“Unless, through some unexpected occurrence beyond my ability to prevent, you should happen to take sick and die here, or …”

“Or what?” I didn’t like the loopholes he was adding.

“…  or someone slays you to prevent your discovering the facts you seek. In either case your dead body, unfortunately, would have to remain here. I can only work, as I said, with living tissue.”

Great! Born in 1923, died in 36. I needed time to think this out. Strange that the old man should have mentioned Mark Twain, who had once written the story of a tough-minded Connecticut Yankee getting cracked over the head with a crowbar in nineteenth-century Connecticut and waking up in the sixth-century England of King Arthur.

“Joseph,” I asked, as casually as I could, “who are you, really?”

“You would know me by my full designation. I am certain you came across it often during the twenty years you claim to have devoted to the study of Jesus. I am always referred to as Joseph of Arimathea.”

Without thinking, I blurted, “The mystery man of the Gospels!”

Joseph clutched at the folds of his tunic and scowled. “Why do you call me that?”

“Because you are. Certainly you must be aware that some of the world’s greatest minds have raised serious doubts that you ever existed. Neither in Matthew, Mark, Luke, nor John does your name appear, even once, until Jesus is crucified. Then all four introduce you into their narratives as the man who goes to Pontius Pilate and petitions him for the dead body of Jesus so it can be buried before sundown, the beginning of the Sabbath. Inexplicably, despite his hatred of all Jews, Pilate releases the body to you after he has assured himself that Jesus is dead on the cross. With the help of another mystery man, Nicodemus, you take down the body, prepare it for burial, and place it in a nearby garden tomb, a tomb that someday would have been yours. Then you disappear from the pages of biblical history, never to be mentioned again. That, my friend, is a mystery man!”

Joseph shrugged and grinned. “I am he—and your brief summary of my small efforts is quite accurate.”

“Joseph, do you realize that biblical scholars have never even been able to pinpoint Arimathea’s original site?”

“Biblical scholars strain too much. My birthplace and first home was in the hill country of Ephraim, Ramathaim-zophim, from which the prophet Samuel sprang.”

“Then most of them are correct when they place it at what, in my age, is called Ramah or Ramla or Ramallah, depending on what book is read.”

“It is of little importance. Nearly all my life has been spent here in Jerusalem, managing and expanding my many trade caravans that now cover this land from Cappadocia to Egypt.”

“Joseph of Arimathea, Joseph of Arimathea … is it really you? Am I actually in the same room—and conversing—with the man who buried Jesus?”