The Second Messiah

“We found the name of Jesus Christ written in the scroll, which is simply incredible. You know why?”

Lela picked up her notebook. “No. But how about you show me where you made the discovery and you can tell on the way?”

14

“You know what most people don’t understand? The Dead Sea scrolls are mostly Jewish documents. They have almost nothing Christian in them.” Jack’s boots crunched on gravel as he led the way along a footpath toward a distant cliff face, carrying a heavy-duty electric torch in his hand.

“Apart from some copies of parts of the Old Testament and a number of unknown New Testament records, they mostly tell us about a Jewish religious community called the Essenes living in and around the same time as Jesus and in about the same place.”

Lela nodded. “Sure, that much I know. And that the manuscripts found here include biblical texts, psalms, poetry, commentaries on daily life, even prophecies and apocalyptic visions. Plus miscellaneous texts that don’t fit anywhere.”

“That’s right.” Jack smiled, followed the rise of the land, enthusiasm braiding his voice. “You remembered. But what’s so remarkable, is that in all the other Dead Sea scrolls, Jesus’ name isn’t mentioned once. There’s not a single reference to him or to his followers in any of the documents.”

“But there is in the scroll you found.”

“Precisely. It’s a bombshell.”

“Tell me how you found the scroll.”

“It was just after noon yesterday. Yasmin and I were digging near a cave in field fourteen, in Area A, which is up there.” Jack pointed to a weathered sandstone cliff face they were headed toward. “The entrance had been covered by a rockfall, which some of the crew had cleared away. You know what’s kind of ironic?”

“What?”

“It wasn’t all that far from where my father made his own discovery, or from where many of the original scrolls were found over fifty years ago.”

“How did that make you feel?”

“To be honest, it felt special, Lela. Really terrific. As if somehow I’d managed to carry on where my father left off all those years ago, if that makes sense.”

“You must still miss your parents.”

Jack smiled. “Of course. Pretty much every day I visit their resting place. I sit a while, talk to them. And hope, as always, that they’re listening. I’d like to think that they do. That there’s something greater beyond all this. Even if on a bad day I get the hollow feeling there isn’t.”

Lela touched his arm and nodded. “Go on.”

“We were about to finish for lunch but Yasmin suggested that we open just one more hole for the heck of it, so we did.”

“But Yasmin’s not an archaeologist, is she? Just an interested amateur?”

“Like some people on this dig. The professor said she’s helped on a couple of excavations since high school, working with other members of her family. She’s worked as hard as anyone on the site, and with as much passion.”

“She’s an American, right?”

“Her passport’s American. Her father’s from New York but her mother was Lebanese.”

Lela kept up with Jack’s stride. “Keep going.”

“I’d found very little during the dig. We’ve been here since late January and done a lot of hard digging but mostly all we had to show for it were some ibex bones and pottery vessels and shards dating from the first century. My high point until today had been an ostracon I discovered—a piece of a broken pottery jug with what looked like an ancient grocery list written on it. That was normal practice at that time—people used junk broken pottery like slips of notepaper.”

“But this find was different?”

“You said it. I’d dug about a half a yard of soil when my trowel hit something hard. I saw immediately that it was the neck of a clay jar. Most of the important scrolls found in this region were stored in clay jars or urns, so I got excited. Sure enough, I’d struck it lucky. Inside the jar I found a linen wrap containing the scroll.”

“Could you tell how old it was?”

Jack nodded. “I’d examined other material found in the area and figured it had to be at least a couple of thousand years old. Carbon dating would have pinned it down more precisely.”

“Our forensics people found some flakes of parchment on the floor of the professor’s tent. It’s likely they came from the scroll, seeing as it was the only one found on this dig. But we’ll have the flakes analyzed and carbon-dated.”

“Good. Like so many of the scrolls found in this region they’re beyond monetary value, even if some dealers manage to put a price on them.”

“Which dealers are you talking about?”

Jack wiped his brow from the heat as they followed a track that led up an incline and toward a narrow chasm fifty yards away. “The ones who trade in stolen artifacts and parchments. There’s an entire industry that deals in plundered historical objects, even Dead Sea scrolls. I’m sure you know that.”

“Are you including the Bedu tribes?”

“Of course. They’re the ones who discovered many of the scrolls in this area. Some Bedu like to treasure-hunt for booty. They’d use some of the same indicators that we use to find buried artifacts.”

“What do you mean?”