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The Thirteenth Disciple
By Allan Mitchell Trafford Publishing
Copyright © 2013 Allan Mitchell
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4669-7515-6
Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Heavy with child. Seldom has a common saying so aptly described an individual circumstance. Seated uncomfortably in a little cart drawn by a pack donkey, Mary jolted and lurched along a rocky pathway leading southward from Nazareth to Bethlehem. Walking beside was her husband Joseph. Behind the wagon, drawn by ropes, came their three goats, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego—so ancient and scrawny, as Joseph liked to explain, that they were undoubtedly refugees from the Babylonian Captivity, hence their names. But they had the compensating virtue, like the donkey, of being able to go several days without water. And they grudgingly gave milk.
From the beginning it had been a difficult pregnancy, with daily bouts of nausea, swollen ankles, and increasingly tormenting pains in the back. Mary had endured them all, but the constant pounding of this journey was almost too much to bear. She had been less than thrilled when Joseph told her that they had no choice but to set off for his family homestead on the southern edge of Bethlehem. A census of property was being conducted by the Roman authorities, and if Joseph expected to secure the inheritance of his parental home for himself and his offspring, they would need to appear in person to claim it. There could be no registration by proxy. So Mary consented, as she usually did, to Joseph's wishes, and she was now forced to pay the price inflicted by rigid axles and wooden wheel rims.
She had plenty of time to reflect on the events that had led her to this fate, and she did not blame Joseph for her predicament. They had accidentally bumped into each other one day at the Nazareth marketplace. It was one of those rare occasions when an itinerant fishmonger showed up with a catch of sardines from the Sea of Galilee. Located midway between that lake and what was usually called "the western sea," Nazarenes were neither fishermen nor as a rule eaters of fish. Yet fresh sardines were considered a delicacy, and the chance to claim a mess for dinner quickly attracted an aggressive crowd. It was in the midst of the ensuing melee that the couple had rudely met and afterwards, each clutching a prize, exchanged a brief word of triumph.
The attraction was mutual from the outset. Joseph was considerably older, already in his fifties, a widower with two teenage sons. He was a large man with big hands, like his father a carpenter by trade. Amiable and quiet, he exuded the calm patience of an artisan sure of his tools and skills. Mary was a rather homely girl, but sturdy and shapely, just past the age of twenty. Since Nazareth's population was hardly more than four hundred, everyone knew everyone there, at least faintly. Yet Joseph had never taken particular notice of her until that collision at the market. Other encounters followed, at first polite greetings with a knowing smile that recalled their first meeting. Then they began to pause together for a chat under an old olive tree, which soon became their favorite trysting place. Joseph looked there for Mary each morning and was always disappointed when she did not appear. She was still living with her parents, who sent her on routine shopping errands without knowing she had more in mind than a family chore.
After several months Mary accepted Joseph's bashful invitation to visit his house, a typical four-room Israelite dwelling with a narrow front doorway leading to an interior courtyard. Joseph's boys were seldom at home, so the two often had time to themselves to become better acquainted and, finally, more intimate. One day they withdrew from the midday heat into Joseph's quarters, and there they lay together throughout the afternoon. After Joseph covered Mary with his robe, they made love gently and fell asleep in each other's arms. Mary later said that it had been like a wonderful dream, and Joseph joked about whether it had really happened—until the truth became undeniable that she was pregnant. Her morning sickness began, she felt a tightening and a slight swelling in her abdomen, and her menstrual cycle was disrupted. The symptoms were obvious to her if not yet to others.
What to do? Informally they were in effect engaged. But there was now a danger of scandal or worse. Mary might be accused of whoring, stripped, banished from the village, or even in the most extreme event stoned. Ever considerate, Joseph wanted to spare his betrothed and her family any shame or harm, and he offered to break the engagement and keep his fatherhood incognito. But how would that work? Mary could take to her room, remain out of sight for months, and give birth without notice. Yet it would eventually become known that she had a child, and questions were bound to be asked. Rumors would circulate in that same marketplace where they had met and often been seen together. Their relationship could not long remain a secret.
Besides, they were in love, and both wanted a baby. Better it would be, then, for Mary to leave her parents and to move in with Joseph and his sons, thereby sealing their marriage and making a public acknowledgement of their union. Thus Mary came to Joseph, recurrent illness, bloated ankles, sore back, and all. She became enormously pregnant and deeply happy, until that day when her husband announced that they must undertake the trip to Bethlehem, and they departed along the bumpy road to claim Joseph's family estate.
The miserable little caravan proceeded for six days before nearing its destination. They could, in fact, see the town of Bethlehem on a hillside before them. But it was late in the afternoon, and Mary was overcome with fatigue. Joseph therefore decided to halt and to ask for lodging at a small roadside inn where lanterns had already been lighted for an evening meal. The innkeeper was an Arab named Ithra, whose wife was busy preparing the supper for several guests. Every room in the inn was occupied, and Ithra's only suggestion was that the weary travelers might occupy what he jovially referred to as the bridal suite: a pair of small caves directly behind the inn, which ordinarily served as stalls for the livestock, two cows and a few sheep. The animals could be herded into an outdoor enclosure and the shelter tidied up for human habitation. A blanket on straw would do as a mattress, and at least the newly arrived couple would be warm and safe. There they shared a mutton stew, generously provided by their hosts, and they settled in for the night.
Mary's first contractions began before dawn. Joseph was not unfamiliar with the miracle of birth, but he needed help and roused Ithra and his spouse, who supplied hot water, towels, and moral support through the early hours of dawn. At sunrise a child was born, wrapped in bed clothing, and placed onto one of the stone mangers carved in the walls of the main cave. Joseph was exhausted, relieved, and proud of a job well done. Mary lay back, her face glowing in the gathering daylight, grateful and filled with joy at the arrival of a son. They had already decided on a name for him. He would be called Jesus, a boy that was all her heart desired. But at that moment she felt a strange sensation that was unidentifiable at first until Mary realized that her contractions had resumed. Everyone was bewildered. She was in labor again, incredibly giving birth to a second child. Mary had twins.
CHAPTER 2
They decided to call their second son Jesse, an old family name on Joseph's side that was rarely heard in Palestine. By contrast, the name of Jesus—a Greek form of Joshua—had become rather common there since the days of Alexander the Great. In any event, the alliteration appealed to the parents: Jesus and Jesse, eminently suitable for identical twins. Or rather, almost identical. Instinctively, of course, Mary could tell the two apart. But she also noticed a difference that she showed only to Joseph. At the knuckle of his left hand, between the index and middle fingers, Jesse had a birthmark, which appeared to be a tiny black mole. One had to look very carefully to detect it, but it would always be there for the discerning eye.
The trauma of a multiple delivery left Mary weakened and unfit for travel. Accordingly, Joseph arranged for them to move to a room inside the inn where she could rest and nurse her infants for several days. Joseph meanwhile tended to his official business of registration in Bethlehem and also engaged the services of a rabbi, who would come to them on the eighth day, as was the Hebrew custom, to perform the ritual of circumcision. This matter, however, provoked the first serious argument between the new parents.
"Mary, you know very well that many Jews, especially in Jerusalem, are no longer having their sons circumcised."
"So?"
"I think we should do the same. I mean, we should ask the rabbi to cut just a tip of the foreskin, which will satisfy all the high priests of Palestine and still allow our boys to grow up without being ridiculed by the Romans. A circumcised Jewish child cannot show himself at a bath or gymnasium without being laughed at. Let us at least spare them that humiliation."
"I don't agree," Mary answered emphatically. "We are what we are, and if the Romans cannot accept us, that is their problem. I want my sons to be Jewish and to be proud of it."
"What pride can there be in inferiority? We may as well brand them like cattle in the open fields. They will never be counted as equals, and neither will Israel until our people make some compromises. We live under Roman rule, and the sooner we accept that fact, the better."
"I don't care. I won't hear of it."
This domestic impasse continued in the same vein for three days, during which Joseph and Mary struggled to maintain a civil tone without conceding anything to the other. Mary could not be budged, and the eighth day was approaching. Finally they came to an agreement, albeit one that satisfied neither of them. As Jesus was the first-born son, he would receive a full circumcision in the traditional manner. Jesse would have only a slight incision, just enough to conform to customary practice, but thereby leaving him later apparently unmarked to the casual glance of, say, a fellow bather or a naked wrestler. It was a fateful decision, more so than either parent could then have realized. The rabbi, who had seen it all, was so instructed and easily persuaded. Thereafter, Jesus and Jesse were thus to be distinguished by more than a miniscule birthmark on Jesse's hand. Actually, as Mary soon learned, the arrangement had some unanticipated advantages. When, a few days later, some visitors at the inn stopped by to admire the twins, she carefully unwrapped Jesus with his recent wounds for showing, while Jesse slept in his swaddling. Nice little Jewish boys, the implication was. Should Roman centurions for some reason suddenly appear, however, it would be Jesse's turn to perform.
Not for the first time nor the last, being—or seeming to be—Jew or Gentile was of crucial importance in a period of unsettled political conditions. News arrived, namely, of the death of King Herod, whose long reign had been marked by the greatest building projects known in that part of the world. Entire cities, fortresses, and above all the mighty Temple in Jerusalem had been erected at his royal behest. Now the old monarchy was to be divided among his three heirs: two sons (who had been raised in Rome) and a stepson. The uncertainty and instability of this succession touched off riots, then a revolt, in the capital city of Galilee, Sepphoris, which the Romans and loyal Herodians joined to suppress. The town was leveled to the ground, and its Jewish inhabitants either fled or perished in the flames. For the time being, Sepphoris had to be spoken of in the past tense. Worse, the site of the massacre was only a short march from Nazareth, and the trouble might spread.
An immediate return to Nazareth was therefore out of the question, but remaining in Bethlehem was hardly less problematic. After Mary recovered her stamina, the family made its way down through the village to Joseph's parental home. Their arrival was a shock and a great disappointment. Joseph's mother had been widowed many years before and was unable to maintain the place adequately before her own death some months ago. In the interim the house had stood unoccupied and completely unattended, and now it was in serious disrepair. One wall had crumbled, allowing desert winds to whip into the courtyard. Plaster was falling on all sides, exposing the crude building stones, and the roof was in tatters. It was no longer the warm and charming home that Joseph had known as a boy. True, they might be able to set up primitive living quarters there, but reconstruction would require a labor of several months. As a skilled artisan, Joseph could execute the job, but how would he support a family while doing so? The prospects were bleak, not to say hopeless. In reality, Joseph had inherited a dilapidated farmhouse without a farm.
Compounding these problems was an incident that created a gnawing fear about their reception in the community of Joseph's birth. One day he lingered at a tavern for a glass of wine and, while there, fell into animated conversation with a few men who were carousing at the same time. During their banter Joseph indiscreetly made a remark about "little" Herod, meaning one of the sons of Herod the Great who bore the name Herod Antipas, now the ruler of Galilee and Peraea. Within twenty-four hours Joseph was summoned to the registrar's office, where he was interrogated by two men: a Roman official and a local scribe. The latter spoke both Joseph's language, Aramaic, and that of the Roman. What did Joseph intend, he was asked, and how long did he expect to stay? He was given to understand that he and his family were, despite his lineage, considered to be foreigners, Nazarene Jews, and that his claim to a homestead in Bethlehem did not alter that circumstance. More disturbing, his questioners brought up the conversation in the tavern, which had been reported to the administration. When Joseph tried to explain that he had only been jesting, perhaps after imbibing a bit too much wine, the two men were decidedly not amused and stared at him in silence.
Joseph left the interview filled with apprehension for the safety of himself, his wife, and his children. But where could they take refuge? If they could not return to Nazareth or remain in Bethlehem, what option did they have? The answer came with the question. Mary's family had relatives in the port city of Elath, far to the south on the edge of the Red Sea. There was an established community of Jewish merchants there in which the family could be inconspicuously assimilated and Joseph could find work. They would leave at once.
CHAPTER 3
The journey southward was long and arduous, though Mary was now able to walk and allow the cart to carry her twins. After repacking their few possessions, they followed the aqueduct—actually, it was more like a long irrigation ditch—that stretched between Bethlehem and Herodium. Then, avoiding that palace fortress, they made a steep descent to the oasis of En-Gedi on the shore of the Dead Sea. They remained at water's edge as far as the southern tip of the Sea, where they found another oasis, En-Boqeq, with its plantations and terraced slopes, the last major watering hole before beginning a seemingly endless trek along the Wadi Arabah, the main road leading down to the Gulf of Aqaba. On the way they stopped occasionally at the small Roman outposts that guarded the highway, taking care to remain inconspicuous and also to stay on the western slope of the valley in order not to cross inadvertently into the land of Edom on the other side. All in all, the trip required more than three weeks of strenuous effort until, gloriously, Joseph and Mary sighted a blue haze of water. No, it was not a mirage. They had arrived at Elath.
There is no natural harbor on that northern coastal stretch of the Gulf of Aqaba. But, thanks to an island just off the shore, port facilities could be constructed and fortified there for the lively sea trade that connected the ancient Near East to Egypt, the Arabian peninsula, eastern Africa, and India. In addition to Elath, this commerce flowed through Ezion-Geber, located nearby in the land of Edom, and also the Arab town of Aqaba farther down the eastern coastline. Goods arriving by ship at the off-shore island needed then to be transferred to smaller flat-bottom barges for transport to the mainland at one of those three locations. Once on shore, copper and other metals were temporarily stored in warehouses before being dispatched northward over land routes. There was also a large granary to receive and forward wheat from Egypt. And, of course, Elath boasted shallow docks for the building and repair of sea-going vessels.
It was here that Jesus and Jesse spent the first years of their childhood, until the age of four. As a trained carpenter, Joseph promptly found employment in the shipyards of Elath, and the family was able to afford comfortable if somewhat cramped quarters in the Jewish section of the city. Above all, they were now safe, away from the troubles that had followed the great Herod's death and the division of his kingdom.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Thirteenth Disciple by Allan Mitchell. Copyright © 2013 by Allan Mitchell. Excerpted by permission of Trafford Publishing.
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