The Last Days of Jesus Read online

  By letting the Jewish hierarchy rule Jerusalem, Augustus Caesar balances the needs of his empire without insulting the Jewish faith. Nevertheless, he still demands complete submission, a humiliation that the Jews have no choice but to endure. This does not mean, however, that they have stopped rebelling. In fact, their region is the site of more uprisings than any other part of the mighty Roman Empire.

  The Jewish people begin boycotting the purchase of all Roman pottery. As passive and understated as that act may be, it serves as a daily reminder that despite their oppression, the Jews will never allow themselves to be completely trampled beneath the heel of Rome.

  Modern photograph of a gate in the Old City walls in Jerusalem. [The Bridgeman Art Library]

  CHAPTER 4

  MISSING

  MARCH 22, AD 7 JORDAN RIVER VALLEY, JUDEA

  Jesus is missing.

  Mary and Joseph don’t realize it yet as they walk in the long line of pilgrims on their way back to Nazareth after the Passover festival in Jerusalem. They are required by Jewish law to make this journey each year. Leaving the city, thousands of worshippers have been stopped at the gate to pay yet another one of the high taxes that make their lives such a struggle—this time a tariff on goods purchased in Jerusalem. Now they are headed home to Galilee. The pilgrims march in an enormous caravan to ensure protection from robbers, kidnappers, and slavers. Mary and Joseph’s fellow travelers are hardly strangers, for they make this journey together each year. The members of the caravan look after one another and their families. If a child has wandered away from his parents at nightfall, he is given a place to sleep and then sent off to find his parents in the morning.

  Mary and Joseph believe this is what has become of Jesus. He is a bright and charismatic child who gets along well with others, so it was no surprise when he failed to sit with them at the campfire last night. They fully trusted that he would turn up in the morning.

  But now morning has come and gone. And as the noontime sun looms high overhead, Mary and Joseph realize that it has been a very long time since they’ve seen their son. They walk the length of the caravan in search of their lost boy, growing more and more concerned, pleading with fellow pilgrims for some clue as to his whereabouts. But not a single person can remember seeing Jesus since leaving Jerusalem.

  Mary and Joseph realize that they have not only lost their child, but in all probability, they have left him behind.

  With no choice, they turn around and march back up the road. They will walk alone all the way to Jerusalem. Nothing matters more than finding Jesus.

  CHAPTER 5

  JESUS SITS WITH THE RABBIS

  MARCH 23, AD 7 JERUSALEM

  Mary and Joseph finally arrive back in Jerusalem. Now, somewhere among the crowds and soldiers and exotic travelers in this crowded, fast-paced city, they must find him.

  Meanwhile, the Son of God, as Jesus will refer to himself for the first time on this very day, is sitting in the temple and listening with rapt fascination as a group of Jewish scholars share insights about their common faith. Now that the thousands of Passover pilgrims have gone, the worshippers in this most holy building have resumed their normal routines of prayer, fasting, worship, sacrifice, and teaching. It is a rhythm the child has never before experienced, and he enjoys it immensely. If anyone thinks it odd that a twelve-year-old, smooth-cheeked, simply dressed child from rural Galilee should be sitting alone among these gray-bearded rabbis, with their flowing robes and encyclopedic knowledge of Jewish history, they do not say. In fact, the opposite is true: Jesus’s understanding of complex spiritual concepts has astonished the priests and teachers. They marvel to one another about his amazing gifts.

  Jesus is quite aware that his parents have already begun the journey home to Nazareth. He is not an insensitive child, but his thirst for knowledge and eagerness to share his own insights is so great that it never crosses his mind that Mary and Joseph will be worried about him. Nor does Jesus believe that his actions mean he is being disobedient. The need to dig deeper into the meaning of God overwhelms every other consideration. Like all Jewish boys, when he begins puberty, he will go from being considered a mere boy to being thought of as a full-fledged member of the religious community and thus accountable for his actions. But Jesus is different from other boys his age. He is not content to merely learn the oral history of his faith, but also feels a keen desire to debate its fine points. So deep is this need that even now, three days since his parents departed for home, Jesus is still finding new questions to ask.

  * * *

  Mary and Joseph enter the temple complex through the southern doors and then climb the broad stone staircase leading up onto the Temple Mount. They find themselves standing on a large and crowded plaza, where they begin scanning the many worshippers, searching for their lost son.

  It is almost impossible to know where to look first. The temple is a three-acre platform with walls stretching a quarter-mile in length and looming 450 feet over the Kidron Valley below. The majority of the Mount is the vast open-air stone courtyard where they now stand. It is known as the Court of the Gentiles and is open to both Jew and Gentile (non-Jew).

  Seeing no sign of Jesus, they move to the center of the Mount. There, like a fifteen-story limestone and gold island, rises the temple. This is not merely a place of worship, but a refuge from the repression of Roman occupation, a place where all Jews can speak freely and pray to God without fear. There are separate courtyards for men and women, rooms for priests to sleep in when they are not on duty, stairs and terraces from which those priests teach the Jewish faith, and altars where sheep, doves, and young cows are sacrificed. The temple is the first thing visitors to Jerusalem see as they come up over the surrounding hills and gaze down on the city.

  * * *

  The Temple Mount

  The temple in Jerusalem was the center of Jewish life throughout the world. Jews living as far away as Gaul, in what is now western Europe, traveled to the temple especially for the three major festivals: Passover (in Hebrew, Pesach), Sukkoth, and Shabuoth. The temple was built on Mount Moriah, the place where God is thought to have gathered the dust to make Adam, and where Abraham brought his son Isaac to be sacrificed when God tested his faith. (Abraham passed his test because he was willing to sacrifice his son. God allowed Isaac to live.) The First Temple was built by Solomon and destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar. The Second Temple was built between 538 BC and 516 BC. In the Roman era, Herod the Great decided to expand the temple, a task that took more than ten thousand workers. Finished in 19 BC, the renovated complex now spread over thirty-six acres. The temple itself and its courts sit in one corner at an immense plaza. It is said that one million pilgrims could fit in the Temple Mount.

  Pilgrims came to the temple on holy days, but also to pray during services, to study the Torah with one of the many teachers there, to ask questions of the scholars, and to make offerings to God.

  The whole structure is known as the Temple Mount, because it was built on a mountain. The complex encloses a series of courtyards decreasing in size and increasing in importance until one reaches the temple itself.

  * * *

  It is surrounded on four sides by a low wall that separates it from the Court of the Gentiles. Only Jews can cross from one side of the wall to the other. Just in case a Roman soldier or other Gentile is tempted to step through the gates, a sign reminds them that they will be killed. “Foreigners!” reads the inscription. “Do not enter within the grille and partition surrounding the temple. He who is caught will only have himself to blame for his death which will follow.”

  The words are a reminder that this is a holy place. According to tradition, this is the precise location atop Mount Moriah where Abraham almost sacrificed Isaac, where King David chose to build the First Temple, and where God gathered dust to create Adam, the first man. There is no more profound or greater symbol of Jewish belief.

  * * *

  Mary and Joseph step through the temple gate, leaving the Cour
t of Gentiles behind. Now their task gets even more frustrating, because Jesus could be inside any of the many rooms within the temple—or in none. They scour the place with the same frantic urgency with which they searched the bazaars and alleys of Jerusalem earlier in the day.

  As Mary and Joseph make their way through the courts, the sounds and smells of cows and sheep fill the air as priests prepare the animals for their ceremonial deaths on the altar and clean up the gallons of blood that flow when an animal is offered up to God. Ritual animal sacrifices are a constant of temple life. An animal is slaughtered as a symbol that an individual’s sins are forgiven.

  A woodcut of King David playing a harp; no date. [North Wind Picture Archives]

  A 12th-century stone carving of King David. [The Bridgeman Art Library]

  Finally, outside on the terrace where the sages and scribes teach the Scriptures to believers during Passover and other feasts, Mary hears Jesus’s voice. But the words coming from his mouth sound nothing like those of the son she knows so well. Jesus has never shown any sign of such deep knowledge of Jewish law and tradition. Mary and Joseph gasp in shock at the ease with which he discusses God.

  Nevertheless, they are also understandably irate. “Son,” Mary interrupts, “why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.”

  “Why were you searching for me?” he responds. There is innocence to his words. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?”

  If the esteemed temple rabbis overhear Jesus’s response, they don’t let on. For if the boy is suggesting that God is his actual father—literally, and not just figuratively—then what he says is a claim of divinity and would be blasphemy. His punishment would be death by stoning. Jewish law says that on commitment of blasphemy, the entire congregation should place their hands upon the blasphemer, then step back and hurl rocks at his defenseless head and body until he collapses and dies.

  Distant view of Jerusalem. An engraving made in 1846. [Mary Evans Picture Library]

  But under the law, Jesus cannot be convicted of blasphemy because he is only twelve. He has not come of age and is not yet responsible for his words. So perhaps the rabbis do hear his bold statement and breathe a sigh of relief, knowing that this brilliant young scholar is exempt from a most cruel death.

  Jesus rises from among the rabbis. He goes to Mary and Joseph, and together they begin the long walk back to Nazareth.

  CHAPTER 6

  THE CARPENTER

  AD 7–25 NAZARETH AND SEPPHORIS

  The Anxiety of Saint Joseph by James Tissot, 19th century. Watercolor over graphite on paper. [The Bridgeman Art Library]

  There is nothing exceptional about Jesus’s upbringing. He labors six days a week as a tradesman alongside his father, building the roofs and doorposts of Nazareth and laying the foundation stones of nearby sprawling Sepphoris. Any other young man would be destined to remain here always, raising a family and building his own home into the slope of a Nazarene hill.

  But the young Jesus has another destiny. The holiness and magnificence of Jerusalem call to him. He comes to know the smells and music of the city during his annual Passover visits, even as he becomes comfortable navigating his way through such local landmarks as the Mount of Olives, the garden at Gethsemane, the Kidron Valley, and the temple itself. With every passing year, as Jesus grows from a child into a man with a carpenter’s square shoulders and callused hands, his wisdom and awareness of his faith increase. He develops the gifts of serenity and powerful personal charisma, and learns to speak eloquently in public.

  Sketch of Herod Antipas created for a modern opera about Salome. [DeAgostini/ Getty Images]

  Yet Jesus is cautious when he talks to crowds. Accountable for his behavior as a full-fledged member of the Jewish religious community now, he knows that blasphemous talk about being the Son of God will lead to a public execution. Either his fellow Jews would stone him for such language or the Romans might kill him for suggesting he is their divine emperor’s equal. Stoning would seem a tame way to die in comparison with the tortures of which the Romans are capable.

  The most common methods of killing a condemned man in the Roman Empire are hanging, burning him alive, beheading, placing him inside a bag full of scorpions then drowning him, and crucifixion. As terrible as the first four might be, the last is considered the worst by far. Even though crucifixion is practiced regularly throughout the Roman Empire, it is a death so horrible that it is forbidden to execute Roman citizens in this manner. But people in Judea are not considered Roman citizens. And their new ruler, Herod the Great’s fifth son, Herod Antipas, uses this cruel punishment freely.

  Joseph and Mary live in fear of Herod Antipas, as do other Jews. With a dark beard covering the tip of his chin and a thin mustache, he even looks the part of a true villain. He was born in Judea but educated in Rome, a city that he adores. He pays homage to Augustus Caesar and Rome by heavily taxing the Jews in his power, and he enjoys ordering Roman-style forms of execution for anyone who dares defy him.

  Outrage against Rome has been building for decades. The people of Galilee have been levied with tax after tax after tax. Herod Antipas is a lover of luxury, and he uses some of these taxes to rebuild Sepphoris and finance his own lavish lifestyle. The more luxury Herod wants, the higher the taxes climb.

  Actual money is scarce. Every adult male Jew has to pay an annual half-shekel tax to the temple in coin, but otherwise, families pay their due in figs, olive oil, grain, or fish. Farmers have no way of avoiding the taxes, because they must travel to Sepphoris to sell their harvest. The hated taxman is always on hand when they arrive at their destination. Fishermen have it no better. They are levied special rights fees for permission to drop their nets or dock in a port, and are required to give up a portion of their daily catch.

  [LEFT] One side of a half shekel coin from after Jesus’s time showing a chalice. It was minted in AD 66 when the Jewish war against Rome was at its height. [Hoberman Collection/ Corbis]

  [RIGHT] The other side of a half shekel coin showing three pomegranates. [Hoberman Collection/ Corbis]

  Because Joseph is a skilled tradesman, he is able to pay his taxes. Indeed, most people in Galilee can do the same—but just barely. Many Galileans suffer malnutrition because they have so little food left for themselves. In the throes of that hunger, they quietly seethe.

  Man sowing seeds in ancient times. [Alamy]

  The great legends of the Jewish people speak of heroes of their faith rising up to defeat foreign invaders. The people long for the glory days of King David, so many hundreds of years ago, when the Jews were their own masters and God was the undisputed most powerful force in the cosmos. The residents of Galilee are independent thinkers. They persist in the belief that they will ultimately control their destiny.

  In that belief, there is hope. The hardships of working the land and the cruelty of Rome have bred a growing faith in the power of the Jewish God, to whom they pray for rescue and relief. This is the world Jesus of Nazareth inhabits. These are the prayers he hears poured forth every day. The promise of God’s deliverance is the one shaft of daylight that comforts the oppressed people of Galilee. Someday, if they can just hold on, God will send someone to make things right, as he did with Abraham, Moses, Daniel, Samson, and David.

  How much Jesus is affected by the suffering and anger in his town is unknown. He grows into a strong man, respectful of his parents. Joseph dies sometime between Jesus’s thirteenth and thirtieth birthdays, leaving Jesus the family business. He remains devoted to his mother—and she to him. But as he passes his thirtieth birthday, Jesus of Nazareth knows the time has come to fulfill his destiny. Silence is no longer an option. He decides to reveal himself.

  It is a decision that will change the world.

  It is also a decision that will lead to an agonizing death.

  Moses and the tablets with the Ten Commandments and King David with a harp. Painting by Albrecht Dürer for an altarpiece,
1511. [The Bridgeman Art Library]

  BOOK II

  JESUS the PREACHER

  CHAPTER 7

  JOHN BAPTIZES JESUS

  AD 26 JORDAN RIVER MIDDAY

  John the Baptist stands waist deep in the cold, brown Jordan River, waiting patiently as the next pilgrim wades out to stand at his side. He looks to the shore, where many other believers are lined up despite the heat, to be cleansed of their sins.

  The believers are mostly poor working people. They have been inspired by John and his radical teachings. The longhaired young man with the sunburned skin and scraggly beard has disciplined himself by living alone in the desert, eating only locusts for protein and honey for energy. He wears a coarse tunic stitched from the skin of a camel and has a simple leather belt tied around his waist. Some think John eccentric, others consider him a rebel, but all agree that he has boldly promised them something that neither Rome nor the temple high priests in Jerusalem can offer: hope.

  Marble statue in the Saint-Roch Church in Paris of the baptism of Jesus, made in the 1700s by Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne. [The Bridgeman Art Library]