Murder at Golgotha Read online

  But though such seemingly unholy behavior was bound to foster resentment amongst both the straight-laced and the hotheaded, Jesus' preachings and healings in most other respects won him a very favorable reputation, even amongst the pro-Roman Judaean southerners. He reportedly attracted large crowds wherever he went. Several women whom he had healed, among these Mary of Magdala, a Galilean woman who had been suffering from some kind of psychiatric illness, had joined his traveling entourage. When at the last Passover time of his life he arrived on the outskirts of Jerusalem accompanied by these rather colorful women followers, together with his disciples, his mother, and her sister, he was certainly given the warmest of welcomes.

  According to the Luke testimony he had asked one of his disciples to arrange for a donkey to be made available for what he clearly planned as a very special last entry into the city. This choice of such lowly transport was undoubtedly partly to appear humble rather than ostentatious. But it was also partly to make sure he conformed to what the Jewish scriptures foretold about how their Messiah would enter Jerusalem.

  The surviving testimonies describe how, to the dismay of the ruling Romans, our victim was received by wildly enthusiastic crowds of people, waving palm branches, jostling each other for the best vantage position. The time of the Passover festival, when huge numbers of Jews traveled from far and wide to congregate on Jerusalem, was always a nervous one for the Roman authorities. From historical sources we know that Judaea's Roman governor Pontius Pilate was normally based at Caesarea on the Mediterranean coast. At Passover festival time, however, Pilate made a special point of staying in Jerusalem, just to be on hand in the event of any trouble. Despite the humble donkey that Jesus was riding, it is not difficult to imagine Pilate and his fellow Romans viewing with some unease the huge acclaim that this Jew was being accorded.

  Neither would there have been much joy on the part of the Temple High Priest Caiaphas and his former High Priest father-in-law Annas, particularly if they had already heard something of Jesus' views on their running of the enterprise that he called his "Father's house." For the Jerusalem Temple was theoretically the very centerpiece of the Jewish religion, the equivalent of the Kaaba at Mecca for today's Moslems, but architecturally altogether more showy. King Herod the Great had lavished a fortune on an ambitious rebuilding program to make it one of the Wonders of the World of its time. And every good Jew was expected to visit it at some time during his life to pray, and to offer up some form of livestock, to perform which sacrifice the Temple priesthood commanded exclusive rights. A rich man might offer up an ox, a middle-income individual a lamb, and a poor person something that might be as lowly as a pigeon. Temple priests would ritually slaughter these and burn them on the open-air altar on which two fires were kept constantly lit, with a third available as backup.

  Every kind of creature suitable for sacrifice, together with the services associated with their offering, could be purchased in the Temple's precincts, but not with Roman money. This was because Roman coins bore images of Roman gods on them, and even any human likeness, such as the head of the emperor, was perceived as violating the second of the Ten Commandments. So the Temple priesthood minted their own imageless, "approved" coinage. And they had money changers set up at all key entry points to provide the necessary currency exchange, a transaction that accrued for them whatever profits they chose to set, with an extra margin for the changers.

  High Priest Caiaphas was the man in charge of this operation. Dressed in his ceremonial finery he cut a highly impressive figure—a violet robe adorned with bells and tassels, a special mitre with a golden plate in front in scribed "Holy to the Lord," and a breastplate with the names of the twelve tribes of Israel. His exalted status meant he had to keep himself pure from any contact with the dead or dying, even among his own relatives. He and his father-in-law Annas, whom he had succeeded in the office, were not so much holy men as functionaries running a commercial enterprise that was as thoroughly tuned to money-making as any Las Vegas casino. Their staff at the Temple—chief priests, lesser-ranking priests, scribes, animal carers, animal slaughterers, stokers, maintenance workers, security guards, stone masons, metal workers, money changers, and many more—ran into many thousands.

  Caiaphas, Annas, and their fellow chief priests were not even chosen for any special piety. They and their fellow high-ranking colleagues belonged to a hereditary caste, the Sadducees, who handed different administrative posts down through their families from one generation to the next. The district of Jerusalem where they lived—one into which Jesus would be brought for interrogation the night he was killed—has been particularly well excavated by modern-day Israeli archaeologists. As a result of these excavations we know that the most senior priests lived a prosperous and comfortable lifestyle. Fine goblets have been found in their ruins, and the houses had elaborate mosaic courtyards. Because of their high position in society they had servants and guards in the manner of worldly princes.

  All this commercialism in the name of religion was deeply offensive to Jesus, and it led to the only act of violence ever recorded on his part, one to be found in all four testimonies. Four days before the Passover festival he approached the Temple, within the precincts of which he had already been teaching daily. Seeing the serried rows of the money changers set up between the columns of the approach section, he knocked over their tables and set upon them with whips. According to the John testimony, he then released the animals and birds awaiting sacrifice with the words "Take all this out of here and stop turning my Father's house into a market."

  Note again the words "my Father's house"—exactly those he had used to describe this very same building back when he had infuriated his parents by lingering in it as a twelve-year-old boy. This occasion has to have been even more volatile a scene—as dramatic in its impact as someone today knocking over all the gaming tables and switching off all the machines in a Las Vegas gambling casino. And it most certainly did not fail to come to the notice of the Temple's High Priest and his fellow Sadducean dignitaries. They could only perceive it as a direct assault on their business.

  According to the Mark testimony, when they sent a small delegation to ask Jesus what authority he had for acting in this way, he deftly (and characteristically) deflected their question by asking one of his own.

  "John's baptism, did it come from heaven, or from man?" (Mark 11:30). Though Jesus was not the first to use such a device, eighteen centuries before Sigmund Freud he was using the psychologist's trick of answering a question with a question. As he knew, they would be bound to avoid replying "man" because this would run contrary to John's huge, popular reputation for being directed by God. But if they answered "heaven," then Jesus could claim to have been acting with the same divine authority. Perceiving themselves caught between a rock and a hard place, the emissaries could only slink away mumbling that they did not know.

  Inevitably, one option that the chief priests had was to arrest Jesus then and there as a troublemaker. Certainly they had sufficient security guards at their disposal at the Temple to do this. But such action risked being noticed by the large crowds daily gathering at the Temple during this Passover festival time. Many of these came specifically to hear Jesus talk about his "Kingdom," and they might well rush to his aid. This could spark off a wholesale riot, the last thing that they wanted happening on temple premises. The populace needed to be kept on their side at all costs. Anything else was bound to be bad for business.

  So, while the John testimony is explicit that it was from Jesus' "cleansing of the Temple" action onward that the "chief priests . . . determined to kill him" (John 11:52), Caiaphas and his colleagues needed to look for some more covert means of arranging this. A means that preferably would turn the least possible spotlight on their involvement.

  Meanwhile, were there any other groups who might have nurtured similarly hostile intentions towards Jesus? Well, yes, that very same passage in the John testimony mentions "the Pharisees" as also wanting Jesus killed. Addi
tionally, our four testimonies are full of instances of Pharisees criticizing Jesus for his flagrantly flouting the strict letter of the laws that Moses had laid down. These include his disrespecting the Sabbath by conducting healings on that day, being too friendly to women, etc, etc. The Pharisees were a relatively new branch of the Jewish religion. They had founded the synagogues for preaching, for praying, and for listening to readings from the Torah, as they referred to what Christians call the Old Testament. And they actually shared Jesus' dislike for the way that the Sadducean priesthood were turning the Temple into a market. So, theoretically they should have been on Jesus' side, and after his death some would indeed defend Jesus' followers against the Sadducees (Acts 5:34). But while he was still alive they certainly ranked closer to his enemies than to his friends, constantly arguing with him over minor doctrinal differences.

  Even so, from the ecstatic scenes that greeted Jesus on the last Sunday of his life, just five days before he would be put to death, it would have been difficult for any outsider to suspect the deep animosities that surrounded him. Nor could anyone—apart from the victim himself— have been expected to foresee the tragic events that were about to unfold. Yet, all too clearly documented in the surviving testimonies is that the countdown to one of history's most infamous and unjust killings had begun.

  4

  The Victim's Last Meal

  In ANY INVESTIGATION of a murder, whether one that has been committed recently, or at some unknown time in the past, a fundamental task is to try to work out as accurately as possible some kind of timetable of the victim's last movements. Back in the time of Jesus our "Christian" calendar had, of course, not been invented. However, had even one of the authors of our key testimonies noted the year of the Roman emperor Tiberius' reign in which Jesus was killed, this could have saved generations of scholars and theologians umpteen hours of speculation.

  As it is, the year that this event occurred actually carries the least certainty. According to the four testimonies, the High Priest at the time was called Caiaphas, and from consultation with historical sources we know that Joseph Caiaphas held the post from A.D. 18 to 37 in succession to his father-in-law Annas, who seems to have continued in office alongside him. This nineteen-year time frame can be narrowed to nine because historical sources make clear that the Roman governor Pilate, whom the testimonies describe as interviewing Jesus, was in charge of Judaea only between A.D. 27 and 36. And it can be narrowed even further, because the Luke testimony describes the Roman emperor Tiberius as having been in the fifteenth year of his reign—a.d. 29 of our present calendar—when John the Baptist began his public baptisms on the river Jordan. So, even if John had baptised Jesus very early, and Jesus spent only one year going about teaching and healing (most scholars think that it was three), there is a window of just six years, between A.D. 30 and A.D. 36, for the period in which Jesus' murder took place. Amongst scholars and theologians of all denominations A.D. 30 and 33 carry the most support for the likeliest years.

  Seasonwise, the timing calculations reach altogether firmer ground. All the testimonies agree that the event took place just before the Jewish Passover festival, an annual commemoration of their ancestors' escape from slavery in Egypt that was, and still is, celebrated in springtime. Year by year the date for Passover is calculated by the paschal full moon, the extreme limits of which are between March 21 and April 25. (Because of the Christian Easter festival's relation to the Passover, its annual dates vary on exactly the same basis.) Likewise, the testimonies all agree that the day of the week on which Jesus was killed was the one before the Jewish Sabbath on Saturday, hence a Friday. And because the testimonies have reasonably abundant information about the events of the immediately preceding days, we can reconstruct a brief calendar.

  We know that our victim had spent some time during the nights immediately before and after his angry physical outburst in the Temple, in the village of Bethany—today a suburb of Jerusalem just a short bus ride along the road leading eastward to Jericho. In Bethany he was a hugely revered guest at the house of Lazarus, the man he had revived after he had apparently been dead and buried for three days. According to the John testimony, many Bethany villagers who had been present when this happened, and who were thereby well-acquainted with the facts, were among those cheering the loudest when Jesus rode his donkey into Jerusalem (John 12:17). We know that Lazarus lived with his sisters Mary and Martha, and the very first night that Jesus arrived in their home Mary had welcomed him by bringing into the room a most expensive and beautifully scented ointment. In full view of the disciples she then proceeded to rub this into Jesus' feet and wipe them with her hair, the whole house becoming filled with the perfume that she had lavished.

  This apparently innocuous act of grateful hospitality was to prove the final straw for one particular disciple, Judas Iscariot, one of the two of Jesus' followers who seems to have had some terrorist (that is, anti-Roman) background. Judas' name, according to some interpretations, means "Dagger Man." As noted particularly in the John testimony, Judas roundly complained of the blatant extravagance he witnessed. "Why was this ointment not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?" To which a nonplussed Jesus responded: "Leave her alone; let her keep it for the day of my burial. You have the poor with you always, you will not always have me" (John 12:5,8).

  Rather than his being moved by these words, Judas appears to have become determined from that moment on to help the Temple authorities capture Jesus in a behind-the-scenes, underhanded way. As the Matthew testimony reports in the immediate aftermath of Jesus' acceptance of Lazarus's sister's attentions, Judas

  went to the chief priests and said "What are you prepared to give me if I hand him over to you?" They paid him thirty silver pieces, and from then onwards he began to look for an opportunity to betray him. (Matthew 26:14-16)

  That opportunity would not be long in coming.

  On what would prove to be the very last evening of his life, Jesus chose to dine with the full complement of his disciples at a somewhat mysterious house in central Jerusalem—mysterious because the testimonies make it clear that the disciples had never been to this house before, and they had no idea who owned it. Two of the fishermen, Peter and John, were told to follow a man with a pitcher of water who would lead them to the house in question. There they were to ask the unnamed owner to show them to the "upper" or upstairs room that had clearly been prearranged for them. They would then take over all meal preparations in advance of Jesus and the rest of their party arriving—on this occasion, it would seem, without any of the women accompanying them.

  So where was this house? Until comparatively recently the location of this "House of the Last Supper" has been supposedly irretrievably forgotten. Only within the last few years, however, has a very plausible theory developed that the site may have been that occupied by the definitely misnamed and mislocated "Tomb of David" in the hilly Mount Zion area just to the south of the old city wall. Lower stonework in this particular complex seems to incorporate blocks salvaged from Jerusalem's temple after its destruction in A.D. 70. During the two generations between this destruction and their "final" expulsion in 134 A.D., Jews were allowed back into the city, during which time these particular blocks seem to have been used to build a synagogue.

  Was this a normal Jewish synagogue? Definitely not. The usual Jewish synagogues, wherever they were around the country, were always oriented towards the Temple. This particular example, even though the Temple lay only half a mile to its northeast, was instead orientated towards where Jesus' tomb is known to have been situated. It also had pious Christian graffiti scrawled on its walls. All the indications, therefore, are that this was a synagogue built and used by Jewish Christians who continued with Jewish-style religious observance (as specifically recorded of Jerusalem's first Christian community—see Acts 1:46), while venerating it as a place of very special Christian holiness. This is exactly how we might expect them to treat the site of one of the Christian f
aith's most seminal events. For it was at this very location on this most fateful of nights that Jesus told his followers that the bread and wine that he was offering them were his own flesh and blood. That very shortly this body and blood would be expended on their behalf. And that when this happened they, his very disciples, would scatter like sheep, but he would physically come back from death and actually precede them back to Galilee (Mark 14:28).

  These solemnly delivered pronouncements were not the only cause for astonishment and disbelief sprung upon his guests by our victim that night. Surely mindful of their embarrassment when Mary of Bethany lavished attention on his feet, he performed exactly the same slavelike service for each of them. As described in the John testimony, he removed his outer garments, and taking a towel, wrapped it round his waist; he then poured water into a basin to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel he was wearing. (John 13:5)

  As he explained, this was an object lesson in the sincere humility that he expected from each of them:

  You call me Master and Lord ... If I, then, the Lord and Master, have washed your feet, you must wash each other's feet. I have given you an example so that you may copy what I have done to you. (John 13:15)

  Are we able to envisage the Last Supper scene that subsequently took place in that upstairs room that evening? The image that almost universally comes into everyone's minds is Leonardo daVinci's famous, yet ruined, painting in Milan. In this painting the disciples are depicted seated at either side of Jesus at a long table, replete with tablecloth. Mel Gibson's Passion movie dramatised the scene in a similar manner. But is this actually how the dining room was set out? Probably not. According to the Luke testimony, the room in question was "furnished with couches." This immediately suggests the sort of banqueting couches long popularized by the ancient Greeks— though borrowed from nearby eastern cultures—on which guests would recline rather than sit up straight at a table. And such a seating arrangement readily explains the John testimony describing the disciple John, during this meal as "reclining next to Jesus," then "leaning back close to Jesus' chest." (John 13:21, 25).