First of all, I would
like to thank all those who proofread, commented on, and criticized this work
in progress. This is the first novel I
have ever completed (after two woefully incompetent starts when I was much
younger!), and it has been a labor of love from start to finish. Where did I get the idea? To tell the truth, several things came
together at once that brought this story to fruition.
As a pastor and a
Christian schoolteacher, it is my job to make the Bible stories come alive for
my students and my congregation. One of
the time honored ways to do this is to do the occasional costumed monologue,
speaking as one of the characters from the story. About five or six years ago, I did one such
monologue as Pontius Pilate, dictating his report to Tiberius Caesar about the
trial of Jesus and the events which followed.
Having read some of the works of the Apostolic Fathers (second
generation Christians who wrote between 96 and 180 AD), I knew that such a
document did once exist. Justin Martyr
actually appealed to Pilate’s report in his work, The First Apology, dated around 140 AD. I also knew that a forged report by Pilate,
known as The Acts of Pilate, had been
written in the early medieval era. As I
looked through these accounts, I found myself wondering – what happened to
Pilate’s original report to Caesar? Could it account for the story related to
Tertullian about Tiberius’ interest in Jesus of Nazareth? And how would the
world react today if such a report were uncovered?
This brings me to my
second reason for writing this work.
There are a plethora of recent thrillers centered on the theme of
Biblical archeology. The Da Vinci Code is probably
the best known of these in recent years, but many famous authors have created
imaginary archeologists and historians and sent them scrambling the globe in
search of ancient Biblical treasures. As
a believer in Christ, where most of these works fall short is not in execution
– they are, for the most part, well-written and compelling – but in their
message. Almost invariably, their
underlying theme is “Guess what? The Church and/or the Bible have been lying to
you all these years about who Jesus was! Here is the REAL truth!!” And then they give us their vision of the
mortal Jesus, the space alien Jesus, the mystic Jesus, the dead prophet Jesus,
the pretender Jesus, or whatever. And, as a degreed historian, I will say that
they usually do so with an absolutely callous disregard for historical
accuracy. I know it is a novel, but come
on! If you are going to call it a historical novel, get your history right!
Then there is the
annual parade of dubious archeological discoveries, trumpeted on The Discovery Channel or on the cover of
TIME, always purporting to show that
this or that aspect of the Gospel narrative is untrue. Then, invariably, under the light of
scholarship, we find out that the discovery was a hoax (the James Ossuary), an
exaggeration of secular wishful thinking (the Jesus Family Tomb), or at best, a
document written a century or more after the time of Jesus and falsely
attributed to one of his disciples (the Gospel of Thomas or the Judas
Gospel). The fact is that the four
Biblical Gospels have pretty vigorously resisted all attempts to “debunk” them
over the years, and we know now that they present a remarkably unified
narrative that gets all the little details of Jesus’ world right. And if they are correct in so many small
historical details, is it not safe to assume that they are correct in their
most important and central claim?
So what I set out to
write is a (hopefully) readable and enjoyable thriller, with a dash of danger
and romance, and at the same time raise a very important, indeed fundamental
question: What if the Gospels got it right?
To that end, I have done my best to make sure that all the arguments
Josh and his Dad employ to defend the Gospels are sound and accurate. For example, while most modern scholars would
date the three Synoptic Gospels around AD 70, the “defense brief” theory for
Luke and Acts still makes more historical sense than any other explanation
posed for the abrupt ending of the Book of Acts. And if it does hold true, then that would
also place Mark and Matthew a decade or more earlier than 70 AD. So if Jesus was crucified in 33 AD, and Luke
completed his Gospel in 62 AD or so, that means a gap of less than 30 years
between the events he chronicles and the time of his writing. That means that
many of the eyewitnesses of Jesus’ life would still have been alive at the time
these accounts were written. And some of
Paul’s letters are quite a bit earlier than the Gospels! So if the arguments
presented in this fictitious tale make you reconsider what you believe about
Jesus and the Gospel stories, I would strongly encourage you to read some of
the great Christian apologists out there, especially Josh McDowell and Lee
Strobel (whose arguments I have shamelessly plagiarized!), or, for a bit more
scholarly coverage, some of Donald Guthrie’s works on the New Testament.
Last of all, as a
voracious reader, I consume a lot of fiction, both Christian and secular. Sad to say, there isn’t nearly as much
quality Christian fiction out there as there should be. More than once I have picked up a popular
best-seller from the Christian bookstore and lamented that it was really
nowhere near the quality of writing that is produced by some of my favorite
writers of mainstream historical fiction or thrillers. I thought, perhaps, that I could do
better. I will let you be the judge of
whether or not I did.
Lewis Smith
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