“Because if any of the apostles were the culprits who removed it from your tomb, this would have been the most logical place for them to hide it. My studies, almost from the beginning, led me to suspect that a few of the apostles, or others closely associated with him did what they believed had to be done in order to make it appear that his prophecy had come true. One of the possibilities I considered was that sometime after dark but before dawn of the third day, his body was removed from the tomb and carried here, either in a stretcher or some sort of small wagon, and placed in the empty grave that once held Lazarus. Then this tomb was sealed again, with reasonable certainty that the body would be safe from discovery since it is on Martha’s private land. Circulating and feeding the rumor that Jesus had risen from the dead would be easy with that empty tomb of yours serving as a star witness—and, best of all, a silent one.”

“But there were soldiers guarding my tomb.”

“When I know who took the body then I’ll know how the soldiers were handled.”

“And how about the nine who were hiding in the woods behind the home of the sisters? How could any of them have carried off such a thing when, from what you have learned, none of them even knew that Jesus was dead, much less the location of his tomb?”

“All right, for the sake of argument let’s delete those nine names from my list of suspects. But that still leaves Peter and John, who were in Jerusalem and knew of the crucifixion and burial. And then there’s the high priest, Caiaphas, and even Pilate, who could have easily arranged to remove the body and hide it somewhere so that your tomb would not become a dangerous rallying point for those who still believed in Jesus. Of course, if either of those two were involved, they committed a colossal blunder. They actually helped promote the resurrection myth with their theft of the body, and now it is too late for either of them to admit to their error. Last on my list, but not least, are the two who buried Jesus.”

“You mean Nicodemus—and me? You even suspect me?”

“Wouldn’t you, if you were the Christ Commission?”

He sighed. “Well, at least we have managed to narrow down the list of suspects considerably.”

“Yes, and four of those still on the list could very possibly have hidden the body right here, in this tomb.”