Killing Jesus: A History Read online

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  The final battle takes place in 31 B.C., in Actium, just off the coast of Greece. Just before the fighting begins, one of Marc Antony’s top generals, Quintus Dellius, defects to Octavian, bringing Antony’s battle plans with him. When this leads to the destruction of his naval fleet, Marc Antony’s nineteen legions and twelve thousand cavalry desert.4 Now hunted and without an army, Antony flees to Egypt with his longtime lover the once-powerful queen Cleopatra, who chose to ally herself with the warrior rather than Octavian. Furious, Octavian gives chase, and Marc Antony kills himself with his sword to avoid being taken prisoner, dying in his lover’s arms. Cleopatra soon follows him into death by drinking a poisonous blend of opium and hemlock.5 She is thirty-nine years old.

  To ensure he reigns as his uncle’s undisputed heir, Octavian then orders the murder of Caesarion, Julius Caesar’s bastard child by Cleopatra. The sixteen-year-old Caesarion escapes to India but is lured back to Egypt by promises that he will be named the new pharaoh. This proves to be a lie. Octavian’s henchmen strangle the teenage pretender, putting an end to the scheme Cleopatra hatched when she first bedded Julius Caesar in those glorious years before his assassination. The devious cycle is now complete.

  So it is that the new Roman Empire is ruled by just one all-powerful man who believes himself to be the son of god: Octavian, who will soon answer to a new name.

  All hail Caesar Augustus.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  JORDAN RIVER VALLEY, JUDEA

  MARCH 22, A.D. 7

  NOON

  The child with twenty-three years to live is missing.

  The northeast road out of Jerusalem is dusty and barren, a desolate path leading steeply downhill through the city to the Jordan River and the rocky desert of Perea beyond. There is little shade and few places to take refuge from the sun. Mary and Joseph walk among a long line of pilgrims on their way back to Nazareth after the Passover festival in Jerusalem, a journey they are required by Jewish law to make each year. The couple leaves behind a city far different from when Jesus was born. King Herod is long dead, but rather than being better off—he was demented in his final hours, waving a knife and ordering the murder of yet another son—the Jewish people are actually worse for the tyrant’s demise.

  Intense rioting followed his passing in March of 4 B.C., and anarchy reigned once the people of Jerusalem realized that Herod’s heir was a weak and ineffectual version of his father. But Archelaus, as the new king was known, struck back hard, showing that he could be as cruel as Herod. The slaughter came during Passover, the celebration of the night when the angel of death “passed over” the houses of the Jews while they were enslaved in Egypt during the time of the pharaohs, killing the firstborn sons of Egyptians instead. The holiday symbolizes the freedom from slavery that later followed, when Moses led the people out of Egypt in search of the homeland that God had promised them.

  Passover is a time when Jerusalem is packed with hundreds of thousands of worshippers from all over the world, so it was horrific when Archelaus boldly asserted his authority by ordering his cavalry to charge their horses into the thick crowds filling the Temple courts. Wielding javelins and long, straight steel and bronze swords, Archelaus’s Babylonian, Thracian, and Syrian mercenaries massacred three thousand innocent pilgrims. Mary, Joseph, and Jesus saw the bloodbath firsthand and were lucky to escape the Temple with their lives. They were also eyewitnesses to the crucifixion of more than two thousand Jewish rebels outside Jerusalem’s city walls when Roman soldiers moved in to quell further revolts. In defiance of Jewish law,1 the bodies were not taken down and buried, but left to rot or to be devoured by wild dogs and vultures as a symbol of what happens to those who defy the Roman Empire.

  Rome soon inserted itself completely into Judean politics.2 By A.D. 6, Emperor Caesar Augustus deemed Archelaus unfit to reign and exiled him to Gaul. Judea is now a Roman province, ruled by a prefect sent from Rome. There are still Jewish rulers reigning over other portions of Herod’s former kingdom, but they are nothing more than figureheads and carry the title of tetrarch instead of king. A tetrarch is a subordinate ruler in the Roman Empire. The term refers to “fourths” and the fact that Herod the Great’s kingdom of Judea was split into four unequal parts after his death. Three of those parts went to his sons, one each to Herod and Philip and two to Archelaus. Upon the exile of Archelaus in A.D. 6, Rome sent prefects to be governors to oversee the land of the Jews.

  Jerusalem is ruled by the local aristocracy and Temple high priests, who mete out justice through the Great Sanhedrin, a court comprised of seventy-one judges with absolute authority to enforce Jewish religious law—though, in the case of a death sentence, they must get the approval of the Roman governor.

  In this way, Emperor Caesar Augustus balances the needs of his empire without insulting the Jewish faith. Nevertheless, he still demands complete submission to his domain, a humiliation that the Jews have no choice but to endure. This does not, however, mean they have stopped rebelling. In fact, their region is the site of more uprisings than any other part of the mighty Roman Empire, a sprawling kingdom stretching the length of Europe, across the sands of Parthia, and spanning almost the entire Mediterranean rim. The worst rebellion was in 4 B.C., when Jesus was just one year old. A rebel faction broke into the great palace fortress in Sepphoris, looted the royal armory, distributed its cache of weapons to the city’s residents, and then attempted a takeover of the local government. Under the orders of Caesar Augustus, Publius Quinctilius Varus, the Roman governor of Syria, ordered his cavalry to slaughter the rebels, burn Sepphoris to the ground, and enslave its entire population of more than eight thousand residents.

  The Jewish people have also begun boycotting the purchase of all Roman pottery. As passive and understated as the 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. For, while the Roman Republic kept its distance from Judean politics during the reign of Julius Caesar, the Roman Empire rules the Jews in an increasingly oppressive fashion.

  For now, the thousands of observant worshippers filling the desolate road spilling down to the Jordan River can forget their gripes and fears about the Roman soldiers stationed in the barracks right next to the Temple. Passover is done. They have been stopped at the city gate to pay the publican yet another one of the exorbitant taxes that make their lives such a struggle—this time a tax 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. A lucky few lead a donkey that carries their supplies, but most shoulder their own food and water. Mary and Joseph haven’t seen the twelve-year-old Jesus since yesterday, but they are sure he is somewhere in the caravan, walking with friends or extended family.

  This is not the easiest or shortest way home, though it is the safest. The most direct route means two days’ less travel. But it leads due north, through Samaria, a region notorious for racial hatred between the Samaritans and the Jews, and along mountain passes where murderous bandits give vent to that prejudice.

  So the caravan is going around Samaria, on a path that can only be described as treacherous. There are few inns or sources of food and water, and the landscape alternates between desert and rugged wilderness. But there is safety in numbers, and 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 always 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 morning has come and gone. And as the noon sun looms high over
head, Mary and Joseph realize that it has been a very long time since they’ve seen Jesus.

  They walk the length of the caravan in search of their lost boy, growing more and more concerned by the moment, pleading with fellow pilgrims for some clue as to their son’s whereabouts. But not a single person can remember seeing Jesus since the moment the endless column of travelers left Jerusalem.

  Mary and Joseph realize that not only have they 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 all the way to Jerusalem and submit once more to the Romans if need be. Nothing matters more than finding Jesus.

  His destiny must be fulfilled, even if his worried parents have no idea how horrific that destiny might be.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  JERUSALEM

  MARCH 23, A.D. 7

  AFTERNOON

  Mary and Joseph’s long walk back into Jerusalem in search of Jesus is finally complete. Now, somewhere among the merchants and soldiers and exotic travelers in this crowded, frenetic city, they must find him.

  Meanwhile, the Son of God, as Jesus will refer to himself for the first time on this very day, listens with rapt fascination as a group of Jewish scholars shares insights about their common faith. The twelve-year-old Jesus of Nazareth sits in the shadow of the great Temple, on a terrace next to the Chamber of Hewn Stone, where the all-powerful Sanhedrin meets. Countless worshippers recently converged on this very spot during the Passover celebration, packing the terrace and the steps below so that they might hear the teachings of the sages and Temple priests. Despite the spiritual setting, the Jews were wary, knowing all the while that they were being closely watched for signs of unrest by the Roman troops of Emperor Caesar Augustus.

  Jesus teaching in the Temple

  Now the pilgrims have begun their long trek home, and the soldiers have returned to their barracks in the nearby Antonia Fortress, allowing the worshippers in this religious citadel to resume 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 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 are not saying. In fact, the opposite is true: Jesus’s understanding of complex spiritual concepts has astonished the priests and teachers. They listen to his words as he speaks and treat him like a savant, marveling to one another about his amazing gifts.

  Jesus is quite aware that his parents have already begun the journey back to Nazareth. He is not an insensitive child, but his thirst for knowledge and his eagerness to share his insights are so great that it never crosses his mind that Mary and Joseph will be worried once they discover him missing. Nor does Jesus believe that his actions constitute an act of disobedience. 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 merely to learn the oral history of his faith; he also feels a keen desire to debate its nuances and legends. So deep is this need that even now, days since his parents departed for home, Jesus is still finding new questions to ask.

  * * *

  Meanwhile, Mary and Joseph frantically search the narrow streets and bazaars of the Lower City, fearing the worst for their boy. Jesus could have wandered away from the caravan and been abducted. Such things happen. Still, they believe he is in Jerusalem, no doubt scared and lonely and hungry. Perhaps the high priests have taken pity on him and allowed him to sleep at night in the Temple, with its many rooms. Or maybe he has been forced to curl up in an alley, shivering in the cold nighttime air. The most confounding thing about Jesus’s disappearance is how uncharacteristic it is. He is normally an extremely well-behaved boy and not the sort to worry Mary and Joseph.

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

  But it’s almost impossible to know where to look first. Twice as big as the Forum in Rome, the Temple Mount is a three-acre platform with walls stretching a quarter mile in length and looming 450 feet over the Kidron Valley below. Herod the Great built the entire structure in just eighteen months, atop the site where the former temples of Solomon and Zerubbabel once rose. The majority of the Mount is a vast open-air stone courtyard known as the Court of the Gentiles, which is open to Jew and Gentile alike. And it is here that Mary and Joseph now stand.

  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 also 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 when they are on duty, stairs and terraces from which those priests teach the Jewish faith, and altars where sheep, doves, and heifers are sacrificed. It is the first thing any visitor to Jerusalem sees as he comes up over the surrounding hills and gazes down upon the city.

  The Temple 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 should be 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 threat is hollow. A Jew would be executed on the spot if he dared kill a trespassing legionary. And from time to time, Romans have even sent troops into the Temple to assert their authority. But the threatening sign does serve one purpose. The words are a reminder that this is a holy, inviolate place, built, according to tradition, in 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 Court of the Gentiles behind. Now their task gets only more frustrating because Jesus could be inside any of the many rooms within the Temple—or in none. They pass through the colonnades of the Eastern Gate and into the Court of Women. At 233 feet long on each side, ringed by four lamp stands rising 86 feet tall, this square courtyard is capable of holding six thousand worshippers at a time. And at the height of Passover, just a few days earlier, there were certainly many crowded together. But now it is empty enough that Mary and Joseph can easily see that Jesus is not here.

  The search becomes a process of elimination. Jesus is obviously not in the Chamber of the Lepers. The Chamber of the Hearth houses priests while they are on duty and contains just dormitories and offices, so that is unlikely. The Chamber of Hewn Stone is where the select council of high priests known as the Sanhedrin resides, so that, too, is probably out of the question. But Mary and Joseph are desperate and willing to look anywhere. They scour the Temple with the same frantic urgency with which they searched the bazaars and alleys of Jerusalem earlier in the day.

  View of the Temple from the south

  So 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 death on the altar, strip dead carcasses, 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 in order that an individual’s sins migh
t be forgiven. The rich smell of blood inevitably fills the air.

  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 possessing such deep knowledge of Jewish law and tradition. So Mary and Joseph gasp in shock at the ease with which he is discussing God.

  Nevertheless, they are also understandably irate. “Son,” Mary stammers. “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?”1

  If the esteemed Temple rabbis overhear Jesus’s response, they don’t let on. For if the boy is inferring that God is his actual father—literally, not just figuratively—then it is tantamount to blasphemy, being a claim to divinity, and no different, in their eyes, from the claims of Caesar Augustus. But the Roman emperor is not a Jew and thus not held accountable for his blasphemy under Jewish law. If he were, the punishment handed down through the Jewish patriarch Moses would be death.

  But Jesus is a Jew. And Jewish law says that upon commitment of blasphemy, the entire congregation should place their hands upon him, then step back and hurl rocks at his young and defenseless head and body until he collapses and dies.

  For Jesus of Nazareth is not claiming Joseph, the carpenter and son of Jacob and the man standing helplessly at Mary’s side in the Temple courts, as his father. Jesus is instead claiming that the one true God of the Jewish people is his rightful parent.

  But under the law, Jesus cannot be convicted of blasphemy. 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.