“Excellent advice from a brilliant mind. Of course the truth can never hurt anyone, my friend, for it is the foundation of all knowledge and the cement of all societies. That is exactly why you are here.”

I felt absolutely helpless. “I don’t understand. Where am I?”

“On that program, toward the end of your remarks, you made a specific wish, did you not?”

“I did, and I’ve made that same wish often, in frustration—usually in the privacy of my studio while I struggled with pieces of the Jesus puzzle that just refused to fit together.”

“And what did you wish, on that program?”

“I wished that I could spend a week in the same setting and time frame that I describe in ‘The Christ Commission’—Jerusalem, six years after the crucifixion, with all the important witnesses still alive and in the city for me to interrogate and investigate. I said that if I had just a week I was sure I could come up with the truth about Jesus, especially the facts involving the hoax of the empty tomb. So what?”

The old man rose, came forward, and boldly cupped my face between his large soft hands. “Matthias,” he said compassionately, “your wish has come true.”

“What?”

“You are in Jerusalem—and this year, according to your calendar, is A.D. 36, six years after the crucifixion of Jesus!”

I could hear the muted thumping of my heart in the solemn silence that followed Joseph’s announcement. Only the arpeggio from water drops, falling into the pool from the immobile lion’s open jaws, disturbed the hushed room. I stared incredulously into my host’s calm face, searching desperately for a hint—a slightly raised eyebrow or curled lip, the blinking of an eye—anything that would assure me this was all part of a big joke, or even a nightmare. Yes, oh, yes, I’d gladly settle for a nightmare.

“I’m just dreaming all this, aren’t I?” I asked weakly.

Joseph cocked his head as if I should have known better than to ask such a question. “Matthias, can you recall ever having a dream during which you knew you were only dreaming?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Of course you cannot. The subconscious mind is incapable of such rationality.”

“But this is absolute madness! It’s impossible!” I cried, feeling my usual self-assurance ebbing with each exchange.

“Oh, come now, you are much too wise to make such a snap judgment on so little evidence. Certainly none of the fictional heroes you create would make such an arbitrary statement or they would never solve any crimes. And wasn’t it. Napoleon who said that impossible is a word found only in the dictionary of fools?”