Synopsis
Yosef of Arimathea is one of a handful of surviving Jewish rebels from the last battle of the Jewish-Roman War at Masada. On the way to Rome for interrogation, they stop on the island of Melita (Malta). There Yosef encounters the former prefect of Judea, Pontius Pilate, who has been hiding there under an assumed name since narrowly avoiding execution at the hands of Emperor Tiberius.
Pilate offers to help Yosef and his family escape in exchange for the true story of the crucifixion that he ordered of Yosef’s great-nephew Yeshua (Jesus). Yosef agrees, as he needs to remember his story and make sense of it. His narrative begins long before the crucifixion, when the father of the thirteen-year-old Yeshua is killed fighting assassins sent by the High Priest, Annas, to murder the young rightful heir to the high priesthood. Yosef smuggles Yeshua out of the country and takes him on business travels to Albion (Britain), Egypt, and India. Yosef is determined to talk Yeshua out of his belief that he will become the long awaited “Anointed One,” who will save Israel. Yosef decides to teach Yeshua how to become a wealthy and powerful merchant who can protect the family from their enemies by becoming richer and more powerful than they are. One of the wealthiest men in the world, Yosef made his fortune selling tin to the Roman military for making weapons.
As they journey, Yosef reveals secrets of their family history, including the role the powerful fertility drug, Yavrucha (Mandrake) played in the births of Yeshua and his cousin Yochanan (John). In Albion, Yeshua meets King Cunobeline whose business alliance has given Yosef his lucrative monopoly. Yeshua learns tin mining and the secrets of amassing wealth and influence but remains more interested in studying the beliefs and practices of Albion’s Druids and enrolls in the Druid University on the Isle of Glass (Glastonbury). He wonders if similarities he observes between ancient Hebrew and Druid beliefs come from lost tribes of Israel or whether his Abba (Heavenly Father) reveals certain universal truths to the gentiles.
Yosef returns to Judea, to visit Elisheba (Elizabeth) who is terminally ill and in the care of the Essenes at Ein Gedi. In a delirium, she reveals things to Yosef that make him suspect that he is the father of Yochanan and Yeshua having also taken the Yavrucha he had provided to Elisheba and Miriam (Mary) at the time. He knows the fertility drug can also produce confusion and amnesia. Yosef begs for the truth from Elisheba but she dies, taking any secrets she might have kept with her. Yosef brings the news of Elisheba to her son Yochanan at the Essene encampment where he has lived since the Essenes took him in after his father Zechariah died. Yochanan also suspects that Yosef is his and Yeshua’s father but insists this would have no bearing on their missions. When Yosef visits Miriam in the Galilee, she shares her concern about her son’s decision never to marry as he is destined to suffer and die. When Yosef asks if there was anything she never told him about involving Yeshua’s conception, Miriam explains that she had amnesia after taking the Yavrucha and relied on what Elisheba told her. Yosef decides against burdening Miriam with his suspicions.
Upon returning to Albion, Yosef invites Yeshua to accompany him to India hoping to get Yeshua’s mind away from, “Saving the world,” and into the world of commerce. In India Yeshua befriends two Hindi brothers with Hebrew names from a tribe claiming Hebrew ancestry. Yeshua again questions whether these represent lost tribes of Israel. Yosef and Yeshua fall out when Yosef suggests to Yeshua that he may his real father. Yeshua stays behind in India as he refuses to travel further with or accept any more support from Yosef.
There is no news from Yeshua for fifteen years until he suddenly appears back in the Galilee after a three-year walk from India. Yosef cannot travel to the Galilee to see Yeshua as his wife, Anna, is very ill and needs his care. For the next three years, Yosef relies on news about Yeshua brought to him by his sons, Josephus and Mattan who travel between Albion and Israel maintaining the family metals trade.
After Anna’s death, Yosef learns that Herod Antipas arrested and beheaded Yochanan. Yosef now mourns Yochanan also and blames himself for not being there to use his influence with Antipas to save Yochanan. Yosef fears Yeshua is heading for a similar fate and sails back to Judea to protect him.
In Jerusalem Yosef learns from Caiaphas, the High Priest, of a plot to murder Yeshua when he returns to Jerusalem for the upcoming Passover festival. Yosef looks for Yeshua in nearby Bethany, as he knows he usually stays with family friends there during the Passover. When Yosef learns the Sanhedrin bases its charge of blasphemy against Yeshua on his claim to be able to die and raise from the dead, Yosef conducts a covert demonstration of the effects of Yavrucha, which, at high doses produces a temporary death lasting several days. He secretly drugs Eleazor (Lazarus) who falls deathly ill.
Yosef hurries to Jericho in search of Yeshua, bearing the urgent pleas from Eleazar’s sisters to come and save Eleazar from death and a warning of the High Priest’s plot to murder Yeshua. In Jericho, he meets Miriam Magdalena and Matthew and learns more of Yeshua’s ministry. Yeshua tells about his years in India and his studies of eastern religions there. Yeshua confides about a marriage with a Kashmirian woman that ended with her death in childbirth. Yosef asks Yeshua to explain his mission Yeshua explains the coming of the End of Days his Abba’s kingdom on earth, and the meaning of Yeshua’s intended sacrifice.
When Yeshua arrives in Bethany, he appears to raise Eleazar from the dead until Yosef confesses to Yeshua that it was a temporary death caused by Yavrucha. Yeshua forbids any further interference from Yosef in his mission and declines Yosef’s offer to use the Yavrucha to cause a temporary death in Yeshua.
Yosef promises to stay out of any further discussions or plans and Yeshua accepts an invitation to have the Passover meal at Yosef’s house. After the supper, Yeshua and his disciples depart for the Mount of Olives. Later that night, Nicodemus wakes Yosef to inform him of Yeshua’s arrest by Caiaphas, the High Priest. They hurry to join an emergency meeting of the Sanhedrin called by Caiaphas to deliberate the fate of Yeshua. In spite of efforts by Nicodemus and Yosef to defend Yeshua, the Sanhedrin condemns him to death for blasphemy but delivers him to Pilate with the accusation of treason against Rome. Yosef and Nicodemus can only wait and hope Pilate will find Yeshua innocent and release him. In the morning, they are dismayed when they encounter Yeshua on the way to his execution. Yosef decides to break his promise not to intervene. He elicits the help of a Centurion who is a loyal friend of Yeshua’s who agrees to give Yavrucha to Yeshua using a sponge on a stick to induce a temporary death. Meanwhile, Yosef tries to use his influence with Pilate to stop the crucifixion. By the time Pilate finally consents, Yeshua is dead. Yosef places the body in his own family tomb nearby. On Sunday morning, Caiaphas arrests Yosef on charges of stealing the body from the tomb during the night.
When the Centurion visits Yosef in Jail, he admits that he was not sure whether Yeshua drank the Yavrucha from the sponge. He returns the remaining drug, which Yosef drinks to escape his misery. Yosef wakes at home several days later unable to remember how he got there.
Pilate orders the High Priest to back off and Yosef to return to Albion and continue to further Rome’s interest with tin mining. As Yosef prepares to depart for Albion Yeshua appears at his door with the Centurion and Miriam Magdalena febrile and septic from infection of his wounds. They work together to nurse Yeshua back to health and plan for Josephus to help them escape to the Isle of Glass in Albion. He later learns from Josephus that Yeshua insisted on returning to India, however and sailed for Alexandria with the Centurion and Mary Magdalena.
Yosef returns to Albion where he becomes a somewhat unwilling apostle of the Nazarene movement. The growing church finds a safe haven on the Isle of Glass, until Yosef learns that Emperor Claudius intends to invade Albion. Yosef has to decide where his loyalties lie. His daughter has married into the royal family of Briton to king Cunobeline’s son, Caradog. He decides to betray Rome by diverting his metals shipments to king Cunobeline’s army realizing this treason will cost him all of his Roman based wealth and influence. When Rome invades, he joins the Celts as a combatant at the battle of Medway alongside of his daughter, Prince Caradog and his grandson, Prince Arviragus.
The Jewish-Roman War that breaks out claims the lives of his son Mattan, his family, and Miriam’s family as Vespasian lays waste to the Galilee. The siege of Jerusalem traps Miriam inside as General Titus allows only the dead to leave the surrounded city. Yosef sails to Judea to rescue her, knowing Rome may arrest him for treason. He gives her Yavrucha to induce a temporary death and removes her corpse from the embattled city even as the embattled city falls. When he arrives at the coast, he learns from Josephus that his ship is confiscated, and there is a warrant for his arrest. Yosef flees with Miriam his great granddaughter and her five children to a mighty fortress in the desert called Masada. After Josephus insists on returning to Jerusalem to rescue more survivors he does not return and Yosef never learns of his fate.
During his subsequent three years at Masada, Yosef tries to make sense of his life. Having lost most of his family, health and all of his wealth and power, he concludes that he never had control over the fate of his loved ones and failed to protect them. When Masada comes under siege and it is certain the Roman Legion will breach the defensive wall by the morning, the nearly one thousand occupants agree to a mass suicide, to avoid becoming slaves of the Romans.
Yosef decides he cannot allow the Sicarii Zealots to murder the last remnant of his family. He hides them in a water storage cistern, and then takes enough Yavrucha to induce a temporary death in himself. When he awakes finds himself and his family bound for interrogation at the court in Rome. Their arrival on the island of Melita and encounter with Pilate brings Yosef’s narrative full circle.
Pilate then reveals his conversion to Christianity when the apostle Paul shipwrecked on Melita. They agree that Pilate’s questions about the crucifixion do not matter. More important than his death was Yeshua’s life. Pilate arranges for Yosef and his family to escape to Albion. Yosef reveals the secret of the Holy Grail as the ship departs Melita. It is a simple tin cup that Yosef is saving to make into a bird feeder when he reaches the Isle of Glass. He concludes that is what Yeshua would do.
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