Джеймс Миченер - The Source

“I agree,” the priest said, twisting the paper so that he could study the synagogue from fresh angles. He was paying no attention to the later basilica, and Cullinane received the distinct impression that as a priest the big Dutchman was disappointed in what he was uncovering at Makor but as an archaeologist he was gratified. “Remarkable,” he said finally. “It bears out what we’ve found everywhere else.” He shrugged his shoulders, then asked abruptly, “You done any carbon dating?”

“No need to,” Cullinane said. “Our date of 351/2 CE. for the destruction is as good as if they’d left a signed copy of the orders. Our guess as to 330 for the original building of the synagogue…plus fifteen or minus fifty as you wish.”

“That’s what I thought,” Father Vilspronck said. Brushing away the architectural drawings he asked, “I suppose you’ve made a table of probable populations?”

“We have,” Cullinane answered guardedly.

“Care to let me take a look?”

“We’d rather not…at this point.”

“How about the synagogue level?”

Cullinane smiled. “I said we’d rather not, but you knew we would. Usual restrictions?” The priest agreed and Cullinane drew from a locked drawer a document which in the army would have been classified Top Secret . He handed copies to each of the archaeologists and watched with amusement as Father Vilspronck darted his eyes directly down to Level VII, where he checked the population figures. As soon as he had completed this, the big man studied the other figures casually.

PROVISIONAL ESTIMATES OF POPULATION AT SITE 17072584

“I notice that in 1560 C.E. you have the tell standing six feet higher than it does now?”

“Probably did,” Cullinane said. “Bedouins seem to have mined the place for cut stones in later years, and the height must have dropped considerably.”

The blond priest asked a few more irrelevant questions, then came back to Level VII. “Would you say that these figures for the Byzantine period are pretty accurate?”

“Just educated guesses,” Cullinane confessed. “But if the synagogue was that big, it had to serve about eight hundred fifty Jews. Of course we’re extrapolating from Kefar Nahum and Baram.”

The perplexed Dutchman placed the sheet of figures, which summarized so much learning, on the table and slapped it with his big hands. “At least you’re consistent!” he growled. “Every dig for the last thirty years has confirmed this story of Jewish persistence, and sooner or later we’ll have to adjust to it.”

Eliav lit his pipe and asked, “But you adjusted to it years ago. It’s your discovery.”

The priest laughed. “Half of me accepts. The other half doesn’t.”

“Is it so difficult?” Eliav asked.

Father Vilspronck returned the estimates to Cullinane, who collected the other copies and locked them in his desk. For any level the figures might be wrong by fifty per cent, but as the years passed and refinements were made, savants throughout the world would have to adjust their theories to these Makor facts, as the Dutch priest now prepared to do: “When I went to university the professors had an absolutely clear understanding of the Holy Land. A group of excellent Hebrews lived here for some two thousand years. Their religion grew stagnant and Jesus Christ appeared, luring about half the Jews to Him. The others clung on desperately and in 70 C.E. rebelled against Rome, and Vespasian destroyed both them and their temple. In obedience to God’s command that they be a perpetual witness, they wandered homeless through the world while Christianity took over, and it was their punishment to wander until they finally converted to Christ. It was a neat, clean theory and that’s what the world believed. My first shock came when I found that in 135 C.E. the Jews, none of whom were supposed to be here, launched an even bigger revolt against Hadrian, and the recent discovery of letters actually written by Bar Kochba, who led the revolt, have had a startling effect on all of us. Once more we were told, ‘All Jews were driven out,’ but now we begin to excavate these synagogues of the fourth century and we find there were more Jews here than before. The synagogues were big, handsome buildings. Serving a very large population. Kefar Nahum, Baram, now Makor. All tell the same story. And three hundred years after that, when the Muslims come, we still find large Jewish populations. And four hundred years after that, when the Crusaders came, there were still Jews around.” He stopped and his face revealed his perplexity. “Something was going on here that the history books did not tell us,”

Father Vilspronck had begun his labors in the Holy Land intending to assemble the testimony that would reinforce Christianity, and it had become the major irony of his life that his work served primarily to tell the world more about Judaism; yet he persisted in his researches, for he knew instinctively that when the honest relationships were revealed, both Christianity and Judaism would be more meaningful and the ultimate conversion of the Jews closer at hand. He also knew something which he buried in his conscience, leaving it to others to develop: the arrival of Jesus Christ in the Galilee did not mysteriously signal the disappearance of competing religions; they survived with stubborn vigor, and if the testimony of the synagogues could be trusted, actually increased their power. It was not until the Greeks, doubling back with the great messages of St. Paul, reached the Holy Land that Christianity got much of a hearing in its place of birth. But that was for others to narrate.

The husky priest asked if he could visit the dig, but Cullinane soon discovered that Vilspronck had no real interest in the excavations; he had already visualized most of what had been done. His real desire was to talk with a fellow Catholic, and the two men sat on top of the mound looking toward the minarets of Akko while they discussed one of the prime intellectual mysteries of the world. “I don’t suppose you’ve found any clues that would relate to Flavius Josephus?” the Dutchman began.

“None. We know from the scars that there was a general destruction of Makor about 66 C.E. It’s probably safe to guess that it was burned by Vespasian.”

“Yet there’s that tantalizing passage in the commentary on Josephus: ‘Jewish tradition claims that Flavius Josephus escaped by night from Makor.’” He threw pebbles toward the ravine into which the great Jewish general had fled, abandoning the town to its destruction. “I’d give a lot if we could find some tangible proof that that rascal had been involved in a site which he had later refused to write about.” The Dutchman clenched his hands and studied the vacant trenches into which he could partially see. “Isn’t it logical to suppose that if Makor were the first Jewish town that Vespasian reached, General Josephus would have been here to fight him? How did he escape by night, and why didn’t Josephus himself speak about it? I know why.” The priest rose and stalked about the tell, trying to visualize the town as it must have been two thousand years earlier. “Josephus refuses to mention Makor because here he behaved in some craven way. He writes at length about Jotapata, only a few miles south, because there he was heroic. I tell you, Cullinane, the man always picked and chose. Always!”

By this means Father Vilspronck hoped to explain away the mystery of Josephus. For a score of years this learned Jew had wandered back and forth across the land that Jesus had trod, and during the very years when the actuality of Jesus must have been greatest. In his books Josephus discusses all aspects of Jewish life, the good things and the bad, and he probes into relationships that were not known until the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls; and what the archaeologists are uncovering supports the fundamental accuracy of this vivid reporter.