Editor’s note]
Due to the tight security in the region it is not widely known that in the past few years there have been significant manuscript finds on the site of ancient Bethel, near modern Tell Beitin, 12 miles or so north of Jerusalem. Some of these, found (it is said) in a set of old olive jars, are surprisingly well-preserved.
Written in a tiny Aramaic script, some scholars claim that the manuscripts date from the first century AD or thereabouts, though others hotly dispute this. Much of what survives appears to be lists of goods, and business accounts. However, there are several texts. One of these, known to the inner circle of scholars as the ‘purplehat’ scroll, has survived almost intact, though the beginning and ending have been lost.
The author of the text is not known, but some scholars believe that its style is that of a traditional story that has been re-told many times, and has become more embellished with the telling. Others think that its informal, free-flowing style indicate that it is someone’s personal narrative. It is hoped that further textual analysis will help to resolve this issue.
The text has been electronically enhanced and almost completely deciphered. A copy was made and discreetly brought to Europe some time ago, and has been translated (fairly freely) into English. The translator has given it the working title ‘At the Crossroads’.
For obvious reasons both the scholar who recovered the text, and the translator, both very good friends of the Editor’s, wish (at least for the moment) to remain anonymous. All that the translator is free to disclose is that the original text (along with the other finds) is in the possession of the Tel Afib Institute of Modern Antiquities, Jerusalem.
It is with a great sense of pride (as well of course of humility) that the Editor is now able to offer ‘purplehat’ to reformation21 browsers. They will quickly see that (if the text is authentic) its significance cannot be over-estimated.
Due to the tight security in the region it is not widely known that in the past few years there have been significant manuscript finds on the site of ancient Bethel, near modern Tell Beitin, 12 miles or so north of Jerusalem. Some of these, found (it is said) in a set of old olive jars, are surprisingly well-preserved.
Written in a tiny Aramaic script, some scholars claim that the manuscripts date from the first century AD or thereabouts, though others hotly dispute this. Much of what survives appears to be lists of goods, and business accounts. However, there are several texts. One of these, known to the inner circle of scholars as the ‘purplehat’ scroll, has survived almost intact, though the beginning and ending have been lost.
The author of the text is not known, but some scholars believe that its style is that of a traditional story that has been re-told many times, and has become more embellished with the telling. Others think that its informal, free-flowing style indicate that it is someone’s personal narrative. It is hoped that further textual analysis will help to resolve this issue.
The text has been electronically enhanced and almost completely deciphered. A copy was made and discreetly brought to Europe some time ago, and has been translated (fairly freely) into English. The translator has given it the working title ‘At the Crossroads’.
For obvious reasons both the scholar who recovered the text, and the translator, both very good friends of the Editor’s, wish (at least for the moment) to remain anonymous. All that the translator is free to disclose is that the original text (along with the other finds) is in the possession of the Tel Afib Institute of Modern Antiquities, Jerusalem.
It is with a great sense of pride (as well of course of humility) that the Editor is now able to offer ‘purplehat’ to reformation21 browsers. They will quickly see that (if the text is authentic) its significance cannot be over-estimated.
****
At the Crossroads
…………on the road out of Bethlehem, at the intersection of the routes to the North and East, on my way back to Bethel. We live in difficult times and I was keen to connect with other travelers. I did not have long to wait. There was a steady flow of people returning from the Census. The Census! What a joke that was. Roman bureaucracy gone mad. But very good for business. The demand for wine and olives was brisk, and my first loads had been quickly snapped up. Trade was good. The only question was, could I get back from Bethel with another load before all the new arrivals in Bethlehem left for home?
Groups of travelers rushed past me, the animals kicking up a dust. Suddenly, a rather grand caravan of camels emerged out of the murk. At least that's what the group looked like at first glance. Not locals, that's for sure. The camel-riders were rather imposing, yet they gave the impression of being rather flustered, especially the lead-rider. A bit panicky. But they also seemed to be in a good mood. Some at the back were singing. The leader was a tall, bearded man, with immaculately-cut, dusty robes and a curious hat. The headgear made me smile: 'Purple Hat', I muttered.
How many of these characters were there? I could make out some others behind Purple Hat, and what looked like a donkey-train at the rear. How many of these Hats? I’d say two or three, but it was difficult to tell in the gloom. I looked again at Purple Hat. You could see that they he was more used to giving orders than taking them. The caravan stood out from the crowd. Whatever were these Easterners doing at the Census? Bethlehem was most certainly not their town….
****
‘Is this the way to.......’ He called down to me?
His Aramaic was good, though with a distinct accent. Yes it is, I reflected, but it's tricky to find, as I then explained. I'll show you the way, if you like, I said, eyeing their rich trappings. Purple Hat's relief was obvious. They were in a hurry. So I became the guide of this distinguished, troubled, happy party. I was, after all, going their way. I rode beside him, my own donkeys trailing behind and getting in the way a bit.
What was the hurry? The problem was that they had been threatened by Herod. At least that's what Purple Hat said. To be more precise, he said that one of them had been warned in a dream not to see Herod again. Obeying the dream was not a problem. They hadn't taken to Herod from the first moment they saw him. They'd been coming West, and then South, following a strange light in the sky, a light that they believed would take them to a newly-born king of the Jews. And then they had lost sight of it, or it had disappeared. At that point some of the men wanted to give up and return home. But then they decided that the best thing to do was to continue South to Jerusalem. To see the king of the Jews, where else would you go? Herod, the lackey of the Romans, was in Jerusalem. But their king was most certainly not Herod. Herod was a usurper, a Roman placeman.
In answer to their questions about the new-born king of the Jews they’d been brought to see Herod - he went on - but he had immediately rubbed them up the wrong way. They'd come to see a new king. At least, they thought they'd come to see a new king. But Herod hadn't a clue what they were talking about: about who this other king was, or where exactly he was. He was suspicious, and secretive and shifty. No thank you. The news of their arrival had quickly leaked out, and groups began to gather demanding to see the king of the Jews. Herod summoned them again - he seemed jumpy - and told them that the Jewish Scriptures said that this king was to be born in Bethlehem. Purple Hat and his friends needed no encouragement to leave, and hurriedly headed North, back the way they'd come.
Purple Hat said Herod was very keen to emphasize that when we had found this king of the Jews he wanted us to go back to Jerusalem to tell him. So that (he said) he could go and worship him as well. It seemed clear that he just wanted to get rid of them. ….
As they left, they were amazed when the light suddenly reappeared ahead of them. I can't tell you how thrilled and relieved we were, Purple Hat said. Thanks, Herod! They had lost the light....and then the light came back. What was all that about? I raised my hand in a gesture of disbelief. He looked down his nose at me and smiled - I think - and tried to explain. He began to talk to me slowly, as if I was a child. We were following a star, he said. Were they astronomers, then? No, it was not that kind of star. In fact, not a star at all. This ‘star’ shifted and then stopped; it disappeared and then reappeared. What ordinary star does that?
Were these men crazy? First a dream. And now a star. But not a regular star. One that started and then stopped, that disappeared and reappeared. So Purple Hat said. He referred to the star as if belonged to someone – his star. We've been following his star, he kept saying. When is a star not a star? When it's his star.
Purple Hat was getting excited and raised his voice over the clatter of the animals.
Our sacred books told us about 'the glory', he said, and they had things to say about a coming king of the Jews, the deliver of his people, the hope of the Gentiles. One of our sayings refers to Jacob’s star. [Translator’s note: this is a possible reference to Numbers 24.17.] And so when this strange light suddenly appeared in the sky and began to move about, we sat up and took notice and discussed it among ourselves. What could this be? Such things don't happen every day. We became strangely attracted by it but when we tried to approach it, it moved on, and so we decided to follow it to see what happened. We had a gut feeling that this was connected with 'the glory’. At least, some of us did. Others simply came along for the ride. The way the light suddenly appeared, the timing, seemed like a kind of prophecy, a word.
He went on, you Jews think you have a monopoly of this sort of thing. That's a mistake. You make such a lot of Abraham. Don't get me wrong. He's the father of the faithful all right. But down the years others who were not descended from Abraham have been in contact with the people of Israel - Melchizedek, Job, and Jethro the father-in-law of Moses. Besides that, whole tribes, descendents of Ishmael, who as you know were descended from Abraham, have their traditional stories about him. And much later on Jewish leaders had wide influence. The glory of Solomon's kingdom was known all over. For a while, your prophet Jonah turned Ninevah upside down. Belteshazzar made a big impact in Babylon during the Captivity. You Jews forget these things. You're so exclusive. (That irritated me, I remember. Who does Purple Hat think he is?)
But – he went on - these men mean a lot to us. We've collected some of their sayings and some other records. But they are hard to sort out. Even the cleverest and most learned disagree. Our books are full of rumors, records of traditions, snippets of wisdom. One set of traditions mentions the coming of 'the glory of the Lord'……..
As I said, as soon as we left Herod and set out in the direction of Bethlehem there was the star again, 'the glory' as we called it. And with the help of 'the glory' we finally arrived in Bethlehem. It was weird. ‘The glory’ had led us to a place that was far from glorious. What a let down! We began to think we'd been deliberately duped by Herod, and that 'the glory' had lost the scent. When this star brought us to a filthy barn behind an inn in Bethlehem, we seriously thought we'd been fooled, that this was some kind of sad, Jewish joke. Who wouldn't? But we quickly came to realize how stupid that was!
‘The glory' went ahead of us and then stopped, hovering. When it came to rest suddenly things began to fall into place.
For some of our treasured traditions about the glory are from your last law-book, Deuteronomy, about the tent of meeting. When Moses entered the tent, one saying is that the pillar of cloud stood at the entrance of the tent. [Translator’s note: perhaps an allusion to Deuteronomy 31.15] As we stared up, it was the way in which 'the glory' came to rest over the barn at the back of the inn that convinced us that we were still on track. It stood at the entrance. It was ‘natural’. Something inside us clicked. Believe me, we are not used to paying visits to stables in run-down Jewish towns! But immediately that saying about the entrance to the tent came into my head, and also another one, about the Lord's glory-cloud that settled on the tent of meeting. [Translator’s note: a possible reference to Exodus 40.35? Compare Matthew 2.9].
Settled. That was it. That described it perfectly! The 'glory' settled over the barn in Bethlehem, but not over the Temple in Jerusalem. So.....the star was the glory-cloud and it stood over the barn just as if it was the Jewish tent of meeting. God's glory was dwelling there. We had found the king! Or rather, the king had found us. But still we could not be sure, There was the barn, but still no sign of the king…….
Around the barn there was chaos. When we pushed inside someone muttered 'Gentile dogs', but another voice called out to be quiet. It wasn't easy to make things out. At one end there was a newly born baby boy and his mother, who was hardly more than a girl, surrounded by [what follows is indecipherable]. Someone told us she was called Mary. Her baby was …… [Editorial addition: ‘just like any other’]…..baby. Except dirtier. The name 'Mary' had no significance to us. But the baby’s name, ‘Jesus’, 'Joshua', was more promising. Jesus sniffled. He began to cry, and Mary picked him up, comforting him. She seemed to know exactly what to do.
You will think that what I am now going to tell you is very odd. Seeing this baby, we felt that the only way to approach him was to fall on our knees. If this barn was the tent of meeting, and the tent contained a newly-born king of the Jews, a special king, then this baby must be that king. This dirty baby was an appearance of the Lord of glory. So what else could we do except worship? Kneeling before him felt both ridiculous and yet absolutely right, thoroughly fitting. I can't exactly explain our mixed feelings. Baby Jesus paid not the slightest attention. Here was not a boy king, like your King Josiah, but an infant king!
So 'the king of the Jews' turned out to be nothing more than a young girl’s new-born baby. Could this be the revelation of the glory of God? I remember that one or two in the crowd gasped and shook their heads when they saw us kneel. Some of them laughed out loud at seeing us down in the dirt. It must have looked very odd. The people standing around were much more impressed by the gifts that our men fetched from the donkeys - gold, frankincense and myrrh. (What a relief that we’d remembered tobring these.) More gasps. We put the gifts on the floor in front of the mother and her child. Mary seemed taken aback. Who wouldn't have been?
No one else was kneeling. Mary was very quiet, almost withdrawn, secretive. She seemed bewildered, and looked pretty tired. Her husband Joseph was the talkative one, trying to stop people, attracted by our camels standing outside, I expect, from pushing into the barn. He seemed pretty decent, but bossy and worked up. I noticed he'd been doing some carving, whittling with a sharp knife. He'd made one or two wooden things for the child, a model donkey, and some big beads on a piece of string. But Jesus could not have been less interested……..
*****
When I got back to Bethlehem with my next load of wine and olives, there was a terrible commotion. Everyone seemed to be weeping and wailing. Whatever was going on? The soldiers of that madman Herod had without warning raided Bethlehem and the surrounding farms and slain all the baby boys. I couldn't believe it. The killers said that they were after 'the king of the Jews'. Parents were inconsolable at this unspeakable cruelty. Older children, brothers and sisters of the dead, were wailing and screaming. It felt as if the town was in ruins, torn up. What sort of a king of his people would even think of doing such a thing? Answer: Herod the Edomite, the poodle of the Romans, insanely suspicious of any rival. All the men of the little town jostled together, outraged. But what could they do?
The strange, jumbled tale that Purple Hat had told me was still in my mind. Could there be some connection between that fairy story and this massacre? The more I thought about it the odder it seemed. Had I dreamt the whole thing? Had Purple Hat? Frankly, I did not believe a word of it, particularly the part about this baby being our deliverer, the king of glory. How could an infant save us from the Romans and establish himself in the place of that wretched fool Herod? How could he even stand up to Herod? He would have no chance. Still, there seemed to be some sort of link between Purple Hat's tale and the massacre of the babies. Each was in some way connected together by 'the king of the Jews'.
When I'd calmed down a bit I began to ask around.
I was astounded to hear that there had indeed been a baby born in the stable behind the inn. This must be Purple Hat’s ‘barn’. The mother was Mary and Joseph was her husband. Apparently there'd been quite a commotion when some hill shepherds had barged into the stable. The shepherds also said that they'd seen the 'glory of the Lord’ and something about…….. [Editor: The wording is unclear at this point.] After they’d seen the baby for themselves they went onto the streets of Bethlehem shouting and singing about David, the Lord's anointed. And later on Purple Hat and his friends had arrived, bringing their gifts. There was more noise.
But if Joseph and Mary and the baby really had been in the barn, where were they now? Had the baby Jesus been killed as well? I asked.
Then, another shock. Oh, they said, the night before the slaughter Joseph and Mary had suddenly packed their few things, and the baby, and left. They were there in the evening, and next morning there was no sign of them. It was as if someone had tipped the couple off. Where did they go? No one was sure. The innkeeper (who I had finally managed to get hold of - he owed me serious money), said that he had heard that someone had seen them on the road South. But what king of the Jews leaves his people? The whole thing was stranger and stranger.
I began to wonder what Purple Hat would think if he was told that 'the king of the Jews' was now heading for Egypt…..
[Translator: At this point the text abruptly breaks off.]
At the Crossroads
…………on the road out of Bethlehem, at the intersection of the routes to the North and East, on my way back to Bethel. We live in difficult times and I was keen to connect with other travelers. I did not have long to wait. There was a steady flow of people returning from the Census. The Census! What a joke that was. Roman bureaucracy gone mad. But very good for business. The demand for wine and olives was brisk, and my first loads had been quickly snapped up. Trade was good. The only question was, could I get back from Bethel with another load before all the new arrivals in Bethlehem left for home?
Groups of travelers rushed past me, the animals kicking up a dust. Suddenly, a rather grand caravan of camels emerged out of the murk. At least that's what the group looked like at first glance. Not locals, that's for sure. The camel-riders were rather imposing, yet they gave the impression of being rather flustered, especially the lead-rider. A bit panicky. But they also seemed to be in a good mood. Some at the back were singing. The leader was a tall, bearded man, with immaculately-cut, dusty robes and a curious hat. The headgear made me smile: 'Purple Hat', I muttered.
How many of these characters were there? I could make out some others behind Purple Hat, and what looked like a donkey-train at the rear. How many of these Hats? I’d say two or three, but it was difficult to tell in the gloom. I looked again at Purple Hat. You could see that they he was more used to giving orders than taking them. The caravan stood out from the crowd. Whatever were these Easterners doing at the Census? Bethlehem was most certainly not their town….
****
‘Is this the way to.......’ He called down to me?
His Aramaic was good, though with a distinct accent. Yes it is, I reflected, but it's tricky to find, as I then explained. I'll show you the way, if you like, I said, eyeing their rich trappings. Purple Hat's relief was obvious. They were in a hurry. So I became the guide of this distinguished, troubled, happy party. I was, after all, going their way. I rode beside him, my own donkeys trailing behind and getting in the way a bit.
What was the hurry? The problem was that they had been threatened by Herod. At least that's what Purple Hat said. To be more precise, he said that one of them had been warned in a dream not to see Herod again. Obeying the dream was not a problem. They hadn't taken to Herod from the first moment they saw him. They'd been coming West, and then South, following a strange light in the sky, a light that they believed would take them to a newly-born king of the Jews. And then they had lost sight of it, or it had disappeared. At that point some of the men wanted to give up and return home. But then they decided that the best thing to do was to continue South to Jerusalem. To see the king of the Jews, where else would you go? Herod, the lackey of the Romans, was in Jerusalem. But their king was most certainly not Herod. Herod was a usurper, a Roman placeman.
In answer to their questions about the new-born king of the Jews they’d been brought to see Herod - he went on - but he had immediately rubbed them up the wrong way. They'd come to see a new king. At least, they thought they'd come to see a new king. But Herod hadn't a clue what they were talking about: about who this other king was, or where exactly he was. He was suspicious, and secretive and shifty. No thank you. The news of their arrival had quickly leaked out, and groups began to gather demanding to see the king of the Jews. Herod summoned them again - he seemed jumpy - and told them that the Jewish Scriptures said that this king was to be born in Bethlehem. Purple Hat and his friends needed no encouragement to leave, and hurriedly headed North, back the way they'd come.
Purple Hat said Herod was very keen to emphasize that when we had found this king of the Jews he wanted us to go back to Jerusalem to tell him. So that (he said) he could go and worship him as well. It seemed clear that he just wanted to get rid of them. ….
As they left, they were amazed when the light suddenly reappeared ahead of them. I can't tell you how thrilled and relieved we were, Purple Hat said. Thanks, Herod! They had lost the light....and then the light came back. What was all that about? I raised my hand in a gesture of disbelief. He looked down his nose at me and smiled - I think - and tried to explain. He began to talk to me slowly, as if I was a child. We were following a star, he said. Were they astronomers, then? No, it was not that kind of star. In fact, not a star at all. This ‘star’ shifted and then stopped; it disappeared and then reappeared. What ordinary star does that?
Were these men crazy? First a dream. And now a star. But not a regular star. One that started and then stopped, that disappeared and reappeared. So Purple Hat said. He referred to the star as if belonged to someone – his star. We've been following his star, he kept saying. When is a star not a star? When it's his star.
Purple Hat was getting excited and raised his voice over the clatter of the animals.
Our sacred books told us about 'the glory', he said, and they had things to say about a coming king of the Jews, the deliver of his people, the hope of the Gentiles. One of our sayings refers to Jacob’s star. [Translator’s note: this is a possible reference to Numbers 24.17.] And so when this strange light suddenly appeared in the sky and began to move about, we sat up and took notice and discussed it among ourselves. What could this be? Such things don't happen every day. We became strangely attracted by it but when we tried to approach it, it moved on, and so we decided to follow it to see what happened. We had a gut feeling that this was connected with 'the glory’. At least, some of us did. Others simply came along for the ride. The way the light suddenly appeared, the timing, seemed like a kind of prophecy, a word.
He went on, you Jews think you have a monopoly of this sort of thing. That's a mistake. You make such a lot of Abraham. Don't get me wrong. He's the father of the faithful all right. But down the years others who were not descended from Abraham have been in contact with the people of Israel - Melchizedek, Job, and Jethro the father-in-law of Moses. Besides that, whole tribes, descendents of Ishmael, who as you know were descended from Abraham, have their traditional stories about him. And much later on Jewish leaders had wide influence. The glory of Solomon's kingdom was known all over. For a while, your prophet Jonah turned Ninevah upside down. Belteshazzar made a big impact in Babylon during the Captivity. You Jews forget these things. You're so exclusive. (That irritated me, I remember. Who does Purple Hat think he is?)
But – he went on - these men mean a lot to us. We've collected some of their sayings and some other records. But they are hard to sort out. Even the cleverest and most learned disagree. Our books are full of rumors, records of traditions, snippets of wisdom. One set of traditions mentions the coming of 'the glory of the Lord'……..
As I said, as soon as we left Herod and set out in the direction of Bethlehem there was the star again, 'the glory' as we called it. And with the help of 'the glory' we finally arrived in Bethlehem. It was weird. ‘The glory’ had led us to a place that was far from glorious. What a let down! We began to think we'd been deliberately duped by Herod, and that 'the glory' had lost the scent. When this star brought us to a filthy barn behind an inn in Bethlehem, we seriously thought we'd been fooled, that this was some kind of sad, Jewish joke. Who wouldn't? But we quickly came to realize how stupid that was!
‘The glory' went ahead of us and then stopped, hovering. When it came to rest suddenly things began to fall into place.
For some of our treasured traditions about the glory are from your last law-book, Deuteronomy, about the tent of meeting. When Moses entered the tent, one saying is that the pillar of cloud stood at the entrance of the tent. [Translator’s note: perhaps an allusion to Deuteronomy 31.15] As we stared up, it was the way in which 'the glory' came to rest over the barn at the back of the inn that convinced us that we were still on track. It stood at the entrance. It was ‘natural’. Something inside us clicked. Believe me, we are not used to paying visits to stables in run-down Jewish towns! But immediately that saying about the entrance to the tent came into my head, and also another one, about the Lord's glory-cloud that settled on the tent of meeting. [Translator’s note: a possible reference to Exodus 40.35? Compare Matthew 2.9].
Settled. That was it. That described it perfectly! The 'glory' settled over the barn in Bethlehem, but not over the Temple in Jerusalem. So.....the star was the glory-cloud and it stood over the barn just as if it was the Jewish tent of meeting. God's glory was dwelling there. We had found the king! Or rather, the king had found us. But still we could not be sure, There was the barn, but still no sign of the king…….
Around the barn there was chaos. When we pushed inside someone muttered 'Gentile dogs', but another voice called out to be quiet. It wasn't easy to make things out. At one end there was a newly born baby boy and his mother, who was hardly more than a girl, surrounded by [what follows is indecipherable]. Someone told us she was called Mary. Her baby was …… [Editorial addition: ‘just like any other’]…..baby. Except dirtier. The name 'Mary' had no significance to us. But the baby’s name, ‘Jesus’, 'Joshua', was more promising. Jesus sniffled. He began to cry, and Mary picked him up, comforting him. She seemed to know exactly what to do.
You will think that what I am now going to tell you is very odd. Seeing this baby, we felt that the only way to approach him was to fall on our knees. If this barn was the tent of meeting, and the tent contained a newly-born king of the Jews, a special king, then this baby must be that king. This dirty baby was an appearance of the Lord of glory. So what else could we do except worship? Kneeling before him felt both ridiculous and yet absolutely right, thoroughly fitting. I can't exactly explain our mixed feelings. Baby Jesus paid not the slightest attention. Here was not a boy king, like your King Josiah, but an infant king!
So 'the king of the Jews' turned out to be nothing more than a young girl’s new-born baby. Could this be the revelation of the glory of God? I remember that one or two in the crowd gasped and shook their heads when they saw us kneel. Some of them laughed out loud at seeing us down in the dirt. It must have looked very odd. The people standing around were much more impressed by the gifts that our men fetched from the donkeys - gold, frankincense and myrrh. (What a relief that we’d remembered tobring these.) More gasps. We put the gifts on the floor in front of the mother and her child. Mary seemed taken aback. Who wouldn't have been?
No one else was kneeling. Mary was very quiet, almost withdrawn, secretive. She seemed bewildered, and looked pretty tired. Her husband Joseph was the talkative one, trying to stop people, attracted by our camels standing outside, I expect, from pushing into the barn. He seemed pretty decent, but bossy and worked up. I noticed he'd been doing some carving, whittling with a sharp knife. He'd made one or two wooden things for the child, a model donkey, and some big beads on a piece of string. But Jesus could not have been less interested……..
*****
When I got back to Bethlehem with my next load of wine and olives, there was a terrible commotion. Everyone seemed to be weeping and wailing. Whatever was going on? The soldiers of that madman Herod had without warning raided Bethlehem and the surrounding farms and slain all the baby boys. I couldn't believe it. The killers said that they were after 'the king of the Jews'. Parents were inconsolable at this unspeakable cruelty. Older children, brothers and sisters of the dead, were wailing and screaming. It felt as if the town was in ruins, torn up. What sort of a king of his people would even think of doing such a thing? Answer: Herod the Edomite, the poodle of the Romans, insanely suspicious of any rival. All the men of the little town jostled together, outraged. But what could they do?
The strange, jumbled tale that Purple Hat had told me was still in my mind. Could there be some connection between that fairy story and this massacre? The more I thought about it the odder it seemed. Had I dreamt the whole thing? Had Purple Hat? Frankly, I did not believe a word of it, particularly the part about this baby being our deliverer, the king of glory. How could an infant save us from the Romans and establish himself in the place of that wretched fool Herod? How could he even stand up to Herod? He would have no chance. Still, there seemed to be some sort of link between Purple Hat's tale and the massacre of the babies. Each was in some way connected together by 'the king of the Jews'.
When I'd calmed down a bit I began to ask around.
I was astounded to hear that there had indeed been a baby born in the stable behind the inn. This must be Purple Hat’s ‘barn’. The mother was Mary and Joseph was her husband. Apparently there'd been quite a commotion when some hill shepherds had barged into the stable. The shepherds also said that they'd seen the 'glory of the Lord’ and something about…….. [Editor: The wording is unclear at this point.] After they’d seen the baby for themselves they went onto the streets of Bethlehem shouting and singing about David, the Lord's anointed. And later on Purple Hat and his friends had arrived, bringing their gifts. There was more noise.
But if Joseph and Mary and the baby really had been in the barn, where were they now? Had the baby Jesus been killed as well? I asked.
Then, another shock. Oh, they said, the night before the slaughter Joseph and Mary had suddenly packed their few things, and the baby, and left. They were there in the evening, and next morning there was no sign of them. It was as if someone had tipped the couple off. Where did they go? No one was sure. The innkeeper (who I had finally managed to get hold of - he owed me serious money), said that he had heard that someone had seen them on the road South. But what king of the Jews leaves his people? The whole thing was stranger and stranger.
I began to wonder what Purple Hat would think if he was told that 'the king of the Jews' was now heading for Egypt…..
[Translator: At this point the text abruptly breaks off.]
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