CHAPTER 1

A scroll recollecting Jesus of Nazareth, in good faith put to parchment by me, his friend, Matia

By most, on less familiar terms, I am called Matthias. In the same manner they denounced him, you who read this may well accuse me of wanting to shape your world — of even believing I can. You will accuse me of thinking myself God's equal. And your inclination will be to silence me, just as Jesus' enemies did to him. So I will start by saying what I am thinking. Simply, I am the only one who will tell you about his life. Many of you will go no farther. Having heard me say this, I am certain you will exclaim, "Here's another one!" Still, if you want to know what happened, then listen to me. I was his friend, and I conversed with him about the events which follow, or I knew of them as a witness.

Having him as a guest in my house on various occasions, and having been at his side through the brightest hours and those of ensuing darkness, I was pleased his circle of students never had any jealousy of me which might accrue to a younger man, but regarded me as safely aboard those advancing years which sooner or later run their mortal course. Among Jesus' circle of twelve disciples, all but one were deeply devoted to him. That fellow, named Judas Iscariot, was gone from the group after a cruel betrayal, a subject which shall await its appropriate telling farther along. Soon after Jesus' death, Simon took a vote of the others, and, so-authorized, invited me to become their twelfth – filling the vacancy of Judas.

As a Sanhedrin scribe, I hoped to bring them the expert ability to elevate their recollections of Jesus to a rhetorical eloquence matching scripture itself. Indeed, even as I write this, I am still in that role of their episkopos, overseeing and recording their memories of his teaching. I concord with their sentiment there can be no greater monument to him than the Jerusalem Center, that old Roman house they have recently purchased to promulgate their cherished recollections. Indeed, my own purpose in joining the disciples, has been to brandish a sword of words, saving his memory as I never could, his life.

Of this secret scroll, which they know nothing, you may wonder why I am writing it as a separate document. In the following entries, that will become clear. As I accompany Jesus on his journey across these parchment leaves, no obeisance will be made to any false reverence. Should their devout hopes become a misguided faith, I swear to perpetuate Jesus' teaching and life–as he would have remembered it. On that you have my oath.

Currently, as I commence this account, I would have whoever reads it know this: My intent is not clouded by suspicion towards Simon–or any of the others. I accept my role and take down their many recollections of Jesus' activity in good faith. Only recently, because so many of Simon's exaggerations are turning fantastical, has my demur led me to undertake this private record.

Therefore, unbeknownst even to Jesus' brother James, who shared so much with him, I have begun this tract of memories.

What shall become of the other scroll–that which is now being transcribed at Simon's direction? If it has survived, you may well hear of it as a "new testament" to Jesus' divinity. But if what I put down equals my purpose, it will be the true portrait of his life– and death, which have understandably raised the most profound questions, and doubts about his, and even our, purpose on this earth.

If the disciples succumbed to the possibility Jesus had been teaching them to believe in a God who had turned out to be his murderer–their own souls would be sunk in the mire of utter inconsequence. Therefore, among them now, foremost Simon who proposed me as the twelfth, just after the crucifixion, has arisen a burning determination to exalt Jesus, declaring they who are worthy among them may know he never truly died, and so be guided by his heavenly spirit from a realm over which he presides alongside God, his proclaimed Father. And, I have been accommodating that testament to his divinity, taking down their recollections.

Despite my age, six decades and two years, my record is not tainted by descriptions typical of age, which those souls no longer influential must over-dramatize for anyone to even notice they are speaking. Jesus' life does not require my embellishment; his death even less so.

But here I should convey my surprise that some followers of Simon appear to have an unshakeable certainty Jesus only feigned the life of an ordinary Jew, indeed even circumcised by his parents and observant of Torah's statutes to disguise the truth he was -they now proclaim -come to earth as God's son to save mankind. Jesus' altogether contrary view of himself shall herewith unfold both in his own words and with my describing the stormtide of circumstance engulfing his every step.

I admit it seems impossible he's gone–but, in this summer season not two months after his death, nothing has changed. Turbulent conflicts continue to heat passions much as the sun still beats down. Romans occupy our land and collect taxes, imposed on us as a province of the empire. Jews are as divided as Jews will be, only with more than ample reason these days to either patiently– or impatiently–await God's intervention. Only we all agree on this: One way or another God's Day is coming.

Little more than three decades ago, as a scribe and new member of our Jerusalem legislature, the Sanhedrin, though it feels like a lifetime, I became a colleague and friend of many who endured King Herod's carnage towards his own family. Truly, most Jews were consoled by his miserable death, and witnessed, with near-equal satisfaction, nine years later, the banishment of his son Archelaus, who had then served a tumultuous term as ethnarch over Jerusalem and Judea until the Romans replaced him with their own governor and ordered a census be taken.

A member of the Sanhedrin, whose views were especially collegial to my own, similarly shaped by throes of change, was none other than Joseph, a grumpy man my own age, and an arkhitekton of God's expanded house, our majestic Temple. When he referred to himself as a carpenter, those many subordinate builders, mostly priests constructing the enlarged courtyards under his direction, were put at ease by his humor, which they knew better than to mistake for bona fide humility. One errant inch in measuring a block, and their ears would ring from his loud abuse.

But when he courted his young niece Miri, or Mary in the Roman, Joseph changed. That man glowed like a morning cloud with the sun behind it. Joseph, whose deceased wife had been Mary's aunt, the sister of her mother, was blessed by her youthful countenance, as if his wife's presence was again with him. And so, she, the daughter of Yoakim and Anna, a priestly family from Tzipori, and he were betrothed. Mary was in the same generation as his sons, three decades younger, having celebrated her sixteenth year, when she became pregnant. Afraid because she had not conceived by Joseph's seed, Mary sought refuge with her aunt Elizabeth in Ayn Kerem. Elizabeth was herself with child, being six months pregnant. Her son would one day be known as John the Baptizer.

Both were born in the reign of Augustus, just eight years before Tiberius became emperor.

In a determined effort to prevent scandal, Joseph had played the...