by Vincent Czyz
3: 4
Q
STEPHEN WAS STAYING in a building very much like the one in which Drew lived—four stories, a jumba on each floor, neoclassical flourishes carved into the stone—except that it had been renovated. Painted a shade of terra cotta with burnt sienna trimming and fitted with wrought-iron railings, typical of the better neighborhoods in Taksim.
Drew pressed a button.
“Yes?” The intercom wrapped the professor’s voice in tinfoil.
“Drew.” He was afraid to say more than his name because his voice, like his legs, was still shaky.
“Just a moment.”
A metallic click followed an irritating buzz.
Pulling on one of the steel doors, Drew held it open for Kadir and Zafer.
The professor took Drew’s hand in his bony grip, kissed him on both cheeks, and embraced him as if he were a wayward son finally returned home. The white stubble on the old man’s jaw felt like wire bristle against Drew’s face, but Drew hardly noticed. The professor’s smell—musty, like the wood-and-pulp odor of old bookshops—was reassuring. He wanted to cling to Stephen, take in his professorly smell, absorb some of his wisdom, put the emptiness he woke up with every morning behind him.
“Good to see you, Drew.”
“You, too.” The truth was there was no one he would rather see right now.
As tall as Drew, Stephen was still trim—lean, in fact. His movements were quick, his eyes backlit by a keen intellect, and his hair, now a uniform white, was surprisingly abundant. Although only slightly wavy on top, it made tiny curls behind his ears and at the back of his neck—a touch of unruliness his comb couldn’t tame.
“Kadir,” Drew said, stepping back, “this is Stephen Cutherton.”
“I am glad to be meet you, Hojam.” Kadir shook the professor’s hand.
“Do call me Stephen.”
Drew knew that Kadir wouldn’t; hojam was Turkish for my teacher. And teachers were generally accorded inordinate respect in Islamic societies.
“And this is Zafer.”
“A pleasure.” Stephen smiled warmly.
Zafer nodded as he shook the professor’s hand. “Hojam.”
“Well, shall we get down to business—or should I say up?” The professor led the climb up a spiral staircase, pushing open a wooden door with iron hinges.
Drew followed him in. His hand lingered on the heavy planks as though the grain concealed the secret of the wood’s longevity.
The professor’s friend, a journalist, owned the building and had transformed the fourth floor into a study lined with bookshelves and glass display cases. The room brought to mind a safari hunter’s den except that, instead of animal skins and trophy heads, there were artifacts—a mask from Bali with fierce eyes and tusks curling past the upper lip, a fabulously elongated African head carved out of ebony, a huge crucifix that had been spattered with oil-paint gore.
The wall facing south was almost entirely glass, affording a view of Taksim’s orange-tiled rooftops and, beyond them, the Sea of Marmara. The Midas touch of the sun’s last rays had turned the surface of the water into a sheet of red-gold fresh from the forge, rough and unfinished. The balcony overflowed with fronds and tropical leaves.
Drew sank into the couch. Kadir sat between Zafer and him, still wearing his sagging flak jacket.
“It would be positively indecent not to offer guests tea—especially in Turkey,” Stephen said. “Be so kind as to give me a moment.”
He returned with a tarnished copper tray. Glasses, biscuits, and a traditional Turkish teapot—essentially a double-boiler—were arranged on the tray’s dimpled surface.
“Thank you, Hojam.”
The professor set down the tulip-shaped glasses in front of his guests and poured tea from the top boiler and diluted it with hot water from the bottom. He handed Drew a glass set in a tiny saucer with scalloped edges.
“Well, I guess we should tell you about Tariq.” Drew did most of the talking while Kadir interjected occasionally. This time, Drew included the home invasion.
Zafer said nothing. His hands, which looked like they could swat a horse into obedience, rested against his inner thighs.
“All right then …” The professor put on a pair of glasses. “Let’s have a look at what you’ve got.”
Zafer took a yellow envelope out of the satchel he carried.
Clicking on a lamp next to the chair, the professor slid the photos out of the envelope and held one up to the light. “Excellent photography.” He took a pad and pen from the coffee table and put the pad on his lap.
Drew noticed the prominent veins on Stephen’s hands as he took notes.
After a few moments silent enough to hear the pen scratching paper, the professor began to read.
“The Wicked Priest who rebelled against … or perhaps violated God’s precepts … the Wicked Priest who was delivered by God into the hands of his enemies because of the evil committed against the Teacher of Righteousness …”
The professor looked up. “This seems to be from the Habakkuk Commentary. It is indeed one of the Dead Sea Scrolls. You have the entire scroll?”
Kadir, whose feet barely reached the floor even though he was sitting on the edge of the couch, nodded. “Yes, Hojam.”
He glanced again at the photos. “We have this scroll nearly intact, but, as well-preserved as it is, there are a few missing sections. If your copy is genuine, it’s … well I don’t deal in antiquities, so I can’t estimate a suitable price, but it’s worth quite a sum of money I should say.” The professor handed the photos back to Zafer who exchanged them for another set.
“Hmm. Quite obviously an amateur took these shots, but … legible enough.” Taking up a magnifying glass that had been lying on the coffee table, Stephen examined the photograph more closely. Then he began to write, occasionally crossing out and starting over.
From where Drew sat, the professor was silhouetted by the sun’s afterglow, a few stray hairs burned into translucent amber.
When Professor Cutherton looked up, his mouth opened, but there was no sound. Looking at the photograph again, he shook his head slowly. “Impossible.” He glanced at what he had written on the pad on his lap. “It’s …” He looked directly at Drew, his blue eyes intense. “If this scroll exists, if it’s genuine … I can’t even say what it’s worth in terms of dollars, but it’s worth to scholars is incalculable.”
“What is it?” Drew asked.
“The beginning seems to be missing but … here, listen to this, No one puts fresh wine into old wineskins. To do so would cause the skins to burst, and the wine is lost and so are the skins. This saying occurs in Luke, Mark, and Matthew.” Once again the professor gazed down at the pad in his lap. “But there’s no mention of Jesus or any of the disciples. It seems to be merely a list of sayings. Of far greater significance, it’s written in Aramaic. The entire New Testament is written in Greek. This—” he held the photograph up and let go an old man’s triumphant cackle. “This is an Aramaic version of Q!”
Kadir frowned. “What is Q?”
“My good man, nothing short of the Holy Grail of New Testament scholarship.”
3: 5
NAZORAEANS
KADIR’S FOREHEAD CREASED.
Stephen and Drew exchanged looks; how were they going to explain Q to a Muslim who hadn’t been educated beyond high school?
Kadir seemed to know what they were thinking. “Please tell me what is Q. Why is it important? My friend is dead because of these photographs.”
The professor nodded. “The problem, Kadir, is this: there are four gospels in the Bible. Three of them are quite similar—Mark, Matthew, and Luke. But there are still disturbing differences. Mark, for example, makes no mention of the virgin birth, Bethlehem, or Jesus’ genealogy. Luke and Mark make no mention of Wise Men or a flight into Egypt. These appear only in Matthew. Furthermore, only Matthew and Mark agree on Jesus’ last words. Luke and John recorded something else entirely.
&nb
sp; “Now, while there are all sorts of differences and contradictions among the Gospels, many of the sayings and parables are identical— word for word. Which leads us to conclude that, in the case of Matthew and Luke, which share the most sayings and parables, the Gospel writers had access to a collection of quotes attributed to Jesus. This collection of sayings is referred to as the Q document or more commonly, Q. To make matters more confusing still, there is the Gospel of Thomas, which consists of 114 sayings attributed to Jesus but was never accepted by the Church.”
“These photographs are a Q document?” Kadir asked.
The professor’s sharp chin seemed to tap out an urgent message as he nodded. “Not just Q, Kadir. This appears to be an Aramaic original that was only theorized about by a handful of scholars who believe that Q— not Paul’s letters—comprises the earliest Christian material. However old it is, Q is the foundation on which the Gospels were eventually constructed. Although Q was never found, we are fairly certain it existed. An Aramaic original, however … that’s something else entirely.”
The professor put a hand on one of the photographs. “And this does seem to have been written earlier than any of the Gospels. Of course, that’s just an intuition. I’m not a paleographer, but the Gospels were all written in Greek—as was the Q document used by Matthew and Luke.
“This scroll could be the Aramaic sayings source mentioned by Papias of Hieropolis. Papias claimed that Matthew’s Gospel preserved the sayings of the Lord in Hebraic dialect. But no one has ever been able to discover such a source. While Matthew may have gotten his hands on an Aramaic version of Q, he must have worked from a Greek translation—the same one Luke later worked from. Otherwise, the verbatim conformity we find in various passages in the two Gospels would not exist.”
Drew didn’t think verbatim conformity would mean all that much to Kadir. “In other words, if Luke and Mark each made their own translation from the Aramaic, there would be differences in the sayings.”
The dwarf nodded.
“It’s always been assumed that Q was written by followers of Jesus some time after the crucifixion. But if this manuscript was written before the first century AD, then …” Cutherton smiled triumphantly.
Drew frowned. “But … that’s impossible. How can Jesus’ sayings pre-date him?”
The professor stood and began to pace the room, his footsteps cushioned by a collage of intricately patterned rugs. “If this is a collection of Christ’s sayings written before he was born, it means the entire New Testament has only tangential contact with history.”
“You’re saying … it’s fiction?”
“Why not? It’s not nearly as fantastic as resurrecting the dead or walking on water.” The professor clenched a gnarled fist. “If I just had access to this scroll …” He turned to Kadir. “Do you have any idea where it is?”
Kadir shrugged. “Only Tariq could be know.”
“Do you understand the significance? We are talking about the single greatest find in New Testament archaeology. Christianity will have to be rewritten if … if it’s genuine.” The word genuine seemed to have the effect of a tranquilizer dart shot into the professor’s flank. The sharp angles of his lanky body softened, and his arms sank to his sides. “Forgive an old man’s wishful thinking. In all probability, it’s a forgery.”
“Then why is Tariq dead?” Zafer asked.
“Someone at least believes it’s genuine.” Stephen picked up a photograph and reexamined it. “It could be a clever forgery. There’s simply no way to tell without the manuscript itself. Kadir, are these all the photos?”
“Yes, Hojam.”
The professor eased himself back into his chair, his knees creaking. “I must tell you, I’ve been waiting for something like this” —he shook the photo so that it flapped in his hand—”my entire career. I’ve written my fair share of books, but my last—perhaps my best—isn’t quite finished. I put forward a meticulous argument that, not only was Christ not divine, but also that there was no crucifixion under Pontius Pilate.”
“What?” Drew said. This was how their phone conversation yesterday had ended.
“Until now I was convinced that he’d lived and been executed in decidedly non-dramatic fashion. It seems I’ve still more rewriting to do.”
Drew was shaking his head. “Nothing I ever read led anywhere near such a conclusion.”
“The evidence is sound, Drew, but faith furnishes believers with armor virtually impervious to logic. A scroll like this … only a fool would miss the obvious conclusion.” The professor smiled, his teeth gleaming in the lamplight. “Not that there’s any shortage of those in the world.”
Drew resented Stephen’s gloating. Jesus may not have been the actual son of God, but denying he’d ever been crucified was ludicrous. “Are you out to demolish Christianity?”
“No, Drew, blind faith. I have no sympathy for it—from any quarter. What do you think guided those airliners into New York’s Twin Towers?”
Drew was so angry he looked away. The deepening evening had turned the southern windows into dark mirrors.
“Like the Gnostics, I consider knowledge to be our best hope, not faith.” The professor took a deep breath. “Yesterday I said there was no Jesus of Nazareth. To put it bluntly, Nazareth did not exist when the Jesus of the Gospels was said to be growing up there.”
Drew had known it was a goddamn technicality, but he still wasn’t convinced. “What makes you so sure?”
The professor shrugged nonchalantly. “There’s not a single reference to Nazareth in the Old Testament or the Talmud, which mentions more than sixty Galilean towns. Nor does any historian from the period ever mention Nazareth, not even Josephus. Which is most curious because Josephus lists some forty-five cities and villages in Galilee. Perhaps more persuasive is this: Josephus fortified a town not two miles from modern-day Nazareth. Surely if Nazareth had been a city in Josephus’s time—and the Gospels refer to it as a city with its own synagogue— Josephus would have noticed it. Especially since he was writing decades after Jesus was supposedly executed. Indeed, even if it were only a village he should have mentioned it. What’s more, there isn’t a single letter in the New Testament, including those of Paul, that mentions Nazareth. Mark, who wrote the earliest Gospel, doesn’t either.” The professor smirked. “Well, there’s Mark 1:9, but careful examination has shown that to be a later insertion into the Gospel.”
“Yes, but that doesn’t—”
The professor raised his hand. “Nor does the archaeological record substantiate the existence of Nazareth as a city anytime prior to the second century AD. Even the digs of a couple of Franciscan priests who fancied themselves archaeologists could turn up little more than a system of caves used as tombs. Prior to the second century AD, there were a few farms in the area at best.”
Drew leveled a finger at the professor. “Then how can you explain why the early Christians were called Nazarenes?”
Stephen smiled. “They weren’t. Matthew 2:23 states, And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth that it might be fulfilled what was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazoraean. What Matthew actually wrote in Greek is Nazoraios—which, in English, is not Nazarene at all but, as I said, Nazoraean. This doesn’t link up very well with the Greek for Nazareth, which is Nazaret. More to the point, nowhere in the Old Testament is any such prophecy mentioned! Matthew is simply wrong. Even in Hebrew, Nazareth is Natzrat or, according to a piece of masonry dug up a few years ago, Natsrat. Thus, someone from Nazareth would be referred to as a Natsrati. Again, quite distant from Nazoraios.
“The prophecy Matthew probably misinterpreted is recounted in Judges 13. An angel informs the wife of Manoah, who is barren, that she will give birth to the savior of Israel: For behold, you shall conceive, and bear a son; and no razor shall come upon his head for the child shall be a Nazarite unto God from the womb, and he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines. The nazarite prophesied, however, was Samson, no
t Jesus. Notice how many elements of the Gospel narrative are already in place—divine visitation, miraculous birth, a savior figure, and a nazarite, which in Greek is nazir—there’s your Nazarene.”
“Okay.” Drew nodded curtly. “But no Jesus of Nazareth doesn’t mean no Jesus.”
“Fair point. But be that as it may, Paul of Tarsus—not Jesus—is the de facto founder of Christianity.” Stephen aimed a bony finger in the general direction of the satchel on the couch. “You’ll find him mentioned in that scroll of yours.”
Drew frowned. “The Essenes wrote about Paul?”
The professor stood up again. “If I were to give you a key-word search. it would be a page long—John the Baptist, James the Just, the Ebionites, Ananus, Damascus, Judas of Galilee, Simon bar Giora, Iscariot, the Sicarii, two thousand pigs, the Clementine Recognitions, Serapis, Ezekiel’s Exodus, Philo of Alexandria, the Therapeutae … not to mention The Bacchae and the Nag Hammadi Library.”
Drew’s forehead wrinkled. Two thousand pigs?
“Here we are, after all, in the city of Constantine, the first Roman emperor to profess himself a Christian.” The professor spread his arms as if to encompass centuries of history. “It was Constantine who presided over the debate that divided Christianity for centuries: was Christ mere man or the Son of God? And it was here in Asia Minor that the Council of Nicaea voted to make Jesus God.”
The professor waved a hand. “It’s all in my manuscript. I’ll be happy to give you a copy on disc. I should at least, however, tell you what the scrolls had to say about Paul. It makes clear why he was the actual founder of Christianity.”
As though punctuating the professor’s last sentence, the lights went out.
3: 6
PRIDE WARS
YASEMIN STOOD OUTSIDE smoking a cigarette in the chalky light that made it through the front window of a café. She was uncomfortable meeting Mehmet at Asmali Restaurant because no one they worked with knew they were dating.