“It’s the old Synoptic question, isn’t it? Most scholars assume that Matthew and Luke drew from the earliest Gospel-Mark-then added separate material on their own, especially more sayings of Jesus. This passage, interestingly enough, has the basic resurrection material common to both Matthew and Luke, plus Mark’s usual signature touches, especially that adverb immediately.”
Jon thought for a moment, then threw his arms around Shannon. “You’re right. I should have thought about the Synoptic issue immediately.”
“See, that’s why you need me, Jon,” she said with a sly little smirk.
“Was there ever any question about that?”
He gathered her in his arms and kissed her deeply, passionately.
The next morning, they finished all necessary steam treatments by noon, since there were only seven other conjoined pages in the codex, and all yielded their secrets this time, however, with the loss of a few words that had probably faded long before the adhesion. Jon was confident that he could reconstruct them. In the afternoon they photographed their way through the Gospels of Luke and John, as well as the book of Acts-the earliest history of the church. At the Hilton in the evening, they checked out the rushes-all of which were fine-so they decided to discontinue the infrared and ultraviolet photography, since all the parchment skins used for the emperor were apparently fresh and new, not palimpsests full of erasures. Using secondhand materials, of course, could have damaged the close relationship between the historian Eusebius and his close friend, the emperor Constantine.
Jon and Shannon calculated that they could finish the project in the next two or three days. The following morning, curiosity finally got the better of Brother Gregorios. He put it into quaint English as he opened the door of the geniza for them yet another time. “It is very bold to ask, Professor Weber, but what do you and Madame Weber find so… so interesting in our ‘manuscript cemetery’-we call it? We have much better volumes in the rest of our library.”
Jon smiled in what he hoped was a charming and innocent manner. “We’re just sampling the sort of debris that you store inside that room, Brother Gregorios. That information will help us in America if we decide to do the same with our old materials.” While that, of course, was only a half-truth, it would have to serve for now. The librarian nodded and left the geniza.
After lugging the big tome onto the table they’d been using, Jon and Shannon prepared their equipment.
“Well, since we finished Acts yesterday, Paul’s letter to the Romans is next, Shannon. Ready?” Jon opened the codex to the bookmark they had left. An unusual superscript that he hadn’t noticed earlier caught his eye. He stared at the page for a moment, saying nothing.
“What is it, Jon?”
“Strange. Look at that superscript. Shouldn’t it read ‘Pros Romaios’? ‘To the Romans’?”
“Yes…” Shannon peered over his shoulder at the page that held him transfixed. “Hmm. It looks like it says ‘Praxeis Apostolon B’ -‘Acts of the Apostles, Beta,’ Book 2. What could that mean?”
What could that mean indeed? Jon’s pulse pounded as the possibilities started to sink in. He pulled out his handkerchief and held it to his brow. Truth be known, he was suddenly feeling a little faint.
After giving Shannon’s hand a quick squeeze to ground himself in reality, he put a trembling finger onto the document’s opening words, words he knew he would never forget. Indeed this moment, which seemed to be unfolding in slow motion, would forever be burned on his memory. “Touton men triton logon, O Theophile…,” he read.
Shannon looked at him, eyes wide. In a hushed tone, she translated, “This third treatise, O Theophilus…”
They stared at each other for what seemed an eternity but must have been only seconds. “Third treatise, Shannon,” he repeated. “ Third. Luke’s first treatise to his friend Theophilus, of course, is his Gospel. The second is the book of Acts, so this third treatise must be a continuation of Acts, hence Acts 2 or Second Acts!”
“And it most probably picks up where Acts leaves off, just as Acts started where Luke’s Gospel ended.” Shannon sat down slowly, clearly overwhelmed by the implications. Propping her chin on two fists, she slowly shook her head from side to side. “Beyond… all… belief! Hegesippus and Eusebius-those leaves of manuscript from Pella-were right after all. There has always been a Second Acts, but we never knew it for certain until now.”
Jon met her eyes and voiced what both of them were thinking. “This… this and the end of Mark could make every Bible in the world obsolete.”
With a feeling of awe, almost bordering on worship, they started to photograph Second Acts. Jon felt something of a sacred tingling in his arms and fingers as he understood, for the first time, what the Jewish high priest must have sensed when he went into the Holy of Holies at the Jerusalem Temple just once each year. He and Shannon were penetrating something of a verbal inner sanctum in this process, treading onto freshly uncovered holy ground.
The new document seemed to be only about a quarter as long as the original Acts.
“This seems to be a sort of codicil appended to Luke’s main document in Acts,” Jon noted, “probably to cover what happened to Paul in Rome, because he really leaves us hanging where Acts stops in
chapter 28.”
“I really hope that’s it,” Shannon added. “I’ve always found the last verse of Acts the most frustrating passage in the entire Bible.”
“Well, darling, we may now be able to find out what happened next.” He flashed her an incandescent smile.
The quest for answers, however, would have to be delayed until the evening rushes. For now, they had to finish the photography with only three days left, and the final day was reserved for the report to the patriarch.
Immediately after the sacred pearl of their discovery-Second Acts-followed the expected epistles: Pros Romaios -Romans, then Pros Korinthious A -First Corinthians, and Pros Korinthious B -Second Corinthians.
After a break for lunch, they returned to photograph the rest of St. Paul’s writings, also appearing right where they should be: Pros Galatas -Galatians, Pros Ephesious -Ephesians, Pros Philippasious -Philippians, Pros Kolossaeis -Colossians, Pros Thessalonikeis A -First Thessalonians, and finally, Pros Thessalonikeis B -Second Thessalonians.
Having finished for the day, they took their leave of Brother Gregorios and were at the gate of the patriarchate at the agreed-upon time of 4:30 p.m. Again, their security convoy was faithfully waiting on the street just outside. Jon only hoped that they had found something to do with their time during the day.
They could barely wait to finish supper that evening so that they could delve into Second Acts. But they were detained by the nightly visit of Dick Ferris and Osman al-Ghazali. Both complained that it was getting harder every day to hold off the media, who were pressing them for information about Jon and Shannon-what their plans were, their schedules, and when Jon would be available for interviews, photography, press conferences-whatever. Ferris, per usual, delivered his sheaf of continuing response to the debate. This time he supplied an overseas edition of Time. The cover was a wide-angle photo of Hagia Sophia, with vignettes of Jon and Abbas al-Rashid burned in. The cover story was titled “The 1,400-Year Challenge to Christianity,” with sidebars that included brief biographies of both debaters, the main tenets of Islam and Christianity, and even a precis of the debate itself.
Next, Ferris placed a copy of Newsweek on the table, the cover depicting a huge crescent on one side of a diagonal and a cross on the other. “Jesus and Muhammad” bannered the story, with treatment similar to Time ’s.
Osman did the same for media in the Muslim world, where the coverage was also copious. “Actually, the Turkish and Arab press treated you rather well, Jon,” he said. “One would have thought they’d be down on your case. They particularly liked the relationship you seemed to develop with al-Rashid. Well, that is, except the Shiites. Kayhan claimed that al-Rashid sold out the Islamic side, just as he’s been doing for months with his plea for moderation, et cetera, et cetera-predictable stuff. Victory for them would have been a Shiite mullah making you look like an imbecile in debate, Jon, and then grinding your infidel face into the cold marble floor of Hagia
