Which was how she found herself listening to Dean Archer Fallworth drone on and on about the university grade-point average and student community service initiatives. She did not want to tip her hand about her interest in Murphy until she
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had gotten a sense of how he fit into university life, but now it was time to cut to the chase.
"Dean, how about the evangelical Christians? Are they active on campus?"
Fallworth's eyes narrowed. "Evangelicals? Well, yes, we do have some very"--he waved his hand, searching for the right word-- "energetic members of that particular religious group at Preston. Only a handful, really, but they tend to make rather a lot of noise." He flashed a smile he wanted to appear to be conspiratorial. "What exactly is your interest?"
"Let's just say there's a lot of concern among ordinary citizens that these evangelical groups are getting too big, too scary. I want to find out how a fine liberal arts university like Preston is affected. Institutions like yours as the front line in the battle against bigotry. Our viewers would be interested in that."
Fallworth's smile became a Cheshire cat's grin. "I like to think we do our best. Fighting the good fight against ignorance and intolerance." He clasped his hands together and leaned forward over the desk. "But it isn't always easy. They're very well organized, you know. And some of their leaders are tremendously cunning."
Here we go , thought Stephanie. "Anyone in particular?"
Fallworth pursed his lips. "I don't want to speak ill of any faculty members, of course...."
"Unless it's in the public interest."
"Quite so. Well, there is one professor here who makes it his business to stir up trouble, filling impressionable young minds with the worst kinds of spiritualistic nonsense. His name's Murphy." He winced, as if Stephanie had forced an unpleasant confession out of him. "Professor Michael Murphy."
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Bingo. That was the name Barrington had given her when he'd called two nights earlier. Just a little follow-up, he'd said. To focus the investigation. She had no idea why he was so keen to nail him, but there was no doubting the strength of his feelings. In his icy way, he was practically breathing fire into the phone. And Murphy seemed to be just as unpopular with Fall worth.
He must be quite a character , she thought.
"So, what does this Murphy teach?"
"Biblical archaeology, if you will. His mission is to authenticate the Bible by digging up artifacts that confirm Bible stories. The very opposite of science, in my opinion."
"And has he found any?"
"So he would claim."
"And his classes are well attended?"
"I'm afraid so. Students tend to find him ... charismatic. He's something of a cult figure on campus, and I mean that in the worst sense. Perhaps it's because he's an outdoors type." Unlike real scholars such as yourself , thought Stephanie, noting Fallworth's paunch and pasty complexion. "Rock-climbing, archery, all very gung-ho."
Stephanie stood and gathered her briefcase. "How intriguing. If I'm going to go after these evangelicals, it looks like Murphy's the place to start. So, where can I find him?"
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THIRTY-THREE
THE MAN KNOWN as Talon entered the house and let the screen door shut in Chuck Nelson's face behind him.
As he scrambled to pull open the screen door to this place where Talon said he was living, Chuck was really puzzled. The guy had plenty of cash, whipping out a large roll of small bills at every store, yet he was living in this house Chuck figured was two grades below a dump. It was about twenty miles outside of Preston, so it was not even close to anything except back roads and forest. The porch was sunken to the point of near collapse, there was a leak in the roof over two of the bedrooms, and the bathroom sink had only one faucet knob, and it was crusted with a muddy mix of years of rust and dirt.
Chuck's reflexes were a little slow because he was tired from having driven Talon around for four hours. There were stops in three different megastores--each in a different county,
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miles apart from one another. None of what they bought made sense to Chuck, and it especially did not make sense that they couldn't just buy it all in one place, but Talon made it clear early on that questions of any kind were not part of his routine.
"Start hauling the bags and boxes out of the car," Talon ordered.
"I'm beat. Can't it wait until morning?"
"Haul. Now. School's in session."
Chuck scowled. "What school?"
"Shut up and learn, genius. I'm going to teach you how to shake things up but good in this hick town of yours."
Within an hour, the card table in what once might have passed for a living room was spilling over with torn bags and ripped-open boxes. As Talon showed Chuck how he wanted the crude ingredients mixed, he surprised Chuck by being in a more talkative mood than before.
"That sister of yours, she got a thing for that Professor Murphy?"
"I told you, I haven't spoken to her pretty much since I was in the joint. I'm just living there because I can't afford to be on my own yet, and it's clean, a lot cleaner than this place. But I doubt it. She's just a goody-goody girl, always was."
"What do you know about Murphy, or his wife?"
"Don't make me laugh. You expect me to know something about a teacher and his stupid wife? My sister knew him from church, before she went to college, I know that much. Why are you so curious about Murphy?"
"A warrior always studies the enemy."
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After Talon sent Chuck home for the night, letting him drive the rental car and telling him to be back in the morning to pick him up for a full day of errands, he grabbed his secure satellite-link phone and dialed a New York number.
It took a while for Shane Barrington to answer. "You're not a religious man, I know, Barrington, but get out your sackcloth and your funeral suit. In two days, you're going to announce the tragic death of your only son, Arthur."
Barrington had now come to dread Talon's calls. The only consolations were that they were brief and that the calls were better than visits. "You know you killed my son days ago. Whatever you did with the body, how can I just announce that he died?"
Talon pulled out his checklist, to make sure he did not forget any detail. "It's rather simple. First off, you're rich and powerful, which in this country means you can do whatever you want, pretty much. Why, a rich creep like you can even buy the sympathy of the American public. And that's exactly what you're going to do."
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THIRTY-FOUR
"DO WE NOW find ourselves in the best of times or the worst of times? Show of hands." Murphy stood in front of the lectern. "First, you doomsayers. Who thinks we are living in the worst of times?"
A few students' hands shot up right away, but most looked hesitant to commit. "Come on, folks, your answer will not count toward your final grade. At least not in this course. So, worst of times?" About half of the students raised their hands.
"Okay, now for you more optimistic folks. How many of you feel that you are alive during the best of times?" A little less than half of the students raised their hands. "I'm going to give the rest of you who didn't raise your hand the benefit of the doubt that you are not unsure about whether you're alive at all."
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"So, what's the right answer?" a student in the last row shouted.
"Well, I'm not here to tell you my opinion, despite Dean Fallworth's fears, but I can tell you that going right back to Eve's fall from the Garden of Eden, many people in each generation have believed the human race's best times are in the past, that civilization as they know it, or perhaps as they nostalgically prefer to remember it, is declining, and that even darker times are coming."
A voice rang out, "The end is near!"
"Yes, many of you have probably seen the cliché cartoon figure, the madman storming through the streets carrying the sign REPENT! THE END IS NEAR.
"Well, lots of people consider such belief
so extreme that it's to be laughed at.
"But in most societies throughout history, people sought out signs, gods, idols, superstitions, science--yes, science--to try to get some predictive leg up on exactly what the future held, especially about any dark times on the horizon. In most of those societies, the men and women who could convincingly make interpretations and predictions held a place of honor, at least until they were proven to be frauds or, sometimes, when their unpopular predictions came true.
"The more formal practitioners of this predictive knowledge are called prophets.
"You probably have never met any prophets, but you might be surprised to know that today, many of your family, friends, and neighbors, millions of people of all ages, in all walks of life, in all parts of the country, all believe in prophecy.
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These people especially believe that the end is near, and they believe that the end is near not because of reading the entrails of a goat they have sacrificed in their yard, nor by calling the Psychic Hotline, nor by how their bunions feel in the ram, or secret signals from little green Martians, but because of this book."
Murphy held up his Bible. "That's right, the Bible is not just a history of what happened back in ancient times and a compilation of lessons for how we should live our lives. The Bible also is filled with many prophecies that have already come true and many more prophecies that a huge number of people believe will come true. People who are not crackpots, I daresay. People like me.
"Now, one day, I hope that the university will allow me to teach a course in Biblical prophecy, because I believe it is both a fascinating and an important intellectual discipline, separate from the issue of belief in what the prophecies lay out for us. However, here in good old Biblical Archaeology, I am going to focus instead on showing you how one archaeological discovery, which I hope I am very close to digging up, could help to authenticate the historical facts behind the prophecy that many believe is the most important one in the Bible, the prophecy of Daniel based on the dream of King Nebuchadnezzar.
"Nebuchadnezzar was the greatest ruler in the great empire of Babylon and had at his beck and call the best prophets and high priests of his pagan world. None of them could interpret his dream of a statue, but one of the Hebrew slaves, Daniel, was able to tell him in no uncertain terms that his dream was a vision given him by the one true God.
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"Daniel explained that the huge image in the dream was a statue of Nebuchadnezzar himself, built in four levels. Each of the four levels represented one of the only absolute world empires: first was the Golden Head, representing Babylon; next the silver chest and arms, representing the Medo-Persian empire, which consisted of the two countries that conquered Babylon; then came the belly of brass, which represented the Greeks; and they were followed by the iron legs of the Romans. The closer you get to the present, the weaker those empires became, as you can see by the declining quality of the materials used to render their portion of the statue.
"Prophecy, which is history written in advance, is one of God's ways of proving that He exists. For example, the fact that God twenty-five hundred years ago revealed to Nebuchadnezzar that there would be only four world empires until 'the time of the end' is a miracle in and of itself.
"For, as all students of history know, there have been only four world empires since the days of the Babylonian empire. The most amazing thing is that many ruthless leaders have tried to rule the world, such as Genghis Khan, Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and others. But they all failed. Why? Because the God of heaven said there would be only four world empires until the Latter days.
"Not a bad piece of prophecy, you have to admit, considering it was written five hundred years before Christ.
"And the real reason so many millions study Daniel's prophecy is that based on the accuracy of his account of the past , there is every reason to believe his account of what will happen in our future .
"Again, time and our course work will keep me from going
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into greater detail now, but feel free to stop by my office anytime and I will be happy to explain why this generation has more reason to believe that when you study Daniel's prophecies and others, there are more Biblical reasons to believe that Christ will return to set up His kingdom in our lifetime than in any generation before us.
"But back to where archaeology fits into all of this. I bet it's safe to assume there are some skeptics among you who figure Daniel never lived and his prophecies have no basis in fact. Well, remember in my last lecture I told you about the Brazen Serpent made by Moses at God's instruction, and I showed you a piece of the actual bronze Serpent as proof of its truth as the Bible told it? And remember, I went through the incredible journey of that Brazen Serpent over so many decades and so many different ancient societies, finally ending up, based on where and how I found it, to have been right there in Babylon, in the time of Daniel's prophecies for Nebuchadnezzar.
"Well, while I've called in a much smarter scientist than myself to try to interpret the next clues for me, which will lead to the finding of the rest of the Serpent, I hope, I went back to study the scroll that got me started on all of this, the new interpretation of the life and times of the Brazen Serpent. A much longer life and much more interesting time than we knew about that Serpent up to now."
Murphy brought a slide up onto the screen behind him. "I'm sorry that once again, for you lazybones in the class, the underlying message here is not a religious one; it is: When in doubt about what you're doing, study, study, study, and study some more. I still could not figure out what the connection was between my source for this scroll telling me that it had something
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to do with Daniel and what we had known about the Brazen Serpent.
"Now that I have found the tail of the bronze Brazen Serpent, thanks to a scroll dated from the time of Daniel in Babylon, a scroll seemingly written by King Nebuchadnezzar's most trusted high priest, Dakkuri, I believe that we can place the Serpent in Daniel's time even though the Old Testament never mentions the Serpent after Hezekiah had it destroyed in the Second Book of Kings.
"However, even I would not claim that this is absolute proof of Daniel's historical existence or that it unequivocally helps to authenticate his prophecies.
"Then, as I pored over the scroll, it hit me. Actually, it was when I was taking a break in the lounge, when I passed the NO SMOKING sign I've passed a thousand times before, that it hit me. You know the international slash-through sign for taking all the joys out of everybody's life?
"Well, I thought this mark here over the symbol for the king--that would be Nebuchadnezzar--this line aiming at his head, was just a decay line or some dirt on the scroll. But I realized it was the writer of the scroll doing his version of a NO SMOKING symbol, except he was saying 'no king.' That wouldn't make sense though, for a high priest to be making a sign against his king. After all, what if the scroll fell into his enemies' hands? One look at the 'no king' line there and you can bet there would quickly be no high priest's head instead. Unless, I realized, King Nebuchadnezzar had said it was okay to do away with his own head."
"You mean King Nebuchadnezzar committed suicide?" someone asked.
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"Not suicide as we know it, no, but he did have himself destroyed. Again in the Book of Daniel, we learn that Nebuchadnezzar let the news of his supreme empire, the Golden Head of his dream statue, go to his own head.
"Nebuchadnezzar had the dream statue built and then went mad worshiping himself. After seven whole years, he recovered from being crazy and made amends to God by having the statue destroyed, broken into pieces, much the way Hezekiah had the Brazen Serpent broken into three pieces.
"That's right, Nebuchadnezzar went on a tear--literally-- when he stopped being a madman and was returned to power. He pledged his renewed loyalty to God by ordering all idols and graven images destroyed--including the Brazen Serpent, which he had broken into three pieces again--and his own giant stat
ue of himself. What this symbol of the line coming down toward the king's head has to mean is that Nebuchadnezzar himself ordered the statue destroyed.
"And this is the amazingly exciting conclusion I have realized, ladies and gentlemen. Because I think there is a big fat clue here to a discovery that will absolutely prove that the events in Daniel really took place.
"What the scroll shows us, and what my finding of the tail of the Serpent by following the scroll seems to prove, is that whoever wrote this scroll had secretly gone against King Nebuchadnezzar's orders. He had somehow rescued the pieces of the Brazen Serpent from the royal trash heap.
"And why would Nebuchadnezzar's high priest, Dakkuri, save the pieces of the Brazen Serpent? So that one day they could be rediscovered by some worthy person who would put
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the Serpent back whole, just as Dakkuri did after Hezekiah had destroyed it.
"And because the high priest Dakkuri was going against the direct orders of his king, who had just renewed his faith in God, it seems most likely that Dakkuri did not believe in the God of heaven. He was holding on to some idol. Or I think it's possible that he felt he was getting some special powers, most likely some dark powers, from the Brazen Serpent.
"And I think he's telling us right in the scroll that whoever finds the Serpent pieces and puts them together will be able to plug into the very same powers that Dakkuri believed in and that Nebuchadnezzar wanted destroyed.
"But that's not all. He's showing us something else here in the scroll. That in addition to the special powers of the Serpent, you get an even bigger prize, according to the high priest Dakkuri, a bigger prize that Nebuchadnezzar was trying to keep from the world. Somehow, the whole Serpent put back together will lead you to the other object that this Dakkuri saved and hid away against Nebuchadnezzar's wishes.
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