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THE PLOT: KILL JESUS, ABDUCT MARY THE MAGDALENE, AND MURDER THE KIDS

The final section of Joseph and Aseneth is remarkable. It tells us, in disguised fashion, of a hitherto-unknown plot against Jesus and his family. This was not his trial and execution by the Romans in Jerusalem around 30 C.E., for in our manuscript Jesus seems to survive the attempted assassination. No, the plot here refers to an incident that happened earlier in his life, perhaps as much as a decade before his death. As we shall see, the villain in the plot is someone the text calls “Pharaoh’s son” and he, like the so-called “Pharaoh,” remains unnamed.

Here’s what Joseph and Aseneth tells us: “Pharaoh’s son” covets Aseneth for her beauty and tries to bribe two of Joseph’s brothers, Simon and Levi, to betray him. They defiantly refuse. “Pharaoh’s son,” however, manages to manipulate two other brothers, Dan and Gad, into cooperating with his evil scheme. He suggests to them that they have much to fear from their brother and that he will cut them off from their rightful inheritance, leaving them destitute. He also not-so-subtly threatens them, urging them to choose prosperity over death.

Together they hatch a plot. Now “Pharaoh’s son” confides in Joseph’s “brothers” that he plans to kill not only Joseph, but also his own father, the Pharaoh. No reason is given for this—it just suddenly pops out in the narrative. Meanwhile, the traitorous brothers Dan and Gad inform “Pharaoh’s son” that he will have an opportunity to seize Aseneth when she goes alone into the countryside to visit her estate. They suggest that “Pharaoh’s son” ambush her and have his way with her. Meanwhile, they take it upon themselves to kill Joseph as he frets about Aseneth. For good effect before killing him, the brothers plan to murder Joseph’s children before his eyes.

“Pharaoh’s son” musters his supporters, but soon the plot begins to unravel. The son is prevented from killing his father by Pharaoh’s guards, who deny him entrance into Pharaoh’s chambers. Meanwhile, just as Dan and Gad had predicted, Aseneth leaves Joseph to visit their country estate. Joseph, described as a “savior,” continues on his mission. On her way, Aseneth’s chariot is ambushed and her protectors are killed, except for Benjamin (Joseph’s favorite brother), who is in the chariot with her. He’s eighteen years old and is described as “incredibly handsome” and “strong as a young lion.” He succeeds in wounding “Pharaoh’s son.” The battle is won. Aseneth begs Joseph’s other brothers and supporters not to kill “Pharaoh’s son” or the brothers who had betrayed them, saying that it would not be right to repay evil with evil. However, on the third day following the battle, “Pharaoh’s son” succumbs to his wounds. Pharaoh mourns his son’s death, unaware of the son’s attempt to kill him. After a long life, Pharaoh dies. And there the story ends abruptly.

Nothing more is said about Aseneth or the children or Joseph. In terms of a dramatic plot structure, we have a serious threat, an insidious betrayal from within the ranks, but eventually a successful outcome. Aseneth is not captured. Neither Joseph nor the children are killed. There’s nothing about what happened subsequently: What did they do? Where did they go? When did they die? Where are they buried? What happened to the children?

Moreover, we once again notice that nothing in this account matches the Biblical story of Joseph. In that story, there is no estate and no “Pharaoh’s son” who betrays his father and comes after Joseph and Aseneth. There’s no battle and no wound. Whatever this story is about, as before, it has nothing to do with Joseph the Israelite patriarch of the Book of Genesis.

If we just peruse the broad outlines of the plot to kill Joseph and Aseneth—and contrast it to the Gospels—although there is much that is new, there’s also much that sounds familiar. In the Gospels, there is a high-level plot to arrest and kill Jesus. According to the Gospels, it involves the highest levels of Roman authority in 1st-century Judaea. The Jewish High Priest Caiaphas; the ruler of the Galilee, Herod Antipas; the Roman procurator Pontius Pilate—are all involved. More than this, one of Jesus’ disciples—that is, one of the band of brothers, the so-called “Judas”—betrays him. Not only that, Judas ends up committing suicide, either filled with remorse or anger at being double-crossed. So in the Gospels, as in Joseph and Aseneth, there are plots and counterplots that surround Jesus. These involve both his inner circle and the ruling authorities. Furthermore, in Joseph and Aseneth the son of Pharaoh is a central figure. Remember, in both Egyptian and Roman contexts the ruler literally represented a god. So in Joseph and Aseneth we have a “Son of God” who after three days dies of his wounds. In the Gospels, we have a “Son of God” who dies of his wounds and, after three days, is resurrected. They seem to be strange mirror images of each other. One is evil, is wounded, and after three days dies. The other is good, dies, and after three days lives again. So even before decoding the text, we are struck by the fact that Joseph and Aseneth continues to echo the Gospels, but with a twist. What secret is it telling us?

Surprising Questions

When we once again substitute Joseph with Jesus and Aseneth with Mary the Magdalene, we are immediately confronted with some entirely new and puzzling questions about their married life together.

What’s this plot all about? When did it happen? Who was involved? Who wanted to kill Jesus early in his mission? What did he do that merited death in their eyes? Was it simply because his wife was incredibly beautiful?

We aren’t explicitly told anything about this plot within the pages of the New Testament. But in a Gnostic dialogue called Pistis Sophia or The Wisdom of Faith, Mary does confide to Jesus that “Peter makes me hesitate; I am afraid of him because he hates the female race.”¹ Interestingly, Margaret Starbird has connected Mary the Magdalene’s disappearance from the canonical texts to historical circumstances in which she must have been in danger. In other words, Mary the Magdalene disappears from history because she had to disappear from her enemies. In Starbird’s words, “My personal view is that the early church lost Mary Magdalene because her friends and family were trying so hard to protect her from perceived threats posed by Roman authorities . . . Mary Magdalene literally disappears. Paul’s letters do not mention her, nor does the Book of Acts. What happened?”²

In the canonical Gospels, it is only at the end of Jesus’ life that the anti-Jesus forces encircle him and the Romans put him to death just before Passover. Up until that point, everything seems to be relatively peaceful for him. He teaches, gathers huge crowds, heals, feeds people, and moves throughout northern Israel. Yet, as we shall see, within the canonical Gospels there are many clues that Jesus had influential enemies. It seems that early on, there were major plots against his life, and that he was acutely aware of them. Also, Joseph and Aseneth alludes to divisions within Jesus’ ranks. What’s all that about? It seems that some of his closest associates conspired with the political authorities to have him killed. What did they have against him?

According to the Gospels, Jesus was betrayed by one of his own. Why? What was Judas’ motivation? Was Judas alone in wanting Jesus dead? Did Jesus disappoint in some way? According to the canonical Gospels, as Jesus entered Jerusalem, the crowds waved palm branches and cheered him. Then, within less than a week, they suddenly turned against him. What accounts for this amazing turnaround?

If “Pharaoh’s son” corresponds to a historical personality, it would have to be the son of a ruler.³ Does it make sense that a Roman emperor’s son would even know about Jesus, much less want to kill him so as to force himself on his Syro-Phoenician wife? It hardly seems realistic. Why would such a powerful person be interested in them?

To answer these questions and retrieve the long-hidden history that our text records, we have to first figure out who the villain in Joseph and Aseneth is—a villain code-named Pharaoh’s son.

The Political Jesus

First of all, Christmas plays to the contrary, the fact is that Jesus was a political figure and that he was seen as such by his contemporaries. His radical religious message—the Kingdom of God about to occur on earth—was a political bombshell. According to Jesus, there would soon emerge a new phase in world history, one dominated by a renewed Israel with its own king, from the restored Davidic monarchy. This new world order harkened back a thousand years earlier, to David’s time, a period of history romanticized by later generations for its splendor and glory. As an independent autonomous Torah-abiding Jewish state came into existence, the weight of Roman rule would be lifted. The occupying Roman troops, colonies of Roman citizens, and the much-hated and burdensome system of taxation would all be gone. Poverty would be eradicated and people would be able to enjoy life. According to Jesus, it was truly the time of a new deal.

Jesus’ message resonated with the people to whom he spoke, and it tapped into the deep well of Jewish messianic hopes. After all, Jews believed then—as now—that in the messianic era, the world would experience peace and that the worship of the one God would become universal. As the prophets had prophesied: “And the Lord will become king over all the earth; on that day the Lord will be one and His name one” (Zechariah 14:9).

Jesus had talked about this message in covert terms, in parables. These metaphors were not just stories or teaching aids: they were how radical ideology disguised itself. Hiding the political overtones of his manifesto meant that Roman authorities on the fringes of his audience would not grasp the full implication of what he was saying. But, in time, they did. They correctly interpreted the true direction of his message and he was executed as a would-be “King of the Jews.” If there is one thing we know about Jesus, it’s that he was charged with sedition and crucified. Sedition was a political crime. It meant that he was found guilty of anti-Roman revolutionary activities. We also know that Jesus was crucified between two men that the Gospels call lestes in Greek. This is usually translated as bandits or thieves. But it rarely means that. In Josephus, for example, it always means zealot or insurrectionist.⁴ Also, if Jesus thought of himself as the Messiah, he would have seen himself as a religious, political, and royal figure—the individual whom God anointed to be the Davidic monarch.

So the picture sketched in Joseph and Aseneth, of a political Jesus who finds himself in the middle of a conspiracy that reaches to the highest echelons of power and into his own inner circle, is not outrageous. In fact, it’s consistent with what the Gospels themselves tell us of his betrayal, arrest, and execution.

There’s another reason why Jesus was seen as political. His was a large entourage. We tend to think of Jesus acting alone—that’s the way he’s often depicted, speaking as an individual either to large crowds on a mountain or by the Sea of Galilee, or else privately to his immediate followers in a secluded area. This picture of the solo Jesus is grossly misleading. In addition to his own family—his own as well as those of his brothers and sisters—he had twelve talmidim, that is, students or disciples. Many if not all were like Simon Peter, married and with families.⁵ Jesus also had another group about which we know very little. This group was called “the Seventy” (Luke 10:1–16—some ancient manuscripts say “the Seventy-two”). These were ambassadors that Jesus sent out to all parts of Israel, to awaken people to the coming political transformation.

Add up the numbers: four in his immediate family (himself, wife, and two children); six siblings; twelve disciples; seventy delegates. This totals ninety-two. Let’s assume that most were married, many with children, and that there were parents and in-laws, brothers and sisters and their families, cousins, nephews and nieces, and we immediately have a large movement—all somewhat implicated in the idea that a new social reality was on the doorstep. The Romans would have perceived a large crowd like this as a provocation.

Furthermore, closely associated with Jesus’ movement was the movement of his cousin—John the Baptizer. He, too, had disciples and he moved vast crowds to repentance and Baptism. All in all, these two related movements were part of a huge messianic mission designed to awaken the Jewish people to the new reality about to fundamentally shake up the world. As Josephus describes, these kinds of revival gatherings were tinderboxes, and any provocation could light the fires of rebellion.

Moreover, the Dead Sea Scrolls, discovered in 1947, also tell the story of a messianic figure who records similar attempts on his life (“violent men have sought my life”), and narrow escapes (“you have rescued the life of the poor one whom they plotted to destroy”), all seemingly connected with machinations surrounding the Holy Temple in Jerusalem (“[my] blood they planned to spill over the issue of your Temple service”).⁶

Seen in his historical context, the politics surrounding Jesus in Joseph and Aseneth do not seem out of place. Furthermore, Jesus also promised that many would live to see the Kingdom.⁷ It was coming that soon—a few weeks, perhaps several months, surely at worst a year or two down the road. His followers fully expected to be part of this changed landscape. The twelve disciples, in particular, were confident that they’d be the heads of the twelve restored tribes of Israel, political rulers under King Jesus in the messianic Kingdom of God.⁸

Given all this, was Jesus’ movement just a local matter? A minor group located in the Galilee, always a sea of unrest? Or did it assume national importance, coming to the attention of the priestly and Roman authorities in Jerusalem even prior to his arrival in the Jewish capital? And was it all somehow connected to the international scene, of importance even to political and military leaders in Rome itself?

As the Gospels make clear, Jesus’ actions and words did come to the attention of the authorities . . . many with excellent connections to Rome.

All had reason to have him killed.

Jesus—Many Enemies

It was in many people’s best interests to have Jesus out of the way. His teachings, practices, and popularity stood in the way of many agendas. Here’s a brief survey of just some of the major players who had it in for Jesus:

The Pharisees

The Pharisees were the popular Jewish teachers of Torah, resident in towns and cities, close to people’s daily life. They sought to build a bridge between Biblical injunctions and everyday practices. They came up with approaches concerning how to faithfully keep the commandments of God in the midst of difficult times, especially with Gentiles in control of the Judaean government and economy. The Biblical commandments were not always clear. What did the Torah mean by “observe the Sabbath and keep it holy”? The Pharisees interpreted the Torah and provided rules for its observance. How should kosher food be prepared? What kinds of interactions were permitted between Jews and Gentiles? What were the grounds for divorce? The Pharisees provided guidance on practical issues that touched people’s lives. The great rabbinic sages Hillel and Shammai had lived and taught just before Jesus came on the scene. They, like the Teacher of Righteousness mentioned in the Dead Sea Scrolls, interpreted the law for the people.

In general, Pharisees were not as strict as the Essenes of the Dead Sea. Jesus sometimes chided Pharisees for being lax in their interpretations, seeking out loopholes. He objected, for instance, to Pharisees giving permission to individuals to donate money to the temple in order to wiggle out of support payments for aging parents, thus violating the commandment to honor your father and mother (Matthew 15:3–9). This circumvention of what Jesus took to be the straightforward meaning of Torah echoes the charge in the Dead Sea Scrolls that the Pharisees were “seekers after smooth things,” that is, that they were too accommodating in their interpretations of Torah.

In the Gospel of Matthew, in his Sermon on the Mount, there too Jesus interpreted the Torah more rigorously than the Pharisees did—“For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:20, italics added). For people used to a Jesus who is anti-Torah, it’s hard to think of him as a super-orthodox Jew. But remember, both his cousin John the Baptizer and his brother James were Nazirites: individuals who had taken a special vow of strict adherence to the Torah. For example, unlike mainstream Jews, Nazirites did not cut their hair and abstained from wine. In terms of strictness of Torah observance, initially at least, Jesus seems to have stood somewhere to the right of the Pharisees and to the left of the Essenes.

So far, it does not seem like the Pharisees are good candidates for Jesus’ enemies as depicted in Joseph and Aseneth. But the picture we have of the Pharisees in the New Testament is ambivalent. Sometimes they are positioned as Jewish leaders who debated issues with Jesus. This is not necessarily a negative thing. Debate is not an uncommon Jewish pastime in those days or today. In a Jewish context, it simply represents a common search for the truth underlying a Biblical text. The schools of Hillel and Shammai, for example, had argued issues back and forth and disagreed on many topics. These differences are preserved rather than censored in the main text of rabbinic Judaism: the Talmud. A famous Dead Sea Scroll text dubbed 4QMMT or just MMT outlines almost two dozen points of difference between their community and that of the elite Sadducee crowd.⁹ In other words, modern sensibilities notwithstanding, depicting Pharisees debating Jesus is not necessarily putting them in a negative light.

At other times, the canonical Gospels depict the Pharisees not merely as debating partners but as outright enemies bent on killing Jesus. One instance of this occurs just after Jesus supposedly provides less-than-rigorous instructions on how to observe the Sabbath. The implication being that if Jesus was preaching a Gospel that involved breaking Sabbath laws, it is natural that the Pharisees would have wanted to kill him.¹⁰ After all, the Book of Exodus says, “You shall keep the Sabbath, because it is holy for you; everyone who profanes it shall be put to death” (31:12–14). But by Jesus’ time, in the 1st century, Jews were not put to death for less-than-rigorous Sabbath observances. That would have decimated the Jewish community. So it is unlikely that the Pharisees turned on Jesus for something like differences over Sabbath observance.

At other times in the Gospels, the Pharisees are spoken of as friends, warning Jesus of impending danger. In one instance, they let him know that Herod Antipas, the same ruler who had killed Jesus’ cousin John the Baptizer, was now on the lookout for him (Luke 13:31). Interestingly, here, these sympathetic Pharisees are shown as go-betweens in the negotiations between Jesus and Herod. In other words, what we see in the depictions of the Pharisees is that alliances shifted; some Pharisees were plotting against Jesus, while others were warning him.

Could the Pharisees have been the instigators of a plot against Jesus and Mary the Magdalene? It’s possible, but not very likely. Except for some theological differences on matters like Sabbath observance, there doesn’t seem to be enough that divided them—hardly the stuff to motivate murder. Also, the ultra-religious Pharisees don’t seem like the type of people who would want to rape Mary the Magdalene and kill her children. It’s doubtful that they are the villains of Joseph and Aseneth.

The Essenes

Some Essenes might also have had an interest in killing Jesus. According to their War Scroll found at the Dead Sea and attributed to the Essenes, “the sons of light” were at war with all Jews who did not obey Torah according to the rigorous interpretation of their “Teacher of Righteousness.” In effect, they were at war with the people they called the “sons of darkness,” which at that point probably represented the majority of humanity. They held the view that while neighbors should be loved, enemies should be hated.¹¹ Even more than the Pharisees, they thought that correct Torah observance was a matter of ultimate concern. For them, the messianic era would not occur until Jews strictly observed the laws of Torah, forming a community of purity. In accordance with Isaiah, they went out into the desert, to prepare the Way of the Lord. From their own perspective, they were God’s colony, the colony of the New Covenant or, if you will, the colony of the New Testament.

The Essenes might have been motivated to kill Jesus if they thought he was encouraging a mass following to get lax on the law. For them, nothing less than the future of the Jewish people and God’s plans for humanity were at stake. They, far more than the Pharisees, had declared that God would wipe out the non-observers of Torah (those who had failed to enter into the New Covenant). The War Scroll envisages them playing a major role in that apocalyptic battle under the leadership of two Messiahs, one priestly and one kingly.

Stereotypically, the writers of the Dead Sea Scrolls are seen as dropouts from society, living in Qumran on the shores of the Dead Sea. But Essenes were also found throughout Israel in many towns and villages and, though Qumran seems to have been their headquarters, it was only twenty miles east of Jerusalem, a day or day-and-a-half’s walk from the capital. Jerusalem itself boasted an Essene quarter and an Essene gate. The only place outside of Qumran that Essene burials have been found is just outside Jerusalem in Beit Zafafa, near Talpiot.¹² As purists of the Torah law, they were very much aware of the activities of the temple priesthood and their masters, the Roman officials. Their Temple Scroll looks very much like a blueprint for a restored and purified temple. Anticipating that God would soon intervene in human affairs, they likely scrutinized world events to discern when and how God would act. They expected to be called into active service and to inherit the kingdom that God had promised to the truly faithful. So the Essenes were not some kind of proto-hippie community totally out of touch with the rest of Israel. They had both opportunity and motive to kill Jesus.

In spite of their perspective, there is no evidence of any direct connection between Jesus and the Essenes, no indications that they specifically had Jesus on their “hit list.” The so-called false priests in Jerusalem (the high priest and Sadducees) as well as the so-called false teachers (the Pharisees) were much more on their radar. Moreover, they were preoccupied with plots against their own movement. Their Teacher of Righteousness—perhaps decades before Jesus—had to flee for his life.¹³ Their Thanksgiving Psalms are riddled with perceived threats and opposition to them and their leaders.

So, could an Essene have been the villain of Joseph and Aseneth? Not likely. There is simply no evidence that they went after Jesus, and they certainly would have had no reason to go after his children.

The Zealots

The Zealots might have had good reason to want Jesus killed. Formed in the 1st decade of the Common Era, this faction was primarily political in focus. Hating foreign taxation and the colonizing efforts of the occupiers, Zealots were intensely anti-Roman. These extremists probably shared some of the messianic sentiments of the Essenes, looking forward to the day when the Romans would be gone from the land and they, the truly zealous, would be in control.

Jesus seems to have had an ambiguous relationship with the Zealots. On the one hand, he sometimes sounds like one. Matthew reports him saying “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword” (Matthew 10:34). In The Gospel of Thomas, Thomas states: “Jesus said, ‘people think that I have come to impose peace on the world. They do not know that I have come to impose conflicts upon the earth: fire, sword, war’” (16:1–2).¹⁴ These are strong indications that, at least at one point, Jesus subscribed to a revolutionary anti-Roman apocalyptic ideology. After all, one of his twelve disciples is called Simon Zealotes—i.e., Simon the Zealot (Luke 6:15 and Acts 1:13). Two disciples are nicknamed Boanerges or “Sons of Thunder” (James and John, sons of Zebedee), which may be an indication that they were fighters, not pacifists. And perhaps most shockingly, one of the twelve is called Judas Iscariot or, more correctly, Judah the Sicarius.¹⁵ For those who don’t know, the Sicarii were the most fanatical of the Zealot sects, named after their sica or short dagger. According to Josephus, they were basically assassins. Having all these people in his entourage would indicate some kind of affinity between Jesus, his followers, and the Zealots. The fact is that, in the end, Jesus is crucified between two Zealots, called bandits or lestai by the Gospels. Maybe he had abandoned their ideology by this point, but it seems that nobody told the Romans.

In any event, there is another side to Jesus. Luke reports that Jesus said “love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt” (Luke 6:27–29). Either this is a later attempt to present a non-Zealot Jesus to the world, or Jesus himself changed his mind about the efficacy of armed struggle. If the latter, this would go a long way to explain why someone like Judah the Sicarius (more familiarly, Judas Iscariot) would turn on him and why he might have made enemies in the Zealot/Sicarii camp.

A Zealot plot against Jesus, therefore, is not far-fetched. Judas may not have been the only one who harbored resentment against a teacher who, from his point of view, had failed to deliver on his promise of armed insurrection or the Kingdom of God.

But other than Judas acting directly against Jesus at the time of his trial, there is no evidence of any prior Zealot conspiracy to do him in. Although it would be tempting to identify Jesus’ Zealot followers as the “brothers” who betray Joseph in Joseph and Aseneth, on the evidence it is unlikely that Zealots are those bad guys. If they did turn against Jesus, which the Gospels clearly state they did, it wasn’t until after he left the Galilee and made his entrance into Jerusalem.¹⁶

Herod Antipas

A more likely candidate for the villain in Joseph and Aseneth is Herod Antipas, the Roman-appointed Jewish ruler of the Galilee. The Gospels explicitly tell us that Herod Antipas plotted to kill Jesus: “At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to him, ‘Get away from here, for Herod [Antipas] wants to kill you’” (Luke 13:31). Here we have an incident that parallels events in Joseph and Aseneth, namely, a political leader at the highest levels of power was closely watching Jesus’ movements and conspiring to kill him. For his part, Jesus seems to have a good sense of Herod Antipas. He calls him a “fox” (Luke 13:32), not that different from Joseph and Aseneth where Mary the Magdalene calls Pharaoh the “old lion” (12:12). Furthermore, by calling Herod a fox Jesus alludes to several problematic traits in Herod’s character. One was that Herod was cunning or crafty. But there is also another meaning to “fox.” The Talmud cryptically says that a lion’s tail is worth more than a fox’s head. In other words, Jesus’ metaphor had political overtones. When the Emperor Tiberius died, Josephus writes that Agrippa—soon to be the Roman-appointed King of the Jews—was told that the “lion” had died.¹⁷ In Talmudic terms, calling Herod Antipas a fox may have been a way of saying that Herod was a lackey of the lion, a mere puppet dependent upon the goodwill of Rome.

Herod Antipas had both the motive and the means to kill Jesus. As a son of Herod the Great, the hated ruler of Judaea, he might have been called “son of Pharaoh” in Joseph and Aseneth. More than this, as in our manuscript, Jesus seems aware of the threat against him by Herod and his supporters.¹⁸ In other words, we have to take a closer look at Herod Antipas as a possible candidate for the villain in Joseph and Aseneth. To understand the threat that he posed to Jesus, we need to first understand the entire geography of the area and the political jurisdictions at the time of Jesus.

We tend to think of Jesus of Nazareth circulating around a place called Galilee until he makes his way to Jerusalem for his meeting with destiny. But the reality is that he was circulating in several jurisdictions with more than one local ruler. He had lots of opportunity to rub many of these people the wrong way.

Taking the Sea of Galilee as the fulcrum, we can detect seven different areas that played a role in Jesus’ movements. The first area is the most famous—the Galilee. It represented the region to the west and to the northwest of the Sea of Galilee, in the hill country, and included such places as Tiberias, Nazareth, and Sepphoris. Many referred to it as “the Galilee of the Gentiles”¹⁹ because of the presence of so many non-Jews there. To the west and to the north beyond the Galilee was the area called “Phoenicia” by the Greeks. This was an area inhabited by a non-Jewish, Canaanitish people, as well as Romans. To the northeast of the Sea of Galilee was Tetrarchy of Philip. This territory took in towns mentioned in the New Testament such as Bethsaida. Decapolis was southeast of the Sea of Galilee. East of the Jordan River and further south was Nabataean Peraea, spread out along the east side of the river down to the middle of the eastern shore of the Dead Sea. The area around Jerusalem and further south was Judaea. And between Judaea and the Galilee lay Samaria.²⁰

This constellation of jurisdictions assumes importance when we learn that Jesus moved from the Galilee throughout this entire region. Each of the local rulers had his own political agenda and was concerned about how his actions locally would play out in Rome. Some undoubtedly felt threatened by Jesus and the considerable attention he was getting from huge crowds of common people. It was that political threat—and not any supposed religious revisionism on Jesus’ part—that drew the ire of these local potentates. Implicit in Jesus’ message was the replacement of Roman authority with a restored Davidic monarchy. Such a message would threaten everyone in civil authority. In other words, many local rulers had a lot to lose if Jesus was successful.

As stated, one of the most important of these local rulers was Herod Antipas, a man with huge aspirations. He was one of the sons of Herod the Great, that great builder and astute politician who had been King of the Jews from 37 B.C.E. until 4 B.C.E. Herod Antipas was educated in Rome. Upon the death of his father, he became ruler of two important provinces: Galilee and Peraea. If we monitor Jesus’ movements, we notice that on many occasions Jesus seems to avoid Herod’s territory, that is, Jesus frequently operated outside Galilee and Peraea. We find Jesus, for instance, on the east side of the Sea of Galilee, in Bethsaida in Gaulanitis; in Decapolis; in Phoenicia; or in Caesarea Philippi—all outside Herod Antipas’ jurisdiction. In fact, Jesus never ventured into Herod’s strongholds, Tiberias and Sepphoris, although these were the big cities in the area and the logical destinations for a young preacher. Harold W. Hoehner notes ten instances where Jesus changes his plans and withdraws from a particular territory, largely because of Herod Antipas.²¹ Why? Was he afraid of Herod?

Perhaps he had intelligence at the highest levels of Herod Antipas’ administration that would warn him when to avoid Herod’s territory. Again, if this seems far-fetched, consider this: Herod’s “steward,” a position of high prominence, was a man named Chuza. In those days, the so-called steward was equivalent to the head of Homeland Security today. It was a position of intimate trust.²² His job was not to lay out Herod Antipas’ clothes in the morning. His task was to make sure Herod was still alive by nightfall. Incredibly, the Gospels tell us that Chuza’s wife, Joanna, contributed financially to the support of Jesus’ mission (Luke 8:3). In other words, one of Jesus’ most important supporters, a woman, and a colleague of Mary the Magdalene, was married to the head of Herod Antipas’ security service.²³

So Jesus was very aware of Herod Antipas and his machinations. And there were many. Herod was bitterly disappointed that the Roman emperor, Augustus, had failed to grant him the title of King of the Jews. Instead, he was given the title of tetrarch, a much lesser honor and one that galled him throughout his life. Neither he nor his brothers who were granted other provinces in what was Herod the Great’s domain were given the title King. That honor remained vacant from 4 B.C.E. until 41 C.E., when the Roman emperor Caligula made Agrippa I the King of the Jews. A grandson of Herod the Great, some believed him to be the Messiah.

But Herod Antipas was not just a would-be king. He was the head of a Hellenizing political movement—the Herodians.²⁴ These were Jews who adopted Greek culture, favored the Herodian dynasty and championed Herod Antipas’ claim to the title King of the Jews. Likely, they wanted him to be king over the vast territory his father had ruled, an area reminiscent of the kingdom of David. Some Herodians may have also thought of Herod Antipas in messianic terms, as a viable candidate for creating a restored Israel free of Roman rule. The Herodians believed that the road to salvation lay with a bona fide King of the Jews and a policy of accommodation with the Romans. They believed that accommodation—not revolution—was the path to salvation. In Jesus’ time, messianic claims were not unique, and they were almost always connected to political aspirations.

Herod Antipas was very much under the scrutiny of the Roman emperor at whose pleasure he served, and he, in turn, was careful to maintain good relationships with whoever happened to be in power in Rome. His was a sensitive position, however. The Galilee had been a hotbed of revolution early on in his career. In 4 B.C.E., even while he had been in Rome presenting his case before Emperor Augustus concerning why he should be crowned King of Jews, a political activist by the name of Judah son of Hezekiah had attacked the palace in Sepphoris, making off with money and weapons. The Roman governor of Syria responded with force, destroying the city and selling its inhabitants as slaves. Militants were hunted down and killed.

In time, Herod Antipas would rebuild Sepphoris, and when Tiberius became emperor in 14 C.E., Herod undertook the construction of a magnificent capital on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee, naming it Tiberias in the emperor’s honor—a shrewd move.

Peraea, too, posed a challenge for Herod. This was a frontier state where the Roman Empire abutted the wealthy Nabataean Empire—of Petra fame—whose traders controlled the flow of goods east and west between the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean—and, to some degree, north and south between Egypt and the Roman provinces beyond the Galilee. Herod Antipas’ first wife had been the daughter of the Nabataean king, Aretas IV. Herod probably hoped that this political marriage would encourage peaceful relations between the two empires. But lust would trump politics in Herod’s life. He divorced the Nabataean princess and married his niece Herodias, who also happened to be his brother’s wife. This move precipitated external and internal conflict. Internally, the marriage to Herodias was the cause of fire-and-brimstone opposition from Jesus’ cousin John the Baptizer. In response, Herod Antipas had John decapitated.²⁵ The Gospels tell us that Herod Antipas also had his eye on Jesus as a possible heir to John the Baptizer’s movement (Matthew 14:2). Externally, war broke out with the neighboring Nabataeans, who did not take lightly Herod’s divorce of their Nabataean princess. In this conflict, Antipas’ army suffered a major defeat. At the time, some attributed his military disaster as divine punishment for what he had done to John.²⁶

All in all, the world that Jesus moved in was not a simple one. He did not simply live “in the Galilee.” His world was made up of a multiplicity of provinces, interests, personalities, and politics, where the local rulers were fighting each other and were on the lookout for any possible troublemakers. In this world, Herod Antipas was the big player.

To protect his status, Herod constantly followed politics in Rome. He had been educated there and knew the main players: Augustus, Tiberius, and the rising star Sejanus, who in time came to rival the emperor himself, until his sudden downfall in 31 C.E.²⁷ Herod didn’t just know the very big players: to some degree he was a very big player himself. For example, during a mission undertaken at the behest of the emperor, Herod Antipas hosted an important reception on the banks of the Euphrates River, far from his domain. There he entertained Vitellius, the governor of Syria, and King Artabanus II of Parthia. Using his own communications network, he even succeeded in sending the emperor a report of this high-level, high-profile gathering well before Vitellius was able to do so.

In other words, in Jesus’ time, the local players were not playing their game on the fringes of the empire. On the contrary, everyone had their own links to Rome—spies, informers, and message carriers. The empire was riddled with plots and subterfuge. Herod Antipas, like many others in sensitive positions, played these contacts well.

The final section in our lost gospel—the one dealing with the plot to murder Jesus and his children and rape and murder Mary the Magdalene, his wife—forces us to reassess our perception of the world in which Jesus and Mary the Magdalene lived. As it turns out, the picture painted by Joseph and Aseneth of plots and counterplots that reach the highest levels of power is closer to the historical reality than the images conjured up by television Christmas specials. Jesus and Mary the Magdalene must not be seen in the context of Galilean peasant life, but in the context of the politics of the Roman elite. In other words, we will need to examine the plot against Jesus and Mary the Magdalene as a conspiracy played out at the highest levels.

International Power Politics on the Stage of Northern Israel

Herodians are mentioned in the New Testament as being unfriendly toward Jesus. This makes sense. Jesus, from their perspective, was not only an upstart, but also a competitor for Herod Antipas’ legitimate crown. As a consequence, in Mark 3:6 the Herodians are depicted as conspiring with the Pharisees to kill Jesus. This is in keeping with Joseph and Aseneth: namely, that the rulers were reaching into the ranks of people who were natural allies of a movement like Jesus’ and turning them against him. In Mark 12:13, some Pharisees and Herodians come to Jesus with a trick question regarding the legitimacy of taxation, a potential trap since taxation was a litmus test of cooperation with the government. Revolutionaries opposed paying taxes. Collaborators supported paying them. Any way he answered, Jesus would alienate some constituency. But he proved to be an adept politician. He avoided the question, famously answering: “render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.”²⁸

As can be seen, when we look at the historical texts more closely and at the Gospels more historically, we discover that before coming to Jerusalem, Jesus was already on the Herodian radar. Jesus, therefore, was not a bit player. On the contrary, he was part of the intrigue that accompanied Galilean politics at the highest levels. We want to reiterate this. It’s hard for people accustomed to a depiction of Jesus as a Galilean peasant, far removed from the centers of power, to think of Jesus as a player. But the Gospels themselves tell us that he was—coming to the attention of rulers, high priests, and Roman governors. The Herodians, walking a fine line between their Roman masters and their alienated Jewish constituencies, would have been especially wary of Jesus and his entourage.

As a political party, the Herodians, like Herod Antipas himself, would have been suspicious of anyone promoting a Kingdom of God. After all, this was a code word for a regime change. The proclaimer of such a kingdom might very well have regarded himself as the future ruler of the new entity, thus challenging the privileged position of Herod Antipas and his supporters.

In an interesting episode, the Gospels tell the story that “Satan” tempted Jesus with worldly power (Matthew 4:1–11 and Luke 4:1–13). In Jewish thought, Satan is not a Lucifer-type figure. He has no power. In Hebrew, Ha Satan simply means an adversary, one who tempts people to go with their evil inclination. Is the story of Jesus’ temptation, therefore, an allusion to a moment in Jesus’ career when temporal power seemed attainable? If something like this actually happened, some political figure must have played the role of Satan. It’s not a temptation if it’s not real. And what, after all, do the Gospels say he was tempted with? Matthew and Luke are both very clear: political power, authority, an earthly kingdom. Whatever this means, at the very least it places Jesus in the push and pull of the politics of the area; and it records that he was tempted for at least forty days and forty nights, that is, for a significant amount of time. Put differently, according to the Gospels, Jesus’ rejection of political power was not instantaneous.

Herod Antipas’ downfall came in 39 C.E. It was the result of several factors. In part, it was rivalry with his nephew, Agrippa, who was destined to become what Antipas had always coveted, the King of the Jews. When Caligula became emperor in 37 C.E., he appointed Agrippa king—not tetrarch—over some of the jurisdictions east of the Sea of Galilee and Gaulanitis, and over what had previously been a tetrarchy. The title was impressive—here, finally, was a King of the Jews. Essentially, as Josephus makes clear, Agrippa was about to be declared Messiah by some of his followers—all with Rome’s blessing.²⁹ In essence, the appointment of Agrippa as King of the Jews was a consequence of Rome getting into the “messiah game.” Basically, the Romans decided to become proactive. Instead of waiting for revolutionary Jewish Messiahs to arise, they decided to appoint one of their own. Was the position of a Roman-sponsored messiahship offered to Jesus? Was that the temptation? Did Jesus reject what Agrippa later accepted?

In any event, the appointment of Herod Agrippa as King aroused the ire of Antipas’ wife, Herodias. The situation was particularly galling because over the years she and her husband had helped Agrippa with funds and support. Moreover, she was of royal Hasmonean descent (i.e., Maccabean), and she saw Agrippa as a usurper. Sensing that the timing was right, she persuaded her husband, Herod Antipas, to head to Rome so as to once again press his case for kingship. Antipas failed on this mission. He was blindsided by Agrippa, who conspired against him and informed his friend, Emperor Caligula, that years before, Herod Antipas had been involved in a conspiracy against Rome.

Agrippa also maintained that Antipas was preparing a rebellion, having amassed a sizeable amount of weaponry—enough to field an army of some seventy thousand. Whether any of these charges were true or not, Agrippa was believed and Antipas and Herodias were sent into exile. Emperor Caligula handsomely rewarded Agrippa. He was given Antipas’ estate as well as all his political jurisdictions.

Take note: when we first read in Joseph and Aseneth that Jesus and Mary the Magdalene were at the center of intrigue involving the highest levels of power, this seemed fantastic and not in keeping with our image of Jesus as a celibate, sandal-wearing Galilean peasant at the fringes of the Roman Empire. But when we put Jesus into his historical context, we see that King Agrippa himself charged that the man who ruled Galilee during Jesus’ time—Herod Antipas—was involved in conspiracies that reached into the highest echelons of Roman society. This same Antipas was sufficiently aware of Jesus’ family to arrest, imprison, and kill Jesus’ cousin, John the Baptizer. In other words, there are no six degrees of separation here. Herod Antipas was suspicious of Jesus. Agrippa was suspicious of Antipas. And both had access to the emperor. It seems that very little separated Jesus from the emperor.³⁰

Is Herod Antipas the villain we seek? There does seem to be some synchronicity. After all, he marries the daughter of the King of Nabataea, and Joseph and Aseneth does say that the daughter of the King of Moab (synonym for Nabataea) was intended for “Pharaoh’s son.” Like “Pharaoh’s son,” Herod is rumored to have plotted against Jesus, and this is not hard to imagine given the execution of John the Baptizer. Also, very much like “Pharaoh’s son,” Herod was a lusty individual, quickly putting aside his wife to marry a niece, Herodias, who was already married to his half-brother. Perhaps Herod Antipas also lusted after Mary the Magdalene. Since she lived in his jurisdiction, he certainly would have had occasion to notice her. Moreover, Herod Antipas had reason to fear a pretender to the throne of Israel; a man that some were already calling King of the Jews.

The problem with identifying Herod Antipas with “Pharaoh’s son” in Joseph and Aseneth is that, in the text, “Pharaoh’s son” is not married and Herod Antipas was famously married to Herodias. Also, in our story, “Pharaoh’s son” dies suddenly at the hand of some relative or follower of Jesus. This was not Antipas’ fate. As stated, he ended his life in exile.

But the Gospel of Luke notes something very interesting with respect to Herod Antipas. It states that on the day of Jesus’ crucifixion, “Herod and Pilate became friends with each other; before this they had been enemies” (23:12). This is a strange statement. We are never told why they had been enemies, or the reasons for their reconciliation. Also, why would Jesus’ crucifixion somehow lead to a friendship between Antipas, the Jewish tetrarch, and Pilate, the Roman procurator?

Incredibly, we can glean a lot of historical information from this one line in Luke . . . it all has to do with Agrippa’s accusation against his uncle Antipas. Specifically, Agrippa charged that at the time of Jesus’ crucifixion, Herod Antipas had conspired against the Emperor Tiberius. The alleged co-conspirator was a man named Sejanus.³¹ As it turns out, Pilate—Antipas’ newfound friend—was an appointee of Sejanus.³² So perhaps there was a basis for Agrippa’s accusation.

Perhaps the key to understanding the plot against Jesus and Mary the Magdalene in Joseph and Aseneth is the relationship between Antipas, the now-obscure Sejanus, and Pontius Pilate, his most infamous appointee and Roman ruler of Judaea.

Pontius Pilate

Pilate served as procurator of Judaea from the year 26 C.E. through to 36 C.E. and played a pivotal role in the trial of Jesus. The Gospels contend that Pilate found nothing in Jesus’ teachings or actions that merited the death sentence. According to the Gospels, the issue for Pilate was essentially one of religious squabbling among Jews, with no political overtones. He seems disinterested or flip-floppy on the Jesus issue. Many have argued that the Gospels are simply lying about Pilate as a way of selling Christianity to the Romans. Meaning, by making Jews the bad guys of the story, the Gospels are whitewashing Pilate and the Romans he represented. According to this view, why would Jews demand the life of a fellow Jew (even if they disagreed with Jesus), and why would the bloodthirsty Pilate suddenly prevaricate? But if we take the Gospels at their word, there may be a surprising explanation for Pilate’s behavior, once we fill out the story with the information provided by our lost gospel of Joseph and Aseneth.

According to the Gospels, as a result of intense pressure, Pilate half-heartedly relents and sends Jesus to the cross. According to John, Pilate decided to go against Jesus after two things happened. First, an unruly mob mobilized by the priests chanted for the release of an insurrectionist named Jesus Bar Abba. Second, Jesus’ accusers raised a huge political red flag—Pilate would be “no friend of Caesar’s” if he released Jesus, they said (19:12). This was an implicit threat that they would go behind Pilate’s back and report his actions to Rome, directly to Emperor Tiberius. That was something Pilate seems to have greatly feared. Why? Why would a Roman procurator fear rumors spread by a conquered people?

On most occasions, Pilate appears to have been extremely antagonistic toward the Jewish people. That’s the way he is portrayed in both Josephus and Philo, who have nothing but contempt for this allegedly brutal ruler.³³ In one instance, his troops carried an ensign with Caesar’s image into Jerusalem, a clear provocation that resulted in a near-revolt. Another time, he utilized temple funds to pay for an aqueduct. This too aroused so much opposition that a rebellion broke out. Pilate quickly and violently put it down. On this occasion, he dressed his troops in civilian clothes and had them carry daggers under their garments. They then mixed with the crowds and butchered them. In other words, Pilate was a person who did not care a whit for Jewish sensitivities and who knowingly antagonized, provoked, and murdered Jews. How is it that in the case of Jesus, Pilate is depicted in the Gospels as going out of his way to treat Jesus with clemency? This seems curiously out of character . . . unless trying to absolve Jesus of a capital crime represented a calculated move on Pilate’s part.

If Jesus’ death occurred not in 30 C.E. but a little later, say in 31 C.E. as some have suggested, then Pilate may really not have known how to proceed with Jesus. In that year Pilate’s mentor, Lucius Aelius Sejanus, fell from grace and from power overnight. One moment, he was de facto ruler of the empire, wielding power in the name of Tiberius; the next moment, he was dead.

Since Pilate was appointed by Sejanus, could it be that the Gospels are not lying about Pilate? Quite the contrary, could it be that they are correctly describing a moment of uncertainty that can actually be dated? Put differently, is it possible that Pilate’s uncharacteristic leniency toward Jesus reflects a precise moment of historical uncertainty? Can it be that Pilate is wary of Jesus’ connections? Can Joseph and Aseneth provide us with crucial information—missing in the Gospels—that can help us accurately reconstruct the events leading to Jesus’ crucifixion?