Read Online Sinai Tapestry by Edward Whittemore - Free Book Online
Authors: Edward Whittemore
Tags: General Fiction
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and gazed at the flowing mixture of Aramaic and Old Hebrew, knowing that no Biblical texts survived in those dead tongues, suspecting, therefore, that here before him was one of the oldest Old Testaments in existence.
The lost original perhaps?
Once more Brother Anthony closed his eyes to pray, this time for deliverance from vanity. Then he opened the manuscript again and it struck him as a blow. The New Testament as well? Centuries before Christ had lived?
His hands trembled as he turned the pages, recalling the various Bibles he had memorized. It was absolutely impossible, but by the end of the afternoon two facts had enveloped his mind in darkness.
First, this Bible was complete and without question the oldest Bible in the world.
Second, it denied every religious truth ever held by anyone.
The stories it told distorted every event that had taken place over three millennia in the Eastern Mediterranean, in the Holy Land and more particularly in Jerusalem, legendary home of Melchizedek, King of Salem which also meant King of Peace, the fabled priest of antiquity who had blessed the future patriarch of all three faiths when first the shepherd Abraham journeyed forth from the dawn of the east with his flock.
Melchizedek’s very existence was in doubt and so was that of Jerusalem, which since Melchizedek’s reign had always been the ultimate destination of all sons and prophets of God toiling up from the desert, stern with their messages of salvation for the eternally queasy souls of that city.
Possibly, the pages implied, Melchizedek had lived elsewhere or been someone else. And just possibly, there had never been a Jerusalem.
To Brother Anthony the words before him were terrifying. What would happen if the world suddenly suspected that Mohammed might well have lived six centuries before Christ rather than six centuries after him?
Or again, that Christ had been a minor prophet in the age of Elijah or a secret messiah in the age of Isaiah, who alone knew his true identity and rigorously followed his instructions?
Or that Mohammed and Isaiah were contemporaries, brethren in a common cause who comforted one another in moments of trial?
Or that idols were indeed God when made in the shape of Hector or David, Alexander or Caesar, if the worshipper was living in the same era as one of these worthies?
Or more or less in the same era.
Or at least thought he was.
Or that the virtues of Mary and Fatima and Ruth had been confused in the minds of later chroniclers and freely interchanged among them? That the virtues ascribed to Fatima more properly were those of Ruth? That the song of Ruth had been sung by Mary? That the virgin birth called Mary’s belonged to Fatima?
Or that it was true from time to time that innumerable Gods held court in all the high and low places? That these legions of Gods were variously sleek and fat or gnarled and lean, as vicious as crazed brigands or as gentle as doting grandfathers?
That they passed whole epochs vaguely preoccupied with the slit necks of bulls, ambrosia, broken pottery, war, peace, gold rings and purple robes and incense, or even gurgling vacantly while sniffing and sucking their forefingers?
Although at other times there were no Gods anywhere? Not even one? The rivers wending their ways and the lambs bleating with mindless inconsistency?
Or that the carpenter who had gone down to the Jordan to be cleansed by his cousin was either the son of Fatima or the father of Ruth? That Joshua had gained his wisdom from the fifth Abbasid Caliph of Baghdad, who might himself have been Judas or Christ if only he had foreseen a painful future as clearly as he recalled a blissful past?
That David and Julius Caesar had been secret cardplaying cronies? That Alexander the Great had challenged them both to a primitive sort of backgammon for nominal stakes, winning easily, yet had gone on to lose his earnings to a chattering barber whose only other distinction in history was that he had cut
The lost original perhaps?
Once more Brother Anthony closed his eyes to pray, this time for deliverance from vanity. Then he opened the manuscript again and it struck him as a blow. The New Testament as well? Centuries before Christ had lived?
His hands trembled as he turned the pages, recalling the various Bibles he had memorized. It was absolutely impossible, but by the end of the afternoon two facts had enveloped his mind in darkness.
First, this Bible was complete and without question the oldest Bible in the world.
Second, it denied every religious truth ever held by anyone.
The stories it told distorted every event that had taken place over three millennia in the Eastern Mediterranean, in the Holy Land and more particularly in Jerusalem, legendary home of Melchizedek, King of Salem which also meant King of Peace, the fabled priest of antiquity who had blessed the future patriarch of all three faiths when first the shepherd Abraham journeyed forth from the dawn of the east with his flock.
Melchizedek’s very existence was in doubt and so was that of Jerusalem, which since Melchizedek’s reign had always been the ultimate destination of all sons and prophets of God toiling up from the desert, stern with their messages of salvation for the eternally queasy souls of that city.
Possibly, the pages implied, Melchizedek had lived elsewhere or been someone else. And just possibly, there had never been a Jerusalem.
To Brother Anthony the words before him were terrifying. What would happen if the world suddenly suspected that Mohammed might well have lived six centuries before Christ rather than six centuries after him?
Or again, that Christ had been a minor prophet in the age of Elijah or a secret messiah in the age of Isaiah, who alone knew his true identity and rigorously followed his instructions?
Or that Mohammed and Isaiah were contemporaries, brethren in a common cause who comforted one another in moments of trial?
Or that idols were indeed God when made in the shape of Hector or David, Alexander or Caesar, if the worshipper was living in the same era as one of these worthies?
Or more or less in the same era.
Or at least thought he was.
Or that the virtues of Mary and Fatima and Ruth had been confused in the minds of later chroniclers and freely interchanged among them? That the virtues ascribed to Fatima more properly were those of Ruth? That the song of Ruth had been sung by Mary? That the virgin birth called Mary’s belonged to Fatima?
Or that it was true from time to time that innumerable Gods held court in all the high and low places? That these legions of Gods were variously sleek and fat or gnarled and lean, as vicious as crazed brigands or as gentle as doting grandfathers?
That they passed whole epochs vaguely preoccupied with the slit necks of bulls, ambrosia, broken pottery, war, peace, gold rings and purple robes and incense, or even gurgling vacantly while sniffing and sucking their forefingers?
Although at other times there were no Gods anywhere? Not even one? The rivers wending their ways and the lambs bleating with mindless inconsistency?
Or that the carpenter who had gone down to the Jordan to be cleansed by his cousin was either the son of Fatima or the father of Ruth? That Joshua had gained his wisdom from the fifth Abbasid Caliph of Baghdad, who might himself have been Judas or Christ if only he had foreseen a painful future as clearly as he recalled a blissful past?
That David and Julius Caesar had been secret cardplaying cronies? That Alexander the Great had challenged them both to a primitive sort of backgammon for nominal stakes, winning easily, yet had gone on to lose his earnings to a chattering barber whose only other distinction in history was that he had cut
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