The Breath of God

by Jeffrey Small

  He glanced again at Kristin. Not only was he thankful for the help, he admitted that he felt calmer when she was around. She exuded a quirky energy, but she was also grounded. She didn’t have as much at stake as he did, but she was definitely invested.

  “I’m just better with one-on-one discussions, not this circus atmosphere,” he mumbled.

  “Just think of it as training for the day you’ll stand in front of your own class of eager college freshmen.”

  “Well, my classroom won’t have TV cameras.” He jabbed his cane on the sidewalk with each quick-paced step. His mouth had gone dry the previous morning when Billingsly announced that his first exposure to the press, if he accepted the invitation, would be a discussion with Reverend Brian Brady of New Hope in front of an audience of hundreds of Emory students and faculty and broadcast to millions. He’d had only a day to process the problem of the missing photos, and now he had to cram for this. At first he said no, but Kristin had convinced him otherwise.

  “I agree with Professor Billingsly,” she said. “The best way to persuade the monks to release the documents will be to generate a groundswell of international pressure. We can’t do that without the media.”

  “But why not have a panel discussion among scholars?” His voice rose despite his efforts to control it. “Why am I debating a fundamentalist preacher who thinks I’m the mouthpiece of Satan?”

  What he’d read about this man seemed all too familiar to Grant. He was reminded of every Sunday of his childhood: sitting in the front pew of the small church and watching his father’s face red with passion, spit flying from his lips as he urged the congregation to give up their sinful ways.

  “He’s popular and quite controversial. The scholar versus the preacher.” Kristin smiled at him. “It’ll make great TV. Why do you think CNN wanted to host the event?”

  “You make it sound like a prizefight.”

  They were almost to the auditorium, and Grant was getting overheated. He paused to take off his jacket and toss it over his shoulder. He didn’t want to appear any more nervous in front of the cameras than he already was.

  Grant now understood that the fundamentalists would try to turn this event into a circus, the very thing that Lama Dorji wanted to keep out of his bucolic monastery. His best option would be to try to subdue the opposition early on. That was the only reason he’d acquiesced to this rushed-together debate.

  Kristin touched his elbow. “You’ve worked your ass off for so many years preparing for this moment. Don’t worry about style or theatrics, because that’s all this guy is about. You have something much more powerful: substance.”

  Grant stopped abruptly. “Where did they come from?”

  At the base of the steps leading to the auditorium, twenty protestors chanted. His eyes paused on one of the signs held by a middle-aged woman: a poster depicting the figure of Jesus (with long blond hair, like the woman with the sign, he noted) with arms raised, standing in a graveyard. The tombstones listed the deceased: Muhammad, Buddha, Moses, Lao-tzu, Confucius. Scrawled across the top of the poster in blood red ink was printed, “Only Jesus Still Lives.”

  “They don’t look like college students,” he said.

  Grant had greeted a few friends and colleagues on his way into the building, but now he fidgeted in his seat behind the rectangular table on the auditorium stage. The forty-foot vaulted ceiling above the rows of tiered white pews made the obvious point: he was out of his element. Glenn Memorial was not only the largest auditorium on campus, it also doubled as the sanctuary for the Glenn Memorial United Methodist Church, which had opened there in 1931.

  The last time Grant had set foot in a church was ten years earlier, at his father’s funeral, but that had been a small gathering after the scandal, just family and a few close friends. On this night, the auditorium was packed with hundreds.

  Grant tried to focus on the faces of the faculty and students filing into the pews. A few waved to him. The hum of the many voices echoed in his head. He straightened the yellow legal pad filled with careful notes in his precise handwriting, and Kristin poured him a glass of water from the pitcher on the table. Watching the beads of condensation roll down the outside of the pitcher, he regretted his choice of the blue oxford shirt: it would show the sweat he felt start to form on his torso. Kristin wiped a finger along the pitcher, drawing a smiley face.

  “Here, drink this.” She handed him the water. “And don’t forget to breathe, like Kinley taught you.”

  “Thanks.”

  A bright light blinded him momentarily. Shielding his eyes, he saw that a camera on a large tripod in the center of the front row had been turned on. A technician scurried about, making adjustments.

  “Mr. Matthews?”

  A man in his midfifties, with groomed silver hair and a tailored suit, approached. Grant recognized him immediately, although he couldn’t recall his name. He wore more makeup than Kristin, who, incidentally, he’d never seen in makeup before tonight.

  Grant took the outstretched hand. “Hello.”

  “So pleased to meet you too. Charles Dawson, your moderator tonight.”

  Yes, Dawson. The CNN weekend news anchor’s smooth baritone voice was immediately familiar.

  “Nice to meet you, Charles. Easy on me. I’m a TV virgin.” He somehow managed a laugh.

  “Nothing to worry about. We’re not live. We’ll edit out the boring parts.” The anchor precisely enunciated every word that came out of his mouth. “Fascinating discovery, by the way. Looking forward to hearing about it.”

  Remembering Kristin’s advice, Grant took a deep breath and released it, trying to will the muscles in his shoulders to release. Maybe this won’t be too bad, he thought. Dawson seemed nice enough, and he’d certainly be more sympathetic to Grant’s position than he would be to that of some fundamentalist preacher from Alabama.

  A commotion erupted at the rear of the hall. Several of the protestors entered and began to argue with the two campus security guards stationed at the door. Dawson nodded to his cameraman, who swung the bulky TV camera in the front row to film the disturbance.

  “Never know when you’ll get interesting footage,” the anchor quipped.

  Grant watched the bodies jockeying for admission to the closed event. Among them a single figure slipped by the distracted guards and slid into a seat in the rear pew. Short, but broad-shouldered, he wore a crew cut and sat with a military posture. His complexion appeared flushed, as if he’d just run to the auditorium. He doesn’t look like faculty, and he’s too old to be a student, Grant thought.

  Just as quickly as the disruption began, the group hushed. They parted to allow a figure to emerge from the darkness of the night. The camera’s spotlight glinted off the man’s silver belt buckle, which held up his generous but tailored suit pants. The man said something Grant couldn’t hear to the people around him. They beamed at him like groupies coming face to face with a rock star. The protestors then filed silently out the door, with the exception of the military-looking man who remained in the last pew. Grant considered alerting someone, but then he became distracted by Reverend Brady, who strode down the steps toward the stage. Before Grant had entered the building ten minutes earlier, he’d noticed that Brady was speaking to a second camera crew on the building steps. The scene could have come from one of countless movies in which prosecutors postured outside the courthouse before a major trial. Grant had lowered his head and hurried past, unnoticed.

  The chatter of conversation in the auditorium cut to a silent anticipation. Brady shook hands with the audience members in the rows nearest him as he passed, while placing his hands on the shoulders of others, reminding Grant of the president entering the House of Representatives before his State of the Union speech.

  “He certainly can make an entrance,” Dawson said. “This should be fun.”

  Grant was certain that “fun” would not have been the word he would’ve chosen. The brief moment of calm he’d felt a minute ago quickly dissolve
d.

  “Just keep breathing,” whispered the voice in his ear. He felt Kristin’s warm hand gently squeeze his before she released it to take her seat in the front row beside Professor Billingsly. They were positioned directly in his line of sight.

  “Good day, ladies and gentlemen. I am Charles Dawson, and this is CNN.” Dawson spoke to the camera rather than the audience from behind the lectern next to the table where Grant and Brady sat. “Today we bring you an exclusive discussion from Emory University in Atlanta on an explosive new discovery about one of the world’s most sacred books, the Bible. Could a set of ancient documents discovered in a remote monastery in Asia change the way we think about Jesus of Nazareth? Let me introduce you to our guests.”

  Grant heard little of the introduction Dawson gave. Instead, he concentrated on the notes on the yellow pad in front of him. His mouth was dry again. He reached for the glass in front of him. Out of the corner of his eye, he noted the relaxed way the reverend reclined in the chair at the other end of the table, as if he’d just enjoyed a large meal.

  “Let’s begin first with our doctoral candidate, Mr. Matthews. Would you tell us please about the discovery of the texts.”

  “Okay. Um,” he stammered. “Well, you see ...” A wave of heat rose through his body. Although he couldn’t see past the first few rows with the bright lights in his face, he sensed each of the hundreds of people staring at him. He found Kristin and Billingsly, who simultaneously nodded their heads. He glanced again at his notes but had trouble reading his neat handwriting. What had been a clear outline moments before had turned blurry.

  “Excuse me,” Dawson interrupted, “would you move your microphone closer; we’re having trouble picking up your audio.”

  Thankful for the brief respite, Grant reached for the microphone on the table in front of him, but in doing so, he bumped his water glass. With a quick move, he grabbed the glass before it toppled. Only a few drops sloshed out, but the commotion of his reflex caused the microphone to fall to its side, sending a loud pop through the auditorium. After moving the glass a safe distance away, he righted the microphone and moved it several inches closer to his face. The fear of forgetting what he wanted to say was quickly replaced with a new source of embarrassment. He heard giggles throughout the room.

  “Nice save, Grant,” came the smooth voice from the lectern. “No worries. We’re taping. Let’s do it again.” The anchor paused, smiling at the camera until he received a nod from the producer standing by the cameraman. He continued, as if Grant’s clumsiness had never interrupted the show, “Would you mind starting us off with the story of how you found these texts?”

  Grant stared into the audience. Kristin still wore a calm expression, showing none of the panic he felt. He met her eyes. Realizing that he was holding his breath, he slowly exhaled. Leaning to the microphone, he forced a smile that he hoped didn’t look fake.

  “Yes, well, Charles,” he began, and then launched into the brief synopsis of his trip and the discovery in the monastery’s library without mentioning either the location in Punakha or Kinley’s involvement.

  The words seemed to come from somewhere deep inside him, more as a distant echo in his head than from his mouth. He’d rehearsed this speech at least a dozen times the previous evening with Kristin. To his surprise, the more he talked, the easier it became. He unclenched his hands from his lap and began to make small gestures. He described the condition of the dusty books with their thick parchment.

  “How can we know if these documents truly date back to the time of Jesus?” Dawson asked.

  “As of today, we can’t,” he replied to the expected question. “I want to emphasize that what’s been posted on the web is only a preliminary translation of the texts. Drawing any conclusions about their authenticity or age at this time is purely speculative.”

  “Well then, why work everyone up into a frenzy over what might be some monk’s overactive imagination or, worse, an outright fraud?” Reverend Brady boomed. The steely look in his eyes, coupled with a grin that was even whiter than Dawson’s, reminded Grant of one of those Discovery Channel shark shows. Just breathe, he thought. He wasn’t going to be intimidated.

  Grant willed himself to return Brady’s smile. “It took decades after the Dead Sea Scrolls were found before many scholars had access to the texts jealously guarded by a few. But we want scholars to make up their own minds in real time, not after the fact.”

  “Then why haven’t you released the actual manuscripts yet?” the reverend shot back.

  He measured his words carefully. “They’re being kept safe in the monastery where they’ve been for hundreds of years while we discuss with the authorities the procedures for sending a team of experts to study them.” The tension crept back into his neck.

  “Reverend, I take it you have some doubts about the authenticity of the texts?” Dawson asked.

  “Ever since the time of Jesus, people have tried to hijack his name for their own agendas. Just look at the nonsense written about the so-called Gnostic Gospels. This recent find is no different. Just as the Gnostic Gospels were written by heretics well after the events took place, I have no doubt that these Issa texts will be shown to be the same.”

  “But Reverend, how can you make that claim until the manuscripts have been studied?” Dawson asked. “What if they prove to date from Jesus’ time?”

  “Charles, you’re speaking in wild speculation. To date, we’ve seen nothing of these writings. We don’t even know if they exist.” He gave Grant a studied look before continuing. “The whole idea of Jesus learning his divinely inspired teachings from some guru in India is preposterous.”

  “Preposterous?” Grant responded. “Nothing in the New Testament directly contradicts what we found in the Issa texts.”

  “As I clearly outline in my book, Why Is God So Angry?”—Brady lifted a copy of his book from the table and held it directly in the line of the camera—“Christianity is the unique, one and only path to God and to salvation. As it is written in John, chapter fourteen, verse six: ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.’” Brady sighed deeply. “I’m afraid that over these past few years we have been witnessing the consequences of disobeying God’s wishes.”

  Grant felt the blood rise to his head. The pastor had just used the occasion of the first public discussion on the Issa texts to plug his own book! Grant opened his mouth to respond with a few historical examples of the influences of earlier religions on the development of the writings of the Bible, such as the flood story in the Epic of Gilgamesh that was centuries older than the similar Noah story in Genesis, or the liberal borrowing of Canaanite characterizations of God in the early Hebrew conceptions of their own deity. In his mind the Issa texts were no different. After all, Grant thought, religions were created by humans to serve our insecurities and explain our existence, and these creations never occurred in a vacuum. But then another idea came to him.

  “Reverend,” Grant asked, “I take it you consider yourself to be an expert on the Bible?”

  “Son, I’ve been studying scripture since you were in diapers.”

  “Then maybe you can point out for us where it describes what Jesus was doing between the ages of twelve and twenty-nine.”

  Brady opened his mouth to respond, closed it again, and then glared at him. He said, “Jesus grew up with his family in Nazareth, learning to be a carpenter like his father, Joseph.”

  “But the Bible doesn’t actually say that. Does it, Reverend?” Grant relaxed the hands that had gripped his thighs moments before. “Actually, the Bible is completely silent about those years of his life, isn’t it?”

  A quiet murmur spread through the audience.

  Brady’s face reddened, but his voice remained steady. “The Bible is silent on those years because nothing noteworthy happened. But the Good Book is very clear on the most important fact: Jesus was born to the Virgin Mary, as the Son of God, which is why he had no need to travel afar
to become inspired. But then you probably don’t believe in the virgin birth either. Do you, son?”

  “I understand that his birth stories were written in an age when people had little understanding of the science of reproduction.” Grant gestured again with his hands as he spoke. He was on familiar territory now. “The woman was seen only as a vessel for the man’s seed and not as a contributor to the child’s genetic makeup. Now, Reverend, in the Gospels, isn’t Jesus referred to as both the Son of God and the Son of Man?”

  “Those terms aren’t mutually exclusive.”

  “Yet you refer to him exclusively as the Son of God, but he only refers to himself that way six times, and that’s usually after someone else uses the term first. On the other hand, Jesus calls himself the Son of Man eighty-five times. Shouldn’t we be emphasizing the humanity of Jesus: the man he was in history, the influences that led him to his ministry?”

  Brady folded his arms across his chest. “Jesus was a man, yes, but he was the incarnation of God himself, sent here to save us.”

  Grant leaned forward on the table, angling his body toward both Brady and the audience. “Caesar Augustus was regularly referred to as a son of God and as a divine ruler, as were Alexander the Great and King David. Roman mythology, derived from the Greeks, had many stories of gods impregnating women. For example, Heracles, or Hercules, was born from a mortal woman but fathered by the god Zeus—a story the New Testament authors would’ve known.”

  “Nonsense,” Brady sneered. “I think we all know the difference between the word of God and the silly stories of a pagan people.”

  “Do we?” Grant asked. “You’re aware, I assume, that the oldest writings in the New Testament, Paul’s letters and Mark’s gospel, never mention the virgin birth?”