Matthew's Autograph: Capri Team, #2

By Lewis Ben Smith

What if our Gospels . . .aren't Gospel?

 

It was supposed to be a simple bit of salvage archeology for Father Duncan MacDonald, the Vatican archeologist: Explore an empty cave uncovered in the Negev Desert by an Israeli construction crew for archeological significance. But then a false wall in the back of the cave reveals a basalt ossuary, inscribed with the name of "Matthew Levi, Beloved Scribe of His Lord." Behind the ossuary . . . an ancient tomb with a human skeleton and a sealed jar.

 

Finding the undisturbed tomb of one of the Apostles of Jesus leads the Israeli government to call in Duncan's companions, who had discovered the Testimonium of Pontius Pilate three years earlier. When the three archeologists arrive in Tel Aviv, they discover an amazing document inside the tomb: the end of Matthew's Gospel, written in the Apostle's own hand!

 

Excitement turns to pandemonium when they translate the scroll and find the text varies drastically from every copy of the Book of Matthew in existence. Have the New Testament Gospels been altered since they were written? Has this tomb really lain undisturbed for two thousand years? Is this ancient manuscript really Matthew's autograph?

• Language: English
• Publisher: eLectio Publishing
• Release date: Dec 15, 2022
• ISBN: 9781632131768

Book preview

Table of Contents

Title Page and Copyright Information

Also By Lewis Ben Smith

Dedication

PROLOGUE JERUSALEM, 56 AD

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

EPILOGUE 66 AD

CAST OF CHARACTERS

AUTHOR’S NOTE

About the Author

MATTHEW’S

AUTOGRAPH

a capri team adventure

Lewis Ben Smith

eLectio Publishing

Little Elm, TX

www.eLectioPublishing.com

Matthew’s Autograph

By Lewis Ben Smith

Copyright 2015 by Lewis Ben Smith

Cover Design by eLectio Publishing

ISBN-13: 978-1-63213-176-8

Published by eLectio Publishing, LLC

Little Elm, Texas

http://www.eLectioPublishing.com

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

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Publisher’s Note

The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

Also by Lewis Ben Smith

The Testimonium

The Redemption of Pontius Pilate

This book is dedicated to my dad, the real Brother Ben, who taught me to love God and love my fellow man.

My mom, Laura, who taught me a love of reading and writing that has led me to become what I am.

My daughters, Rachel and Rebecca, who make my heart glad every day.

My long-suffering spouse, Patty Smith, who has to share her music room with my artifact collection

(or is it the other way around?).

And my friend and beta reader, Ellie, who kept asking me what happened to Josh and Isabella after THE TESTIMONIUM.

Matthew composed the sayings in a Hebrew dialect, and each one interpreted them as best he could.

– Saint Papias, circa 100 AD

PROLOGUE

JERUSALEM, 56 AD

Eight men were gathered in an upper room—the same upper room where, more than twenty years before, six of them had celebrated Passover with an itinerant rabbi from Galilee. The other two had not been there that night, even though one of them had known the rabbi longer than any of the others. He was the recognized leader of the small congregation that had endured in Jerusalem, and although his name was James of Galilee, for years now, believers had simply called him James the Lord’s brother. It was he who spoke first.

Are we sure the report is true, then? he asked the group.

The youngest of the group nodded. John the son of Zebedee was forty-two, although he still carried himself with a youthful grace. I have an epistle from Philip, who accompanied Thomas on his journey to India. He said that near the border they paused at a large town to preach the good news to the multitude that had gathered to worship their goddess. The local magistrate was there with his guards, and when Thomas began to explain that gods made with hands are no gods at all, the magistrate ordered his men to draw their bows. When Thomas would not be silent, they shot him through. Philip carried him away from the city and stayed with him till he died, then buried him and wrote to me. I received his letter this morning.

The man next to him bowed his head in grief and then lifted his eyes to face the group. Simon Peter, known to one and all as the Big Fisherman, was a bear of a man, although his once-black beard was now streaked with white, and his muscular frame had begun to slump with age. James might be the leader of the congregation at Jerusalem, but Peter was the one that all the followers of Jesus looked to for guidance.

It is a joy to be found worthy to suffer in the name of our Christ, he said. Thomas once doubted our Master, but once he realized the truth, he never wavered. He was the bravest one of us all. Heaven may be richer for his presence, but we are poorer for his absence.

James nodded. There were twelve of you that our Lord called to be His apostles. You were by His side throughout His entire ministry, while I and my brothers turned our backs on Him. Now there are only six of you, even though you have been kind enough to consider Paul and myself among your number. He nodded at the balding man who sat at the end of the table, his face seamed with scars despite his gentle expression.

None of us are young, said James. It is time that we considered how we can best pass down the words of our Lord and Master to those who will follow Him after we are no more. You who were from the beginning eyewitnesses and servants of the Word have shared His stories and teachings with thousands. But as living memory fades, the written word must endure. We must have a lasting record of the words and deeds of Jesus, from those who knew Him and were present to hear them uttered. Who shall be our scribe?

Peter stood. I am not a skilled writer, but young John Mark—he nodded at a slender young man who stood next to the door—has been my interpreter since I have begun to move among the Gentiles. He has heard me tell the stories of our Master hundreds of times. He can record my recollections of Jesus, and the rest of you can draw from his writings as you see fit.

Paul of Tarsus raised an eyebrow at James, who nodded for him to speak. He stood and addressed the others.

As you know, my brothers, he said, I never saw the Master before His crucifixion. I was a violent persecutor of The Way until He appeared to me on the road to Damascus and called me to His service. I am the least of the apostles, because I persecuted the church of God.

You have long atoned for your ignorance, Brother Paul, said Peter kindly. He and Paul had clashed occasionally, but the man’s fire for the Gospel and fervent love of Jesus made it impossible for anyone to remain angry with him.

I thank you, Cephas, said Paul, using the Greek form of Peter’s name. What I want to tell all of you is that my companion and physician, Lucas, has for years been gathering all the stories about Jesus he could find from those who knew the Master personally. He even spoke to our Lord’s blessed mother before she was called home last year. He is a gifted writer and a fine historian. He would be an able chronicler of our Gospel.

James nodded. He has spoken to me, also, asking for stories of our Lord. I think he is a good choice. What about you, John? The Master loved you greatly.

The former fisherman nodded. Not yet, he finally said. I believe I have been called to record my time with Jesus, but it has been revealed to me that I must walk a long and difficult road for many years to come. I will write down His story when He tells me it is time.

James nodded. Does anyone else wish to compose an account? he said.

I will, came a voice from the far end of the table. The speaker leaned forward, a slender, white-bearded figure with a face deeply lined from years on the road. I began writing down our Lord’s teachings in Hebrew many years ago, he said.

Paul interrupted. That is well and good for those of us Jews who have believed, he said, but the Gentile church grows larger every year. They will need the message in a language that they can read.

Matthew Levi nodded in agreement. Once a hated tax collector, he had found his life radically changed a quarter of a century before, when a carpenter from Nazareth had walked by his table and told him, Follow me. Since that day he had seen wonders unthinkable, and traveled throughout Judea, Samaria, and Syria preaching the Good News of the kingdom of God.

I can use my notes in Hebrew—and I shall share them with Mark and Luke as well, who are both versed in our language. he said. But then I shall compose my own account, in Greek, so that all the children of God can read the words of the Messiah.

James nodded. Then let the three of you begin, he said, while living memories still walk among us.

CHAPTER ONE

Duncan MacDonald was hot. Even though the tiny cave he was digging in was sheltered from the direct light of the sweltering Mediterranean sun, the heat radiated up from the ground on all sides of the hill. The chamber simply wasn’t deep enough to keep the desert air of the Negev from warming its interior. He had worn his clerical collar for so many decades that he usually did not even notice it, but today it felt like it was about to strangle him.

He was ready to give up on this excavation. The site had been dug in a cursory fashion some thirty years before, and nothing of importance had been found—a few rude structures and a handful of insignificant artifacts. But construction on the edge of the Israeli youth camp at Nitzana had just uncovered a cave unnoticed by the earlier diggers. Since MacDonald was already in Israel on an archeological permit, his friend Dr. Simeon bin Yosef had asked him to help conduct a quick survey to see if the site had any significance. A few scraps of blackened papyrus and some pottery shards had been found near the cave entrance, but they had no writing on them and there was no sign of where they might have come from.

Father Duncan, who had done countless excavations in Israel during his thirty-five-year career as a Vatican archeologist, was not one to quit easily. He had excavated important sites under much worse conditions, especially during the intifada, when he had carried on an excavation near the West Bank with artillery shells falling all around him. But this cave looked like a dead end. It barely measured four meters in depth, and its floor had yielded only one Roman coin in addition to those papyrus scraps and potsherds. MacDonald had reached the back wall of the cave and was trying to figure out if it was worth digging any further. He had probed the wall in several spots and found it to be solid stone.

The Lord hates a quitter, he muttered to himself as he swung the pick at yet another blank reddish expanse of wall. To his surprise, the steel point sank in to a depth of several inches. So the wall was not all solid stone! He tugged gently on the wooden handle, and a section of the cave’s back wall about a foot across simply fell away.

So you are hiding something after all, he said, looking more closely. What he had hit was clay, textured and painted to look identical to the rock around it. The material revealed by his pick, however, was lighter in color. Obviously, the camouflage was deliberate. He took a long drink of water and backed out of the cave to look for Simeon. His friend was in a nearby tent, looking at some ancient masonry that had been found on the far edge of the site.

Our cave may be more than just a hole in the ground, said Father MacDonald.

Don’t tell me you found something, his friend said. I was ready to head back to Beer Sheva tonight and sleep in a decent bed!

Part of the back wall is artificial, explained MacDonald. The clay had been textured and painted to look like sandstone.

Really! What is behind this false wall? the Israeli asked.

I have no idea, said MacDonald. But I’d like to find out!

The two scientists grabbed some additional tools and headed back to the cave’s mouth, which was barely a meter wide. Bin Yosef studied the collapsed patch of clay very carefully, and then took several photographs with a meter stick propped against the wall to provide scale. Once the scene was recorded, he took a very small geologist’s hammer and began gently tapping on the wall on either side of the clay section, stopping when he hit the softer material. Working outward from the section MacDonald had revealed, he gradually determined the size of the concealed opening. It was slightly less than one meter in width, and about a meter and a half in height. As he narrowed the focus of his probing, he saw that the opening was rectangular in shape, with clearly defined corners.

Well, that is certainly not natural! said MacDonald.

I would say we have found a doorway, bin Yosef said. But to what?

More importantly, said MacDonald, to when?

***

The lecture hall at Baylor University was packed Friday afternoon. Over five hundred members of the student body, and dozens of faculty members, had come to hear the guest speaker, Doctor Joshua Parker. Parker had gone from being an unknown rookie in the field of Biblical archeology to being one of the most famous antiquarians on earth nearly three years before, when he served on the team that had discovered the Testimonium of Pontius Pilate—the original report filed to Rome about the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth. The controversial scroll had drawn a firestorm of criticism from skeptics who could not believe how closely it paralleled the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ death and resurrection. The scroll itself had been destroyed in a terror attack by a fanatical jihadist, an attack which had killed Josh—although he had been resuscitated in the hospital emergency room in Naples. He still had an angry, puckered bullet scar on his abdomen from that ordeal, and was short one kidney.

However, he had met and married the love of his life as a result of the discovery on Capri, and in his mind a kidney was a small price to pay for the privilege of growing old with Isabella Sforza-Parker. The beautiful Italian archeologist had followed him back to the States, and they had co-authored a book about their discovery that was still on the bestseller list a year after its publication. A table full of copies of the hardcover version was waiting in the lobby for Josh to autograph.

Parker was smiling at the crowd as the university’s president introduced him. He had never really thought of himself as a compelling speaker, but since the publicity surrounding the Testimonium, he had become a sought-after guest lecturer at colleges and seminaries all over the country. In some quarters his reception was downright hostile, but Baylor was a Baptist school with a proud tradition of theological conservatism, so Josh doubted his message would meet with much opposition.

He stood and listened to the polite applause, and then began to speak.

A hundred and fifty years ago, it was conventional wisdom that the Gospels of the New Testament were composed much later than the events they record. Scholars thought that Mark had written his account down around 70 AD, and that the works we attribute to Matthew and Luke were placed over a decade later, while John’s Gospel was dated to the first half of the second century. What that meant, of course, was that none of the Gospels, except perhaps Mark’s, were written by the men whose names they bear and that all of them would have been written long after the eyewitnesses of the life and times of Jesus were dead and gone.

Josh had delivered this same lecture many times before, but he never got tired of it. An enthusiastic, evangelical Christian, he was convinced that the Jesus of the Gospels and the Jesus of history were one and the same, and the discovery of Pilate’s Testimonium had strengthened that conviction. While he looked forward to getting back in the field again, he wanted to use his fleeting fame to advance the cause of Christ whenever and wherever he could. He flashed a smile at his audience and continued.

What you have to ask is, why did they believe that? There was no archeology or history to indicate such a late date for the Gospels, and no one had ever questioned their antiquity or authorship before. The fact is, these scholars were motivated not by facts or information, but by ideology. They rejected the divinity of Christ, and since the Gospels record His claims to be the Son of God, as well as the miracles he performed to prove those claims, the Gospels, in their minds, could not be eyewitness accounts, or even secondhand accounts. They felt the New Testament was full of myths and legends that had germinated around a historical figure after those who could have told the truth about Jesus were no longer around. Then came the twentieth century, and the age of modern Biblical archeology. He turned on his projector and began flashing a series of images on the large screen behind him.

The Rylands papyrus fragment, consisting of six verses from John Chapter Eighteen, was found in a very remote area of the Egyptian desert. It was dated to about 120 AD, and when you consider that it would have taken several years for the Gospel to have been copied and circulated so far from its original source in Ephesus, it means John had to have been written before the first century ended. That comports with the traditional accounts, which say that John lived to be a hundred years old and wrote his Gospel in the last years of his life.

He clicked to the next image, a group of small papyrus fragments. These pieces are known collectively as the Magdalen papyri, he said. They are fragments of an early codex of Matthew’s Gospel. For years they were thought to date from the third century, but some modern scholars have concluded that they may actually date from the mid to late first century, which would place them in the lifetime of the eyewitnesses of Jesus. Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I should tell you that not all scholars agree with that interpretation—but again, how much of that skepticism is based on fact and how much on presumption?

He spoke for another hour or so on the various ways in which the historical and archeological record demonstrated the accuracy of the Gospel accounts, and when he was done, he opened the floor for questions.

Doctor Parker, said one tall young man wearing wire-frame glasses. What happened to the original copies of the Gospels?

The original copies are known as the autographs to scholars, said Josh, because they would have been in the hand of the original authors. They were lost long ago, because the manuscripts would have been handled and copied until they became too fragile, and then discarded. Those originals were copied again and again, and those copies were copied, until we wound up with over six thousand full or partial Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, over half of them being copies of the Gospels.

Do you think that there is any chance the autographs could have been preserved? the young man persisted.

Is it possible? Josh said rhetorically. Sure. The Dead Sea Scrolls were preserved intact, and so was the library at Nag Hammadi.

"And the Testimonium!" someone shouted from the back.

Oh, yeah, I forgot about that one! Josh said, provoking a ripple of laughter. But the odds against one of the original copies of the Gospels still existing out there somewhere must be about ten million to one!

Several students were waiting to be recognized, one of them a rather stout blonde girl with a T-shirt that said Pro-Life Texas in blazing red letters. Josh gave her the nod.

Dr. Parker, she said. "What did it feel like when you first read the inscription on the Testimonium and you realized what you were holding?"

Josh grinned. He had answered the question a million times, but he loved telling the story.

We had just opened a locked drawer in the ancient reliquary we recovered on Capri . . . he began.

***

Kitty! an excited voice rang across the backyard.

Isabella Sforza-Parker looked up in dismay. Her son, all two feet six inches of him, was toddling toward an armadillo that had come out in the late afternoon hours to dig in the soft dirt near the creek for roots and grubs. She dashed over and swept the boy up in her arms.

Marc Giuseppe Parker was now about a year and a half old, and Isabella lived in a perpetual state of wonder and exhaustion at the force of nature she and her husband had conceived. Joey, as his father called him, loved animals of all sorts, and to him anything with four legs was a kitty.

Giuseppe! she said in a stern voice. That is not a kitty; that is an armadillo. Armadillos are not pets. They can hurt you!

The boy stuck his lower lip out and furrowed his brow. Dillo? he asked.

Yes, she said. An armadillo.

NO DILLO! he said. Kitty! Joey want kitty!

That’s it, Giuseppe. It is nap time for you! she said as he began to wail. The armadillo, finally registering that there were humans in the vicinity, leaped out of its hole and darted toward the timber near the creek.

Giuseppe bawled in protest for about five minutes after she laid him in the crib, then his cries cut off in mid-wail and he slowly toppled over and went to sleep. It never ceased to amaze her how quickly he would crash, no matter how active he had been moments before. She pulled the sneakers off his tiny feet and put one of his stuffed animals in his arms, then walked to the kitchen and poured a glass of iced tea.

Isabella was thirty-five, and she was beginning to see why women in previous centuries had their babies while they were still in their teens. She adored her son, but his energy level was so high she had a hard time keeping up. Once she saw that he was not going to stir, she grabbed a trowel and some Ziploc bags and headed outside again.

The ranch house Josh had purchased with the royalties from their book sat on a gently sloped, sandy hill overlooking Big Cedar Creek near Hugo, Oklahoma. It was a perfectly situated location, and apparently the ancient Native Americans of the region had thought so too. She and Josh could not move any dirt on the place without finding flint chips, stone tools, and projectile points. So to keep their field skills honed while they enjoyed a sabbatical, and to preserve the artifacts for future generations, they had begun carefully excavating the Indian sites on their property. They documented the precise location and depth of each find and were planning to publish their discoveries in the Oklahoma State Archeological Journal. The actual artifacts they dug were donated to the university in Tulsa, and on some weekends grad students would come down and help them dig. Josh did make one concession to his boyhood hobby of arrowhead collecting, though—the points that were found on the gravel bars down in the creek were kept and framed, then hung on the walls of his hobby room. Since they were found out of context, they had little value for archeological study.

Isabella knew that summer was not far off, when the temperatures in their pleasant valley could soar to a hundred and ten, so she and Josh did their excavations during the cooler months. She started back on the grid she had been working that morning, pausing every time the trowel struck a solid object in the sand. Mostly what she uncovered were flakes of quartzite and jasper, but after a half hour or so of digging, she found the basal end of a Dalton point, wielded by ancient bison hunters nearly ten thousand years before. She was photographing it in situ when her cell phone rang. The ringtone was the opening bars from Raiders of the Lost Ark, which meant it was her husband calling.

"Pronto, mi amor!" she said when she picked up.

Hello, baby! Josh replied. How is the wee one?

Unconscious at the moment, thank goodness! she said. He was trying to catch an armadillo earlier.

You mean a kitty? said Josh.

According to your son, at least, she replied. He threw quite a fit when I would not let him pet it!

Should I buy some shotgun shells? he asked.

I don’t think so, she said. Our place is eighty acres—there is plenty of room for us to share it with nature.

You didn’t think that when you found the rattlesnake next to the back porch last month, Josh said.

That’s different! she replied with a shudder. An armadillo cannot kill our son with a single bite!

You’re right, I suppose, Josh said. Hey, I talked to Luke a few minutes ago.

"Bravissimo! Isabella said happily. Dr. Luke Martens was Josh’s mentor in the field of archeology, and his wife, Alicia, was her closest friend in America. How are Alicia and the baby doing?"

Very well, said Josh. They just got out at Arkansas State for spring break, and wanted to come spend the weekend.

Dr. Martens was the head of the Archeology Department at Arkansas State University, where Josh had gotten his Master’s. Alicia was working on her PhD in Marine Biology from Florida State, but had suspended her studies when she got pregnant.

Of course they are welcome, said Isabella. I’ve been dying to see them again. But more importantly, I’d like to see you.

I’m in Plano right now, said Josh. I’ll cut over when I get to Highway 380 and come up through Paris. I should be home in three or four hours.

Good! said Isabella. You can put Giuseppe the Terrible to bed!

Josh laughed. Are you really sure you want to have another one so soon? he asked.

It’s not going to get any easier as I get older, she said. So we need to get going if we don’t want Giuseppe to be an only child.

Josh grinned. Take a good look at the floor then, he said.

Why? his wife asked.

Because tonight you will be staring at the ceiling! he replied.

Promises, promises! she shot back, and blew him a kiss before hanging up.

Josh smiled as he steered his car off the interstate. He had been a virgin until he and Isabella married two and a half years before, and the joys and wonders of married life made him happier than he ever thought he could be. He wondered if their next child would be a boy or a girl. He was hoping for a daughter, but knew he would be content with whatever God gave them. He found himself longing to see his son’s face again. This whole thing of being a dad, he thought, was a marvelous adventure.

After he got clear of the ridiculous traffic the Dallas suburb was famous for, he dialed his old friend and mentor, Luke, but it was Alicia who answered.

Hello there! Josh said. How is motherhood?

I had no idea how far poop could be thrown, his old college classmate replied. She was fifteen years younger than her husband, and not nearly as enthusiastic about motherhood as Isabella was. "I still don’t know how