Brian Sadler Archaeology 01 - The Bethlehem Scroll Read online

  The Bethlehem Scroll

  A Brian Sadler Archaeological Mystery

  Book One of the Series

  2011 First-place EVVY Award Winner for Fiction

  Colorado Independent Publishers Association

  To Marilyn

  My Proofreader and Critic Extraordinaire

  Still the one…

  …after all these years.

  Note to 2016 edition:

  Marilyn died a year after this book was originally published.

  She was always a staunch critic but also my wife and greatest supporter for 42 years.

  Author’s Note

  It is accepted by many scholars that Jesus was born in the spring, maybe two or three years “B.C.”

  In this novel, rather than using Christmas Day, December 25 of the year zero, I have chosen to set His birth in the spring of 3 B.C.

  Prelude

  The Qumran Hills near the Dead Sea

  Late 2003

  It was hot, blisteringly hot, on the canyon floor. The afternoon sun beat mercilessly on the rocky hillside. Only insects and reptiles had the stamina to venture about outdoors in this heat. Mammals stayed under cool rock overhangs or sought shelter in one of the many small caves dotting the landscape.

  Deep in the darkness of this particular cave the temperature was below seventy degrees Fahrenheit, far less than the searing heat outside its obscure entrance. Other than the occasional desert fox or snake seeking refuge from the afternoon sun, nothing had ventured into the cave for hundreds of years. This was no place for men.

  The cave consisted of two small areas – the space inside the room farthest from the cave’s entrance was tight – less than eight feet lay between the tiny entrance and its rear wall. The room’s ceiling was no more than three feet above its floor – not even a child could have stood erect. That was part of the reason why the jar had remained untouched for these many years. The Bedouins occasionally used larger caves nearby for shelter but this small indentation went unnoticed.

  The jar sat on a small ledge behind some rocks. Its tight seal, put into place long ago, guarded its contents well. Neither searing desert heat nor the cool cave created a problem. There was neither humidity nor dampness to damage anything. So the jar sat, hidden behind two stones at the back of the cave, exactly as the boy had carefully placed it two thousand years ago.

  -----

  National Museum of Antiquities

  Cairo, Egypt

  May 3, 2004

  The translator had sat for two hours bent over the table, painstakingly examining the ancient manuscript that lay flat on the table in front of him. He had made astonishing progress, although translating from Aramaic into Egyptian was a slow process, made more difficult by the partial deterioration of the document on which he was working. He had to work very carefully, unrolling with great care the two thousand year old scroll.

  Achmed thought to himself how much easier this scroll was to handle than the others which had been found back in the forties. Many of them were mere fragments, eroded by the passing of time. This scroll obviously had been cared for much differently, he thought. Although its condition was rough, it still was intact. He wanted to know more about its provenance, but knew the man sitting behind him wouldn’t tell him anything.

  Earlier today, Achmed had been sitting at his desk, working on the translation of an old Greek parchment that one of the museum’s financial supporters had brought in. The benefactor said it had been found at a dig in Alexandria. He purchased it from one of the workmen, who apparently had whisked it away from the site in his pocket. Achmed had barely gotten started on the document – just far enough to know it was some sort of shipping manifest – when the museum director had burst into his workroom, accompanied by a pockmark-faced man who now sat behind him.

  The man had produced an identity card and badge, identifying him as a Detective Inspector with the Ministry of Interior, the agency that controlled all police activity in Egypt. Achmed found that strange. He had had no interaction with the police in his entire career here. The museum director instructed Achmed to stop what he was doing and to do a quick translation of the document now before him. “He wants to know what it says,” the director said. “Not word for word, but an overview of what the scroll is all about.”

  So began the ordeal that had gone on for hours. The swarthy inspector sat in a chair behind Achmed, occasionally taking or making a call on his cell phone, talking quietly while Achmed worked. His face had startled Achmed when they met. The scars might have been from smallpox, he thought. Once, when Achmed arose to go to the lavatory, the Inspector questioned him, then said, “We will both go, but do not enter this room again until I am with you.” It was obvious the man would not allow Achmed to be alone with the document.

  What Achmed had translated had astounded him. Now he understood why the man was so protective of the scroll he had brought to the museum. There were groups – governments even – who would do almost anything to get their hands on this parchment.

  “I have important work to do,” the inspector said to Achmed. “Finish up now, and give me the parchment.” Achmed had only a few lines left. He had hurried through the lengthy manuscript, and knew he had missed some of the words, but the meaning was as clear as day to him. His body shuddered involuntarily as he thought of the importance of what he had in his hands.

  Achmed made notes on a legal pad next to him as he carefully read the ancient language. Although he wanted to make sure he got the meaning, he wasn’t concerned about every word. The document was long…a story with no ending. He struggled to contain the excitement that grew within him as he read sentence after sentence.

  “What’s taking you so long?” the inspector asked Achmed. “I only want to know what it means, not to have you translate the whole thing.”

  I know exactly what you want, Achmed thought to himself. And I may never see this scroll again, so I’m going to take my time and see everything it says.

  “Aramaic is a difficult language, sir,” Achmed replied to the man. “And the parchment is lengthy.”

  The man responded gruffly, impatiently. “Tell me, then, if the name Yahweh appears in the text.”

  I knew it! He wants to know if God’s name is in the document. He answered, “I have seen no such name so far, sir.” But Achmed also knew from what he had seen that it was only a matter of time until the name appeared.

  “I will be finished momentarily,” Achmed said to the policeman. He watched out of the corner of his eye as the man turned to retrieve the topcoat he had laid on a counter by the door. There was something unusual going on, Achmed felt.

  Finally Achmed put down his pen, turned to the man and said, “I am finished. The document is a scroll that appears to be ancient. It is written in Aramaic, a language common two thousand…”

  “I don’t want a history lesson!” the inspector interrupted. He stood, his voice loud and menacing. “What does it say?”

  It’s after 6 pm, Achmed thought. I am likely the only person still in the building. He nervously stammered, “The…the scroll resembles those from the Dead Sea discoveries. It speaks of a birth in Bethlehem. The last sentence calls him a King – Yahweh.” Since Achmed knew that was the name this Inspector was seeking, he decided not to tell him the other name that appeared in the scroll, the name Yeshua, or Jesus. This was an important scroll, without a doubt. This scroll mentioned God and Jesus, Yahweh and Yeshua, together in a single document.

  The Inspector smiled. “You have done well, translator,” he said quietly as he pulled a pistol from his coat pocket. Achmed had no time to think even of his wife a
nd child at home, and he barely felt the bullet enter his chest. He died before he hit the floor.

  The pockmarked man who had called himself an Inspector stepped over the body, rolled up the parchment carefully, and took Achmed’s notepad. Opening the door, he looked up and down the quiet hallway. He could hear no sounds. He moved to the museum’s entrance and left the building, making sure the door locked behind him.

  -----

  The director of the National Museum prided himself on his early arrival each day. He unlocked the front doors as he did every morning. There were no guards here overnight. The last massive round of budget cuts had eliminated that luxury. All the security cameras were still in place, but no one sat at the guard station watching the activity on monitors.

  He wondered how Achmed’s translation had gone. That whole situation was strange – an inquiry about an ancient scroll from a policeman? It was very unusual indeed. And he had stayed in the same room with the translator all afternoon, taking a break only when Achmed did. He must have thought the scroll to be very valuable.

  As he turned a corner to go to his office, he glanced down the hallway toward Achmed’s small workroom. The door was open and light spilled out from the office into the hallway. That was strange. He knew Achmed to be a fastidious person, one who never left his office with the door open. He must be there, the director thought, but it was certainly early for him. “Achmed,” he called. “Did you get finished last night?” He turned to enter Achmed’s office and saw the body lying on the floor in a pool of blood. A few flies buzzed around the room. It was obvious this must have happened several hours ago. Stunned, he ran to his office to call the National Police.

  -----

  The Judean hills near Bethlehem

  Late March 3 B.C.

  The shepherds spoke quietly among themselves as they sat on the ground around a small fire. As the sheep settled in for the night, the men smoked and talked. It was a warm spring night and a light breeze fanned the flames. Overhead, the cloudless sky was as black and brilliant as Joab had ever seen it. What a night, he thought to himself as millions of stars twinkle above him. What a beautiful, incredible night.

  Benjamin, son of Joab, was only twelve, but he had been with these men many times before as they tended the flock of sheep, which was their livelihood. Although he was often unable to join them because he attended school, this was one night he was glad he had been asked to come. He lay on his back on a small mat as he gazed upward, his pack beside him. A shooting star burned a path rapidly across the sky. Benjamin closed his eyes and made a wish.

  I wish for many more nights here, on this hill with my father.

  Joab had been a shepherd since his youth, trained by his father as Joab had in turn trained Benjamin. As he watched his son staring up into the skies, Joab’s mind wandered from the discussion in which the other shepherds were engaged. Joab hoped Benjamin could do more with his life. It had been a struggle to send the child to synagogue school, because Benjamin could have lent a much-needed hand to the growing flock of sheep Joab owned. Instead, Joab and his wife had decided the boy’s education was the key to his future. Perhaps he could become a rabbi, Joab sometimes mused. Or maybe a shopkeeper in Bethlehem. Whatever the future held, Joab wanted Benjamin to have the chance to do something meaningful. Little did he know how important Benjamin’s education would prove to be.

  The embers of the small fire died down. One of the shepherds took a stick and stirred the fire, tossing the twig on it. The talk had turned to politics, a subject about which it seemed everyone in the small group had an opinion.

  “The Sanhedrin are becoming far too powerful,” Joab commented.

  “Yes,” another replied, “but what can we do? They have the education…the power. Simple shepherds such as we must be content with our lot in life. But also we have the best of all worlds – we can sit here, far from the crowds below in Bethlehem, enjoying life to its fullest.”

  They discussed the census that was underway. Since the Romans had occupied Judea, taxes had progressively increased for the Jewish population now under their control.

  “I think Caesar Augustus is going to use the census as a means to raise taxes once again,” Joab commented. “I’ve never seen taxes go down, and the legions of soldiers they’re sending to our country require a lot of money to maintain.”

  The others agreed. One of them spat on the ground and cursed. “I’ve no money for taxes. What do we receive from this Roman government? Nothing. They take, but they never give in return.”

  “True,” another responded, “but we can’t fight them, and it appears the Sanhedrin have aligned themselves with the Romans.”

  A third added, “The Sanhedrin are crafty. They watch the wind, and they shift with it.”

  The census had created havoc in small towns such as Bethlehem, because every person of a certain bloodline was required to register in his own place of birth. This often meant travel for great distances on foot or by donkey. Since travel outside one’s own town was rare, the trip to Bethlehem and other cities where the census was taken was a diversion for many people, a time for revelry and a change of pace. The usually quiet towns swelled with people virtually overnight as they thronged in, filling the streets.

  The shepherds’ city was no exception. People from miles around were crowding into the small hamlet, swelling its population to three or four times its normal size. The streets filled with masses of people. Inns, eating and drinking places teemed with tourists, and many of these visitors became loud and unruly as the long nights wore on.

  From their vantage point on the hill above Bethlehem, which lay less than a mile below them to the east, the shepherds could easily hear the noise from the city. It wasn’t normal, and the shepherds hoped it wouldn’t be long before the visitors would leave and things got back into a routine. At this time, it was difficult to navigate the narrow streets of the town, because crowds moved about, drinking and talking loudly, unconcerned about the disruption they created among the residents. It was as though a holiday were underway, with all the reveling, Benjamin thought. Having never ventured more than a couple of miles from Bethlehem, he hadn’t seen such activity and it frightened him somewhat, although his father had told him to merely avoid the strangers as much as possible, and things would be fine.

  Yesterday when Benjamin had gone to the synagogue for school, two burly strangers had stopped him in the street, loudly asking him if he knew a lodging place in the area. Benjamin hesitantly responded that, as far as he had heard, everything was completely full.

  “We’ll just stay at The Four Horsemen,” one laughed to the other. The Four Horsemen was a drinking place not far from Benjamin’s school, and he wondered how someone could stay there, since there were only a couple of shabby rooms that the owner occasionally rented to those who had imbibed enough that they could not make it to their homes afterwards. Maybe they weren’t going to sleep, he thought, but just drink and be noisy instead. It was a time of change, the boy mused, and his father always told him change might be good, or bad, but it would always occur nonetheless.

  None of the shepherds on that starlit hill could have conceived what changes they would see over the next few hours, and how much a part of it they would become.

  Benjamin lay on his back on the soft grass. A few of the sheep milled about, bleating softly, unable to settle down and rest. Another shooting star streaked across the crisp, clear night sky and Benjamin waited for its filmy trail to begin to evaporate. Suddenly he became aware that, instead of disappearing at the end of its journey through the heavens, the star had instead become brighter. In fact, it had stopped, and seemed to be directly overhead!

  “Look, Father. That was a shooting star, and now it’s the brightest one in the sky!”

  Joab and the other shepherds stopped talking to look up. The star was pulsating and had become so luminous that it lit up the entire field on the top of the hill as if it were midday, but without the searing glare of the sun. It had a s
oothing glow but equally was as bright as the sun’s rays.

  “What do you make of this?” Joab asked the other shepherds, who were awestruck. No one had an answer. No one had ever seen a phenomenon such as this before.

  “God is giving us a sign,” one whispered.

  Benjamin stood. The bright light from the star shone around the men, but outside its circle of light the area was dark, from the hill down to the town below.

  “Father! Look at Bethlehem!” Joab and the shepherds turned their eyes away from the heavens to behold a most unusual sight.

  The same star whose rays created a bath of light directly on the Judean hilltop suddenly developed a second shaft. Piercing the darkness like the first, this second ray of bright, glowing light shone down into the bustling town of Bethlehem below. It seemed to pinpoint one area of town, an area Benjamin knew well. It was the part of town through which he walked to synagogue each morning, his part of town, near the inn known as The Four Horsemen.

  As the shepherds stood on the hillside, their sheep, thinking it was daytime, were now fully awake. Both men and animals were perplexed and afraid, not knowing what was happening to them. Joab became aware of movement in the sky above them, and could hear a soft sound of singing through the quiet night. His mouth fell open and he grabbed Benjamin to his side as he knelt with the other shepherds, the sheep now forgotten.

  High above the men seemingly floating in the night sky were several ethereal figures. Although they were human in appearance, they were the most beautiful creatures the men had ever seen. Their garments were golden and behind them, barely visible in the light, were what appeared to be wings, moving slowly about as they smiled down on the small band of shepherds kneeling on that lonely hilltop. The men felt a warmth from these figures such as they had never experienced before. Their fear had been transformed into a sense of wonder.