Free Rabbi Gabrielle Ignites a Tempest by Roger Herst

him
to scream. What? No document! No scroll! Only three words on a scrap of decomposed parchment! Why had
Matternly endangered their enterprise by summoning him to Jericho
for a few lousy words? He immediately recognized the ancient Hebrew
script similar but not identical to the familiar modern Hebrew
letters used everywhere in Israel. His lips silently spoke what he
read before asking, "Any idea of the context?"
    "Not yet. We'll learn more when we assemble
the other fragments."
    Benoit lips curled in a skeptical gesture
while his eyes scrutinized Tim for signs of how much he was
withholding. Surely, with such a discovery, he wouldn't stop
there.
    "I have three or four more days of work
here," Tim said, deliberately exaggerating because, by his
calculation, he was two days from finishing. "Now that we have the
material digitalized, we must contact Itamar Arad and transfer the
originals to the Antiquities Authority."
    By placing his hand on the sleeve of Tim's
scrub suit Benoit allowed bacteria from his fingers to transfer
onto the sterile garment. "I'm afraid we can't do that." His voice
took on the uncompromising managerial tone he employed with staff
at the École.
    Tim pulled free. "Now hold on. We agreed to
turn over all the artifacts as soon as we had them coded, scanned,
and prepared for study. I've worked like a dog for weeks with this
in mind. My back's killing me. And my feet are so sore I can hardly
hobble back to my cell each evening. If we delay returning this
stuff to the legal owner, we'll look like looters, not
scholars."
    "Legal owner?" Benoit exclaimed. "You say
'legal owner.' Who might this be, Timothy? I hope you're not
suggesting the Israel government just because it's currently the
authority in this region. Running the Zionist state doesn't make
Jews into the rightful owners of Christian treasures. These
fragments are two thousand years old. Where was the Jewish
government when they were written? Rome ruled then, but Rome is
long since gone and can howl its claim of ownership only from the
pages of history books. The people who wrote these scrolls had no
idea that two thousand years later there would be a Jewish
commonwealth here. Had we discovered these texts before 1948, would
we have handed them to the British Mandatory Government? Or the
League of Nations? Or the United Nations? How about consigning them
to the local Arabs? Come on now, Reverend Matternly. Don't be
naive. You can be damn certain we wouldn't."
    "You never made this argument before we entered the cave, Father. I agreed to help
at Qumran only to obtain documents for our study, not our
possession. I nearly got shot. At Qumran, we both agreed that the
Israeli government was the legal owner. Israelis have hardly abused
their Dead Sea documents. On the contrary, they put them on
permanent display for the world to see in the Shrine of the Book.
Today, anybody can read them on the Internet."
    Benoit's irritation showed in a fierce scowl.
"These documents will be displayed under the Star of David over my
dead body. This is undeniably Christian record, Tim, not Jewish
artifact."
    "It's historic documentation that evolved
from the reaction of Jews to the Roman world."
    "I beg your pardon. It's the spiritual record
of our relationship to the Father. I demand that you recognize new
realities. The landscape has changed since we were in Qumran.
Perhaps I was naïve. But that doesn't make me a damn fool.
Christians are the rightful owners. It is literature written by Christians for Christians."
    "And exactly which Christians have you in mind?" Tim asked, sensing his Dominican
cohort had a deeper agenda.
    "Exactly whom?" Benoit barked, as if it were
not obvious.
    "Christianity is a fractured mosaic," Tim
said before Benoit could answer his question. "Place the
stewardship of this document with one faction and the others will
object. The most practical proprietor is a neutral people like
Jews. And let's not forget that Christ was a Jew from the day