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Good evening. We continue tonight with a different look at the controversial story of Jesus of Nazareth. The two sides in this heavily-contended event: the followers of Jesus, who insist that Jesus rose from the dead after his execution by crucifixion, and an unlikely coalition of Roman Imperial Officials and the Office of the High Priest of Israel. This coalition has been contending that the Roman guard placed outside of the tomb of Jesus was derelict in their duty, allowing the followers of Jesus to come and steal Jesus' body and thus perpetrate the hoax of his resurrection. Joining us tonight, under condition of anonymity, is a Roman officer who professes to know the complete, inside story.

Thank you for joining us.

Yes, sir.

You have agreed to speak to us only if we could assure complete anonymity.

That is correct.

Why is that?

Because I don't want anyone to know who I am.

Clearly. But why is that?

If my superiors know who I am, it'll be just that much easier for them to kill me.

We wouldn't want that.

I wouldn't either. That would be bad.

Why do you think they would kill you?

Because I'm going to tell you things they don't want you to hear. Telling you this is treason.

Why did you come to us if it is so dangerous?

I'm an officer in the Imperial Infantry. We are expected to be obedient to the emperor „ "for the Senate and the People of Rome" and all that. But we are also expected to act with honor. I expect that of myself. There is a cover-up going on, and it's just not right. Dishonorable. The Senate and the People of Rome, and even all you barbarians, need to know what's really going on.

You want to bring the truth to light.

No! (Covers face with arm) Whatever you do, don't turn a light on!

Sorry, I meant ... You have come here to tell us the truth.

Right. No more lies.

Thank you. Before we go on „ we obviously can't use your name, so how should we address you?

Just call me Centurion.

Centurion?

That's my rank. It means I'm in command of 100 men.

Okay, Centurion. Sir, if you could tell us of your involvement in the Jesus case.

I first saw Jesus when he was brought into the Praetorium.

Could you please describe what a praetorium is for the benefit of our viewers?

The Praetorium is the HQ of the Roman presence in Jerusalem. The Governor has offices there, court is held there, and other government functions; and of course, there is a barracks for the Imperial Legions.

How many Roman troops are stationed in Jerusalem?

I'm here to blow the whistle on a cover-up, but that doesn't mean I'm giving out classified military information.

Sorry, I was just exercising the public's right to know.

This is the Roman Empire, there's no sissy first amendment here.

Of course not. Tell us about that meeting with Jesus.

He was brought to the Praetorium by the chief priest's guards, but they didn't come in, something about getting all unholy if they came into our building. I don't know what that's supposed to mean. They have some weird ideas. So his Excellency the governor had to keep going in and out of the compound, trying to figure out what exactly they wanted us to do with Jesus.

And what did they want you to do with Jesus?

Kill him, I suppose.

You're not sure?

Most likely that's what they were after. That's what ended up happening. As I said, they were outside; I was inside. Governor Pilate kept asking Jesus questions and then going out and talking to the high priest's people, then asking Jesus more questions. He was getting pretty frustrated.

Jesus was getting frustrated?

No, not him. Pilate. Jesus was calm as could be. Stubborn, yes. He would barely answer Pilate. But frustrated? Nothing. No anger, no fear. It was weird. I think the Governor thought it was weird, too, because he even asked Jesus if he understood what he could do to him. What Pilate could do to Jesus, I mean.

Did he understand?

I don't know how to answer you. If anything, he understood more than that. He told Pilate that he, the Governor, couldn't be doing anything unless his God allowed it.

What did the Governor think of that?

It freaked him out. That and he got some message from his wife, and he started pacing like a panther. Pilate just wanted Jesus out of there. So he thought he'd punish Jesus a little, let the chief priests know he was taking them seriously, and then let him go. So he turned Jesus over to us.

And what did you do?

It might surprise your ah, audience, but there can be an ugly side to military life.

Do tell.

Yes, sir. You'd be surprised. We took Jesus and gave him the customary forty lashes. (Actually we only give 39 lashes, just in case we lost count somewhere. You wouldn't want to go over.) But before we got to that, some of the boys had a little fun.

What kind of fun do you mean?

I was in on it, too, sorry to say. Well, we heard he was supposed to be some kind of prophet, so we blindfolded him, then stood around in a circle and took turns beating on him, seeing if he could use his prophet power to say who hit him.

Was he able to guess correctly?

What are you talking about? Of course he didn't guess correctly! He didn't guess at all. He just stood there and took it. You could see he was hurting. We're not little guys, and we really let him have it, but he never said anything.

Sounds pretty brutal.

It gets worse. We overheard Governor Pilate say something about him being a king, so we wrapped him in a purple tablecloth, and put a stick in his hand, and pretended to bow down like you do to a king, only every time we came up from the bow, we punched him square in the face. Then someone got the idea to make a crown for him out of some briars. There are some pretty nasty ones that grow over here, and we smashed it down on his head until he was so bloody his own mother couldn't have recognized him.

But Jesus was not let go after that.

No. By this time there was a mob outside, and Pilate took Jesus out to them, all dressed up like we had him, but they just started screaming for Jesus' blood.

Governor Pilate himself told us the chief priests had goaded the crowd into that.

I don't know about that. That's outside, remember? I was in.

Of course.

So Pilate came back in wiping his hands on his toga and swearing up a blue streak. Then he points over to us soldiers and says, "Do what they say." And we can hear the crowd outside: "Crucify him, crucify him!"

So that's what you did.

Yes, sir.

Tell us about the crucifixion.

Crucifixion is never pretty, but this was worse than usual. We nailed him to the cross. Right through his hands and feet. Most always, we tie the poor saps to the crosses. Not him. Nails about this long. (Hold hands about nine inches apart.)

Did you see the whole crucifixion?

That's part of the job. I'm at four or five crucifixions a week, sometimes a lot more. Several at a time. Mostly, you don't watch the whole thing beginning to end. It can take a week or more for some of them to die. You pull guard duty at Golgotha (that's where we crucify here at Jerusalem), maybe one watch every couple of days. Because of the politics surrounding Jesus „ this being a big Jewish holiday with a lot of troublemakers in town for the occasion „ a number of us were assigned to stick with Jesus till the end.

And so you were there for the whole crucifixion.

It was very short, mostly because he was already in pretty bad shape when we put him up there. Jesus died right away, within a couple of hours. But it seemed like forever.

What do you mean?

Well, at the start of it, we were still horsing around, drawing straws for Jesus' clothes, divvying up his stuff right in front of him, like we always do. But then we noticed it was getting dark.

And time for the night watch.

No. It was lunchtime. But it sure didn't look like it. It just kept getting darker. Not cloudy, just dark.

That's strange.

That's not all of it. After a couple of hours, Jesus lets out this big yell. He had mumbled some things before, I wasn't really paying attention, but he lets out this scream and then there's this earthquake. And then he stops moving, and so does the ground. I saw one of the other soldiers go up and poke him with his javelin. Just kept jabbing at him, until there's all this blood, and Jesus doesn't move. And then it's light again.

The sun came back out?

No, the sun hadn't gone anywhere; it just quit shining. But the light comes back and I'm thinking: "This really was a Son of God."

Are you saying that you became a believer in Jesus at that point?

No, I don't think so. I wouldn't have known what to believe about him, except that it looked like the gods sure weren't happy that we killed him.

And then Jesus was buried.

Yes, sir. They were in an awful hurry. A big holiday was starting and the Jewish people weren't allowed to touch any dead bodies once it started or else ... I don't know what. They just weren't supposed to. So they had to get him buried before sundown, because that's when the holiday started. I thought that was kind of funny, since it had already been dark once that day, but they were in a big rush. Someone loaned his tomb, temporary-like, until permanent arrangements could be figured out. So on the Governor's orders, once they put the body in the tomb, we closed it up with a rock, like those Jewish tombs do, but we also sealed it with wax, and stood guard.

What was the purpose of the wax?

So you could tell if the tomb had been messed with. If the wax was broken, someone had been in there.

Couldn't someone reseal it with new wax?

We would know.

How would you be able to tell?

We use a special seal to make a mark in the wax. Details are classified. But it doesn't matter. No one sneaks past the Roman Infantry.

But Pilate says the guards all fell sleep and the body was stolen.

He's lying.

You say this about the Imperial Governor of Judea?

Yes, sir. It's treason, I know. That's why I'm hiding in the dark like this. I could get killed for telling you this. I will get killed if they figure out who I am.

How do we know you're telling the truth?

If I fell asleep on guard duty, they'd have killed me already. No one fell asleep, they just told us to say that we did, then paid us to keep quiet.

Then what are you saying happened?

We saw this light in the middle of the night, and these two guys. Not normal guys. Wearing white clothes, but ... well, I can't really describe them. They rolled the stone back while we just stood there in shock. And then he came out of the tomb.

The dead Jesus walked out of the tomb.

No! You make it sound like a zombie movie! Dead people don't walk. He wasn't dead, not anymore. He walked out of the grave just like you walk out of your house in the morning.

And what did you and the other soldiers do?

We ran. These were brave men. I know most of them pretty well, but we all ran for our lives. I haven't seen any of them since. We're all being transferred, split up. I doubt I'll see any of them again. But I've been watching your show. I heard what Pilate said, the liar. And I heard those other people, too. I had to come and set the record straight. Jesus is alive.

There you've heard it from an inside source: the Empire's story of grave robbers and a hoax is itself an elaborate cover-up. What conclusions can we draw from this, and from the other interviews in this series? Only one: Jesus of Nazareth is alive! Good night, and have an eternal tomorrow.