In the Beginning: Mars Origin "I" Series Book I (13 page)

Now tell me, how important do you think
the Dead Sea Scrolls find was to the Jewish and Christian communities?”

“Well,” he pondered the question. “I am
definitely not an authority on the Christian view of the Scrolls. But I can say
that the Dead Sea Scrolls truly enhanced what we know of both Judaism and
Christianity. The Scrolls represent a non-rabbinic form of Judaism and provided
unprecedented comparative material of Christian writings and tenets, especially
as it relates to the New Testament. In this find, we learned a firsthand
account of Judaism being the root of Christianity and showing, unequivocally,
an evolutionary link between the two.”

“And we knew that whatever was in the find
could be equally as important to each community. In fact, there were some that
thought, at that time, that a document purported to be a lost text of the
Christian’s Gospels may be in with the find. The
Quelle
, or ‘Q,’ as it’s
called. Have you ever heard of it?”

“No, I haven’t.”

So then, let’s steer you in another
direction, Mr. Reporter.

“Well, it was not among the manuscripts
found. And although some Christians believe that it may not have ever existed,
there are some that feel it is missing evidence of the authorship of the
original texts of the New Testament. So, as you see, it was equally important
to both factions.”

“Well, that certainly takes away some of
the mystery. Different people, looking for different things, can make for a
little confusion, huh?”

Bingo
.

“So tell me about your career.”

“Well, let’s see,” Dr. Yeoman said
smiling. “I was the Editor-in-Chief for twelve years, leaving to teach at the
Hebrew University for six years. During that time I still had quite a deal of
exposure to the Scrolls. After that I returned to the United States and taught
at the University of California at Los Angeles until I retired two years ago.”

“Ah, yes, UCLA. Tell me about your time
there.”

“Well, I started there in about ’65 as a
Professor Emeritus of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures. Along about 1969, I
worked with several other professors and developed the blueprint for what will
be the UCLA Cotsen Institute of Archaeology. It’s scheduled to open next year.”

“What an accomplished life. A little
background I neglected to ask earlier, you graduated from the Hebrew
University?”

“Yes.”

The interviewer nodded as he wrote on his
notepad. He paused briefly then continued his questioning.

“Dr. Yeoman - excuse me, Samuel, there is
not much opportunity for fortune or fame in your chosen profession. Would that
be a correct statement?”

“Yes, that would be correct. And, I didn’t
work for the money or the fame. You had to be very fortunate and in the right
place at the right time to become rich in this profession. I, like many others,
was driven by my love of history and of God. What I wanted as a scholar was to
search for the truth, the truth about our beginnings, and then to share that
truth, no matter what it was, with the world.”

“But you have achieved fame. You have won
numerous honors, including the Nobel Prize in Science for your participation in
the translation and preservation of the Dead Sea Scrolls.”

“Yes, that’s true, but I didn’t set out to
do that.”

“You are indeed a great man, Samuel, and I
say that with all sincerity. And, a very honest and a modest man as well. But
you must realize that you will go down in history as a great scientist.”

“Yes, I guess I will,” a sly look emerging
on his face, “but again, not because that had been my mission. I would much
rather think that it must have been
my destiny
.”

“Destiny,” the interviewer repeated
thoughtfully.

A few seconds passed. The interviewer
reached over and turned off his tape recorder then closed his portfolio. He
cleared his throat, “Well, that’s all the questions I have for you. Thank you
for your time today. I’ve truly enjoyed speaking with you.”

Dr. Yeoman exhaled quietly. “It was my
pleasure, David.” He stood up, extended his hand to the reporter, and the two
shook on a job well done.

“We would like to take a few more pictures
of you.”

“That’s fine. If you think it more
apropos, we can take pictures in my study.”

“That sounds perfect. Rudy will direct you
with that. Perhaps we could take some of your family as well? Do you think that
your wife and daughter would mind?”

“Oh, they will love that. The women in
this family are very vain.”

Dr. Yeoman smiled contently. He was very
pleased with himself as nothing in his eyes or actions had showed the truth.

Cleveland
Heights, Ohio

1997

It was
my destiny
.

I knew it down deep in my soul. It was my
destiny to translate those manuscripts. It was for me to do so that the world
would know its secrets and for me to find the secrets to inner tranquility.
But, I hadn’t the faintest idea how I was supposed to do it.

Rain pummeled the city the whole week
before Halloween. Lake Erie’s levels rose so high that it spilled over into
backyards and basements. Leaves clogged sewer drains on side streets and main
roads, and winds pushed so hard that even the most stalwart of trees were
uprooted and toppled. For a full seven days and seven nights it rained.
Seven
– the Biblical number of completion. I felt it was an omen, a portent of the
impending doom and devastating revelation that was to come from me fulfilling
my destiny.

If I ever got them translated.

I had been back from Jerusalem for about
two weeks when the rain started. I spent most of my days working with Dr.
Margulies on the tour. He had a full load over at the University this semester
so he needed me to help out a lot. I didn’t mind. Whatever he needed.

But when I wasn’t working on the tour, I
spent every waking moment locked in my bedroom or study. I spent hours writing
down, over and over, the words from the manuscripts from memory. I didn’t need
to look at the notes I had made while in Jerusalem because I remembered each
and every word of everything I had read.

My brother Sean, a police officer for the
last fifteen years, is also the family’s computer genius. He wrote a program
for me that took the words I typed in and attempted to make them into complete
sentences. It didn’t work too well, though, because I really didn’t have enough
words to make a coherent sentence. I just couldn’t make anything out of what I
had. And while it was making me feel idiotic, I didn’t stop. I kept trying,
putting the same words into the program over and over expecting a different
result.

Isn’t that the definition of insanity?

Because of it, I was nervous all the time.
Everything startled me. I was short-tempered. I didn’t eat and I rarely slept
and my house was a mess. I didn’t clean, I didn’t go grocery shopping. We had
to get take-out every night. I wasn’t doing the laundry either so clothes were
piled up everywhere. And, I had this feeling of doom and gloom like something
bad was about to happen. It was scaring me. And since I couldn’t think of
anything else that could make me feel like that, I decided it was the
manuscripts and what they would reveal. Only nothing was “being revealed.”

I told Mase all about my escapades in
Jerusalem. I told him every little sordid detail. I needed someone to talk to
about the manuscripts, and talk I did. I talked to him incessantly about my
frustrations, my feelings and the constant, painful yearning in the pit of my
stomach - - the need to know.

Manuscripts, manuscripts, manuscripts. That’s
all I could talk about. Mase said I even talked about them in my sleep. Those
manuscripts had taken over my soul.

On one of those rainy nights, during a
restless sleep that had now become common, I dreamt that I was all alone,
drowning in a sea of the tattered and fragmented pieces of the manuscripts. It
was dusk and the overcast purplish sky was grazed with long, gray, translucent
clouds that seemingly were being pulled into the horizon. My arms were
flailing, splashing in desperation as icy waves wafted up on gusts of winds,
swirling around me, pulling me in. Screams shrieked from all around me. I could
hear them, but I couldn’t see anyone. I opened my mouth, desperately calling
out to anyone who could hear me. I pushed to make a sound, but not even a
squeak came out of my still throat. Spitting out the dark waters from my mouth,
I tried to stay afloat, swishing from side to side looking for a way out. As a
thunderstorm began to rage, pieces of the torn and faded manuscript rained down
hard, turning my watery grave black from the ink that was smeared across them.

 I woke up from the nightmare and bolted
upright grabbing my throat. I kicked the sheets off my legs.

Breathe
. A groan came as I exhaled.

“Are you alright?” Mase woke up.

“Yeah.” I answered. “I must have been
having a nightmare. I’m okay, go back to sleep.”

Laying back down, I watched the relentless
downpour outside my bedroom window. The rain, steady and sure, looked black
against the darkness of the night.

It must be an omen
, I thought. Because
that’s where I was, in the middle of a thunderstorm.
Literally
.

Mase noticed my worried look the day after
the dream, and per his usual, sympathetic self, he reassured me that everything
was okay. He told me it wasn’t an omen, and for me not to worry, which made me
mad. He couldn’t possibly know whether it was an omen or not. And how could he
understand how I felt, how irritated I was or what I was going through? Or, how
scared I was that these bad things that spun around in my head all day, were
now seeping into my dreams?

I decided just to complain to him and not
listen to the dumb stuff he said in response. But then he told me, “Just pray
about it. If it’s of God and from God and if He wants it revealed he will find
a way to do so.” Okay, so I couldn’t be mad at that answer. I decided to listen
to that part of his advice. So, I prayed and I cried and I prayed some more,
all the while continuing to try and put the same hundred or so words together
to reveal the secrets of the manuscripts. But no matter how I prayed, nothing
happened except for my frustration level reached a new high every day. I
finally decided that the hope of gleaning anything from what I had was just
foolishness and even God couldn’t help me with that.

Still I kept at it. I just stopped praying
about it.

CHAPTER
TWENTY-EIGHT

One rainy night, I had just finished
translating a paragraph of a piece of the manuscripts (well, actually I had
discovered the meaning of five more words and had added them in to the long,
nonsensical, rambling paragraph I always worked on), when the storm knocked out
the power to the house. The lights went out and so did the laptop I was working
on. I could have screamed.

The kids did scream.

“MAAA - MEEE.”

Their TV went out. They didn’t seem to
care about the lights.

“Here I come.” I yelled.

Trying to maneuver my way through the dark
without waiting until my eyes adjusted from staring at a bright computer
monitor for two hours wasn’t a good idea. I tripped over the Ethernet and power
cord to my laptop, stubbing my toe. Hopping around in pain, I hit the metal
thingy on the door frame and cut my arm. I felt the warm blood trickle down my
arm.

“Jeez!” I was killing myself just trying
to go fifteen feet.

I had to get some light.

“Mommy, where are you?” The kids were
yelping.

Where was Mase? How come he hadn’t come
running when he heard me tripping over everything and them making all that
ruckus? I called out to him.

“Mase,” I shrieked.

“Daddy’s not here. Come and get us!”

 “Here I come!” I screamed back.

Mase evidently hadn’t gotten in yet from
that interview he had with some sports personality. That made me mad. I got up
off the floor, hopped into the kitchen, and groped around in the dark for the
kitchen table. Retrieved candles and a flashlight and headed upstairs.

My arm was stinging by the time I made it
upstairs. So, I stopped by the bathroom and washed the cut off and got a
Band-Aid to put on it. With the kids in tow, I went in my room and put on a
clean blouse and we all went downstairs. And lucky for us, I got a fire going
in the fireplace. I lit more candles and with that and the glow from the fire,
the kids were fine. We sat quietly, or at least I tried to keep them quiet,
while we waited for the lights to come on or Mase to come home and make everything
all right. That didn’t work for long.

With no TV or radio, and no longer afraid
that the darkness would swallow them up, time just dragged on for them. Micah
and Logan became restless, and of course, hungry. There was nothing of any
nutritional value to eat in the house, since I had been neglecting my duties,
so I decided I’d call out for pizza (figured it had to have some nutrition in
it). I called my usual places and of course the ones that answered were having
the same problem as we were – no lights and no power. I decided to go out and
get something. It had to be easier than sitting here listening to the two of
them whine and complain. I did enough of that myself.

I ordered pizza from the only place that
was operating, which was about four miles from our house. I checked my arm to
make sure no blood was coming through the bandage, put on some galoshes, my
rain hat and coat, and grabbed an umbrella. I left them with instruction not to
kill each other while I went to pick up pizza.

The streets were so bad. Tree branches
were everywhere and in some places entire trees straddled the roads. Rainwater
had accumulated so high on some streets that I probably would’ve had more luck
swimming through them. I turned the car around and tried to go down the next street.

“Uh oh, not that way.” Praying that I
didn’t get stuck in the water, I turned the car around again.

This was awful. I yelled at Mase the whole
time for not being around when I needed him. I would have to be sure to tell
him all the bad things I said about him whenever he finally got home.

When I got to the pizza parlor, my order
wasn’t ready, which I couldn’t understand since there was only me and one other
guy in the place. I knew they weren’t making deliveries, so what was the hold
up? I sat down to wait.

I looked out of the large window that made
up the front of the store. There were repair trucks dotting the street to
return power to the houses. All the lights on the street were out, as were the
lights on most of the streets I had passed on the way here. I wondered how this
place had lights. I looked around the store.
They must have an emergency
generator
, I thought. Then I thought,
why in the world would a pizza
parlor have a backup generator?
‘Who cares why they have one, Justin,’ I
said to myself, ‘It’s a good thing they did, otherwise, your neglected children
wouldn’t have anything to eat.’ I hung my head. I was becoming such a bad
mother.

As I looked around the store my eye caught
the eye of the other guy who was waiting. He was staring right at me. He made
me feel really uncomfortable. I smiled faintly at him and nodded since he was
looking at me and then I turned and looked back out of the window. I focused my
eyes so that I could see the reflection of the man in the window. He looked
familiar, but I couldn’t figure out why. It’s amazing, I can remember the words
of an entire book, verbatim, but I had a devilishly hard time remembering
faces.

The guy behind the counter beckoned that
my pizza was ready. I went to write a check to pay for it and was digging in my
purse to find a pen when the man, who I could feel still staring at me, came up
behind me and tapped my shoulder. When I turned around he handed me a pen. Now
he was really beginning to make me nervous. I paid for the pizza, smiled a ‘thank
you’ as I handed him back his pen and left. I was glad to get away from him.
But as I pulled out of the parking lot I noticed that he was pulling out behind
me. I didn’t remember him buying any pizza. Come to think of it, I didn’t
remember him ordering any pizza. How could he be leaving at the same time I
was?

No one else was out. It seemed that we
were the only two people foolish enough to be out in this storm. Oh, except for
my husband. And for a moment, it almost made me forget about this man following
me. I glanced in the rearview mirror. I turned the corner. Who was this guy?
What was he doing? He turned, too.

Why was he following me?

A pale moonlight lit my way. It gave an
eerie silhouette to every house, down every street that was stilled by the storm.
My breathing became shallow and forced, making condensation form on the
windows. I pulled my coat sleeve down over my wrist and wiped off my windshield,
then rolled down my window to try and keep the other windows clear. I heard the
sound of my tires as they rolled over the wet pavement. A cool wind hastened
through and I could smell the rain and wet leaves in the night air. I took a
deep breath and tried to calm down.

I glanced in the mirror. He trailed at
every turn, at every stop sign. His bright lights came on, and I raised my hand
to shield the flickering, bright light that now bathed my car.

Could he see me?

My hands trembled and my heart leapt into
my throat. I know my fear was evident by the spotlight that made visible my
every move.

Then the manuscripts popped into my head.

Maybe he wants the manuscripts.

Could that be why he’s following me?

But, I didn’t have them.

Maybe he didn’t know that. Maybe he
thought I had them. Someone must have found out that I knew about the
manuscripts, that I had seen them.

But that’s all. I just
knew
about
them. I didn’t know what was
in
them.

I started feeling dizzy and his bright
lights stung my eyes as I watched him from my rearview mirror.

I inhaled deliberately. “Calm down,
Justin.” I whispered the words. “Don’t be scared.”

 “Okay.” I said. “Maybe he’s not following
me.” I looked in the rearview mirror. “Stay calm.” With shaky hands I reached
down and turned on the radio. Maybe a little music would help. Off pitch and
strained, a popular non-singer whined out his love and begged for reciprocity.
How do they let those people make records? I turned it off. It just made me
more nervous.

My eyes darted from the rearview mirror to
the road ahead. Could I outdrive him in all this rain?

What if he tried to grab me?
I leaned over and
rambled through the glove compartment to find something I could use to scare
him or protect myself. Nothing.

What if he wanted the manuscripts? I sat
back up. Well, he couldn’t get them from me because I didn’t have them.

But would he believe that?

As I pulled up to a stop sign, I looked in
my side mirror. He did look familiar, I thought. Where had I seen him before?

Maybe in Jerusalem.

“I know,” I said. He had been on the bus I
took to work last week when my car was in the shop.

 I turned the corner.

Why was he on the bus if he had a car?

Had he been following me that long?

I held my bottom lip tightly between my
teeth, trying to stop it from trembling. My hands shook uncontrollably. I could
barely hold onto the steering wheel. I felt the sting of tears pooling in the
wells of my eyes.

C’mon, Justin. You were on the bus, you
have a car, I reasoned. So, maybe he being there was no big deal. I glanced in
the rearview mirror. This man following me
was
a big deal.

The manuscript popped up in front of me
and flashed ‘God Help Us.’

“God help
me
,” I whispered.

I picked up the car phone and dialed 9-1-.

What could I say? A man from the pizza
parlor didn’t buy any pizza and now he’s driving down the street behind me? He
hadn’t actually done anything.

 I hung up the phone.

I can’t go home
, I thought. I
didn’t want him to know where I lived.

Maybe he already knew.

I shouldn’t have left the kids there by
themselves.

I picked up my speed. So did he.

Thirty. Thirty-five. I watched the
speedometer.

Maybe I should destroy the notes from the
manuscript and delete everything from my computer.

I will, I vowed, as soon as I get home.

I put on my blinker.

So did he.

If, I get home.

My jaws tightened. A layer of cold sweat
covered my head and the back of my neck. I was beginning to feel sick to my
stomach. Why did I ever go back for those stupid manuscripts? My head was
aching. My mouth was dry. Every inch of my body was balling up in little knots.

What was I going to do?

Those feelings of gloom and doom I had been
having – maybe this was it. Maybe this man was going to kill me over those
stupid manuscripts, just like that man who translated them was murdered.

I felt the cold rain as it started up
again, stinging as it beat against my face. My tears mixed with the rain as it
rolled down my face. I turned on the windshield wipers and rolled up the
window. I turned on the defroster because between me sobbing and the fogged up
windows I couldn’t see a thing. But it made too much noise. I turned the
defogger off and opened the window again. Why worry about the rain getting on
me, I thought, I was about to die, what should I care if I was wet.

I was close now. Two streets away from
home. A right turn, then a left. My street. My house. Should I turn? Should I
keep going straight?

 I didn’t want to take this man right to
my house, to my children. I turned right. It was just a reflex.

Oh no.

 My heart fluttered in my chest, such an
uneasy feeling. Beating faster and faster, my falling tears kept pace. I
shouldn’t have turned. Why did I turn?

Maybe I wouldn’t make the next turn. The
turn onto my street. I could keep going. Drive to the police station. It was
only three blocks over. Tell them I was scared.

I heard thunder rumble somewhere over my
left shoulder. And then it got dark.

I slowly turned around.

He wasn’t there.

He hadn’t made that last turn.

Oh. My. God.

I was shaking so badly, I pulled the car
over and put it in park. I put my hands at the top of the steering wheel and
laid my head on my hands and sobbed – pitifully. What was wrong with me? I
slapped the steering wheel with the palm of my hand. Had I gotten this paranoid
staying in my room trying to translate that manuscript? Had it really taken
such a hold on my mind that now I was imagining that people were out after me?
Out to kill me? And all because of those manuscripts? I had to get a grip.

The rain smashed into the car, hitting the
windshield heavy and hard. I rolled up the window as lightning crackled through
the sky. I put the car in gear and drove down the street to my house.

My hands were still shaking by the time I
got in the house. I went in hugged and kissed my kids, gave them the pizza and
went straight upstairs to bed. I pulled the covers up over my head and cried.
What in the world was I doing to myself?