The Constantine Codex

Paul L. Maier

Shannon Jennings Weber was enjoying her lunch under the shade of a juniper tree-much as the prophet Elijah had done. She was digging at Pella on the east bank of the Jordan River, about twenty miles south of the Sea of Galilee. This was new territory for the archaeologist, who had had a string of successes with her spade in Israel. She had organized this dig in hopes of finding something-anything-to help fill one of the most crucial gaps in church history: the later first century, when Christians managed to escape the horrifying Roman conquest of Jerusalem in AD 70 by fleeing to Pella before the war started. Here, she thought, in the very capital of the earliest church, there must be clues under the soil, artifacts that would illumine the decades during which Christianity first took hold in the Mediterranean world.

Her husband, Jon, could not have been more pleased, since he too thought Pella an excavation site with huge potential. While teaching at Harvard, he regularly sent Shannon such e-mail queries as “Have you found the personal memoirs of Jesus yet?” or “How about Paul’s missing letter to Corinth?” Even the messages that told of his love and loneliness usually had a playful tagline, such as “Surely you’ve found one of Luke’s paintings of the apostles?” or “If you unearth the bishop’s chair of James, do excavate carefully.”

No sensational discoveries, however, had come to light, and tomorrow the team was scheduled to decamp. Before Shannon’s dig, teams from the University of Sydney and the Jordanian Department of Antiquities had uncovered several Bronze- and Iron-Age Canaanite temples, and the whole site sprouted white marble columns from the Hellenistic era that merely had to be restacked. Unlike the Aussies and Jordanians, Shannon’s team had focused on the fourth-century church of St. James. After clearing its base and discovering some interesting floor mosaics, curious ceramics, and a small cache of second- and third-century coins, they called it a season.

Few digs produced sensational results, and Pella was no exception. Shannon was satisfied with their results, though hardly elated. If only digs would produce treasures on demand! She grimaced, remembering a too-good-to-be-true find she’d been a part of several years previous. It had only proved the adage “If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.”

As she munched on a pear, her eyes came to rest on what was likely the present-day version of the ancient church they were excavating-the Greek Orthodox Church of St. James the Just. There it sat, on a hillock just east of the dig, an aging, whitish gray structure with a blue dome that looked as if it had been plucked from an Aegean seaport. She had passed it daily en route to the dig and thought, playfully, how nice it would be if that church had kept continuous records across the centuries. It was a fanciful concept, of course, but if a church were, say, on fire, what were the two documents they would try to rescue? The altar Bible and the church records. There might be something worth seeing there before she packed up and headed home.

The next day, she paid a visit to the church and introduced herself to the priest in charge, who spoke surprisingly clear English. He was a spare little man, middle-aged, with a luxurious salt-and-pepper beard as if to compensate for his advancing male-pattern baldness. He had trouble making eye contact with Shannon, and the reason became clear when he said, “Yours is certainly the loveliest face to grace our premises in many months, Mrs. Weber. You must have Greek blood in you, no? Your dark hair, your-”

“I wish I could claim that distinction, Father Athanasius,” she replied. “But no, I’m just an Irish-English hybrid who moved to America. And I love old churches like this one. How long has it been standing here?”

He pointed a pensive finger to his chin. “This building went up in the 1700s, but it was built on… on foundations of the church before it.”

“And when was that one built?”

He smiled, shook his head, and said, “Centuries ago. Many centuries.”

Shannon smiled inwardly and wanted badly to surprise the cleric with word that she was excavating what was likely the grandmother church to this one. But that would be premature; first the official dig report had to be published. “Does your church have archives? A library?” she asked.

“Oh yes, of course.”

“I’m fascinated by old books. Might you be kind enough to let me see your collection?”

“But of course. Please to follow me.”

They walked across a sun-drenched courtyard rimmed with trellises of grapevines and entered a library annex. The priest showed Shannon row after row of books until they came to a section whose shelves were bending under the weight of ponderous old volumes, some bound in gray-white parchment skin. Here Athanasius stopped and explained why his church was named for St. James the Just. He picked out an ancient tome. “Here we have Eusebius’s Historia Ekklesiastica. You know Eusebius?”

“Of course! He’s the very father of church history.”

Athanasius smiled and nodded appreciatively. He laid the volume on a table and opened it to what seemed to be a bookmark of sorts, then translated the Greek that spoke of the martyrdom of James the Just of Jerusalem, Jesus’ half brother-or cousin, as some would argue-and the first bishop of the Christian church.

“Eusebius writes that he got this information from Hegesippus,” the priest continued. “You know Hegesippus?”

“Oh yes. My husband often raves about Hegesippus. He tells his classes that if we had the five lost books of that first-century Jewish-Christian historian, we’d know much, much more about the earliest church.”

Father Athanasius beamed. “Yes, yes-it is as you say.”

While he showed Shannon the text, her eyes quickly shifted to what was serving as a bookmark for the Eusebius passage: several brownish leaves of what seemed to be parchment of some sort. Their darker color showed that they had to be older than the Eusebius tome- much older. The writing in the text, however, was so faded as to be hardly legible.

“Have you read this material, Father Athanasius?” she asked, pointing to the dark leaves. “Have you even been able to read it?”

He shook his head. “I read only a few words of the ancient Greek. But it must be old. Very old.”

“Yes, indeed.” Obviously those pages had come from a larger collection-probably a codex, the world’s first book form-and Shannon could only wonder if that codex was somewhere in the stacks surrounding them. She asked, “Do you know where these leaves came from? Do you have more of them?”

Father Athanasius merely shrugged and held out open hands. “I don’t know. The former priest here showed me the old Eusebius book and how I could use it to show people why our church is named for St. James. I never thought to ask him about the pages.”

“You know, we have instruments in America that could easily bring out the text, Father. Anything this old, this ancient, could be important. Very important.” She stopped and knew she should not have been so direct, but the words escaped before she could restrain them. “Might it be possible for me to… to take these with me to the U.S. for a short time? I’d return them quickly-by international express-along with a clear copy of the restored Greek text.”

Father Athanasius had a wounded look, staring at the bookshelves and saying nothing.

“I would guard them with my very life, good Father. The text may or may not be significant. But if it is important, we might gain valuable information about the early church.”

He shook his head slowly and said, “Is it not for Greeks to translate Greek, Mrs. Weber? I will take these to Athens when I visit the archbishop. Surely he and his staff will be able to… to read this.”

Shannon’s heart sank. Who could quarrel with that logic? Well, one last effort. “Perhaps they could decipher the text, Father Athanasius. And perhaps not. The script seems to have vanished at places, and the rest is hardly legible. I fear that only ultraviolet light and other equipment in my husband’s office at Harvard University would be able to restore the text.”

“Your husband teaches at Harvard?” Athanasius stroked his beard. “What is his name, his first name?”

“Jon. Or rather, Jonathan.”

His eyes widened. “Jonathan Weber? Not the Jonathan Weber, who wrote O Iisous apo tin Nazaret?”

Shannon smiled. “Yes.” Before she married Jon, he’d already become an internationally bestselling author. His book Jesus of Nazareth had been translated into nearly thirty languages at last count. Clearly Father Athanasius was numbered among Jon’s worldwide fans.

“And you are his wife?”

When she nodded modestly, Athanasius broke into a great smile. “Yes, Mrs. Weber, you may certainly borrow those leaves of manuscript. Your husband’s life of Christ is the best I’ve ever read!” He stopped, a twinkle in his eye, and seemed to reverse himself. “But no, you cannot take them… unless you sign my copy of O Iisous.”

Shannon was about to object that she could hardly inscribe a book she had not written, but why quibble at the moment of success? Instead, she nodded happily.

Carefully, Athanasius removed the almost tobacco-colored leaves and hurried into his office, where the Greek edition of Jon’s book was on the shelf behind his desk. “I’ve read it three times,” the priest said proudly.

Shannon signed the book, then looked up and said, “A final favor, Father Athanasius. If you have time, please try to find and save any other ancient manuscript pages here, whether bound or unbound, because of their possible importance.”

He nodded instantly. “Oh, indeed, Mrs. Weber.”

Shannon gratefully accepted the five brown pages of manuscript, hoping they might shed a bit of new light on earliest church history. She could not know that they would, in fact, ignite a change in church history.

Jonathan Weber had experienced much more than the fifteen minutes of fame often allotted to mortals. The recognition brought about by his bestseller and his archaeological sleuthing in Israel that had “saved Christianity” (according to his fans) had given him entree at the Vatican, the White House, and even Buckingham Palace. Yet despite a string of extraordinary adventures, Jon would always count the return of his wife from her dig at Pella as one of the summit events in his life. It was not only the joy of seeing Shannon again-that lithe, sapphire-eyed, pert-nosed, Irish pixie who had taken him captive-but what she had brought back with her from Jordan as a little memento of her tour.

A day after she had unpacked, Jon and Shannon took the manuscript leaves to his office at Harvard. In an adjoining room he had a small but efficient manuscript laboratory with an ultraviolet apparatus as the centerpiece. It had served him well in exploring palimpsests, vellum manuscripts on which the writing had been erased and the vellum reused. The penetrating, purplish rays of the instrument usually showed the original script quite clearly.

Shannon adjusted the window blinds to darken the room, while Jon turned on the UV apparatus. The hum of its fan covered the throb of his almost-audible pulse. “We’re not looking for erasures here, Shannon,” he said, “just the original script underneath those brownish accretions.”

“Obviously. We could hardly make out anything at home last night, even with intense illumination.”

“Okay. We’re ready. Bring the first page over.”

Shannon put on white gloves, opened a large portfolio, and-with care that bordered on a caress-lifted a protective muslin pad and extracted the first of the leaves. With both hands she laid it on the examining field below the instrument.

Jon peered closely at the document, studied it for some time, and then shook his head. “Here, have a look, sweetheart.”

Shannon scrutinized the leaf for several moments. “Oh… how disappointing. I can make out a little more of the lettering, but…”

“I’ll raise the intensity.” Jon turned the gain knob thirty degrees clockwise, but the brighter light, while revealing more of the Greek lettering, failed to liberate enough script for them even to try to reconstruct the text without much guesswork and the insertion of long blanks.

Crestfallen, Shannon sighed. “I… I’m sorry, Jon. I certainly had hoped for more than this. What an utter waste of effort!”

“Not necessarily, darling.” Jon kissed her cheek. Was it actually moistened with a tear? “We’ll do it just like they do at Palomar Mountain.”

“By which you mean…?”

“Our eyes can’t store up light versus dark contrast. Film can. That’s why stars that couldn’t possibly be seen otherwise show up on their photo plates.”

“Got it!” She chuckled.

Jon opened his photo cabinet, pulled down a 35mm Nikon, and loaded it with panchromatic film. He mounted it in a camera bracket adjacent to the ultraviolet instrument and focused on the document. The shutter snapped repeatedly as he photographed at various speeds and diaphragm settings.

They achieved no results that day, since from that point on, it was trial and error-overexposure, underexposure, too much contrast, not enough contrast. Finally they hit upon a formula that worked: inside a totally opaque chamber with a very low-intensity UV illumination of the leaves, the Nikon set at f/16, time exposure, and precision film development yielded beautifully readable Greek script on almost every line of the five pages of manuscript, when printed out on photo paper.

It took Jon another week to prize out a translation of the leaves. When he had finished, he gave Shannon copies of both the Greek text and his English translation. “You know Greek, honey,” he said. “Please see if I got it right.”

Shannon started reading the translated version immediately.

His own pulse in something of a gallop, Jon watched as her eyes widened and the jaw of his lovely wife sagged open.

She looked up and said, “Jon, there are details here about the martyrdom of Jesus’ brother James-beyond what we have from Eusebius!”

“Exactly.”

“Then do you suppose this is from… from Hegesippus?”

“Who else? Some old librarian at that church must have tried to keep the secondary and primary sources together. As a bookmark, no less.”

“Well, this is just fabulous, Jon!”

“No, it isn’t. You haven’t come to the good part yet.” The twinkle in Jon’s eye had broadened into a huge expansive smile. “Read on,” he said, “but it’ll take a while since it’s at the other end of the material.”

Shannon flashed him a quizzical look and returned to Jon’s typescript. Some minutes later, she looked up again. “Well, here Hegesippus seems to be talking about what he calls ‘the sacred books.’ Do you suppose he means the Canon?”

“Could be,” he said, again assuming his mischievous grin. Soon Shannon would find the passage, he knew.

And she did, of course. She now dropped the typescript and said, very slowly, “Oh… my. This… this is just… beyond belief.”

“It looks like you discovered more at Pella than you ever thought, my dear. But now, we have to keep mum on this until the authentication is complete. We’ll have to go to Pella, of course, to see if there are any more leaves-loose or bound-floating around Father Athanasius’s library. And we’ll definitely have to include Greece on the itinerary, since I want to try to date this thing if possible, and I’ll need help from some of their best text experts. We fly over at the end of the spring semester, right?”

Shannon nodded slowly, in wonderment. It seemed as if great discoveries were not limited to excavating the good earth. Good libraries, evidently, were also fertile ground.

Must good fortune be balanced off by bad? Jon and Shannon never made the trip.

How could things go wrong so instantly, so emphatically? And why did it have to happen on one of the loveliest days in May? One moment, Jon and Shannon were looking forward to their trip to Jordan and Greece. But the next, Jon heard his own name being shouted by an angry jumble of voices from Harvard Yard below. He hurried over to the open windows of his office to see at least seventy or eighty students gathered in the shape of a crescent below Sever Hall. Many stood with raised fists waving at him in unison.

“Weber? Never! Islam is forever!”

As he listened, the chant grew louder and became a full-throated chorus: “Weber? Never! Islam is forever!”

“What the…?” Jon asked himself; then the phone rang.

“This is Captain Rhinehart at Harvard Security, Professor Weber,” the voice on the line said. “I should warn you that the Muslim Student Association on campus was granted a demonstration permit, and we just learned that you may be the subject.”

“They’re already here. Any idea why they’re after me?”

“Haven’t the foggiest. We’re sending our men over now. I suggest you lock your office door immediately.”

“Right! Thanks.”

Outside the window, the mighty mantra continued, as each leaf fluttering on the ivy-covered walls seemed to waft the message in Jon’s direction. Now he saw some of the placards sprouting above the crowd: PROF. WEBER WILL PAY 9/11 IS ON ITS WAY! WEBER IS THE CANCER ISLAM IS THE ANSWER! WEBER’S A PROFESSOR? WE NEED HIS SUCCESSOR!

Again the phone rang.

“Dr. Weber? It’s George Gabriel of the Boston Globe.”

“Hey, George. I’ve been meaning to call and thank you for doing that nice piece on our ICO conference. But just now we’ve got a big demonstration over here-”

“I’ll bet! We just got an AP dispatch from Tehran that the grand ayatollah of Iran is convening a council of Shiite clergy to determine if charges of blasphemy should be lodged against you.”

“What?”

“It’s the new Arabic translation of your Jesus of Nazareth bestseller. It seems they’re going to urge the faithful to buy up copies at all the bookstores and burn them. Hey, at least that should help sales!”

“But in Iran they speak Farsi, not Arabic,” Jon replied, ignoring the levity. “So why would-?”

“Apparently the offending passages were translated into Farsi, and they pounced on them.”

“But what offending passages, for goodness’ sake?”

“Don’t know. The only item mentioned in the dispatch was… let’s see, here it is. ‘The Iranian clergy feel that the author treated the Prophet Muhammad with great disrespect, if not outright sacrilege.’”

“Impossible!” Jon almost shouted into the phone. “Most of my book covers the first century, not the seventh! I mention Muhammad only in the final chapter, which does a quick summary of Christianity since Christ.”

“Yeah, but you know how sensitive Muslims are. Remember the Danish cartoon business or the pope’s comments in Germany?”

“But I can’t think of anything in the book that would be offensive. Anyway, I gotta go; someone’s at the door. I’ll get back to you.”

The knocking persisted as a voice resonated through the wood of the door. “Harvard Security-Captain Rhinehart here, Professor Weber. I have the president of the Muslim Student Association with me, and he’d like to speak with you.”

Jon opened the door to find Captain Rhinehart standing with a tall, bronzed figure dressed in a galabia and a maroon fez. A small crowd of campus police and curious students filled the hallway behind them. The student introduced himself-in excellent English-as Abdoul Housani, an Egyptian graduate student in international studies. Jon invited him into his office, and Rhinehart followed without waiting for an invitation.

“Have a seat, gentlemen,” Jon offered.

“I prefer to stand, Professor Weber,” Housani said.

“As you wish. Perhaps you’d be kind enough to explain why this demonstration is taking place?”

“Yes, of course. You are on record as insulting the Prophet Muhammad-may his name be blessed.”

“Why in the world would you ever think that?”

Housani opened the book he was carrying- Isa al-Nazrani, the Arabic edition of Jon’s book-and turned to a bookmark he had inserted at page 490. Pointing to the last line of the text, he said, “Here, sir, you have grievously offended all of Islam by what you wrote about the Prophet-may his name be blessed. I shall read your own words back to you as I translate.”

“Please do.”

“On this page, you deal with the great expansion of Islam, and the last line reads, ‘Undoubtedly, Muhammad introduced the greatest evil Christianity ever faced.’ Now that is an outrageous-”

“I never wrote that!” Jon exclaimed as he rose, stood next to Housani, and peered at the page. His Arabic wasn’t exactly conversational, but he had a reading knowledge of the language. Slowly, he read the offending line aloud: “La yujad shakk, qaddama nabi Muhammad al-radi al-’athim allathi wajahat al-masihiyah.”

Jon stopped reading and returned to his desk, fighting the impulse to clench his fists. “Unbelievable!” he almost whispered. “That’s exactly what it says!” Then he looked up and said, “You translate well, Mr. Housani.”

The swarthy face of his guest warped into a grim smile of triumph. Captain Rhinehart’s brow corrugated into a facial question mark as he looked on rather helplessly.

“But that’s not what I wrote!” Jon fairly bellowed. “It should be tahaddi, not radi – challenge, not evil.” He went to one of the bookcases insulating the four walls of his office and pulled off a copy of the American edition of Jesus of Nazareth. Quickly thumbing his way to the last chapter, he swooped down to the final line and held the book out for the student. “Now, Mr. Housani, please read what I actually wrote.”

Glowering with suspicion, the student read aloud, “‘Undoubtedly, Muhammad introduced the greatest… challenge… Christianity ever faced.’”

“ Challenge, Mr. Housani. Challenge, not evil!”

The Arab student seemed perplexed and was mute for several seconds. Finally he stammered, “I… I don’t understand…”

“It’s really quite simple. Either this was a wretched typographical error, or it’s a translation error. Believe me, I’m going to find out which.”

Slowly, Housani nodded, while Captain Rhinehart stopped wringing his hands and smiled.

Jon didn’t want to overdo the injured innocence bit, but he did have a few questions he wanted answered before this student left his office. “Might I ask, Mr. Housani, why you and the Muslim Student Association didn’t check the original English version of my book first before staging this demonstration? I can’t imagine it would have been difficult to find a copy. I think the Harvard Coop keeps about fifteen in stock at all times.”

“I… we… find Arabic easier reading than English.”

Jon nodded. “Okay, understandable. But something strange seems to be going on here. How in the world did you and your demonstrators even learn about all this? The publication date for the Arabic edition isn’t until a week from now.”

Housani was silent for some moments. Then he answered, “We have a contact in Cairo who mailed us a copy air express in order to help us… stay on top of things as much as we can.”

“As well you should,” Jon replied, now smiling. “I trust you’ll explain all this to the Muslim Student Association?”

“Yes. I’ll do that, Professor Weber. But please let us know how that terrible error got into the Arabic translation.”

“Of course. In fact, the moment you leave this office, I’ll be phoning my publisher in Cairo to stop the presses-literally-and make that correction. Then I’ll instruct him to recall as many of the faulty first editions as possible.”

“Thank you, Professor Weber. And… I apologize if any of our people went overboard during the demonstration.”

“Accepted. Thank you. By the way, how come you have such a perfect command of English-even our colloquial expressions-and hardly any accent?”

Housani smiled. “Well, as a boy growing up in Bahrain, I listened to Voice of America as much as I could, and I tried to imitate American English.”

“VOA? Well done, sir. Your association certainly seems to have picked a worthy leader.”

They shook hands. The moment Housani and Rhinehart left, Jon reached for the phone. Never mind that it was nearing midnight Cairo time. If his publisher didn’t roust himself out of bed and act quickly, much of the Islamic world might erupt into rioting that could make the demonstration in Harvard Yard look like a party in the park.

Jon’s second call was to his translator, Osman al-Ghazali, a Christian Arab who was a professor of Islamic sudies at Harvard, but he failed to reach him either at the university or at his home in Belmont. The messages Jon left on both answering machines were quite impassioned.

His third immediacy was to compose a written statement for the media on the glaring error in translation and proofreading. His two-page statement concluded: The offending word in the final sentence of the last chapter of Jesus of Nazareth has been correctly translated as “challenge”-not “evil”-in the twenty-nine foreign languages into which the book has been printed, as will become obvious to anyone taking the time to make the search. I deeply regret that the new Arabic edition contained a typographical or translational error that is understandably offensive to Islam. The printing of the first edition has been halted, and the publisher is in the process of recalling as many of the defective copies as possible. Those who have purchased a copy of the faulty first edition may exchange it for the corrected version or receive a full refund. All future editions in Arabic will contain the appropriate correction. Thank you for your patience and understanding in this matter.

“There; that should do it, Marylou,” Jon said to his secretary. “Better run off a hundred copies of this. The media will be hungry.”

“Not ‘will be’-they are hungry. Look out the window.”

Below, mobile television trucks were already desecrating the sacred turf of Harvard Yard, and reporters and camera crews were milling through the still-vocal crowd of demonstrators. Jon threw his hands up in frustration. “I haven’t gotten through to al-Ghazali yet, so there’s nothing I can add to that statement. Please just hand it out, and they’ll have to be satisfied with that for now.”

“But won’t you be here too? You look so nice on television,” she trifled.

“No, I’m escaping, and you don’t know where I am. Good luck with the media!”

Jon ducked out of his office just as the staircases and elevators disgorged the first wave of reporters. He used a remote fire escape and was on the road home to suburban Weston before the media even learned that he had left campus.

At the Tudor-Gothic residence the Webers called home, Shannon was catching up on her own correspondence between loads of laundry, relishing the quiet hours she was able to devote to more domestic pursuits. But in the late afternoon, the quiet seemed doomed as the phone began ringing incessantly. Each inquiry was from a newspaper, radio, or television station-all asking to speak to Jon but giving no hint as to the cause of all the furor. Yet each time she tried to call her husband at Harvard, the line was busy. His cell phone went straight to voice mail. She finally sent an e-mail to his BlackBerry, but there was no return call.

Again the phone rang. Might it be Jon? “Weber residence,” she said, trying to keep the exasperation out of her voice.

“Meeses Web-air,” someone with a thick accent said, “your husband has spoken lies about our great Prophet-may his name be blessed-and we will have our revenge. We know where you are living in Wes-tone. Dr. Web-air will be punished.”

“Who is this?” she demanded.

No answer. Just a click and the line went dead.

A clutch of apprehension started building inside her. First the media inquiries about Jon, then his failure to call, and now an ugly threat. She locked all the doors in the house and spent the next hour pacing the floor, looking out the windows, and alerting several neighbor friends. Call 911? Too early for that.

Suddenly the sweet music of her garage door opening provided welcome relief. More relieved than she wanted to let on, she greeted him with a fierce hug. “What in the world is going on, Jon? The phone’s been ringing all afternoon. Mostly media, but then there was a nasty call from someone with a thick accent who threatened ‘Dr. Web-air.’”

Jon sighed. “Sorry you were bothered, darling. I think I’ve cleared it all up, and-”

“But why didn’t you check your e-mail? I kept calling, but your line was busy. So I-”

“I’ll give you the whole story very shortly. But until things have a chance to blow over, let’s pack immediately for-shall we say-an ‘early vacation’ at the Cape. I mean now, instantly, Shannon. Twenty minutes and we’re outta here.”

“Good! You can explain on the way.” And explain he certainly would. Shannon never ceased to be amazed at the way controversy and unsought fame seemed to follow her husband wherever he went. It might even be amusing if it didn’t so often disrupt the quiet, scholarly life they both preferred.

Somehow, they managed their escape in a half hour. En route to Cape Cod, Jon told her all about the demonstration at Harvard Yard and that the real reason for their drive to the Cape was not the phoned threat but to escape the media. He refused to stand in front of TV cameras, a blank stare on his face, and whimper, “I have no idea how this happened.” He also admitted to a tinge of conscience in not having personally proofread the Arabic edition before publication. Had he done so, he would have caught the error immediately. “Of course, that should have been the translator’s responsibility,” he told her, “and if I don’t hear from Osman al-Ghazali soon, I’m going to go after him bare-handed!”

Just before reaching their hideaway at Cape Cod, Shannon asked, “So then, you think your-Mr. Housani, was it?-will explain things to the guy who threatened us on the phone?”

“Right.”

Shannon hoped Jon’s optimism was not misplaced. As much as she enjoyed their beach house, hiding out from the media when they had a major research trip on the horizon was not her idea of a vacation.

As a strategic retreat for times of both vacation and duress, Jon and Shannon had purchased an oceanside home several miles east of the Kennedy compound on Cape Cod. Only the police at Hyannis Port, Marylou Kaiser, and several trusted friends and neighbors knew of its existence.

They loved the place. It was spacious by Cape standards with four bedrooms, three baths, and a great room with cobblestone fireplace. The exterior siding was composed of cedar shakes painted in Cape Cod gray with white window trim, and it blended in perfectly with the many thousands of other homes at the Cape, Nantucket, and Martha’s Vineyard. They had named the place Thistle Do.

A broad lawn that rolled down to the Atlantic comprised their backyard, part of which fronted a small bay, where they had built a boathouse to match Thistle Do. It housed a thirty-two-foot runabout cruiser they used for excursions up and down the New England coast. Jon always apologized to his friends-piloting a tall-masted schooner with billowing sails would have been far better sport, but he just didn’t have time enough for all the hassle involved in readying the ship for a sail and then stowing it all away again. Maybe after retirement, or maybe sooner if the price for gasoline rose any higher.

Because of the extraordinary success of his literary works-both scholarly and popular-Jon was by no means poverty-stricken. He tried to use his wealth wisely. He gave to charity and tithed to the church but still had little twinges of conscience each time he fired up his boat or sped off in his BMW Z4. This merely proved that the man was Lutheran, a tribe that celebrated God’s grace and forgiveness all the more because of an inbred sensitivity to shortcomings and sin.

Jon and Shannon planned to stay no more than a week at the Cape and return to Cambridge once the brouhaha had blown over. Then they intended to fly to Greece and Jordan, as planned.

The day after they arrived at Thistle Do, however, Marylou Kaiser phoned, somewhat breathlessly. “You do have television reception out there, don’t you, Dr. Weber?”

“Sure. Of course…”

“Then please turn on your TV. You just have no idea…” There was a catch in her voice. She cleared her throat and began again. “All the networks-NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox, CNN-they’re all showing footage of Islamic riots across the world over your book, with-”

“ What! Across the world? That’s ridiculous. Don’t they report that it’s all an error, for goodness’ sake?”

“No. At least, not yet, evidently.”

“ Why haven’t they reported it?” he demanded. Then, realizing Marylou couldn’t possibly have the answer, he quickly added, “Probably because they want to let the ‘sensation’ play out first, maybe to build ratings, and then sober up with the truth.”

“I hope you’re right. Oh, I do have a bit of good news, Dr. Weber.”

“I need it about now.”

“Professor al-Ghazali is trying to reach you. Shall I give him your cell phone number?”

“Yes, please! But don’t tell him where I am.”

“Never.”

“Call me if anything else comes up. Sorry to leave you with this mess.”

She chuckled, her good humor once again restored. “I think it was all part of the package when I signed on with Indiana Jones-Harvard edition.”

Smiling, Jon said good-bye, then reported the conversation to Shannon. “I can’t believe this thing has gotten so out of control.”

Shannon gave a wry smile. “That’s what you get, darling, for being so famous.”

“As the Brits would say, ‘Balderdash!’”

Jon turned on the wide-screen TV and watched in growing horror-high-definition horror-the Muslim riots across the world. The BBC showed footage from London of a papier-mache Jon being hanged in effigy from a lamppost in front of the Nelson monument at Trafalgar Square. In Paris, a similar Weber dummy was ceremoniously hurled from the top of the Eiffel Tower. In Madrid, he was gored in a mock bullfight, and only Germany provided a bit of grim humor when the Weber figure was drowned in a bathtub full of beer-though Muslims there insisted others had poured the amber beverage, of course.

Jon shook his head. “This is beyond all belief!”

His cell phone chirped, and he lunged for it. It just had to be Osman al-Ghazali. He was not disappointed.

“We were in Poughkeepsie, Jon, at our daughter’s graduation from Vassar,” he opened, “and I didn’t get the news until late last night, or I would have called you immediately.”

“All right, Osman. I’m listening.” It was not the friendliest response, Jon knew, but his translator deserved it. Unless he had some reasonable explanation for his now-notorious gaffe, Jon was ready to throttle the man.

“I… I can’t find the words to express my concern… my shock,” al-Ghazali said, “and you have my profound apologies for what happened, Jon. The typesetter in Cairo must have made the error, of course, but I should have caught it… I should have caught it.”

Jon said nothing, so al-Ghazali continued. “I just can’t believe I didn’t catch it, since radi – evil -sounds nothing like tahaddi – challenge, as you well know. Well, they rhyme, but…”

“That could be, Osman,” Jon finally replied, softening. “Have you called our publisher in Cairo?”

“Even before calling you. I made them repeat the correct term for ‘challenge’ three times, and they’ll e-mail me proofs before going back to press.”

“Good, Osman. What in the world ever made the typesetter in Cairo do that- if he’s responsible? He’s not a Coptic Christian, is he?”

“I don’t really know. But I’ll find out.”

“In any case, you should also have a few words with him-to say the least.”

“You bet I will.”

“More than that, I think you’ll have to do a careful proofing again of the whole Arabic edition to make sure there are no other errors.”

“I’d already planned to do that.”

“Good. Oh, one more thing: word about the translation error seems to be a deep, dark secret as far as the media are concerned. I worry most about Al Jazeera. If they don’t report that it was all a mistake, rioting will rage on in the Islamic world.”

“Ah! Good that you tell me. I have a friend or two there. I’ll call Al Jazeera immediately-the start of my long journey back into your good graces, Jon.”

“Fine, Osman. Be sure to keep me posted.”

Shannon, who had been listening intently to Jon’s side of the conversation, seemed relieved and sighed. “I do hope that’s the end of this bizarre business. How it can ruin a beautiful spring!” It was obvious that images of her husband being hanged in effigy had done very little to boost her spirits.

They turned off the TV, put on walking shorts, and headed down to the Atlantic shore. Perhaps a long stroll along the beach and many breaths of fresh sea breezes would clear their minds.

Jon and Shannon returned from their seashore promenade eager to check the progress of Jon’s story. “What was it Mark Twain said?” Shannon asked. “‘A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth even puts its boots on’?”

“Yes,” Jon replied. “I guess it’s a corollary to Murphy’s Law that wrong information-particularly of a sensational nature-gets front-page treatment in the press and opening-story status in the broadcast media, while the truth, by way of correction, shows up later with only the briefest coverage on page 6 of section D in the papers or as a small afterthought on TV.”

Gingerly they turned on the television evening news, flipped through the networks, and were happily surprised. Diane Sawyer of ABC, Katie Couric of CBS, and Brian Williams of NBC all opened with a story on the error in the Arabic text of Jon’s book, while CNN even showed footage of a perspiring Osman al-Ghazali heaping blame on himself, but even more on the typesetter in Cairo.

Later in the telecasts, however, Jon felt the clutch of concern return when the news programs shifted to reports from foreign correspondents. A firebomb had been lobbed into the first floor of Jon’s publisher in Cairo, scorching much of the reception area until the blaze was extinguished. Footage from Lebanon showed a long column of Hezbollah marching through downtown Beirut, clad in green and white and demanding revenge against “Web-air,” as they chanted the name again and again. In Tehran, where the offending sentence had been mistranslated into Farsi with an even stronger term for evil, enraged mullahs were preaching about possible jihad, while rioting in Pakistan had actually left five dead on the streets of Islamabad.

Jon held his head in his hands and muttered, “People getting killed? For nothing? Nothing? Good grief, it’s Salman Rushdie all over again! How many died in those riots after Ayatollah Khomeini put a fatwa on his head?”

“Not just Rushdie,” Shannon added. “There were dozens of deaths in the riots that followed the Danish cartoon of Muhammad with bombs in his turban. And the same after the pope’s address in Germany at Regensburg.”

The phone rang-inconveniently, since the evening news had not yet ended.

“Just let it ring,” Jon said.

Shannon paused, then shook her head and lifted the receiver. “Weber residence.” She listened for a moment before handing the phone to Jon.

“Yes?” he said into the phone, with a questioning look at his wife.

“Professor Jonathan Weber?”

“Yes…”

“This is Morton Dillingham, director of the Central Intelligence Agency.”

“The CIA? Right! And I’m Alex in Wonderland.”

“No, Professor. This is the CIA, and we have very serious matters to discuss. Are you free to speak?”

“Yes,” Jon replied, meekly, in case the call was authentic after all.

“Is your phone line secure?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“Is anyone else there?”

“Yes, my wife.”

“No one else?”

“No. And by the way, how did you get this phone number? It’s unlisted.”

“We convinced your secretary that it was in the national interest and for your own personal safety.”

“Okay. Sorry about my levity.”

“Not a problem. Now, Professor Weber, here’s the situation. Our operatives in Tehran have just informed us that the grand ayatollah in Iran, Kazim al-Mahdi-their Supreme Leader-in consultation with his Shiite clergy, has just declared a fatwa on your head because of that Arabic translation business.”

“Ridiculous!” Jon nearly shouted into the phone. “Don’t they know about the translation error? And it’s in Arabic, not Farsi. In fact, do you even know about the error?”

“Of course I do-the CIA also watches the evening news! But no, evidently they don’t know about that mistake in Iran. And they decided to exploit the translation error for their own purposes, even if it was in another language.”

“Do you have any idea why Al Jazeera hasn’t announced the error?” Jon assumed the CIA also knew about the Arab TV network’s silence.

“We’re working on that one even as we speak.”

“Good.”

“But first things first, Dr. Weber, and that’s security for you and your wife. We hope, of course, that the fatwa will be lifted once they finally learn the truth in Iran, but meanwhile your lives are in some danger.”

“Oh, please; this can’t really be happening, can it?”

“I am not exaggerating, sir,” the CIA director said in a credibly serious tone. “Now, we have a direct parallel in the case of Salman Rushdie and his Satanic Verses novel that earned him a fatwa some years ago. We’ve already contacted Scotland Yard to learn how the British handled security in his case with such obvious success: although his fatwa has never been lifted, the man lives on! We intend something similar in your case, although-”

Jon erupted. “Rushdie was in hiding for months after the fatwa was announced, and I just can’t spare that kind of time!”

“A fatwa?” Shannon whispered. “Jon, what’s happening?”

He covered the phone with his hand and tried to reassure her. “I’m sure it’s nothing, darling. I’ll explain in a minute.” He spoke into the phone again. “I’m sorry, Mr…?”

“Dillingham. And that’s quite all right. But we do need to take every possible precaution to protect your life and that of your wife as well. You see, all we need is for just one fanatic to take the fatwa seriously and act on it. Your death would be his passport to paradise.”

Jon was stunned into silence. One stupid error was turning his life into a grotesque nightmare. Shannon’s too. Finally he asked, again rather meekly, “What do you suggest?”

“Since the FBI covers the home front and we the international, we asked them to send over a security detail immediately. In fact, they’d probably have been there by now if your secretary had told us where you are.”

Thank you, Marylou! Jon mused. Then he replied, “No, not here. It would disrupt the peace of the neighborhood… All right, my wife and I will return to our home in Weston, and you can incarcerate us there.”

“Well, we certainly don’t intend to-”

“Strike that; bad humor on my part. But seriously now, we’re grateful for your concern.”

“We do have your home address in Weston, but we’d really prefer to have you escorted there by-”

“No, I absolutely decline that. Categorically. But thank you, Mr. Dillingham. We’ll be leaving first thing in the morning and should return to Weston by, say, early afternoon.”

“I’d feel better if you left this evening.”

“No, morning will do just fine. The fatwa hasn’t been announced over here yet, evidently.”

“Well… all right. Thanks for your cooperation, Professor Weber.”

“Yours too. Good night.”

Jon hung up and turned to Shannon, who was hovering nearby with a worried look on her face.

“What is it, Jon? A fatwa? On you? You’re kidding, right?”

“I’m afraid not, sweetheart. That was the CIA. They want us to head home so they can put us under official protection, at least until this thing blows over.”

“Jon, fatwas don’t ‘blow over.’ At least Rushdie’s didn’t. What about our trip? Our work? Oh, this is just ridiculous.”

“I know; I know. But when the truth finally sinks in at Tehran, they’ll lift it, I’m sure.”

“And if they don’t?”

Jon saw a tear or two glistening in her eyes. He tucked two fingers under her classically chiseled chin and said, “Then we’ll flee Weston and fly to Tahiti.”

Shannon made a conscious effort to shrug off the curdling climate of fear in their lives as they drove eastward to Chatham. She appreciated Jon’s attempts to cheer her up with a seafood dinner overlooking the Atlantic-one of her favorite things to do when they were staying at the beach house. It began with obligatory Lambrusco-the vintage they had shared on their wedding night-and went on to lobster for him, crab cakes for her.

Was it the edge supplied by danger? The wine at dinner? The gorgeous full moon floating over the eastern seascape? Whatever. The evening was a success as far as Shannon was concerned. By the time they returned to their hideaway, she had managed to put the fear and danger out of her mind. It was heavenly to return to their beachfront hideaway and forget, at least for the night, that anyone else existed outside the circle of their love.

They had missed the 11 p.m. news, of course. But during the morning drive back to Weston, they heard it all on the car radio. In the name of Allah, the Iranian clergy had declared an official fatwa on American professor Jonathan Weber of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Muslim faithful were duty-bound to seek him out for apprehension, trial, judgment, and condemnation. And the penalty for insulting the Prophet, as Professor Weber had done? Death.

Jon and Shannon’s new roles as moving targets? Not a felicitous feeling. Jon was quiet, but he seemed to be checking the rearview mirror more often than usual, while Shannon found herself scanning each approaching vehicle with uncharacteristic scrutiny.

Jon finally broke the silence. “Well, it’s much too soon for anyone to try anything, sweetheart.”

“Oh, that’s some consolation,” she replied with a bite. “But in a short time, it’ll be open season on the Webers. So much for the joy you promised in our wedded life!”

“Think you made a mistake, Shannon?” His eyebrows were a pair of arches.

She put on her best imitation of a frown. “Well, it wouldn’t be the first time.” Then she whispered, “Oh, Jon, despite the crazy twists and turns life has taken since I met you, it’s a mistake I’d make again and again and again!” She reached over and squeezed his knee.

After crossing the bridge at the Cape Cod Canal, they headed northwest on I-495 toward the Boston suburbs. It was a luminous spring morning, the air nicely scrubbed from a shower the night before. But then an intrusion. Jon noticed it first in his left outer mirror: a dark green Cadillac Escalade was following their silver Buick LaCrosse, and it seemed to stay behind them, even when he slowed down to encourage passing.

He tromped on the accelerator to eighty miles per hour, and the distance between the two cars lengthened. But the Escalade suddenly sped up in order to reach its apparently chosen perch just behind their car.

Shannon knew what was happening without his saying a word. She peered back anxiously and exclaimed, “Jon! They’re wearing turbans -all four of them!”

Jon quickly looked back and saw that Shannon was right. An icy stab of terror rippled inside him. “It’s just not possible that anyone would try to act on the fatwa this soon, is it?”

“Who knows? Maybe we’ve been followed.”

“Stay cool. I have a plan.” Jon started slowing down to 50 mph, then 40 and even 35. The Escalade slowed also.

“Jon, have you lost your mind?” she wondered.

“Strategy, dear. I may even stop the car. But the moment they also stop and get out, I’ll floor it. Just hang on and keep your head down.”

His plan came to nothing. Suddenly the Escalade sped past them, four turbaned heads so busy in conversation that they didn’t even notice Jon and Shannon.

Jon broke out laughing. “We’re bloody fools, Shannon. They were Sikhs, not Muslims! It’s Sikhs who wear turbans.”

“Well, cut us some slack, Jon. A death threat is enough to turn anyone a little paranoid.”

When they arrived in Weston, they expected to find a security gate across their street, police patrolling the area, and angry neighbors wanting to know why they and their families were being imprisoned. But they saw nothing of the kind. The shady little lane was the same picture of tranquility they had left.

“Obviously, security hasn’t arrived yet,” Shannon observed.

Jon pressed the garage door opener and drove in. Just as he was inserting the house key into the lock, a man appeared out of nowhere and said, “Sorry to startle you, Professor and Mrs. Weber. Jim Behnke, FBI.” He flashed his credentials. “Do you mind if I join you inside to explain our security arrangements?”

Over coffee and rolls in the kitchen, Behnke laid it all out. “We’ve set up an electronic fence around your entire property-invisible, of course-that will alert us to any attempts at intrusion. Now, do you see that aging blue Dodge van parked across the street?” He pointed. “It’s really an electronic base with communications and radar. It will monitor everything in the area, including your phone calls. But just call this number first every time you need privacy, and we’ll tune out.” He handed them a card, then continued. “Anyone ringing your doorbell will be under the tightest surveillance. But don’t worry; we won’t bother the mailman or delivery people.”

The briefing went on for some time. Finally Behnke gave transponders to both Jon and Shannon with panic buttons to press in case of emergency.

“But what happens when we leave the house?” Shannon wondered.

“We’ll also install GPDs-global positioning devices-on both your cars so we can track your locations at all times.”

“Will we be tailed… followed?” Jon asked.

“Perhaps. But if so, you’ll never know it.”

As Behnke prepared to leave, Jon had one more question. “Okay, let’s imagine a worst-case scenario: what if they come here in force-more than one or two people?”

Behnke pointed out the kitchen window facing the backyard. “You have a pretty dense grove of trees behind your place. It rather conveniently hides our manpower at the western edge of your property. Not to worry!”

“Thanks, Mr. Behnke,” Shannon said. “We were concerned that our neighborhood would be disrupted.”

“Your neighbors won’t even know we’re here, Mrs. Weber.”

Maybe life could return to something resembling normalcy after all, they dared to hope. But one nagging concern remained: were their summer plans ruined? Both were determined to have the finest scholars in Greece examine what Shannon had discovered at Pella.

They decided to postpone their visit to Pella because Father Athanasius had written that, after an exhaustive search of their library, no other vellum sheets matching Shannon’s had been discovered. In place of Pella, they decided to visit Turkey along with Greece. Both were gorgeous peninsulas thrusting themselves into the sapphire Mediterranean. Both were scattered with scenic mountains and lakes, rimmed with golden beaches, and surrounded by Aegean islands boasting homes of gleaming white with roofs of royal blue. That’s what the tourist brochures promised, and yet there was so much more there.

Greece and Asia Minor were the cradles of classical civilization in the ancient world, both lands still studded with ruins of temples, colonnades, theaters, baths, aqueducts, and even latrines from antiquity. “People living in Greece and Asia Minor two and three millennia ago gave us more of our present culture than any other civilization,” Professor Weber reminded his classes again and again.

Yet there was still more. The Aegean world was also the second cradle of Christianity. It was here that St. Paul did most of his missions work, where many of the earliest church fathers held forth, where the first churches were built and the first creeds formulated. And perhaps most importantly, it was here that the earliest New Testament Scriptures were written. This was what most intrigued Jonathan Weber and the ICO that he had founded.

The Institute of Christian Origins, based in Cambridge, was a think tank for discovery rather than-as was so much of recent theology-a scholarly rehashing of evidence raked over many times in the past. Their symposia dealt with cutting-edge findings from the ancient world that impinged on Jesus of Nazareth and the church that he founded. Membership in the ICO-by invitation only-was an honor roll of many of the most prestigious scholars in the world, men and women not only with expertise in their specialties but with the flexibility and courage to draw unpopular conclusions, if necessary. They regularly had to blow a shrill whistle on the increasing fakery and fraud pseudoarchaeologists were foisting on the public, such as claims that wheels from the ancient Egyptian chariots in the Exodus account had been found at the bottom of the Red Sea. Similar targets were mistranslations of the vaunted Judas Gospel or wild claims regarding the so-called Jesus Family Tomb at Talpiot in south Jerusalem. And as for Noah’s ark, the ICO reminded the public that Noah must certainly have built a fleet rather than just one ship, since it had now been “discovered” twenty-one times in the last century!

At the most recent symposium of the ICO in April, Jon had told his colleagues, “So often we assume that any fresh information on Jesus and early Christianity will come from archaeological discoveries. And while that’s true enough, it’s not the whole truth. Perhaps we’ve overlooked another major source of potential evidence, and I’m sure you all know where I’m heading: manuscripts! Ancient manuscripts, wherever they might be found-whether via archaeological digs, hiding in medieval and even modern libraries, or lurking in neglected monastery archives.

“But here’s an important difference between these two sources: things not yet unearthed will hardly change over the millennia, but manuscripts will change. They’ll deteriorate. Papyrus and parchment will age, rot, and crumble. Rats and worms will diet on them; water and dampness corrode them; fires consume them. Looters may steal them for sale on the black market, or they can be destroyed during war or by natural disasters, like floods and earthquakes.

“Hard artifacts will wait patiently until they’re uncovered-maybe decades, centuries from now-but manuscripts are impatient. In their case, we have a time factor on our hands. We discover them, or they die.”

Shouts of “Hear, hear!” and “Right on!” accompanied much nodding among the thirty-eight world-class scholars seated around the huge conference table at the ICO headquarters on Brattle Street in Cambridge. There were twenty-six men and twelve women at that particular conclave, at least a quarter of them from Europe, Africa, and the Far East.

“Tell them about biblical manuscripts alone, Dick,” Jon said.

Richard Ferris was the general secretary for the Institute of Christian Origins, a lanky scholar whose crew cut seemed to remove a decade from his actual age. “Well, you all know the numbers and how our list of New Testament manuscripts has exploded across the years. For the King James translators in 1611, only six basic manuscripts were available, but by 1870, two thousand had been discovered for the Revised Version translators. Today, however, we have about 5,700 manuscripts in whole or in part. And of course, as we have to tell the public again and again, through textual research and criticism of all these manuscripts, we get more and more exact versions of what was originally written by the New Testament authors. That’s the good news.

“But the bad news Dr. Weber has already expressed. There are more manuscripts out there, and if we don’t find them in time, the world will have lost some priceless treasures. And it’s not just discovery. Some of these manuscripts have already been ‘discovered,’ as it were, but they’ve not been photographed, cataloged, or even examined. For example, Dr. Daniel Wallace, executive director of the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts, recently sent a team to Albania to photograph ancient manuscripts in its national archive. They found no less than forty-five New Testament manuscripts that had never been photographed before-an incredible cache of documents in one of the least-likely places in the world! In fact, he estimates that maybe a thousand Greek New Testament manuscripts are still out there, yet to be discovered.” He paused to let the tidings mellow.

Heinz von Schwendener, New Testament professor at Yale, raised his pen and added, “And I’ll bet there could be more than a thousand in the long run. Okay, my colleagues, what’s our role in all this? How can the ICO contribute?”

“Glad you asked, Heinz,” Jon said. “In fact, I’m a little surprised that a Yalie is still awake to hear all this.”

“It’s only you Harvards that put me to sleep, Jon.”

Amid chuckling over the inevitable Harvard-Yale banter, Jon smiled and continued. “Here’s what I envision: an effort-hopefully an international effort-to search out every known library or archive of ancient manuscripts in the world and photograph all early un photographed biblical manuscripts contained therein. We’d then do further examination of the most ancient and important of those manuscripts as well.”

“Sounds like a task for several lifetimes, Jon,” said Sally Humiston of Berkeley’s archaeology department, “and requiring resources far beyond ours.”

“Exactly, Sal. I’ve been discussing this with the leadership at the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts. They’d be delighted to cooperate with us in this endeavor, and we’ve sketched the following procedure.”

Jon switched on his PowerPoint presentation and directed his colleagues’ attention to the large screen behind him.

“First, we must reach a consensus on the most feasible modus operandi. This would determine the dos and don’ts in terms of searching out locations of libraries and archives with ancient biblical manuscripts, how to approach the respective authorities at each and secure permissions to photograph, and the like.

“Next, I recommend that we work up an overall comprehensive plan for the project, including the initial target collections. Then we would be ready to approach appropriate foundations for funding as well as recruiting scholars and photographic teams to do the job.”

“But haven’t many of the collections been microfilmed already?” Brendan Rutledge wanted to know. He was Princeton’s prime theologian.

“Yes, but many of them ought to be redone. Microfilming is really passe with our new technology. We’ll use digital photography instead, which is much better in every way. Here, check out the difference for yourselves.”

Jon passed out photocopies that showed two views of a leaf from the fourth-century Codex Vaticanus, one of the earliest uncial biblical manuscripts. To the left was a regular microfilmed version, and to the right a digital version. There simply was no comparison. In terms of clarity, ease of decipherment, even shadings in the lettering, the latter was far superior.

“Beyond that,” Jon continued, “at critical passages, we’ll also use multispectral imaging to check for text that’s faded, altered, or even erased. Manuscript copyists have been known to make mistakes.” A titter of laughter followed the last comment, since it seemed that nearly all ancient manuscripts had their share of errors, most of them quite minor.

A drone of discussion followed-not in challenge or objection, Jon was delighted to note, but in affirmation and enthusiasm. Suggestions and ideas rattled off the walls; scholar candidates were suggested, names of foundations offered.

At the close of the conference, Jon announced, “In order to practice what I preach, my wife Shannon and I want to participate in the project by targeting libraries and archives in Greece and Turkey-not all of them, obviously, but several that we think may be promising candidates. We plan to fly off just after the close of the spring semester.”

Those, of course, were the plans before the translation catastrophe struck. Now, it seemed their summer would be grotesquely transformed from the research and travel they had planned into a sickening scenario of looking behind themselves at potential danger-imagined or real-their lives hostage to the whim of some fanatic. Curse the translation error! Curse the fanaticism that could augment a tiny publishing miscue into world riots and bloodshed!

Some relief, however, came swiftly. The American and Canadian television networks had announced the error in translation earlier, and the BBC, Deutsche Welle, and the French, Italian, and Spanish networks soon followed. Jon and Shannon were greatly heartened when the ghastly riots on their TV were replaced by interviews with spokesmen for Islamic councils in the western European countries who announced that this had all been a mistake after all, that Professor Weber had apologized for it, and that the offending effigies and signs had now been removed.

“But I didn’t ‘apologize’ for it,” Jon objected. “I regretted it. There’s a difference.”

“Half a loaf is better than none, Jon,” Shannon reminded him.

Jon nodded slowly. “At this point I should be grateful for small favors. But why hasn’t Al Jazeera come clean on this? That’s the most-watched TV network in Muslim countries, so for their world, I’m still a blasphemous villain.”

But it was Al Jazeera that might rescue their summer after all-not intentionally, of course-and television rivalry seemed partially responsible. The Abu Dhabi television channel in the United Arab Emirates broke the news on the translation error to the Arab world, and Qatar Television immediately followed suit. Rather than be upstaged, Al Jazeera, perhaps in compensation for its late coverage, did an entire half-hour special on the typographical error in Jon’s book and how it had happened. They even had footage of the typesetter at his computer inside the editorial offices of the Cairo publisher, who blamed Osman al-Ghazali for the error, followed by footage of Osman in Cambridge blaming the typesetter. The program concluded with close-ups of the corrected text in the second printing of Jon’s book. Islam was now the greatest challenge to Christianity, not the greatest evil.

Sunni Muslims across the Islamic world-that broad band of latitude from Morocco to Indonesia-soon responded, almost with pride, at the corrected reading that showed their powerful counterpoise to Christianity. Still, Jon was hardly home free. The Shiites were silent. Although they represented only 16 percent of world Islam, it was the Shiite clergy in Iran who had placed the fatwa on his head. That fatwa had not been lifted.

Jon discussed the matter with Osman. They had been in continual phone contact over the past two days. Predictably, the translator took some credit for Al Jazeera’s finally announcing the error, but he also took the wind out of his own sails by confiding his surmise as to their delay.

By dragging their feet in announcing the error-cum-correction, he told Jon, the Sunni Al Jazeera got the Shiites to make fools of themselves with their instant fatwa. “There’s just no end to the rivalry between Sunnis and Shiites.”

“You really think the grand ayatollah and his Iranian clergy are embarrassed by the fatwa?” Jon asked.

“Not embarrassed. More like mortified, I’m sure. In fact, I’ll bet that they’ll never even mention this again.”

“What! Not even to lift the fatwa?”

“Probably not. That would look like they’d made a mistake. And of course, they did! But it’s the same reason Rushdie’s fatwa was never lifted.”

“So I have to live the rest of my life with this hanging over my head?”

“Welcome to the club, Jon. Since I converted from Islam to Christianity, I’d also face a sentence of death in almost any Muslim country if I returned. But I think you can put away the worry beads. Salman Rushdie lives, as you may have noticed, and I understand that VOA and Al Arabiya have also been giving full coverage to the truth in their Farsi broadcasts. Truth will win, even in Iran.”

Jon was neither entirely convinced nor consoled.

A week later, something happened that shocked not only Jon and Shannon, but much of the Western world as well. It was a very pleasant shock. Sheikh Abbas al-Rashid-probably the most influential Muslim theologian in the world-came down on Jon’s side. Al-Rashid was the grand sheikh and imam at al-Azhar Mosque and University in Cairo, the number one Islamic theological school and the oldest university in the world. Before giving the commencement address at al-Azhar, he had alerted Al Jazeera, as well as network reporters and stringers from other nations, that they might find his remarks rather more newsworthy than was usually the case for commencement addresses.

This was enough to attract a small army of media sorts, all festooned with cameras of every description, to cover the occasion. Thousands of miles away in Weston, Massachusetts, Jon and Shannon joined the international audience in watching the televised address, which was titled “Freedom for Truth.” Al-Rashid opened by telling of an observer that the Sung dynasty in China dispatched in the year 987 to survey life in the West. When he returned home, the observer reported that the Roman Empire had fallen and been replaced by two great civilizations in the West: one was Byzantine, the other Islamic. The latter, however, was far superior to the former. Then, as an afterthought, he also told of a third-that of the Frankish kingdoms in Europe. “But they are sunk in barbarism,” he concluded.

Al-Rashid continued-in Arabic, of course, but with simultaneous translations. “The observer from the Sung dynasty was absolutely correct. Today, all scholars, both East and West, agree that Islam was the foremost culture in the entire world during the tenth through twelfth centuries. Our cities had the first universities, the first hospitals, the first public libraries, even the first fire departments. We were at the forefront of all branches of human knowledge: astronomy, physics-all the sciences, in fact-mathematics, medicine, literature… The list is endless. We preserved manuscripts of the ancient Greek and Roman philosophers that were lost in the West. Their scholars learned from us.

“Yet this is not the case today. Some even regard Islamic nations as ‘backward’ and in need of foreign help. What happened? The reasons are many, but perhaps two dominate the others. One, we were brutalized by the Mongol invasion when Baghdad, the center of the Islamic world, fell in 1258. But the second reason, I think, is even more significant: our academic freedoms were curtailed from that time on. In later centuries, our most creative minds were constrained by intellectual blinders, fresh ideas were suspect, and our scholars were no longer at liberty to pursue truth for its own sake. Islam and the teachings of the Prophet-may Allah’s peace and blessing be upon him-were by no means responsible for this, but narrow minds that claimed to speak for Islam were.”

Al-Rashid went on to cite passages from the Qur’an that stressed the importance of free inquiry and tolerance, such as Sura 2:256-“In religion, there is no compulsion”-and how later on, stringent mullahs tried to explain away such verses. He then lashed out at the current fanaticism and violence fostered by Islamic fundamentalists and jihadists that not only endangered the world but were an insult to Islam itself.

He capped his argument with a powerful illustration. “Lest you think that this is not the case today, I would call your attention to what happened very recently. The Arabic edition of a book by a well-known American professor, Jonathan P. Weber of Harvard University, contained a misprint or innocent error that has since been corrected. And yet this professor was instantly attacked by today’s mullahs, and fanatic mobs inspired by them caused riots in various countries that led, tragically, to some deaths. Not only that, but straining all canons of logic, a fatwa was even issued against the professor, which should immediately be lifted. We call on our Shiite brothers in the faith to nullify that fatwa.”

“Jon, did you hear that?” Shannon asked unnecessarily.

Jon himself was speechless. What a magnificent development-in fact, a true answer to prayer! If the fatwa were lifted, their summer plans were intact once again.

The university imam closed with an appeal that Islam resurrect its past glories and world cultural leadership by returning to the path of free inquiry, which alone could lead to truth itself in all fields of human knowledge. His final words, of course, were the formulaic “All praise be to Allah, the Lord Sovereign of the universe, and may Allah praise his Prophet Muhammad and his household.”

Moments of stunned silence followed, and then deafening applause erupted, especially from the students, with shouts of “Allahu Akhbar! Allahu Akhbar!” “God is great! God is great!” Of the seventy-five al-Azhar faculty members sharing the platform that day, some were smiling, while others wore frowns of deep concern.

Jon shook his head. “It’s the finest address by a Muslim that I’ve ever heard-and certainly the best since 9/11. This is the voice of moderate Islam that should have been much louder following what happened in New York and Washington. What a man! I’ll bet the archconservatives in the Islamic world cordially hate him.”

“Do you think it’ll take some of the heat off of us?”

“It certainly should, Shannon. It looks like we may be heading for Greece and Turkey after all.”

They called Washington the next morning and discussed the matter with Morton Dillingham of the CIA. He was his usual cautious-perhaps paranoid-self. Jon was sure there must be a plaque on his office wall that read, The light at the end of the tunnel is an approaching freight train. Yes, he admitted that the climate had improved for Jon since the now-celebrated commencement address by al-Rashid. He also reported that the CIA operatives in Tehran had reported very little public follow-up on the fatwa issue. It was no longer news there, and there were no further riots.

“Then it should certainly be safe for my wife and me not to alter our plans for Greece and Turkey, right?” Jon asked.

“Oh, I’m not sure that’s the case,” he demurred. “It only takes one fanatic, one unstable-”

“We’re fully aware of that threat, Mr. Dillingham, but our decision is to go ahead with our plans in any case.”

There was a long silence at the other end of the line. Finally Dillingham replied, “Well, you’re free citizens, and we can’t stop you. But please fax me your specific itinerary, along with dates, after which I’ll dispatch you a complete protocol of procedures to avoid danger, CIA contacts overseas, and other security measures.”

“Thank you, Mr. Dillingham. That will be very helpful.”

“But while you’re abroad, always look behind you. Always.”

A fortnight later, Jon and Shannon were on an Olympic Air jet, flying from JFK to Athens. As the plane settled into its cruising altitude, she turned to him and said, “You know, Jon, despite all the traveling we do, this trip is the first one in a long time that almost feels like a vacation.”

Jon squeezed her hand. “Whoever said that business and pleasure can’t be mingled?”

Shannon was almost prepared for “no dancing in the aisles” on their plane, based on Olympic’s ads, but she was quite content to settle for tasty introductions to Greek cuisine. They were served calamari (“almost like chewing rubber bands,” Jon commented), angarodomata salata, pastitsio, souvlaki, dolmas nicely drenched in a thick avgolemono sauce, with a main course of either baked lamb or chicken and potato slices bathed in lemon olive oil. To be sure, there were also olives from first to last-not the modestly flavored Spanish sort cored with pimento, anchovies, or nuts. No, these were dark and salty Greek olives-totally salty-the kind that took command of your mouth and provided a day’s suggested sodium intake apiece. It took several glasses of retsina wine-Jon intentionally mispronounced it “rinsina”-to “rinse” the palate for the deliciously sweet baklava that followed. Cups of steaming elliniko kafe capped off the gustatory marathon.

Suddenly, and apropos of nothing, Shannon sat up straight and asked, “Jon, the case with the manuscripts from Pella-where is it?”

He stared at her, wide-eyed, and seemed to grope for words. “I… I thought I… I hope I… didn’t leave it at the JFK security line.”

When Shannon gaped at him in horror, Jon quickly stood, opened the overhead compartment, and extracted the case. Holding it overhead as some sort of trophy, he returned it to the compartment and sat back down.

“Are you proud of yourself, Professor Prankster?” she asked.

“Sorry, dear. Someday I’ll grow up.”

“Doubtful!” She gave him a playful poke in the ribs.

Over the snowy Alps, down the long peninsula of Italy, and then eastward across the Adriatic, they flew until Pelops’s vast “island” came into view, hung on the Greek mainland by the slender isthmus of Corinth. Now their jet lost altitude, glided across the Saronic Gulf, and curved northeastward over Laurium Mountain to land smoothly at Venizelos International Airport, the vast new structure built just in time for the Olympic Games at Athens in 2004.

“I wonder what ‘Venizelos’ means in English, Shannon,” Jon wondered, tongue in cheek, as they disembarked.

“It means ‘Venizelos,’ you dunce!” she laughed. “It’s a proper name and you know it!”

“Ah yes, Eleftherios Venizelos, the prime minister of Greece in the early 1900s, a statesman with so much charisma he’s often called ‘the father of modern Greece.’”

“Enough lecture for now, Jon.”

They breezed through passport control at Venizelos to the reception concourse, which was festooned with welcoming signs in both Greek and English. They spotted their guide even before reading the Dr./Mrs. Jonathan Weber sign he was holding, a bearded young man dressed from head to toe in ecclesiastical black. He doffed his cylindrical hat and bowed slightly as he said, with studied formality, “In the name of Christodoulos II, archbishop of Athens and all of Greece, I bid you a most cordial welcome, Professor and Mrs. Weber.”

“Kalimera,” Jon replied. “You must be Father Stephanos Alexandropoulis?”

“Nai, nai!” he said, nodding in response.

Shannon smiled, recalling her first encounter with the Greek language when she learned that something so negative-sounding in fact meant “Yes, yes.”

“Please to follow me and get your luggage,” Father Stephanos said.

En route to their hotel, Jon acted as self-appointed tour guide to sights along the way, since Shannon had never visited Greece. “This is where chapters 17 and 18 in the book of Acts really come to life,” he commented as they drove through the heart of Athens and along the western side of the Acropolis on the Odos Apostolou Pavlou -the Street of the Apostle Paul. “There’s the Parthenon atop the Acropolis.” He pointed to the right. “And just northwest of it-see that rocky rise?-that’s the Areopagus, where St. Paul gave his famous Mars Hill address. And we’re just passing the agora, where he met the philosophers who invited him to give that speech.”

Father Stephanos was nodding proudly, almost as if he had arranged all the sites for their benefit. He told them how other tourists who had money but not culture infuriated him with inane questions: “Why don’t they tear down all those ruined buildings on top of that big hill?” Moments like that made the holy man want to strangle the inquirer, he admitted.

Now they drove through the Plaka to Syntagma Square and their hotel, the Grande Bretagne. Father Stephanos helped them with their luggage as they checked into Athens’s most famous hotel, frequented by the crowns of Europe and greats of the past and present.

“I hope you have good rest after your flight,” he said. “And I pick you up in the morning at ten o’clock. Will that be all right? Our appointment with the archbishop is at ten thirty.”

“Excellent, Father Stephanos,” Jon said. “You’ve been most kind. Ef charisto! ”

“Parakalo.”

Next morning at the appointed hour, they arrived at the headquarters of Hey Ekklesia Hellenike -known more commonly as the Greek Orthodox Church. A smiling Christodoulos II received them, the holy archbishop of Athens and all of Greece. He was a tall, imposing figure, attired, like Stephanos, in solid black. His salt-and-pepper beard provided a modest contrast, reflecting a man of sixty-seven maturing years. In many ways, because of a very lofty forehead, Jon thought he looked like Pericles himself, though without the helmet.

“Welcome, Professor and Mrs. Weber,” he opened in excellent English.

“Ine megali timi Makariotate, na’houme afton ton hrono mazi sas,” Jon returned in Greek, which he hoped would pass for “It’s a great honor, Your Beatitude, to have this time with you.”

“Your Greek is excellent, Dr. Weber,” the archbishop replied, “but please to use English. I love the English language and don’t have chance enough to use it.”

“I’m grateful for that, Your Beatitude,” Shannon said. While his wife’s New Testament Greek was as good as any scholar’s, Jon knew she was not familiar with modern, conversational Greek, which was markedly different.

“I am glad,” the archbishop continued, “that the fierce Muslim debate over that translation matter in your book seems to have ceased. When the news first reached Athens, I looked up that passage in the Greek edition of your book-and I saw that it was rendered correctly.”

Jon expressed his thanks, then came to the point of their meeting: the biblical manuscript project, which he explained in full detail. Would the archbishop be kind enough to look over a preliminary list Jon and Shannon had compiled of libraries and archives in Greece known for their ancient manuscripts, and provide any corrections or addenda? He easily agreed.

Jon’s next request, he worried, was more daunting. Might the archbishop be generous enough to provide them a letter of introduction that would be useful in establishing their credibility when they or their teams arrived at a given archive and desired permission to photograph the biblical manuscripts in their collection? Jon had prepared a list of safeguards, which he handed to the archbishop: 1. The librarian or archivist on location may always exercise his veto, with or without explanation. 2. All photography will be undertaken with utmost care so as not to inflict damage in any way on the precious materials involved. No flash photography will be employed in the process so as not to cause any fading of the texts. (Digital photography obviates any such need, provided that normal light sources are available.) 3. Full credit lines will be added to all photo collections and in all publications thereof. 4. A complete set of the resulting photographs will be deposited at all libraries and archives kind enough to permit such photography. 5. All commentary accompanying the collections involved will first be checked with the authorities at each location prior to publication.

Archbishop Christodoulos II studied the list and then excused himself to show it to the general secretary of the archdiocese in another office.

Jon smiled nervously at Shannon as they waited for what seemed like an hour but was probably only a few minutes. What if they couldn’t pass even first base on their venture? Should they have done more preliminary correspondence first? Yes, they whispered to one another, they probably should have. Would have, in fact, had the translation crisis not commandeered all of their time.

Christodoulos reappeared with another document in his hand. “Please to forgive me, honored friends, for making you wait,” he explained. “Our general secretary called in several other advisers, and a debate followed. And wouldn’t you expect that of Eastern Orthodox theologians?”

“Of course,” Jon chuckled, relieved to learn what had caused the delay. He was well aware that even in the ancient church, it was the eastern half of it-the Greek-speaking East-that always loved to split theological hairs in debates that could rage on for decades, even centuries, compared to the more practical Latin church in the West that quickly came up with reasonable solutions.

Now the archbishop’s smile faded into a frown. “Unfortunately, we cannot approve your list as it now stands.”

Jon shot a glance at Shannon that said, Well, our worst fears are nicely confirmed.

“But there will be no problem,” the archbishop added, a twinkle in his eye, “if you will add a sixth condition, which we have written out. It is similar to provision five, but stronger.” He handed Jon and Shannon the second document. 6. Except in the case of heretical writings, if upon reading the ancient texts in the photographs, a word, phrase, or paragraph appears that seems in any way to contradict, threaten, or imperil the holy, ecumenical beliefs of Eastern Orthodoxy, the text or translation editor(s) must report this immediately to the offices of the archbishop of Athens rather than making that text public. Nor shall they in any way publicize this text but instead promise to keep this information absolutely confidential until it is released by the archbishop.

When Jon frowned a bit while reading, Christodoulos commented, “Please understand, dear friends, that this is not intended as censorship, but rather as a measure that will alert us to give a proper answer for such an item, should it arise.”

Jon brightened. “In that sense, we can certainly sympathize with your concerns, Your Beatitude, since worthless reinterpretations of Jesus and the church that he founded are all the rage in the print and electronic media today. Our sensationalist novelists and theologians would just love to twist some obscure line in an ancient source to discredit Christianity. We’ll gladly accept stipulation six.”

“Fine, then. We shall be happy to write your letter of introduction with the stipulations listed and send it by courier to… Where are you staying?”

“At the Grande Bretagne.”

“Excellent. It will be done.”

As they were standing to leave, Jon, in a carefully rehearsed afterthought, asked, “By the way, Your Beatitude, among the many fine textual scholars in the Church of Greece, who, in your estimation, is the foremost authority on early Greek orthography?”

“Classical Greek or koine?”

“ Koine. I should have specified that.”

“Ah, the language of the New Testament and the early church fathers. Well, this question is very easy to answer. Our outstanding authority here is Father Miltiades Papandriou at Oros Agiou.”

Jon concurred with a smile. “Had you replied with any other name, I would have asked you, ‘Why not Papandriou at Mount Athos?’”

“So then, you were only ‘testing me,’ as it were?” he asked. If Christodoulos had been frowning, it would have been a sure sign that Jon had stepped over the line. But the genial archbishop had a broad smile.

“No, it was just a case of reconfirmation. Father Miltiades is famed the world over for his ability to scan Greek lettering and slot it accurately into the nearest half century.”

“Probably the nearest quarter century or even decade!” the archbishop chuckled. “Do you plan to consult with Father Miltiades?”

Shannon quickly replied, “We’d be delighted to do that, Your Beatitude, if that were possible.”

Christodoulos shook his head sadly. “Unfortunately, Madame Weber, that is not possible. Not possible… for you,” he emphasized, then smiled. “But I can easily arrange it for your husband.”

“Oh, that’s right; do pardon my error!” she replied. “No female can enter the monastery enclave on Mount Athos!”

“Quite right, Madame Weber. Perhaps someday that will change, but that someday has not yet arrived. Shall I prepare a letter of introduction also for Father Miltiades, Professor Weber?”

“I would then be doubly grateful to you, Your Beatitude. We would also like his evaluation of a Greek text my wife found at Pella in Jordan some months ago.” The words were out before Jon quite realized what he was saying. What if the archbishop wanted to know more about that text? At least, thank God, he had not used the term manuscript.

“Kalos,” Christodoulos replied. “I shall do so and send the letter along with the other material.”

Jon breathed a sigh of relief and asked, “Do you think Father Miltiades will be amenable to my visit?”

The archbishop chuckled. “ Amenable? He will be grateful to me for sending him an internationally known scholar on the life of Christ, though he will not know he was denied a visit by this very lovely archaeologist who wished to accompany him.”

“You are very generous, Your Beatitude,” Shannon said with a shade of blush, “and we are deeply in your debt. Ef charisto.”

“ Parakalo, my friends. Parakalo.”

After a week in Athens getting approval for subsequent teams to photograph biblical manuscripts at the National Library and the University of Athens, Jon and Shannon revived the tourist aspect of their journey by renting a car and driving northward on Greece’s National Road 1 toward Thessalonica and Mount Athos. The “Holy Mountain” indeed, Athos had more monasteries per square mile than any place on earth.

While Shannon snoozed, Jon was ruminating to himself on the why of monasticism in almost every creed in the world, especially including Christianity. In the Old Testament, Elijah, Elisha, and the other great prophets each seemed to have had a desert experience-either alone or with like-minded followers. In the New, where did John the Baptist, the forerunner of Jesus, hold forth? In the wilds of Judea, of course, though near the Jordan for his baptisms. And Jesus himself? Forty days in the wilderness at the start of his ministry, the background for his famous temptation by Satan. St. Paul? Same story. Following his celebrated conversion on the Damascus Road, he spent almost the next three years in the Arabian desert, gearing up for his ministry.

The lure of the solitary tracts, the wilderness, the wastelands. And not just in Judeo-Christianity. Five centuries before the birth of Christ, an Indian prince named Siddhartha Gautama had left his wife and nine-year-old son for meditation in the forest to explore the meaning of life. And what was a forest, in terms of solitude, but a desert with many trees? He was there for seven years until he finally found the answer while sitting under the Bodhi tree and became the first “Buddha,” or “Enlightened One.” Zarathustra had had his wilderness experience as well, and the list went on and on.

Clearly, you couldn’t be a self-respecting religious luminary unless a desert experience was in your resume, Jon reflected. But why? Probably it was a case of clearer communication with God when one was in the wilds and far from the blandishments and seductions of life in the everyday world. Jon doubted that God spoke more loudly in the desert; it was just easier to hear him there.

Yet early Christianity was very outgoing and social, and for a time it had even seemed that it might be the first world religion without monks. Then, in the third century, a holy man by the name of Anthony fled into the Egyptian desert for a life of solitary contemplation, until the tour buses full of pilgrims, so to speak, arrived from Alexandria to see the holy hermit and the cave where he lived. Others, similarly inclined, sought out caves nearby and eventually monastic communities were born.

Except for anchorites like St. Simeon Stylites, who climbed atop a pole in Syria and sat there for the next thirty-plus years, monasteries were the rule thereafter. It remained only for St. Benedict, in the sixth century, to provide his famous threefold vow of poverty, chastity, and obedience to guide monasticism thenceforth.

But the monastic to whom Jon and his colleagues owed an incalculable debt was Cassiodorus, the sixth-century monk who had suggested that monasteries not only worship the Lord seven times a day and grow their own groceries, but also recopy ancient manuscripts so that priceless information from antiquity would not be lost. And so it was that monks in the medieval world preserved so much of the past tense of Western civilization.

Now they neared Kalambaka on the plains of Thessaly, beyond the halfway point to Thessalonica, where Jon left the main roads for an inevitable visit to Meteora. They had to take in Meteora, of course, and its series of monasteries that were perched precariously atop huge towers of rock. Quite aside from their role as tourist magnets, the monasteries were second in importance only to Mount Athos itself.

“Wake up, Sleeping Beauty!” Jon said as he parked the car at a vista observation point. “You’re about to see something that’s unlike anything you’ve ever seen before!”

Shannon opened her eyes and gasped. Before them was a sight that came directly out of a fairy tale or fantasy novel. Or was it the most outlandish panorama that Disney artists or Steven Spielberg or George Lucas could ever have contrived? It was as if some colossal device in the earth’s crust had extruded broad, thousand-foot columns of sheer rock that loomed so dizzily over the plains below that the Greeks had named the place Meteora, meaning “things hanging in midair.” And, impossible to believe, atop each of these gargantuan sandstone pinnacles was perched a monastery complex.

“When the Ottoman Turks invaded the Balkans,” Jon explained, “hermit monks sought refuge atop these gigantic rock piles, which were quite inaccessible to the Muslim occupiers.”

“How could they ever have built those structures way up there? Wasn’t that in the Middle Ages?”

“Yes, thirteenth, fourteenth century. The story goes that St. Athanasios, founder of the first monastery, was carried to the top by an eagle.”

They both chuckled.

“Well, truth to tell,” Jon went on, “they scaled some of the cliffs by cutting steps into the rock, though often they used long, rickety ladders lashed together.”

“Horrifying!” observed Shannon, who admitted to a touch of acrophobia.

“There used to be more than twenty monasteries here. Now there are six, and only four are still active. As in all branches of Christianity, monasticism is not exactly overrun with applicants.”

“It’s an incredible view,” Shannon said appreciatively. “Which one are we headed for?”

“Our appointment is with Father Simonides, the abbot of the second-largest monastery up there to the right: Varlaam.” Jon pointed up to structures that seemed to belong to the heavens rather than terra firma. Varlaam was perched atop a cliff towering nearly twelve hundred feet above the valley below. “With any luck, he’ll give us permission to inventory and photograph their most ancient manuscripts, and maybe he will even persuade his fellow abbots to do the same.”

As they walked to the base of the enormous butte below Varlaam monastery, Jon pulled out his cell phone to announce their arrival. After many nods of the head and choruses of “Nai… nai… nai,” Jon pocketed the phone and said, “Bad news and good news, Shannon. Which do you want first?”

“The bad, of course.”

Jon was grinning, so even the “bad” news couldn’t be all that devastating. “Well, we were going to drive up to the mesa opposite Varlaam and take the bridge to the monastery, but cracks were discovered at one of the bases of the bridge and it’s closed for inspection.”

“And the good?”

“I couldn’t be happier. They’re going to winch us up in a large netted basket or raft, just as they used to do for people and goods in past centuries.” Jon gestured to the contraption as they walked toward it.

Shannon laughed. “I don’t think so.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m not going. If you are suicidally minded, you can go, Jon. I’m staying here.”

“Aw, c’mon, Shannon. It’s perfectly safe. Where’s your spirit of adventure?”

“Where it should be: next to my feet, which are planted firmly in the realm of sanity.”

“Look how sturdy these lines are-one-and-a-half-inch hemp. Now they’re calling to us from the top. Please hop on board?”

Shannon looked very skeptically at the contrivance. It had a small wooden floor, something like a raft that was covered with netting underneath and along the sides. The netting was bunched together at the top, where it was secured to the main hoisting rope cable. Two smaller ropes were attached to each side to stabilize the rig. It was interesting to look at, to be sure, but hardly worth risking one’s life, she concluded.

Just then, a monk came along to join them for the trip to the top. Smiling genially, he climbed onto the conveyance as if it were an Otis elevator. His confidence seemed to melt Shannon’s qualms, and she finally boarded also.

“Hoist away!” the monk called up in Greek.

Slowly the ascent began. Shannon actually enjoyed the first part of their voyage upward because of the spectacular view. But when they were two hundred feet off the ground, she made the mistake of looking down. She gasped and clutched at Jon’s arm.

“No, darling,” Jon soothed. “Don’t look straight down. Just keep looking out over this once-in-a-lifetime panorama.”

“But what’s that clickety-click sound up there?”

“Just the ratchet wheel on the windlass that’s hoisting us up. You always want to hear those clicks.”

“Why?”

“They prevent the winch from turning the other way.”

“In which case we’d hurtle back down?”

“Well… exactly.”

“Oh, how delightful! I wonder if that’s ever happened.”

“I understand that the windlass works perfectly. Most of the time, anyway.”

“Jon! Not a time to be joking.”

By now they were over halfway up to the monastery. While the view outward was breathtaking, any glance downward was terrifying. They were higher now than most radio towers, suspended between heaven and earth, and held only by hemp cables that looked quite worn. Now they themselves were also meteora.

Shannon was sorry that she had ever let Jon talk her into this exquisite bit of torture. She cast another glance at the hawsers that spelled life or death for them. “How often do they replace those ropes, Jon?”

He turned to the monk and asked the same question in Greek. When he had the answer, he turned to Shannon and smiled. “He thought the last time was when Lord Byron visited Greece in the 1830s.”

Both men hardly concealed their mirth. Shannon pondered which of them to hoist overboard first, but she decided their weight in the basket was beneficial to her own safety.

The monk then added another comment, which Jon translated. “The brother here was only spoofing,” he said. “As good stewards of property, they replace the ropes only ‘when the Lord lets them break!’”

“Not helpful, Jon!” she cried, Jon… Jon… Jon echoing across the entire valley. The men, however, were doing a miserable job of trying to stifle their laughter.

Suddenly the clickety-click stopped and the ascent upward was halted. A wind from the west had arisen, causing their rude gondola to start swinging from side to side. “What’s going on?” she demanded, her hands clammy.

Jon asked the monk, then replied, “He says that you should not be concerned. The machine breaks down sometimes, but they’re usually able to repair it in less than twenty-four hours.”

Her heart momentarily stopped. But then her mood changed to one of steel as she said, “Now listen closely, Jon. If I could let go of the edge of this witch’s basket you’ve arranged for me, instead of my holding on for dear life, these two hands would gladly wrap themselves around your throat until you begged for mercy. And the same goes for your new Greek friend there, monk or not! Now get me out of this mess, and I mean now.”

Realizing that once again he had stepped over the line, Jon admitted, sheepishly, “It was only a little joke, honey.”

The clickety-click resumed, and soon they were at the summit. Though Shannon’s knees were wobbly as she emerged from their netted elevator, she refused to give Jon the satisfaction of accepting his help in ascending the final steps to the courtyard of Varlaam monastery.

“Shannon, honey,” he called. “I’m sorry. Really.”

“Later, Jon,” she said through clenched teeth. Honestly, sometimes she wondered if her husband would ever grow up. As much as she loved the man, there were times she could hardly stand to be within ten feet of him.

A violet-robed warden of diminutive stature extended them a warm greeting, and Shannon tried to arrange her features into a more neutral state. The warden showed them to their quarters for the night, and Shannon was pleased to see that the room was nicely appointed-not the monastic cell she had expected-with twin beds and a window looking out over the valley below. Shannon quickly chose the bed away from that window.

By now it was late afternoon, a golden yolk of sun starting to drop onto the western horizon. The vesper had rung, and the brother monks gathered in the monastery chapel to chant their evening prayers. Jon and Shannon, however, were escorted to the refectory, where they were treated to a simple, though tasty, dinner of seafood broth, green beans, white fish, dark bread, and-of course-black olives. A pungent retsina wine, served in wooden goblets, assured them that they were in the very heart of Greece.

Early to bed, Jon finally admitted to her why their “ascension to heaven” was momentarily delayed. On the cell phone, he had asked the brother in charge of the windlass to halt the hoisting for a minute or two when they were near the top “so that they could gather in a final view.”

“I’m sorry, honey.” His voice was contrite. “I shouldn’t have taken your acrophobia so lightly. I really thought…” He paused.

“I’m listening.”

“I really thought the magnificent view would take your mind off the circumstances. I didn’t mean to scare you out of your wits. Truly I didn’t.”

Shannon took a deep breath. It wasn’t the first time Jon’s enthusiasm had overridden his better judgment, and she knew it wouldn’t be the last. Despite his sometimes-childish pranks, she did love him. And she somehow always found it in her heart to forgive him.

“Okay, Jon. I… I’ll try to forgive you. But if you want a good-night kiss, you’ll have to come over here. I’m not getting any closer to that window than I have to.”

Almost before she’d finished speaking, Jon appeared at her side. She squeezed over against the wall to make room for him on the narrow bed. He snuggled in and wrapped his arms around her. “Thank you, darling. I love you.”

Surrendering to his embrace, she once again thanked God for bringing this wonderful, unpredictable, albeit exasperating, man into her life.

The meeting with Abbot Simonides the next morning went well enough, although it was complicated by the fact that the rotund, white-bearded archimandrite insisted on using his broken English instead of Greek-this in deference to Shannon. In responding to Jon’s manuscript project, Simonides promised to secure the cooperation of the other monasteries at Meteora, but admitted that they were better known for their museums, icons, and relics than their libraries. “Here at Varlaam,” he said proudly, “please to believe it: our museum has a finger of St. John the apostle, and also a shoulder blade of the apostle Andrew, brother of St. Peter!”

Shannon exchanged a glance with her husband that told it all: privately they would share a chuckle over the dear brother’s sincerity, but a simple smile and a nod were far more appropriate here.

“For your purposes, I would go to Holy Mountain,” the patriarch continued.

“That is indeed our plan, Your Grace,” Jon replied. “Mount Athos, in fact, is our next destination. But for the very reasons you mention, the collections at Meteora have been overlooked, I think. If you and your colleagues at the other monasteries here took a complete inventory of your manuscript collections, something priceless might yet be discovered and the world would be in your debt.”

The abbot’s eyebrows arched. Slowly he nodded and said, “Yes, we will do this. We will do this. And yes, let the photo people come too and make pictures of our treasures.”

“We could not ask for more, Your Grace,” Jon said.

Shannon knew that he was probably restraining himself from doing cartwheels in his delight. “We also deeply appreciate your hospitality at Varlaam,” Shannon added. “Ef charisto!”

“Parakalo!” Abbot Simonides replied. “It is nothing. It is nothing.”

“ Ouxi! In fact, it is everything,” Jon commented.

Shannon’s favorite memory of their visit to Varlaam was when the abbot announced, in parting, that the crack at the base of the pedestrian bridge from the monastery to the adjoining plateau had been repaired, and that Varlaam’s service vehicle would drive them down to their car. She would not have to risk her life again on that netted raft, since the trip down the cliffside would have been even more terrifying, she assumed, a virtual descent into hell.

God was good! Her husband, on the other hand? Well, the jury was still out in his case.

On the drive northward to Saloniki-as Greeks referred to their second-largest city, Thessalonica-Jon gave Shannon the gist of the phone call he had put in to Marylou Kaiser. To his surprise, sales of the Arabic translation of his Jesus book were booming in moderate Muslim nations like Morocco, Egypt, and Jordan, with brisk success even in Syria, Iraq, Pakistan, and Indonesia-and not just as fuel for book burning.

“Then again, chalk it up to controversy, Marylou,” he had said. “Controversy is always the mother’s milk of sales.”

“But it may be more than that, Dr. Weber,” his secretary had replied. “Because of your other comments on Islam in that chapter, all sorts of debates are springing up between Muslims and Christians in various cities here, including Boston.”

“Nothing wrong with that-so long as it remains dialogue and no one gets steamed. By the way, anything from the Iranians?”

“Do you mean, has your fatwa been lifted?”

“Yeah, I guess that’s what I mean.”

“No. Which reminds me, Mr. Dillingham-the CIA, you’ll recall-has phoned several times to complain that you aren’t checking in with their operatives in Greece, as you should have.”

“Darn. I plumb forgot. But hey, I haven’t been assassinated yet, have I?”

“That’s so comforting, Dr. Weber. Now please do the right thing?”

“I promise. Oh, and please ask Osman al-Ghazali to try and monitor some of those Christian-Muslim debates and get back to me, okay?”

Shannon had not worried about the fatwa for several days, but Jon’s mention of it restored a furrow or two to her brow. He saw it and immediately switched the subject to their favorite topic of late: the five leaves of brown parchment that had such explosive implications-provided they were authentic and could be dated.

“Those just have to be pages from Hegesippus’s lost memoirs, honey. And no, you don’t have to ask if I packed them. The attache case went into the trunk first.”

“Let me play devil’s advocate, Jon, and ask why you seem to be so sure that this is material from Hegesippus. After all, those pages are anonymous-no author’s name anywhere.”

“True enough. But they provide new detail on the death of James the Just that doesn’t appear anywhere else. So when Eusebius states that he got his information from Hegesippus, and the expanded version of this material shows up inside Eusebius just at that passage where Eusebius tells of the death of James, I think any scholar would support our conclusion that yes, this obviously older text must come from Hegesippus.”

She nodded. “I only hope the experts agree, especially because of what Hegesippus wrote about the Canon.”

“Yessss!” Jon dragged out the sibilants in his enthusiasm. He would never forget the tidal wave of excitement that had splashed over them both in Cambridge when they read the passage: After blessed Luke wrote his first treatise to Theophilus, which we call Luke’s Gospel, and his second treatise to Theophilus, which we call the Acts of the Apostles, he wrote yet a third treatise to the same person, which we call the Second Acts of the Apostles.

“Second Acts, Shannon, Second Acts!”

She beamed as if it were fresh news. “No less than a missing book of the New Testament!”

“What do you think Luke wrote in the second book of Acts?”

“I think it’s obvious, Jon. He must have finished off St. Paul’s story, since he really leaves us hanging in the last verse of Acts, where Paul is in Rome for two years, waiting for his trial before Nero.”

“True. Luke loved reporting about trials-think how many times Paul shows up before Greek and Roman authorities in the book of Acts. Wild horses couldn’t have prevented him from telling about Paul’s biggest trial of all-before the emperor himself. And yet, no report of it in Acts.”

“So that’s why he must have told of it in Second Acts.”

“Exactly. I’d give my left arm-no, maybe both-if I could find that third treatise, O Theophilus.”

“Think it will ever be found?”

“Unlikely. Nobody ever mentioned it in other sources from that era.”

“Except for Hegesippus,” she corrected him.

“Except for Hegesippus-if dating those pages can authenticate their antiquity. Which, of course, is why we’re heading for Mount Athos. You and I have dealt with frauds before, but this particular find is different. Concocting those pages would be virtually impossible, and their random discovery all but shouts authenticity. Frankly, the main reason I want Father Miltiades to look at our treasure is less to see if they’re genuine and more to gauge their age-no rhyme intended.”

“Assuming they’re authentic, Jon, how do you think the public will react once we break the news?”

“The reference to Second Acts alone is going to shake the whole world of biblical scholarship.”

By now they were approaching Thessalonica on the national road, the inky blue Aegean Sea to the east and the towering hulk of Mount Olympus to the west, its top lost in the clouds. Jon opened the window and yelled up to the mythological home of the gods, “Hey, Zeus! How’s your dysfunctional family?”

“Jon, have you lost it?” Shannon wondered.

“Shhhh! I’m waiting for his answer.”

“You have lost it!”

“Probably. But we don’t skirt Mount Olympus every day, now, do we?”

They reached Thessalonica in time for dinner at their hotel, the Macedonia Palace, which stood proudly over the eastern waterfront of the city. Jon noticed that Shannon’s ire over his performance at Meteora had moderated, a mood change fostered by the delicious Greek cuisine they were sampling at a table on the hotel terrace overlooking the harbor. Below them was a band shell, where a small orchestra was filling the warm evening air with syrtaki music in general, Mikis Theodorakis in particular. Jon looked at Shannon and found her especially lovely when gilded by the setting sun. He took her hand in his and gave it a gentle squeeze. When she squeezed back, he assumed all was well again and that they could look forward to a beautiful evening.

At breakfast, they discussed Jon’s overnight trip to Mount Athos. While Shannon stayed at their hotel with plans to visit the museums and excavations in Thessalonica, Jon would embark on a ferry for the voyage to the port of Dafni midway down the western shore of the Athos peninsula.

Shannon would much rather have accompanied Jon to discuss the age of her documents with Miltiades Papandriou. She asked, “What about that strange rule excluding women from Mount Athos, Jon? Isn’t it the only place on earth with that restriction?”

“Probably.”

“Well, I think it’s antiquated at best, and sexist, medieval, discriminatory, demeaning, and an insult to women everywhere at worst.”

“I really wish you’d have an opinion on the subject,” he trifled. “But I don’t think women ought to feel singled out by that policy since it applies also to all female members of the animal kingdom.”

Fortunately she caught the slight smile at the corner of his mouth or she would have given it an affectionate slap.

“Wait… I think I made a mistake,” Jon confessed. “They do allow hens on Mount Athos. They need the fresh egg yolks to supply the tempera for painting their icons.”

“How very generous of them!”

“Oh, and feline femmes too. If it weren’t for cats, rodents would overrun all twenty monasteries on the Holy Mountain.”

“And that’s it for females on Mount Athos?”

“So far as I know.”

“But why, Jon?”

“The monks don’t want any of you sexy creatures around. These are holy men, my darling, and they don’t want to be tempted or seduced by womankind. At least, that’s the standard impression across the world.”

“Well, what’s the real reason, then?”

“I still think that what I told you is the real reason. Officially, though, they claim that women would distract them from their prayers and meditations-the higher purposes for which they chose the monastic life.”

She was pensive for some moments, her fingers turning an orange juice glass around several times.

Somewhat warily, Jon asked, “So what exactly are you thinking, my darling? I can see the wheels turning inside that lovely head of yours.”

“Oh, nothing really.” She gave him a teasing smile. “Just toying with the idea of somehow disguising myself as a man and accompanying you.”

“Shannon, it wouldn’t-”

“I could wear jeans, carry equipment, and don a cap to hide my hair. I’d speak very little-using the lowest voice I could manage when I had to-and simply go along as your aide?”

“I don’t think so, Shannon.”

“Why not?”

“Okay, it’d be possible, I suppose, but if you were discovered, it would doom our mission in Greece. By the way, it did happen before, I recall-earlier twentieth century, I think. Some beauty queen who won the Miss Greece title did disguise herself as a man and snuck into Mount Athos. She was discovered, of course, and it wasn’t pretty.”

“What happened?”

“The monks were so outraged they stoned her to death.”

“What?”

“All right, I jest. Her little escapade doomed Greek beauty contests for decades after that.”

Shannon shook her head, laughing. “Well, I wasn’t really serious. It’s just that it’s going to be hard sitting here waiting while you have all the fun.”

“I promise to give you hourly updates by cell phone.”

Shannon supposed that she would have to be content with that. After Jon drove off for the embarkation port east of Thessalonica, she returned to their hotel room to wash her hands. There, next to the wall socket, lay Jon’s cell phone, resting comfortably in its charger. So much for the hourly updates.

Jon was convinced that if ever some precious ancient biblical manuscripts were waiting to be discovered, they would likely be lurking in a monastery archive at Mount Athos. For centuries, the holy men living in these monasteries had devoted themselves to worship, meditation, and prayer, as well as to preserving the relics and manuscripts in their possession. Who knew what ancient treasures lay buried there in plain sight, for those who knew where to look? The authorities at the Holy Mountain were well aware of this potential as well and had begun a lengthy project of cataloging every manuscript on Mount Athos. That was the good news. The bad was this: the process might take thirty years. Jon’s other mission, then, would be to ask Abbot Miltiades if his ICO might send scholars and photographers to Mount Athos to assist in accelerating the process.

Miltiades Papandriou was the hegoumenos -abbot, archimandrite-of Megiste Lavra, the Great Lavra monastery at the tip of Mount Athos, which had the primacy on the peninsula. He was a rare combination of gifted administrator and world-class manuscript scholar. Both Jon and Shannon knew of his reputation long before their trip to Greece.

Attache case in hand, Jon boarded a wooden Greek ferry painted royal blue and blinding white, the national Hellenic colors. He quickly donned sunglasses in order to save his eyesight. Aboard were a curious collection of robed clergy and monks in black, along with supplies for the monasteries. Nothing female was in sight, of course, except for several crates of cackling hens. Jon could only hope that the weather would stay favorable, recalling that a fierce storm had destroyed an entire Persian fleet off the coast of Mount Athos in 492 BC, two years before the great Battle of Marathon. The Aegean, however, was on its best behavior that morning, a placid, quiet sea interrupted only by the chug-chug-chugging of the ancient diesel engine propelling their craft.

An hour into the voyage, Jon reached for his cell phone to give Shannon the first of his promised updates. It was then that he remembered where it was: plugged into his charger at the hotel in Thessalonica. Mentally kicking himself, he quickly glanced down to see his attache case safely nestled at his feet. Evidently, absentminded professors must be selective in what they forget, Jon assumed.

In late afternoon, they sailed into the port of Dafni. Disembarking, the passengers went through a customs check at the port and were waved through turnstiles by a white-helmeted official-all, that is, except for Jon. Because Archbishop Christodoulos in Athens had generously cleared the way for Jon, he had not stopped at the Pilgrim’s Bureau in Thessalonica to get a diamoneterion-a special three-day pass to visit Mount Athos. Each of the other passengers had one; Jon did not. The customs agent, who knew no English and seemed not to understand Jon’s more classical Greek, let fly with torrents of angry shouts at Jon, almost as if he were a female interloper. Next the agent turned his anger on the boat’s captain, evidently for his daring to bring along a passenger without a diamoneterion. As calmly as he could, Jon opened his attache case and handed the official the authorizing letter from the archbishop of Athens and all Greece.

Scowling, the officer had just started reading the letter when a jeep pulled up, driven by a purple-robed monk. The brother stepped out of the vehicle, saw Jon being detained, and then unloaded an even louder torrent of furious Greek at the customs official. The agent took umbrage at that and unleashed a response in stentorian tones, complete with gestures to suit the occasion. Jon had always thought that two Italians arguing after a traffic accident usually set the record for altercation volume. He was wrong. The decibels of this disagreement topped them all.

Suddenly all became quiet. The monk looked at Jon and said in a thick accent, “Welcome to you, Dr. Weber! And please to forgive this unpleasantness. This man’s father was a donkey! I give you ride to the monastery.”

Rather sheepishly, and avoiding eye contact, the customs agent handed Jon the archbishop’s letter and retreated into his guard shack. Jon thanked the monk and climbed into his jeep. They drove southward along the coastal road for a brief time and then headed up into the mountains, where the drive became an adventure. Roads were not paved on Mount Athos but consisted of stabilized gravel. The driver himself seemed to have studied not at a seminary but at Daytona. Whether or not he was trying to impress his passenger, some of his speeding around hairpin curves was just plain dangerous, and Jon expressed his concern as best he could. The driver merely offered Jon a toothy smile, almost as if to say, “Yes, I know; you want me to go faster.” Was this man from al-Qaeda, a terrorist in training?

After twenty harrowing minutes, they skidded to a halt at the Great Lavra monastery, perched at the very tip of the Athos peninsula. Jon stepped out and tried to take it all in: the great gray walls, the fosse, the turrets, the crenellated terraces.

What surprised him most, however, was the unexpected presence of Miltiades Papandriou himself, who walked across the courtyard to greet him, wearing a warm smile that seemed to soften his otherwise-formidable bearded countenance. His spare frame stood erect at more than six feet, his shoulders not hunched over nor his eyes bleary from a lifelong perusal of manuscripts. This man was clearly in charge on the Holy Mountain.

“Greetings in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, Professor Weber,” he said in flawless English. “We are honored by your visit.”

“Quite the contrary, Your Grace. I am the one honored.”

“Ever since we received word from Archbishop Christodoulos that you would come to Mount Athos, many of our brothers have read or reread your remarkable book on Jesus. I think it is a model of excellent scholarship.”

“Thank you, but the chapter on sources rests heavily on your own brilliant manuscript research, Your Grace.”

Miltiades held up the palms of his hands as if to ward off the compliment, then showed Jon to his guest quarters.

At dinner that evening, Jon was invited to give a brief talk to the resident monks in the refectory, which was enthusiastically received. Only because these poor fellows have such limited exposure to diversion of any kind.

The next morning, he was given a guided tour of the monastery, during which he paid special attention to the archives. Archimandrite Miltiades joined Jon in the refectory after the tour, and they both climbed the stairs to his office in a turret overlooking the entrance to the monastery. The office was well insulated from the heat of summer or the cold of winter by books of every description, including the sort that caught Jon’s eye: ancient tomes covered in tattered leather, some with spines missing. Atop the broad desk of polished maple lay a beautifully illuminated medieval codex.

“My-how you say it?-my hobby is to bring out a modern edition of the sermons of St. John Chrysostom,” the genial abbot said, pointing to the codex, “as annotated by medieval monks.”

Jon registered appropriate awe but thought, Why their annotations? Today’s scholars have far more resources for commentary than medieval monks! But he held his tongue; he had more important fish to fry.

“And now, my esteemed professor,” Miltiades continued, “please sit down and let us discuss that manuscript of yours about which the archbishop wrote. First of all, where did you find it?”

“I didn’t find it, Your Grace. My wife Shannon did. At Pella in Jordan.”

“Pella, you say?” The face of the archimandrite brightened. “I’ve always thought that if any important early manuscripts were to be discovered, it would be at Pella. Or perhaps at St. Catherine’s on Mount Sinai.”

“Or Mount Athos,” Jon quickly added.

The abbot smiled and agreed. “Or Mount Athos.”

Jon proceeded to give the whole history of the find before opening his attache case. First he took out only four of the five ancient leaves, then renderings of the writings on them enhanced by ultraviolet, providing a much clearer text. Miltiades put on a pair of gold-rimmed glasses and began reading the Greek immediately, occasionally glancing at the originals.

Minutes passed. Jon said nothing. Nor did his host, who reached for a magnifying glass from time to time and held it over the texts. Silence filled the office more audibly than Jon had ever experienced.

Finally Miltiades looked at Jon and said slowly, “This is quite remarkable. I have read some of these words before. I think it was when Eusebius quotes Hegesippus on the death of James the Just of Jerusalem.”

“Exactly, Your Grace. I wanted you to discover that for yourself, rather than with any prompting from me. I congratulate you on your marvelous recall.”

“It is nothing,” he objected. “But here we have more from Hegesippus than what Eusebius quotes. It tells how Jesus’ cousin Symeon became the next bishop of the church in Jerusalem.”

“Precisely. And this is why my wife and I believe these pages come from the lost writings of Hegesippus.”

The abbot shook his head in astonishment. “This is… this is remarkable, Professor Weber, remarkable! But I had not heard of this discov-”

“Only three people on earth know about these pages, Your Grace: yourself, my wife, and I. The priest at Pella knows about the leaves, of course, but not what they contain. Obviously, we wanted to determine their provenance-and even their authenticity-before going public with them. Hence my visit.”

“Yes. Yes of course.” The abbot exhaled heavily. “To me, it looks as if the writing comes from… well… from as early as… the third century. But wait…”

He reached for a reference book on orthography, which compared Greek lettering styles across the centuries. Now his head shifted from one side to the other repeatedly in comparing the shapes of letters, almost as if he were watching some ancient tennis match. Finally he looked up. “Yes. Yes, it is third century indeed. Here, look for yourself.”

Jon compared the evidence and nodded-affecting surprise only because he had also done this comparison with a similar text on Greek orthography back in Cambridge. But yes, it was important to have his conclusions tested by the world authority on ancient Greek texts.

Their conversation now turned to the origin of the ancient leaves. If they came from the third century, then they could well be a first-generation copy of Hegesippus’s original, which had to have been written before his death in AD 180, the abbot told Jon, confirming what he and Shannon had already surmised. “If that is the case, more such leaves from Hegesippus would be priceless. Did your wife inquire about this at Pella?”

“Most certainly. Unfortunately the priest who was using them to hold his place in an aged copy of Eusebius’s Church History had no idea where they came from or when.” Jon went on to disclose his plans for the ICO to do an exhaustive inventory of all written materials at the church in Pella, pending the local priest’s permission.

Next they focused on the question of authenticity. The archimandrite examined the brownish leaves under additional lamps, using his magnifying glass almost constantly. His scrutiny, however, was fairly brief. He lifted his head and said, “Really, Professor Weber, there is no question but that these leaves are genuine and ancient. I think it would be totally impossible to… to… What is the word?”

“To forge, to falsify something like this?”

“Yes, that is what I want to say.”

Jon smiled appreciatively, almost as if his host had made it all possible. Then he reached into his attache case and extracted the fifth brownish leaf and its enhanced copy and laid them on the abbot’s desk, his own heart increasing its tempo as he said, “This final page, Your Grace, is of such great importance that I didn’t want it to color your conclusions.”

Miltiades resumed his reading, showing no response whatever. Halfway through, however, he looked quizzically at Jon before returning to the text. Slowly, his head turned across each line, which he seemed to read and reread. This time he also had much recourse to the original on the left side of his desk, poring over it again and again.

He finally sat up, shook his head, and muttered, “Thaumadzo!”

Jon recognized the verb from the opening lines of St. Paul’s letter to the Galatians: “I am amazed.” Then a torrent of words poured out of Miltiades’s mouth. “Now Hegesippus is talking about the Gospels and how they were written. After Mark and Matthew, he comes to Luke, and… and he writes…” He grabbed the magnifying glass and immediately translated into English. “He writes, ‘After blessed Luke wrote his… first treatise to Theophilus, which we call Luke’s Gospel, and his second treatise to Theophilus, which we call the Acts of the Apostles, he wrote… also a third treatise to the same person, which we call the Acts of the Apostles, Beta,’ that is, the Second Acts of the Apostles.”

The abbot laid down the magnifying glass on his desk between the original leaves and the enhanced version and was silent for some moments. Finally he said, “Now I know why you think these pages are… are so important!”

“Indeed, Your Grace. They could even mean that there is biblical material out there that never got included in the Bible.”

The abbot made a triangle of his fingers and thumbs and nodded pensively.

Jon continued. “Have you ever found any reference to a third treatise to Theophilus?”

Slowly the abbot shook his head. “No. No, I have not. This… this is astonishing.”

“And it may help explain why Luke seems to break off so abruptly at the end of his narrative in Acts, chapter 28. Here he brings St. Paul to Rome, and the reader can’t wait to read about the greatest crisis in the apostle’s life: his trial before Nero. But Luke seems to do a… a fade-out on us, as Americans put it. No trial, just a few words about Paul preaching openly in his rented dwelling for two years.”

“Ah yes. I’ve often thought that this was the most… the most…”

“Frustrating?”

“Yes, the most frustrating passage in all of Scripture.”

Both were silent for a while. Then a wan smile crossed the abbot’s face. “What a treasure it would be for the church-for the world-if that ‘third treatise’ could ever be found.”

“How very true! But do you think that’s even possible?”

A slight frown furrowed the cleric’s brow and he shook his head sadly. “No, I don’t think so. It would have been discovered long ago and be part of our Bible today.” He paused, drummed his fingers on the desk, and resumed speaking. “But your discovery, I think, will be very helpful to explain why the book of Acts ends as it does. Luke had more to say.”

“Yes. Luke had more to say indeed. This is exactly what my wife and I concluded.”

“Just so. But what are your plans for this discovery? When will you publish?”

“Not until a total inventory of the St. James Orthodox Church at Pella is completed-for obvious reasons.”

“Oh yes, yes. That is very, very important. And I promise you that I will tell no one about this until you give me permission.”

“Thank you, esteemed Archimandrite. I was about to ask you for that favor. If the news ever got out, hordes of amateur scholars and sensationalist sleuths would converge on Pella and crowd out the true specialists.”

“Yes, and probably destroy further parts of this manuscript, if they were discovered.”

After a brief but nourishing lunch, Jon broached to Father Miltiades the ICO’s offer to help accelerate the inventory project at Mount Athos and its many monastery archives. He feared a negative response since the monks there were known to be a fiercely independent lot. One of the monasteries, in fact, had so opposed any ecumenical outreach to Roman Catholicism that it had to be excommunicated from Eastern Orthodoxy.

The genial archimandrite, however, surprised him and said, “This is an answer to prayer, dear Professor. Scholars across the world have been begging us to hurry up, to…”

“Expedite?”

“Yes, to expedite our inventory search. But we have not had enough resources or specialists to do that. But now you come here and promise us both. In the name of the Great Lavra and of all the other monasteries on the Holy Mountain, we offer you our thanks.”

Jon proffered enthusiastic thanks of his own, promising to stay in close touch with Abbot Miltiades. It was a very pleasant way to end his visit. Perhaps it was the mellow mood that actually enabled him to avoid panic on another breakneck jeep ride back to the port of Dafni. On the ferry back to the mainland, he found himself clutching the attache case closer than ever.

After a quick drive back to Thessalonica, Jon stopped at the hotel’s convenience venue to pick up a newspaper. Glancing at the news rack, he was shocked to see his own picture on the front pages of the international newspapers. He snatched up a copy of the International Herald Tribune.

But before he could even read the article, Shannon rushed over to him. “Jon, you won’t believe what’s happened!”

As they hurried to their room, Jon was treated to a string of wifely admonitions about a forgotten cell phone, as well as an inventory of the torrent of messages that had arrived for Jon in the last twenty-four hours, including Reuters from London, the Associated Press in New York, the U.S. Embassy in Athens, and the CIA. Marylou Kaiser and Richard Ferris had been calling every hour. Fortunately no one had revealed their whereabouts in Greece, except for phone numbers Marylou had been all but forced to give the government. Otherwise, the press would have besieged the Macedonia Palace.

“It’s been crazy, Jon,” Shannon said, “absolutely crazy.”

Jon shook his head in disbelief. “So what in the world is this all about?”

Shannon shrugged expressively and threw her hands up. “I don’t know what to say. Just read the papers. I picked up all the English newspapers I could find. They’re spread out on the bed.”

Inside the bedroom, Jon opened the blinds and turned on the light. For all her exasperation, Shannon did have them neatly arranged and crying to be read. On a top row lay the London Times, the Manchester Guardian, and the Financial Times. On the second row was another copy of the Herald Tribune from Paris, as well as overseas editions of the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. All featured his photo on the front page (except for WSJ ’s traditional line-sketch version), but the anomaly hit Jon from the start: next to his photo in many of the papers was that of a Muslim in traditional headdress.

He picked up the Herald Tribune ’s version of the story. It was on the lower half of the front page. WORLD ISLAMIC LEADER CHALLENGES HARVARD PROFESSOR TO DEBATE Cairo (AP)-Dr. Abbas al-Rashid, regarded by most Muslims as the leading theologian in Islam, has challenged Jonathan P. Weber, well-known professor of Near Eastern studies at Harvard University, to a public debate on the topic “Christianity or Islam-Which Is More Credible?” Al-Rashid is the grand sheikh or imam at al-Azhar University in Cairo, a much-published author of books on Islam, especially his widely read Muhammad-A Life Blessed by Allah. “He is preeminent in Sunni Islam,” commented Haroun Nasir, president of the Islamic Council of New York. “I have no doubts whatever that he will win this debate.” Weber is the Reginald R. Dillon Professor of Near Eastern Studies at Harvard University, the founder of the Institute of Christian Origins in Cambridge, and a bestselling author of books on early Christianity. His Jesus of Nazareth, published several years ago, is in its thirty-second printing in the American edition, with twenty-nine foreign translations. One of these, the Arabic edition published several weeks ago in Cairo, contained an error in translation that brought him to the attention of the Islamic world, although the error has since been corrected. No summitlike debate between Christianity and Islam has taken place for twelve centuries. The last such was in the year 781, when Timothy I, Patriarch of the Assyrian Christian Church, held a celebrated debate with the third caliph of the Abbasid dynasty, Muhammad ibn Mansur al-Mahdi. In an interview today in Cairo, Dr. al-Rashid stated, “I must apologize to Professor Weber that I was unable to reach him first with a personal invitation to such a debate. This news is therefore premature, the mistake of a press secretary at our university, who has since been disciplined. I do, however, welcome the possibility of debating Professor Weber, for whom I have great admiration.” Dr. Weber could not be reached for comment. At present his whereabouts are unknown, although reliable sources place him in Greece. The Associated Press promises full coverage of such a debate should it occur, especially in view of its controversial topic.

Jon put the paper down and stared vacantly across the room. He finally said, “This is hard to believe, Shannon. Here we thought al-Rashid was our friend. He gave that wonderful commencement address in Cairo. It helped take the fatwa off my head. Oh, oh, I forgot; the fatwa’s still there but harmless.”

“You hope,” she replied. “Maybe he still is our friend. Notice that he admires you.”

Jon nodded. Then he quickly scanned the other newspaper reports. Essentially they had the same story, though with different local commentary on the merits of the potential opponents.

The phone rang. Marylou Kaiser and Richard Ferris were calling from adjoining phones in Jon’s office at Harvard. Their relief in finally getting through to “the boss” was palpable. They gave a lengthy rundown on the U.S. reaction to the debate challenge, which consumed at least twenty minutes’ worth of transatlantic phone charges. At the close, Jon said, “Yes, we’ll have to fly back. I can’t tell you how much I hate to interrupt what we’re doing since we’re really on to something here.” He swept the papers aside in frustration and sat on the edge of the bed. Raking his fingers through his hair, he forced himself to calm down and focus on the matter at hand. “But let’s convene a meeting of the ICO executive committee for this coming Monday. Of course Osman al-Ghazali needs to be there too. Can you set everything up?” The two easily agreed. “Great! See you soon, then.”

When he had hung up, Shannon commented, “I guess that means you will accept the debate, then?”

“Is the pope Catholic, Shannon?”

“And that our great little tour of Greece is over?”

“We’ll be back, my darling. And that’s a promise.”

The manager at Hertz Rent-a-Car in Thessalonica grew apoplectic when Jon informed him that they would be unable to drive the car back to Athens, as they had agreed, since they had to fly home directly from Thessalonica. Why were Mediterranean types so excitable? he wondered. He could have fibbed that his mother was dying, so they had to get back, but his Lutheran conscience wouldn’t permit it. A couple of American fifties laid on the counter took care of everything instead.

Olympic Air flights from Thessalonica to Athens, then Athens to New York, and finally the Delta shuttle to Logan in Boston, and they were back in Cambridge. Large, dark sunglasses seemed to protect them from the press at the three airports, where they carefully avoided anyone carrying a camera or a nosy cell phone-cum-camera. Lately, though, that seemed to be every other person on earth.

Sunday back in Weston was devoted to unpacking and jet lag recovery. Incredibly the FBI was still keeping their house under surveillance. The government was nothing if not persistent. The phone kept ringing, but caller ID enabled them to answer only the most important calls, mostly from relatives and close friends.

Early Monday morning, Jon stopped at his Harvard office to check the mail, ignoring the almost-continuous ringing of his office phone. Among his letters was an elegant envelope from Cairo that turned out to contain al-Rashid’s invitation to debate. It was in English, not Arabic, very proper, nicely worded, and almost friendly. To Jon, this only compounded the mystery of his challenge.

Then he hurried over to Brattle Street off of Harvard Square, where his think tank was assembling in the board room of the Institute of Christian Origins. Unfortunately the media had put two and two together over the past several days and had the ICO under surveillance. When Jon appeared, they thronged around him until Cambridge police cleared his way. He was bombarded with questions, mostly variations on the same theme: would he accept the challenge to debate or not? Finally he held up his hands for quiet and announced simply, “We’ll have a press release for you this afternoon.” Then he ducked inside.

Osman al-Ghazali was already sitting at the board table, Jon was relieved to see, since his advice regarding the debate would be crucial. Osman was half a head shorter than Jon but likely weighed more. The man had a bald pate that somehow failed to detract from his appearance. He made no attempt to cover it by combing long remaining strands of thinning hair across his bare dome, as happened so often, but kept his remaining dark thatch well trimmed along the sides. His velvet brown eyes always seemed to have a playful quality, and his classes at Harvard were packed, thanks to his excellent communication skills.

Since al-Rashid had supplied his e-mail address in the letter of invitation and had even suggested that they use the electronic medium to facilitate arrangements, Jon opened the meeting by reading the e-mail he proposed to send to Cairo: “Dear Dr. al-Rashid: Thank you for the honor of your invitation to debate the topic ‘Christianity or Islam-Which Is More Credible?’ I am pleased to accept. Perhaps we might first decide issues of time and place for the debate, then draw up mutually agreeable guidelines for our discussion. I would also like to thank you for the remarkable address you delivered at the commencement of al-Azhar University this past June, not only because you were kind enough to give me favorable mention, but also in view of your splendid championing of academic freedom in the cause of truth. Yours is a most welcome voice in the Muslim world.”

“Well, my colleagues, what do you think?” Jon asked.

Heads nodded in approval, until al-Ghazali commented, “What do you want to send there, Jon, a love letter? This man wants to trounce you in a debate!”

Jon was taken aback. “Are you serious, Osman?”

“No, I guess not,” he said, smiling. “I’m just a little ticked that he went public before reaching you.”

“He claims it was someone else’s error. That sort of thing can happen, Osman, right-the ‘error’ bit?”

Al-Ghazali threw his arms up and chuckled. “ Touche! I plead guilty!”

“Okay, then. Marylou, please send this to Cairo. The e-mail address is on al-Rashid’s letterhead.”

“Done.”

Jon turned to al-Ghazali again. “Now, please tell us, Osman, why in the world would al-Rashid issue this debate challenge? We all thought he was progressive, a Muslim moderate who was anything but doctrinaire.”

“Simply because that’s exactly what al-Rashid is.”

“What do you mean?”

“I heard from my contacts in Cairo that he got a tremendous amount of flak after that address you raved about-and it was worth raving about, believe me! But some archconservative mullahs started scheming to have him replaced. He learned of it, and in a steamy faculty meeting, he announced, ‘It is easily possible to be faithful both to Islam and the cause of academic freedom!’

“That led to more hot debate, until one of their reactionaries, who inclines a bit to the right of Genghis Khan, yelled out, ‘Prove it, then! Prove that you are indeed faithful to Islam by taking on that Christian professor from Harvard in debate!’”

“But why me, for goodness’ sake?”

“Glad you asked,” Osman said with a twinkle. “Whether or not you know it, Jon, you are big in the Arab world, big -thanks to that innocent mistake in the Arabic edition that seems to have catapulted you into stardom!”

“Can’t be.”

“Remember those Christian versus Muslim discussions you had Marylou ask me to monitor after you spoke to her from Meteora?”

“Yes.”

“Well, they’re starting also in the Muslim world. Not Christian-Muslim debates so much as Muslim-Muslim discussions on some of the issues you raised in your book. Al-Rashid simply had to put his money where his mouth was.”

Marylou was staring at her laptop when she suddenly raised her hand. “Sorry to interrupt you all, but a return e-mail has just arrived from Cairo.”

“Please plug your laptop into the projector so we can all read it at the same time, Marylou.”

When the screen at the far end of the conference table lowered from the ceiling, they read the following message: Dear Professor Weber: Again I apologize for the premature announcement of our possible debate, and I thank you for accepting. I am certain that you and I can discuss the topic without the high emotion that often characterizes such exchanges, and the result might even benefit Muslim-Christian relations. I would suggest that we consider the event for sometime within the next two or three months. As to place, we would be happy to invite you here to al-Azhar University. I am sure that the Coptic Christian population in Cairo would be glad to welcome you here as well. We are, of course, open to other locations. Yours truly, Abbas al-Rashid

“How come his English is so good, Osman?”

“Who knows? He could have used someone from the American University in Cairo.”

“Well, team, what’s your opinion? Is Cairo a good location?”

“I’d prefer New York,” Richard Ferris said, half-joking. Then he added, “No, I think it’s a very bad location, Jon-bad for your health. Not the climate, but the security situation. Cairo’s the home of the Muslim Brotherhood-many of them jihadists-and of al-Gama’a al-Islamiyyah, the people who assassinated Anwar Sadat. And when you win the debate, they could even take it out on the Copts. Not a season goes by in Egypt without some Christian church getting burned. Plus, it would be al-Rashid’s home ballpark.”

“You seem a little optimistic about the outcome of the debate, Dick.”

He laughed. “Is there any question?”

“You bet there is!” Jon glanced out the windows and saw an even larger media crowd outside. “Uh-oh, time to throw them a fish. Marylou, let’s work up a press release that says I not only accept but look forward to the debate, since al-Rashid will be an excellent opponent, and that it will take place within the next three months at a location still to be determined. Okay?”

“Got it.”

“Then bring it back here and we’ll check it out.”

This set the pattern for other such meetings to come. An international debate like this might come off with apparent technical brilliance-or not!-which only masked the immense amount of preparation involved. Jon’s “cabinet” met twice a week and exchanged hundreds of e-mails with Cairo until everything was nailed down. A long checklist was involved.

The hardest nut to crack was the location. Al-Rashid wanted a venue with a large Muslim population, in order to demonstrate his theology of loyalty yet flexibility within Islam. For obvious reasons, Jon preferred a large Christian presence. They exchanged suggestions for neutral sites or those with something of a religious balance between Muslims and Christians, like Beirut. But Beirut was finally rejected by both in view of the violence that so often and so tragically disrupted that beautiful city.

They finally agreed on a place that brought gasps to Christians but smiles to Muslims: Istanbul, Turkey. Had Jon lost his senses, agreeing to a location that was overwhelmingly Muslim? Not really, he claimed. Turkey was the most Westernized of the Muslim countries and a secular-not religious-state, thanks to Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the father of modern Turkey. Geographically, too, it lay almost at the interface between Muslim and Christian lands.

But it was a third reason that had finally convinced Jon. He received a letter from no less than “the eastern pope,” His All Holiness, Bartholomew II, Archbishop of Constantinople, New Rome and Ecumenical Patriarch, pleading with Jon to have the debate in Istanbul. The Eastern Orthodox Christians there were a small minority and needed all the recognition they could get in that quarter of the world. Although Jon’s advisers were against the idea, he was adamant. The debate would take place in Istanbul. Once that was settled, the other details quickly fell into place and were outlined in a forty-page document. Specific Location: Hagia Sophia, the Church of Holy Wisdom, constructed by the Byzantine emperor Justinian in the sixth century, now a public museum. Date: September 3, two months away. Time: 9:30 a.m. local time, with as much of the afternoon as necessary. Audience: Exactly half Muslim and half Christian; ticket distribution to be administered by each side, independent of the other. Seating: Christians will occupy the western half of the nave, Muslims the eastern half. Moderator: Two will serve concurrently: the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople and Mustafa Selim, the Muslim mufti of Turkey. Translation: Simultaneous translations of the debate will be provided in Turkish, Arabic, English, Greek, Farsi, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Russian, and Chinese. Media Coverage: Live radio and television coverage will be permitted. All cameras and all representatives of the press will be limited to the second-story galleries of the basilica. Publications: All official printed materials resulting from the debate, whether in pamphlet or book form, will be carefully checked for accuracy by both sides against master audiotapes of the debate. Video: Similarly, all DVD reproduction will be mutually approved, and all proceeds from sales of any media products subsequent to the debate will be shared equally by the Muslim and Christian parties involved. Security: Metal and nitrate detectors will be in place at all entrances to the basilica, and no packages will be permitted inside. The government of the Republic of Turkey will have final responsibility for security and will provide same at both the civil and military level.

A sheaf of many more pages covered everything from prohibition of camera flash to how many porta-potties should augment the regular toilet facilities at Hagia Sophia.

In the weeks following, the international media wanted details on every aspect of the debate plans. Apparently they could not leave the story alone. Some of the press reports overdid it, of course. London’s News of the World brought out a headline-it must have been a slow news day, Jon opined-bellowing, MOST IMPORTANT CHRISTIAN-MUSLIM CONTACT SINCE THE CRUSADES! But even the more responsible media often used phrases like “could be historic,” “rather unprecedented,” “huge potential consequences,” and the like.

“All in all, it promises to be quite the event,” Shannon commented after reading through one day’s particularly intense news coverage.

“Mm-hmm,” Jon agreed, “although quite the detour for our research plans.”

Shannon attended most of the ICO cabinet meetings at Jon’s side, and both were aching to report her find at Pella and its significance. But they had to be absolutely sure about the physical properties of the five brownish leaves to ward off any potential claims of forgery. In fact, fraud had reared its ugly head with some frequency in the world of antiquities of late. Unfortunately this could taint genuine finds as well, prompting a “guilty until proven innocent” attitude among both professionals and laity. Inevitably, the more important the discovery, the greater the temptation to call it a forgery.

Shannon flew to Washington, D.C., to deliver one of the leaves to Sanford McHugh at the Smithsonian. “Sandy” had helped them with determinations of authenticity before, and he promised Shannon to have the results of his tests in about two weeks.

For his part, Jon, with Shannon’s permission-it was her find, after all-cut off a small corner of one of the leaves, put it in a lead pouch, and air-expressed it to Professor Duncan Fraser at the radiocarbon labs of the University of Arizona in Tucson. Fraser and his TAMS apparatus-tandem accelerator mass spectrometer-had provided crucial assistance to Jon and Shannon several years earlier through his meticulous dating of a crucial manuscript by carbon-14 analysis.

And yes, Jon did have an ethical problem here. He should first have asked permission of the priest at Pella. But cui bono? To what good? If the priest had said yes, all was in order. If not, one of the best testing methods for an ancient manuscript would be denied. The chances that the priest would even notice a small cut from one corner-no writing whatsoever involved-were about one in a thousand. And even if he had an eagle eye and did notice it, he would quickly see that no damage had been done. It seemed a justified cut.

Jon and Shannon had a larger problem with his agreeing to Istanbul as the site for the debate. With Turkey 98 percent Muslim, she thought it was almost suicidal, especially in view of the fatwa still lingering over his head. Nor was the CIA, which quickly caught wind of it, especially pleased. If Jon would not change his mind, they wanted to review all security procedures in Istanbul and could not promise his safe return.

For his part, Jon defended his decision by pointing out that Turkey was Sunni, not Shiite, territory; he was debating the very person who had called for the lifting of his fatwa; and strict security measures would be employed. “It’s a done deal, Shannon,” he said, “a dead issue.”

Her voice quivered as she warned, “I hope your words aren’t prophetic!”

Jon just stood there, wondering if he might not have made a better choice of words. It was a bad moment.

Maybe things could be salvaged with a little levity. “Well, honey,” he said, “don’t forget that third reason I agreed to Istanbul: the Eastern Orthodox Patriarch begged me to come to Turkey, which wins me some points with him.”

“And why do you need those points?”

“I’m really desperate to get into his archives. Otherwise, he might have said no.”

Shannon merely flashed a wry smile and shook her head.

That, at least, was better than tears.

Jon was not too concerned about preparation for the debate. Although he had not debated often, he could draw on a professional lifetime acquaintance with the sources and histories of both Christianity and Islam, and he was well aware of the unprecedented importance of an encounter like this. No debate of this kind between Christianity and Islam had taken place for centuries. And of course, due to the modern media revolution, the audience for this encounter would dwarf anything previous.

Jon had not read the Qur’an in some years, so it was high time for a reread as cornerstone for whatever preparation he did. Doubtless, his opponent was doing the same with the Bible. Some years earlier, a devout Muslim, hoping to convert Jon, had sent him a beautifully illuminated copy of the Qur’an, along with instructions on how to use it. Read it, for goodness’ sake? Not so fast. First, the reader should always wash his hands before touching it. He should never hold it below his waist. He should never put anything on top of it.

For some reason, Jon had not exactly followed these rules. On the other hand, he had no reason to desecrate it but treated it like the Bible or any other book. A book was a book was a book. Claim more than that, and you’re on to fetishism. He recalled that, in fact, some Christians were also guilty of “bibliolatry,” worshiping the book itself or using it for other than reading as a good-luck charm or talisman against evil.

Or even for fortune-telling, like the fellow who used his Bible for divine guidance on career choices. Praying for revelation, he shut his eyes, opened the Bible, and pointed randomly to a passage. “And he went away and hanged himself.”

Couldn’t be, he thought. I’ll try again.

After repeating the procedure, he opened his eyes and read, “Go, and do thou likewise.”

Impossible! Third time’s a charm. This time he prayed harder, spun himself around three times, flipped through the pages, and pointed. Opening his eyes, he read: “What thou doest, do quickly!”

Jon found the Qur’an about the same size as the New Testament, with a curious arrangement for its chapters: the longer ones first, the shorter last-rather than being placed in chronological order. Much of the historical material covered the same ground as the Bible, but by no means in the same way. There seemed to be dozens of differences, some minor, some major. As he read, Jon wrote down a list of the most important of these, along with locations in the Qur’an through its suras, followed by his own written comments: Noah’s flood did not take place until Moses’ day. (Sura 7:136; 7:59ff) Impossibly late. One of Noah’s sons was drowned because he wouldn’t come along with the rest of the family in the ark. (S 11:43) Nice lesson in obedience! Abraham’s father was not Terah but Azar. (S 6:74) Making him an Arab? Abraham tried to sacrifice not Isaac but Ishmael. (S 37:100ff) To be sure: Ishmael as patriarch of the Arabs. Baby Moses was adopted not by the daughter but by the wife of Pharaoh. (S 28:8ff) Augmenting Moses? Strange for Islam. God struck the Egyptians with not ten plagues but nine. (S 27:12) Zechariah, father of John the Baptist, was not struck dumb for nine months until the birth of John, but only for three days. (S 3:40-41) Interesting sympathy for the voiceless one. Mary gave birth to Jesus not in a cavern-stable but under a palm tree. (S 19:23) Christians believe in three gods: the Father, Jesus, and the Virgin Mary. (S 5:116) Misunderstanding of the Trinity. Jesus did not die on the cross. Someone took his place. (S 4:157) Probably the most decisive difference between the Qur’an and the Bible.

Beyond these differences from Scripture, Jon found the Qur’an even contradicting itself. In Sura 7:54, for example, it took God six days to create the world, but in Sura 41:9, it took him two. And the most notorious, of course, were the so-called satanic verses, in which Muslims were to seek the divine intercession of two goddesses and one god in the Arab pantheon, though later Muhammad was told that this had been Satan interjecting a revelation and that it was thereby abrogated. Salman Rushdie had suffered enough on that one.

At times, Jon was ready to throw down his pen and mutter, “Why even bother debating when the Qur’an has many such problems and is so obviously derivative from prior, biblical sources?”

“Be careful!” Osman cautioned him when he vented such thoughts. “You have to treat the Qur’an very carefully in debate-unlike the Bible-since in Islam, it’s not only authoritative but unimpeachable as God’s only totally reliable and uncorrupted revelation. In that sense, you should compare it not to the Bible, but to Christ himself. Muslims even believe there’s a word-for-word copy of it in heaven-in the original Arabic, of course.”

Jon also noted that many of the prophetic passages in the Bible that predicted a future messiah were transferred from their fulfillment in Jesus and made to refer instead to Muhammad, especially Deuteronomy 18:18: “I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brethren; and I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him.”

Nay, more: Muslims even made Jesus himself prophesy the advent of Muhammad each time he referred to the coming Comforter, as in John 14:16: “I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter that he may be with you for ever.” And here Christians had always thought the Comforter was the Holy Spirit!

Some personal correspondence also took place between Jon and al-Rashid regarding ground rules for the debate. They both agreed not to politicize the exchange or try to make points in the West-versus-Middle East debate as was done so often in Christian-Muslim discussions across the years, since this was to be a purely religious exchange. In view of al-Qaeda and militant Islamic extremism, however, this would be very difficult to accomplish, but at least they could move beyond the “Is Islam a Religion of Peace or War?” question.

The answer to that one, of course, was simply yes, since you could find both peace and war in the Qur’an. But the answer was yes also in Judeo-Christianity, Jon knew, since you could find both also in the Bible. For example, God’s orders through Samuel for Israel to annihilate the Amalekites-“Kill both man and woman, infant and suckling”-were hardly any waving of the olive branch. Still, there was this critically important difference: Jesus never preached violence; Muhammad did.

They also agreed not to use any cheap shots in trying to denigrate each other’s faith, since there were skeletons in both Christian and Muslim closets, primarily due to believers’ not living up to the ideals of their religions. Both traditions had their horror stories. If thoughtful Christians were embarrassed by the Spanish Inquisition, the medieval burning of heretics, or Galileo’s house arrest, thoughtful Muslims were similarly haunted by the Egyptian sultan Hakim’s destruction of Christian holy places in the eleventh century, the mass execution of Christian monks in Tunisia by the al-Muwahhids in the twelfth century, the betrayal and execution of the surrendered Christian garrison on Cyprus by the Ottoman Turks in the sixteenth century despite promises of safe conduct, and the Turkish annihilation of Armenian Christians in the early twentieth century-not to mention all the suicide bombings across the world since.

On the other hand, when al-Rashid wanted even more safeguards, such as no criticisms or negative references whatsoever to either Muhammad or Jesus, Jon drew the line and, as diplomatically as he could, explained that they ought not let their exchange become too bland. He knew, of course, that he had no reason to worry about the personal record of Jesus Christ.

In the case of Muhammad, Jon felt it was high time to reexamine his life story in detail. Unfortunately this was more difficult than in the case of Jesus, since the first definitive biographies of Muhammad were not written until 150 years after his death. The Gospel accounts of the life of Jesus were written within a generation.

Another matter galled Jon. Some years previous, a self-appointed pundit had published a list of the greatest or most influential people who ever lived, at least in his opinion. Jon was chagrined to find that Muhammad, not Jesus, was number one. Why? Because Christianity was cofounded by Jesus and St. Paul, it was claimed. Jesus had to share the honors, whereas Muhammad was the single founder of Islam. Never mind that Christianity had-and has-twice the following.

Unquestionably, though, Muhammad was an extraordinary personality, and his life story was fully unique. Born in Mecca circa 570-though that date was disputed-Muhammad claimed to trace his lineage back to Abraham’s firstborn, Ishmael. Muhammad’s father died before he was born, and his mother when he was only six years old. The orphan shepherd boy was raised by an uncle and early developed attractive moral traits such as never telling a lie, caring for those in need, and managing fiscal accounts with total honesty and reliability. In directing caravan operations for a wealthy widow named Khadijah, he did so well that she ultimately married him, despite being fifteen years his senior.

Jon especially noted that Muhammad was also a meditative and mystic sort who left his family for days at a time for meditation in favorite caves near Mecca, where he experienced dreams and visions. Around 610, when Muhammad was about forty-so his final wife, Aisha, reported-Muhammad was sitting at the mouth of a cave named Hira when a luminous being-he later claimed it was the angel Gabriel-seized him by the throat and commanded him to read.

“I cannot read!” Muhammad replied, for indeed, he was illiterate.

“O Muhammad, read!” Gabriel said a second time.

Again Muhammad responded, “I cannot read!”

When this happened a third time, the angel embraced him so tightly that he could not breathe. Finally he released him and said, “O Muhammad, give utterance: Allah is God, and you are his Prophet!” Additional revelations followed.

Muhammad was understandably shocked, and he wondered if the revelations were genuine. He had his doubts and expressed them to Khadijah. What if an evil spirit or jinn had seized him and these were not the words of the Lord communicated through Gabriel? Worse yet, what if they were satanic? That the revelations ceased for a time only compounded the problem.

At that moment, Jon realized, the future of Islam-and much subsequent world history-hung in the balance. Had Khadijah sided with his doubts, Islam would never have existed. Instead, however, she firmed him up with the assurance that the revelations came from God himself, and that he should be obedient to them.

Muhammad was persuaded, and Islam was born. He preached this revelation on the streets of Mecca. Against the rampant polytheism of the many desert tribes in Arabia, the new Prophet announced that God was one -not many-and that Muhammad himself was the one he appointed to proclaim this message.

At first, few paid him any heed, not even relatives or members of his own Quraish tribe. He was called crazy, a liar, and a sorcerer, and once, while he was at prayer, dung and bloody camel intestines were dropped onto his back-until removed by his daughter Fatima. His small following was scorned by the wealthy merchants who controlled the city government at Mecca. They were particularly worried that Muhammad’s new teaching would undermine all the pilgrimages that took place to visit the great Kaaba situated at the center of Mecca. That black rock was home to the many desert spirits of Arab polytheism, and its sacredness would be doomed were people to believe Muhammad’s message.

Still, more and more people in Mecca were accepting Muhammad’s message, and so the merchants now decided on a violent solution. Warned in time, Muhammad and his companions, or disciples, fled from Mecca to Medina, some two hundred miles due north of Mecca. The flight, called the Hijirah, took place in 622, which became year one in the Muslim calendar.

The people of Medina, not controlled by a merchant aristocracy, eagerly accepted Muhammad’s message, and the first mosque was built there. Now he could deal from a position of growing political strength. The pagan Quraish in Mecca tried to halt the spread of Islam by military action, and Islam’s first battle took place at Badr, an oasis halfway between Mecca and Medina. Although outnumbered 1,000 to 314, the Muslim forces were victorious. Further battles took place over the next eight years, until Muhammad was able to command an army of ten thousand, which advanced on Mecca. When the dust settled, the Meccans, tired of war, accepted Muhammad, especially in view of his promise to give the Kaaba a major future role in Islam.

He entered Mecca triumphantly in 630 and formally cleansed the Kaaba of its evil spirits. Then he made it an obligation for every Muslim at least once in a lifetime to make a pilgrimage to Mecca to visit the Kaaba, if physically and financially able. Jon knew that if he himself were a Muslim and made the hajj-the pilgrimage-he could thenceforth be known as Jonathan Hajji-Weber.

Muhammad issued a general amnesty to his opponents in Mecca, which only added to his reputation, and a firestorm of conversion to Islam swept across Arabia. The polytheistic desert tribes had been looking for something to unite them, and Muhammad now provided that.

But his own lifestyle seemed to go beyond his teachings, Jon noted. His male followers were limited to no more than four wives-actually making something of a women’s liberator of Muhammad, strange as that may seem, since previously there had been no limit to the number of wives a man might have. But did Muhammad limit himself to four? He was faithful to Khadijah for as long as she lived, but when she died, the Prophet married no fewer than eleven other wives. One of them, Zainab, had been the wife of an adopted son, who willingly stepped aside when he learned of the Prophet’s interest in her. Muhammad’s last wife-little Aisha-was just six years old when he married her, but nine when the marriage was consummated. And it was in her arms that the sixty-three-year-old Prophet died at Medina in 632, where he was also buried.

Jon now pondered a dilemma. How many of the questionable details in Muhammad’s life would be off-limits for discussion in the debate because, were they discussed, they could cause riots worldwide? In contrast, he thought wryly of all the current attacks on Jesus and the church that he founded. In the world’s new double standard, evidently it was politically correct to attack only Christianity but no other religion on earth. Not fair. Not fair at all.

Imagine if a distorting book like The Da Vinci Code had targeted Muhammad instead of Jesus. The fatwa imposed on the author would have been far more lethal than was his, Jon knew-at least to date. In Christianity, at least, multiple targets-like Jesus, Paul, Peter, John, or Luke-helped cushion the attack. In Islam, there was only one person and one book: Muhammad and the Qur’an. Both were regarded by pious Muslims with sacrosanct awe and were barred to criticism of any kind. He was preparing for a debate with the cards stacked against him, Jon finally realized.

While Muhammad’s wives should have been fair game in the forthcoming debate, Jon wondered whether to play that card. He knew the Muslim response. The marriages were conducted for political and social reasons, such as to give protection for women in need of such; most of the women were nonvirgins-if that could be considered justification-and Henry VIII’s reason: Muhammad wished to have a son. And of course, al-Rashid would raise an even more obvious precedent: the polygamy among Old Testament leaders. Solomon, after all, made Muhammad look like a master of restraint when it came to wives.

Perhaps the Prophet’s wives, then, would have to be off-limits. Again, though, how superior was the analogous situation in Jesus’ case, who had no multiple-wife problem whatever-in fact, no wife at all, despite recurring attempts among sensationalist authors to get Jesus married off to Mary Magdalene.

And finally there was the question of whether or not to bring up Muhammad’s fabled night journey from Mecca to Jerusalem. He claimed to have mounted a winged horselike creature and flown to Jerusalem, and thence to the seven heavens-all in one night. While in Jerusalem, he also claimed to have seen the Jewish Temple-a historical impossibility, since the temple had been destroyed by the Romans 550 years earlier. Even his beloved Aisha said that Muhammad was at home that night, and the whole thing was a vision. Since it was not mentioned in the Qur’an-only in the hadith, the traditions-Jon decided not to use it. After all, medieval Christianity also had its own collection of legends.

Other aspects of Jon’s preparation involved direct research, such as wandering into a local mosque and checking out its tract rack. Here there was plenty of free literature, including short biographies of Muhammad, guides to understanding Islam, excerpts from the Qur’an, as well as CDs and DVDs on Islam. Jon stocked up on this material and even left appropriate cash in a contribution box nearby.

What intrigued him the most, however, was a broad display sign across the whole width of the tract area with the words: ISLAM IS THE