The Trojan Horse (2) – Masada – JJ Benítez

Written in 1986. Trojan Horse 2 reproduces the second time travel Jason and Elysium made back to Palestine year 30, two American travelers who stayed 11 days in the company of Jesus during his passion and death and the preceding days. The first trip ended after the Galilean apparent resurrection which the explorers had no opportunity to confirm.

An unexpected incident occurred during the first trip forced the Trojan Horse project to send the two militars on a new expedition. Among the instruments that Jason and Elysium took with them to carry out their mission was a microphone that the Major had hidden in a vase in the room where the Last Supper took place, and due to an earthquake Jason was forced to leave and return to the spaceship for the journey back to 1973.

My score:

Well, this artifact recovery was crucial to perform a second leap in time since the latter had not been initially planned. The microphone was used to record the conversation between Jesus and his disciples during the Last Supper right before his capture. It was necessary that these devices return to the period to which they belonged and not leave them "forgotten" in a time that could raise suspicions and confusions among locals.

The first part of the book, perhaps more than 200 pages, is a very extensive account of strictly technical matters: the new instrumental travelers should implement, the dismantling and subsequent assembly of the spacecraft, the medical checkups the explorers had to take, etc.; this is perhaps the most tedious part of the whole series. This fact explains why a number of readers leave the task in this sequel; because the amount of irrelevant data that uses nearly half of the book is an almost infallible deterrent; and needless to say the quantity of footers that abound throughout the book, some of them even take more than half of the page. Only those who were truly captivated after reading the first part will be in shape to withstand the test that constitutes the second prologue.

Although ... to its credit, all that long-winded speech has its interesting side; for example the technological advances we can count today that back in the 70s are presumed not to exist are remarkable, as is the "snakeskin": A super resistant layer Jason wore attached to his body in order to protect himself from attack, it is similar to the material developed with nanotechnology today and that is projected to manufacture garments in the future.

In this second volume it is finally revealed what was said in the Last Supper scene, which was hinted at in The Trojan Horse 1, but was not included in the first paperback edition due to its length. As we note in the first volume, many of the events that happened in the life of Jesus were disrupted by the sacred writers; and as expected alterations are still present in the episode of the Last Supper. Jason discloses a lot of data that greatly differs from the accounts provided by the Bible such as the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John; leaving the institution of the Eucharist in question.

The second trip, in addition to recovering the microphone is planned to register Jesus' apparitions after his resurrection. Again, the sacred writers varies in many aspects: number of apparitions, sites where they took place, and witnesses that were present. According to the Mayor, this discrepancy in the information recorded in the sacred books lies in the fact that the disciples never took the initiative to note down the events that happened in the life of Jesus in those very moments, and it was until many years after his death that they thought about writing down his teachings and deeds, of course not without altering information because they either did not remember accurately or because of the ambition to form a new religion. It is also to be considered that some of the writers of the Bible, converted disciples after Jesus' death, had no direct contact with him; therefore their role is reduced to mere hearsay witnesses as in the case of the Apostle Paul.

Another important aspect of this volume is the presence of Mary, Jesus’ mother; she describes the episodes of Jesus’ conception and childhood. This chapter is worth reading it, according to the writer, sacred works went from exaggeration to fantasy, altering dates, circumstances, and adding fantastic objects to the story. Trojan horse claims that the facts were much more quotidian and human than it was taught by religion. Only the "profitability" of a future religion would confer divine and sensational nuances to natural events such as the conception and childhood of a human being.

Note: Only the Spanish edition is available at the moment.