Killing Jesus: A History

perfume on his feet. But she begins to sob before she can open the jar. Mary’s tears flow freely and without shame, and her face is pressed close to the feet of the Nazarene, which are still coated in road dust from his walk to the Pharisee’s house.
    Mary’s tears continue, and they mix with the perfume she applies to Jesus. She then dries his feet with her long hair, even as she kisses them as a sign of love and respect.
    Jesus does nothing to stop her.
    “If this man were a prophet,” thinks Simon the Pharisee, “he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is: a sinner.”
    “Simon, I have something to tell you,” Jesus says as Mary opens the alabaster jar and pours more perfume on his feet. The smell is enchanting and powerful, filling the room with its flowery sweetness.
    “Tell me, teacher,” Simon replies smoothly.
    “Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet,” Jesus tells the Pharisee. “You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. Therefore I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—for she loved much. But he who has been forgiven little, loves little.”
    Jesus looks at Mary. She lifts her eyes to see his face. “Your sins are forgiven,” Jesus tells her.
    If Simon was looking for a chance to catch Jesus in a theological trap, now is the moment. Sins can be forgiven only through sacrificial offerings. In the eyes of the Pharisees, even the baptisms performed in the Jordan River do not officially forgive sins. And now Jesus is saying that he has the authority to obliterate sin.

Mary Magdalene
    The other friends of Simon who have come to dinner this evening are dumbfounded by Jesus’s words, particularly since he has spoken them in the presence of such a prominent Pharisee. “Who is this who even forgives sins?” they ask one another.
    “Your faith has saved you,” Jesus tells Mary of Magdala. “Now go in peace.”
    She goes, but not for long. Mary isn’t selected by Jesus to serve as one of his twelve disciples, but she follows them as they travel and never returns to the life she once knew. In the end, Mary will be a powerful witness to the last days of Jesus of Nazareth. 6
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    The last days have come for John the Baptist. He has been in the dungeons of Machaerus for two long years. The dank cells are carved into the rocky hillside, and, in fact, some are nothing more than caves. The floors, ceilings, and walls are impenetrable rock. There are no windows in his cell; the only light comes through small slits in the thick wooden door. The rectangular doorjamb is framed by haphazardly chiseled stones stacked atop one another and sealed with mortar. It is a place of solitude and silence, damp and chill, where hope is hard to maintain through month after month of sleeping on the ground and where one’s skin grows pale from never feeling the warmth of sunlight. Now and again it is possible to smell the aromatic bushes that Antipas planted between the castle and the lower city, but the scent is just as quickly swept away on the desert wind, taking with it the brief sensation of beauty. The living hell of the prison has been preying on John’s mind. He is now beginning to doubt his initial faith in Jesus as the Messiah. He desperately wants to get word to Jesus and be reassured by him.

John the Baptist in prison sends his disciples to Jesus
    John the Baptist has attracted many disciples of his own, though he has also exhorted men to return to their fields and their farms rather than follow him through the wilderness. But at least two such men have come to see him, and now they listen as John sends them on a mission. “Ask him,” the Baptist says, referring to Jesus, “‘Are you the one who has come, or should we expect someone else?’”
    The months in isolation have given John time to reflect on his ministry. He is still a young man, not yet forty. But the longer he remains in prison, the more it appears that he might eventually be executed. His life’s work has been to tell people about the coming of a messiah, and now he wonders if it was all in vain. Perhaps Jesus is just another great teacher, or another man like him, intent on preaching about the coming of God. John’s own disciples have come bringing