The Testimonium (31 page)

“I won’t lie to you,” she said. “I don’t know what I believe. I want your God to be real—he certainly seems to give meaning to your life—but I haven’t decided if he is or not.”

Josh took her hand in his and pressed it to his lips. “When you decide,” he said, looking straight at her, “I’ll be waiting.”

She averted her gaze so he wouldn’t see the tears that started to form in her eyes. After a moment, she said, “You are a ridiculously good person! But while you are waiting for me, the lab is waiting for us. Let’s get out of here.”

They slid out of the booth and walked toward the front entrance of the hotel lobby, with Josh holding her hand as they stepped out into the street. It was a rainy morning, and the flashbulbs that exploded were extra bright against the dim sky. Half a dozen journalists had been huddled under the hotel’s elaborate façade, waiting for them to emerge. Since releasing Josh’s hand at this point would be too late anyway, Isabella tightened her grip and smiled for the cameras. He followed suit, and the flashbulbs popped again, and then the questions began.

“Dr. Sforza!” An earnest young American stepped forward. “Andrew Eastwood,
Chicago Tribune
. Any new developments since yesterday’s press conference? Has either of the scrolls been opened and read?”

Isabella had spent a good part of the afternoon preparing remarks about the Caesar scroll, and figured this would be a good time to tease the media a bit. “Well, we will be making an announcement to reporters a bit later this morning,” she said. “One of the scrolls had rehydrated and opened enough to be read by yesterday afternoon, and we will be sharing the translation with you in a couple of hours.”

“Can you tell us which one it was?” the young American asked.

She sighed. “The Pilate scroll is the longer of the two and will take a bit more time to rehydrate and unroll,” she said. “But the Caesar’s will opened up beautifully for us. However, if you want to know what it said, you will have to attend our press conference at ten AM. Now, Dr. Parker and I have a great deal of work to do this morning, so if you will excuse us—”

Another reporter spoke up. “Dr. Sforza,” he said. “There has been a lot of speculation in the press as to the nature of your relationship with Dr. Parker. Would you care to clarify that for us?”

Isabella’s dark eyes flashed with anger. “NO!” she snapped, and she and Josh pushed through the small crowd that had gathered and headed toward the museum. A few shouted questions followed, but she and Josh ignored them.

“You should have known that was coming eventually!” he said as they neared the museum’s entrance.

She turned to face him, first glancing back to make sure that none of the reporters or paparazzi had followed them. “I will have to know what that relationship is before I can clarify it for anyone!” she said. “And right now, I think you will agree that we are at something of an impasse, wouldn’t you?”

Josh nodded. “Unwillingly, but yes—for the moment. But I do believe we will surmount it!”

She smiled at his optimism, his sweetness, and most of all, at him. His simple goodness was impossible to remain angry with. “If believing in Jesus will make me more like you,” she said, “I might have to consider it at some point.” Then she kissed him quickly on the cheek and began striding briskly toward the museum entrance.

When they came in, MacDonald was waiting for them, beaming from ear to ear. “It’s about time you two lovebirds showed up!” he said in his best Scottish accent. “Oh, this is absolutely marvelous!”

Josh raised an eyebrow. “What is?” he asked.

“The scroll! The
Testimonium
!” the priest exclaimed, nearly dancing with excitement. “It opened almost completely. Giuseppe is already prepping the table, and as soon as you can get some gloves on, we can remove it from the tank and begin translation!”

Josh swallowed hard. This was it. For all his brave talk, he was a little afraid to see what was written on the scroll. What if Pilate revealed that the entire resurrection story—the story that Josh, his father, and virtually every person Josh cared about had based their entire lives around—was really a two-thousand-year-old hoax? Or a dreadful case of mistaken identity? Every alternative theory he had ever heard regarding the Resurrection story crowded into his head at once. But then a simple prayer from the Gospel of Mark came to his mind, and he repeated it to himself. “I believe,” he prayed. “Help my unbelief!”

Then he looked up and smiled at the Vatican archeologist. “What are we waiting for?” he said. “Let’s go!”

The three of them almost sprinted through the museum toward the back entrance, where Dr. Guioccini was waiting for them. “I was about to send out a search party, Dr. Sforza!” he said with a smile.

“We were waylaid by the advance guard of the Fourth Estate,” she explained.

“After a breakfast that probably did drag on a bit too long,” Josh admitted. The priest and the Italian archeologist gave him a curious look, and he realized how it sounded. “In the hotel restaurant, where Dr. Sforza had to come looking for me,” he added quickly, and the priest gave him a wink. Curse that man’s mischievous nature! Josh thought. Isabella herself was a bit red in the face, but he was sure it was from their quick walk through the museum. Nothing seemed to faze her.

They stepped through the back doors and stepped across the blacktop to the new lab. Rossini waited for them at the door, and Dr. Apriceno was right behind him. “I must admit,” she said, “this is a bit more exciting than my microscope at the moment!”

When they stepped into the lab, Josh walked straight over to the tank, where the Pilate scroll had unrolled almost to its full length. One end of it was resting against the side of the tank, despite the extension they had made to the tank’s width the day before. It looked to be nearly six and a half feet long.

“How are we going to move it to the viewing table?” Josh asked.

“I’ve been working on that for an hour,” the priest said. “Look at this.” He had taken four of the trays that they used to transport smaller artifacts from tank to table, and used some sort of powerful glue to attach long aluminum bars across their bottom sides, making one long tray. He picked up the trays and shook them solidly to make sure the epoxy had taken hold, then flipped them right side up and began covering them with acid-free paper. The tabletop was already covered, and the securing clamps were positioned to hold the scroll in place while it was being photographed and studied. MacDonald worked quickly, folding the paper down over the outside edges of the trays and taping it in place beneath. Josh was already putting his gloves on.

Moments later, they lifted out the plexiglass sides of the two tanks. Isabella had also donned her gloves, and three pairs of hands slid underneath the ancient papyrus to gently lift it out of the tank and place it on the combined trays. Josh and MacDonald got on either end, with Isabella in the middle, and carefully lifted the ancient document on the trays and carried it to the table. Then they slid it off the trays and then Father MacDonald carefully teased each end as flat as he dared, positioning the clamps so as to keep them from rolling back up, but not to put any actual pressure on the papyrus until he could stabilize the material. Josh gave a quick glance at the flowing Latin script that covered the page. At a glance, he could see that the last two columns were written in a different hand than the rest. One name leaped off the page at him—“
IESUS NAZARENUS.
” Jesus of Nazareth.

The air went out of his lungs, and MacDonald looked up from his work. Unable to speak, Josh pointed.

“Holy Mother of God!” the priest said. “It means one thing to speculate, and think about it. But to see it before our eyes! Help me, lad, I canna stand it. Let’s get this thing stabilized so we can begin the translation!”

The rest of the team, and Doctors Guioccini and Castolfo, who had slipped in as they worked, all watched with rapt attention as the Scottish antiquarian produced two spray bottles of his special solution and handed one to Josh. Working silently together, the two of them slowly and carefully sprayed the document from one end to the other, coating it with the stabilizer two times. The ancient papyrus darkened slightly as the fluid hit it and soaked in. Soon the entire mass of papyrus was an even, rich brown in color, and the two men stepped back.

Fully unrolled, the scroll was about sixteen inches in height, and almost seventy-six inches in length. There was a faint, ancient water stain at one end, but the writing was clear and legible throughout. Dr. MacDonald turned on the state-of-the-art digital camera, which was positioned directly over the table on a retractable arm, with its powerful light ready to shine down on the scroll as every character was recorded on film. Isabella was the first to step forward, and then Rossini came up behind her and laid a fatherly hand on her shoulder. Moments later, Apriceno, Castolfo, and Guioccini joined them. Seven pairs of eyes stared at the ancient scroll.

Finally Rossini spoke. “There are hardly words to express this moment,” he said. “What we do in this lab today will echo around the world. The realms of faith, politics, science, and history may all be shaken. None of us, at this moment, know exactly what is about to happen. But I have the feeling that our lives will never be the same. So I want to say—here and now—that I have been honored to work with each of you. I could not have asked for a more diverse, interesting, and professional team of scientists. You humble me.”

Josh clasped the elderly Italian by the hand, his eyes shining. “The feeling could not be more mutual, Giuseppe,” he said. “You are a good man. Father MacDonald, I came halfway around the world looking for a mystery, and found a friend. Simone, you are an amazing woman. I wish you and my mother could meet. You remind me of her a great deal. And Isabella—” He found himself unable to go on.

“Enough of this silly mush!” said Father MacDonald. “That scroll is not going to translate itself!” He busied himself with the camera, and the team watched as he carefully photographed each column of ancient script and saved the images to the laboratory computer. In a few moments, he was done. Josh plugged his laptop into one of the USB ports and downloaded the images, while the Father pulled up the photos on one of the lab’s computer workstations.

“Dual translation, like before, Joshua?” he asked.

“Ready when you are,” Joshua replied.

“Gentlemen,” said Dr. Castolfo. They both looked up. “Our press conference begins in thirty minutes. I do not want your absence to be noted, and I don’t want to tear you away in mid-translation. So I must ask you to refrain from starting until after we have spoken to the reporters about the Augustus scroll. I will have armed security inside the lab and outside its doors until you return.”

Josh started to open his mouth in protest, then shut it again. The doctor was right. It would not pay to start something and then have to get up, speak to the press, and come back. He gave a wistful glance at the laptop’s screen, with the entire scroll pulled up in a series of thumbnail images, then sighed and shut it off. Isabella printed out her prepared remarks, and then copied the translation of the famous emperor’s will. With a long sigh, he got up from the comfortable stool and walked over to stare at the original scroll one more time.

“Also,” said Castolfo, “we need to keep our progress on the
Testimonium
between us for the moment. No need to inform the media until we have something to report.”

“I don’t know that Dr. Sinisi would agree,” commented Isabella.

Castolfo smiled. “Sinisi calls the press when he goes to the restroom!” he said. “But I am going to overrule him on this one. In fact, I have given orders not to admit him to the lab until the translation is complete. We will decide when to share this scroll, and not have our hand forced by premature leaks to the press.”

The five archeologists, and Castolfo, walked up to the press room. Guioccini agreed to stay in the lab and keep an eye on things. The museum’s security guards underwent rigorous security screening, but he wanted to be there anyway, just to be sure that nothing was disturbed. Even with twenty-four-hour security cameras, the potential significance of the ancient document was such that he felt he had to be there if none of the team members were.

The press conference went smoothly and quickly. As soon as the reporters realized the Pilate scroll was not the subject of the announcement, the intensity of their interest sagged. They took the translation and photographs of the Augustan scroll and glanced at them, but only a few had questions. Those inquiries were fairly routine—although the young reporter from Chicago who had accosted them outside the hotel actually seemed to be both interested in and informed about the subject.

“Dr. Sforza,” Eastwood asked, “can you tell me how this document changes our understanding of the origins of the Roman Empire, and of its First Emperor?”

Isabella brightened at this opportunity to educate the public. “We have known for centuries that Augustus proclaimed Tiberius as his heir even before his death,” she said, “but the fact that he specifically bequeathed all of his elected and appointed political offices to his adopted son shows that for him, the Empire was, as you Americans might say, a done deal. The short postscript to the Senate makes it plain that, even if he had once toyed with the idea of restoring the Republic, he had abandoned that notion as impractical. What is really interesting, though, is the appended note by Tiberius himself. It has always been known that he hated the city of Rome and did not seem to care for the Imperial throne, but this personal note, inscribed on Augustus’ will, makes it evident that he apparently never wanted to be Emperor at all. Biographers will speculate for years on what he meant when he said his only desire was ‘to rule himself.’ We still have high hopes that the fragmentary manuscripts we retrieved will help further our understanding of the troubled relationship between Tiberius and his adopted father, Augustus.”

The young reporter nodded. “So do you think Tiberius was the monster that the early histories portrayed him as?”