“His cover would’ve been blown.”
“Exactly right, Hector. Since it was my father’s job to write a formal translation of the entire scroll, that’s what he did. He gave it to Michel that night. The next morning, the scroll — and Michel — were gone.”
Vail picked up the tennis ball and tossed it to Benny. “Gone. As in he left? He stole the scroll?”
“Yes, Karen, he stole the scroll, and the translation. But,” Roey said, lifting a hand and waving an index finger, “my father had made a handwritten copy of the translation. This he turned over to his boss at Mossad a few days later when he was certain Michel was not returning.”
“Did they ever find him?” Uzi asked. “Or the scroll?”
“Six weeks later, Michel turned up in Egypt. He claimed he had been ambushed and beaten.”
“The scroll?” DeSantos asked. “Wait, let me guess: whoever attacked him took it. Right?”
“Right.”
“What was his reason for stealing it? To sell it on the black market?”
Roey chuckled. “That certainly would’ve been believable. And he would’ve gotten a good sum of money for it, even back then before scholars knew what they had in the scrolls. Only a small fraction of them were made public. I think about 80 percent were kept hidden away by the Vatican for thirty to forty years. Christian and Jewish scholars kept asking to study them, but the answer was always no.”
Vail splayed her hands. “So where was Michel taking it?”
Roey shrugged. “He said he was hand delivering it to the Vatican because of what was contained inside. He didn’t want anyone to see what was written there.”
“Which was?” DeSantos asked.
Roey took a drink. He looked down and swirled his mug. “It’s still dangerous, all these decades later. Is it that important? Will what’s written in that ancient scroll really affect your case?”
“Knox seemed to think it would,” Uzi said.
Vail cradled her cup to warm her hands. “How can we answer that question if we don’t know what it says?”
“Why do you think it’s so dangerous?” DeSantos asked.
Roey took another drink. “Because, Hector, it has the power to change religion as we know it.”
31
I know what you’re thinking,” Roey said. “How could a document thousands of years old impact what people believe today?”
Actually, we already know the answer to that.
“It’s because it was written so long ago that it has the power to influence the present day. Remember, this was before Christianity, before Islam.” Roey sighed. “I’m not a religious scholar, so I only know what I learned in talking with other experts a long time ago. To grasp its significance, you have to understand that many academics believe that Qumran, and the Essenes, gave birth to Christianity.
“The Essenes were freethinkers. Some think they were rebels who were looking for new ways to practice their faith. Because of what’s written in the religious commentary of certain scrolls, some scholars believe that Jesus was one of the Essenes, or that he had visited them and shared his beliefs. Remember, Jesus was Jewish — a student of the Pharisees, a precursor to what we now call rabbis.”
Vail finished her coffee and set the mug down. “So you’re saying that the Qumran community was where the divergence occurred between Judaism and Christianity. Since they recorded Jesus’s teachings, it was the birth of Christianity.”
Benny put his front paws on Vail’s knees and growled softly, daring her to snatch the ball from his mouth.
“You find this very exciting,” DeSantos said.
“I’m not very religious,” she said, “but yeah.”
“There are those who believe that Qumran is where the core Christian beliefs were born,” Roey said, “its early beginnings, the formation of those newer principles that became the foundation for Christianity years later. And there’s considerable support for that.”
“Then what’s the problem?” Vail asked.
“There was a very large scroll that Israel obtained in 1948 during the War of Independence. It was the most intact scroll discovered to date and they named it the Temple Scroll because it talked about daily life in the First Temple, the one that was destroyed by the Babylonians — how the sacrifices were made, what the structure looked like, its dimensions and layout, how it was used, and so on. Well, the scroll that was stolen by Alberi Michel? My father called it the Jesus Scroll. Know why?”
“Because it’s all about Jesus.”
“Right, Karen. But not in the way you think. Here’s an example.” He craned his head toward the ceiling as he tried to recall the text. “Ah, hell. Hang on a minute.” He walked out of the room and returned with a leather notebook bound on the side by leather strings. Roey carefully opened it and turned a couple of pages.
“Here: ‘We will establish a manner of living for the whole, so that all may benefit from those around us. We will visit the ill of health, care for the ones whose bellies are not full. We are sent by the Anointed One to heal the sick, by our King to serve the poor, by the Prophet to proclaim hope.’ And then there’s this: ‘Miriam, the Anointed One, assembled the spices and oils for anointing the sick. Joel, the prophet among us, encouraged us to remember Elohim’s promises. Saul, whom the citizens of Jerusalem called the King of the Jews because of his knowledge of the Law, leads us with authority and discipline.’
“And maybe the most important passage: ‘For the benefit of all, these three will be known as one to whom believers from all walks can follow, and we shall call this person Yesu the Messiah, who represents the anointed one, the king, and the prophet.”
Vail, Uzi, and DeSantos were quiet.
Roey added, “There was no distinct J in the alphabet until the Middle Ages. The J was a Y and Yesu, which means savior, was later interpreted as ‘Jesus.’ Just like Jerusalem was, or is, Yerushalayim.”
Vail struggled to process what Roey had just read. I think I’ve got it. And I see the problem. “You’re saying that the Jesus Scroll talks about Jesus being a composite character, not an actual person.”
“Right. The scholars, priests, and rabbis I spoke with — and it was a very carefully selected group for obvious reasons — felt we were witnessing the creation of a new way of thought, with the intention that it can be used to garner support amongst the Essenes as an offshoot to traditional Judaism. They weren’t aiming to create a new religion per se, but were trying to formulate their concepts into something with a slightly different way of life, and then making it simple so others could grasp its directives, ideas, and conventions.
“One thing that a couple of the experts brought up was that scripture contains no true reference to the formal discussion of planned communities or even the concepts of communities. They lived in communities and they functioned as communities at that time and later on because it was commanded that they do so by God, Moses, judges, kings, prophets, Jesus, the Holy Spirit. But the descriptions of communal living came from outsiders. So in that sense this is a departure from all the other writings we found in the Qumran caves.”
“I see the problem,” Vail said. “If this scroll is legit and dates to the same—”
“My father was there when it was discovered, when it was removed from the cave. He took it from the clay jar with his own hands, he unwrapped it from the linen.”
“Only way to know for sure,” Uzi said, “is to let science do the talking. Carbon—”
“If they ever find it, I’m sure every single test known to modern science will be run.”