Contract with God aka The Moses Expedition

27

Title, all caps. The Ark Recovered. No, wait, delete that. Title… Treasure in the Desert. No, that’s no good. I have to refer to the Ark in the title – that will sell papers. All right, let’s leave the title until I’ve finished writing the article. Lead sentence: To mention its name is to invoke one of the most prevalent myths of all humanity. The history of Western civilisation began with it, and today it is the object most coveted by archaeologists the world over. We are accompanying the Moses Expedition on its secret journey across the southern Jordanian desert into Claw Canyon, the place where almost two thousand years ago a group of faithful hid the Ark during the destruction of the second Temple of Solomon...

This is all too dry. I’d better write it out first. Let’s start with the Forrester interview… Fuck, that old guy gives me the creeps with his wheezing voice. They say it’s because of his illness. Note: Look up on the Internet how to spell pneumoconiosis.

QUESTION: Professor Forrester, the Ark of the Covenant has been firing the human imagination from time immemorial. To what do you attribute this interest?

ANSWER: Look, if you want me to give you an introduction, you don’t need to go round in circles and tell me what I already know. Just say what you want and I’ll talk.

Q: Do you give a lot of interviews?

A: Dozens. So you’re not going to ask me anything original, anything I haven’t already heard or answered before. If we had an Internet connection on the dig, I’d tell you to look some of them up and copy the answers.

Q: What’s the problem? Are you worried about repeating yourself?

A: I’m worried about wasting time. I’m seventy-seven years old. I’ve spent forty-three of those years searching for the Ark. It’s now or never.

Q: Well, I’m sure you’ve never answered like that before.

A: What is this? An originality contest?

Q: Professor, please. You’re an intelligent and passionate man. Why don’t you try to reach out to the public and transmit some of your passion to them?

A: (a brief pause) You want a master of ceremonies? I’ll do what I can.

Q: Thank you. The Ark…?

A: The most powerful object in history. This is no mere coincidence, especially considering it was the beginning of Western Civilisation.

Q: Wouldn’t historians say that civilisation began in Ancient Greece?

A: Nonsense. Human beings spent thousands of years worshipping sooty stains in dark caves. Stains they called gods. Time went by and the stains changed in size, shape and colour, but they continued to be stains. We didn’t know about the existence of a single deity until it was revealed to Abraham only four thousand years ago. What do you know about Abraham, young lady?

Q: He’s the father of the Israelites.

A: Correct. And of the Arabs. Two apples that fell from the same tree, right next to one another. And straight away, the two little apples learned to hate each other.

Q: What has this to do with the Ark?

A: Five hundred years after God revealed himself to Abraham, the Almighty became sick and tired of the fact that people kept turning their backs on Him. When Moses led the Jews out of Egypt, God once again revealed Himself to His people. Only one hundred and forty-five miles from this spot. And it was there that they signed a contract. On the one hand, humanity agrees to comply with ten simple clauses.

Q: The Ten Commandments.

A: On the other, God agrees to give man eternal life. It is the single most important moment in history – the moment at which life acquired its significance. Three thousand five hundred years later, every human being carries that contract somewhere in his consciousness. Some call it natural law, others dispute its existence or meaning and they’ll kill and die to defend their interpretation. But the moment Moses received the Tablets of the Law from the hands of God: that is when our civilisation began.

Q: And then Moses puts the tablets in the Ark of the Covenant.

A: Together with other objects. The Ark is the safe that holds the contract with God.

Q: Some say that the Ark has supernatural powers.

A: Nonsense. I’ll explain that to everyone tomorrow when we begin work.

Q: So you don’t believe in the supernatural nature of the Ark?

A: With all my heart. My mother read to me from the Bible even before I was born. My life has been dedicated to the Word of God, but that does not mean I’m not prepared to disprove any myths or superstitions.

Q: Speaking of superstition, for many years your research has caused controversy in academic circles that are critical of using ancient texts to discover treasure. There have been insults hurled on both sides.

A: Academics… they couldn’t find their own ass with two hands and a flashlight. Would Schliemann have found the treasures of Troy without Homer’s Iliad? Would Carter have found Tutankhamun’s tomb without the obscure Ut papyrus? Both were heavily criticised in their day for using the same techniques I now use. Nobody remembers their critics, but Carter and Schliemann are immortal. I intend to live forever.

[a severe bout of coughing]

Q: Your illness?

A: You can’t spend this many years in damp tunnels, breathing dirt, without paying the price. I have chronic pneumoconiosis. I’m never too far from an oxygen tank. Go on, please.

Q: Where were we? Oh, yes. Have you always been convinced of the historical existence of the Ark of the Covenant, or does your belief date back to the time when you began translating the Copper Scroll?

A: I was raised a Christian, but converted to Judaism when I was relatively young. By the 1960s, I could read ancient Hebrew as well as English. When I began to study the Copper Scroll of Qumran I didn’t discover that the Ark was real – I already knew that. With over two hundred references to it in the Bible, it is the most frequently described object in the scriptures. What I realised when I held the Second Scroll in my hands was that I would be the one who would finally rediscover the Ark.

Q: I see. How exactly did the second scroll help you to decipher the Qumran Copper Scroll?

A: Well, there’s been a lot of confusion over the consonants like he, het, mem, kaf, wav, zayin, and yod…

Q: In layman’s terms, Professor.

A: Some of the consonants weren’t too clear, which made deciphering the text difficult. And the strangest thing was that a series of Greek letters had been inserted throughout the scroll. Once we had the key to understanding the text, we realised that these letters were the titles of sections, which changed the order and therefore the context. That was the most exciting period of my professional career.

Q: It must have been frustrating to dedicate forty-three years of your life to the translation of the Copper Scroll, and then have the whole matter resolved in the space of three months after the Second Scroll turned up.

A: Absolutely not. The Dead Sea Scrolls, including the Copper Scroll, were brought to light by accident when a shepherd threw a rock inside a cave in Palestine and heard something break. That’s how the first of the manuscripts was found. That’s not archaeology: that’s luck. But without all these decades of in-depth study, we would never have come to Mr Kayn…

Q: Mr Kayn? What are you talking about? Don’t tell me that the Copper Scroll mentions a billionaire!

A: I can’t talk any more about that. I’ve already said too much.