“All this reading and note-taking went on for three or four years before I came to two frightening conclusions. By then I had notebooks filled with questions for my tribunes to ask each witness, but in a great many cases I could find no answers to these questions—no logical, factual explanations that I could put in the mouths of my witnesses in order to move my book toward the ending I wanted. Now and then I would strike gold, I thought, and uncover a logical explanation to some provocative question in one book, only to find, later, another expert who completely disagreed with the first. Studying the four Gospels drove me up a wall. Inconsistencies everywhere. They couldn’t even agree on the hour Jesus died! I read Voltaire and learned that he had struggled with the same problem. I continued researching and studying, and for a change of pace I wrote my first detective novel. It became a best-seller, so big that I could afford to resign from my job and spend all my time writing. That gave me more time to work on ‘The Christ Commission,’ and I kept at it. Somewhere, I told myself, there had to be answers; I absolutely rejected those who maintained that I had to accept many things on faith alone. Why should I spend weeks and maybe months studying all the facts and specifications before I bought an automobile or a house or a camera and leave the most important thing in my life to blind faith? That seemed ridiculous to me. It still does. Perhaps that was my weakness—a latter-day doubting Thomas who wanted to believe but needed proof. John quotes Jesus as saying, ‘Except you see signs and wonders, you will not believe.’ Jesus was describing me … and I still feel that way.”

Joseph said, “Matthias, you mentioned that you came to two frightening conclusions. What were they?”

“The first was the more heartbreaking. Eventually I realized that I would never find sources that could supply me with acceptable and logical answers to many of the questions I wanted the Christ Commission to raise. And the second conclusion was that the only way I could possibly finish the book was to publish it as another in the long parade of anti-Christ books, something I just could not bring myself to do.”

“Why not?”

“My mother, rest her soul, was a very devout woman. Even though she is gone, I loved her too much to dump dirt on her faith. And I had never before even hinted at my doubts in public until I got carried away on that damn show.”

Joseph looked away and shook his head. “Tell me, Matthias, what were some of the questions that proved such stumbling blocks to your efforts?”

I groaned. “Oh, Joseph, there were hundreds of them.”

“For example?”