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Balaam's Error

By Michael J. Webb

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CHAPTER 1




The Sinai, October 1948


Benjamin Kingman almost missed the entrance to the cave. But the early morning sun reflecting off a shiny object half buried in the pulverized limestone and marl caught his eye. The tall, wiry Jew bent over and, pulling the soft paintbrush he carried for just such a purpose from the rear pocket of his khaki shorts, he methodically brushed the parched earth away from the partially oxidized piece of metal.
Once he had it entirely exposed his heart beat so rapidly he felt the throbbing in his ears. His whole body tingled with the sudden infusion of adrenaline. "Praise God," he muttered as he squatted down in the dust, "I knew Qumran revealed only a portion of what this ocean of sand has hidden in her depths."
The object was a sword--the type carried by Roman Centurions. Even though he was only twenty-three, he'd been an archaeologist long enough to know a treasure when he saw it.
Carefully, he began to dig some more and within a few moments he'd uncovered another treasure: a goblet made of pure silver. Holding the sword in his left hand and the silver cup reverently in his right, he put his face close to a small, elongated opening and sniffed. The air was musty but not rank. He decided to probe further. Setting the artifacts to the side gently, as if they were objects that could easily be damaged instead of ones that had survived almost two millennia virtually unscathed, he continued digging into the side of the cliff.
At dawn, the air had been cool, about sixty degrees, and there had been a thick, vaporous canopy hovering over the great salt sea, called Bahr Lut, the sea of Lot, by the Arabs. Because of the high concentration of marl in the limestone deposits, and because of the lack of pollutants in the desert air, the yellow-orange rays of sunrise had produced a dramatic and breathtaking scene. The albescent mist was striated with ocher and red variegations that made the mist seem alive. It was as if the mist was a spectral apparition pulsing with blood pumped through arteries of light.
Now, barely three hours later, the hundred degree heat sucked moisture from his body as he worked, like a parasite sucks blood from its host.
After an hour of patient digging, Benjamin had cleared away enough debris so that he could squeeze through the opening. After pausing to take a sip of water from his canteen, he rummaged inside his knapsack and pulled out a flashlight and turned it on to make sure that it worked. Satisfied, he glanced around furtively, then crawled headfirst into the cave.
The diffuse light penetrated the cloying darkness only a few feet. He was still sweating profusely, in spite of the fact that the temperature inside the cave was considerably cooler than the air outside. He took a deep breath and looked around, then walked forward a few feet.
Suddenly, his eyes grew wide and his hands started to shake.
He stared at the bundle of thick linen lying on the floor in front of him for several minutes, then let out the breath he'd been holding and wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. He moved closer and crouched to his knees so as to avoid stirring up the fine, yellow-white dust that covered the floor as he shifted the flashlight to his left hand. He was having difficulty keeping his other hand from trembling as he reached out and grasped the bundle in his right and picked it up gently.
It was heavier than it looked. And as he panned the flashlight over the bundle up close, he realized that it was stained a reddish-copper color in several places. Dried blood, perhaps?
Elated, Benjamin hugged the bundle to his chest and scrambled out of the darkness, into the light. He ignored the implacable heat as he sat crosslegged beside the opening and stared at the bundle. He felt light-headed, almost giddy, and he couldn't stop his hands from trembling. Finally, unable to restrain himself any longer, he unwrapped the linen. "My God, what a find!" he muttered, overcome by his discovery.
Two weeks later, Benjamin stared out the window of his hotel room and knew it was time for him to leave Palestine. Below him sprawled the city of Jerusalem. In the distance he could see the Dome of the Rock, the site of the former magnificent temples that Solomon, Zerubbabel and Herod built. The war had ruined and physically divided much of the once beautiful city. But now, barely six months after the last British ship had sailed out of Haifa, leaving the fledgling state of Israel to suckle at the breast of the politicians, new buildings were growing out of the debris like green shoots in a fire ravaged forest. One day the city would be beautiful again.
He sighed and stepped out on the balcony. The sky was a mosaic of crimson colors, steadily receding light, and gauze-like cirrostratus clouds. On the street below merchants were closing their shops for the evening and people were disappearing into doorways, their lingering silhouettes framed by the long shadows of late afternoon. Time, death, and the desert are unappeasable, he thought as he watched the sun set over the Mount of Olives.
Dusk in the East was peculiar. It had an almost tangible characteristic about it that he had never experienced in America; as if light was taking on corporeal form for a brief tryst with the physical world.
Benjamin knew that the Romans expressed their feelings on the matter by associating the time of twilight with the wolf, usually in a negative context. He smiled, thinking how ironic it was that an itinerant bedouin, nicknamed "The Wolf," had dramatically changed his life.
The previous April an itinerant bedouin of the Taamirah tribe, calling himself Muhammad adh-Dhib, Muhammad the Wolf, had arrived in Jerusalem with a number of what appeared to be very old, brittle, and badly decomposed leather scrolls wrapped in linen cloth. The "Wolf" and his compatriots had been smuggling goats and various black-market goods from the Trans-Jordan into Palestine, hoping to sell their contraband in Bethlehem. They had stopped along the shores of the Dead Sea in order to stock up with water at the only source of fresh water for miles around--the spring of Ain Feshkha. The route Muhammad and his fellow bedouins had followed was approximately the same route that Elimdech and his family had followed traveling from Bethlehem to Moab.
While throwing stones into one of the many limestone caves that had been carved out of the cliffs rising above the arid landscape, he had chanced upon several clay urns that later examination proved had been resting undisturbed in the cave for centuries. Muhammad was sure he had stumbled upon something he could sell; he praised Allah for guiding him to the cave a mile north of the old ruin, Kirbet Qumran. Some scholars believed that Qumran--whose Arab pronunciation was very similar to "Gomorrah"--was the site of the ancient city where Lot and his family resided.
The Wolf had packed the leather scrolls safely away with his other "valuable" goods and headed off to Bethlehem. And that was how the "Dead Sea Scrolls" as they were now being referred to had come to light. Lucky for him he'd been only a stones throw away when the discovery had been made.
A soft breeze teased his disheveled brown hair and cooled his deeply tanned skin. The dry air absorbed the perspiration his body grudgingly produced like an invisible sponge. He licked his chapped lips and his tongue came away tasting of salt.
He rubbed the back of his neck, then bent forward, trying to loosen some of the tightness that had become a permanent com- panion during the last three months in Israel. The long hours of solitary work had paid off, but the significance of what he'd found had been overshadowed by the discovery at Qumran of ancient scrolls by others. It's just as well, he thought and massaged the tiredness from his legs.
A tingling shiver danced a momentary promenade up and down his spine. He turned and gazed over his shoulder and his eyes were drawn, almost magnetically, to the bundle of linen. Inside were the leather parchments that would make him a hunted man if anyone knew he had them. They were rolled up in the corner, beside the sword and goblet, and they pointed at him like an accusatory finger.
With a sigh, he turned his back on the ancient Canaanite city whose original name meant 'foundation of peace' and walked into the room. Lately, his life had been anything but peaceful. When he reached the makeshift desk he'd put together from several old crates and some rough wood planking he stopped and cocked his head, as if he was straining to hear a barely discernible sound. He stayed that way for several minutes, standing silently in the shadows, as the last light of day suffused itself around his body and outlined his lanky form in an orange-red softness that belied the hard tightness he felt inside his chest.
Finally, he sat down wearily and, lost in thought, stared at his journal. His conscience. His salvation. He'd started writing it just after his father died and between its leather covers he'd chronicled his personal war with an enemy older than time. A war between light and darkness. A battle in--and for--his soul.
He stared at the words he'd scribbled across the yellowed pages with such intensity that an observer might have thought that he was trying to decipher some kind of magical revelation hidden between the journal's bindings. And perhaps that was not far from the truth, for the words he had so methodically penned over the past two years were the sutures that bound him securely to the mast of sanity, like Ulysses, and kept him safe from the sirens' call to oblivion.
He'd also transcribed key passages from the parchments into the journal with painstaking care. It had not been an easy task. He'd been so overwhelmed by what he'd uncovered that he'd also been compelled to write a detailed analysis of what the parchments said. Perhaps one day the full story could be told.
The author of the scrolls had chosen to write in Hebrew instead of Greek. Benjamin was not surprised. Greek would not have done justice to the story. Hebrew, Lashon Ha-Kodesh, The Holy Speech of Tongue was nnecessary. In composition, it is simple, pictorial, and poetic. More importantly, Jews believe Hebrew to be the perfect language of God, given by Him to His "chosen people" so that they might communicate with Him.
Benjamin knew from his college studies that Hebrew was already in spoken and written use when Moses and the Israelites came out of Egypt in approximately 1440 B.C.. During the centuries between that time and the time when the parchments were apparently written the language had become more and more refined, until it was a sophisticated form of communication.
He had also knew that in the late thirties a simple alphabetic Semitic script similar to Hebrew had been discovered on tablets found in northern Syria, at Ras Shamra-Ugarit. While he'd been in Damascus, fortune had smiled down upon him. He'd met one of the men who'd worked with Schaeffer and the other Frenchmen who'd uncovered that tablets at the archaeological site from 1935-37. He'd questioned the man extensively over dinner and several bottles of wine one night and had been given some startling information.
"Are you aware," asked the man once they'd finished eating and had begun their second bottle of wine, "that even though Hebrew is the language of the Jewish Scriptures, except for a few passages written in Aramaic, nowhere in Scripture is it referred to as such."
Benjamin nodded. "It's called the 'language of Canaan' in Isaiah, in order to distinguish it from the Egyptian language, and the authors of II Kings refer to it as the 'Jewish language' in order to distinguish it from Aramean."
The man smiled and continued. "Very good, my young friend. You have done your homework. But what I'm about to tell you, I'm sure you don't know."
"Oh? Why is that?"
"Because it's not written in any textbooks. At least, not yet." The Frenchman belched loudly, punctuating his statement and signaling his approval of the meal and the wine, then continued. "Not only did we uncover important data that will shed new light on the origins of the alphabet and the Phoenician influence on a variety of languages, including Hebrew, our excavations of the mound also unearthed an incredible corpus of Canaanite religious epic poetry inscribed on clay tablets . . . in alphabetic cuneiform."
"Go on, tell me the rest," prodded Benjamin as he poured them both more wine.
"The texts are written in Ugaritic and clearly demonstrate the moral depravity and effeteness of the Canaanite culture. They graphically depict the cultures orgiastic nature worship as well as the cults of fertility, replete with serpent symbols and sensuous nudity. Baal, the son of Dagon, an ancient Mesopotamian deity associated with agriculture, and El, son of Baal were the two great gods. Anath, Ashtoreth, also known as Astarte, and Asherah were the three principal variations of the name of the goddess of sensual love, maternity and fertility."
"I've heard of her," interrupted Benjamin. "The Babylonians called her Ishtar, the patroness of sex and war. The name Asherah is mentioned over forty times in Scripture, usually in conjunction with a stripped tree, a pillar, or pole as a phallic symbol."
"That's not the half of it," continued the man, the tenor of his voice suddenly growing somber. "We found tablets in which Asherah/Ashtoreth/Anath is repeatedly depicted as a nude woman sitting astride a lion with a lily in her left hand and a serpent in her right. The lily represents grace and sexual appeal, while the serpent symbolizes fecundity. Her shrines, especially those at Byblos, the ancient Phoenician city twenty-five miles north of what is now Beirut, were temples of legalized vice."
"Wasn't Asherah also the chief goddess of Tyre, over a hundred a fifty years earlier?"
Benjamin's new found source of information suddenly shuddered and grew pale, as if Benjamin had struck a raw nerve, reminding him of something he'd been trying to forget. The man quickly finished off the last of the wine in his glass then feverishly motioned for the waiter to bring another bottle. He stared at Benjamin with eyes filled with revulsion.
"What's wrong? Are you all right?"
The man waited until the waiter had uncorked a fresh bottle of wine and poured them each full glasses before he answered. "This goddess, Ashtoreth, is an abomination."
"You mean, was."
"I said what I meant."
"I don't understand."
"Never mind. Forget it."
"Please. I'm sorry if I said anything to offend you. I was only trying--"
"It isn't anything you said," interrupted the man, suddenly back in control of himself. "It's what's inside here . . . the things I saw at the dig that I can't forget. The things that wake me from sleep in the darkest hours of the night," he added, pointing to his forehead.
"At Ras Shamra?"
The man nodded. "And other digs as well."
"Tell me."
The man stared at Benjamin for what seemed like several minutes, but was only a few seconds, then said, "In Tyre, Asherah was given the appelation Qudshu, or the holy one, as if in some perverted moral sense she was a divine courtesan. She was quite the contrary. Her worshippers, led by male prostitutes called qedishim, or sodomites, glamorized lust and murder."
The man paused, and Benjamin had the feeling he was trying to gain courage to speak about something he found personally repugnant.
"At Ras Shamra, we discovered a tablet, a fragment of what Dr. Schaeffer eventually named the Baal epic, in which a grotesque story is told. Anath/Asherah leads a fiendishly bloody orgy of destruction against mankind. Men, women, even children are butchered without remorse in the most horrible ways imaginable. All the while, this supposedly holy goddess wades ecstatically through human gore--up to her knees at first, and finally up to her throat. Throughout it all, she sadistically exults in her debauchery."
Benjamin grew pensive. He took several sips of his wine before he spoke, giving himself time to formulate a response. "I've heard rumors, of course, that there is a lot of that kind of thing being uncovered from digs of the era. But tell me, as an archaeologist, surely you have seen this type of thing before. Why are you so upset? It's only myth."
The man stared at him with sad, unblinking eyes. "Are you absolutely certain of that?" was all he said.
Benjamin finished reading the account he'd written the day after his disconcerting dinner conversation with the French archaeologist and continued to slowly flip the pages of his journal. He wasn't really reading now. It was more like the past two years of his life were passing before him. The strange and disconcerting things that he'd discovered during the course of his excursions, especially those he'd made out from Damascus, now seemed to make sense. Oddly, he felt both relief and fear.
Regardless of how often his training told him the story contained within the bundle of linen was too fantastic to be real, something inside him knew otherwise. The parchments were a stunningly accurate historical record, written by a man who had lived at the time Pontius Pilate ruled Judea, the southernmost Roman division of Palestine. There was, however, an enigma that could not be ignored.
The story was so detailed that it had to have been penned by someone who had lived through the incredible occurrences. And yet, that feat was impossible. The events chronicled covered a span of history of at least seventy-five hundred years; and no man, not even Methuselah, had ever lived that long.
Benjamin sighed again and reached for the bottle of wine he kept for times such as these, when the magnitude of the revel- ation became a burden his spirit could no longer bear. He poured himself a glass, knowing it would relax him. After taking several sips, he turned to the first empty page and began writing.

October 31st.
Jerusalem.

This month started out dismally for me, in spite of it being Rosh Hashanna. I spent nearly ten weeks of sixteen hour days battling the dust, the heat, and my own frustrations. There seemed to be no end in sight . . .
But, as usual, I'm getting ahead of myself.
Two months ago I received a telegram from George Amos, an antiquities dealer and member of the Syrian Jacobite Church of St. Paul. He informed me that he had helped the Archbishop Metropolitan, Mar Athansaius Yeshue Samuel, obtain and authenticate five very old, very special scrolls.
Even though George's message was brief, there was something about his words that caused my heart to flutter and the blood to pump a little faster through my veins. More excited than I can remember being in a long time, I put everything else on hold and rushed back here from Damascus, all thoughts of finding material for the grist mill of my thesis temporarily displaced.
(There are times, and this is one of them, that I wonder about my choice of vocation. If Jacob were alive he would most certainly disapprove of his youngest son obtaining a Phd. in ancient Semitic myths and legends. I can hear him now: "Why can't you be more like your brother Joseph? At least he is doing something practical. Something I can be proud of."
As usual, father, I don't have an answer for you.)
To continue . . .
It wasn't until after I talked with George face to face that I learned the true magnitude of the discovery. Over one hundred Biblical and intertestamental scrolls, dating from sometime between 50 B.C. and 70 A.D., were found in a cave not far from here, on the shores of the Dead Sea. Our ancestors referred to it as the Great Salt Sea, the Sea of the Arabah, or the Asphalt Sea. I swam in it only once. The water is extremely nauseous to the taste and oily to the touch. I neglected to wash with fresh water after my swim and within a short time my skin was covered with a thick crust of salt.
(Forgive my digressions, but I am at heart a student of nature, and therefore I am compelled to elaborate on those wondrous aspects of God's creation which intrigue me.)
The most exciting discovery to date from Qumran is a parchment that has been given the name the "Isaiah Scroll."
Unearthing a complete document of a Biblical manuscript has created a storm of sensation; not only because it's the first major Biblical manuscript of antiquity ever to have been found, but also because it is more than a thousand years older than the oldest Hebrew texts preserved in the Massoretic tradition. They are the basis for all recent Biblical translations and only go back as far as 900 A.D.
Needless to say, I was distraught at the possibility that I had missed the opportunity of a lifetime. Not since von Tischendorf discovered the Codex Sinaiticus, in the monastery built by Justinian at the foot of Gebel Musa, has there been such excitement in the world archaeological community.
(I've been to the monastery, now dedicated to St. Catherine of Alexandria, and I've seen and read a few of the three thousand manuscripts in the library, some of which are older than the monastery itself. They're breathtaking!)
George put me in touch with a friend of his who is highly placed in the government and I pleaded with him to help me get a permit to work the Qumran site. Unfortunately, my requests were categorically denied. And that is why I resolved to strike out on my own.
After six weeks of hard work, just five days after Yom Kippur, God rewarded my tenacity . . .

Benjamin reached for the wine bottle and grunted when he realized it was empty. He blinked and shook his head to clear away fatigue, then leaned back in the chair.
The sun had set and darkness was poised to cover the city like a blanket. He knew that tonight the moon, having gloried in her fullness the past three nights, would hide like a demure maiden. Yet the stars seemed reluctant to perform their nightly promenade across the purple-black stage of the heavens.
Suddenly, a series of disconceting images intruded upon his thoughts.
Deep within the slumbering city that lay spread out below the mount, an old man, his once abundant and jet black hair and beard now thinning and grey, began the task of preparing for the ensuing eight days of celebration and worship. It was just after midnight when he left his humble home and walked quietly through the darkened, deserted streets. His whole body tingled with expectancy as he inhaled the familiar musk odor of the city. He did not have to walk far, and upon reaching his destination he reached forth with a stubby, calloused hand and unlatched the gate.
The old man, his senses attuned to the various rhythms in the sea of night surrounding him, moved among the animals with the practiced ease of one long accustomed to ritual. The collection of male lambs crowded in the pen--none younger than eight days nor older than one year--represented the finest sheep of twenty different flocks. The initial selection had been accomplished in broad daylight and each had been chosen carefully to insure that none had blemishes or imperfections.
The old man, however, did not rely upon sight to tell him of imperfection. Instead, he depended upon his acute sense of smell for the final test. He was blind.
He smiled and sniffed the air. The odor was faint, but it was there. He'd been asked many times during his seventy years to describe the scent and his reply had always been the same: "I'm not sure, exactly. But I am sure of three things. I always smell the peculiar scent after only a short time among the lambs; I never smell it on more than one animal; and I know that the gift is from God."
Without further delay, he reached down swiftly and grabbed hold of a pure white lamb baying softly to his right. This is the one, he thought as he carried the animal inside the building adjacent to the pen, handing it over gently into the outstretched arms of the waiting priest.
The night gave way to morning, and the morning to afternoon. The old man had returned home, slept, and was now back at the Temple. It was time.
Although it was early afternoon, the room was dark, except for the light provided by several tall candles. The color of the wax was almost as pure white as the coat of wool covering the lamb held in the arms of the priest.
The Levite, one of several present, carried the lamb to the altar, carefully stretched it out upon the deeply stained, grooved wood, and secured its four legs firmly with leather straps. Only then did he withdraw the razor-sharp sacrificial knife from his robe.
First the Levite, then the other priests closed their eyes and began to sing in unison, filling The Temple with the sonorous sound of the Great Hallel. The old man added his own deep-throated voice to that of the others, singing with vigor. Outside, in the immediate vicinity of the Temple, the sounds of the city were swallowed up by the ritual chanting.
Gradually, the singing stopped. The Levite opened his eyes and grasped the head of the lamb. He stretched the animal's neck backward, exposing the soft, vulnerable flesh to the light and the knife. His right hand was poised above his head.
Swiftly, with a precisely articulated motion, he brought his arm down, turning the blade ever so slightly as the knife dropped downward through its arc. In one deft stroke, he drew the shinning blade across the animal's neck, severing the jugular vein.
Several of the priests blew a threefold blast from their silver trumpets as bright red blood spurted from the wound. Special silver and gold ceremonial bowls caught the warm, sticky fluid, which was then splashed in one single jet at the base of the altar.
A small amount of blood escaped the confines of the altar and fell to the foot-packed ground. The desiccated, yellow-brown earth and the burgundy-red, liquid life blended together into a copper-colored mud.
The Levite grasped the dead animal by its hind legs, took a length of rope and secured the sacrifice from two hooks mounted in staves nailed together in the shape of a T. It was flayed and the entrails were taken out and cleansed. Afterwards, the inside fat was separated, put in a dish and salted, then placed in the fire of the altar of burnt offering.
The ritual was repeated continually for several hours. There were many waiting, just like the old man, for their paschal sacrifice.
Once again, twilight settled upon the city. The old man stood in the doorway of his small hovel and stared at the sky with sightless eyes. A penetrating shiver danced a promenade up and down his spine. For some strange reason he could almost feel the darkness seeping into his bones through the pores of his skin, and somehow he knew that even though there were no clouds in the ebony sky, there were also no stars.
Hastily, he dipped the hyssop he held in his trembling right hand into the wooden bowl he cupped in his left and sprinkled the blood of the lamb upon his doorway, wondering why he felt so strange on this very special night.
The priest lit the incense. The room was smoky, the air thick with ketoret, the special blend of spices he'd prepared earlier. He took several deep breaths as he went about his tasks and smiled contentedly. His nose twitched as he savored the unique, aromatic smell: frankincense, galbanum, stactate, onchya, and myrrh.
Finally, as the thick night began to seep into the cracks and crevices of the Temple, he trimmed the lamps in preparation for the evening prayer.
Startled by the unusual occurrence, Benjamin shook his head to clear it, not quite certain that the vivid images were merely a fragment of a long forgotten memory that had been dredged up from the recesses of his subconscious because of his exhaustion. He thought about lighting a candle, but decided against it. For some strange reason, the fading of the light was reassuring.
Bits and pieces of his Hebraic upbringing floated upon the
choppy sea of his memory, like flotsam and jetsam bobbing up and down upon the ocean. Oddly, he felt like singing. He crossed his arms over his chest and rocked back and forth in the chair. The liturgy that rose up from inside him flowed from his lips unbidden. "In your streams all fish will leap . . . In your rocks all plants will take root . . . In your fiery vortex every man will be saved . . . from your peaks."
Benjamin was familiar with the words. They were from a segment of an ancient Hebrew text, Canticle of the Sea, a kind of lyric sermon about everything that happened between the Red Sea and the peak of Gebel Musa, the mountain of Moses. But he had no idea where the melody came from.
He stopped singing and frowned as a sudden insight intruded itself into the moment. His ancestors saw the Sinai as a living entity, suffused with the life of God. Why then could he not bring himself to see and think that way? For him, the desert was simply a vast museum of the past whose treasures were hidden beneath the arid landscape. He was merely a modern-day detective engaged in the tedious task of discovering lost artifacts from antiquity.
Suddenly, he was very tired. He felt old beyond his years. He pressed his thumbs against his eyelids, knowing he had to make a final entry in his journal before he could even attempt to sleep. He didn't want to forget, in later years, why he'd betrayed his Uncle Mattathias, his grandfather's dream, and Israel, his adopted home. Not to mention his God.
Bracing himself with the final gulp of wine that remained in his glass, he skipped down several lines so that he could finish his earlier train of thought later.

Sleep has become my enemy.
In the hours between midnight and cockcrow the nightmare that has been my companion now for nearly six months wakes me from fitful slumber and I lay upon my cot sweating with the knowledge of my betrayal and the fear of what the increasingly vivid dream portends.
Perhaps it is a harbinger of the future, although I don't believe in that sort of thing. Nevertheless, I am compelled to cry out to the Almighty and ask His forgiveness . . .
I have decided not to reveal my discovery. I know that the parchments are a national treasure and that by keeping them for myself I am committing more than a mere theft. But I cannot give them up. They have become too important.

Benjamin closed the journal and stood up and stretched. Then he walked to the balcony a second time and took a deep breath, filling his lungs with the musk odor of the city. It was a unique scent, peculiar to the Holy City. The cool, fragrant air helped to temporarily douse the fire smoldering inside him.
For a time his thoughts wandered to the Temple as it must have been at the time of Pontius Pilate. He wondered if what he was smelling was the accumulated residue of two thousand years of burning ketoret, the aromatic mixture of galbanum, stactate, onchya, myrrh and frankincense.
The blood of the lamb. The paschal sacrifice. Is it possible there was truly only one? Are we that blind to the truth? he thought. What was it Rabbi Markowitz, his mentor during the years leading to his Bar Mitzvah, had said: "When you wonder you wander . . ."
The wine had dutifully worked its magic and his mind began to calm. He watched the stars push through the curtain of night. For a moment, he thought he saw several come together in the shape of a cross. Startled, he rubbed the tiredness from his eyes and muttered, "It must be an illusion." A scholarly voice within assured him that the image had to be the result of his exhaustion--and the wine.
As the darkness deepened, he no longer felt the aches and pains of his body or the burden of his conscience. Finally, he stepped back into the room and stretched out on his cot.
As he drifted into sleep, he thought it very fitting that he'd discovered the parchments on the fifteenth day of the seventh month. The Feast of Tabernacles. The most important of the three great annual feasts of his people. His Uncle Mattathias had told him that God had something special planned for him in Palestine. And he'd been right, perhaps even prophetic, in his utterance. He remembered the nearly three-year old conversation as if it were only yesterday.
"This is very special, Benji," Mattathias Kingman had said, "just like you," when handed the well-worn, hand sewn leather suitcase to Benjamin. "It's not every day that my favorite nephew turns twenty-one."
"Thank you Uncle Matt. I'll take good care of it."
"I'm sure you will. You know, my father brought that suitcase with him to America from Russia," he added, a hint of sadness in his voice, "when he and your grandmother left Moscow in order to escape persecution by the Czar. He prayed that one day he would pack it for a trip to the home of his heart, Erez Israel."
Benjamin looked into Mattathias' soft, hazel eyes, speckled with agate blue variegations, the captivating signature of the Kingman heritage, and was overcome with emotion. But, as usual, he was at a loss for words.
"Your grandfather never doubted, deep down inside, that he would live to see the establishment of the Jewish National State and the return of Jews to the land promised to Abraham by God," continued Mattathias, his voice thick with emotion. "Unfortun- ately, his heart, like your father's, gave out before the dream became reality."
His uncle smiled with understanding and his eyes sparkled with a gleam that someone who didn't know him well might have mistaken for mischief. "Now, however, not only do you have the opportunity to do what your father and mine could only dream about, but you will be a part of something we Jews have prayed about for more than two thousand years. The fulfillment of God's divine plan. And end to the diaspora; the return of Jews to the land God promised to Abraham.
"I've known since the day you were born, Benji, that God has something extraordinary planned for your life . . . and I believe that you're going to find out a portion of what it is that He has in store for you in Palestine."
When he'd pressed his uncle to elaborate, Mattathias smiled and told him an unsettling story.
"In the Scriptures there is a story about a man named Josiah. Three hundred years before he was born, a prophet foretold his birth and what it was that he would accomplish."
"And what was that?"
"He became king over Israel at the age of eight when his father, Ammon, was assassinated by his servants. It was a dark time in Israel's history; an age during which God's people had fallen into idolatry because their leaders had forsaken the God of their fathers and did not walk in the way of the Lord.
"When Josiah was twenty-six, the high priest Hilkiah was laboring in the House of the Lord when he discovered something very valuable, something that had been lost to the children of Israel for many generations."
Benjamin was hooked. "Tell me, what was it?"
“The Book of the Law."
"The Pentateuch?"
Mattathias nodded. "He gave the Book to the king's scribe, Shaphan, and when the scribe read the contents to Josiah, the king tore his clothes and commanded the high priest to go before the Lord and inquire for all the people, and for all Judah, concerning the words contained therein.
"Josiah eventually learned that in order for God to bless His people, they must turn from their idol worship and worship Him alone. As a sign of his desire to serve the one true God, Josiah reinstituted the Passover, which had not been observed since the time of the Judges. It is no wonder that Josiah's name means God healed."
Uncertain why, yet overwhelmed by his uncle's poignant words, Benjamin broke down and cried, shedding tears he'd been unable to shed at his father's death. His uncle hadn't seemed surprised at the unexpected outburst. Mattathias had simply hugged him and held him until his flow of tears had subsided.
Outside the hotel room, on the narrow street below, a wild dog howled. Several others answered, until it sounded like a pack.
Benjamin's eyelids fluttered, like the wings of a butterfly caught in the tempest of a whirlwind, and in the moments before sleep he wondered if he was going to dream about giants again.

The bone penetrating cold woke him from fitful sleep. For a moment he was disoriented. He blinked tired, red eyes several times. Then the gentle roll of the ship and the damp salt air reminded him where he was. Thank God I didn't dream, he thought, shivering.
It was February. 1949. Benjamin was in his cabin, aboard the Arabesque. And he was finally on his way home to America. His life in the desert was a memory, his undiscovered crime merely an invisible mark etched upon his tortured soul. Like a scarlet letter. Or the mark of Cain.
He sat up and swung his long legs over the side of the narrow bunk. He reached for the coarse woolen sweater one of the crew had loaned him, conscious of the heavy fish smell that permeated it, as if it had been woven from strands of seaweed instead of sheep's wool. He quickly pulled it over the light- weight cotton shirt he wore, grateful for the itchy warmth against his goosebumped skin.
He was not prepared for this kind of weather. Or the suffocating smallness of his quarters. After four years of almost nomadic living in the openness of the desert, the small, stuffy cabin seemed like a coffin to him. He sighed heavily and dropped to the floor. "At least I haven't gotten seasick," he reminded himself, as he pulled the thin chain above his head.
A dim yellow light revealed just how small the cabin was. He barely had room to turn around. Now that he could see, he reached for the gaberdine George Amos had given him as a going away present before he left Jerusalem.
Abruptly, he stopped dressing and blinked. That's strange, he thought. He rubbed his eyes several times. A silken haze hung in the tiny quarters. And it seemed to be thickening right in front of him, just like his mother's thin soup thickened when she added cornstarch to it. He sniffed the air tentatively and a rich, sweet, smell filled his nose. "Frankincense!" he sputtered, stunned. "But that's impossible!"
He took another breath, deeper this time. All he smelled was the sweater. I've been in this cabin too long, he thought, remembering his hotel room in Jerusalem and the stars that had once formed themselves into the shape of a cross. He shook his head and chuckled, amused at how easily his tired body played tricks on him. And this time he was sober too. Time to get some fresh air.
He glanced somberly at the suitcase his uncle had given him and reassured himself that what was inside would be safe while he walked on deck. All the same, he locked the door behind him as he stepped out into the night.
The frigid salty air hit him in the face like a cold, wet compress, but he didn't mind. It refreshed him. He spread his legs, balancing against the steady roll of the ship, and grabbed the brass handrail with his left hand for additional support. He could feel the methodical hum of the Canadian mail tanker's huge Rolls Royce engines pulsing in the soles of his feet and it reminded him of how his blood had pulsed in his veins the day he'd made the discovery that had irrevocably changed him.
Once he'd adjusted to the rhythm of the ship, he released the rail and looked up as he headed for the stern, finally realizing why it was so dark. There were no stars in the black, moonless night.
When he reached the rear of the tanker, he saw that he was not alone. An extremely tall man and a young boy stood side by side with their backs to him. He almost turned around. He didn't want company, but a solitary bulb on the bulkhead above them shaped their two sepulchral silhouettes. They looked like they were perched on the edge of an abyss. His heart began to pound.
Unseen, Benjamin watched them; then, without knowing why, he moved closer to them and blurted out the beginning of a scripture that had begun to reverberate in his brain. "'Watchman, what of the night? Watchman what of the night?'"
The boy turned first at the sound of his voice and Benjamin felt an electrifying jolt coarse through his body. The lone light caught in the boy's ebony eyes, flecked with silver, snared the child's gaze and held him captive. And what he saw there was colder and darker than the night. In fact, it was almost as if the boy's eyes devoured what little light there was.
Benjamin shivered and wondered why he'd ever left the security of his cabin.
"Hello, my name is Vaughn," said the boy politely, breaking the spell. "And this is my father. Who are you?"
Before Benjamin could reply, the man turned. He was lean, almost gaunt, with brown hair and dulled dark eyes. He looked withdrawn and defeated, almost ill.
Benjamin's attention was diverted only momentarily. His eyes seemed to have a will of their own and they were drawn back to the boy. He would never have guessed that the two were father and son. The boy's honey-colored skin, along with his jet black hair and vibrant eyes, stood in stark contrast to his father's sallow, tired demeanor.
"My name is Benjamin Kingman," he answered and tried hard not to stare at the unusual white scar at the top right of the boy's forehead. It was an incongruous physical blemish on the otherwise perfectly sculpted face.
The boy's father spoke in a monotone, as if he hadn't heard Benhjamin's reply, and the words came out sounding like a memorized response to a secret password. "'The watchman said, The morning comes, and also the night: if you will inquire, inquire you: return, come.'"
The boy continued to stare with unblinking eyes. Benjamin felt flushed and chilled at the same time, caught off balance by the man's automatic response to his greeting and by his son's unsettling gaze. What is going on here? he wondered.
"You're Jewish," continued the man, abruptly changing his tone of voice. He spoke matter-of-factly, without any hint of displeasure.
Benjamin nodded. "And so were my mother and father," he quipped, feeling lightheaded and jocular in spite of the oddness of the whole situation. "And their's before them . . . and their's before that. I am truly the son of the son of the son."
The man laughed and Benjamin had the feeling it was something he'd not done in a very long time. He joined in, suddenly relieved.
"Touche, Mr. Kingman," said the man. "And thank you for reminding me that a little levity goes a long way towards mending the broken heart."
"I assure you it was unintentional."
The man shrugged, then stuck out his hand. "Franklin Aurochs. And please forgive my son. He will soon be six-going- on-twenty." A strange look passed between father and son that made Benjamin wonder who was in control.
Benjamin shook the proffered hand. Franklin's palm felt dry and leathery and once more made him think that the man was in poor health.
"You caught me by surprise quoting from the Book of Isaiah. Are you a rabbi?" Franklin asked.
"Hardly. I'm an archaeologist. And I've been working in the Sinai for the past three and half years." He glanced at Vaughn and wondered why his eyes kept returning to the sickle-shaped scar. "I'm a bit surprised myself. I don't know what came over me." He paused, sensing that it was important that he and this man become friends, then added, "It would seem we have something in common."
"Oh?"
"Our knowledge of scripture."
Franklin sobered suddenly. He turned his back on Benjamin and his son and leaned against the rail. "Perhaps," he said quietly as he fixed his gaze on the darkness that cocooned the tanker.
Benjamin moved to stand beside him and stared at the black water, watching the froth of foam trailing behind the ship disappear into the darkness.
"I was born in Germany," continued Franklin somberly, "but my father brought the family to America when I was seven. And for the past twenty years I've lived in China."
Benjamin suddenly felt nauseous. German. The war had been over for four years, but old hatreds die hard. Yet, he hadn't sensed any anti-semitism in the man's demeanor. No anger or intolerance. "How is it that you are so familiar with the scriptures?" he asked, swallowing away his queasiness.
"I was a missionary at one time."
"What happened?"
"I lost my faith."
"I'm not sure I understand," pressed Benjamin, amazed that he was so persistent with someone he barely knew.
"When you mentioned the desert," explained Franklin, "my initial thought was of the first part of the scripture you quoted. It's more appropriate. Do you know it?"
Benjamin nodded, amazed at the acuteness of his memory for a specific scripture. "'The burden of the desert of the sea," he recited. "'As whirlwinds in the south pass through; so it comes from the desert . . . from a terrible land.'"
Franklin smiled a tired, thin smile and continued the verses by rote. "'A grievous vision is declared unto me; the treach- erous dealer deals treacherously, and the spoiler spoils . . . Therefore are my loins filled with pain: pangs have taken hold upon me, as the pangs of a woman that travails . . . And the watchman said, Babylon is fallen, is fallen; and all the graven images of her gods he has broken unto the ground.'"
The night thickened about the two men as the haze in Benjamin's cabin had done earlier. Benjamin shivered and glanced at his watch. It was almost midnight. "Do you ever hear a voice inside your head?" he asked cryptically.
Franklin frowned and regarded his son. Benjamin followed his gaze and realized from the look in the boy's eyes that Vaughn had been listening intently to their conversation, as if he were a stenographer taking dictation.
"Sometimes."
Benjamin nodded, making a decision. "Then we definitely have more in common than the desert," he said, wondering if the enigmatic child with the ebony eyes could somehow see the stain on his soul.

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