The Ethics of Politics and Illness-- the Edwards case

On 60 Minutes last night Senator John and Elizabeth Edwards bravely faced the Inquisition at the hands of Katie Couric. She was pleasant enough while busily probing the private parts of their lives, like an overly friendly proctologist. Elizabeth as you will know has had cancer. And it has recurred, this time in 2-3 spots in her bones. And it is incurable, though with treatment the inevitable could be put off a long time. Kay Yow for example, the coach of the women's N.C. State basketball team, has been battling this sort of cancer for 20 years and is still coaching.

But John Edwards is wanting to do more than coach and influence a few budding athlete's lives. He wants to be President of the United States. Now I must tell you I like John Edwards a lot, on a lot of grounds. He and Elizabeth are good members of historical Edenton St. U. Methodist Church in Raleigh N.C. John is a graduate of UNC law school and a big Tar Heel fan. Obviously I have an affinity for this man.

But more to the political point, he is an old school old style moderate southern Democrat. One who is basically conservative on personal ethical issues and progressive on issues like the environment, health care and the like. There aren't that many Democrats out there like Sam Ervin used to be, who do not agree with the radical fringe of the Democratic party, but John Edwards is one. I like his work of late with the Poverty Center in Chapel Hill, and I like a lot of the positions he takes on key issues, including the Iraq War. I think many of his basic positions are coherent and consistent with the ethics of Jesus and various NT writers if they were to take a stand on such modern issues.

But leaving all that aside, should he even be running with his wife battling terminal cancer? As Katie Couric not so gently asked last night-- shouldn't he just withdraw from the race and attend to his wife's illness and give her more time to be with their kids? Won't this cancer become a distraction? How could he concentrate on major crises we must face if he's busy worrying about his wife? Aren't they in denial by carrying on as if nothing had happened? Well these are good and fair questions and it was interesting to listen to the answers.

One thing that especially struck me about these two last night is how much they love each other. John kept talking about how "we are running for President". That is the way it is with them-- they are indeed a couple, in it together through thick and thin. And both of them have an altruistic desire to be good public servants, to give back to the country which has blessed them so much. As you may know, John came up from very humble blue collar, mill-worker roots, which is why he relates so well to ordinary folks. This couple has a sort of optimism about the potential of Americans for good, that reminds one of John Kennedy at his best. This couple has asked "what can I do for my country", and they believe they can make a difference. Whether they are right or wrong, these folks do not fit the mold of cynical, world-weary, unscrupulous politicians. They are honest, open, and yes they are ambitious.

Elizabeth said last night that she did not want her legacy to be that she was the one who deprived the country of her husband's best service. She said she felt fine and was excited to continue on the campaign trail. And John said he didn't want anyone voting for him out of sympathy. Rightly so. We need to elect the best candidate, not merely the one we most empathise with personally.

And of course they are both right that we do not know how long any of us are going to live. Tomorrow is not promised, and life does not say please, it just keeps coming. One person once said to me "life is what happens when you are making other plans." How true. But this couple has decided not to let the "stuff which happens" decide how they will live the rest of their lives. I think this is brave rather than foolhardy, I think this is living on the basis of faith rather than fear of the inevitable, because of course all of us are terminal in this body in this life. It's just that some of us haven't read the memo yet or we are in denial about it.

So I say, leave them alone. If Elizabeth says she is not letting him quit and that's her decision, then fine. If she says they will continue to make time for their children and family life as they always do, then lets not accuse them of being bad parents, or selfishly ambitious folks. There is in fact a strong sense of calling they have on and in their lives. They believe they are supposed to be doing what they are doing, they believe its what God wants, and who are we to say otherwise? So lets see how the next year and a bit play out. Let's see how they do. Let's pray for the health of Elizabeth, and let's not wave the C word in front of their faces any more. Whether you like their politics or not, they are good Christian people. Let's respect their decision.

The Lazarus Effect-- Part Six

CHAPTER 14: STONE ON A ROLL

Patrick Stone had indeed taken care of everything. He felt positively giddy. In a matter of hours, he’d be 30,000 feet above the havoc he’d wreaked. He practically danced his way between his closet, bureau and suitcases as he finished packing. Everything was falling into place.

His graduate assistant, Raymond wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, as his mother would have said (if she could still speak intelligently), but he did have a gift when it came to forgeries. The poor sap thought that all this time he’d been making teaching tools. In reality, Stone had merely been honing the young man’s skills for the day he had known would come. The day that came yesterday, when that dolt, West, had discovered the tomb in Bethany. Raymond had certainly earned his keep—alerting him to the find, and helping him move the boulder over the tomb. He knew West wouldn’t stay trapped forever—and the head start on his plans had been eclipsed only by the satisfaction of knowing his arch nemesis was completely helpless.

Stone had stayed out of sight until after that Arab groundskeeper rescued West, and then easily made his way into the tomb to snag the stone bearing the inscription, as well as a jar full of what appeared to be bits of manuscripts. It had taken a bit of chiseling and scraping to remove the stone, but all in all, the block had come out fairly easily. If only he could say the same of the rest of his day.

He couldn’t believe what an idiot that dealer had been. Regulations smegulations. He had a priceless antiquity in his hands—something that could have made both him and the old man rich—not to mention famous. Well, it was the old guy’s loss—he’d keep all the money for himself, just as soon as he got the original out of the country. He would have settled for some authenticity paperwork—but it became clear even that wasn’t an option. That’s when he’d moved on to Plan B.

He’d made good time driving it over to the dump Raymond rented and because he’d made sure the student had no life other than to serve his professor’s whims, he knew the replica would be completed before day’s end, as he demanded. Promising to return later that evening for the original, he’d headed back to the antiquities shop in the hopes of convincing el Said to either play along with him, or, if worse came to worse, threaten the man into secrecy. Finding the shop closed, Stone weighed his options, and was about to leave when, impulsively, he decided to follow the man.

They’d taken a short windy walk up to the park. When the dealer paused at a bench, Stone, hand on his concealed father’s antique derringer, had meant to initiate a perfectly civil conversation. Unfortunately, he startled el Said, immediately putting the old man on the defensive. Raising his hands in a show of good faith, Stone had forgotten about the gun—which, now waving wildly from his right hand in plain view, did anything but placate the Arab. El Said reached for it, and darned if the relic didn’t actually fire! Tumbling forward, the man caught the bullet in the gut, and, to make matters worse, he’d cracked his head on the bench before landing in a heap, pulling Stone down with him and pinning the gun hand under El Said’s head. Panicked, he’d barely managed to pull out his hand from under the stricken man before he caught sight of West through the trees. Ducking back into a grove, he figured he could retrieve the gun when West inevitably went for help. But fate smiled upon him one more time that day. The idiot pulled out the gun before going for help!

Quickly reassessing the situation, Stone decided that he could now make a break for it—the gun would now have Arthur West’s fingerprints on it, and by the time authorities moved forward with any sort of an investigation, he, Patrick Stone, would be on his way to fame and fortune on a completely different continent.

He’d taken a labyrinth of alleyways back to his car and sped back to Raymond’s flat. When the student had finally answered the door, Stone barged his way in, and seeing that the replica, for all intents, was completed, grabbed the original, and mumbled something about being late for the theatre. Leaving Raymond with instructions to continue aging the faux stone, he promised to be in touch later. The quietude of the drive back to his own flat gave him the final bit of inspiration.

He left the stone wrapped in a raincoat he kept in the back seat and made his way into his apartment, not even aware that his self-congratulatory thoughts had made their way out of his head and into a rapid undertone. The paranoia didn’t set in until he reached his door. After checking out the windows and seeing no one on the street, he’d gone first to his desk. Rifling through his rolodex, he found Art West’s address scribbled on a crumpled card. He’d then grabbed a phone book, ordered a courier to stop first at Raymond’s and then at West’s and then, uncharacteristically, added 20% to the total fee, if they’d guarantee delivery by dawn. It was just money, and he’d have plenty of it soon enough. The best part, of course, he would save for last. One more well-placed phone call and Dr. West’s goose would be thoroughly cooked.

CHAPTER 15: THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY

Sammy Cohen could set his watch by his own internal clock. Despite being awakened by Grace’s late-night plea for blood donors, his eyes opened, right on schedule at 6.18 a.m. No matter that he’d spent more than forty minutes making calls after ringing off with Grace. Living in a city that all too often doubled as a war zone, most companies had established phone trees for emergency purposes—much the same way Amercian Midwestern elementary schools used them for snow closings. By 1 am, most of the IAA employees would have been notified that O-positive blood was needed at Sinai.

Donning his tefillin, the black prayer boxes devout Jewish men affixed to their arms and foreheads with a series of leather straps, he’d moved methodically and comfortably through his morning prayers, adding an extra misheberach, for Kahlil’s recovery, before downing his usual Tuesday morning breakfast of muesli and strawberries. By 7.48 he had eased his car into his reserved parking space at the IAA, and by 8.00, on the dot, he was pouring the first cup of coffee from the pot in his office.

Still blowing the steam in anticipation of the first scalding sip, he paged through the emails littering his inbox. The knock at his door made him jump, bringing his coffee dangerously close to landing in his lap.

“So sorry to startle you Sammy! You didn’t spill that did you? I can see the steam from here.”

“Grace! I didn’t exactly expect to see you at my door so early. No my dear, disaster averted—coffee still in the cup. Come in. Can I pour you one? What news do you have? How’s Kahlil?”

“Good. Yes, to the coffee, thank you. Sara’s not opened Soloman’s Porch yet—she stayed on at hospital last night with Hannah. They hadn’t moved Kahlil from recovery to ICU when Art and I left around 3. Hannah understandably didn’t want to wait alone. The prognosis sounded good though. A charming young surgeon—Schwartz was his name—let us know he’d removed a bullet from Kahlil’s diaphragm, removed his spleen and that the coma—“

“Coma? I had no idea it was that serious.”

“Actually, he explained that the coma was expected—Kahlil apparently took a nasty spill and conked his head. He has some internal bruising in his head and the coma should help that heal. For as touch and go as we all know the first few hours are after any major trauma, Dr. Schwartz seemed very optimistic. Thank you again for starting that call chain for the O-positive.”

“How did Kahlil come to be shot in the first place?”

“Details on that are still sketchy. Art found him—already shot—in the park at the Shrine of the Book, called the police and then wound up at the station giving a statement and fingerprints before joining us at the hospital. You should know, he’s put in a call to Harry Scholer, who’s on his way here.”

Grace took a sip of coffee from the mug Sammy offered her, letting him digest the news.

“Harry Scholer? Harry Scholer! He didn’t make enough trouble for us with the James Ossuary authenticity report? What would possess Art to call Scholer?”

“There seems to be a little issue with the gun, presumably the weapon responsible for the hole in Kahlil. Art accidentally moved it and while he’s not really a suspect they had to rule him out. I think the call to Harry was more pre-emptive than anything. And you know that he and Art go way back.”

“But surely Art knows that after defending Oded Golan and exposing us to months of criticism, Harry’s not exactly welcome in these halls.”

“I’m sure that if Art had taken the time to think about it, he may have chosen a different attorney, but obviously he wasn’t thinking too clearly if he touched the gun at all. In his defense he did have one doozy of a day, yesterday.”

Sammy sighed. Maybe he was overreacting to Scholer’s impending arrival. He hoped so. He decided to move on. “About yesterday. When we returned from Bethany, we took the ossuary straight to the clean room. After they took the usual photographs they pried it open, and got quite a start when they didn’t find bones...”

“That’s a real shame. So, just an empty box? Not even any fragments? I hope Art won’t be too disappointed.”

“Quite the contrary, my dear. We found a scroll.”

“A scroll? Why would someone put a scroll in a casket?”

“Good question. That’s one of the reasons I set up a meeting for 10.30 this morning. Did you know that Andre Chartier was in town for a conference? He’s agreed to skip the morning session to join us.”

“Well, we couldn’t have planned that any better if we tried. Andre’s certainly the go-to man for ancient scripts!”

Though recently retired to the south of France, scholars the world over still considered Andre Chartier the leading expert in Herodian period Holy Land scripts. He’d practically transformed epigraphy into an art form. Through the close study of letters—how they’re formed, how they’re connected, how they’re used—a good epigrapher can date a written sample to a particular time period. Chartier raised the bar for his field, not only with his extensive knowledge, but with unprecedented diplomacy. In any given authenticity dispute, inevitably both sides would call on his expertise. His input at this stage of their investigation could allay any lingering doubts from the James ossuary debacle.

“That he is. Perhaps the tide is turning for our friend Art. This may well turn into the find of a lifetime.”

“For Art’s sake, I hope so. He could use some good news.”

“For all our sakes. If you’ll excuse me for a bit, I need to get through my mail. You’re welcome to stay and drink your coffee.”
“Thanks, Sammy. I think I’ll take a walk. I didn’t get much sleep and the exercise will do me good. Why don’t I just meet up with you at 10.30?”

“10.30 it is. We’ll meet here in my office and head up to the lab together.”

“Wonderful. See you then.”

CHAPTER 16: POLICE ON THE PROWL

Johah Katz rubbed his eyes and face, aware of the day’s worth of stubble building on his chin and cheeks. By the time he’d finished reviewing what little they’d collected on the el Said shooting he’d realized that there was no point in going home for two hours sleep. Shaving kit in hand, he ducked into the locker room at the station.

No sooner had he lathered his face than a young rookie appeared.. “Um. Sir. Excuse me? We just got a tip on that shooting last night? I was told to let you know right away?”

Katz met his eyes in the mirror. “Kadinsky, right? Thank you, son. I’ll be there as soon as I finish shaving.”

The rookie seemed to have grown roots. “Anything else?” Katz waited for a reply, and getting none, turned to face the young officer. “If that’s all you’ve got, you’re dismissed.”

Kadinsky blinked. “Oh. Yessir. Thank you sir. Sorry sir.”

Katz turned back to his stubble. Had he ever been that nervous around his superiors? He hoped not. Wondering what sort of new information might have come in, he quickly finished with the razor and rinsed off his face before heading back into the squad room.

Leibowitz and Riess were waiting for him, looking like he felt. They’d obviously not gone home after their shift ended last night either. “Well men, what do you have?”

Riess fingered a pink message slip in one hand. “We’re not sure this has anything to do with the attack, but some guy just called—wouldn’t leave a name or contact number—saying that he had it on ‘good authority’ that Professor West was stealing and forging antiquities. Said we’d find proof at the professor’s flat.”

Leibowitz chimed in. “Maybe we got it all wrong last night. Maybe Mr. el Said figured out what West was doing and confronted him. We don’t have the forensic reports back from last night yet—lab was closed by the time we finished up with the Professor—so we don’t know for certain that the professor didn’t shoot the old guy.”

“Ordinarily I wouldn’t put too much stock in an anonymous call, but it’s a bit suspicious that Dr. West’s name pops up so soon after the incident last evening. I think we need to check it out, but we also need to be sure we do absolutely everything by the book. Just to be sure, I’m going to see this through myself. This Dr. West is very well connected here in town. Before we go anywhere though, you two need to hit the showers—you’re both looking a little rough. Meet me in my office no later than ten-thirty. Understood?”

“Yessir!” The officers seemed reinvigorated. It wasn’t often that the Inspector included the responding officers in his follow-ups. Usually, by this point in a case, he turned it all over to the detectives and waited for the reports.

Art had wasted no time getting to bed. He hadn’t objected when Grace offered to let herself out—climbing the stairs to his room as she descended those to the front door. He’d managed to remove his shoes, before taking what would be his final sip of the sweet bourbon and sugar mixture she’d fixed him. Leaning back against the pillows, he’d fallen asleep instantly—sitting upright, fully clothed.

Though sleep came easily, rest eluded him. He dreamed of caves filled with stalactites that, as they hung from the ceiling like popsicles, melted into drops then torrents of blood. The blood then rose in pools around him becoming encrusted, engulfing him like quicksand. Above him he could see a sliver of light that played with the edges of an inscription too dusty to read. The cave became a cell, and as the blood-red sand continued to rise, potsherds and bone began to emerge like small shells and plankton in a tide that rolled not straight against a beach, but rolled in on itself, with him in the midst of what was rapidly becoming a whirlpool. Trying desperately to catch his breath he inhaled a mouthful of tinny-tasting sand. Something—a small rodent—scurried across his right arm. Flinging it off, his hand brushed the ceiling, now rough like limestone. He reached up with both arms and began pounding with every fiber of his soul. Noiselessly he screamed for Kahlil.

It took more than a few minutes for Art to make the journey back from his nightmare to the late morning sun beating down onto his bed. It took a few more, still, to realize that the pounding wasn’t a lingering reminder of the dream, but emanating from his front door.

“Open up. Police. Dr. West? Dr. Arthur West? Jerusalem Police. We need you to open the door or we’ll do it ourselves!”

Completely disoriented, Art looked at the clock. 11. 10 am. Why was he still in bed? Why were there police at his door? Why was—it all came back in a rush. The ossuary, the tablet, the trap...Kahlil!

Dragging the blanket with him to the window, he raised it and stuck out his head. “I’ll be down in just a moment. Sorry-I was asleep—I didn’t hear you.”

Even to himself he sounded like an idiot. The officers below sounded like they were trying to raise the dead. How could he not have heard them? Then he remembered the dream and blanched. Disentangling himself from the blanket, he splashed some water on his face, ran a comb through his hair and tried to press out the wrinkles in his clothes with his still damp hands, as he ran down the stairs to the door.

Flinging it open, he found Inspector Katz accompanied by Leibowitz, Reiss, and two other officers. “What can I do for you gentleman?” Art exhaled.

“May we come in, Dr. West? We have some follow-up questions for you.” Again, Inspector Katz sounded amiable, almost apologetic.

“Of course—“ The officers didn’t wait for him to finish the sentence before stepping over the threshold. As he started to lead them upstairs, he turned back around. “what’s this all about? Did you find out who shot Kahlil, I mean, Mr. el Said?”

Katz started to reply when he was interrupted by an outcry followed by a curse not swallowed quickly enough. They all turned back towards the door. “What is it Reiss?” the inspector demanded.

“Nothing Sir. I apologize. I stubbed my toe on this package...” A light could almost be seen going off in the young officer’s face. “...on this package here. I wonder if this could have something to do with that call we got?”

Art didn’t like the way his empty stomach was beginning to turn. “What call?”

Katz ignored him for the moment. “Maybe we ought to have a look.” Turning back to Art, he chose his words carefully. “Dr. West, we received a call this morning that gives us reason to believe that you may be, ah, how shall I put this, you may be in possession of some things you shouldn’t have...may we see what’s in this package?”

Something hammered in the back of Art’s head. A conversation from yesterday that he couldn’t quite recall. “What package?”

Reiss, with some effort, held up the package that had stubbed his toe. “This package sir. From Lo’mi Courier Service.”

“I have nothing to hide. I...” Again, the officers didn’t wait for him to finish his sentence, taking his “nothing to hide” as permission to tear open the wrapping. As the others audibly gasped, Art had to sit on the stair. There, right there in his foyer, stood an officer holding an engraved limestone tablet. He shook his head in disbelief, unable to form the words of protest running at mock speed through his brain.

“Dr. West. I’m afraid we’re going to have to ask you to come with us. This is exactly the sort of item we were told we would find here. You can make any calls you need to make from the station.” Inspector Katz’s tone had changed, the graciousness replaced by authority. Leibowitz reached for his handcuffs but Katz shook his head no.

“Dr. West? I’d like to spare you any embarrassment. If you’ll come with me?”

Only then, did yesterday’s conversation come back to him. “...don’t talk to anyone. Especially not the police...” How he wished he’d listened to Harry.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: STONE COLD

Tuesday had been a memorable day – good and bad – for Dr. Patrick Stone as well. On the plus side, he had managed to lead Arthur West into such a quagmire that it should take him days, maybe weeks, to clear himself. He ALSO had in hand a jar with some bits of old manuscript plus the genuine Lazarus inscription – both of which Raymond had found in the tomb early Monday afternoon. And now he was weighing whether to become more famous by going to the press and creating an international sensation, or whether to feather his retirement nest by making millions.

Stone was the kind of person who got as much satisfaction from seeing West stumble as from receiving personal praise. Praise is ephemeral and not necessarily lucrative. On the whole, he decided it would be far better to take the money and run. But he realized through his experience with el Said that there was no way he could sell the stone here in Jerusalem. The environment was too volatile, and the antiquities police too omnipresent.

But how would he handle the manuscripts? And how would he get the far more valuable inscription out of the country? More to the point, since he didn’t want to let the stone out of his sight, how was he going to get out of the country with the stone? As he drank his cup of hot Nigerian coffee he pondered these problems at length.

As for the down side of the day, true enough sealing Art West inside the tomb was a nasty prank – but he knew Art would find a way out in short order. Plus, it gave him time to consider options for the rest of the day.

Worse, however, was the episode in the park with el Said. Stone had hoped to talk again, this time more calmly, in el Said’s home. However, when he arrived, el Said was just leaving. He followed el Said to the park and confronted him there hoping to threaten him into cooperating or keeping quiet about the inscription. He had taken with him, just as a defensive reflex, an old hand gun which had belonged to his father. But his antique derringer was just that – a conversation piece. Unfortunately, when confronted, el Said had grabbed Stone’s hand causing the gun to go off, and el Said to tumble on top of him. To top that off the old man hit his head on the iron park bench.

Stone, frightened, had barely been able to extract his hand (sans gun unfortunately) from under el Said’s body, beat a quick retreat, and hide before West showed up. That was a shock! As the devil would have it, things turned out almost perfectly. The one person who could clearly link Stone to the Lazarus tablet was now in a coma, according to the news reports, and Stone’s nemesis would surely be implicated. He had not told his doctoral student, Ray Simpson, about the incidents with el Said – plausible deniability. So far as Simpson knew, Stone had simply gone to the theater last night.

Stone ordered Simpson to make the knock off copy of the inscription Monday afternoon. Simpson had a steady hand and experience in making replicas of artifacts for use as visual aids in Stone’s lectures. Posting the stone anonymously to West by overnight courier, and tipping off the police were the fun parts. Stone would have loved to hear West try to explain away that copy!

Simpson was sworn to silence and given the rest of the week off. He would leave Simpson some money to stay in Jerusalem for awhile to continue his library research and then return to Yale to put the final touches on his thesis. Later today he would call Simpson and explain that his mother was ill and he needed to return home. As a further inducement to silence, he would promise to send a glowing job recommendation to Johns Hopkins. In fact, he would word his message in such a way to suggest that without his silence, Ray would never see a diploma or a job! That should secure Simpson’s discretion once and for all. He would be eternally grateful to Dr. Stone.

Stone decided to leave the manuscript fragments in Jerusalem for now. Ray never saw the contents of the clay jar he himself found in the far reaches of one empty niche. He had to think of a way to disguise the manuscripts and hide them for now. Several ideas came to mind.

Stone finally devised a step-by-step plan for how to get the precious object out of the country. Wednesday would be an insanely busy day. He made an abbreviated list on his palm pilot. First, Bethlehem. Second, go to the old Jewish quarter and purchase a form that attested he was only carrying a replica of a priceless antiquity, not the real thing. Third, get the form signed and notarized by one of the shadier dealers in the old quarter. The form would state that the original was in the hands of the IAA. Therefore, the fake would be called the original, and the original identified as a copy. In this way, he could take the object out of the country in plain view as a souvenir, showing it to the authorities with his passport.

So it was off to Bethlehem to do some errands, and off to the old quarter to do some paperwork, and finally back home to pack. He purchased his e-ticket at Gotravel.com for the 10:15 AM Thursday flight. Yes, indeed, things were looking up for the man who lived by the motto that looking out for No. 1 was all that was essential in life. Everything and everyone else was expendable.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: UP IN THE AIR

Harry Scholer had had two careers and the second one as head of the ASBA was bidding fair to be far more interesting, though far less lucrative than his law career. Scholer had been called many things in his career, but no one accused him of lacking intelligence and insight. He had a real nose for what was significant and what was not, what mattered and what didn’t. He also had good friends of all sorts of faith commitments, including evangelical Christians like Art West.

Art had done numerous articles for ASBA’s popular magazine Biblical Artifacts which sold hundreds of thousands of copies. While in Reagan Airport, Harry picked up the latest edition of Ha’ Aretz and was working through the Jerusalem Post while on the plane, taking readings on what the temperature would be in Jerusalem in regard to the West arrest. He wanted to use the popular appeal of West and his reputation for honesty to good advantage, especially if this proved to be a big story.

The Alitalia stewardess came to Scholer’s seat bringing him another gin and tonic. Scholer only flew first class these days, especially on the long flight to Tel Aviv. The problem was that Scholer himself was persona non grata with various people in Jerusalem, including some involved with the IAA. Having defended Oded Golan to the hilt, and shown that the IAA had not done as careful a job as it should have in assessing the authenticity of the James ossuary inscription, he needed to tread lightly while in Jerusalem, and not detract from what general sympathy might be felt for West. He would try to keep a low profile.

Harry pushed the call button again for the stewardess. His palm pilot was the one piece of technology he had proudly mastered. For the rest, he always begged for help.

“Ma’am, do we have wireless access to the internet here in first class?”

“Yes. Did you know the hull of the front part of the plane is actually a huge receptor for wireless signals? Anyway, now that we’re at cruising altitude you’re welcome to do what you like. Just dial into our AT+T wireless connection number off your laptop to connect to the internet.”

“So simple,” said Harry with a wry grin.

He quickly pulled out his Sony Vaio, waited for Windows to come up, clicked on Internet connection, and typed in the necessary phone number. He was surfing the net within another minute. His Hotmail account was hot indeed— twenty-three new messages in his inbox since yesterday, and another 15 in the junk mail. This was going to take some time. But what he was mainly looking for was access to a file he had lodged on the ASBA website just before he left, which detailed information on whether and to what degree Israeli Law could be enforced on foreign nationals. This was going to take a while, but fortunately he had several hours before he landed in Tel Aviv Thursday afternoon.

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At the Tel Aviv airport, Patrick Stone managed to get through customs with nary a raised eyebrow. His authentication papers had worked like a charm, and now he was going through yet more security checks. He was feeling pretty smug. Soon he would be wafting his way through the friendly skies to London. He had been totally oblivious to the curly haired gentleman tailing him.

Arriving at Gate 6 with an hour to kill, he entertained himself by examining the pictures in the morning paper showing the notorious Arthur West, who had seemed to be such a nice Christian man. But now, who knew what he was really capable of? Stone allowed himself to smile at all this mayhem.

“Serves that arrogant fool right,” he muttered under his breath.

Stone had contacted a Sotheby’s agent as well as an old colleague from his Tübingen days who worked in the British Museum. He wanted the latter to vouch to the former for the authenticity of the stone, so that it could be properly appraised. The meeting was to transpire on Friday morning. This gave him time to get to London, check into the hotel, and get a good night’s rest. Maybe the British Museum itself would put in a private bid? Maybe he could leverage that against what he could extract from a private dealer? Maybe he could ratchet up the price to astronomical levels? Such fun, playing on the lust for possessing precious antiquities! What sort of silly persons could really believe that Lazarus had been raised from the dead by Jesus and that this stone attested to the fact? Stone had enough problems believing in a historical Lazarus, never mind a historical raising of Lazarus from the dead!

The loud speaker at the gate began blaring,

“All first class passengers are now welcome to board El Al flight 315 non-stop to London.”

“That’s me,” thought Stone. “Time to get out of town while the getting is good.” As he walked down the ramp he realized he would likely never go back to Israel, never set foot in another class room, never write another scholarly article. Who needs academia anemia? Stone was so rapped up in his self-centered revery he never noticed the curly haired man with the skull cap in the economy line next to him closely watching Stone and the bag he was clutching to his chest.

CHAPTER NINETEEN: SCROLL DOWN

Grace had been fretting ever since Art’s call around 11:30. Arthur West had really gotten himself into a jam. He was naive and good and honest, and he lived as though he expected everyone else to be that way as well. Was it just his Christian faith that prevented him from having a healthy fear of danger, or from having a wariness of the wicked ways of the world?

Grace knew in her heart he couldn’t possibly be responsible for either forgery or attempted murder, but the rest of those connected with the IAA didn’t really know the man personally. Besides that, they were now hypersensitive, having already gotten enough bad press from the James ossuary mess. They were going to leave no stone unturned this time in this investigation. After all, they had an object that everyone agreed was a clear forgery, or was it?

The stone could be a fraud without being a forgery. In other words, the stone might be a copy of the original, which would make it a forgery. However, it might just be a fraud, there being no original to copy. West’s digital photos showed what appeared to be the original stone with its inscription in situ. Had Art fashioned this stone and placed it in the niche for all to see? No, this couldn’t be! There must be an original stone!

And was there any connection between Art’s entombment and the grave robbing? Between the grave robbing and the possible murder attempt on el Said? Between the grave robbing and the sending of the forged stone to West? Surely there must be. But Grace could not put all the pieces together in her mind. There was some sort of huge animus that precipitated this chain of events. As a child Grace had loved reading the Arthur Conan Doyle stories about Sherlock Holmes. So far, this was a puzzle he would love, she thought.

It was nearly one o’clock – she needed fresh air and lunch. Her plans to work at the University were slipping away. Maybe a sandwich at Solomon’s Porch and Sarah’s friendly smile would help get her back on track. And she would ask Sarah if there was anything she could do to help Hannah and her father.

Grace arrived at Solomon’s Porch about 1:30. Sarah had already left to be with Hannah, so Grace was finishing her lunch alone when the phone rang. It was Sammy Cohen at the IAA office.

“Oh, Sammy, have you heard that Art was picked up by the police late this morning. And somebody sent him a copy of the missing inscription!? He’s probably in some small, dank police cell being interrogated as we speak! It’s awful! Part of me wants to call Mr. Golan and ask him what he went through – but I’m not sure I want to know!” said Grace, the words tumbling out.

“Slow down, Grace. Remember, we’re partially responsible for Mr. Golan’s plight. Anyway, one of our lawyers called from the police station. She’s keeping her eyes and ears open. They haven’t charged him with anything. I believe this is just scare tactics, however. Art wouldn’t hurt Kahlil, and he didn’t steal that stone! We don’t know much about the forgery though. Try not to worry!”

“You’re right. But, after all, they do have a victim and now a forgery to deal with. Who knows what they are thinking? I can’t stop worrying right now.” replied Grace, her voice shaking.

“What you need is something to take your mind off this problem! Can you come to the IAA building? It’s time to scrutinize what we found inside the Lazarus ossuary!”

The ossuary sat on top of the examination table and all the fluorescent lights were turned on. The limestone surface of the box gleamed in the dazzling light of the room, which was enclosed in the middle of the building, had no windows and required keycard access to enter. Most precious antiquities were examined in this special room. Unlike Sammy’s office, it was immaculately clean and pristine.

When Grace arrived, already present were Cohen , several other members of the IAA and, surprisingly, Professor André Chartier. Sammy had invited him to the IAA office this morning.

Chartier was one of those rare scholars that would be consulted by all parties in a dispute, so great was his reputation.

Sammy Cohen knew that there could be no rush to judgment, no mistakes, in dealing with the Lazarus ossuary. He still felt the sting of criticism from various factions interested in the authenticity of the James box. When he made an announcement about this ossuary, he wanted to be as sure as is humanly possible he was right about the authenticity of this new find.

What intrigued Grace right off the bat is that no one was looking at the ossuary. Rather, they were all staring at a rather substantial scroll which Chartier had been examining since mid-morning.

Grace interrupted, “What exactly was there in this ossuary?”

Dealing with bones was a delicate matter in Israel, especially since Orthodox Jews thought they made one ritually unclean and if they were Jewish bones were sacrosanct. No one apparently had taken any bones from the box, and in any case no one seemed to be concerned about bones.

Chartier had his magnifying glass out and was muttering to himself, “Extraordinaire! Extraordinaire!”

Turning to Grace he said, “Welcome, Mademoiselle Levine. What we have is a document from the Herodian period, written in clear beautiful Aramaic by a quite literate person.”

Grace said, “Why would anyone put a scroll in a casket?”

“A good question. But let me translate a bit for you. Perhaps it will sound strange, yet familiar. There is first of all a heading: ‘Memoirs of the One Whom Jesus Loved.’ This is followed immediatement by:

“A testimony of John when the Jews of Jerusalem sent priests to ask

him who he was. He did not fail to say, but instead confessed freely,

‘I am not the Mashiach’ . . . “

Grace blurted out, “This is almost a verbatim quote from the first chapter of John’s Gospel.”

“Exactemente,” said Chartier, who had at one point been a priest and who was well familiar with the New Testament.

Grace spoke again, “But how much of John’s Gospel do we have in this scroll? All of it?”

“No, no,” said Chartier, “It will take much time to study. Understand, I have only surveyed parts of the document. But, it appears to be, I believe, similar to John 1.19 to 20.31. I did not find the pericope adulterae, the story of the woman caught in adultery in John 7.53-8.11.”

At this point, Grace interjected, “As far as I know, that passage is not canonical – just traditional. In short, few believe that story is part of John’s original Gospel. The oldest texts do not contain it.”

“Very true,” agreed Chartier. “But there is more to say. The heading of the document is not in the same hand as the rest of the document. Furthermore, I have looked at some parallel passages from John 13-19 where the Beloved Disciple is mentioned. He is not called this in these memoirs. Rather he is called Eliezar! It is interesting that at the point where we find John 11.3 that there Lazarus, our way of rendering the name Eliezar, is clearly identified in indirect speech as “the one whom you love”.

Grace asked, “Are you saying that this memoir equates Eliezar with the beloved disciple?”

Chartier replied emphatically, “It is possible. In sum, we seem to have the basis of most of the so-called Gospel of John here. Now, finding this scroll in this ossuary, which seems to be from the Herodian period – well, we may say with a high degree of likelihood that these memoirs were written prior to the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. Now, if I may be so bold, I can suggest to you some more radical ideas. First, one could say that these memoirs are linked to a Judean disciple who was an eyewitness to some of Jesus’ life. And, secondly, this eyewitness, according to these memoirs, was raised by Jesus from the dead!”

Grace’s brain was about to burst.

“How did the inscription read again? Show me the digital pictures that Art took Tuesday morning.”

Cohen picked it up and read it, “Twice dead under Pilatus, twice reborn in Yeshua, in sure hope of resurrection.”

No one spoke for what seemed to be an eternity. Finally, André added,

“I understand, the police have a copy of this stone inscription. And Professor West took these pictures only yesterday. The original must be out there somewhere. And the original attests that Lazarus died twice during the reign of Pilate, but also that he was somehow reborn through Jesus, and he looked forward to resurrection in the future. In sum, this inscription in the tomb, like the inscription on the James ossuary, bears a testimony to the strong belief in resurrection amongst Jesus’ followers.”

Again there was silence.

Cohen then spoke: “We know that in early Judaism many Jews, especially Pharisees, believed in bodily resurrection, and we know Jesus and his followers shared that belief. That is indisputable. But this inscription, if not also the scroll, supports the story in John that Lazarus died and was raised from the dead by Yeshua. Those who buried Lazarus had seen him die - twice. They may have been at the tomb when Jesus raised him from the dead, according to the Gospel.”

Again silence, dead silence.

Cohen then said carefully, “We cannot allow any leaks of this information to anyone, anywhere, anytime, before we are totally ready to authenticate or discredit the scroll, the ossuary, and hopefully the inscription.”

Another IAA official from the legal department added, “The task now is to recover the original stone. It must surface for surely whoever stole the stone yesterday will be trying to sell it quickly. We have already begun interviewing various dealers and brokers. But there are so many ways to get the stone out of the country – it will be difficult to monitor the airport and all the border crossings.”

Grace nodded in agreement.

“We need absolute silence in this matter. Let’s begin the testing on everything here, even the bones. And don’t forget Art and the forged stone. We can vouch for his whereabouts for some of Tuesday. Can we also put out an APB with Interpol to look for the missing stone? And fast?!”

In the corner of the room, Sammy had been talking to Mrs. Dembski, the lawyer who called earlier to alert him of Art’s plight. Apparently, Art had been interrogated on and off this afternoon. He would probably be held overnight and questioned further tomorrow. Given that Art was an American citizen, chances are he would be released by the end of Thursday. After hanging up, Sammy called out,

“It looks like Art will be enjoying the hospitality of our Israeli police tonight!”

Grace quipped: “ I wonder if he likes the standard issue matzo ball soup they will likely serve him?”

The Lazarus Effect--- Part Five

CHAPTER 11—DEPARTURES AND ARRIVALS

The shrill staccato of the phone startled Sara Goldberg as she wiped down the last of the tables in her café. Her stomach dropped with the same weight of the wet rag she let fall to the table as she crossed to the counter to answer. For the past nineteen months, her husband Yacov had been stationed in Hebron, as part of his extended service in the Israeli Army. A late night call could only mean bad news.

“Shalom” she answered shakily.

“Sara! Sara! My father’s on his way to hospital. I wouldn’t have called so late but I didn’t know who else to call. There’s a policeman standing here waiting to take me to Sinai but can you meet me there? I’m afraid to be there alone. I’m—”

Hearing Hannah’s voice, Sara had started to breathe a sigh of relief, until her words sank in. “Hannah, please slow down. Your father’s taken ill? The police are there?”

“No. He’s been attacked. He was meeting Professor West in the park. I don’t know what happened. Sara, I just can’t go to hospital alone.” Hannah’s voice was hoarse and the tears were still flowing.

Grabbing her purse and keys, Sara had already begun turning off lights in her café. “I’m on my way. Do I need to come get you or should I go straight to hospital?”

Hannah took a deep breath. “The officer’s here to take me. I’ll meet you there. And can you please call Grace for me?”

“Absolutely. What else do you need me to do for you?”

“Pray, Sara. Pray for my father.”

“I’m on my way. I’ll meet you in Emergency.”

Sara could hear Hannah holding back a fresh wave of sobs as she rang off. Impulsively, she filled a bag with a handful of muffins and grabbed several bottles of juice and water before setting the alarm and locking the shop. This could be a long night and Hannah would need her strength.

Before starting the engine of her worn Accord, Sara dialed Grace. She knew her friend dreaded late night phone calls as well, having received news of sudden death of her father in Boston in the middle of the Jerusalem night. Grace picked up after only two rings.

“Grace, it’s Sara. Something’s happened to Kahlil el Said and Hannah’s asked us to meet her at Sinai.” She knew that even if Grace had been sleeping, she was one of those people who sprang instantly into full consciousness with the ringing of the phone.

“Kahlil. What happened? Is it serious? Of course it is, or you wouldn’t be calling.” There really is such a thing as a dumb question, she thought. “How’s Hannah?”

“She didn’t say much, but it must be bad. An officer came to her door and offered to take her there himself. All I know is that he was meeting Art in the park and now he’s on his way to Sinai.”

“Where are you? Should I meet you there, or do you want to swing by?”

“I’m at the café. I can probably get there quicker if I go from here, but I can come there if you’d rather not drive.”

“Don’t be silly. I’ll meet you there. Where’s Art? Is he with Kahlil?”

“I’ve no idea. Hannah was too upset about going hospital alone to say much more.”

“I’m on my way. I’ll see if I can reach him for details.”

“I told her we’d meet her at Emergency.”

“Will do. Be safe.”

“You too. I’ll see you soon.”

As Sara started the engine and made a quick U-turn towards the hospital, Grace, now in her car, left messages at both Art’s flat and on his cell, wondering what he had gotten himself into this time.

Ray Simpson tried unsuccessfully to creep about the tiny three-room flat without waking his roommate, Grayson Johnson. He’d been lucky to find someone to share the rent and luckier still that the guy was so laid back he didn’t make a nuisance of himself.

Ray’s sleep deprivation rivaled that of a medical resident. If he played his cards right though, he’d come out with the same Dr. in front of his name—only it’d be for Archaeology not Medicine. Most days he felt like an indentured servant and didn’t look much better. He’d never been an athlete and avoided exercise much the same way he avoided eating anything remotely resembling fresh produce, which resulted in his looking very much like an overstuffed rag doll—softly padded and the color of muslin. No matter. He was basically enslaved to Patrick Stone anyway.

No one else had even applied for the assistantship, and now Ray understood why. But then, his credentials hadn’t gotten him much more than a cartload of standardized rejection letters from virtually every major program on both American coasts. Bottom line, they were stuck with each other because they, each in his own way, desperately needed the other.

Ray tried to remind himself that the misery would end soon. He only needed to survive the summer, make enough money to pay for one more dissertation semester, and impress Stone just enough to get a passable recommendation in his file. All that really meant was being at Dr. Shrew’s beck and call 27 hours a day. He supposed he’d had worse gigs—transferring the school library’s card catalogue to disk, for example—than playing step and fetch it for one of Yale’s tenured professors. And he had to admit that the work had, at times, been pretty interesting. Especially making replicas of artifacts for Stone’s lectures.

Though his eyes burned and his fingers felt like they’d been running violin scales for the last 9 hours, he couldn’t settle down enough to sleep. Stone had been particularly irascible this afternoon—so much so that Ray had turned off the ringer on his cell phone and left it to vibrate among the mess of sheets and blankets on his bed. He had more than enough to do for his task master. He’d finally completed the matter of the moment. Anything else could wait until tomorrow.

Zeke Johnson looked up from the handheld football game at the apartment building across the street. Still no sign of that Stone guy. He’d changed positions more than a dozen times, eaten through three boxes of Cracker Jacks and beaten his all-time highest score twice since setting up surveillance. This tailing stuff was supposed to be cool—exciting—like it was on TV. The cops on Law and Order never made it through a whole cup of coffee before the perp showed up.

He hadn’t agreed with his folks at all about moving to Jerusalem for the impending Rapture. He’d been perfectly happy working the rodeo circuit back home in Texas. It’d been Luke who’d convinced him that even if the world didn’t end, they might as well get out from under Mama and Daddy’s wings and have an adventure or two beyond the interchangeable arena’s they’d visited with the rodeo. Trying to rub the pins and needles out of his left foot, he realized, not for the first time, that his big brother definitely didn’t know everything.

For starters, the food here made the slop they’d eaten on the road back home look like Mama’s Sunday dinner. Even McDonald’s tasted funny over here. Then there was football. Around here, football meant soccer—like in England or something—and when they could find the rare game on a satellite TV, it was always pro. No chance of catching the Aggies on any satellite channel in Jerusalem, no sirree. He was ready for some adventure already, but as he’d just reported to Brother Lawes, not a dang thing had happened since he’d struck up his first innocuous pose under the olive tree.

Bored with the football game, he dialed Luke’s cell.

“Yo-oooooh” he yawned into the phone when his brother picked up.

“Yo yourself. Man, is this a cool gig or what? I told you coming over here would be better than the Rodeo!” answered a breathless Luke.

“Are you trippin’? I’m so bored I wouldn’t mind muckin’ out a few stalls right now. This Stone guy ain’t nowheres around.”

“Well, if he’s anything like West, I’d get ready to roll Z, ‘cause I’ve been all over J-town and back this afternoon!”

“You’re kiddin’ man, right? I mean, no lie, I haven’t done anything but eat Cracker Jacks, play football and cuss the day we got on that stupid seven-four-seven.”

“No. I’m not playin’ Z, this West guy has been plenty busy. First I followed him down to some official building—the IAA or something—and then I had to haul it up to some church in Bethany, then back down to his place and then over to the park by where they keep the Dead Sea Scrolls—and here’s where things got weird. I see the guy go in to the park, and then, like a minute later I see him come running out, and before I can figure what he’s up to, an ambulance fires in, and then some cops come right behind ‘em, pulling their ride up on the curb! Just like TV, Z!”

“Dude, this is the circuit all over again. I always got the half-dead bull—and you always wound up looking like the Marlboro Man” Zeke whined. “You know, I wish we’d never—whoa Nellie. There he is. The guy really exists. Gotta fly Lu’.”

He’d spotted his mark weaving down the block towards the apartment building. The dude was muttering and flapping his hands like he was crazy or something—and he kept looking behind him, over his shoulder. Zeke took two steps back into the canopy of the tree’s branches and watched while Patrick Stone made his way through the doorway of his building, up the common stairwell, barely visible through the frosted hallway windows, and into his apartment where he systematically turned on all of the lights as he peered anxiously out of his own windows. This might not be so bad after all, thought Zeke, as he traded the football game for the binoculars he pulled out from the depths of his backpack.

CHAPTER 12: THE WAITING GAME

Art was surprised, relieved and grateful that the trip to the police station had been brief and, as these things go, fairly uneventful. Though he’d never found himself in quite this kind of bind, he had expected to be detained until morning, interrogated mercilessly and perhaps even denied basic pleasantries like the fresh juice they’d offered. Instead, the efficiency of the Jerusalem Police became crystal clear from the moment he’d set foot in the station.

After Officers Leibowitz and Reiss introduced Inspector Jonah Katz, he in turn graciously showed Art to the men’s room so he could freshen up before they began. Returning to the stark hallway, they made their way not to an interrogation room, but to the Inspector’s office where he began by asking Art if there was anyone he wished to call before they began.

His first instinct was to call Grace, but he didn’t want to disturb her at this late hour. He quickly did some math in his head and decided that whether or not it would come to needing an attorney, he’d best ring his friend Harry Scholer, a DC attorney. Paging through his cell phone directory, he found the number and hit talk. After close to a minute the line began ringing through the wind tunnel of the overseas call. After five rings, the lawyer’s voice mail picked up. Of course. Harry was probably at the gym or already back and in the shower. Given his audience, he left a brief, matter-of-fact message, minus any of the panic that was steamrolling anew through his stomach. Trying to sound nonchalant, he asked Harry to return the call as soon as humanly possible.

Once he ended the call, he agreed to retell the story to the Inspector. It hadn’t changed since he’d reported the evening’s events to the officers on the scene, something they solemnly noted to their superior. That done, the Inspector, again, gracious in his tone, asked if Art minded being fingerprinted for elimination purposes, after which he’d be free to leave for the hospital to check on his friend. Art agreed and together he and Reiss headed for the booking area. Reiss was all business while completing the cards, but when they finished the last print, he looked up and smiled. “If you want to wash up, Leibowitz and I would be happy to give you a ride to the hospital, Professor. We know that Mr. el Said will need all the support he can get, while he’s there.”

Surprised and a little heartened, Art washed up and took the officers up on their offer. It was still close to midnight when they deposited him at the main emergency entrance to Sinai Hospital. He was about to ask the kind looking woman at the information desk for the whereabouts of his friend, when he caught a glimpse of Grace turning the corner at the far end of a hallway.

“Grace! Dr. Levine!” he called before he realized he was shouting in a hospital. Luckily no one even turned, much less chastised him. Grace whipped around. “Art? Is that you? What happened? Where have you been? Why didn’t you call me? How’d you get here?” she practically shouted back.

He caught up to her, waving a hand in protest. “Easy does it. What are you doing here? How’s Kahlil? Is Hannah here? How is she?”

“Come. Come. I’ll take you to her. She’s with Sara in the family waiting room. Kahlil’s still in surgery. Hannah called Sara and Sara called me, and none of us, not even Hannah, has been told what happened, so start talking Mister.”

“Why don’t I wait and just tell the story once, after I check in with Hannah and see if there’s any new word on Kahlil. OK?” Art could feel the stress of the day begin to attack his every move. His head hurt, his limbs ached, and his stomach still had that horrible churning sensation.

“Fair enough. They’re right in here.” Grace opened the door to a small room sparsely furnished with a lumpy couch and a handful of folding chairs scattered around a plastic patio table topped with muffins and bottles of water and juice. Hannah was sitting in one of the folding chairs, blotting swollen eyes, while Sara, kneeling beside her tried to soothe her in low, even tones. They both turned hopefully when the door opened, expecting the surgeon’s report. Instead, upon seeing Art with Grace, Sara stood and Hannah ran to him, tears beating a rugged new path down her cheeks.

The message light, beckoning from the kitchen counter, caught Harry’s eye as he crossed from the side door to the refrigerator for his post-workout shake. He’d skipped the gym in favor of a quick jog this morning. After twenty years in a lucrative law practice, Harry had decided to fuel his true passion—biblical archaeology—and founded the American Society of Biblical Archaeology. The career shift had allowed for a much needed lifestyle shift, one that now accommodated an exercise regimen and a similar level of intellectual stimulation without the toxic side effects of stress and high blood pressure that had begun to take their toll on his middle aged body.

Taking a few gulps, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and considered the blinking light. It was barely 7 am. Most of his ASBA colleagues kept collegiate office hours—which meant this call, if not a wrong number, probably was for Harry Scholer, Esquire. He pressed the play button and heard his old friend Art West through the speaker. Though he registered the words, he focused more on Art’s voice. He didn’t sound right—too formal, yet too cavalier. Before the message played itself out, he dialed Art’s cell.

Art picked up on the third ring, sounded strained. Harry dove right in, “Art, Harry. What’s going on over there? I just walked in and found your message—you don’t sound like yourself.”

“Harry. Thanks for getting back to me so quickly. If I sound funny now it’s because I just finished giving blood. I may be in a bit of a pickle and I wanted to check in with you. How dusty is that JD of yours?”

“You need legal advice on giving blood? Doesn’t that fall more into the “do unto others...” category?”

“Well, yes. I mean no. I mean, I’m giving blood because my friend Kahlil el Said—you remember him, the antiquities dealer—was attacked tonight, and I found him. We were meeting for one of our chats and when I got there—what? Oh, thank you.—sorry, the nurse just brought me some juice—anyway, he’d been shot and I was taken in for questioning and fingerprinting and—”

“You what? Art, please tell me you didn’t say anything without some sort of council there.”

“Well of course I answered their questions. It was all very amiable. The officers who came to the scene both knew Kahlil, they sent a car for his daughter, and after taking me to the station they even gave me a ride to the hospital. They didn’t really interrogate me—we just had a chat in the Inspector’s office.”

“Arthur. You know better! Where do things stand now?”

“I don’t know really. I’m still at the hospital—this only happened a few hours ago. I have nothing to hide, I mean, it’s not like the gun was mine or anything.”

“Gun? What gun?!” Harry groaned.

“I didn’t know it was a gun when I pulled it out—“

“You didn’t know it was a gun?”

“No. No. Kahlil was lying on something, I just wanted to make him more comfortable. I—“

Harry groaned again. “Art, for once, words elude me. You bet you’re in a pickle. Go home. Now. Stay there. Don’t say another word to anyone—especially not the police. I’ll catch the first plane over. Try to get some sleep and I’ll call you when I land. Will you do as I ask, please?”

Art wasn’t sure what exactly he’d done wrong, but he knew that Harry didn’t scare easily. “Okay. I will. I just don’t know—“
“You’re right. You don’t know. That’s why you called me.”

“Thanks Harry. Have a safe flight. I’ll see you tonight?”

“I’ll do my best, but it may take an extra day. Let me see what I can do.”

“I owe you, Harry.”

”Yes, you do. But one thing at a time, friend. Hang in there.”

“Will do.”

Harry hung up the phone and shook his head. He could already feel the blood rising in a way it hadn’t in years. Well, he’d been hoping to fit in a trip to the Holy Land later in the summer. He hoped there was a empty seat on the next Jerusalem-bound flight out of Regan International.

Grace’s clogs echoed in the hospital hallway as she made her way back to the waiting room. She rarely called in favors, but had taken advantage of her long-standing relationship with Sammy Cohen and woken him up with the request to organize any O-positive donors within the IAA, and had done the same with the academic dean at Jerusalem University. Both men immediately forgave her the lateness of the calls when they realized that the esteemed Kahlil el Said needed not only their prayers, but their blood, and promised to do what they could immediately.

Wondering if she should offer to contact the Imam at the el Said’s mosque, her thoughts turned back to Art. She adored the man, she really did, in a collegial way, and she greatly admired not only his fortitude when it came to research, but to his faith as well. As a Christian, Art embodied what she considered to be the most essential teachings of Jesus—an openness of spirit and love. It was these same qualities though, that often gave him a naiveté incongruous with his intellectual wit. Listening to his earlier explanation she’d realized that she’d known him long enough to hear between the lines—there was something big he wasn’t sharing and she couldn’t wait to drag it out of him.

Reaching for the doorknob of the waiting room, she heard his voice behind her.

“Yes, Bill. That’s right. O-positive. We sure do appreciate it. Anything you can do. And again, I apologize for calling so late.....Sure will. Thanks again—you’re a real blessing. Goodnight.” Art looked up as he ended the call. “That was Bill Brown over at the American Institute of Holy Land Studies. Met him while I was in seminary. Hate that I hadn’t had a chance to meet up with him yet this trip, but knew that he’d not only rally the troops over there for Kahlil, but that he’d start a prayer chain for him as well.”

“Good work. I just spoke with both Sammy and Jack Samuels over at the University. They both send their prayers and said they’d be sure to get some donors over here. Now tell me, what really happened out there tonight?”

Before he could answer, they were joined by a tall thin man in scrubs. “Excuse me, please.” He motioned towards the door handle Grace still held in her hand. “Oh! Excuse me. Are you Mr. el Said’s surgeon?”

“Yes I am. Steven Schwartz. And you are--?”

“Dr. Grace Levine. Friend of the family, as is Dr. Arthur West here. We’re both academics.” She wanted to be clear about their monikers and avoid any confusion or concern on his part that they might be interfering MDs. “Hannah’s inside. We’re all anxious to hear your report.”

“Very pleased to meet you. After you...” He said, holding the door.

This time, Hannah and Sara were not disappointed when the door opened, revealing the wiry, worn out surgeon. “Miss el Said, I’m Dr. Schwartz. Your father’s in recovery now, and in a bit, we’ll take him to ICU. For the moment, he’s doing as well as we can expect. We only found evidence of a single bullet, which entered his body, here...” The surgeon indicated his own diaphragm. “...it grazed his liver, before it shattered his spleen—which is what caused the majority of the blood loss and is why we sent the nurse down to inform you of the need for blood donations. We removed his spleen--something he can still live a normal life without, by the way—and barring any unforeseen infections, I feel confident that his insides will heal nicely.”

Hannah’s face brightened with fresh tears of relief and she started to speak. The doctor held up a palm. “Now about his head injury. He seemed to have taken quite a hit on the head—I’m told it may simply have been from falling. In any case, he’s sustained a large hematoma, or bruise. We didn’t see any collateral damage on the X-rays or CT scans, but there’s always a high risk of swelling with an internal head injury. As you know, our bodies have a tremendous capacity to heal, and to protect themselves. That said, I don’t want you to be upset when I tell you that he’s in a light coma. It’s something we expect with this kind of trauma, and right now there’s nothing to indicate that this is anything more than a temporary state. We’ll keep him in ICU for the next few days so we can watch him closely. You, as immediate family, of course will be permitted to stay with him for as much of the day as you’d like. We do ask that he not have any other visitors for the time being.” For the first time since beginning his report, he took his eyes from Hannah’s and, in turn, acknowledged Sara, Grace and Art, with a slight nod. “I can see you have an impressive support system already in place. Once we’re sure your father is out of danger, we’ll move him to a room where they can visit him without restriction, during the day. Unfortunately, until then, hospital policy only permits visits by non-family members to thirty minutes at a time here in the waiting room. Are there any questions I can answer for you at this time?”

This boy must be making a mother somewhere very happy, thought Grace. She didn’t know if she’d ever met a surgeon with such a gentle, unassuming manner. He’d not talked down to Hannah, or used a bunch of medical gobbley gook to describe Kahlil’s condition, and he’d made it pretty clear by the tone of his voice, that he didn’t exactly agree with the hospital’s policy towards non-family visitors. She felt good knowing Kahlil’s fate lay partially in the young doctor’s hands, and made a note to say that later to Hannah.

“Dr. Schwartz, thank you for all you have done for my father, and for being so kind to me. I have only one question—how soon may I see him?”

“I expect we’ll be moving him to ICU within the hour. I’ll send a nurse for you just as soon as we’ve got him settled in up there. Anything else?”

“About the blood—“

Grace interrupted her. “Hannah, Art and I have already taken care of that. After he gave his pint, he called Professor Brown over at the Institute and I rang both Dr. Cohen at the IAA and Dr. Samuels at the University. Between the three of them, I expect we’ll have the hospital restocked in no time.”

“Then, no. No more questions, Doctor. Thank you again.”

“I’m glad to have been of help.” He handed her a card. “My beeper number is on here—do not hesitate to use it if you think of any other questions. Often this time is so overwhelming that I’ve found it best to be available for my patients’ families. You may well forget everything you’ve just heard from me, so please, take me at my word, and ring if you have any concerns.” He flashed a genuine smile, and with a short bow, took his leave.

“What a charming man. Hannah, I feel very good about his caring for your father.” offered Grace.

“I do as well. And thank you all. For being here. Grace, Professor Art, for making those calls—for giving your blood. You are blessings from Allah.”

“We wouldn’t have it any other way. We’ll all be praying for his healing, as will the friends we phoned. You concentrate your thought and prayers on his well being, Hannah.”

“Hannah, do you want us to stay with you until you see him?” Grace asked.

“Why don’t I stay with Hannah, and you and Art can get some sleep. I don’t know how you’re still standing after the night you’ve had!” Sara said, more to Art than Grace.

And she didn’t know the half of it, thought Grace. And neither do I. Grace could see Art trying not to look too hopeful when he looked from Hannah to Grace for the verdict.

“Oh! Certainly. Yes. You’ve both done more than I could ever repay. That is, if you don’t mind staying a bit longer with me, Sara, just until...until...” Hannah’s voice began to crack again with tears flowing. “I don’t know what I’d do without him...”

“Hannah. Don’t you worry about that just now. You just stay focused on those positive prayers, remember?”

Nodding her assent, she thanked everyone again and ran from the room.

Church Video Hijinks

Well you can say all you want about church being boring, but I have the ocular proof it's not so-- all kinds of things can happen at church.

You Tube has a new video to prove it entitled Church Compilation Funny Ha Ha and its worth the price of admission. The link in U Tube is
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doc0NWYnUT.


What I want to know is-- who let the cat in?

On Being a Global Christian

One of the things that is most troubling to me as I travel around the world is what has been called the tribalizing of Christians. By this I mean that there are so many Christians in so many countries who have absolutely no contact with, nor much concern for other Christians in other countries. Their identities and awareness are chiefly shaped and formed not by their character in Christ but by their cultural identity and preferences. And yet these 'other people' are our brothers and sisters in Christ. When a Christian places his love for his own ethnic group or national group above and before his love for Christ's people anywhere and everywhere he or she by definition has violated the very sense and spirit of what Paul was talking about when he said "in Christ there is no Jew or Gentile... but all are one in Christ" (Gal. 3.28). Just so, and we have been fighting the battle of the retribalizing of Christianity ever since. I saw a great cartoon the other day. It showed two Indians carrying a dead turkey on a stick between them and heading for a picnic table where three Puritans were sitting waiting. The first Indian said to the second " Look I know they have a great work ethic, but their illegal, they should go back where they came from and enter the country legally."

One of the many forms that this tribalizing tendency takes is cultural parochialism or elitism, the assumption that it ought to be obvious that our culture and cultural expression of Christianity is so clearly superior (and more blessed by God) than any other such form that the best way for the lost in other nations to become saved is to re-create them in our own cultural image. Never mind that our culture has the huge besetting sins of greed, various forms of idolatry, rampant sexual immorality, materialism and a host of other self-centered and selfish practices that in no way honor Christ and his self-giving love. And yet we take it as without question that we should want to preserve many of these aspects of a culture at the expense of life, limb, and sometimes even liberty and at the expense of our Christian commitments and obligations.

One of the things that can be done to change this sort of cultural myopia is spending time regularly in cultures different than our own, going on cross-cultural mission trips, learning a foreign language since it is the gateway into the life of another culture, and in general working on our xenophobic tendencies. What happens, after one gets over the cultural vertigo is one discovers that we all have a lot to learn from each other. In many ways, many other cultures have simpler, more healthy , less self centered lifestyles than most Americans have or aspire to. Learning to see the world through the eyes of others not like ourselves is learning to see the world with eyes like that of God himself, who as the Bible says is impartial and no respecter of persons (see Acts 10).

I must tell you that having had the privilege of teaching right around the world, we are all pretty much the same-- we are all created in God's image, but are now fallen, and are badly in need of redemption. And once brought to Christ, we all have a chance to blossom and be a blessing to others, to be servants of Christ manifesting all the fruit of the Spirit--- love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, self-control.

Let me just briefly tell you the story of my friend Issah, a Palestinian Christian from Bethlehem. He was born and baptized in Bethlehem and today he is a world famous camera man who works the Middle East beat for major networks, including CBS. Everyone knows and loves Issah-- Jews, Palestinians, people from the West, people from the East. And its easy to see why-- he is such a kind and joyful person, just like his namesake-- for Issah is the Arabic name for Jesus. When he parks his car in Jerusalem or Bethlehem or anywhere pretty much in Israel, all he has to do is leave a piece of paper on the dashboard which says 'ISSAH' in Arabic and Hebrew and English, and people know to leave his car alone.

And yet despite all this Issah has troubles. He lives know in one of the few integrated neighborhoods in Jerusalem, where Jews and Palestinians try to make there own personal peace with one another. Yet there are days when Jewish children come to his house and taunt his children and tell them they will be killed, and don't belong in Israel. Never mind that his family has lived in the Holy Land since the Middle Ages or before. Of course this story could be reversed with Palestinians treating Israeli Jews this way as well. But you see my point. Despite it all, Issah is trying to live out the beatitude 'Blessed are the Peacemakers' not just pray for peace.

There were many nights during my last shoot in Israel for CBS where the whole film crew, Jews, Christians, and Palestinians would all go out together and have dinner. They ask me to pray for them all, and I did. For them all. Because God loves them all and wants them redeemed--- all of them. Being a world Christian you see not only means caring about Christians everywhere. It also means making a good faith effort to love even those whom you might normally regard as your enemies, because Jesus said to do so.

I would like to leave you with the lyrics of one of my favorite songs, one by Al Jarreau, just let you ponder them as you reflect on the question--- How does God view people different from you? Does he really love the world?

GOD'S GIFT TO THE WORLD
Chorus
This one
That one,
Each one
Is God's gift to the world.

They are
we are
Each one is God's gift to the world.
---------
There are no extra people
In a mansion or a ghetto
Each heart and soul is counted
Though they're different from you

So look across the ocean
See those on distant corners
Or see one beside you
Look in their eyes and you will know it's true.

And all the lonely people
The first ones and the last ones
All the great and small ones
The ones that win and lose

All of the remembered
And the forgotten
From every single nation
Is God's gift to the world.

Chorus repeated
---------------------

From the CD Tomorrow Today

Angst and Anger as Evangelical Republicans Worry about an 08 Candidate

Perhaps you have never heard of the really hush hush private Council for National Policy. It has a bland enough name. Actually what this club is, is a strategy group of a few hundred members including James Dobson, Jerry Falwell, and other Evangelical Republicans, as well as others with conservative leanings in politics. You can read about their meeting a month ago in Florida here--
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/25/us/politics/25secret.html?th&emc=th

There seems to be a lot of dismay amongst this group that they have found no obvious champion for their causes in the extant Republican candidates for the 08 general election. John McCain has been ruled out because he once called some of these Evangelical leaders "agents of intolerance". Rudolph Guliani has been ruled out because of his stance on marriage, gay rights, and abortion (not to mention his own marriage history). Mitt Romney causes worries because of his former views on stem cell research, abortion, and gay rights though he has worked to allay fears on those fronts. But his Mormonism itself causes even more angst for some. Lesser known candidates invited to the meeting were, well, lesser known, and not electable or delectable, so there is great concern on this conservative front. While this group was regularly courted and consulted by the Bush regime, the group now may be marginalized in the run up to the election since they have found no stalking horse for their causes.

A little history about this group is in order. It was founded by Timothy LaHaye (yes, the author of the Left Behind series!) 25 years ago to help conservative Christians gain more political clout and strategize. It has been influential in Republican politics out of all proportion to its size. In recent years it has reached out to and included other sorts of conservatives such as Wayne Lapierre the head of the N.R.A. I suppose this was a connection bound to happen since Moses himself (aka Charleton Heston) was long the poster boy for the N.R.A.

Of course the problem for this group is they are fighting on too many fronts, and they can't find a candidate that lines up with them on all their hot button issues. For example, many in this group are opposed to Bush's guest work program approach to illegal aliens, an approach adopted by various Republican presidential hopefuls. And not surprisingly, with folks like LaHaye and Falwell involved in this group there is a lot of focus on Islamic terrorism, even while in the general American public the enthusiasm for the war in Iraq continues to decline. It appears that conservative Evangelicals such as these will be the last to abandon that effort. But this in turn makes whatever candidate they endorse less electable if he comes out with a pro-war position.

However, as politics like religion continue to make strange bedfellows there is no telling what may be next for this group of planners. One of those interviewed for the article discussed the concept of -- "second virginity". That is, a candidate, if he would pledge not to raise taxes any more, or not to support a guest worker program any more, or not to inhibit the pro-business lobby any more, or to do an about face and support a constitutional amendment prohibiting gay marriage, could regain favor with this group. The group likes Governor Huckabee from Arkansas, a former Southern Baptist minister, but he will have to reassure them about the recent tax referendums in his state, and in any case, he appears to be unelectable at this juncture. The situation has been compared to when Dole and Clinton were the candidates running, and many conservatives voted for third party candidates or no one at all. Whatever happens, at this juncture, this group seems to be on the downward slope of being influential within the Republican party insofar as the next Presidential candidate is concerned. But time will tell.

Amos Kloner Interviewed by Darrell Bock-- the Tenth Ossuary was Blank

There is now a critique of the Discovery Channel documentary by Amos Kloner himself as interviewed by Dr. Darrell Bock. It is in so many ways very revealing and makes perfectly clear that the tenth and blank ossuary was not by any means the James ossuary which we have no reason to think came from the Talpiot tomb. Indeed there are many reasons to think otherwise, a few of which can be listed here:
http://www.bible.org/page.php?page_id=4891.

Click here to join Dr. Bock and Amos Kloner

1) Oded Golan's family has testified that he had that ossuary in the 70s; 2) one of his old girl friends also said she saw it back then, and she doesn't even care for the man any more; 3) photographic evidence, apparently corroborated by the FBI at the trial shows that he had it before the Israeli law changed on this subject; and 4) Eusebius was not referring to some later medieval relic site near the so-callled tomb of Absalom mistaken for the tomb of James. He is quite specific in saying he saw an inscribed stele as well marking out this tomb as the tomb of James the Just. He ought to know--- he lived in the Holy Land in the 4th century. He certainly ought to know better than we do; 5) the antiquities dealer from whom Oded got the box said it came from Silwan, and the soil found in it comported with that view; 6) the measurements of the James ossuary don't match the measurements of the tenth ossuary, and Zias and Kloner are clear enough there was only ten in the Talpiot tomb. Of course we can't question the deceased member of the excavation team, but Kloner and Zias are clear enough-- that last ossuary could not be the James ossuary-- it was blank. 7) I have detailed photos of the James ossuary including photos of the pitted nature of the bottom portion of the face of the box, caused by water damage over a long period of time. This ossuary was not in a dry cave for centuries, definitely not, and this distinguishes it from the ossuaries that came out of the Talpiot tomb so far as I can see.

BW3

The Lazarus Effect-- Part Four

CHAPTER 8: MOTHERLOAD MISSING

Some three hours after Sammy began preparations for the trip to Bethany, the team finally pulled out of IAA headquarters. To avoid any implications of impropriety, Art, against every impulse, knew he had to wait and go with the gang. At least with both Sammy and Grace qualified to authenticate the find, he would be several steps ahead of the game when it came to the funding application. Rush hour, well underway, only served to prolong his agony, and the serpentine streets of the Temple Mount added an extra layer of frustration. On the bright side, the interminable ride gave him the chance to catch up with Grace. While he drove, she entertained him with a year’s worth of stories and anecdotes ranging from student pranks to senior moments. They’d more than made up for the missed breakfast date. By the time the official caravan reached the church, it was almost 5—a full seven hours since he’d emerged from the tomb. With a small shudder, he climbed out the car and looked to the site.

Motioning towards the church, Art indirectly encouraged Grace to go straight to the tomb without him. Knowing evening prayers had begun, he slipped as quietly as he could into chapel. Not a Catholic, he did not bend to cross himself, but he did pause to once again admire the stunning 12-foot high stained glass depiction of the chapel’s namesakes. From the open doors behind him, the setting sun illuminated Mary and Martha, who returned the favor with a cascade of multicolored light upon the high altar. Through a heavy cloud of incense, the priest read the Scriptures in Arabic to the twenty or so parishioners scattered among the front rows. Spotting Mustafa, Art slid onto the olivewood pew beside him.

“Thank you again, friend, for saving my life this morning.”

Mustafa turned and grinned. “My honor, Professor. The rest of your day, it was less eventful?”

“Thankfully yes. I’ve only just returned. The IAA is with me—they’re securing the site now. You haven’t noticed anyone lurking about since I’ve been gone, have you?”

“A young couple visited the church just after lunch. But since then, I’ve been inside, preparing for Mass. Unless someone made a fuss, I don’t know that I would have heard anything, and the stained glass makes it nearly impossible to see anything outside these walls.”

Wryly, Art agreed. “Could I impose on you just one more time? I need to get up to the tomb. Could we finish this conversation after Mass?”

Mustafa nodded his assent with a smile.

“Thank you, again,” Art whispered as he slipped out of the chapel.

The IAA excavation team had wasted no time getting started. In the few minutes Art had spent in the church, they widened the entrance to the tomb—enough to allow for two of them to drop easily into the space. They were just resurfacing when Art joined them. Offering the ossuary to Sammy, they dropped back in to continue their search.

“Be sure to take a ton of pictures of the inscription over the niche!” Art called out after them.

“What inscription?” called back the lead excavator, Ani. “There’s no inscription down here.”

“The one directly above the niche. It’s pretty hard to miss!” Art‘s stomach began to churn nervously.

“No Sir, Professor West.” Ani climbed out to make room. “Nothing here. Come down and see for yourself.” Fighting back another wave of panic, he prayed the tomb hadn’t already been raided. Rationalizing that any self-respecting looter would not have left the ossuary behind, he sighed, pushed back his sleeves and crawled back into the hollow. Shining his light directly on the spot above the niche, his heart sank in disbelief.

“Impossible!” he yelled with near panic in his voice. “Dear God! Someone’s already been here – no way -- this is just not happening!” He stopped, denial overwhelming him. Speechless and confused he never heard Grace slip in behind him.

With lips pursed and brow wrinkled, Grace tried to soften the blow. “It’s still one heck of a find you know – the ossuary, I mean. And you do have pictures -- we know you aren’t crazy . . .”

Too distraught to answer, Art rolled his eyes, then scrambled out of the tomb, brushed past an astonished IAA team, and made a beeline for the church.

Skulking in the shadows of the olive trees, a figure added one more note to the day’s report.

- ---------------

The inventory of the shop had tired Hannah as well so she had no objections when her father suggested they close up a little early. Knowing how much he treasured his time with Professor West she skipped the cool shower she usually took after work and instead headed right for the kitchen to inspect what she had just put on the fire.

She reviewed in her mind what she had just done and how long things had been cooking to be sure her timing was right. After lighting the flame on a small grill, she had removed the lamb from the icebox. The marinade of olive oil, garlic, oregano, and her mother’s secret touch, a pinch of hawyij—a spicy mixture of pepper, caraway, cumin, saffron and tumeric—made her mouth water. Deftly, she had cubed the meat. Then, alternating it with slices of bell peppers and tomatoes from Sheema’s garden, she skewered it. As the kabobs sizzled, she had given some leftover hummus an extra squeeze of lemon and a dusting of cayenne. Her father enjoyed his food with a kick. She replaced the kabobs on the grill with a few pitas, and called to Kahlil that dinner was almost ready. While the meat and vegetables cooled, she filled a bowl with pickled cauliflower, and a small plate with baklava.

“Ah. Hannah. If only my nose could dance! The smells of your dinner demand a celebration!”

She smiled back at him as she set the last of the serving plates on the table. Somehow, each night, he always had a new compliment for her cooking, just as he had for her mother. “Let’s celebrate by eating before it gets too cold.” She suggested warmly.

Between bites, they mulled over the day’s events as they usually did at dinner.

“I wonder who that awful little man was?” Hannah mused. “Perhaps we should have asked Dr. Arnold—just in case that stone was important.”

“Don’t worry about it, my dear. Should the need arise, I’m sure we can contact Dr. Arnold and ask him then. And by the way, don’t think I didn’t notice when you nodded at the final price for his coins. Some days I wonder if I shouldn’t—“

Hannah cut him off before he could wonder about retirement again. They both knew that he’d wither without his clients, the tourists, and the daily handling of treasures. “I’ve picked up a thing or two from watching you, Father. But you know I could never run the shop without you.”

“Hannah, my little one, you grow more like your mother every day. You, like her, know you can do anything you can put your mind to. You and I both know that you could run the shop with your eyes closed.”

“Yes Father. But neither you nor I need worry about that just yet. Would you like me to wrap up some baklava for Professor West?” She usually managed to change the subject before he could start talking earnestly about her taking over the shop. While the idea intrigued her, she couldn’t imagine running it alone – after his death. And that was an idea she tried to keep at bay.

“No, thank you child. We’ve much too much to discuss—no time even for sweets. But that doesn’t mean I can’t have some now. I’m sure he doesn’t know that rumors of the James ossuary are circulating again. The claims that it appeared in one of Mahmoud’s shops just up the street from us are completely false. I know the disinformation regarding the authenticity of the inscription has given Art much heartache. I wouldn’t want him discouraged any further.” Popping the last bit of the syrupy pastry into his mouth, he stood. “With your permission my dear, I take my leave. Thank you for yet another wonderful meal.”

Getting up also, she gently suggested that he take his cloak. Despite the intense heat of the sun, the Judean hills cooled quickly at night, and she knew that he would be late—many a night the friends had talked almost until dawn. Coat in hand, he came back into the kitchen to embrace her.

“I will see you soon. Ensh-allah. As Allah wills.”

“Good night Father. Take good care.”

He slipped into the cool night towards the Shrine of the Book. So eager was he to meet up with Art, he never noticed the man behind him, matching his gait step for step.

CHAPTER NINE : Harbingers of the Dawn

In a sprawling house near Ecole Biblique, a French monastic compound, the Society of the Millennial Dawn (SMD) gathered for their weekly Thursday night meeting. The group usually spent their time looking for correlations between Bible prophecy and modern events. Their roots dated back to the early nineteen hundreds when Charles Scofield popularized a shift away from historic Christianity towards his own, very literal, interpretation of the Bible. Dividing the Old and New Testaments into “dispensations,” he believed that the Scriptures contained different messages for Jew, Gentile and Christian. He believed also in a fundamental dichotomy between Israel and the Church, and in a secret rapture that would precede the Second Coming and save the faithful from the horror of the millennial endtimes. Though the literalism touted by Scofield pervaded American Evangelical Christianity, modern interpreters of premillennial signs continued to inaccurately predict the Second Coming. As a result, Dispensationalist Christian groups began to splinter, until many lost all touch with their origins, and many found themselves with little more than cult status.

The SMD fell somewhere in the middle of the pack. Jamison Parkes Law had started SMD in his own home. Far from the typical evangelical fundamentalist, Law had spent the better part of his post-graduate days as a political activist. With a law degree from Harvard, he’d carefully honed his debating skills and powers of persuasion. He’d also learned that religion more than politics made for strange bedfellows—and set to cultivating a wide array of relationships. His classmates would literally be running the world one day and who knew when the Harvard connection might come in handy.

Armed with his bible college undergraduate degree and a South Texas belief in justice, J.P. easily amalgamated his patriotism with his belief that Israel was in fact the chosen nation of God. Like many of his fellow dispensationalists, Law believed that biblical Israel had been re-established at the end of WWII, and that the Jews had an absolute right to their own country. As a literalist, he had no doubt that Armageddon would occur within the region and that the United States held an obligation to support the Israeli government and its lands.

These views dovetailed nicely with some of those of Rabbi Menachem and the unlikely pair formed an alliance of sorts, vowing to stand vigilant against anyone who failed to embrace biblical Israel—whether Moslem, Jew or Christian. They’d fallen into the habit of comparing notes at least once weekly, more if something was afoot. This afternoon the two had spent forty minutes on the phone discussing the flurry of activity at a church in Bethany. The rabbi reported that he’d heard a newly discovered tomb had already been raided. Thought he knew both Art West and Patrick Stone by reputation only, JP agreed that neither could be trusted and promised to handle the situation.

Now, sitting in the well-appointed living room of the house SMD maintained, Law surveyed the thirty members -- some sprawled on couches, others cross-legged on the floor -- and smiled to himself with pride. Just before the millennium, every last one of his disciples had demonstrated the depth of their faith by moving, lock, stock and barrel to Jerusalem in anticipation of the Rapture. In the time since, the faithful had grown by a handful, and the entire group now waited for JP’s benediction.

“It has happened again,” he began. “Rabbi Menachem has informed me that someone has raided a tomb up at the Church of Mary and Martha in Bethany. Both Arthur West and Patrick Stone have been seen snooping around up there, and we all know that neither one of them demonstrates any kind of loyalty to our biblical positions on Israel and her treasures. Needless to say, they must be stopped. You know the rabbi and his minyan have no muscle—so it falls to us. I need two volunteers.”

Of the half dozen hands that shot up, two stood out. They belonged to a pair of twin brothers whose parents, too old to make the journey themselves, had used their savings to send them to Jerusalem. Having never left their small Texas community, they had a hard time acclimating to Israeli life. They ate only in Western restaurants, watched only American television and kept to themselves. However, their faith in JP and in the Society of the Millennial Dawn was as solid as their rodeo-conditioned bodies. They would enthusiastically do whatever JP asked.

“I want Stone and West trailed -- twenty-four seven -- until I say otherwise.” JP handed each of them the addresses of the professors. “I’ll expect no less than four reports a day—if those two so much as wink at a girl in a market I want to know everything about her. Got it?”

“Yes sir!” The boys stood a little straighter with the weight of their assignment as they grabbed their backpacks filled with granola, halva, bottled water, maps, a camera and a cell phone.

“Now, call me when you find ‘em and for Heaven’s sake, don’t let ‘em see you, and don’t lose ‘em. Am I clear?” Eager nods gave the answer.

“Then go with God my sons.”

CHAPTER TEN: Darkness Falls.

The predictable evening chill enveloped the hillside that led to the Shrine of the Book. Running a bit late, Art fastened the Velcro around the zipper of his Patagonia jacket and leaned into the slight breeze, thinking that in Jerusalem one was always going up or down a hill. The shrine came into view, with its cleverly designed roof that mimicked the curved yet pointed top of the clay casings in which the Dead Sea Scrolls had been found. He couldn’t wait to tell Kahlil about the day’s discovery. As he silently debated mentioning the attempt on his life he heard a sharp pop. He instinctively flinched and his mind envisioned a gun, but he just as quickly dismissed his overactive imagination and rationalized away the noise as a car backfiring.

Watching his step a bit more closely after the noise, he turned the corner toward the Shrine itself. Entering the park, he quickly came upon their favorite bench, which, surprisingly, was empty. Running late, though par for the course for Art, was unheard of for Kahlil. As he began to wonder about the whereabouts of his friend, he noticed the form on the ground, on the far side of the bench. His gait turned to a trot.

Art thought he was hallucinating when he realized it was a body. Flicking on his flashlight, he gasped. There, in the bright glow of the recharged beam, glistened a crimson profusion of blood, pouring from Kahlil’s head and chest. His friend appeared to still draw breath. “Kahlil! Kahlil! Speak to me! Who did this? Say something! Can you hear me? Hang in there! I’m getting help!”

After fumbling for his cell phone, he dialed 919 with shaking fingers and told the Israeli emergency dispatcher to send an ambulance immediately to the park adjacent to the Shrine of the Book. “A man’s been shot! He’s alive, but barely. Please. Please hurry.”

Ending the call, he turned back to Kahlil. Art had never seen someone fatally wounded—and he’d certainly never seen that much blood spilled He leaned in close to the body and made sure Kahlil was still breathing. “Hang on Kahlil. Help’s on the way.” As he debated trying to stop the bleeding from either the chest or the head, Art’s flashlight picked up a glint from under Kahlil’s left side. Instinctively, he reached for it in an effort to make Kahlil more comfortable.

Immediately he regretted the move. Staring up at him from between his sweaty fingers was a gun—most likely the gun that someone had used to assault Kahlil. Great! Could this day possibly get much worse? Hoping he hadn’t smudged any fingerprints left by the true assailant, he set the gun down on the bench that he and Kahlil should have been sitting on together. Instead he now sat there alone, and began to pray over his Moslem friend, “Dear Lord, you are the Great Physician. Please don’t let Kahlil die!”

Art was still praying when he first heard the ambulance arrive. He met the medics at the sidewalk and directed them up the hill to the bench. Within seconds, they tore his shirt open and worked to staunch the chest wound. They wrapped his head, stopping the bleeding there as well. With the patient stabilized and secured to the stretcher, they proceeded to the ambulance.

“Where are you taking him?” demanded Art.

“Just to the ambulance for now—we’ll get a check on his vitals while we wait for police clearance to head to the hospital. We’ll be going to Sinai.”

Of course! He’d forgotten that in Israel, the police had to control every bit of the scene and hoped the extra waiting time wouldn’t put Kahlil at further risk. Perhaps God had been listening, for no sooner than he’d asked the question, a cruiser hopped the curb and parked haphazardly behind the ambulance. Before the officers could speak, Art jumped in. “Please. Please, officers, release the ambulance so they can get my friend to the hospital before it’s too late!”

The officer, not used to being told what to do, started to put the American in his place, until he looked at the patient. “Mr. el Said? That’s Kahlil el Said, the antiquities dealer? Everyone knows what an honest man he is—who’d want to hurt him? Go. Take him. Quickly!” Turning to Art he added that he personally would notify the dealer’s daughter, Hannah.

Hannah! Art felt sick to his stomach. He really needed to get to the hospital to be there when she arrived. Or should he offer to go get her? No, the police could probably get her there faster. And they’d probably wanted him to answer a few questions. He moved over to the bench and sat down, head between his knees. Now that Kahlil was on his way to the hospital, Art finally had time to realize just how awful he felt. He took several gulps of air, pulled up his head, and after running a hand through his hair, he stood up, offering his hand to the closest officer. “My name is Dr. Art West. I was meeting my friend Kahlil el Said here, and found him like this. What else can I tell you?”

Office Reiss gave him a curt nod. “Why at night? You don’t see your friend at his shop? Or at his home?”

“Kahlil and I are old friends. We like the privacy the park gives us to speak freely. It’s just been our tradition.”

Officer Leibowitz joined them. “Well, either you two weren’t alone, or you’ve got some more explaining to do, Dr. West. What else can you tell us?”

“Did you get hold of Hannah? Is she okay? Does she need a ride to the hospital?” Art ignored the officer’s question.

“I spoke with her myself and sent an officer to accompany her to the hospital. She asked about you and I told her that you were the one who reported his injuries — I didn’t give her details over the phone — the doctors can do that. Now. Back to my question. What else can you tell me and Officer Reiss here?”

“I was running a few minutes late — I usually am — and when I first got up the hill, I was surprised that Kahlil wasn’t here yet. Then I noticed the body on the ground, saw the blood and called 919. I must have just missed the gunman because I remember hearing a noise before I rounded that corner...” Art turned and pointed to the garden entrance. “I was just in front of the Museum when I heard a pop, but I told myself it was a car backfiring.”

“You sure you only heard one “pop” as you call it?” Leibowitz pressed, while Reiss scribbled furiously.

“I only heard one. Yes. And like I said, I found him here, called 919, and then tried to make him comfortable until the ambulance arrived. That’s when I pulled this out from under him.” He gestured towards the gun sitting on the bench. Both officers instinctively reached for their own, but visibly relaxed when Art dropped his hand back to his side. Reiss produced a plastic bag, into which he dropped the gun.

“I know. I know.” Art continued, “I shouldn’t have touched it. I just wanted to make him comfortable. As soon as I realized that I could have contaminated any prints, I put it down. Maybe the shooter’s prints are still on it? Maybe it can help find his attacker?” Art could feel the emotion catching up with him, hear it in his own voice. “Kahlil is perhaps my closest friend here in Jerusalem. Whatever I can do...”

The officers knew they’d gotten as much information as they would for the moment, and they needed to do a cursory sweep of the scene before the forensic team arrived. Before leaving Art to collect himself, Officer Reiss asked if Art would come down to the police station with them to give his fingerprints, for elimination purposes.

“Of course, but will it take long? I’d like to get to the hospital to check on Kahlil and wait with Hannah.”

“We understand. The tests won’t take long. Why don’t you sit here for a minute, and we’ll come get you when we’re ready to leave.”

Appreciating the courtesy, Art thanked the officer, and sat back down on the bench, head in his hands, to wait. Nausea rose up in the pit of his stomach and he began to shiver.

Lamb UMC loses Turkey of a Member

Well what can we say? United Methodists will admit almost anyone into membership, so desperate are we in an age of declining church attendance.

And in Wales Township in Michigan at Lamb UMC there was a brief eulogy recently for a critter the pastor called a model member of his congregation--- a wild turkey! If he was a model member, I am wondering what the slackers looked like. This turkey regularly attended services for over a year and greeted people as they went into the church week after week. He was there when they came out as well, strutting his stuff.

But one day, someone, apparently annoyed with the noise and fuss of the bird ran over him-- hence the need for a eulogy. When people would come out of the church, seems he annoyed some folks and caused them to leave in haste and in a huff.

Here is the story, so you can decide if there has been fowl play here--- http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17631469/.

Black Snake Moan-- Blues and Redemption in the old South

Just when you thought that movies were becoming far too formulaic and trite and sequeled, along comes a movie like "Black Snake Moan" which blows through your mind like a breath of fresh air. Let me be clear that this is a gritty movie, which, while it eschews violence for the most part, nevertheless portrays human life in the raw and so not surprisingly there is some brief nudity in this movie. This is not a movie to take 'yo momma' or your children to, but it is certainly one worth seeing and reflecting on, as it is a powerful story about redemption from sin and abuse and degradation.

The cast of this movie is superb-- Samuel L. Jackson plays, appropriately enough, a man named Lazarus, who mainly helps someone else's life rise from the ashes (which in turn helps him rebound from being left by his wife Rose, who runs off with his baby brother!). Christina Ricci plays Rae, an abused young lady turned nymphomaniac, who can only do without sex for so long, and can't say no to anyone, however abusive. And then there is her boyfriend tenderly played by Justin Timberlake, who has his own peck of trouble-- including anxiety attacks and the like. It gets him booted out of the National Guard. There are various excellent supporting actors and actresses including Epatha Merkerson, a long time star on that longest running TV drama "Law and Order".

The setting of the movie is a small old southern town in a mostly rural area in Tennessee. The culture depicted here could even be from the deeper south, but in any case the focus is mainly on African American experience in the south and the experience of what unfortunately is usually called "white trash". The latter exemplar played quite convincingly by Christina Ricci whose life makes even risque country songs look ordinary. There was some initial controversy about this movie because of its use of the 'N' word, however since it is basically not used by white people of black people, this controversy came and went.

Lest you think this movie is mainly about the blues, actually it is not, though there are two brief black and white clips in the movie of a real blues legend (extra brownie points to the blogger who can guess who it is-- here's a hint. Its definitely not B. B. King). This movie is mainly about people who have the blues, and learn to sing about it and so transcend their experience. As it turns out Samuel L. Jackson is not a bad blues man, even playing some slide guitar and singing. The title of the movie comes from a song called Black Snake Moan which talks about what happens when deep hurt, despair, loneliness, darkness crawls into your life like an ole dangerous snake.

Craig Brewer has taken on this delicate subject, and he is clearly not afraid to take risks, as is shown by the extended scenes where scantily clad Rae is chained to Lazarus' radiator in the front room of his house! This is the only restraint system Lazarus can think off which will prevent the woman going off and doing more damage to herself. To Brewer's credit the story line doesn't stray into an improbable love or sex relationship between Lazarus and Rae, more like a father daughter relationship breaks out as things develop.

Is it possible for even really messed up people to be 'born again' and change their ways? This is the question this movie asks, all the while also asking us to ponder how far we would go to help that process of redemption, or would we quickly tire of helping and write a person off as a lost cause. Would we sacrifice our reputation in a gossipy town for the sake of pulling someone out of the dark pit of sin and abuse and suffering? What would Jesus have done? Come to think of it-- what did he do with prostitutes and tax collectors, and the more notorious sinners of his world?

Christianity as portrayed in this movie is a living thing, but we see weak practitioners of it. Even the minister ends up drinking and dancing in a lascivious manner in the juke joint at one point, and his little speech about various definitions of heaven leaves a good deal to be desired as well. But there are also poignant moments when Rae begins singing "This little light of mine.." or Epatha beautifully sings a chorus of "There is a Balm in Gilead". And lest we be ready to polish the halo of Lazarus, we hear him bragging at one point about his sexual conquests to a young black boy who has just sampled Rae. But frankly I've seen this movie before-- played out in churches in real life. Sometimes this movie is so real it hurts. And there was one line that kept coming to my mind as I watched this movie-- anyone whose life is not messed up in the various ways depicted in this movie should be reminding themselves "there but for the grace of God, go I", for frankly all of us have sinned and fallen short of God's glory in one way or another. So shall we point fingers, or hold out a hand to the one who is lost and drowning in their own sin? This movie effectively asks and answers that question.

The Lazarus Effect--- Part Three

CHAPTER FIVE: An Israelite with Guile

In the wake of a Hamas attack on his home in Gaza, Sadiq Hadassah joined the ranks of a radical orthodox movement in his native Israel. His parents, siblings and a grandmother had all been reduced to casualty statistics of the massacre. His wife of only a few months also sustained serious and life-threatening injuries, and rather than celebrating his first year of marriage with the blessed birth of a son, he instead spent it sitting shiva, mourning yet two more losses: his beloved Miriam and their unborn child.

Since then, out of work and out of sorts, he’d found solace within the confines of the Sons of Zion, zealous followers of Menachem ben Schlomo. Rabbi Schlomo did not believe that the secular Israeli government represented true or biblical Israel. He considered the Zionist movement a hopelessly compromised mess. Brokering land for peace was folly. True Jews, he espoused, knew that there’d be no peace in the region until Messiah returned. Until that time, they, the true Jews, would stand as sentinels of the land, protecting the holy territory and the biblical prerogatives of their ancestors at any cost, including violence and death.

An orphaned, disillusioned Sadiq had found first comfort and then purpose in the person and teachings of Rabbi Schlomo. At the rabbi’s urging, he began keeping an eye on the plethora of archaeological sites in the region. Observing escalated to policing then stalking. Distrust grew to anger against anyone he perceived to be desecrating Israel and her heritage. On a few occasions he anonymously contacted the IAA with reports of theft. He dutifully reported back to the Sons of Zion who, in turn, gave Sadiq all the moral support and encouragement he needed for his spying operations. He was only instructed to be discreet, to operate with a certain amount of savvy and guile.

His hatred of Palestinians had long ago spilled over to encompass any non-Jew--any non-orthodox Israeli Jew, really. Grace Levine was a case in point. What self-respecting Jewish woman would think she could speak to any man, let alone a rabbi, with such brazenness? And tousling those wild curls about for all to see! He realized that not all Jewish women covered their hair these days, reserving it only for the eyes of their husbands, but, he assured himself, no man of any merit would deign to call her wife. Before he could lose himself in memories of his Miriam’s own black ringlets, he turned his thoughts to his ever-growing roster of suspicious characters.

Ever since the James ossuary debacle, involving some prominent Jewish antiquities collectors as well as dealers, collectors and foreign archaeologists had headed his list. This week, Dr. Art West and Dr. Patrick Stone topped his hit parade —apparently with just cause. Just before joining the Sons of Zion on Ben Yehuda Street, he’d tailed Stone to a mound in Bethany. It was high time he returned to the site to see what havoc the little man had wrought.

CHAPTER SIX: Facing the Artifacts---Easy Come, Easy Go

From the looks of things, Sammy Cohen’s office could have been easily mistaken for that of an American CPA mid-tax season. Filtered by the parchment-colored roller shades, the midday sun added a soft luminescence to the troupes of dust mites dancing in the air. The low hum of the window unit air conditioner did little to disperse the heat, but a fan was out of the question—years of files and reports stood in precarious piles throughout the room, many topped with replicas of ancient scrolls and original artifacts. To an untrained eye, the office could have qualified for national disaster relief. To Sammy, it represented more than twenty years of dedication to the preservation of Israeli history. He knew the contents of each stack, so what did it matter how it looked?

In anticipation of the noon meeting, he methodically reassigned positions to the files inhabiting the chairs around the chipped Formica conference table. Balancing the last file on a new pyramid, he looked up to see the doorway filled by his friend Art West. Setting his camera, notebook and file down on the first flat surface he could find, the American came forward to pull the Israeli official into a bear hug. Before they could even begin their litany of pleasantries, a voice piped up from behind. “And where’s my hug? Don’t I rate anymore?” Art turned to embrace Grace in a more gentle squeeze just as she threw a playful right fist into his arm. “What happened this morning? We said ten o’clock at Sarah’s right?”

“We did. We did. And if I hadn’t been sealed in a tomb I’d have been there!”

“Arthur West. I’ve heard a lot of wonderful stories come out of that mouth of yours, but really, you expect me to fall for that version of the “dog ate my homework”?

“Grace, really, I—,”Art’s explanation was interrupted by Sammy.

“Grace, my dear, wonderful to see you too!” diffused the Director, motioning to the conference table and chairs. “Art’s had quite a morning; let the man tell his tale!”

Art dashingly reached the table in time to ease out a chair for Grace. She could hold her own with the most chauvinist of men, but he also knew she secretly loved chivalry. She flashed him a grin. “It’ll take a lot more than “coats over puddles” to get back in my good graces.”

Art grinned back. “Would a little Turkish Delight pave the way at all, ma’am?”

“Ahem, children. Do I need to sit between you?” Sammy interrupted again. “Art, let’s have it.”

Removing the photos from the file, Art’s heart began to race. He carefully laid all ten on the table for his friends to see. “I took these this morning, on the property of the Church of Mary and Martha.” He gestured toward the first few. “Here you see the inside of the chamber. And here, notice the niche. Now,” he gestured toward a third image, “note the ossuary in the niche and the inscription above.” Fighting to keep from sounding like a toddler on Christmas, he pushed three more pictures towards Grace, “How would you, Dr. Levine, translate the Aramaic?”

Unfolding her red reading glasses onto the bridge of her nose, she examined each of the three close-ups before translating aloud, “Twice dead under Pilate, twice reborn in Jesus in sure hope of resurrection” she confirmed.

“That’s how I read it, before the lights went out!” agreed Art. “Now, look closely at the letters etched on the end of the ossuary.”

Grace shared the three photos with Sammy. “Eliezar son of Simon” she declared. “This is a pretty ordinary ossuary inscription, Art, nothing particularly of note...unless...” The light began to dawn. “Unless you think this refers to the Lazarus!”

Art could only respond with raised eyebrows and a somewhat goofy grin. He wanted to see her go the rest of the distance.

“And if it is the Lazarus, that would make this ossuary, this tomb, a tangible, certifiable, outside-the-Scriptures reference to the idea of resurrection!” she finished triumphantly.

“Almost. A slight correction, if I may, your esteemed professorship. This would actually be our earliest attestation not of the idea of resurrection, but of the actuality of it. But we can save the textual nuances for later!” he teased. “First we’ll need to do the usual testing—date the inscription, determine that the lettering is of the same hand as that on the box, carbon date the whole lot, but knowing what we do about the practice of using ossuaries in this region, this has got to predate AD 70, wouldn’t you agree?”

Sammy, who until now had kept his silence, moaned. “The James ossuary didn’t give us enough headaches? And now this? What’s next? Jesus’ burial clothes?”

“Actually, we may be off the hook there. Remember the Shroud of Turin?” Art sheepishly suggested.

Stifling a snort, Sammy dismissed the idea. “Everyone knows that shroud didn’t carbon date to the first century! Enough. Resurrection or no resurrection, you’ve certainly got something here Art.”

Art protested “Well actually last week there was a new study showing that the carbon 14 dating had been bungled because what was tested was a medieval patch sown on the Shroud after the medieval fire, not the original cloth, but….”

Sammy interrupted. “Enough already, one proof of resurrection at a time! We’d better head up to Bethany now — I only sent a preliminary team when you called earlier.”

“Grace, you’ll join us, no?” entreated Sammy.

“Wouldn’t miss this for all the coffee at Sarah’s.” She threw a wink at Art. “Sammy you’ll ring Moshe with the request for security? What about the lab team? How soon do we want them up there?”

Sammy sighed. The IAA team was replete with type A personalities. “Grace, dear, we’ve been through this drill more than few times. You and Art catch up for a bit, and I’ll make the necessary calls.”

“Before you pick up the phone Sammy, you need to hear this part too. I wasn’t joking, Grace, when I said someone sealed me in a tomb this morning. Someone besides Mustafa el Din, the caretaker there, knew I was digging, knew I’d dropped into the mound. No sooner had I translated the inscription than they dragged or pushed a boulder over the opening. Mustafa saved my life this morning. Literally. I think we need to exercise more caution than usual this time around.”

Grace’s eyes lost some of their laughter and she immediately regretted having given him such a hard time for standing her up. “Art. I had no idea. You know—“

“Grace, relax. I expect nothing less than a good ribbing from you. Thank God, I’m fine. No blood, no foul.” He turned back to Sammy. “So what next, Boss?” He knew the Director could get frustrated as the number of cooks in the kitchen grew, as it did with any discovery. “Got a plan?”

“I will by three. Let’s meet in the lobby at half past two. And I too thank God for your safe egress from the tomb.”

Leaving Sammy to orchestrate the particulars, Art and Grace headed across the street for a quick cup of coffee. He could hear their animated chatter trailing off into the distance as they departed.

CHAPTER SEVEN: THE ARTIFACTS, AND THE ART OF LYING

Kahlil el Asad was an imposing figure. For a start he looked like Omar Sharif with his mustache and big smile, and beautiful olive complexion. For another thing he was 6'3" and had a huge booming voice. Last but not least he was as gregarious as one could imagine. He treated all persons with respect and kindness and so cut quite a figure as a man and as a salesman. He was a Sufi Moslem, a mystic of sorts, and loved the writings of the Egyptian author Mahfouz, and also the Lebanese prophet for whom he was named– Kahlil Gibran.

Largely self taught, though as a boy he had attended a British school in Jerusalem, Kahlil had developed a great love for history and antiquities over the years and had been apprenticed to one of the best Mahmoud Sadat, when he was only a teenager. He had learned to develop a good critical eye when it came to discerning the difference between a clever forgery and a real piece of antiquity.

Asad had earned a reputation with all as a fair trader and an honest man, which was increasingly rare in the antiquities business. He had contacts all over the Middle East, and Moslems, Christians, and Jews all traded with him. As Israeli Law required, he kept a scrupulous log of all he had in his shop, which sat about 200 yards from the Damascus or west gate into the old city of Jerusalem. Kahlil, now some 68 years old but as vigorous as a man half his age, was a widower, and his only child Hannah now 40 something helped him run his shop. All in all, he was quite satisfied with his life.

On this morning he had been in a mood to tease his daughter a bit, so when she had asked “Father, how is it with you on this day?” He had replied using the old Islamic proverb: “Today is much the same as yesterday, only more so.” She laughed out loud, but quickly covered her mouth, since that was not consider appropriate behavior for a Moslem woman in public.

Kahlil could tell it was going to be a hot day and so he had stocked his small refrigerator with his favorite fruit juices, particularly Haifa orange juice. He would have a smoke on his water pipe in the afternoon after prayers. Today was a good day to sit quietly in the shop and take inventory. Kahlil’s antiquities shop sold all sorts of artifacts, but he specialized in stone objects and coins, unlike many other shops which focused on clay pots of various sorts. In the morning he had only had a few browsers in the shop, and had sold a couple of small stone cups, but nothing significant.

Much more interesting was the American customer who showed up about 4 o’clock and wanted some Herodian period coins– the Tyrian half shekel, a widow’s mite, some coins of the various procurators including Pilate and Festus and Felix. He had had an interesting conversation with this fairly young American gentleman who knew a good deal about numismatics and the good-natured haggling over the coins went on for over an hour while they were sitting on a rug and drinking fruit juice and eating wonderful figs and dates. The young man, whose name was William Arnold, was from Kentucky, and they had talked about horses and horse racing, and a host of other topics, steering away from troubling subjects like the Intifadad, terrorism and the like. Kahlil had no stomach and no sympathy for those he called the ‘barbarians’ by which he meant both radical and violent zealots of whatever religion and no religion. In his view such behavior was a betrayal of the highest and best that all three monotheistic religions had to offer.

Finally Kahlil had said to William with a big grin on his face: “You know my friend, if I do not soon sell you these coins, I shall not even be able to afford to pay for all the drinks and food we have been consuming. Surely, you would not want to shame an old man that way would you, by driving too hard a bargain?” “No” said Arnold, “I know a good deal when I see one, and so I will gladly pay you the $400 we have agreed upon.” He reached for his passport carrier to get the money, but all of a sudden there was a commotion at the door of the shop. A short man, quite out of breath, holding some sort of object wrapped in a cloth had burst into the shop. Kahlil could see the man was agitated and impatient and called out from his back room where he and Arnold had been sitting “I’ll be right with you in a moment.” “Make it quick” the man retorted, “I am in a big hurry.”

Kahlil, without rushing took Arnold’s money, and Arnold said “I will leave so you can attend to your next customer”. “Nothing of the kind,” said Kahlil, “Hannah here will carefully pack your purchases and draw up the authentication papers so you can show them to the customs people when you leave the country. Just sit here and enjoy the juice and fruit, and I will be back.”

By the time Kahlil had gotten to the front room, the man was pacing the floor at a rapid rate. He blurted out “I have found something quite remarkable, and wish to sell it. I understand you are the best dealer in town.” “First of all,” said Kahlil, “I must see this object and evaluate it. Secondly, in view of the Law of Israel, I must ask where you got this object and how long you have had it. If it is something of great value and great antiquity, and you have recently found it, then you must turn it over to the IAA.”

This response irritated the little man no end. “I thought I was told you were the best dealer, and were capable of being discrete!” “Discrete yes, said Kahlil, but dishonest, no.” I will not risk my reputation and my life’s work on something suspicious. Nevertheless, show me this object and I may be able at least to appraise it for you.”

The man unwrapped the object which turned out to be a limestone object which looked recently chiseled around the edges, but the surface of which looked quite ancient. Kahlil could not read ancient languages very well, but he could tell this inscription was some sort of Semitic inscription and it looked ancient.

“In my view” Kahlil said, “you must take this object to the IAA, perhaps to Professor Grace Levine first since she is the resident expert in Aramaic inscriptions and their authentication. I cannot take this object off your hands, nor offer you any money for it, I am afraid to say.”

At this the little man ground his teeth, and spat on the floor. “Imbecile, this object is worth millions of dollars. It is a first century inscription about a disciple of Jesus, and I had thought you could broker it for me with a collector and we could both make a tidy sum of money. I see that there is a reason why you are still running such a small business in this God-forsaken part of the city.” He turned in disgust, and left the shop at once, heading off into the covered shopping area in the old city and in the direction of the so-called Wailing Wall.

Kahlil returned to his back room with a frown on his face. “Well that was as unpleasant as our time together has been delightful. Thank you so much for doing business with me.” Arnold shook his hand, and left the shop, shocked at the lack of courtesy of the little man, and apparent lack of familiarity with honor and shame customs in the Middle East.

“Hannah,” Kahlil said, “we must have an early dinner, as I am off to see our old friend Art West tonight. I want to talk to him some more about the James ossuary. Some new things have come to light.

Hannah said “I knew you were going out for some good reason, and so I began the preparing the Shwarma and vegetables already and of course there is hummus and pita bread. We can eat in a few minutes.” Slowly the sunlight was waning in the room and the noise outside in the Cardo, the major market street was abating. While all seemed peaceful on the surface, Kahlil and Hannah were both uneasy about something indefinable, something just on the edge of consciousness. Why was that little man in such a hurry, and who was he?

British Radio Interview on the Jesus Tomb

Friends, I did an extended radio interview for the U.K. audience which is airing soon but you can hear it now. Here is the link---http://www.premier.org.uk/engine.cfm?i=680

Let me know what you think.

BW3

The Lazarus Effect-- Part Two

Note these two chapters have been reformated into plain text. Let me know if they read alright. From these computers it looks o.k.

BW3

--------------------------------

CHAPTER THREE: Lost and Found

That Boy Scouting memory must have been a premonition, thought Art. Never go swimming without a buddy...ha!...never go digging without one either! He'd lost track of time, mostly because he'd spent more than the first few minutes repeating the inscription over and over again.

" Twice dead under Pilatus

Twice born of Yeshua, in sure hope of resurrection"

Soon, however, fear replaced fascination. Perfect for storing bones inside stone boxes, the conditions in this tomb were anything but accommodating for living, breathing six-foot men. He tried to focus his thoughts, taking a mental inventory of his pack. Besides the waning flashlight, dwindling canteen, and digital camera, he had a handful of brushes, a small notebook and pencil and a bar of Halvah, a Middle-Eastern answer to a candy bar. What else?

He had tossed the collapsible spade aside before diving into the mound, so prying the stone loose was out of the question.

Think man, think! His cell phone! Normally he hated the things. He used his sparingly, sharing the number with only a select few and keeping the ringer turned to silent. Silently offering a prayer that he had enough battery power, he punched in the numbers to the caretaker's office. Gratefully he listened to one ring after another until he began to worry that Mustafa had, for some reason, left the property.

"Salam Alaykum", came the faint Arabic greeting in the familiar soft-spoken accent of Mustafa.

Mustafa! Mustafa! Dr. West here! I'm trapped in a tomb on the back side of the mound you showed me yesterday. Please, please, hurry!

"On the way," came the reply, as the man of few words hung up the phone and dashed out of his office.

'Oh the irony' thought West. I finally find something interesting and almost get buried with it. He tried to slow his heart rate as he made a futile attempt to staunch the torrents of sweat pouring down his neck and back. No more than five minutes passed before he heard the ping of a shovel tapping from above. Using his canteen, he tapped back. Within minutes, Mustafa had used the discarded pickax to pry the stone loose.

"Thank God! I don't know what I would have done if you hadn't been there! Shokrun! I'm forever grateful, friend."

Handing the caretaker his digital camera, West clamored out into the blinding, stifling day. Looking at his watch, he discovered it was already after ten o(clock.

"Mustafa, someone intentionally moved that stone to seal me in there. Did you see anyone? I've got so much to share with you, but first I've got to get over to the IAA and I can't do that without cleaning up a bit first, so I've got to run by my flat! And we've got to cover that hole. Can you do that for me? I'll make a call to have the area secured. I promise to fill you in just as soon as I can. Again, I can't thank you enough for saving my life!"

When West finally ran out of breath, Mustafa, brown eyes smiling, acknowledged the task with a nod and slight bow.

Propelling the bright blue Mini Metro towards his apartment, Art's thoughts bounced like pinballs. "Who would seal me in a tomb, for Heaven's sake? Did someone follow me? A prankster? Why didn't I see them? Hear them?" Only briefly did his thoughts turn to Mustafa. A man of honor, the Palestinian Christian had shown him nothing but friendship over the past several months. And had he been culpable, he certainly wouldn't have answered the call for help.

Just after passing the Pool of Siloam and the old City of David ruins, Art turned onto a quiet side street, and whipped into the fourth driveway on the left. Barely taking time to remove the keys from the ignition, he headed straight for the bathroom. He didn't even bother with the hot tap "cold water rinses soap and grime just as well," he reasoned, and he desperately needed a respite from the heat.

Clean, cooled and quenched, West set the empty water bottle on the weathered table that served as his desk. He needed to start making phone calls, but in what order? IAA or press first? He should probably start with the IAA's director, Dr. Samuel Cohen, and see if he couldn't come right over with the pictures. For years Art had cheerfully turned over any findings or artifacts to the IAA, most of which found homes in various museums in and around Jerusalem. And this practice had not only fostered an easy and amicable relationship with the Antiquities Authority, it had also given rise to a most enjoyable friendship between Art and Sammy. Yes, he'd start with Sammy, and later, he'd give his friend Israel Steinmetz a ring at Ha'Aretz, one the two leading daily newspapers in Jerusalem.

Cohen answered his phone on the third ring with a hearty English "Hello."

"Shalom alechem" began Art, in Hebrew.

"Alechem Shalom," replied Cohen. "Art? Is that you?"

"It is indeed! You'll never believe what happened this morning! What I found. What I think I found. I've got pictures. Pictures you've got to see to believe...that is until you can get to the tomb. The tomb. You've got to have it secured, cordoned off, be sure no one gets in, be sure no one gets trapped like me . . ."

"Art. Art. Slow down. As usual you speak too quickly for these ears. You've found something. You've got pictures and you want to show them to me. Certainly. How's noon? I'm tied up in a meeting until then. Now what's this about being trapped in a tomb?"

"I'll get to that when I see you. In the meantime, you've got to get someone over to the Church of Mary and Martha in Bethany to secure the site! There's a caretaker there, Mustafa, but he's got other duties. Oh, and could you contact Grace Levine's office and see if she can join us? I want a second opinion on this Aramaic inscription..." West trailed off to catch his breath again.

"An Aramaic inscription. Secure a tomb at the Church of Mary and Martha in Bethany." Art could hear the furious scratch of Sammy's pen against paper. "And a call to Grace Levine. Done. Anything else? A plate of fresh hummus and some peeled grapes perhaps?" Sammy joked with his friend.

At the mention of hummus, Art suddenly remembered he hadn't eaten since five this morning. "Yeah, that would be great! I'll see you at noon."

As he made himself a quick sandwich he thought about the look he'd soon see on Grace's face when she read the inscription. Picturing her round face framed by a riotous mass of still-black curls, brown-green eyes dancing behind funky red spectacles, his stomach lurched. While he'd been looking at his watch graveside, he should have been sipping lattes with this lively department chair from Jerusalem's Hebrew University. He knew she would forgive him when she saw the pictures, but she should have been the first call, he thought ruefully. "I'll apologize in person," he thought. Grabbing his camera and a small notepad, he started towards the door to the garage when his home phone rang.

"Greetings, my friend." The deep voice of his old friend Kahlil el Said boomed from the receiver. "I have news of the James ossuary. Let us meet at our usual spot behind the Shrine of the Book this evening. Say nine? We will talk. You are free?"

Art smiled just hearing the voice of the Muslim antiquities dealer. They had met during that first dig back in the Eighties and had shared a lifetime since. Art had become a frequent guest of Kahlil and his wife, Sheema, and been present at the marriage of their only child, Hannah. When Sheema's cancer had gained the upper hand, he'd taken the first available flight. Like Jews, Muslims bury their dead within twenty-four hours, and Art had promised her he would look after Kahlil in the early days following her burial. It was then that they inaugurated their tradition of meeting in the quietude of the park to discuss everything and nothing, away from the bustle of Kahlil's shop and of Art's various projects.

"For you? Of course I'm free. Nine o'clock it is. I look forward to seeing you old friend."

"Bless you, my friend. Until tonight then. Salam."

Art knew Kahlil would be thrilled to hear of his find -- and horrified to learn of his early interment. He might have to skip that part. Though ten years had passed since Sheema's death, Kahlil avoided almost all conversation of her, of sickness and of death in general. Best not to mention his near miss, at least not tonight. Camera and notepad in tow, he stuffed himself into the Mini and headed for IAA office.

CHAPTER FOUR: Grace under Pressure

Even though it was only mid-morning, most shoppers on Ben Yehuda Street were looking for shade. Grace Levine had found hers under the awning of her favorite coffee shop, Solomon’s Porch, where she sat sipping, not coffee, but a more refreshing blend of orange and papaya juices. As she worked her way through the morning papers, Ha’Aretz and The Jerusalem Post, she gave a short prayer of thanks that neither led with a headline of overnight terrorist activity. Mercifully, for the past several weeks, all had been quiet on the Middle-Eastern front.

The same could not be said for the usually quiet stretch of stores, cafes and restaurants along Ben Yehuda. Her thoughts of Art West and his uncharacteristic lateness were interrupted by the growing throng of onlookers looking for the source of commotion at the end of the block.

“Non-kosher, close it down! Non-kosher, close it down!” A shouting individual had swelled to a small chanting group of men.

Grace rolled her eyes as she slipped her feet back into the sandals she’d kicked off beneath the table. The McDonald’s protestors were at it again. Surely this band of Orthodox had better things to do with their time than spend it scaring off American tourists. The last time she looked, the Orthodox didn’t control the whole city—just thought that they should.

Raised to know her mind before she spoke it, Grace had grown up in Brookline, Massachusetts, to observant Jewish parents with a keen sense of intellect and social conscience. She almost never passed up a chance to debate, especially when she felt strongly about the topic.

Dropping her cavernous tote behind the outdoor coffee counter, she smiled wryly at her friend Sarah Goldberg, proprietor of Solomon’s Porch. “Keep an eye on my table for me, yeah? I’ll be back in just a sec.” Sarah urged, “Go get ‘em tiger!”

Grace had quickly scaled the ancient academic walls of both Brandeis and Yale, finishing her doctorate in only four years. The predominately male environments had emboldened her, cementing her commitment to academic excellence. Her dissertation on the Herodian period in Judea and its multi-lingual culture, published not as an obscure academic guide, but as a trade title, had even enjoyed mention in more than a few popular magazine columns. By the time she celebrated her thirty-fifth birthday, she’d bought a flat in Jerusalem and established herself as one of the preeminent authorities on Aramaic translations. But now, as she confidently approached the growing fracas, it was her bulldog tenacity, not her academic prowess, that fueled her stride.

Pushing herself into the midst of the melee, she at first drew curious stares from the jumble of tourists, vendors and street musicians who had gathered. By the time she reached the center of the commotion, she found herself the target of a dozen or so pairs of eyes, undisguised with disdain and outrage. Undaunted, but without actually making physical contact, she brought herself nose to nose with the self-appointed Master of Ceremonies, Rabbi Menachem ben Schlomo.

“How dare you use your position to incite riot! Surely you realize your actions affect the entire commerce of this block, Jewish and Gentile alike? Is there not enough sirrus in the world without you adding to it?”

Stunned by her audacity, the rabbi’s minyan, dressed in the traditional black suits and hats of the ultra-orthodox, held their collective breath. Unused to impudence, especially from a woman, the rabbi, tight lipped and seething, addressed the crowd.

“Who is this woman?”

Refusing to be belittled or ignored, she answered for herself. “I am Dr.Grace Levine, tenured professor and Chairwoman of the Department of Biblical Languages at Hebrew University, and I respectfully ask that you and your students return to your yeshiva and find a way, other than this disgraceful demonstration, to honor the Blessed One.”

Not normally a stickler for so-called political correctness, she’d purposely emphasized her position as chairwoman for added sting.

Hoping to sting back, the Rabbi, again not addressing her directly, quoted Proverbs to his disciples, “To what shall I compare a nagging woman, it is like a continual dripping of water.”

Glaring, she threw back her shoulders and made a great show of planting her feet. “I can assure you, Rabbi, that this nagging woman will not leave this spot until you and your students take your business elsewhere.”

Sensing a change in the temperament of the crowd, the Rabbi gave an almost imperceptible nod to his followers, and, grimacing, he led them away. Near the back of the line of disciples, a young lanky student paused before her.

“You, a Jewish woman, should be ashamed of yourself. You should know your place better. No one speaks to Rabbi Menachem like that—especially in the presence of Goyim!”

Apparently satisfied with his rebuke, he hurried to catch up with his brethren. A few tourists smiled gratefully at Grace before heading into McDonalds to satisfy their American appetites. Returning to the café, she smiled in response to Sarah’s raised eyebrow.

“Mission accomplished. Thanks for watching my stuff.”

Retrieving her tote, she returned to her table. As she reached into her bag for a tube of chapstick, she noticed the light on her cell phone blinking. Assuming it was Art with an explanation, she was surprised to hear Sammy Cohen’s tenor on her voicemail.

“Grace, we need your expertise over at the IAA. Can you join us at noon? Give a call and I’ll fill you in.”

Intrigued, but still worried about her American friend, she dialed Sammy’s office to confirm.

The Lazarus Effect-- Part One

The following is the beginning of a novel I have written (its complete in draft form) with the help of my wife about the discovery of the tomb of Lazarus. Enjoy...... BW3 Let me know when you are ready for the next installment
--------------

DUSTJACKET TEASER

His heart filled his ears and was pounding at a rate worthy of a blood pressure measurement as his flashlight illuminated the ancient Herodian-period Aramaic staring back at him.

Twice dead...

And was that next word Aunder@?

Twice dead under...

Pilatus.

As if the limestone facing knew an encore was expected, the inscription continued:

Twice born of Yeshua, in sure hope of resurrection.

His breath caught. In his mind, the verses of John ran at marathon pace, finally coming to rest on chapter 11.

...Jesus called out in a loud voice, ALazarus, come out!@

The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen,

and a cloth around his face. Jesus said to them,

ATake off his grave clothes and let him go.@

Fumbling with the zip of his pack, he quickly pulled out his digital camera and began shooting pictures of the ossuary and the inscription. But as he moved to shoot the full wall, he heard the ominous scraping of stone against stone. And then, but for the weak beam of his overworked penlight, all went dark.

CHAPTER ONE: Art for Art=s Sake

Arthur James West had spent the summers of the last quarter century knee-deep in ancient sandsCfrom Israel to Turkey, Jordan to Greece. As a young doctoral candidate at Johns Hopkins, drafting his dissertation on AThe Relevance of Artifacts for the Study of New Testament History,@ he had been inspired to attend that institution because of the work of W.F. Albright, one of the progenitors of American archaeology.

Unfortunately, Albright died in 1971, but his writings and work served as a living legacy pushing West to explore the interface between NT studies and archaeology. His thesis raised a few eyebrows by exhibiting an expansive grasp of early Jewish and Ancient Near Eastern as well as Greco-Roman history. Through the aid of a family friend, Professor John Bright of Princeton, Art was offered a place on a dig in the early 1980=s.

It was on that dig while sifting sand in the nether layers of a tel that he looked up and saw, much to his surprise, one of his archaeological heroes C Yagael Yadin, the father of modern Israeli archaeology. It was only a brief encounter, for Yadin was just visiting the site during a break in his final year of serving in political posts prior to retirement. Apparently West had been born just a little too late to work with the real legendary figures in the field.

Nevertheless, this auspicious career beginning led first to a post-graduate stint at St. Andrews in Scotland and ultimately to faculty positions at two prestigious schools of divinityCVanderbilt and Duke. He managed to sidestep the first roadblock of academia, Apublish or perish,@ by having his dissertation accepted by the Cambridge monograph series, and by authoring a humorous Adigging on a dime@ journal piece which came to the attention of the Discover Channel. And now, after more than twenty years in the field and in the classroom, West could add Atelevision host@ to his vita. “Biblical History”, much to the delight of his producers, had developed a loyal following that crossed demographic lines. With the grace of a seasoned scholar, Art moved effortlessly between the hallowed halls of the ivory tower and the paneled walls of family rooms across America. Older audiences appreciated his scholarship, while younger viewers saw what his students sawCa man who could tell really cool stories and make sorting potsherds sound fun.

With years came experience, rock-solid credentials and a sterling reputation. Art was ready to venture out on his own. In 2004, he secured permission from the IAA (Israeli Antiquities Authority) to begin digging in the small village of Bethany, situated just a few miles outside Jerusalem.

What the years had not brought was a wife or family. That first professional dig had sealed his bachelorhood, whether or not he knew it at the time. He once likened archaeology to a pick-up game of sandlot baseballCthe one 8-year-old boys dream aboutCthe one in which you just happen to be hangin= out with Carl Yastremski, and Ted Williams drops by wanting to Ahit a few.@ He=d been seduced that summer of =81Cby the heady must of newly unsealed tombs, by the intellectual magnetism of the mentors that would become friends, and by the thrill of the laborious but delicate search for artifacts. As with most jokes, there was some truth in the adage that an archaeologist=s life is constantly in ruins. Art, with little premeditation, chose the ruins, and thus filled his life with centuries-old dust rather than decades-old regrets.

He also pursued his work with the vigor of anyone answering a call from God, for that=s what archaeology was to him. Summers were spent traipsing through the Judean and Galilean regions in search of the breakthrough find that would revolutionize the study and understanding of the Bible. West was not only a researcher, but also a devout evangelical Christian.

Just this morning, he selected Psalm 112 for his morning devotion: AEven in darkness light dawns for the uprightY.Good will come to him...who conducts his affairs with justice.@ But a clutter of prayer requests had jumbled his mind. For the first time in his career he arrived at a dig site without funding. The third quarter NASDAQ dive had left the usual coffers empty. Nothing short of a preeminent find would secure a major grant.

Right now, all that shined down upon him was the 89 degree, 7.30 am sun. When scouting locations for this year=s dig, he first setup an extensive series of conversations with Mustafa el Din, the property steward of the nearby Church of Mary and Martha, home to the oldest known graveyard in Bethany. He had spent the previous week surveying the south end of the Kidron valley, honeycombed with graves and tombs stretching from the Mount of Olives to this tiny berg. Yesterday he settled on the site. Today, before the temperature climbed to its usual 95 degree high, he hoped to complete a preliminary inspection and choose a tel. Approaching the site, his eyes fell upon a small mound. Giving it an optimistic once-over, he offered up one last thought, AMaybe, just maybe, God, you=ll shine the light of Providence on me today.@

Unlike the Orthodox Jews of the region, Art had no real qualms about poking around old graveyards, no fears about violating the ritual laws regarding the impurities of corpses. Instead, removing a spade from the large duffel bag he carried, West eyed the variety of limestone rocks and slabs that surrounded the mound. With a deep breath, he selected a spot and, using all of his 6=2@, 195 pound frame, began the hard labor that defined the beginning of any dig. He worked methodically, alternating between his collapsible pickax and spade, until he encountered a stone much larger than usual. With sweat pouring from his brow, he finally managed to budge the boulder just enough for it to slip to the bottom of the sandy tel. Dropping the spade and mopping his head, Art estimated that he could probably squeeze himself into the opening -- head first.

Switching on his flashlight, he first peered into the hole and discovered a surprisingly large chamber. Too symmetrical to be a normal hole in the ground, the room appeared to be surrounded by carved walls. Shadows cast by the flashlight hinted of niches here and there. West noted that this was no place for a claustrophobe. Throwing caution to the wind, he thrust his head, then his shoulders, into the dark, dank space.

Slithering on his belly, he thought back to his youthful days as a Boy Scout. While spelunking in the North Carolina Appalachian caves, he=d nearly gotten trapped in a narrow crevice. Hoping for a less harrowing experience this go-around, West pushed and shoved a little quicker. Finally in, he tried to unfold himself to his full height, only to bang his head on the limestone ceiling.

AArt, Art, Art,@ he muttered, as he rubbed the rising welt where he once had hair, AYou=re a man of modern times -- not a five-foot ancient!@ As he informed his often surprised students, most people of the first few centuries, even the men, grew no taller than 5=4 or so, a fact demonstrated long ago by ancient skeletons discovered and measured by the Israeli archaeologists of this region.

He turned his attention to the back wall. Sure enough, there was a niche, a niche with some sort of stone object lodged within. Crawling towards it on his knees, he immediately recognized the object as an ossuary, a bone box used for ancient reburial.

As periodically explained in episodes of “Biblical History”, the practice of osslegium, or the disassembling and storing of a skeleton in an ossuary, probably began about twenty years before the turn of the common era and continued in the Jerusalem area until the fall of the city in AD 70. Scholars debated the origins of the practice, but West was sure that the rise of the Pharisaic movement in early Judaism had played a hand. As in all cultures, burial practices reflected the societal conceptions of the afterlife. Drawing on the famous Adry bones@ story in Ezekiel 37, Pharisaic Jews believed that God would one day raise the righteous from their graves and so it made sense that they would rebury the bones intact.

He grasped the end of the stone box and pulled. From its size he determined it to be a one person adult ossuary. Because only a minority of ancient Jewish ossuaries bear inscriptions, he was a little surprised to see the encrusted Aramaic letters.

Eliezer, son of Simon

Though a common name, readers of the English translations of the Bible were familiar with the famous Lazarus of Bethany, whose Hebrew name was actually Eliezer. Trying unsuccessfully to check his excitement, he reminded himself that an inscription alone does not an identification make.

A quick scan of the wall with his flashlight revealed two other small, but empty niches. However, just above the compartment that contained the Eliezer ossuary, the light fell upon a protruding rock, approximately 3-feet in width. Centuries had taken a harsher toll on the rock than on the ossuary. Pulling out a small brush from his backpack he whisked away the top layers of dust. Then, holding the flashlight in his mouth, he poured some water from his canteen onto the limestone facing. As the letters came to light, his heart beat accelerated. He saw the wordsY

Twice dead...

And was that next word Aunder@?

Twice dead under...

Pilatus.

As if the limestone facing knew an encore was expected, the inscription continued:

Twice born of Yeshua, in sure hope of resurrection.

His breath caught. In his mind, the verses of John flashed by at marathon pace, finally coming to rest on chapter 11.

...Jesus called out in a loud voice, ALazarus, come out!@

The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen,

and a cloth around his face. Jesus said to them,

ATake off his grave clothes and let him go.@

Fumbling with the zip of his pack, he quickly pulled out his digital camera and began shooting pictures of the ossuary and the inscription. But as he moved to shoot the full wall, he heard the ominous scraping of stone against stone. And then, but for the beam of his penlight, all went dark.

CHAPTER TWO: An Overturned Stone

Sixty-four and nearing the twilight of his career, Dr. Patrick Stone bore the bitter scars of a life that failed to meet expectations. With a doctorate from John Hopkins University in Ancient Near-East Studies and a second from Tubingen in Germany, no one could dispute his skills as a scholar. His personality and resulting personal life were another thing altogether.

Few knew of the failed romance early in his graduate days. He=d fallen as deeply and hopelessly in love as possible for a narcissist with the daughter of his master=s thesis advisor. The match, in Stone=s view, couldn=t have been more perfect. Her intellect nearly matched (without, of course, eclipsing) his own; her 5=1@ trim figure perfectly accentuated his own 5=5@ Napoleonic stature; and she understood intimately the life of an archaeology academic. And therein, as they say, lay the rub.

It never occurred to Stone that she wouldn=t want a life any different from the one from which she came. She enjoyed his company, to be sure, and she had stayed with him throughout his doctoral work. But when it became clear that he intended to pursue a fourth degree, in Germany no less, without so much as a conversation about it with her, she left.

On rare occasions, usually helped along by one glass too many of Glenfiddich, he still remembered the unkind predictions she made B based on her father=s shortcomings. AMy father B he never made department chair in all his years at Chicago!@ And, AMy father B he abandoned his family year after year, months at a time, for archaeological crumbs!@ She had no intentions of recreating that life for herself, or for the children he would never commit to fathering. All this she delivered in lieu of the Ayes@ he expected when he proposed to her with a replica of an ancient marriage band made especially for her during his last trip to Jerusalem.

Since then, he=d sworn off women -- completely. He might well have become a monk, except that monasteries were neither conducive to accumulating personal accolades, nor known for the tolerance of envy. While his work continued to draw praise, few wanted to seek him out, or even claim him as a colleague. As others in his field gained acclaim, rather than celebrate their discoveries, he fumed about being passed over.

For years Yale had been his academic home, but recently Stone began spending more of his time in Israel researching the material culture and social networks of Second Temple Jerusalem. His Yale colleagues were only too glad when Stone was granted a research position that allowed him to spend more time abroad. No one knew quite what he expected to achieve, but rumor had it that he sought nothing less than a first century A.D. document that would cast doubt on traditional Christian claims.

Raised in the South, Stone still had a mama=s boy devotion to his sole surviving parent, who lived in a Kingsport, Tennessee nursing home. He dutifully sent the monthly support for her care. Holidays were spent in Tennessee; vacations were spent in Tennessee. Summers were divided between research trips B and Tennessee. Some semblance of peace was found visiting with her and walking the woods behind the boyhood home he still maintained.

Stone=s undergraduate years at a conservative Protestant college (in Tennessee, of course) led him to entertain the notion of Christian ministry. He quickly realized, however, since he was already one of the biggest intellectual fish in his small pond, that life held the potential for something much more lucrative than ministry. So he transferred to the University of Chicago and stopped attending church altogether. Though it has often been said that there is no believer so zealous as one converted later in life, it may also be said that no unbeliever is so zealous as one dissuaded from faith as an adult. Patrick Prentiss Stone was most certainly the latter.

Over his black, unsweetened morning coffee, Stone ruminated on Art West=s return to the region. He knew his self-appointed rival had arrived several weeks previous to his own, permits in hand, to excavate in Bethany. Wanting to stay abreast of any interesting developments, he=d given his research assistant, Ray Simpson, the unglamorous (not to mention, unscrupulous) task of following the new darling of popular archaeology. AHow that guy got a TV show, I=ll never know,@ he grumbled. Every time West touted a new discovery Stone seethed with envy. Not once had the twit mentioned him or any of his books on the show.

He gave a start as his cell phone began chiming the first movement of Beethoven=s Fifth Symphony at full volume. Blinking his beady gray eyes, he reached for it, finding a very excited Raymond Simpson on the other end of the line.

AWest just disappeared into a tel! It=s got to be a tomb!@ the graduate student reported. Stone jerked to attention. ASay that again, Simpson?@

AWest just climbed into the hole he=s been digging all morning. He=s been down there for at least fifteen minutes!@

AWell, well, well. Must have found more than sand if he=s still in there. Stay put. I=m on my way. And don=t let him out of your sight!@ He rang off and hurriedly grabbed his keys from the Egyptian bowl on the hall table. ALet=s see if we can=t find an old cemetery ghost to scare Mr. Biblical History away long enough for me to get a good look in that pit.@ Stone=s mind danced with possibilities as his white Volvo sped towards Bethany.

Stephen Pfann Rules Out Mary Magdalene Ossuary

Dr. Stephen Pfann of Jerusalem University who does a lot of close work on epigraphy and other related fields has now weighed in on the so-called Mary Magdalene ossuary (Rahmani no. 701). His detailed analysis of the inscription with careful comparison to other ossuary inscriptions and textual evidence shows the high likelihood that there were two women in that ossuary, and neither one of them could be Mary Magdalene. Here below is the initial summary of his report, and his conclusions. I thank my friend Richard Bauckham for kindly sending me the pdf link. Pfann is a fine and careful scholar who is respected by the original archaeologists, Amos Kloner and Joe Zias who were originally involved with the tomb. For those wanting to read more, there is bibliography at the end of the conclusions.

MARY MAGDALENE IS NOW MISSING:

A CORRECTED READING OF RAHMANI OSSUARY 701

By Stephen J. Pfann, Ph.D.

SUMMARY POINTS OF DISCUSSION:

*The original transcription of the inscription was incorrect.

*The inscription does not read “Mariamene the Master”nor does the name Mariamene

or Mariamne appear on the ossuary at all.

*The inscription reflects the writing of two distinct scribes who wrote in different forms of

the Greek script.

*The correct reading of the inscription is “Mariame and Mara,” based on parallels from

contemporary inscriptions and documents.

*The ossuary thus contained the bones of at least two different women, interred at two

separate times, one named Mariame and the other Mara.

*No support exists for ascribing the ossuary to Mary Magdalene.

-------------------

The revised reading of the inscription based on contemporary inscriptions and documents

would leave the words MARIAME KAI MARA "Mariam and Mara." Mara, as noted by Tal

Ilan among other scholars, was a common shortened form of the Aramaic name “Martha.”

Due to the fact that (1) an ossuary would often contain more than one individual's bones and

(2) these two names are among the most common personal names of the first century, the

combination of these two names together on an ossuary is not unique.

In fact an ossuary was discovered at Dominus Flevit on the west slope of the Mt. of Olives

that has the Hebrew equivalent of the two names as a pair written three times on the same

ossuary (however, with the order reversed: "Martha and Maria"; Dominus Flevit, ossuary 7):

Multiple burial and DNA

The fact that two individuals were named on the side of an ossuary does not limit the remains

inside to be of those two individuals. There may have been others inside whose names were

not inscribed. To give us an idea as to how many individuals might have been inside a single

ossuary, there was one ossuary, also from the Dominus Flevit tomb complex (Dominus

Flevit, Ossuary 37), which bears the names of five individuals, indicating that the ossuary

contained at least five distinct burials. The named individuals buried in the ossuary were

Zacharias, Mariame, El'azar, Simon, and Sheniit(?).The variety of scripts and character of the

cuts indicate that the inscriptions were written by different individuals with distinct

instruments. There may be the skeletal and DNA remains of at least five individuals in this

box (not accounting for others who went unnamed).

CONCLUSION

The so-called "Mariamene" ossuary contained the names and remains of two distinct

individuals. The first name on the ossuary, “MARIAME.” was written in the common Greek

documentary script of the period on the occasion of the interment of the bones of this woman.

The second and third words “KAI MARA” were added sometime later by a second scribe,

when the bones of the second woman Mara were added to the ossuary. This scribe's

handwriting includes numerous cursive elements not exhibited by the first scribe who wrote

“Mariame.” In view of the above, there is no longer any reason to be tempted to link this

ossuary (nor the ambiguous traces of DNA inside) to Mary Magdalene or any other person in

Biblical, non-Biblical or church tradition.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bagatti, P.B. and Milik, J.T. Gli Scavi del “Dominus Flevit”, Parte 1. Jerusalem. Franciscan

Printing Press. 1981.

Benoit, P., Milik, J.T., and de Vaux, R. Les Grottes de Murabba’at. Discoveries in the

Judaean Desert II. Oxford. Clarendon Press. 1961.

Cotton, H.M. and Geiger, J. Masada II: The Latin and Greek Documents. Jerusalem. Israel

Exploration Society/The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. 1989.

Cotton, H.M. and Yardmen, A. Aramaic Hebrew and Greek Documentary Texts from Nasal

Hover and Other Sites. Discoveries in the Judaean Desert XXVII. Oxford. Clarendon

Press. 1997.

Ilan, T. Lexicon of Jewish Names in Late Antiquity: Part 1: Palestine 330 BCE-200 CE.

Tübingen. Mohr Siebeck. 2002.

Lewis, N., Yadin, Y., and Greenfield, J.C. The Documents from the Bar Kokhba Period in the

Caves of the Letters: Greek Papyri; Aramaic and Nabatean Signatures and

Subscriptions. Jerusalem. Israel Exploration Society/The Hebrew University of

Jerusalem/The Shrine of the Book. 1989.

Rahmani, L.Y. A Catalogue of Jewish Ossuaries in the Collections of the State of Israel.

Jerusalem. The Israel Antiquities Authority/The Israel Academy of Sciences and

Humanities. 1994.

300-- The Battle of Thermopylae Pass

For those of us who grew up reading the Greek and Latin classics, the story of Leonidas and the 300 Spartans was certainly the stuff of legends. 300 men hold off the entire Persian army under Xerxes for a considerable period of time, inspiring all of the Greek city states to rise up and resist the invaders in an even more all out battle later at Platea. I have actually always wanted to see a movie about Spartan culture and its 'warrior' mentality and fierce independence, a culture that defies most modern notions of machismo by having women who were educated and trained to be as athletic and ferocious as the men, in many cases. This culture was so freedom loving and fiercely independent that they had a hard time even co-operating with other Greek city states, even when their independence was on the line.

With this story line, Frank Miller (of Sin City fame) brings to the screen an action thriller in comic book style and color (sepia tones and reds, with some scenes reminiscent of Gladiator) with larger than life action and characters and hyperbole. Surprisingly enough it works rather well. The story is only minimally diddled with, and there is very little filler, or unnecessary sub-plotting added. The focus of the movie not surprisingly is on Leonidas, a few stirring speeches he makes, and the battle scenes themselves. There are of course CG action sequences that are larger and more dramatic than life, and we have the usual gargoyles that show up in comic books, but not actually at the battle of Thermopylae. But then this was not intended to be a documentary, but rather a hyperbolic dramatization.

For what it is, this movie is stunning, especially in terms of cinematography. The scene with the prophetess on top of the mountain, or the emissary confronting Leonidas, or Leonidas confronting Xerxes are hard to get out of your brain. There are of course some gory scenes, but the movie is not gore galore, or gore for its own sake. Miller is depicting the brutality of war, especially in such a primitive form. There is too much graphic violence for young folks in this movie, and it is indeed graphic and grainy, earning its R rating for violence. My son suggested it be seen as Miller's Braveheart movie. Fair enough. That's a good analogy, though there is less pathos in this movie, and certainly more buff warriors showing off their washboard abs. And there is also far less star power in this movie, which makes it all the more effective in some ways. Particularly well done is the story telling of the relationship between Leonidas and his wife and Leondias and his leading warriors.

Clocking in at under two hours, this movie doesn't really have any dead zones or filler, and it is so visually gripping and difference that there is always something to get your attention. Don't expect this movie to win any Oscars, except for pioneering cinematography, but it is a well done movie of its particular genre. As it sits atop the movie charts at present one wonders how much this movie is meant to play to the warrior instincts or mentality in parts of our own culture. Whether it is or not, the Spartans were absolutely the Marines or their day, making ordinary warriors look weak and vulnerable. You will have to decide whether that whole approach to problem solving is itself a strength or a weakness, but no one could question these men's courage and commradry in the face of overwhelming odds.

The Ten Commandments On Blogging on this Site

We have had a lot of good and vigorous discussion in the past two weeks on this blog, and I am happy about vigor and passion and intelligent discussion, but several points need to be borne in mind:

1) No anonymous posts please. If you don't have the courage of your own convictions, then don't post. By this I mean that I don't mind what your screen name is, but if when I click on that name it doesn't lead me to a real name and a real blog or website and a real person, then you should not be posting on this site.

2) Blogs can serve a lot of different purposes but this one is not intended for mere venting, mere ad hominem arguments, and disrespectful tone or comments. I expect the discussion to be civil, even if it becomes somewhat heated. The goal is light, not heat in any case. Ask good questions-- don't try to produce a visceral response through a rude remark. I don't mind irony, tongue in cheek, and a little good-natured sarcasm, but ridicule and the like is not humane, never mind Christian.

3) Try and be concise and clear. Don't just ramble on ad nauseum. As Alexander Pope said "Perspicuity is the chiefest virtue of a style." My students often ask me what will happen if they go over the page limit on their papers. I tell them, you will find a comment on the bottom of the last expected page which says "This was a good paper, but it ended rather abruptly."

4) Save non-related and personal comments for some other means of communication, such as ordinary email. Stick to the subject at hand, or corollary subjects.

5) Read the exhortation in James 3.3-11 before posting anything. In other words, curb your tongue.

6) Normal discussions on a particular topic will run for 3-4 days, or possibly a week. Then its time to move on. If you come late to dinner, you should expect leftovers, not the main course. Nor should you expect a response.

7) If you have good information to share, share it. Showing off, show-boating, pontificating on the basis of feelings but not evidence is not helpful. It just makes you look dumb.

8) Be reflective before you post. If you are angry, compose a response. Save it. Look at it again later in an hour or so, and then if you still think it involves a good point, then post it. "Be angry, but sin not."

9) I do not mind suggested links so long as they are relevant to the discussion. I do mind info-mercials. You need to bear in mind that an awful lot of the stuff on the web is junk. And a lot of the supposed scholarly stuff on the web is either very old (and so in the public domain) bad or very tendentious information. This is why its on the web and not published in a proper journal. Remember--- "thou shalt not steal" so if you want to copy, reuse, or link the material, then ask permission.

10) Before posting say this " may the words of my mouth (or fingers) and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord." In other words, do this assuming God cares and is paying attention.

Bitterness--- a Meditation

"Bitterness is a poison you drink which does your enemies no harm, and does you no good."-- Anonymous aphorism


It's easy to become bitter about some things. Things go wrong, life is not fair, someone deceives you, you don't get the job you want. Its especially easy to become this way as untoward things pile up in your life. Like an early morning fog that permeates the whole region so that you cannot see where you are going, bitterness blinds a person to the good things in life, and takes away the ability to enjoy them.

I have noticed that so many people in this day and age have such a strong sense of 'entitlement' that this or that is owed to them in life, and when it does not happen, they become bitter. Worst of all is being bitter, like Jonah was, about something God has done which upsets your prejudices and predisposed assumptions. One of the things I have most noticed in spending time speaking to groups of college students in this day and age is the prevailing cynicism I encounter. They see the world as dog eat dog, and they are already bitter about it before they even are middle-aged. They are skeptical about political change or spiritual renewal, and there is a sense of helplessness and hopelessness that they can make any differences.

It is so different than what I encountered in the 60s and early 70s when I was a comparable age. And the parallels and differences are interesting. Then as now we were dealing with an unpopular war, a very unpopular war. There was mounting bitterness towards the President who was seen to have done a poor job and didn't get the troops out of Vietnam fast enough. Yet at the same time there was this anger, there was also tremendous altruism. Lots of young people were campaigning for candidates they believed in for public office, were joining the Peace Corp, were joining VISTA, were looking for ways to make a difference, and believed they could. They had been stirred by the speech of President Kennedy when he said "Ask not what your country can do for you [i.e. the entitlement approach], ask what you can do for your country."

By contrast with that spirit, what I see today is waves and waves of cynicism and bitterness, only slightly masked and medicated by music and drugs and other forms of 'entertainment'. It seems our country has become far more narcissistic than ever, and part of that self-centeredness is manifested in bitterness.

One person once said "Blessed are those who expect nothing from God, for they shall not be disappointed." This is of course not one of Jesus' beatitudes, but it is the attitude of even some Christians I know, including a lot of young ones. Faith, hope and love are of the essence of the Christian life, but if you give up expecting anything of God, and give up hope for a brighter future, then its easy to give up loving, give up being other-directed and self-sacrificial.

My friend and former student Joe Castillo, who is a wonderful artist, tells the story of how he finally in adulthood felt prompted to use his skills in art to draw a picture of Jesus. He ran into a Christian bookstore operator who thought it could be put on plaques and would sell. The man talked Joe into letting him do this, and he promised Joe royalties from the sales.

Well lo and behold these plaques became enormously popular all over the U.S. But a year went by and Joe heard nothing from this man. He called him up, and asked when he might get some royalties. Joe badly needed the money as his wife was dying of cancer, and the treatments were expensive, and he did not have adequate health coverage. At first when Joe called, the man enthusiastically talked about how well the plaques were selling, but then when Joe asked about the royalties the man went quiet and wouldn't say anything. He told him he had nothing to give him. He even told him "I don't remember saying anything about royalties."

Well of course Joe was angry, and that turned into bitterness when more time went by and nothing happened. He thought of suing the man, but remembered what Paul says in 1 Corinthians about Christians not taking each other to court, but rather settling the matter themselves.

So, Joe went once more to see the man. The man made him wait for hours. Finally, when he saw the man, the man had nothing to give him. Promised nothing. At this juncture Joe concluded he needed to forgive the man and move on.

But he couldn't really forgive him, though he said he did. Joe kept getting phone calls about how that plaque had really ministered to people's lives, saved a marriage, and various other things. He began to realize he needed to just forget his whole attitude of entitlement, and let it go, because it all belonged to God and God was doing good ministry with that plaque. He finally got to that place of real forgiveness, and acceptance, and he stopped drinking the poison of bitterness.

It was not long after that, that he was contacted by a company who had bought out the bankrupt man who had initially made the deal with Joe. This time Joe was offered the right to"buy the copyright on the plaque" because the previous gentlemen had copyrighted Joe's work without his knowing it. So as Joe says, "my artwork became twice mine- once I made it then I bought it back."

This reminded Joe of what our Lord has done for us--- he made us, and then he went to all the trouble of buying us back, he loved us so much. I just have to believe that when you come to a realization that that is true, and that all that you have and are and do belong to the Lord, and not to yourselves, then you realize that a Christian should never have a sense of entitlement. We have been bought with a price. We are not our own. And so, in an interesting way, one of the real cures for bitterness is knowing you twice over belong to God, and if he has forgiven you all your sins and faults and flaws, so you must do so as well with others.

It would be easy for me to get bitter about the nonsense propagated in the Jesus tomb theory. To become bitter that the other side of the story has not adequately been told. That there is an unfairness in all of this, especially since I spent years of my life dealing with the James ossuary and the remarkable implications of that, which is still a genuine relic from the family of Jesus.

But, as Joe said yesterday when he was here in chapel, I need to let it go, and just trust God. I need to forgive those that I believe have besmirched the name of Jesus, but whom Jesus already forgave, remembering he even forgave his executioners from the cross. And so I hereby let it go.

I must move on now, and just trust that the Lord of the universe will prevail and have his own day in court on his own terms, and in his own time. Its time to lay down my burden, and ask what is next. And there is no better time now than Lent, and the journey up to the cross and beyond, to do that. So I am setting my face like a flint towards Jerusalem, and trusting that the God of justice will vindicate his own name. I choose to be better, rather than bitter, to be proactive rather than merely reactive in response to all this. Jesus drank the bitter cup for me, so I would not have to imbibe the gall myself. I refuse to become what I despise, and so I must take my own medicine now, when it comes to bitterness. I need to take the high road now. I hear you can get above the fog and the view is clearer from up there.

THE JESUS TOMB SHOW--BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGISTS REJECT DISCOVERY CHANNEL SHOW'S CLAIMS

You can tell things are coming unraveled when every Biblical archaeologist, save possibly one, interviewed either in the Discovery Channel special or in the hour long debate thereafter repudiates or is unpersuaded by the findings of the show. Both William Dever and Jonathan Reed were not merely dubious about the findings of the show. Reed actually called it archaeo-porn, the worst sort of misuse of archaeological evidence to support a tendentious theory that is so speculative it requires linking one weak hypothesis to another to another to reach a conclusion.

In addition, both Amos Kloner and Joe Zias, two of the original archaeologists involved in the project, have openly on television and in the public forum repudiated the findings of the show in strong terms. I have had a strongly worded email from Joe Zias in the last 24 hours saying that the data was deliberately manipulated at various points. I will come back to that point in a moment.

Since Charles Pellgrino, the co-author of the The Jesus Family Tomb book, is not a Biblical archaeologist at all, but rather a forensic one, and apparently has never dug a Biblical site, he certainly cannot count as an expert in this field either. This leaves only Shimon Gibson, which, if I am understanding things right (I am happy to be corrected on this), was only a young artist, a sketch artist for the original excavation of the Talpiot tomb. He says he is skeptical of the results, but then he says he is skeptical by nature. In other words, the show could not find the sort of experts in Biblical archaeology which would have lent real credence to their theory.
This stands in contrast to when Andre LeMaire was prepared to put his good reputation on the line to say that the James ossuary is genuine (and this word just in. He still thinks that, and the recent evidence presented in the trial in Jerusalem of genuine patina from the word 'Jesus' on the James box inscription provides further evidence for this conclusion).


Back to what Zias and I were discussing. It has to do with the James ossuary. First of all, the makers of this film and book were told that the tenth ossuary found in the Talpiot tomb was not missing. It was a blank, having neither ornamentation nor inscription, and so it was not catalogued with the other nine. However, on the show, mystery is concocted when the list of the nine catalogued ossuaries is presented and it is concluded one is missing, which is false.

Blank ossuaries are a dime a dozen. You can buy one in the market in Jerusalem for a very reasonable price. There never was a mystery about the 10th ossuary. One was concocted for this show. It is also the case that the makers of this film were told clearly that the tenth ossuary had no inscription and in addition did not match up with the dimensions of the James ossuary, which is the focus of the book Hershel Shanks and I wrote for Harper entitled The Brother of Jesus. More information about it can be found in that book.

There are further problems as well in connection with the James ossuary. The claim is made in the debate follow up show that Oded Golan said that somewhere around 1980 he bought the James ossuary. This is false. Golan has consistently maintained that he bought this ossuary before the Israeli law changed in 1978. In fact he claims to have bought it in the mid-70s and at the trial that continues in Jerusalem a 1970s era picture of him with the inscribed James ossuary was produced. The reason that the date is important is because after 1978 all such important artifacts found in Israel belong to the state of Israel. They cannot belong to a private collector like Oded Golan. For the reader wanting to see proof positive of this, see p. 84 of the Brother of Jesus book. The other reason that is important is it means the James ossuary could not possibly have come from the Talpiot tomb at all since it was not opened until 1980. The next feeble attempt to save the show's theory will perhaps be to claim there were other ossuaries in the Talpiot tomb that went missing from some break in. Not no. 10, but rather no 11 perhaps? Of course this will be a complete argument from silence. We do not know there were more than 10 ossuaries in that tomb ever.

Other sorts of problems that crop up from the show itself include:

1) The DNA lab in Thunder Bay was not told that they were testing alleged samples from Jesus and Mary Magdalene. Why is this important? For the very good reason that the lab no doubt wishes to keep its good name, and not be associated with sensationalistic projects of dubious merit. Had they been told in advance, then at least they could have decided whether they wanted to be involved in the project. This is not how a free and open historical inquiry into a subject proceeds. It is not shrouded in secrecy until unveiled at a press conference in order to make big news, garner big ratings, and sell lots of books.

2) Ted Koppel's own correspondence with the DNA lab, and with the statistician reported in the follow up debate finds those folks doing their best to distance themselves from the conclusions of the show, and insisting that it is only a remote possibility.

3) At one juncture we are told that the name Mariamenon is found in Hippolytus a second century church historian. Two problems with this. Firstly so far as I can see, that name never occurs in the works of Hippolytus (and the name Mariamene is not the same name, see the previous post with Richard Bauckham's analysis of the names). Secondly, Hippolytus died in about A.D. 236. He comes to us from the end of the second century A.D. He could never have known any eywitnesses or even second-third generation followers of Jesus. Even if he did mention the name in question (the one on the ossuary found at Talpiot), he provides no early second century evidence for this name, much less for the theory that this name is one way of referring to Mary Magdalene. In fact the Acts of Philip, at best a fourth century document is the basis of the theory of Prof. Bovon that Mariamenon= Mary Magdalene, but nowhere in that document are the two equated. The woman referred to in that document is an evangelist in Greek who is the sister of Philip (whether Philip the apostle or the later Philip the evangelist found in Acts 8, we could debate). In other words, we have no hard evidence at all that equates Mary Magdalene with this particular name, or even with the later figure found in the Acts of Philip. There is then certainly no first or second century evidence that Mary Magdalene was every called by the name on the Talpiot ossuary, or would have been labeled this on a first century A.D. ossuary. And why again would her inscription be in Greek, and all the other ones in the tomb in Aramaic or Hebrew? We are not told.

4) Towards the end of the program itself, we discover that the intrepid amateur archaeologists, namely the film maker and his cohorts failed to even ask the IAA for permission to find and reopen the sealed Talpiot tomb. But this was an IAA controlled archaeological site now adjacent to an apartment complex. And when the IAA did find out about the snooping around in a tomb without permission, they came and put a stop to it. But the most interesting thing found when the filmmaker was in the tomb was a very large Greek inscription inside the tomb. What does this suggest? It suggests to me this is not the tomb of the Aramaic speaking family of Jesus of course!

5) Strong objection was taken in the debate program to the dramatizations in the show because they present the theory of the filmmakers as if they were facts. There are not, for example any dramatizations of other theories. What's the problem with this? Well as one professor from Virginia Seminary rightly pointed out, drama is powerful. It's a form of preaching and persuasion. If this really were an open ended historical inquiry and not an argument for a particular point of view, not a docu-drama, this sort of filming technique would not have been used.

6) No mention at all is made of the fact that though we only have a few hundred ossuaries with inscribed names, there is in fact another ossuary with the inscription 'Jesus son of Joseph'. Apparently this was not a rare combination of names at all, and in any case, as I have said Jesus of Nazareth is never called 'son of Joseph' by his family, or by his disciples. Notice how Luke pours cold water on that theory in Luke 3.21-- "Now Jesus himself was about 30 when he began his ministry, he was the son, so it was supposed/thought, of Joseph." Supposed by whom? Clearly not by Luke or the family whom Luke has just shown knew about the virginal conception of Jesus. Even the cousins knew about this miracle when Mary told Elizabeth. There can be no good reason Luke would put it this way if he knew the earliest followers of Jesus or members of his family had thought that Jesus was son of Joseph.

7) The unique theory presented in the show is that John 19 presents a conversation between Jesus on the cross and his wife Mary Magdalene, with their son being the Beloved Disciple! The problem of course with this is that Jesus is addressing his own mother, Mary. John 19.26 is quite clear--- Jesus saw his mother standing there, and spoke to her about the Beloved Disciple, who is certainly not his son. In John 13 and following the Beloved Disciple is portrayed as one of the adult disciples in the upper room. Not as a child. Here is but one more example of how normal interpretations of the Biblical evidence are ignored and rejected in favor of rewriting the text to support the theory, and much later non-eyewitness Gnostic evidence from the Acts of Philip is made crucial to the case, even when that evidence itself does not likely support the case at all!

8) An important further corollary was pointed out as well. This special is an example of film-making, not good investigative journalism. Consider for example the difference between how this project was pursued and say the efforts of Robert Graysmith, recently blogged about here, who took years and years of investigating without pay to be able to demonstrate who the Zodiac killer was. He did not present his evidence in book form until he was sure. Until he chased down all leads. Until he convinced at least some of the police he had been bugging for years to consider this or that piece of evidence and solve the case. This docu-drama falls far short of what would be called good investigative journalism.

To paraphrase a famous phrase "This is how a bad theory ends, this is how a bad theory ends, not with a bang, but a whimper."

ZODIAC—A CHILLER OF A THRILLER

What would you do if you knew who a serial killer was, but the circumstantial evidence, however strong, was not enough to bring that person to justice? What if you were dealing with a case that had gone cold some time ago, with police exhausting all their leads and options? What if only you were obsessed and persistent enough to pursue this to the end? What if you would have to lose your marriage in order to bring this person to justice? What if your obsession doesn’t find resolution?

Such is the very remarkable story of Robert Graysmith, a cartoonist for a San Francisco newspaper beginning in the late 60s who would not let this matter drop and ended up writing two best selling books on the Zodiac killer. Jake Gylenhaal does a compelling job of portraying this truly obsessed man’s quest for the truth of this matter even after the police had long since given up hope.

The story begins in 1968 when there is a grisly double murder in Vallejo California, and carries on with numerous killings in San Francisco and elsewhere. The killer sends coded messages to the San Francisco Chronicle which Robert is able to decode. We are regaled with Marvin Beli the famous lawyer who goes on TV to try to talk the killer into giving himself up-- all to no avail. But an important clue is given one day when the killer calls Beli. A clue missed by the police is only much later picked up by Robert. In painfully slow fashion the evidence mounts and points in a particular direction.

If your preference is for taut thrillers, this one will seem different. The movie runs some 2 hours and 40 minutes, but every minute is worth it as David Fincher does a masterful job of letting the story slowly unfold in the same way the evidence slowly was pieced together. Some crimes cannot be solved over night, indeed cannot be solved for years and even decades. Should we care? Well of course we should because injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere, and as John Donne said “any man’s death diminishes me, for I am a part of mankind. Therefore, do not seek to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.” Well it kept tolling in the head of Graysmith and eventually it took its toll as he lost his job, and his marriage as well. You have to wonder if he felt called and compelled to be the relentless blood hound even long after the trail went cold.

This film is perfectly shot and those of us who lived through the late 60s and remember this story as part of the mysteries of growing up will find the music, the cars, the setting, the attitudes so familiar. Fincher gets it right. This movie does not resort to gimmicks, CG, or any of the other normal staples of 21rst century movie making. It is old school and all the more perfect for it, as if it had been shot during the period it recounts. Like Hitchcock thrillers there is one suspended resolution after another, and there are only momentary glimpses of the killing in this movie, near its beginning. The story is not driven by showing violence, unlike too many modern movies. Indeed, this is not a horror movie at all even though it is about a horrible series of crimes—it’s a crime investigation movie of the old sort with Graysmith as Sam Spade, private (and unpaid) detective.

I will not spoil this movie for you, but will tell you I found it compelling and fascinating. There are moments of high drama and tension in the plot, but this movie shows how a dialogue driven movie can be extremely interesting as we walk with Robert down the road of finding the killer and putting all the pieces together.

This is the first really excellent secular movie of 2007, with an excellent supporting cast including Robert Downey Jr. who is prominent early in the movie, but then fades from the focus of the plot when the story moves on beyond him. I honestly wish there were more movies like this which compel you to think and reason, and compare evidence. It’s a movie which sharpens the audience’s critical thinking and ability to follow evidence. And yes, there is even comic relief from time to time in this movie. It is not all dark and dank and dangerous. If you love reading good mystery novels, as I do --- this is the movie for you.

Rob Bells' 'Sex.God' Book-- a First Rate Read

The first thing we need to make clear about the title 'sex god' is that Rob is not talking about some sort of fertility deity, like the ancient near eastern fertility gods (e.g. Baal, Astarte). He is talking about the connection between sexuality and spirituality and how the former figures forth the latter in various ways. It is a profound subject, and one well worth pursuing. And let it be said that this book is certainly better written than “Velvet Elvis” either Rob’s developing his writing chops or he’s gotten more help. Either way, it reads better than the previous book. And one has to say that the pastel colors of this book are certainly more pleasant than the bright white and minimal orange of the last.

The Preface lays out the ground work for what follows, and the “this is that principle”. Rob is able to point to things like piles of standing stones, or old trophies, or the like which have little worth or significance in themselves except for what they remind us of, what they point us to. While Rob in no way wants to trivialize the reality or goodness of human sexuality (to the contrary, this book does the opposite of that) what he does want to say is that ‘sex’ points to something much bigger, larger, and spiritual about human beings and reality. For one thing it points to the fact that we are created in the image of a creative and lively God.

The first chapter entitled “God wears lipstick” is powerful in various ways in that Rob talks about the factors that reduce human beings to subhuman things, and alternately the things that humanize us. He makes the strong point of how our culture encourages us to objectify women, treating sexual persons as sex objects. Of course this sort of reductionism would never happen if fallen males did not lust after women’s body parts. It has gotten so bad that you can even see it in how men look at women. They tend to look at their breasts first, and then their faces, thinking of what they want, before thinking of who they want. When another person is used as a means to an end, a means to scratch your own selfish itch, then we are dealing with lust and not love. And of course our culture can’t easily distinguish the two. Lots of times we hear “we’re in love” but in fact what is meant is “we’re in heat”. One of the points made on p. 24 which is helpful is that unlike Gaia theologians, or even some Wicca folks, Rob rightly distinguishes between being made in God’s image (an a-sexual thing) and being made male and female. God is not a great white male in the sky. Indeed when Jesus actually finally defines God, he tells us in John 4 that God is spirit, not The Spirit, but spirit. That is, God is a non-material being, and sense genders require an embodied existence, we could hardly be ‘male and female’ in the image of God, if God has no gender in his divine essence. Of course it is true that God the Son took on a human nature at one juncture, but even his divine essence is not engendered. God, the Biblical God, in the divine essence is not male or female.

I love the story of the soldier in the Gulf War who captures several soldiers that had been shooting at them, and one man runs up to him handing him a letter pleading that it be sent to his father so he will know he loves him and what happened to his son. War is always dehumanizing, always. But in this moment, the American soldier saw the human face of his enemy, and had empathy. He was a son, who had a father, whom he loved. He realized we are all human beings. Well yes, but perhaps the issue is not whether we are human beings but whether we are humane beings, the opposite of which is being subhuman in thought and behavior. The Bergen-Belsen story is equally compelling. It is amazing how something as simple as lipstick can make a woman feel human and a person of worth all over again. We need those things that protect us from the forces that strip us of our humanity in this world—and war absolutely does that. You may argue that it is sometimes the lesser of two evils, but its still evil, still destructive, still not God’s highest and best for human behavior. That much is clear, and the proof is how much it dehumanizes us all. We become numb instead of feeling and compassionate. Go see the movie “Children of Men”. It makes the point so very clearly.

Chapter Two, entitled “Sexy on the Inside starts with the interesting observation that many people who are not religious, nonetheless have this sense that things in the world are not as they are intended to be and that we are supposed to be connected to each other and the world and not treat each other poorly. This is true enough, and I have encountered this as well. I would put it down to the fact that even people who are oblivious to God are still created in God’s image and occasionally have aha moments where these kind of insights dawn on them. This chapter is largely about our sense of disconnection with the earth and with each other and how it goes back to the story of Adam and Eve where the curse involves this disconnect between us and the earth, and man and woman.

Rob offers the interesting etimology for the word sex from secare—the Latin for cut off (from which we get sect, bisect, sectarian etc.) In fact sicarri were the dagger men, the hit men amongst the early Jewish zealots, that cut off other peoples lives. He then says “our sexuality is our awareness of how profoundly we’re severed and cut off and disconnected. Second, our sexuality is all of the ways we go about trying to reconnect.” (p. 40). Rob deals with the Genesis idea that self-awareness in the case of Adam involved a sense of being cut off from God, and so focused on self. Rob actually wants to define sexuality in a broad way--- it’s all the ways we try to connect with each other, with God, even with the earth. In my view this is too broad a definition of sexuality. Our desire for oneness with God is not real a sexual desire. And indeed the sense of oneness with creation, with the earth, such as we see in Psalm 8 is not real a sense of sexuality as it is usually defined. But it is true that our sexuality is part of the larger package of aspects of human nature which prompt and impel us towards connection with the ‘Other’. This is true. I think Rob is confusing or fusing the deep sense of intimacy and oneness with some ‘other’ person or thing, with the concept of sexuality. Intimacy or communion are broader categories than sexuality, actually. And of course Rob is right that there can be lots of physical interacting, including intercourse with little or no real connection made. Or is there? Paul in 1 Cor 5-6 says that even sex with a prostitute involves becoming one flesh with her, and by that Paul means something sexual but also something spiritual is involved such that it interferes with the one spirit union you have with Jesus. But I take his point that having sex with someone you are not married to and trust and committed to can leave you alone and lonely and unfulfilled.

I like the definition of ‘feeling sexy’ as ‘feeling good to be in your own skin, your own body shape etc. But I do not agree that we must first be at peace with who we are, in order to be connected with God. This gets the cart before the horse. In fact I think when God reconciles himself to us, redeems us, that’s when we just begin to understand who and whose we are and to be at peace with who we are. Of course it is true that if we are unwilling to change our dysfunctionality and unhealthy images of self we will never fully benefit from our relationship with the Lord, never fully be whole or healed.

In Chapter three, entitled Angels and Animals, we get down to brass tacks, or better said basic instincts. Rob carefully deconstructs the myths that 1) we are just the sum of our urges or desires; 2) that abstinence is somehow a limitation of our freedom or even a way of being dishonest with ourselves; 3) that we are simply animals and that therefore we could hardly expect not to act like animals. I especially like the way he draws a contrast between lions in heat, who are so not thinking things like ‘do we have a meaningful relationship’ or ‘can I trust you’ or ‘why do you say I only want you for your body’. I quite agree that much of modernity assumes that people cannot transcend their basic instincts, and if they repress them they will be unfulfilled and indeed unhealthy people. Rob also deals with the difficulties of living in a culture where purity and chastity are ridiculed.

Rob then turns around and deals with the angel instinct, the idea that fails to acknowledge our physical and sexual nature and the way that influences our thinking and behavior, or even fails to acknowledge our sexuality is central to what makes us human (p. 54). I agree with him on this, and his basic argument is that we have to live intension between the animal and angel instinct, however there are a few flies in the ointment here. Rob is right that angels are by nature spirits. However, early Jewish tradition believed they could be male or female, and indeed that they could even have sex. For example, Gen. 6.1-4 was traditionally read as the story about angels (called sons of god here and in some other places as well) mating with human women producing a hideous hybrid between the two sorts of beings. It is precisely this gross violation of the creation order which prompts the flood according to Gen. 6. Furthermore, Jesus himself famously said that ‘we will be like the angels in heaven, neither marrying nor giving in marriage’. This refers to the act of marrying, not to having sex per se though the two are connected. His point is that we will not be starting any new marriage relationships in the next life at all. In this regard we will be like the angels, not sexless but rather without marrying. There are no married angels, according to the Jewish tradition. There is this further deficiency in the discussion about being angels. Rob says that if we don’t express our sexuality, if we just stuff our sexual feelings then we are repressed. This is of course a traditional modern psychological view of the matter. But what about the person called by God to remain a single person? He still has sexual feelings? While he may talk about them he is not supposed to act in a sexual manner. Is that repression or restraining one’s self in a healthy way by the grace of God. Paul’s advice in 1 Cor. 7 comes to mind here. He counsels an engaged couple to remain as they are, keeping his virgin as a virgin, but if he can’t restrain himself he should go ahead and marry. Better to marry than to burn with passion. But clearly Paul believes that persons like himself can and do restrain themselves, that there is a place for being single and not sexually active, though it requires God’s grace to remain chaste, and he would hardly call this sexual repression. Nor I think would Jesus. I do however very much like the way this chapter ends--- namely with the remark that we are always in the process of creating order out of chaos. The creation process is still an ongoing thing, and we have something to contribute to it.

Chapter Four is provocatively entitled Leather, Whips, and Fruit, and deals with the sordid topic of lust, which as Rob says, promises what it cannot deliver. One of Rob’s theses here is that lust comes from a deep sense of dissatisfaction with one’s life or situation. He contrasts it with gratitude. There is something to this. It would have helped to distinguish between lust and desire. The former is always sinful, desire is not necessarily so. In the process of a useful discussion Rob tells us that the word epthumia means in the mind. Actually not. It means “in fury” or “in rage”(i.e. enraged) and refers to deep feelings, not deep thoughts. I like the definition of freedom on p. 75—it isn’t being able to have what we crave, but rather freedom is being able to go without what we crave and be fine with it. The basic advise that is given is to channel our desires, our energies into positive and good things. This is very common advice indeed, but wise advice. For example, being obsessive-compulsive can be a bane or a blessing. Channeled in the right direction a person can get a lot done, well, in order, and on time. But channeled in the wrong way it can lead to greed, the need to have all of this set of books, or CDs or the like. I like Rob’s exposition on stealing. The thief is given the opportunity to rechannel the life force so that their rush comes from giving things, making things with their hands and doing good. Hands are mentioned in this passage in Ephesians because a thief steals with his hands, for the most part. Life is not about toning down our energies, but in fact about letting our desires be absorbed into a higher and greater desire, enterprise, opportunity. This is very true.

Chapter Five is perhaps the best chapter yet. It is an exposition on love, and there is a very effective spinning out of the story of Song of Songs. Rob also explores the love of God for us, focusing on how God grieves, his heart aches and is pained, and as it says in Gen. 6 God regrets having made humans. One of the more helpful and profound insights in this chapter is on p. 98—love is a giving away of power a becoming vulnerable. Is that true of God as well? Rob says yes--- look at Jesus. Here is an excellent para.--- “Love is giving up control. It’s surrendering the desire to control the other person. The two—love and controlling power over the other person—are mutually exclusive. If we are serious about loving someone, we have to surrender all the desires within us to manipulate the relationship.” There are two very striking implications to this: 1) if it is true, then love is never a power move, never irresistible, even when we are talking about God. That pretty much rules out John Piper’s view of love and God right there. Love does not demand its own way says Paul (1 Cor. 13), and Jesus shows us that is the way God loves us; 2) this definition of love also means that we are to sacrifice and put the other person first in our marriages. My wife is so much better at this than I am. I must confess. But this definition of love rules out the same old patriarchal stuff. When Christian love appears on the scene its all about mutual submission as Ephes. 5.21 says, mutual sacrifice and so one. We need to keep in mind that Paul in the household code is trying to push an existing patriarchal situation in a more Christian direction. We get glimmerings of where it’s all going in places like Ephes. 5.21 where we see the highest and best way the relationship can work. But what Paul believes is the leaven of the Gospel is being put into the Christian community and its relationships so that things will move away from the fallen patriarchal world order to a more egalitarian one.

Rob brings out quite well how love is risky for God as well, because of course we may respond negatively. Rob stresses that the death of Jesus reflects a condemnation of the domination systems in place that oppress people. In this he sounds a bit like Dominic Crossan, but I think he is at least partially right about this. We have a catchy phrase at the end of the chapter: “God can do anything—that’s what makes God, God. But God can’t do everything. God can’t make us love him--- that’s our choice.” (p.109). Well, God could have set up the whole system differently and made us respond positively to him, but I take it that Rob’s point is that then that response, however little it seemed coerced, would not be love. Love can neither be predetermined nor coerced is Rob’s point. I agree. And it is not an accident that the NT never says God is power (the noun) though it does say God is almighty (the adjective). On the other hand it absolutely does say that God is love. The essence of who God is love. This is why Jesus is the clearest, highest, most effective, and powerful revelation of the divine nature. God has deliberately limited himself in order to take on flesh,take on suffering, take on death in the person of Jesus, and be a love letter to humanity. I am reminded of the powerful poem by Geoffrey Studdert-Kennedy “The Sorrow of God”, which in essence says that God suffers when we suffer. We see this in Jesus’ words to Saul on Damascus road “Saul why do you persecute me?” We see this in Jesus’ words “inasmuch as you have done it unto the least of these.” God does not merely empathize with us, he knows our pain and suffers with us in some mysterious way.

In Chapter Six “Worth Dying For” may be the best chapter in either of Rob’s two books. He understands very well the difficulties in discussing the submission passages, but he handles it like a pro. He rightly stresses that mutual submission is what Ephes. 5.21 is calling all Christians to in relationship to each other, and a particular illustration of that is found in the relationship of Christian wife and husband. The husband indeed is called the head, but the job descriptor for headship is to take the lead in serving, sacrificing, loving just as Christ did. If this is not a form of self-emptying and submitting I don’t know what it is. Rob says on p. 117 “The husband’s waiting for his wife to submit is actually a failure to lead….If he really thinks he is the head, then he would surrender his desires and wants and plans. He would die to his need to be in control and do whatever it takes to serve her….He would die to himself so that she could live.” Exactly so--- you nailed this one Rob. Enough with the non-Christian nonsense about unilateral submission of women to men in the church, in marriage, in ministry, in general. Rob then adds “In marriage, you’re talking about power and control only when something central to the whole relationship has fallen apart.” (p. 119) Yes, that’s right, or at least the two persons have never come to fully give themselves, fully trust each other, and so they are still negotiating the landscape and boundaries of the relationship. And one or the other or both of them is insecure, and afraid the relationship is getting out of their control—hence the power move.

I like Rob’s exposition of 1 Cor. 7 as well—the bodies of husband and wife belong to each other, not to themselves. Amen to that, and this means that ‘conjugal rights’ are more like ‘conjugal obligations’--- we are called to freely give ourselves up to the other, not demand our right to the other’s body, our right to sex on demand. A true lover gives up their rights, and abandons themselves in trying to please the other--- never demanding anything. And so on p.119 Rob answers the question of who has the authority in this relationship by saying--- ‘yes’, they both have authority over each other’s body. In Paul’s world this would have clashed with the sexual double standard that wives needed to stay chaste while husbands were allow to visit the prostitutes.

The exposition of agape love on pp. 119-20 is helpful as well. Agape is unconditional love, not love that is bestowed only when someone is worthy. “Agape loves in such a way that it makes them beautiful.” (p. 120). Just so, that’s what God’s love does. “People are loved into their futures.” (p. 121) their future best selves. Rob tells women “You don’t need to use your body to get what you need. It’s a cop out for not being a certain kind of woman—a woman of dignity and honor.” (p.122).

I was blown away by p. 123--- Rob talks about how women trade sex for validation, affection, affirmation that they are worth something. “Sex becomes a search. A search for something their missing. A quest for the unconditional embrace. And so they go from relationship to relationship, looking for what they already have…But sex is not the search for something missing. It’s the expression of something that’s been found. Its designed to be the overflow, the culmination of something that a man and woman have found in each other.. It’s a celebration of this living breathing thing that’s happening between the two of them.”

Rob goes on to add a strong paragraph on where our worth comes from. It comes from being created in God’s image, being loved by God unconditionally. It does not come from your body, your mind, your work, what your produce or put out. It doesn’t come from whether you have a spouse or a girlfriend or boyfriend or whether people notice you, or whether you are famous. Your great worth comes from your creator. (p. 124)

I cannot praise this chapter enough. Its right on target. If you can only read one chapter in this book for now, read this one. This is certainly a better and more mature book than “Velvet Elvis”, which shows that Rob is happily growing into this ministry more and more.

Chapter Seven, “Under the Chuppah” is about having enough sense to keep various things in your married life between the two of you. A Chuppah is a canopy under which the bride and groom, and no one else, stand in a Jewish wedding. Only they are under the canopy of God’s eye of protection for that particular relationship and there are things in that relationship which should be between them and God, and no one else. There is a useful discussion in this chapter of the OT material where God’s relationship to his people is described as being like the relationship of husband and wife—actually the latter is modeled on the former to some extent. The analogy in Hosea is especially fully developed. It is interesting how Rob sees the ten commandments as like the ketubah, the wedding contract agreeing to love no one but God the spouse alone, along with other stipulations. This is an interesting way of looking at the ten commandments. The problem with it is that a marriage covenant and its stipulations is different from a covenant between a king and his vassals, and in fact the OT covenants are more like those ANE treaties than like marriage contracts.

Pp. 134-35 are a bit odd. Here Rob is telling us that in Jewish marriage law a couple is not married until they have sex. He talks about the wedding canopy being put up over the marriage bed, they have sex, while the guests wait outside (!) and then they all come out and having the wedding party now that they are fully married. The problem with this analysis which is partially right, is that the marriage contract, which was decided on well before the marriage was binding long before the consummation of the union. This is why in Matthew Joseph had thought to ‘divorce’ Mary before they had come together. One can say that the contracting is the beginning of the marriage, not merely an engagement period with no legal force, and the consummation is the conclusion of the act of marrying someone. Unlike our way of doing it--- it takes a long while, not 20 minutes in a chapel.

From pp. 136-37 it becomes clear that Rob has a healthy sense of progressive revelation. He talks about how in Jewish law, a man who has sex with a woman is then required to marry and take care of her, which is light years ahead of the practices in the ANE where she is permanently shamed by such an act and simply discarded and the man has no obligation to her. As he says, this is a higher view of what sex creates—a one flesh union, not a lower one. Then in the NT we go a big step further in which men are commanded to lay down their lives for their wives and engage in mutuality of sacrifice and submission.

The exclusiveness of the relationship of marriage is important. The giving of one’s self totally to another person is gripping in a wedding service--- it is the exclusivity of it that makes it special and powerful. Rob adds that we must guard that, because when we have given it away to someone else, you no longer have it, and no longer share that unique kind of sharing meant for husband and wife. Rob stresses when you take sex out of marriage it cheapens it, all you are left with is mechanics, not love. Sex taken out of its God-intended context loses its mystery and specialness. It leaves nothing to the imagination.

Rob is always full of surprises. And on pp. 151-52 we have a few more. For one thing we learn that the Hebrew language has only about 7,000 words where as English has 200,000. Well I take it he means that Hebrew has about 7,000 word roots (he got this from a Prof. Rufus at Stellenbosch in South Africa, where I have lectured. But I don’t know him. The count may be accurate). Rob is focusing on the word echad or one. This word means a oneness that is made up of more than one member—it is thus applied to the one flesh union of husband and wife, but also it is the word for ‘one’ in the Shema, in reference to the divine nature. From this he infers that God’s oneness is complex, made up of several factors, parts, members united as one.

And this is where we finally get the punchline as to why this book is called Sex. God--- because the oneness experienced in sex points beyond itself to the oneness that exists in God. This is that or better said, this refers to, alludes to, symbolizes, foreshadows that. Rob sees marriage as a picture of the oneness we all seek and yearn for with each other as well. His exposition on “they were naked and felt no shame” is useful—complete acceptance as the other is, without embarrassment on either side. Indeed without much self-consciousness. He stresses that nakedness of body should only be shared with one whom you share nakedness of soul. Being naked means peeling back the layers and letting down the defenses of body and soul—those two things should be done together, in harmony. If you share your body but not your soul it’s like having and holding and sharing the wineskins but not the wine.

The last chapter “Whoopee forever” rounds out the discussion. Rob points to the places in the teaching of Jesus and Paul where the goodness of remaining single is stressed, and the temporary nature of human marriage is also stressed. It is a this world institution meant for our earthly and temporal and temporary good. Not something eternal. Marriage brings hope, and oneness and continuation of the race to this world, but in the next one there will be no new acts of marrying. I suppose in a sense it will be like we are all married to each other in the kingdom the communion or koinonia will be so grand. “If sex is about connection, what happens when everybody is connected with everybody else?” (p. 167). What happens at the eschaton when all are one in God’s presence. Rob asks if sex and its moments of ecstasy a picture of heaven. Well some have compared it to the mystical ascent called the beatific vision of God, but Rob is comparing it to our eschatological experience of God in due course. Sex and marriage as a picture of heaven on earth--- sort of like what Jesus describes as preparing for his disciples in John 14.2-4. The Epilogue finishes with a reminder about relationships that fail, and the forgiveness and healing that is possible thereafter—a realistic pastoral note.

This is really an excellent beginning primer on Sex, marriage, and God, written in beguilingly simple terms. While I might quibble with a few things here and there, overall this is a fine piece of work—very clear, and reflects a maturing in Rob’s writing. We will look forward to what comes next.

THE SMOKING GUN---TENTH TALPIOT OSSUARY PROVED TO BE BLANK

Joe Zias is a fine archaeologist of long standing and good reputation. He is the person who catalogued the ten ossuaries from the Talpiot tomb, and personally catalogued the tenth ossuary. He worked with Amos Kloner as part of the team who made the original discovery. In two emails this morning to someone I have been talking to he made crystal clear that the tenth ossuary was blank, certainly was not the James ossuary at all despite the assertions of those involved in making the Discovery Channel special. These emails have been sent along to me, and I will let them speak for themselves, except I have edited out the personal and extraneous stuff.

Joe Zias jezias@yahoo.comTo: Subject: Re: Jesus Tomb Sent: Thursday, March 1, 2007 6:02 AM

"Amos Kloner is right as I received and catalogued the objects, the 10th was plain and I put it out in the courtyard with all the rest of the plain ossuaries as was the standard procedure when one has little storage space available. Nothing was stolen nor missing and they were fully aware of this fact, just didn't fit in with their agenda." ShalomJoe



From: Joe Ziasjezias@yahoo.com To: Subject: Re: Jesus Tomb Sent: Thursday, March 1, 2007 4:31 PM

"There was no photo of the 10th ossuary as there was no reason to photograph it, plain white ossuaries, basically once you have seen one you have seen them all. time is money and it would be a waste of time to waste resources on something which was put out in the courtyard. Remember these are large, and heavy not to forget that Kloner has the measurements. They knows this from me personally. The conspiracy idea fits in well with their agenda of hyping the film as well as his/their book."
Joe

In short, the tendentious agenda of this film becomes so very clear when confronted with the naked truth.


To this I can now add the following fuller, more considered report from Richard Bauckham. I have left it entirely as he has written and endorse it as being careful and very likely right in all the particulars. There are small details we differ on, but they are inconsequential for these purposes. The crucial bit is the last line-- there is no way Mariamenou is Mary Magdalene. No way at all.

The alleged ‘Jesus family tomb’--- Prof. Richard Bauckham

"As I understand it (I have not yet seen the film itself) the Discovery Channel programme “The Lost Tomb of Jesus” claims that a tomb discovered in the Talpiot area of Jerusalem in 1980, containing ten ossuaries, is the tomb of Jesus’ family and contains some of the remains of Jesus himself. If my memory serves me correctly the same claim was made in a British television programme, fronted by Joan Bakewell, just a few years ago. However the Discovery Channel programme claims to have new evidence and arguments.

The basic arguments concerning the names on the ossuaries seem to be two (1) The names, including ‘Jesus son of Joseph,’ ‘Judah son of Jesus,’ Yose, Mary and Matthew, are the names of key figures in the New Testament Gospels. Some statistical arguments are alleged to show that the odds are hugely in favour of the view that the names on the ossuaries in fact refer to the figures known from the New Testament. (2) The form of the name Mary (in Greek) is the distinctive Mariamenou. This, it is claimed, is the same form of the name as Mariamne, which is the name of the sister of the apostle Philip in the fourth-century Acts of Philip, presumed to be Mary Magdalene.

I wish to stress at the start that the issues raised by this proposal are complex and difficult. My first reactions to what I was told about it by journalists were too little considered and I had not then had time to track down all the relevant evidence and study it carefully. So I made some mistakes. (I recommend that no one pronounce on this matter without having the relevant pages of Rahmani’s catalogue of ossuaries actually in front of them. My initial lack of access to them misled led me at some points, even though I was told quite carefully what they contain. They can now be seen on the Discovery Channel website.) I am fairly confident of what I’m now saying here, but ossuaries and onomastics are technical fields, and I’m open to corrections from the experts. I’ve no doubt that refinements of the argument will result from further discussion of the issues.

I shall divide my discussion into the matter of the names on these ossuaries in general, and a longer consideration of the name alleged to be Mary Magdalene, since this requires quite careful and detailed consideration. (I have refrained from using Hebrew and Greek script, and have tried to make the argument intelligible to people who know no Greek. Unfortunately at the moment I don’t have a functioning transliteration font: hence the overly simply transliteration of the names that I’ve had to use.))

The names in general

The six persons named in the ossuary inscriptions (Rahmani 701-706) are:
(1) Mariamenou-Mara ( the first name is a unique form of the name Mariam, Mary, and will be discussed separately below).
(2) Yehuda bar Yeshua ¢ (Judah son of Jesus)
(3) Matia (Matthew)
(4) Yeshua ¢ bar Yehosef (Jesus son of Joseph)
(5) Yose (a common abbreviated form of Yehosef)
(6) Maria (a form of Mariam, Mary)
All the inscriptions are in Aramaic except the first, which is Greek.

We should note that the surviving six names are only six of many more who were buried in this family tomb. There may have been as many as 35. The six people whose names we have could have belonged to as many as four different generations. This is a large family tomb, which would certainly have been used for quite some time by the same family. We should not imagine a small family group. Some members of the family of Jesus we know lived in Jerusalem for only three decades (from the death of Jesus to the execution of his brother James in 62). None of our other evidence would suggest that there were so many of them as to require a tomb of this size.

Only three of the six named persons correspond to the names of known members of the family of Jesus: Jesus son of Joseph, Maria (Jesus’ mother or his aunt, the wife of Clopas), Yose (Jesus’ brother was known by this abbreviated form of the name Joseph: Mark 6:3). In a family tomb only members of the family (members by birth or, mostly in the case of women, marriage) would be interred. The fact that one of Jesus’ close disciples was named Matthew has no significance at all for identifying the person in the ossuary labelled Matthew. We shall discuss Mariamenou-Mara below, but it cannot be stressed sufficiently that there is no evidence at all for the conjecture that Jesus married Mary Magdalene (and note that an extra-marital affair, which some postulate, though again without evidence, would not qualify Mary Magdalene to be in the tomb of Jesus’ family). Similarly, there is no evidence at all that Jesus had any children. (If he really had a son named Judah, would he not be mentioned somewhere in the ancient literary evidence? He would have been a useful figure for a Gnostic wishing to claim esoteric teaching of Jesus handed down from someone close to him, but he goes unmentioned in the Gnostic Gospels that do make such claims for other figures and unmentioned also in the church fathers who relay information about Gnostic claims.)

All of the names on these ossuaries were extremely common names among Jews in Palestine at this period. We have a great deal evidence about this (the data is collected in the enormously useful reference book: Tal Ilan, Lexicon of Jewish Names in Late Antiquity, part 1 [Mohr-Siebeck, 2002], and also analysed in chapter 4 of my recent book Jesus and the Eyewitnesses [Eerdmans, 2006]). We have a data base of about 3000 named persons (2625 men, 328 women, excluding fictional characters). Of the 2625 men, the name Joseph (including Yose, the abbreviated form) was borne by 218 or 8.3%. (It is the second most popular Jewish male name, after Simon/Simeon.) The name Judah was borne by 164 or 6.2%. The name Jesus was borne by 99 or 3.4%. The name Matthew (in several forms) was borne by 62 or 2.4 %. Of the 328 named women (women’s names were much less often recorded than men’s), a staggering 70 or 21.4% were called Mary (Mariam, Maria, Mariame, Mariamme). (My figures differ very slightly from Ilan’s because I differ from a few of her judgments for technical reasons, but the difference is insignificant for present purposes.)

I am not a mathematician and do not know how to get from these figures to calculations of odds. I must leave the assessment of Feuerverger’s case to others. But it seems to me incredible.

The name Mariamenou-Mara

The Hebrew name Mariam was very popular among Palestinian Jews at this period, though hardly used at all in the diaspora. It was usually rendered in Greek in one of two forms: Maria and Mariamme (or Mariame). It could, of course, be simply written as Mariam in Greek characters (and this is the practice of the Septuagint, the Greek Old Testament, when referring to Mariam the sister of Moses, called Miriam in English Bibles). But we know only four cases in which this was done with reference to a living person of the early Jewish period. (One of these is Luke 10:39-42, referring to Mary the sister of Martha, though there is a variant reading Maria).

Much more popular were the forms Maria (the form used everywhere in the New Testament, except Luke 10:39-40, for all the various Maries it refers to) and Mariamme/Mariame (used, for example, by Josephus). Both give the name a more Greek form than the simple transliteration Mariam. Palestinian Jewish women who themselves used a Greek form of their name as well as a Semitic form (a common practice) would be likely to have used Maria or Mariamme. This accounts for the fact that the Greek form Maria is often found on ossuaries transliterated back into Hebrew characters as Mariah. (Odd as this practice might seem , there are examples for other names too.) This is what has happened in the case of the woman called Maria (in Hebrew characters) on one of the ossuaries we are studying.

It is worth noting that this Greek form of the name Miriam has nothing to do with the Latin name Maria, which also existed. The coincidence is just a coincidence. It was, however, a coincidence that Jews living in a Latin-speaking environment could have exploited, just as Jews in Palestine exploited the coincidental near-identity of the Hebrew name Simeon and the Greek name Simon. The woman called Maria in Romans 16:6, a member of the Christian community in Rome, may have been a Jew called Mariam in Hebrew (an emigrant from Palestine), or a Gentile with the Latin name Maria, or a Jew living in Rome who had the name Maria precisely because it could be understood as both Hebrew and Latin.

In the Gospels Mary Magdalene’s name is always given in the Greek form Maria, which is the New Testament’s standard practice for rendering Mariam into Greek, except for Luke 10:39-42. As we have noted it is standard Greek form of Mariam. However, from probably the mid-second century onwards we find some references to Mary Magdalene (often identified with Mary of Bethany and/or other Gospel Maries) that use the alternative standard Greek form Mariamme (or Mariame). These references are all either in Gnostic works (using ‘Gnostic’ fairly loosely) or in writers referring to Gnostic usage.

We find the form Mariamme in Celsus, the second-century pagan critic of Christianity, who lists Christian sectarian groups, including some who follow Mary (apo Mariammes). These may wll be the group who used the Gospel of Mary (late 2nd century?), a Greek fragment of which calls Mary Magdalene Mariamme. This form of her name also appears in the Coptic (a translation from Greek) of the Gnostic Work the Sophia of Jesus Christ (CG III,4). The usage may have been more widespread in Gnostic literature, but the fact that we have most Gnostic works only in Coptic makes it hard to tell.)

This tradition of using the form Mariamme for Mary Magdalene must have been an alternative tradition of rendering her name in Greek. It most likely goes back to a usage within the orbit of Jewish Palestine (since the name Mary in any form was very rare in the diaspora and Gentile Christians would not be familiar with the name Mariamme ordinarily). But so does the usage of Maria in the New Testament Gospels, at least one of which is at least a century earlier than any evidence we have for giving her the name Mariamme. It would be hazardous to suppose that Mariamme was the Greek form of her name used by Mary Magdalene herself or the earliest disciples of Jesus.

The Gnostic use of Mariamme is also reported by Hioppolytus in his Refutation of All Heresies (written between 228 and 233). He says that the Naassenes claimed to have a secret teaching that James the brother of Jesus had transmitted to Mary (5.7.1; 10.9.3). What is especially significant is that the manuscript evidence is divided between two forms of the name: Mariamme and Mariamne (note the ‘n’!). It is probably impossible to tell which Hippolytus himself wrote. However, it is easy to see that, in a milieu where the name Mariamme was not otherwise known, the usage could slip from Mariamme to Mariamne.

These variant readings in Hippolytus are the first known occurrences of the form Mariamne (which the Discovery Channel programme claims is the same name as that on one of the ossuaries). Since it occurs in Hippolytus as a variant of Mariamme, and since the latter is wll attested in Jewish usage back to the first century CE, it seems clear that the form Mariamne is not really an independent version of the name Mariam (independent of Mariamme, that is). But a late deformation of the form Mariamme, a deformation made by Geek speakers not familiar with the name. This must also then explain the usage in the apocryphal Acts of Philip (late 4th or early 5th century), where Mariamne is consistently and frequently used for the sister of the apostle Philip, apparently identified with both Mary Magdalene and Mary of Bethany.

We can now turn to the inscription on the ossuary, which has, in Greek: MARIAMENOUMARA. The two words Mariamenou and Mara are written consecutively with no space between. This makes it rather unlikely that two women are named here. But Rahmani takes a small stroke between the last letter of Mariamenou and the first of Mara to be a Greek letter eta (long e). He takes this to be the relative pronoun he Ieta with a rough breathing), reading: ‘Mariamnenou who [is also called] Mara.’ (Note that this is different, it seems, from what the Discovery Channel do when they read the eta with a smooth breathing, meaning ‘or’.) There are parallels (I gather from Rahmani) to this abbreviated way of indicating two names for the same person.

The form of the name on the ossuary in question is Mariamenou. This is a Greek genitive case, used to indicate that the ossuary belongs to Mary (it means 'Mary's' or 'belonging to Mary'). The nominative would be Mariamenon. Mariamenon is a diminutive form, used as a form of endearment. The neuter gender is normal in diminutives used for women. But the name Mariamenon is found only here in all our evidence for ancient Jewish names. It is, of course, a specifically Greek formation, not used in Hebrew or Aramaic.

This diminutive, Mariamenon, would seem to have been formed from the name Mariamene, a name which is attested twice elsewhere (in the Babatha archive and in the Jewish catacombs at Beth She’arim). Mariamene is an unusual Greek form of Mariam, presumably invented because it has a rather elegant hellenized form. When I first looked at this issue I was rather persuaded that the form Mariamne was a contracted form of Mariamene (which I think is what the Discovery Channel film claims), but I then found that the second and third century evidence (reviewed above) makes it much more plausible that the form Mariamne is a late deformation of Mariamme that occurred only in a context outside Palestine where the name was not known. So the Discovery Channel film’s claim that the name on the ossuary is the same as the name known to have been used for Mary Magdalene in the Acts of Philip is mistaken.

But we must also consider the rest of this inscription. The Discovery Channel film proposes to read Mara as the Aramaic word ‘the master’ (as in Maranatha). But, since we know that Mara was used as an abbreviated form of Martha, in this context of names on an ossuary it is much more plausible to read it as a name. This woman had two names: Mariamenon and Mara. It could be that the latter in this case was used as an abbreviation of Mariamenou, or it could be that the woman was known by Mariamenon, treated as a Greek name, and the Aramaic name Mara, conforming to the common practice of being known by two names, Greek and Semitic.

If the woman, for whatever reason, is given two different names on the ossuary, it is very unlikely that she would also have been known as Mariamene, even though this is the form of which Mariamenon is the diminutive. One other point can be made about Mariamenon. As a term of endearment it would be likely to have originated in the context of her family. But in that case, we probably need to envisage a family which used Greek as an ordinary language within the family. This does not mean it did not also use Aramaic, which would probably be the case if the names on the other ossuaries are those of family members closely related to Mariamenon. The family could have been bilingual even within its own orbit. Alternatively, the ossuaries in Aramaic could come from a branch of a big family or a generation of the family different from that of Mariamenon, such that their linguistic practice would be different. In any case, it is unlikely that the close family of Jesus would have spoken Greek within the family, and so it is unlikely that Mariamenon belonged to that close family circle.

The conclusion is that the name Mariamenon is unique, the diminutive of the very rare Mariamene. Neither is related to the form Maramne, except in the sense that all derive ultimately from the name Mariam. There is no reason at all to connect the woman in this ossuarywith Mary Magdalene, and in fact the name usage is decisively against such a connexion."