The mystery of 'The Jesus Papers'

There’s been talk of treasure buried in the hills in Southern France for centuries. Year after year, people make pilgrimages here in search of fortune. 

Author Michael Baigent says what drew him here were the whisperings of something far more valuable— he was looking for evidence that Jesus survived the crucifixion.

He says information about a mysterious document arrived in a letter he got his hands on 20 years ago. 

Michael Baigent, author: The letter came out of the blue. And there seemed to be some treasure associated with it.

The letter reads: “The treasure is not one of gold and precious stones, but a document containing incontrovertible evidence that Jesus was alive in the year 45 AD.”

It’s significant date because it’s more than a decade after the accepted date for the crucifixion.

Sara James, Dateline correspondent: Because if he had been alive in 45 A.D. He couldn’t have died on the cross?

Baigent: Exactly.

Baigent says that mysterious document was last seen at the Church of San Sulpice in Paris. He believes it calls into question the accepted story about when and how Jesus died.

James: For you, San Sulpice is more than a beautiful church. You believe this is a place where clues have been found?

Baigent: Absolutely. Archaeologists were digging up material and here is where it was brought together.

And where according to Baigent, in the late 1800s, that mysterious document was seen by a prominent member of the English Church, Canon Alfred Lilley.  The alleged document written supposedly indicated Jesus didn’t die on the cross. But soon after, Lilley’s document vanished, never to be seen again. Baigent admits he has never met Lilley who is dead, he’s never seen the document, nor does he have any idea what the document said. Even Baigent concedes this story has a lot of holes.

Baigent: I know—it’s terrible isn’t it.

James: It’s a pretty tall order.

Baigent: It is a tall order and I wish I could make it more solid. But we can’t.

James: Especially when you’re talking about something as fundamental as questioning whether or not Jesus died on the cross.

Baigent: I know but what can we do.

Baigent wondered if someone else had seen the mysterious document? 

Baigent returned to the letter he’d seen which reads: “clues left behind by the good cure have never been understood”… and goes on to say ...."the document was exchanged for a large sum and concealed or destroyed."

The good cure’ he believed was a priest named Berenger Sauniere, who lived and preached in an idyllic hilltop village in the South of France called Rennes-le-Chateau. 

What’s beyond dispute is that the cure, Sauniere, had been a young penniless priest who suddenly came into enormous wealth. Local legend has it that, while renovating the church,  Sauniere found a valuable document buried under the altar.

Baigent suggest perhaps, what that country priest found was that mysterious document which supposedly contained explosive evidence that Jesus survived the crucifixion. And he speculates the Church paid Sauniere a fortune to get a hold of it. 

Baigent says there is revealing information on the walls of Sauniere’s church that suggests this cure— or abbe— believed Jesus survived the crucifixion. 

James: You believe that the abbey was leaving a clue in this picture of what his view was about the crucifixion?

Baigent: That’s the only conclusion I can come to.

This picture is one of a series of friezes illustrating the story of Jesus’s final hours, or the Stations of the Cross. While the friezes are identical to others found in southern France, he believes the priest himself added an incongruous detail—a detail so innocuous, yet so important it can’t be overlooked. 

Dateline Station 14 at Rennes-le-Chateau church

At Station 14, this familiar tableau shows three people carrying Jesus’s body after he’s taken down from the cross.

James: What’s different about this Station of the Cross?

Baigent:  Station 14 traditionally is them carrying Jesus into the tomb having died on the cross.  But as you can see, the night sky, the moon has risen, Passover has begun.  So they’re not carrying the body into the tomb. They’re carrying it out of the tomb.

Out of the tomb? That’s not in any traditional Bible story. And neither is the full moon— a clear sign of nightfall.

Baigent: The moon has risen. There’s a very clear distinction made between these two times of day. And I think that’s important.

Important because Jewish law dictated a body needed to be buried before sundown and before the start of Passover.

Baigent: In the New Testament, it stresses that they had to get this body into the tomb before the Passover began.  And anyone touching the dead body would be ritually unclean.

Unmistakable evidence, he argues, of Sauniere’s discovery.

Baigent: I think that he’s revealing and yet hiding a major secret to do with the Christian faith. And that is that Jesus survived the crucifixion.

But religion scholar Craig Evans argues the artwork is evidence only of one thing— a mistake. 

Craig Evans, religious scholar: The moon was added to the picture mistakenly by someone who thought that Jesus’s body was taken down when it was already night.  But to infer from that some secret, some special knowledge that suggests that Jesus actually was taken down from the cross still living…  is very far fetched.

As for the priest’s fortune, there does seem to be at least one mundane explanation: There is evidence that Sauniere was suspended from the church for selling mail order prayer services for the dead.

So the mystery remains unsolved. And if the document exists, where is it?

James: What do you think happened to the document, the one that said that Jesus was alive in 45 A.D.?

Baigent: I think it’s in the Vatican.

James: Michael, are you suggesting the Vatican knows Jesus was alive in 45 A.D. and is hiding that fact?

Baigent:  I am suggesting that, oddly enough.

James: But you have no proof?

Baigent: I have no proof.

Even so, Baigent also claims the Church is hiding two other documents — the ones he names his book after: “The Jesus Papers.”  What are they and do they even exist?

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