01 Babylon Rising (6 page)

Nebuchadnezzar found himself gripping the amulet of Anu he wore around his neck. By the gods, how did this man know his inner thoughts so well?

“Yes, yes, all of Babylonia knows of this. But can you tell me the dream, Daniel? Can you restore it to me?” He realized with alarm that his voice was breaking, his habitual tone of command replaced by the fretful whine of a child
.

Daniel closed his eyes and took a deep, slow breath. The moment lengthened and Nebuchadnezzar felt his nerves stretch to their breaking point. At last Daniel opened his eyes, now bright with a new intensity, and spoke
.

“The secrets which you have demanded cannot be declared to the king by soothsayers, magicians, astrologers, or sorcerers. Only the
God of heaven can reveal such secrets.” Daniel silenced his voice as he concentrated deeply
.

“Yes, yes, do not stop now, Nebuchadnezzar shouted
.

Daniel would not be rushed. Finally, he looked calmly at the king and spoke slowly and loudly so there would be no mistaking his message
.

“The God of heaven, in this dream, has revealed to you, King Nebuchadnezzar, things which are to come in the Latter days.”

AS HE WALKED
purposefully toward Memorial Lecture Hall B, Michael Murphy looked like an unlikely academic. Sure, he had the slightly ruffled look of someone who cared more about ideas than outward appearances—the tie slightly askew over a creased denim shirt, an old canvas jacket worn at the elbows, and a pair of sneakers that clearly had some serious mileage on them.

But if you looked a little harder, you could tell from his measured, economical stride, the calloused hands, and faint scars that neatly highlighted his handsome features that this was no ivory-tower dweller. This was a man who was happier outdoors than in—and happiest of all when he was dealing with tough physical challenges.

For just a moment, Murphy found himself wishing that he would be suddenly called away to complete such a physical
challenge.
Any
physical challenge would do. Usually not a man plagued by lack of confidence, all during his brisk stroll through the Preston University campus in the late August heat, he had been getting ready for an embarrassingly low turnout.

Biblical Archaeology and Prophecy had been a late addition to the curriculum. Murphy’s regular lectures drew an enthusiastic audience, but it was a small one. There just weren’t that many students in a university like Preston who wanted to devote themselves to the study of the past—let alone the Biblical past. Then, at the end of last semester, some of the wealthy alumni had put pressure on the university president to have more Bible-based courses for the general student body.

Bless them
, Murphy thought, although it could turn out to be a mixed blessing indeed. The two most troubling negatives were that he would have a lot of explaining to do to the donors if nobody showed up to take the course, and that Dean Fallworth of the Arts and Science faculty absolutely hated having another Biblical archaeology course.

Murphy tried not to be a vain man despite his growing notoriety for his discovery of Biblical artifacts. So far, he had starred in three cable television specials about his work, which had attracted some corporate funding for the department and some revenue-enhancing exhibits at the university museum.

All of that attention brought on the jealousy and anger of Dean Fallworth. There had been several veiled comments by the dean that struck Murphy as being antireligion, but Dean Fallworth was both direct and vocal when voicing his opinion that what Murphy studied and taught was neither worthy science nor credible history.

This from a man, Murphy had pointed out to Laura last week, whose most recent published scholarly paper had been “Button Materials of the Eighteenth-Century Georgia Plantations.”

The positives of getting to teach the new Biblical Archaeology and Prophecy course were that Murphy loved teaching and these additional funds would allow him to wing it with a new course that he had described in his posted syllabus as “Studying the Past, Proving the Bible, and Reading the Signs of the Prophets.”

Here for the first time was an opportunity for any student, no matter what their major, to take one of his classes. His plan was to liven things up by incorporating some of the background video that had not made it onto his television specials, and he figured he would also include viewings of some of his most recent finds.

Still, he had been leery about checking the enrollment before this first class. He had hoped for the best, but a nagging voice said, as it sometimes did when he allowed the real world to crowd in on his frequent thoughts about his studies of the ancients,
It’s the twenty-first century, does anybody care about Hittites in a hip-hop world?

“Well, I do,” Murphy said out loud, not meaning to. “I’m going to have a great lecture even if it’s just me and my slides who show up.”

As the excited buzzing from within became audible, he took a breath and strode into the lecture hall. To his
amazement, every seat was filled, several students had taken up position against the walls, and some were even squatting on the floor below the lectern.

Murphy clapped his hands and the chattering came to an abrupt halt. “Okay, people, let’s get started. We’re dealing with thousands of years of history here, and we’ve got only forty minutes, so there’s no time to waste.” He scanned the rows of faces and wondered what they were hoping for. What were they expecting? And would he be able to deliver it? Spotting Shari Nelson’s bright eyes and eager smile in the first row brought a half-smile to his own lips. At least he had one friend in the audience. If they started to throw things, maybe Shari could calm them down.

“It’s great to see so many of you here, so let me just check that you know what you’re letting yourselves in for. This class is called Biblical Archaeology and Prophecy, and according to the prospectus it’s the study of the Old and New Testaments with an emphasis on archaeological evidence that supports the historical accuracy and prophetic nature of the Bible. Anybody who just got lost on their way to the seminar The Matrix: Movie or Blueprint for Our Future, now’s your chance to sneak back out.”

A few snickers, but no one got up to go. Okay, they were still with him.

“So, what does
Biblical archaeology
mean? Well, let me ask you some questions: Did Noah really build an ark and fill it with two of everything?

“Did Moses really part the Red Sea with a wave of his staff?

“Did a man named Jesus really live and breathe and walk
around the Holy Land two thousand years ago, teaching and healing and performing miracles?

“How can we truly know any of this for sure?”

A slender hand went up at the back of the hall. It belonged to a blond girl with long, straight hair and big, round glasses he had seen once or twice in the university chapel.

“Because the Bible tells us,” she said in a quiet but confident voice.

“And because Hollywood tells us,” another voice interrupted. It belonged to a chunky, dark-haired student with his arms folded across his Preston sweatshirt and a smug smile on his face. “If Charlton Heston believes it, it’s got to be true, right?” That got a few laughs, even a little ripple of applause.

Murphy smiled and waited for the students to calm down.

“You know, when I was your age I was a skeptic too. Maybe I still am. Christians are supposed to take the truth of the Bible on faith. But sometimes faith needs a helping hand. And that’s where Biblical archaeology comes in.”

He pointed to the still-smirking young man in the row just behind Shari. “What would I need to do to prove to you that Noah’s Ark existed? What would convince you?”

The student looked thoughtful for a moment. “I guess I’d have to see solid proof, you know?”

Murphy seemed to chew that over. “Solid proof. Sounds about right. Well, let’s see, when it comes to scientific research, you have to be willing to go wherever the evidence takes you. In just the last one hundred fifty years, there have been more than
thirty thousand
different archaeological digs that have unearthed evidence supporting the Old Testament portion of the Bible alone.

“For centuries, skeptics scoffed at the idea of there being a Hittite nation, as recorded in the Bible, until archaeological evidence unearthed irrefutable proof of the Hittites’ existence. Likewise, the mere mention of the city of Nineveh used to bring laughter and ridicule to the lips of nonbelievers until the entire city was discovered near the Tigris River by the great archaeologist A. H. Layard.

“And yet, to date,
not one piece of evidence has been unearthed that disputes the Bible’s authenticity.”

“Whoa! That’s impressive!” someone called out from the back. The student looking for solid proof still was not satisfied. “I’d still want to see, like, Noah’s rudder if you want to sell me on the Ark being real.”

Murphy smiled. “Well, no one has yet found the rudder of the Ark. But here’s something you might find interesting.”

Murphy clicked his first slide onto the large screen behind the lectern. It showed a box covered by a sheet. The next slide revealed a pale stone box with an overlapping lid beneath the sheet. About twenty-four inches long, fifteen inches wide, and ten inches deep, it still bore the marks of the primitive tools that had been used to carve it out of a solid block of limestone.

“Anyone know what this is?” Murphy asked.

“How about Fred Flintstone’s lunch box,” came a now-familiar voice.

Shari turned and gave the speaker a withering glance before offering her own answer. “Is it a sarcophagus? A child’s sarcophagus, maybe?”

“Good guess, Shari.” Murphy gave her a warm smile. “It’s a coffin all right—a bone coffin. What we call an
ossuary
. Thousands
of years ago, it was a common practice in some parts of the world that after the flesh of the buried dead had decomposed, the bones were dug up, wrapped in muslin, and placed in one of these.”

“So whose bone coffin are we looking at here?” came a voice from the back. “Russell Crowe’s, maybe?”

Murphy ignored the laughter. “Well, let’s take a look.” The next slide was a close-up of the box’s side panel showing its worn and faded inscription. “It says here, James—”

“Hey, Jimmy Hoffa, we was wondering where y’all got to!”

Seemingly lost in thought, Murphy didn’t hear the comment or the sniggers that followed. He was somewhere else. Somewhere far away in time. He clicked to a greatly enlarged close-up of the ossuary panel and began to read from it.

“James … son of Joseph …”

A hush had descended on the hall.

“…
brother of Jesus.”

He let the silence stretch, then turned back to his audience. “In this little box you see here—which I have actually touched—lay the bones of Jesus’ brother.

“Normally, only the name of the father of the deceased would be inscribed on an ossuary
unless
the deceased had another relative who was extremely well known. And no one was more famous, or infamous, than Jesus in that part of the world during that period.

“What is significant here is that this ossuary not only confirms the historicity of Jesus—that is, that He truly was a real figure in history—but it confirms that He was of such notoriety that the family of James identified his dead brother with him.

Once this ossuary is proven to be legitimate, it will prove that Jesus not only lived during this time period, but was a prominent person in His day. Just as He is presented in the Bible.”

As he did every time he looked at pictures of this stone box, Murphy was experiencing a strange, disorienting feeling, as if the thousands of years separating him from this long-dead man had been swept aside, as if they were somehow present together in this timeless moment.

His mood was abruptly shattered by a voice from close to Shari.

“Maybe it says that on the box, but how do we know it isn’t a fake? You know, like all those saints’ relics that used to be churned out in the Middle Ages like cheap souvenirs. Like the Shroud of Turin. That’s supposed to be a fake, isn’t that right, Professor Murphy?”

Murphy looked intently at the questioner. He seemed to be a skeptic all right, but he seemed more serious, more thoughtful, and better informed than the class joker who’d been hogging the spotlight up to then. He noticed Shari had turned to give him a cool appraisal too.

“You have a good point there …”

“Paul,” the student offered, then started to blush, clearly not seeking this much attention in the hall.

“Okay, Paul. Some experts have concluded that the Shroud of Turin probably is a medieval fake. I am not convinced. So, how can we tell the fakes from the real thing? What makes me think that this ossuary really contained the bones of Christ’s brother?”

“Carbon dating?” The response was quick and confident.

“Thanks, Paul. Anytime you want to step up and take over the lecture, let me know. It seems you have all the answers,” Murphy said with a smile.

Paul blushed again, and Murphy quickly realized he’d been too tough on him. This guy wasn’t trying to give him a hard time, he was just that much sharper than the average student.

“Yes, carbon dating is how we can tell almost to the year when an artifact was made or when it was in use,” Murphy continued. “Carbon-fourteen is a radioactive isotope found in all organic objects. Since it decays at a known rate, the amount of C-fourteen remaining in an object can tell us its age.”

Paul looked more sheepish now. He clearly didn’t relish being in the spotlight. But he couldn’t keep his questions to himself either. “Um, Professor Murphy, wouldn’t carbon dating just tell us when the original stone was formed, not when the box—the
ossuary
—was carved out of it?”

“You’re absolutely right, Paul. But inside the box, embedded in minute cracks, we found bits of muslin and fragments of pollen that carbon date to just after the time of Christ—around A.D. sixty And not only that, the inscription was written in a form of Aramaic unique to that time. And if you want
more
proof, microscopic examination of the patina that formed on the inscription proves it wasn’t added at a later date.”