Now it was too late to retreat. “Well, Johnny, I’ve always been fascinated by biblical novels—you know, Ben Hur, The Robe, The Silver Chalice—and for many years I’ve been studying books dealing with the life of Jesus. I probably have one of the most complete collections of its kind in the world—at least, privately owned. My unfinished work deals with a fictional investigation into the last week in Jesus’ life, a week filled with suspense, drama, mystery, and many personalities who either hated him or loved him. Of course, in those times, there were no detectives as we know them now, but history tells us that fact-finding commissions were used often, by both the Romans and the Jews, similar in character and purpose to those we still assemble today for investigative purposes.”

“You mean … like our Watergate Commission or the Warren Commission?”

“Exactly—and, most recently, the House Committee on Assassinations that re-examined the Kennedy and King deaths. My still incomplete manuscript, a biblical mystery novel if you will, concerns an investigation conducted by a commission comprised of three Roman tribunes, all learned men, into the death of Jesus, and I have it taking place six years after his crucifixion.”

“Six years after …?”

“Yes. By then the Roman governor of Syria, Lucius Vitellius, had become greatly concerned about the growing number of Jesus’ followers, who were now calling themselves Christians and stirring up the people in the province under his command, a large territory that included Israel—or Judaea, as Rome called the small nation of conquered Jews. In my book I have Vitellius forming a commission which he dispatches to Judaea with one objective: to put to rest, once and for all, the rumors being circulated by this potentially dangerous new wave of troublemakers that their crucified leader has risen from the dead, after his execution, and is the long-awaited Messiah who will soon return to free the people from the chains of Rome.”

Johnny frowned, and the audience became as still as if we were in an empty studio. “How on earth would you have them do that?”