The applause resumed, much more enthusiastically, and now I knew I was in over my head. There was no place to go, no place to hide, and I had only myself to blame for my predicament. I inhaled deeply and plunged ahead. “I haven’t been able to finish that book for one simple reason. The more I studied the events of that last week in the life of Jesus, the more I tried to wrestle with and resolve the strong inconsistencies one finds in the four Gospels, the more I searched the writings of far wiser men than myself who have struggled with this enigma for over nineteen hundred years—the more I became convinced that Jesus never rose from the dead!”

A piercing hiss immediately swept across the audience, followed by a crescendo of boos beginning at the rear of the studio. Johnny stared at me openmouthed, his face a frozen mask. To my right, Donna Theodore gasped and Ed McMahon growled. I tried to keep my poise and plunged ahead. “Paul, when he was seeking converts, often said, ‘If Jesus has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.’ Johnny, the longer I study and research this matter, the more convinced I become that for twenty centuries the faith of billions of people has been in vain. We have been taken in by the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on mankind. There is no solid evidence of any sort that proves Jesus rose from the dead or that he is, as so many want to believe, the Son of God.”

Johnny reached into his cigarette box, removed one, and lit it. His small gold lighter sounded like a rifle shot in the foreboding silence that had now settled over the audience. I continued.

“This may sound presumptuous, even insane, but I wish I had a week back there in the same setting I placed my fictional Christ Commission, six years after the crucifixion. I’m positive I could uncover what really happened to Jesus during those climactic days of his last week: what conspiracies were involved and between whom; what facts were covered up and kept from the people; who actually stole the body of Jesus and why; and especially how the truth, whatever it may be, became obliterated so swiftly that we have had nothing to go on, except hearsay, for almost two thousand years. That’s about it, Johnny.”

“Yes,” he replied curtly, nodding toward the band. “That certainly is it, all right.”