Skeleton 03 - The Constantine Codex (44 page)

It was time for Jon to finish his prepared statement. “Translations of the new material in Mark 16 and Second Acts will also be available in the narthex after our conference. These may be freely copied and used anywhere—with only one exception: they may
not
be appended to any new editions of the New Testament or the Holy Bible by any publisher. The Institute of Christian Origins holds the international copyrights for all the new material and will prosecute any publisher anywhere trying to add Mark 16 and Second Acts to any projected new version of the Bible or the New Testament.

“I’m now open for your questions. In each case, please wait until a page brings you a microphone and first identify yourselves as you start speaking.”

Representatives of the press and the media were seated in the front of the sanctuary on the opposite side of the aisle from the religious leaders. Jon recognized a man in the fifth row.

“David van Biema,
Time
. I’m intrigued by your last statement, Professor Weber. Why that restriction? Why couldn’t the new material be published in future Bibles? Is there some question about its authenticity?”

“No, David, not at all. In fact, there’s a separate handout in the narthex showing all our test results to date, and they’re all positive. The reason we can’t permit the inclusion of this material in future Bibles
at this time
is because that would require opening the canon of Holy Scripture, and we simply cannot arrogate to ourselves so solemn a responsibility. Only an ecumenical council of the entire church could make such a decision.”

“Do you think that could happen? Will happen?”

Yes,
Jon wanted to say, but he held his tongue and simply replied, “Again, the church will have to decide.” He looked toward another reporter. “Yes?”

“Mark Galli,
Christianity Today
. But wouldn’t that be very difficult, Professor Weber? Most Christians assume that the canon of Scripture is
closed
. I can almost hear fundamentalists using Deuteronomy 4:2: ‘You shall not add to the word which I command you, nor take from it; that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God.’”

“Indeed, but that passage, as you know, refers to Mosaic law rather than the whole canon of Scripture itself. But you’re right, Mark: opening the Canon could prove terribly difficult and provoke the darkest suspicions, however unjustified, among some of the faithful. . . . Yes?”

“Hang Wha Sing,
Taipei Telegraph
. What means
Canon
, and how books get into ‘Canon’?”

“Yes, sorry. I should have defined that earlier.
Canon
comes from the Greek word
kanown
, which means ‘rule’ or ‘standard.’ It’s the authoritative list of books that belong either in the Old or New Testament. The early church included in the Canon only those books that were written by eyewitnesses or those who had immediate contact with eyewitnesses,
and
that were widely used in worship,
and
that were consistent with the other teachings of Christianity. The new material in the Constantine Codex more than satisfies all three criteria. . . . Yes?”

“But the Canon is still
closed
!” the tall figure nearly shouted. “Oh—Jimmy Lee Curtis,
Southern Baptist Messenger
.”

“
Is
it really closed, Mr. Curtis? One of our great Greek textual scholars, the now-sainted Professor Bruce Metzger of Princeton, has an interesting passage in his book
The Canon of the New Testament
that speaks to this very point.” Jon had the book at his lectern and read aloud:

“One may also speculate what the Church should do if a hitherto unknown document were to turn up that, on unimpeachable external and internal grounds, could be proven to have been written, let us say, by the apostle Paul. . . . Though from a theoretical point of view the way is open for the possible addition of another book or epistle to the New Testament canon, it is problematic that any would, let us say, meet the standards, either ancient or modern, of accreditation.”
1

Jon closed the book and commented, “That was almost prophetic on the part of Professor Metzger. But now you’ll understand why the matter of canonicity must be left up to an ecumenical church council. . . . Yes?”

“Cedric Marshall, London
Times
. What about the other alternative? If a book could be
added
to the New Testament canon, might one or another also be
subtracted
from the Canon?”

A bit of commotion greeted that query. Jon smiled. “I will admit that several members of our Institute of Christian Origins suggested that the book of Revelation might be surrendered in favor of Second Acts—to keep the number of biblical books at sixty-six. They were not serious, of course, but merely concerned about how often Revelation is misinterpreted today. But no, I’m confident that no church council would ever try to
subtract
any book from our present Canon. Yes?”

“Willis Torrington,
Sydney Times
. Don’t you think there will be a huge outcry from conservative Christians across the world that you are tampering with their Holy Book, that you are
changing
God’s Word, so to speak?”

“There may indeed be such an outcry, Mr. Torrington. But such Christians should know that we’d be the very last to try to shake anyone’s faith. Instead, our ICO scholars are firmly convinced that not one syllable of the new material conflicts with anything in the Bible but instead
correlates perfectly
with everything else in it. In fact, it nicely
supplements
the New Testament. If you’ll pardon a personal reference, I think my wife, Shannon, put it rather well: ‘Two missing pieces in the mosaic of Scripture have finally been located and are now in place.’ . . . Yes?”

“Diego Bustamente,
O Dia
, Rio de Janeiro. Do you think
other
books of the Bible will be discovered in the future, Dr. Weber?”

Jon thought for a moment, then smiled and replied, “I truly doubt that. The canon of the Hebrew Bible—that’s the Old Testament, according to Christians—is complete, and not even the new manuscript discoveries among the Dead Sea Scrolls have changed that. To be sure, the Ecumenical Patriarch and his scholars have been going through
all
literary materials at the patriarchate in Istanbul, but now nothing seems to be missing from the New Testament canon—except for one lost epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians. . . . Yes?”

“Luigi Cherubini,
Osservatore Romano
. In your Second Acts document,
Professore
, when the burial of St. Paul is described, does Luke tell us
where
this took place?”

“Yes, he does in fact, as you will note when you read the text. It happened on the Ostian Way, near the city walls of Rome.”

“Really? Perhaps where our Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls stands today?”

Jon made eye contact with the ruddy face in row three that belonged to Kevin Sullivan as he smiled and said, “That could well be the case, Mr. Cherubini. . . .Yes?”

“Brian Williams, NBC Television. What will happen to the codex after this conference, Professor Weber? Where might scholars consult it in the future?”

“For the next month, the codex will be on display at Widener Library at Harvard University, Mr. Williams, under maximum security of course. Probably, though, most scholars will use enhanced facsimiles of the codex, as have our ICO committees in Cambridge. This is the same group that prepared the translations and brief commentaries available after the conference. The codex remains the property of the Ecumenical Patriarch, of course, and he will decide its ultimate disposition. . . . Yes?”

“Trevor Hardwicke, the BBC, London. Do you think there
will
be an ecumenical council of the church to discuss reopening the Canon?”

“Only the future will tell.”

“But don’t you have personal feelings on the matter?”

“I do indeed, Mr. Hardwicke. And I think they’re . . . rather obvious by now. . . . Yes?”

“Gamal Hashemi, Al Jazeera. On another matter, Professor Weber, do you and Grand Sheikh Abbas al-Rashid plan to have another debate?”

Jon was startled by the query, out of context as it was. Then he replied, “Nothing is scheduled at this time, but I’d like to take this opportunity to commend Dr. Abbas al-Rashid as one of the most extraordinary personalities I have ever encountered, a man of great nobility and wisdom and clearly an example of Islam at its finest. We both look forward to a continuing and rewarding friendship.” Jon knew that further details on how Abbas had saved the codex might endanger his position in the Muslim world.

He now looked at his watch. “I see that it’s approaching noon, patient ladies and gentlemen, so it’s time to close. The e-mail address for our ICO in Cambridge is listed in the handouts, and we have a staff ready to answer your further questions.

“Finally, I must announce that, ultimately, only
one
person discovered the Constantine Codex, not two. And that person is my beloved wife. Please stand up, Shannon.”

Taken by surprise and with her face flushing a pretty pink, she rose to a standing ovation, then shook her head in embarrassment as it continued.

What a woman,
Jon thought.
She could easily have taken the microphone today instead of me. And probably done a better job in the process!

Not since the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947 was there such a media mania. Any editor who had not sent reporters to Manhattan on that memorable day now seemed left in the dust once the immense implications of the find became clear on the wire services.

Back at Harvard, Jon’s life was no longer his own. If half a dozen network interview requests failed to arrive before noon each day, it must have been because Marylou was turning them down, per Jon’s orders. Larry King, willing to come out of retirement for such a big story, pleaded at least once a week to have Jon on his show. Jay Leno offered him the sole guest spot on
The Tonight Show
—something he had never done before—while David Letterman tried, via Shannon, to have them both on his CBS
Late Show
.
60 Minutes
,
48 Hours
, and even Oprah Winfrey fared no better. Jon was not affecting any contrived humility. He simply wanted to avoid showbiz at this point and let the newly discovered texts speak for themselves.
They
were of greatest importance, not the people involved in handling them.

Publishers were even worse, both domestic and foreign. All of them, it seemed, wanted to bring out fresh editions of the
Holy Bible
with the new material included. Jon and the ICO steadfastly refused any thought of permitting this and even filed an international injunction against a publisher who attempted to do so.

The next most frequent query from publishers was this: would the ICO permit the Markan ending and Second Acts to be printed as a separate publication? As Jon had stated at the press conference in Manhattan, the answer was yes. For such a separate format, the ICO had indeed placed the material into the public domain, but it was
not
to be boxed with the Bible, not to have a cover resembling the Bible, or have the words
Bible
,
Scripture
, or the
New Testament
in any combination on the separate cover.

Gauging how the Constantine Codex was being received in world Christendom became a favorite hobby for Richard Ferris. Almost every day he would drop in on Jon with his latest gleanings. “The mainline Protestants are solidly for accepting our addenda,” he said, “and so are Rome and Constantinople. And you got that wonderfully cordial letter from Benedict XVI, so you know all about Rome, Jon.”

“Yes, but what about the evangelicals? Or the fundamentalists?”

“A few of the evangelicals are raising questions, but most are extremely happy about the codex. In fact, some evangelical scholars had even predicted manuscript finds such as this.”

“And the fundies?”

Dick smiled. “Well, predictably, there we have some problems. A few of their television apostles have denounced you and tried to discredit the codex. They’ve been thundering away about how you were doing the devil’s work, but—funny thing—they didn’t raise much of a response from their adoring fans. They didn’t go wild, as they usually do, when their spokesman targets something or someone.”