Steve Berry - The Alexandria Link

“And for that I’m truly sorry. I would never want to place your son in jeopardy.”

“Then tell me, George, why do people want you dead?”

“At the time the Guardian visited me, I was working on a theory regarding the Old Testament. I’d previously published several papers on the then-current state of that holy text, but I was formulating something more.”

The lines at the corners of Haddad’s eyes deepened, and Malone watched as his friend seemed to struggle with his thoughts.

“Christians tend to focus on the New Testament,” Haddad said. “Jews use the Old. I daresay most Christians have little understanding of the Old Testament, beyond thinking that the New is a fulfillment of the Old’s prophecies. But the Old Testament is important, and there are many contradictions in that text-ones that could readily call its message into question.”

He’d heard Haddad speak on the subject before, but this time he sensed a new urgency.

“Examples abound. Genesis gives two conflicting versions of creation. Two varying genealogies of Adam’s offspring are laid out. Then the flood. God tells Noah to bring seven pairs of clean animals and one pair of unclean. In another part of Genesis it’s just one pair of each. Noah releases a raven to search for land in one verse, but it’s a dove in another. Even the length of the flood is contradicted. Forty days and nights or three hundred seventy? Both are used. Not to mention the dozens of doublets and triplets contained within the narratives, like the differing names used to describe God. One portion cites YHWH, Yahweh, another Elohim. Wouldn’t you think at least God’s name could be consistent?”

Malone’s memory flashed back a few months to France, where he’d heard similar complaints about the four Gospels of the New Testament.

“Most now agree,” Haddad said, “that the Old Testament was composed by a host of writers over an extremely long period of time. A skillful combination of varied sources by scribal compilers. This conclusion is absolutely clear and not new. A twelfth-century Spanish philosopher was one of the first to note that Genesis 12:6- at that time the Canaanites were in the land -could not have been written by Moses. And how could Moses have been the author of the Five Books when the last book describes in detail the precise time and circumstances of his death?

“And the many literary asides. Like when ancient place-names are used, then the text notes that those places are still visible to this day. This absolutely points to later influences shaping, expanding, and embellishing the text.”

Malone said, “And each time one of these redactions occurred, more of the original meaning was lost.”

“No doubt. The best estimate is that the Old Testament was composed between 1000 and 586 BCE. Later compositions came around 500 to 400 BCE. Then the text may have been tinkered with as late as 300 BCE. Nobody knows for sure. All we know is that the Old Testament is a patchwork, each segment written under differing historical and political circumstances, expressing differing religious views.”

“I appreciate all that,” Malone said, thinking again about the New Testament contradictions from France. “Believe me, I do. But none of it is revolutionary. Either folks believe the Old Testament is the Word of God, or they believe it a collection of ancient tales.”

“But what if the words have been altered to the point that the original message is no longer there? What if the Old Testament, as we know it, is not, and never was, the Old Testament from its original time? Now, that could change many things.”

“I’m listening.”

“That’s what I like about you,” Haddad said, smiling. “Such a good listener.”

Malone could see from Pam’s expression that she didn’t necessarily agree, but, keeping to her word, she stayed silent.

“You and I have talked about this before,” Haddad said. “The Old Testament is fundamentally different from the New. Christians take the text of the New literally, even to the point of it being history. But the stories of the Patriarchs, Exodus, and the conquest of Canaan are not history. They’re a creative expression of religious reform that happened in a place called Judah long ago. Granted, there are kernels of truth to the accounts, but they’re far more story than fact.

“Cain and Abel is a good example. At the time of that tale there were only four people on earth. Adam, Eve, Cain, and Abel. Yet Genesis 4:17 says Cain lay with his wife and she became pregnant. Where did the wife come from? Was it Eve? His mother? Wouldn’t that be eye opening? Then, in recounting Adam’s bloodline, Genesis 5 says that Mahalale lived eight hundred ninety-five years, Jared eight hundred years, and Enoch three hundred sixty-five years. And Abraham. He was supposedly a hundred years old when Sarah gave birth to Isaac, and she was ninety.”

“No one takes that stuff literally,” Pam said.

“Devout Jews would argue to the contrary.”

“What are you saying, George?” Malone asked.

“The Old Testament, as we currently know it, is a result of translations. The Hebrew language of the original text passed out of usage around 500 BCE. So in order to understand the Old Testament, we must either accept the traditional Jewish interpretations or seek guidance from modern dialects that are descendants of that lost Hebrew language. We can’t use the former method because the Jewish scholars who originally interpreted the text, between 500 and 900 CE, a thousand or more years after they were first written, didn’t even know Old Hebrew, so they based their reconstructions on guesswork. The Old Testament, which many revere as the Word of God, is nothing more than a haphazard translation.”

“George, you and I have discussed this before. Scholars have debated the point for centuries. It’s nothing new.”

Haddad threw him a sly smile. “But I haven’t finished explaining.”

VIENNA, AUSTRIA

2:45 PM

ALFRED HERMANN’S CHÂTEAU OFFERED HIM AN ATMOSPHERE reminiscent of a tomb. Only when the Order’s Assembly convened, or the Chairs gathered, was his solitude interrupted.

Neither was the case today.

And he was pleased.

He was ensconced in his private apartment, a series of spacious rooms on the château’s second floor, each room flowing naturally through the other in the French style of no corridors. The winter session of the 49th Assembly would open in less than two days’ time, and he was pleased that all seventy-one members in the Order of the Golden Fleece would be attending. Even Henrik Thorvaldsen, who at first had said he would not be coming, had now confirmed. The membership hadn’t talked collectively since spring, so he knew the discussions over the coming days would be arduous. As Blue Chair, his task was to ensure that the proceedings were productive. The Order’s staff was already at work preparing the château’s meeting hall-and all would be ready by the time the members arrived for the weekend-but he wasn’t worried about the Assembly. Instead his thoughts were on finding the Library of Alexandria. Something he’d dreamed of accomplishing for decades.

He stepped across the room.

The model, which he’d commissioned years ago, consumed the chamber’s north corner, a spectacular miniature of what the Library of Alexandria may have looked like at the time of Caesar. He slid a chair close and sat, his eyes absorbing the details, his mind wandering.

Two pillared colonnades dominated. Both, he knew, would have been filled with statues, the floors sheathed in rugs, the walls draped in tapestries. In the many seats lining the corridors, members bickered over the meaning of a word or the cadence of a verse, or engaged in some caustic controversy about a new discovery. Both roofed chambers opened into side rooms where papyri, scrolls, and later codices lay stored in bins, loosely stacked, tagged for indexing, or on shelves. In other rooms copyists labored to produce replicas, which were sold for revenue. Members enjoyed a high salary and exemption from taxes, and were provided dining and lodging. There were lecture halls, laboratories, observatories-even a zoo. Grammarians and poets received the most prestigious posts-physicians, mathematicians, and astronomers the best equipment. The architecture was decidedly Greek, the whole thing resembling an elegant temple.