Rabbi Gabrielle Ignites a Tempest (32 page)

Professor Daniel Stern, his skin wrinkled
from long exposure to desert sun and wind, presented his document,
a delineation of prayers and incantations recited in the wilderness
school. They were composed of praises and petitions, extolling
Yahweh's supreme majesty. No mention of any Roman gods or of
deities worshiped by neighboring peoples. In his words, "A full
emersion into Hebrew monotheism. A single deity reaching out to
downtrodden outcasts from society, with a demanding code of
conduct.

He then addressed himself to texts Itamar had
included in his packet, texts found in the new cave at Qumran that
any biblical scholar would immediately identify. There were verses
excerpted from the prophetic books of Isaiah, Amos and Habakkuk.
Given the purported existence of a yeshiva at Ein Arugot, one verse
seemed particularly important. Isaiah 42:1 which foretold, some six
centuries before the yeshiva at Ein Arugot, that God would instill
His spirit into a servant. And this servant would deliver a
suffering people from Roman subjugation, just as Moses had
delivered the Hebrews from Egyptian bondage, seven centuries before
that.

Shmuel Navid was far too polite in dealing
with his colleagues to inject his own thinking without first asking
for permission from the speaker. He lifted a finger for attention
that Daniel Stern acknowledged with a nod of his head. Navid
cleared his throat, then re-cleared it in a series of grunts before
stating, "In several texts from Cave IV and Cave V, we find mention
of
the prince of light
. Is there any
reference to this individual in your documents?"

"Good question
,"
Stern replied
,
"because I found on two
references to a
prince
, but not
specifically to
the prince of light
mentioned in other documents. That puzzled me. On the one hand,
there's no indication in my documents that students at the Ein
Arugot academy had any political agenda. So I'm led to believe, on
rather scant evidence, that use of the title
prince
does not refer to a member of a royal family.
That would suggest that the prince at Ein Arugot refers to a
messianic personage, like the Prince of Light from Caves IV and
V."

"
Could this prince
be the fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy of a coming messiah?"
pursued Navid.

"The fit is reasonable, but we'll need more
evidence to make a foolproof identification."

After the group discussed the extraordinary
selection of biblical verses from Cave XII, Rabbi Menachim Barak
read two passages describing the prohibition against sexual
relations. He pointed out that the practice of celibacy was more
than a theoretical prohibition against sex. Two female names
appeared on the student roster, and it was likely that there were
more females attached to this wilderness colony. A playful giggle
introduced his observation that homosexuality wasn't uncommon in
the ancient world, particularly in isolated societies, such as Ein
Arugot. The clear and forceful prohibition against homosexual
relations cited in his document was not there because homosexuality
didn't exist. That prohibition was written precisely because it
did.

Rabbi Barak next turned his attention to two
smaller documents outlining a weekly fast in which students
refrained from both water and food from sundown the day before the
Sabbath until the beginning of the Sabbath the following sundown.
This, he proposed, was preparation to purify the body and mind for
the holy Day of Rest. The fasts, bathing, and celibacy appeared
consistent with a monastic community described in the other
documents. But why, he asked? And why at the remote Ein Arugot? The
animus this school engendered in Rome and Jerusalem was an even
greater mystery.

"Let's not get carried away with fanciful
speculation," intoned Menachim Barak in a cautionary manner,
"because, without the original documents, nobody is going to take
this material seriously. I hope you don't, Rabbi Lewyn."

"On the contrary," she snapped, fully
prepared to defend the authenticity of Tim's fragments. "I take
this very seriously, indeed. My friend and your colleague, Tim
Matternly, died because of these texts. He was a seasoned scholar
who is no stranger to any of you. Those of you who knew him
personally know he would not have toiled as he did for mere fakery.
Nor was he the type of man to promote this venture without solid
reason to believe the original documents existed. True, we don't
possess them, but they exist somewhere and I predict that they'll
eventually turn up. In the meantime, Tim left us with a copy
scanned onto DVDs."

"Who made the scans?" asked Thomas
Dillingham.

"I think Tim did," she answered, "but I'm not
certain."

"Was he responsible for assembling these
fragments as he did in his book?"

"In part."

"And you accomplished the rest. Quite a feat.
Did you have help?"
"Yes, but I can't reveal who."

"Why the secrecy? Doesn't that open you to
suspicion?"
"We have our reasons. For the time being, I'm not
permitted to say more. I ask you to judge the documents on their
merits, not the method used to assemble them."

"Well, all these concerns certainly figure in
how they will be viewed by both scholars and laypeople. How
wouldn't they?" Menachim Barak added. "I for one would advise
extreme caution before publishing anything. The academic world will
have a scathing response. Not to mention the Catholic Church."

"A political hot potato, Rabbi Lewyn,"
interjected Thomas Dillingham. "What these documents show, if I
understand this material, is that this was not only a cloister for
individuals seeking a monastic life, but a school where a form of
messianism was being taught."

"Not just taught," said Gabby. "It was
actively experienced there as well."

"Doesn't that contradict much contemporary
theological thinking in the Christian and Jewish worlds?" asked
Dillingham.

"Yes," responded Gabby, "I believe these
documents turn much of our thinking on its head. I've been studying
the mechanism of prophecy for a thesis at the University of
Chicago. I'm trying to figure out how God communicates with humans.
Tim Matternly's material has given me a clearer picture."

"I think you'd better explain that," Itamar
interrupted.

Gabby knew that her views ran counter to both
Jewish and Christian thinking, but also knew that before such
scholars it would be foolish to hold back. "Prophecy, as I see it
now, is not instilled by God. On the contrary, prophets in the
first century underwent a rigorous regime of physical, spiritual,
and intellectual training. What we have at Ein Arugot is a school
where students lived monastic lives preparing themselves to be
interpreters of God's will. I believe that this was revolutionary,
even in the first century of the Common Era. People who lived like
this threatened to usher in a new age. And this was bound to catch
the attention of the ruling authorities, particularly the paranoid
Roman government. Rome sought to appease the gods of peoples they
dominated because they feared their wrath. But, at the same time,
they feared even more the messianic movements that threatened to
undermine their political authority. Pontius Pilate's regime
destroyed the yeshiva at Ein Arugot, not unlike the way Rome's
procurator crucified the Nazarene for promoting a new order in
Judea."

"All the more threatening to contemporary
Christians," Dillingham said, pursuing his previous train of
thought. "Churchmen will not accept that Jews trained to become
prophets in the Judean wilderness. Schooling may be a means for
mortals to acquire expertise, but not for communicating God's
will."

"They can't hide their heads in the sand
forever," shot back Gabby. "We can't have our faiths rooted in
history and then, when we learn new facts about our past, ignore
them. History isn't a buffet table from which to select what we
wish and reject what doesn't appeal."

The meeting ended with each scholar arguing a point
of view from the texts Itamar had provided. But there was unanimous
consent that, for the time being, nothing should be done with the
fragments. The problems associated with the premature publication
of copied texts far outweighed the benefits. Until more information
was unearthed, or until they had a better idea about where the
originals were located, restraint was the only sensible policy.

At the end of the session, Itamar ushered his
scholars through the Antiquities Building to the front door, later
returning to find Gabby seated at the conference table, her eyes
staring at the ceiling tiles. He dropped into a seat beside her and
laid a hand upon hers, gently patting. "I know this is not what you
wanted to hear," he said. "You must be disappointed."

It took her a moment before she replied. "To
say the least. They weren't exactly enthusiastic, now were
they?"
He shook his head and applied pressure to her hand. "I don't
pay them for enthusiasm. I pay them for their expertise. What they
didn't say when they were here in this room, they indicated to me
as we walked out. They're deeply impressed with your work and that
of Matternly. Between you and me, I'd say they're downright
envious. But their judgment on not going to press is still sound.
It's just too early. You know that, don't you?"

"I suppose I do," she said, reluctantly. "I
guess I can wait a bit longer. You told me earlier there's no
rush."

"Now you've heard the same thing from the
best minds in the business."

She pulled her hand away and repositioned it
on top of his, squeezing several times tenderly. "Thanks for having
them look at my material, Iti. They didn't say I was stark raving
mad or an academic fraud, did they?"

"Quite the contrary. Scholars are by nature
cautious people who gave your material a good reading. Whether you
believe it or not, you just cleared your first hurdle with flying
colors."

***

Major Zabronski reported to Itamar on the
results of a search in Jerusalem's police archive. Gabby had been
right when remembering that among Tim's belongings were two Ziploc
bags, one filled with green ash and other, carbonized stones.
Nobody at the archive had thought to have these materials tested
for Carbon-14. Itamar immediately ordered Shmuel Navid to compare
them with what had been removed from the Negev site.

Zabronski further admitted that he had been
treading water on the Qumran murder case. He seemed to be making
progress, only to have run out of clues. In the past when that
happened he would find himself thrashing about without a direction.
But he had discovered in his years on the job that the more an
investigator thrashes about, the more opportunities he creates,
usually from unexpected sources. During the most recent period of
lassitude, his first definitive clue came in an e-mail from Father
Alexandro Spatus Xtixmo who had sent the visitor's roster from the
Monastery of St. George. By bracketing January 7 through 11 as the
dates for the looting of Cave XII, Zabronski focused on the
visitor's roster from January 7 through the next four weeks. Two
names immediately caught his attention:
the
Reverend Dr. Timothy Matternly from the University of
Chicago
, who arrived on January 8 and departed on February 3
and
Father Benoit Matteau of the École Biblique
et Archéologique Française
, who arrived on February 2 and
also departed on February 3.

Zabronski's fascination with archeology
occasionally brought him into contact with Father Benoit, whom the
police officer had always found to be personable and forthcoming,
with unparalleled knowledge of early Christian history. There were
few scholarly meetings in Israel or Jordan that he did not attend,
frequently delivering papers and asking penetrating questions of
his colleagues. Zabronski knew the priest understood Israel's
antiquities laws and it was unthinkable that he would commit theft
of government property. But the more Zabronski pondered Benoit's
presence at St. George, the more he chided himself for his own
pig-headed thinking. How foolish he had been in overlooking what he
should have suspected long before.

That afternoon, the major ordered a search at
the Motor Vehicle Department for cars licensed to the École in
Bethlehem. It came as no surprise that the stolen Buick found in a
Jerusalem garage undergoing a facelift had been reported missing on
February 4. He immediately ordered Customs and Immigration to
search its travel records between February 3 and March 15.

It took more than twenty-four hours for
Customs to reply. Zabronski called Itamar immediately with the bad
news. Father Benoit Matteau had left the country the day after he
was reported to have departed the monastery. Even more suspicious,
he had traveled to Rome on an executive jet licensed to the
Vatican.

"And did he return?" Itamar snapped.

"On February 8. But not on the Vatican plane.
He returned on El Al, Flight 54."

"
Kos emah
," Itamar
said, swearing in Arabic, which he reserved for his angriest
moments. "I'm sorry," he apologized to Zabronski, "This is not what
I wanted to hear. How about his luggage? Don't the guys at Ben
Gurion x-ray everything that leaves the country?"

"As far as I know, but that's not my
department."

"Whose department is it?"
"Port Security.
I'll have them look into this."

It took the border police a half-day to
confirm that Ben Gurion Security x-rays every piece of luggage
leaving and entering the country and electronically records this
information. When Zabronski finally reached a security officer with
authority to investigate computer records at the airport, he said,
"I want to know how many pieces of luggage Father Benoit Matteau
took with him through Security on an executive jet on February 5
and how much they weighed."