The mystery of 'The Jesus Papers'

People have been searching for more information about the life of Jesus for centuries.  For years, Michael Baigent says he had heard rumors of mysterious documents which could make us think about Jesus in an entirely different way.

Michael Baigent, author: They were always mentioned in hushed tones. But no one quite knew where they were or who had them. They just knew that these documents existed which gave a different perspective on something important to the Vatican.

Where were these documents? Did they even exist?  His investigation led him to an Israeli businessman living in an undisclosed European city.  But once again, Baigent is short on details. He won’t tell us the man’s name, or anything about him, except that he’s a wealthy collector.

Baigent: He can very easily produce large sums of cash to buy antiquities for which he doesn’t require a receipt. And he has an amazing collection of antiquities.

According to Baigent, the businessman told him he bought a home in the Old City of Jerusalem in the 1960s and excavated the foundation.      

Baigent: He found these papers. He must have had some idea of where the repository was.

Baigent says the businessman told him he’d discovered two significant papers from approximately 34 AD. Eventually, he says the businessman showed him the documents which he describes as preserved in glass frames, hidden away in a large temperature-controlled safe in the businessman’s home.  

They are around about nine or ten inches long, four five inches high. There’s two of them. They may be two parts of one document. They’re on papyrus. They’re written in Aramaic.

James: You call them the “Jesus papers”?

Baigent:  I do indeed. I do indeed.

James: Are they here? Are they in England?

Baigent: I can’t say where they are.

James: Are they in France?

Baigent: It’s not for me to reveal where they are or reveal the owner. If he wishes to do this, then that’s up to him. It’s not for me to do it. I respect his desire for privacy.

But Baigent is more than willing to reveal what’s in them.  And as improbable as this sounds, he describes the “Jesus Papers” as two letters written to the Jewish Court, the Sanhedrin, by a writer who called himself the Messiah of the Children of Israel— Jesus himself.

Baigent: They were answers to a charge made by the Sanhedrin. The Sanhedrin had been accusing someone of claiming that he was god.  This someone wrote back in his defense. And this Messiah was writing back to the Sanhedrin saying in effect, “No no no, I’m not saying that I’m god. I’m saying that I’m filled with the spirit of god.”

If these letters are real, Baigent contends it would mean Jesus was saying he was an ordinary man and not divine.  But Baigent admits he can’t back up his claim.

James: Were you allowed to copy the papers?

Baigent: Nothing.

James: Were you allowed to photograph them?

Baigent: Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

James: Did anybody else see them with you?

Baigent: No one else was there. Just me.

James: So you were in a room looking at papers you couldn’t read that were in Aramaic?

Baigent: Yes.

James: So in essence, you’re asking people to believe what you say about documents, but they’ll never see the documents. They’ll never have the proof.

Baigent: The alternative is to ignore them and I can’t do that.

Was it possible for a discovery such as this to be uncovered  here in the Old city of Jerusalem, 40 years ago?  Could it have been kept secret all these years?  Archaeologists agree treasures are still out there. But while some are authentic, others are well-disguised fakes. 

Shai Bartura, an investigator with the Israeli Antiquities Authority says the chance these papers are real is about one in a million. 

Shai Bartura, investigator with the Israeli Antiquities Authority: The whole story sounds suspicious. Every time we hear about an artifact or a piece - an archaeological piece that has such huge implications… well, then immediately it’s suspect for forgery.  

He points to a revealing clue in the Baigent’s own description— that the documents are on papyrus. He says almost certainly, they would have disintegrated long ago unless they were preserved in a dry uninhabited area like a desert.

Bartura: The chance of a document written on papyrus being preserved in the ground, underneath a home in the city of Jerusalem is as slim as it gets. And even more so if you’re talking about a document that’s written by the hand of Jesus. 

So Baigent’s story hangs on a guy we’ve never met on papers we’ve never seen, and on claims that are impossible to verify.  But Baigent has an explanation for that too.  He says that the reason we can’t see the Jesus Papers is because that Israeli businessman made a secret deal with the Vatican.

Baigent: The Vatican asked him to destroy them. But he refused. But he did promise that he would keep them under wraps for 25 years. Now when I met with him, he had long passed the 25 year mark.

Is it possible the Vatican made a deal to suppress those so-called Jesus Papers?  Or to hide those other alleged documents claiming Jesus was alive in 45 AD?  Has the church tried to keep secrets about Jesus? Is there any evidence of Baigent’s allegation of a cover up?

Father Thomas Williams is dean of theology at a college closely affiliated with the Vatican and an NBC News analyst.

Sara James, Dateline correspondent: What do you make of the Jesus papers?

Father Williams, dean of theology and NBC News analyst: The Vatican is an easy target. If [the papers] exist, which I’m not convinced of yet because I’ve never seen them --  I’ve never seen them on film. If they exist, it would be nice for scholars to analyze them see what century they’re from. Right now, I doubt their existence.

James:  Baigent says that there’s a cover up. 

Father Williams: The Vatican’s organization is bent about revealing everything it knows about Jesus. It’s not this secretive mysterious thing that’s going on making side deals with people about covering up documents.

New Testament Scholar Craig Evans passionately agrees. He says he doesn’t have any faith in Baigent’s investigation or conclusions.

Craig Evans, New Testament scholar: I see it as a sensationalist and uncontrolled pseudo-scholarship. He puts them all into a blender, stirs them all up and pours out an interesting theory that relies mostly on his imagination, on legend and on speculation, but not on facts.

But as unlikely as some of the scenarios may be, scholar Elaine Pagels says we should be open to new theories, even unorthodox ones, because they can lead to a greater understanding of Jesus.

Elaine Pagels, religious scholar: There’s a great deal we don’t know, and there’s a great deal we still have to learn about what happens.

James: Even if it’s speculation?

Pagels: Questions often lead to new insights. So I think that is a very useful thing to do. As a historian that’s what we do.

James: It strikes me that what you’re doing is asking us to take a leap of faith.

Baigent: I suppose in one sense that could be true. There is an irony. But what I’m asking is for people to ask questions and to find out things for themselves. Not to be satisfied with what is written in ancient documents or even what is written in my book.

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