Authors: David Epperson
That was a question we couldn’t answer. We wrestled with our options a little longer, but ultimately we made the practical choice. None of us had the confidence to do otherwise.
***
By this point, we observed only scattered clusters of travelers making haste to enter Jerusalem before the gates closed at sundown. This proved to be a reassuring spectacle.
“We have a perfect window of opportunity,” said Lavon. “By now, the burial party has returned to the city. We’ll have nearly an hour to see the tomb before it gets completely pitch-dark.”
“What about the guards?” I asked.
“There shouldn’t be any tonight. According to Matthew’s account, the Jewish authorities didn’t go to Pilate and request a guard until the following day.”
That was comforting, though we’d still have to face them on Sunday.
“Do you think the legionnaires took their assignment seriously?” I asked.
Despite their rigorous discipline, I felt sure that the Romans would consider their mission a pointless waste of time.
Lavon considered my question but didn’t immediately reply.
“It could lessen their vigilance,” I added.
“Maybe,” he finally answered. “Most people assume the sentries were Romans, but Matthew’s wording is enigmatic. Pilate said ‘you have a guard’ or something to that effect. Did that mean, ‘I’m giving you a
Roman
guard,’ or ‘you have your own Temple police, use them.’ I’ve heard good arguments both ways.”
“What do you think?”
“Temple police,” he said without hesitation. “Do you really believe that the legionnaires we’ve encountered would take a bribe to confess to what amounted to a capital offense?”
“Not a chance,” I replied. “I’m sure they’d take bribes, but not for that. The risk versus reward wouldn’t stack up.”
“That’s how I see it,” Lavon added. “Besides, the Gospels say that the guards gave their initial statements to the high priests. Roman soldiers would have reported through their own command structure. In that case, Pilate, or at least Volusus, would have heard about it before the Jewish authorities did.”
“Then why ask for Pilate’s permission at all? Since they had the Temple police at their disposal, why not just send them out?”
“I’m sure that was forbidden. I’d imagine the Romans were pretty touchy about letting any sort of organized armed force roam about outside. That may have been why only one of the goons chasing us today wore a uniform.”
This made perfect sense, although one thing still bothered me: “Don’t the Gospels also say that the priests promised to take care of soldiers in case they got into trouble with the governor?”
“Yes, they do.”
“In that case, if they were just Temple police, why would Pilate care?”
He smiled. “Now you know why we have so many arguments about it.”
We continued onward, though we gave the Damascus Gate a wide berth. While we assumed that the bodies of the two prisoners executed with Jesus had been removed, none of us wanted to take the chance that we could accidentally witness that horrific spectacle again, in the event they had not.
After we had traveled another half mile, Sharon directed us down a rocky knoll and into a warren of narrow trails. The topography matched her previous description: the surrounding hills were pockmarked with small caverns, a number of which had been crafted into burial sites.
Behind what appeared to be the tallest ridge, we discovered Bryson studying one particular chamber, whose entrance was covered by a thick 4x8 foot slab of brilliant white polished marble.
“You decided to come after all,” he said cheerfully, as if we had all simply gone for a walk in the park.
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” said Lavon.
I tried to read the Professor’s expression, but for once my instincts failed me. Did he know he had us by the short and curlies, or had he simply assumed that our curiosity would get the better of us?
With no way to tell for sure, I turned my attention back to the marble block, which fit snugly into an elaborate framework that skilled masons had carved out of the surrounding limestone. An inscription, in what I guessed to be Aramaic, ran across the top.
Lavon questioned Naomi, but she just stared at the ground, embarrassed and disappointed that she could provide no further assistance.
Her duties at the palace had not required that she know how to read.
“We’ll fix that,” Lavon muttered, to no one in particular.
He spoke to her in a soothing tone, in Greek. As he did, Bryson turned to Sharon and asked if she could confirm that he had picked the correct site.
To no one else’s surprise, he had not.
Sharon led us back and forth along the trails as she studied each tomb. Finally, she stopped, glanced around in all directions once more, and motioned with her right hand.
“It’s this one,” she announced.
Bryson observed her skeptically. Her chosen location was both smaller and considerably less elaborate than other tombs in the area, though the surrounding ground did display signs of recent foot traffic.
“Are you sure?” he asked. “Wasn’t it nearly dark when you went inside?”
She didn’t reply. Instead, she scrambled up the hill behind us to get her bearings on the palace towers. Then she veered off to her left and disappeared behind a ridge.
A few minutes later, she emerged along another trail, slowly moving forward and concentrating on her surroundings with each step.
“I’m certain: this is the way I came. Besides, it was bright enough when they dragged me out.”
“Absolutely,
positively
sure? We only have one chance to get this right.”
I detected a faint whiff of condescension in the Professor’s voice. Had he realized that in the body count standings, he remained the only member of our enterprise without a notch in the win column, he might have treated her with a little more respect.
She brushed aside the provocation, giving him instead the classic “I’m positive you idiot” look that women express so well. I should know; I’ve seen it often enough.
Bryson had the good sense not to press further. He studied the terrain for another brief moment, then walked over to a spot about fifteen yards away and laid the camera on a flat chunk of limestone.
He shoveled a handful of dirt underneath to correct the elevation and patted it down to ensure that the gadget would not slip.
“What is he doing?” asked Naomi. “What is that thing in his hand?”
Lavon glanced at me and I shook my head. Neither of us wanted to have that particular discussion at the moment.
“I’ll tell you later,” he said.
Naomi didn’t like this, but she chose not to argue.
Meanwhile, Bryson had nearly completed his preparations. He set the timer and pressed ‘record.’ Then, he folded the screen back onto the main body of the camera and proceeded to conceal his handiwork with stones.
“Did you remove the lens cap?” I asked when he ambled back over to us.
Bryson scowled at my feeble attempt at humor but did not comment otherwise. We both knew that the latest models had automated this process.
***
Had I kept my wits about me, I would have gone back to the camera and smashed it to pieces with a rock, then and there. Now that we were all together, nothing prevented us from making a beeline for the coast, dragging the Professor with us if he wouldn’t go voluntarily.
But except for a bag of raisins we had found on one of Herod’s dead guards, none of us had eaten since early that morning, and years had passed since I had to think clearly under such conditions in the field.
By this time, only a brief interval of daylight remained; so we all just stood back and soaked in the panorama until it became too dark to see clearly.
All but Naomi, that is. Try as she might, she could not comprehend why foreigners from a distant land would find a collection of Jewish tombs so fascinating, especially given our ongoing peril.
She tugged at Lavon. “Why are we
here
?” she asked.
“It’s not important,” he mumbled.
Naomi, though, proved unwilling to be put off a second time. She gestured in Bryson’s direction.
“
He
thinks this place is important; so do the others.
You
think it’s important. I can see it in your eyes. Tell me what is happening. Who is buried here?”
“I’ll show you in two days,” he replied.
“Please,” she insisted, “tell me now.”
She paused.
“Haven’t I
earned
the right to know?”
Since she most assuredly had done that, Lavon felt he had no choice but to explain.
“It’s the prisoner we heard Herod questioning this morning,” he said. “The Romans crucified him, and now he is buried here.”
She eyed him suspiciously. “How do you know this?”
Lavon and I both popped out our ear buds and displayed them to her.
She seemed to find this plausible, although I could tell that her doubts had not completely vanished. On the rare occasions when they were buried at all, the Romans tossed the corpses of such victims into a refuse pit. These tombs belonged to the nobility.
“It’s something scholars continue to debate today,” said Lavon as he explained her misgivings to the rest of us. “Some even argue that the Gospel accounts are fictional, given the standard Roman practice.”
“Obviously they’re not,” said Sharon.
“No.”
“Then why?” asked Bryson.
“My guess is that Pilate decided that he could afford to be magnanimous,” said Lavon.
“Despite his fears of a violent uprising, he had managed to eliminate a person the Romans considered a threat to their rule without triggering a riot. Allowing Joseph to take the body served as a goodwill gesture to Jesus’s sympathizers in the Sanhedrin – a small, practical token that cost him nothing.”
This squared with my impressions of the governor, though unfortunately, we’d never be able to find out for sure.
“You speak as if you knew this man.” Naomi said after Lavon had explained our discussion.
Lavon started to answer; then his voice trailed off in an odd manner. I started to feel a bit unsettled myself, which I found strange.
On the one occasion in which I had visited the Holy Sepulcher, I had felt no inkling of the transcendent.
Whether that was because of my own innate skepticism, a consideration of the many thousands who had died fighting over the purported resting place of the Prince of Peace, or just the sight of obese, elderly tourists being herded through like cattle, I couldn’t tell. Probably all of the above.
But now, seeing the actual site, and realizing whose body was inside –
“We need to leave,” said Sharon.
Lavon nodded without saying a word, and Naomi, ever perceptive, could sense our growing unease. Only Bryson and Markowitz remained unaffected.
Lavon took Naomi’s hand and signaled for the rest of us to follow.
Though the moon had not yet risen, we managed to pick our way through the scrub via the light of a glittering celestial canopy – an inspiring sight, and one sadly invisible to modern city dwellers.
After a few iterations of trial and error, we reached the main road. Although Polaris, our familiar north star, had shifted considerably in the intervening two thousand years, it was still, in the words of one of my old commanders, “directionally correct.”
Thus guided, we continued on to the northwest until we arrived at a crest of low hills that I recalled from our trip in. Following some brief stumbling around, we managed to locate a rock overhang that would serve as sufficient shelter for the night.
Lavon and I decided to divide our party into three shifts. He and Naomi would take the second watch, followed by Markowitz and Bryson toward the dawn. Sharon and I agreed stand guard first.
We climbed up and situated ourselves just below the peak, so our silhouettes could not be spotted from a distance. Being proper sentries, we sat with our backs to each other in complete silence. For a couple of hours, we heard nothing but the soft murmur of insects.
I didn’t really expect trouble, and as the night wore on, I grew more confident that the combination of the Sabbath and the Passover would keep people from moving about.
So I finally whispered to Sharon the question I had pondered throughout the day.
“Last night, in Herod’s palace, how did you hold yourself together?”
She didn’t immediately respond, and for a moment I thought I might have trodden on overly sensitive ground.
“I’ll just say that I found your quick thinking extremely impressive – especially how you managed to let me know where they were holding you in a way that wouldn’t raise the king’s suspicions.”