Part 68 (1/2)
Ryan nodded, elbow-leaning on the railing beside me.
”That was one of the Roman camps.”
I leaned forward and craned to my left. There it was. A dark wound piercing the flesh of the cliff.
”There's the cave.” My voice cracked.
I stared, mesmerized. Ryan knew what I was feeling. Gently tugging me back, he arm-draped my shoulders.
”Any theories on who he was?”
I raised my hands in a Who knows? gesture.
”Guesses?”
”Max was a man who died between the age of forty and sixty about two thousand years ago. He was buried with more than twenty other people in that cave down there.” I pointed over the cas.e.m.e.nt wall. ”A younger person's tooth ended up in his jaw. Probably by mistake. Lucky Lucky mistake. Otherwise we might never have known of the link between the cave people and the family in Jake's shroud tomb.” mistake. Otherwise we might never have known of the link between the cave people and the family in Jake's shroud tomb.”
”The one Jake believes is the Jesus family crypt.”
”Yes. So Max may very well have been a Nazarene, not a zealot.”
”Jake is d.a.m.n sure that tomb belonged to the Holy Family.”
”The names match. The decorative styles of the ossuaries. The age of the shroud.” I kicked at a stone. ”Jake's convinced the James ossuary came from that tomb.”
”Are you?”
”I'm intrigued.”
”Meaning?”
I thought a moment. What did did I mean? I mean?
”He could be right. It's just an overwhelming concept to grasp. Of the three great religions woven through the history of Palestine, all rely more on divine mystery and spiritual belief than on science and reason to establish their legitimacy. Historic facts have been given differing spins to make them mesh with favored orthodoxy. Inconsistent facts are denied.
”The facts Jake postulates as to the Kidron tomb could potentially undermine elements of the Christian creed. Maybe Mary didn't remain a virgin. Maybe Jesus had siblings, even offspring. Maybe Jesus remained shrouded in his loculus after the crucifixion.”
I tipped my head at the cave below us.
”Same goes for Cave 2001 and certain elements of revered Jewish history. Maybe Masada wasn't occupied solely by Jewish zealots during the first-century revolt. Maybe early Christians were up here, too. Who knows? What I do know is that it's tragic DNA wasn't obtained from the shroud bones. Especially since it's clear that at least one of the people in the cave up here was related to the people in Jake's tomb down there.”
Ryan considered that. Then, ”So, even though DNA links a tooth from Masada to the Kidron tomb, you think the resurfacing of Max and the discovery of the shroud bones within weeks of each other was pure coincidence?”
”I do. The tooth was undoubtedly from someone in Cave 2001, and mistakenly became a.s.sociated with Max. But Max may have been only the messenger, not the message, in this whole saga. Funny. I'm even more curious about whose tooth it was than I am about who Max was.”
”I'm not following.”
”This all started with Max, but Max may simply have lucked into a prime cemetery plot.”
”Still lost.”
”Because Max's grave was at the back of the cave, his body wasn't disturbed by animals. It's possible he remained intact not because he was buried in a manner that differed from the others, or because his social status was more exalted than the others, but simply because he was put into the ground at a greater distance from the cave mouth. But since his was the only complete, articulated skeleton, people viewed Max as special. Someone s.h.i.+pped him out of Israel. Lerner stole him. Ferris and Morissonneau hid him. In the end, Max's main contribution may be that he survived intact and led us to the odd molar.”
”Tying the Kidron tomb to Masada. Jake got any theories whose tooth it might be?”
”Lots of bodies in the cave. Jake's thinking a nephew of Jesus, maybe a child of one of the sisters. The mitochondrial DNA shows a maternal link.”
”Not a sibling?”
”Unlikely. Inscriptions account for Jude, Joseph, James, if that ossuary's real, the Marys, and Salome. Simon died years later.”
Again, we fell into silence. I spoke first.
”It's funny, Max started everything. Lerner stole him from the Musee de l'Homme because he believed Joyce's story about the scroll and his theory about Jesus living on at Masada. It turns out Joyce could have been right about Jesus, some some Jesus, but wrong about Max. Max can't be Jesus of Nazareth, who died in his early thirties, according to Scripture. His age doesn't fit, and his mitochondrial DNA makes him an outsider to the Kidron tomb matrilineage. But Max could be a nephew of Jesus.” Jesus, but wrong about Max. Max can't be Jesus of Nazareth, who died in his early thirties, according to Scripture. His age doesn't fit, and his mitochondrial DNA makes him an outsider to the Kidron tomb matrilineage. But Max could be a nephew of Jesus.”
”Grosset's scroll was supposedly written by someone named Jesus, son of James.”
”Exactly. But the tooth could also be from a nephew of Jesus. According to Bergeron, the tooth man died at the age of thirty-five to forty. If one of Jesus' sisters had married a man named James and had a son, that child would have shared her mitochondrial DNA. If these events took place around the time of the crucifixion, the age would fit. The tooth could have belonged to a Jesus, son of James. h.e.l.l, Ryan. Any male in that jumble could have gone by that name. We'll never know.”
”Who was the Cave 2001 septuagenarian in Yadin's report and book?”
”Same answer. It wasn't Max, it wasn't the tooth man, but it could have been any male in that heap.”
Ryan's next comment went right to the heart of it.
”The kicker is, whoever that tooth belonged to, if Jake's right about the James ossuary, and by corollary the Kidron tomb and the Holy Family, the tooth's presence in the cave places Nazarenes on Masada at the time of the siege. A fact inconsistent with Israel's accounts of Masada.”
”Very much. Israeli theologians in particular would view a Nazarene connection to Masada as sacrilege. Consider their reluctance to discuss the cave skeletons or do further testing.”
I turned and gestured toward the northern end of the summit.
”There's a small monument off the western side, at the tip of the Roman camp, where all the Masada remains were reinterred in sixty-nine. The Cave 2001 bones could be exhumed, but the Israelis won't do it.”
”And the shroud bones?”
”We'll never know. If Jake had been able to get DNA or pursue other testing, maybe scanning electron microscopy of the calcaneus lesion, we might have learned more. As it stands, all we have are the few lousy photos I took in the loculus.”
”What about the hair and bone samples Getz recovered?”
”The hair could yield something someday. The bone particles are barely more than dust. I'm amazed Getz spotted them.”
”Jake hadn't set some of the shroud bones aside?”
”Never had a chance.”
”Is he planning to ask for DNA testing on the James ossuary bones?”
”He submitted a request. The Israelis turned him down and they have the bones. Knowing Jake, he'll keep at it.”