big U.”

“Where’s Getz’s lab?”

“At the Rockefeller Museum.”

“Isn’t the IAA housed there?”

“Yes.” Dramatic sigh.

“Perfect.” I said. “It’s time I introduced myself to Tovya Blotnik.”

“You’re not going to like him.”

While I cleared the table, Jake placed his calls. I was screwing the lid on the pickles when Ryan reappeared. His face suggested he hadn’t received the best of all possible news.

“Kaplan’s changed his story,” he said.

I waited.

“Claims someone hired him to cap Ferris.”