Робин Кук - Intervention

Здесь есть возможность читать онлайн «Робин Кук - Intervention» весь текст электронной книги совершенно бесплатно (целиком полную версию без сокращений). В некоторых случаях можно слушать аудио, скачать через торрент в формате fb2 и присутствует краткое содержание. Город: New York, Год выпуска: 2009, ISBN: 2009, Издательство: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, Жанр: thriller_medical, на английском языке. Описание произведения, (предисловие) а так же отзывы посетителей доступны на портале библиотеки ЛибКат.

Intervention: краткое содержание, описание и аннотация

Предлагаем к чтению аннотацию, описание, краткое содержание или предисловие (зависит от того, что написал сам автор книги «Intervention»). Если вы не нашли необходимую информацию о книге — напишите в комментариях, мы постараемся отыскать её.

It’s been more than thirty years since New York City medical examiner Jack Stapleton’s college graduation, and almost as long since he’s been in touch with former classmates Shawn Daughtry and James O’Rourke. Jack was once a highly regarded ophthalmologist, but his career took a dramatic turn after a tragic accident destroyed his family. And that, too, is very much in the past: Jack has remarried — to longtime colleague and fellow medical examiner Laurie Montgomery — and his the father of a young child, who unfortunately has been diagnosed with neuroblastoma, a childhood cancer.
No matter what stresses he faces, Jack’s renegade, activist personality can’t rest. After performing a postmortem on a promising young college graduate who had recently been treated by a chiropractor, Jack begins researching alternative medicine as a way to avoid obsessing about his child’s illness. Quickly he is confronted by the question of what makes some people step outside the medical establishment to seek help from therapies based on dubious science, Eastern philosophies or even faith healers.
Jack’s classmate Shawn Daughtry is now a renowned archaeologist and biblical scholar. Brash, impetuous, and completely career-driven, Shawn makes a spectacular find at a souk in Cairo: an ancient codex, whose contents may vault him to international fame. His discovery takes him on a secret journey to what is held to be Saint Peter’s tomb beneath the basilica in Rome, where he hopes to unearth a two-thousand-year-old ossuary, the contents of which may have earthshaking ecclesiastical and medical implications.
Shawn can’t wait to flaunt his treasure before his old college buddy James O’Rourke — now James Cardinal O’Rourke, bishop of the Archdiocese of New York: the treasure may jeopardize the very nature of papal infallibility. Desperate to protect his church and his own political ambitions, James turns to his friend Jack to help safeguard an explosive secret, one with the power to change lives forever.

Intervention — читать онлайн бесплатно полную книгу (весь текст) целиком

Ниже представлен текст книги, разбитый по страницам. Система сохранения места последней прочитанной страницы, позволяет с удобством читать онлайн бесплатно книгу «Intervention», без необходимости каждый раз заново искать на чём Вы остановились. Поставьте закладку, и сможете в любой момент перейти на страницу, на которой закончили чтение.

Тёмная тема
Сбросить

Интервал:

Закладка:

Сделать

Back at the beginning of their relationship, when Shawn had first told her about his long-standing friendship with the archbishop, she didn’t entirely believe him. The archbishop was the most powerful prelate in the country, if not the hemisphere. The man was a true celebrity. There was even talk that he might be destined for the Vatican.

Yet it wasn’t just their respective positions that made their friendship seem so unlikely. It was their personalities — Shawn the sophisticated extrovert, constantly seeking opportunities for real or imagined self-aggrandizement, James the ever-modest parish priest who had been waylaid by fate to assume more and more responsibilities for which he was ill prepared. What never ceased to amuse Sana was that these opposite personality styles were denied by the old friends themselves. Shawn would have none of James’s expressed modesty, accusing him of unbridled ambition fortified by exceptional pragmatism, shrewdness, and his ability to flatter. James considered Shawn’s bravado equally suspect, convinced Shawn was a deeply insecure person, a belief Sana was beginning to share. James never tired of constantly reminding Shawn that God and the Church were there to help him.

From Sana’s perspective, even the two men’s outward appearances argued against the chances that they would be friends. Shawn was a natural athlete who participated in varsity sports at Amherst. At six-foot-three and two hundred pounds, he was physically imposing and still fit from competitive tennis. James was short and plump, and now, often swathed head to toe in his scarlet robes of office, appeared decidedly elfin. On top of that, Shawn was black Irish, with thick, dark hair and strong angular features. James, on the other hand, had red hair and creamy, freckled, almost translucent skin.

What had drawn the two men together and had cemented their relationship, Sana was later to learn, was first circumstance and later a love of debate. It had started their freshman year when they had been made roommates. Joining them was another student who lived directly across the hallway. His name was Jack Stapleton, and as chance would have it, he too ended up living in New York City. So the Three Musketeers, as they were known in college, miraculously ended up in the same city even if they were worlds apart in their careers.

In contrast to James, Sana had met Jack Stapleton just twice. He seemed such a remarkably private person, she wondered how he’d gotten along with the others. Maybe his seemingly thoughtful, retiring nature and lack of self-reference had made him the glue that had held the group of friends together back in college.

“James is going to come unhinged,” Shawn continued, still chuckling to himself at the prospect. “And I’m going to love it. This is going to be my opportunity to put him on the hot seat, and is he going to squirm. I can’t wait to revisit the infallibility issue. In light of all the papal shenanigans during the Middle Ages and Renaissance, it’s an issue we’ve argued about hundreds of times.”

“What makes you so certain this is going to rank up with Carter’s discovery of King Tut’s tomb?” Sana questioned to refocus the discussion.

She wasn’t certain what the other two archaeologists Shawn had mentioned had discovered, although the name Schliemann was familiar.

“King Tut was an insignificant child ruler whose life was a mere blip in the sands of time,” Shawn snapped, “whereas the Virgin Mary was arguably the most important human to have lived, second only to her firstborn son. In fact, maybe they were equally important. She was the Mother of God, for chrissake.”

“No need to get yourself riled up,” Sana said soothingly. Of late Shawn often expressed irritation when he thought she was disagreeing with him in his area of expertise. The irony was that in no way did she question the historical importance of the Virgin Mary, especially in relation to the puny, teenage Tutankhamen, but Carter had unearthed a huge cache of treasure. So far, all Shawn had was three sheets of papyrus of unconfirmed authenticity that talked about the Virgin Mary’s remains. Yet Sana could see Shawn’s point from her own reaction. When Shawn had gotten to the section in Saturninus’s letter that involved the bones of the Virgin Mary, she had reacted as if Shawn had slapped her across the face.

“I’m not upset! I’m just surprised you don’t see the unbelievable importance of this letter.”

“I do! I do!” Sana insisted.

“What I think happened was Basilides asked Saturninus not just his opinion on Simon’s divinity but also whether Simon had written anything of substance and, if he had, where it might be. Maybe Basilides had his suspicions. That’s why I believe Saturninus described the Gospel of Simon along with the fact that he and Menander put it in the ossuary. I don’t believe Basilides had any idea about the Virgin Mary’s remains having been brought to Rome by Simon, nor did he care. He was interested in Simon’s theology.”

“What’s the actual definition of the word gospel ?”

“It’s any message concerning Christ, which most people associate with the first four canonical books of the New Testament covering the teachings of Jesus Christ. More broadly, a gospel is any message of a religious teacher. That’s why it’s going to be both thrilling and instructive to learn if the Gospel of Simon is about Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ and Simon Christ together, or Simon Christ alone. I say it that way because most people think Christ was Jesus’ last name. It wasn’t. Christ was from the Greek kristos, meaning messiah, and it is where the word Christian was derived. If Simon considered himself a messiah, he could have very well referred to himself as Christ. Of course, we already know one thing: There was no resurrection associated with Simon. He stayed dead after he toppled off a tower in the Roman Forum at Nero’s behest, trying to prove his divinity, or at least his close association with divinity.”

Sana glanced in Shawn’s eyes. She could read his mind. Obviously, he thought his chances of finding the Gospel of Simon were good, and she knew exactly why. Five years ago Shawn had prevailed upon James to use his influence with Pope John Paul II to obtain access to the necropolis under Saint Peter’s Basilica to carry out the definitive analysis of Saint Peter’s tomb. Over a period of six months, Shawn, along with a team of architects and engineers, had studied both the site and two thousand years of available papal records to write the definitive history of the tomb, including the 1968 discovery of a headless first-century male skeleton, heralded by Paul VI as the apostle’s remains. The result was that Shawn had become an expert on the gravesite, and if Saturninus and Menander had buried the Virgin Mary’s ossuary containing the Gospel of Simon in AD 65 where Saturninus claimed in the letter, Shawn would know where to look.

“I’ve heard of the Sadducees and the Pharisees, but never the Essenes or the Zealots,” Sana said, going back to the letter. “Who were these people Saturninus is talking about?”

“They were all separate Jewish sects, of which the Sadducees and Pharisees were far and away the most important because of their numbers. The Essenes were a small militant, ascetic, communal group who felt the Temple in Jerusalem had been defiled. Although there were Essene cells in most Palestinian cities, their strictest leaders and brethren moved out into the desert along the shores of the Dead Sea at Qumran. They were the transcribers of the Dead Sea Scrolls, as well as the people who hid them to keep them out of the hands of the Romans.

“The Zealots were more politically defined. Their primary goal was to rid Jewish lands of Roman oppressors, and the most fanatical members were called the Sicarii. To understand what was going on in the first century, you have to remember that most everyone wanted the Romans out of Palestine, except, of course, the Romans, and to a large degree that was what a lot of the contemporary messianic prophecy was all about. The Jews expected a messiah to get rid of the Romans, which was one reason why a lot of Jews weren’t satisfied with Jesus being the Messiah. Not only did he not get rid of the Romans, he got himself crucified in the bargain.”

Читать дальше
Тёмная тема
Сбросить

Интервал:

Закладка:

Сделать

Похожие книги на «Intervention»

Представляем Вашему вниманию похожие книги на «Intervention» списком для выбора. Мы отобрали схожую по названию и смыслу литературу в надежде предоставить читателям больше вариантов отыскать новые, интересные, ещё непрочитанные произведения.


Робин Кук - Зараза
Робин Кук
Робин Кук - Хромозома 6
Робин Кук
Робин Кук - Вектор
Робин Кук
Робин Кук - Криза
Робин Кук
Робин Кук - Заплаха
Робин Кук
Робин Кук - Треска
Робин Кук
Робин Кук - Мозг
Робин Кук
Робин Кук - Мутант
Робин Кук
Робин Кук - Charlatans
Робин Кук
Робин Кук - Mortal Fear
Робин Кук
Робин Кук - The Year of the Intern
Робин Кук
Отзывы о книге «Intervention»

Обсуждение, отзывы о книге «Intervention» и просто собственные мнения читателей. Оставьте ваши комментарии, напишите, что Вы думаете о произведении, его смысле или главных героях. Укажите что конкретно понравилось, а что нет, и почему Вы так считаете.

x