Christopher Moore - Lamb - The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal

Philip had moved up behind me during this speech and he whispered, “Can’t you knock him out or something with your methods from the East? We have to get him out of here before he says any more.”

“I think we’re too late, John,” I said. “Just don’t let the crowd disperse. Go out into the city and bring more. The crowd is his only protection now. And find Joseph of Arimathea too. He might be able to help if this gets out of hand.”

“This isn’t out of hand?”

“You know what I mean.”

The inquisition went on for two hours, with the priests concocting every verbal trap they could think of, and Joshua wiggling out sometimes, and blundering through at others. I looked for some way to get Joshua out of the Temple without him being arrested, but the more I looked, the more I noticed that the guards had moved down off the walls and were hovering around the gates to the courtyard.

Meanwhile the chief priest droned on: “A man dies and leaves no sons, but his wife marries his brother, who has three sons by his first wife…[and on] The three of them leave Jericho and head south, going three point three furlongs per hour, but they are leading two donkeys, which can carry two…[and on] So the Sabbath ends, and they are able to resume, adding on the thousand steps allowed under the law…and the wind is blowing southwest at two furlongs per hour…[and on] How much water will be required for the journey? Give your answer in firkins.”

“Five,” Joshua said, as soon as they stopped speaking. And all were amazed.

The crowd roared. A woman shouted, “Surely he is the Messiah.”

“The Son of God has come,” said another.

“You guys aren’t helping,” I shouted back at them.

“You didn’t show your work, you didn’t show your work,” chanted the youngest of the priests.

Judas and Matthew had been scratching out the problem on the paving stones of the courtyard as the priest recited, but they had long since lost track. They looked up and shook their heads.

“Five,” Joshua repeated.

The priests looked around among themselves. “That’s right, but that doesn’t give you authority to heal in the Temple.”

“In three days, there will be no Temple, for I’ll destroy it, and you nest of vipers with it. And three days after that, a new Temple shall be built in honor of my father.”

And then I grabbed him around the chest and started dragging him toward the gate. The other apostles followed the plan and moved around us in a wedge. Beyond that, the crowd pressed in. Hundreds moved along with us.

“Wait, I’m not done!” Joshua yelled.

“Yes you are.”

“Surely the true king of Israel has come to bring forth the kingdom,” one woman shouted.

Peter smacked her on the back of the head. “Stop helping.”

By the sheer mass of the crowd we were able to get Joshua out of the Temple and through the streets to Joseph of Arimathea’s house.

Joseph let us in and led us to the upper room, which had a high arched stone ceiling, rich carpets on the floors and walls, piles of cushions, and a long low table for dining. “You’re safe here, but I don’t know for how long. They’ve already called a meeting of the Sanhedrin.”

“But we just left the Temple,” I said. “How?”

“You should have let them take me,” Joshua said.

“The table will be set for the Passover feast of the Essenes,” Joseph said. “Stay here for supper.”

“Celebrate the Passover early? Why?” John asked. “Why celebrate with the Essenes?”

Joseph looked away from Joshua when he answered. “Because at the Essenes’ feast, they don’t kill a lamb.”

We all slept that night in the upper room of Joseph’s house. In the morning Joshua went downstairs. He was gone for a bit, then came back up the stairs.

“They won’t let me leave,” he said.

“They?”

“The apostles. My own apostles won’t let me leave.” He went back to the stairway. “You’re interfering with the will of God!” he shouted down. He turned back to me. “Did you tell them not to let me leave?”

“Me? Yep.”

“You can’t do that.”

“I sent Nathaniel to Simon’s to fetch Maggie. He returned alone. Maggie wouldn’t talk to him, but Martha did. Temple soldiers had been there, Josh.”

“So?”

“What do you mean, so? They were there to arrest you.”

“Let them.”

“Joshua, you don’t have to sacrifice yourself to prove this point. I’ve been thinking about it all night. You can negotiate.”

“With the Lord?”

“Abraham did it. Remember? Over the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. He starts out getting the Lord to agree to spare the cities if he can find fifty righteous men, but by the end, he talks God down to ten. You can try something like that.”

“That’s not completely the point, Biff.” Here he came over to me, but I found I couldn’t look him in the eye, so I went to one of the large arched windows that looked down on the street. “I’m afraid of this—of what’s going to happen. I can think of a dozen things I’d rather do this week than be sacrificed, but I know that it has to happen. When I told the priests that I would tear the Temple down in three days, I meant that all the corruption, all the pretense, all the ritual of the Temple that keeps men from knowing God would be destroyed. And on the third day, when I come back, everything will be new, and the kingdom of God will be everywhere. I’m coming back, Biff.”

“Yeah, I know, you said that.”

“Well, believe in me.”

“You’re not good at resurrections, Josh. Remember the old woman in Japhia? The soldier in Sepphoris, what did he last? Three minutes?”

“But look at Maggie’s brother Simon. He’s been back from the dead for months now.”

“Yeah, and he smells funny.”

“He does not.”

“No, really, when you get close to him he smells spoiled.”

“How would you know? You won’t get close to him because he used to be a leper.”

“Thaddeus mentioned it the other day. He said, ‘Biff, I believe this Simon Lazarus fellow has spoiled.’”

“Really? Then let’s go ask Thaddeus.”

“He might not remember.”

Joshua went down the steps to a low-ceilinged room with a mosaic floor and small windows cut high in the walls. Joshua’s mother and brother James had joined the apostles. They all sat there against the walls, their faces turned to Joshua like flowers to the sun, waiting for him to say something that would give them hope.

“I’m going to wash your feet,” he said. To Joseph of Arimathea, he said, “I need a basin of water and a sponge.” The tall aristocrat bowed and went off to find a servant.

“What a pleasant surprise,” Mary said.

James the brother rolled his eyes and sighed heavily.

“I’m going out,” I said. I looked at Peter, as if to say, Don’t let him out of your sight. He understood perfectly and nodded.

“Come back for the seder,” Joshua said. “I have some things I have to teach you in the little time I have left.”

There was no one home at Simon’s house. I knocked on the door for a long time, then finally let myself in. There was no evidence of a morning meal, but the mikveh had been used, so I guessed that they had each bathed and then gone to the Temple. I walked the streets of Jerusalem, trying to think of some solution, but everything I had learned seemed useless. As evening fell I made my way back to Joseph’s house, taking the long route so I didn’t have to pass the palace of the high priest.

Joshua was waiting inside, sitting on the steps to the upper room, when I came in. Peter and Andrew sat on either side of him, obviously there to ensure that he didn’t accidentally skip down to the high priest and turn himself in for blasphemy.