by Zulu, Arthur
A servant brought them champagne. After drinking, Professor Muse escorted his friend to his new house in the evening. Cramwell was happy. He now had a new home, working for the White House. Interpreting Hebrew literature. Hebrew pays! They sat down to talk after supper at Cramwell’s apartment.
“There’s so much luxury in government. I can’t believe I own this big house.”
“That’s good. And do you like the monthly salary and allowances as well?” asked Muse.
“You can ask me that again. My yearly earning in Harvard doesn’t come close to it.”
Cramwell was still wondering the reason for all the opulence. Government isn’t stupid!
“It’s now time for us to talk; time for you to know why the U.S. government is paying you all that money. They want to find the tree of life in Eden and it's our duty to light the way.”
Cramwell was as motionless as a statue. Where did that come from?
“How can we know?” was all he could say after he regained his composure. “It doesn’t exist.”
“But it does.”
Cramwell was puzzled. What was his friend talking about? Where did he see the tree of life? Was the champagne drink working on him?
“Then you should be telling me instead,” Cramwell challenged Muse.
That was a trick remark, thought Muse. Maybe he shouldn’t have said the tree existed. But he chose not to answer Cramwell. He wanted to deepen the mystery.
“Okay, the tree of life exists in the Bible,” said Cramwell. He glanced at his bookshelf and saw various Bible translations in Hebrew. “Yes, it's there in Genesis,” he pointed and rose to fetch a copy.
“Not yet. That won’t help. We've been provided an external Hebrew source.”
Cramwell sat down eagerly. “Where’s it?” he asked.
“Have you heard of the Methuselah poem?” Muse asked Cramwell.
“That’s strange. Methuselah wasn’t a poet. You’ve a Noble prize in literature. You should know.”
“But there’s proof,” Muse said, laying the two-line Hebrew poem on the table. Cramwell read:
השיטפוןבא, וטיאטאאתהעץשלחייםהלאה, אפילועדן+o
עדיין, הגןוהעץנשארים, כ/כפישאלוהיםפסקבהתחלה+o
“That’s interesting. Where did they find this?”
“At the Aegean or Mediterranean Sea, so they said,” replied Muse.
“Odd place to find a poem written by Methuselah.”
“It’s a long story, though. Now, what does this poem mean?” asked Muse.
Professor Cramwell took a pen and wrote:
The Flood came and swept the tree of life away, even Eden+o
Yet, the garden and the tree remain, as God decreed at the beginnin’+o
“It’s exactly what I've here,” said Muse producing a paper from his right pant pocket and handing it over to Cramwell. “Those Stanford chaps must be cerebral.”
Professor Cramwell peered at the paper. “Which Stanford folks were you talking about?” he asked Muse.
“That’s where the original manuscript was translated after the discovery.”
“They've an excellent Hebrew faculty there headed by Professor Daniel. It could’ve been him,” Cramwell said.
“Now, the translation is only the beginning. Where’s Eden and the tree of life from your understanding of this poem? That’s your task—and mine!”
What an assignment? Cramwell wondered. “Why do they want to know?” he asked Muse.
“The U.S. government wants to use the tree of life to cure death and become the world’s sole superpower. But China is in the race, too. That was why I was kidnapped by the Chinese the last time. They found out that I was in possession of the Methuselah poem and wanted an interpretation to outwit America.”
It was another revelation that shook Cramwell. He has to learn fast because there seemed to be many secrets in Washington.
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FOR DISCUSSION
What is the meaning of the Methuselah poem?
Which character in the story successfully accomplished his task?
What advice would you give the adventurers?
What do you think will happen next in Book Two?
About the Book
America and China are in a new race for world superpower. They want to discover the lost tree of life in Eden to develop an elixir of life and banish death forever. But where is the tree and who finds it first?
About the Author
Arthur Zulu is a novelist, playwright, scriptwriter, and essayist. He is also a ghostwriter, editor, and blogger.
The author’s published works are available in various reading formats in most online bookstores.
Connect with Arthur Zulu
On Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/arthurzuluwriter
On Twitter:
http://twitter.com/ArthurZulu
Visit the author’s blog:
http://www.arthurzulu.blogspot.com
Mailto: [email protected]
Tel.: +234 81222 49488
Thank you for reading this book! Please leave a review.
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[i]
The Hunt for the Tree of Life: Book One
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Chapter 1
Professor Muse shrugged his shoulders. What a poem! Six weeks had gone by. Yet, he was as puzzled as when he first read the mystery poem.
It was 8 A.M. and he had already taken half a dozen energy drinks. He was now on the seventh. He adjusted himself in his seat and read the first line for the umpteenth time:
The Flood came and swept the tree of life away, even Eden+o
Well, that was pretty straightforward. The Hebrew people were gifted poets and sometimes their poems could be frank to a fault.
However, it was not all that simple when he read the second and the last line of the poem:
Yet, the tree and the garden remain, as God decreed at the beginnin’+o
There was no clue to the present location of Eden and the tree of life. But that was the message he would pass on to Mr. Mark Catcher, the director of the FBI, when he comes at midday.
The professor put the two lines together trying again to understand the contradictory lines:
The Flood came and swept the tree of life away, even Eden+o
Yet, the tree and the garden remain, as God decreed at the beginnin’+o
Intriguing, he thought, rising and looking out of the window into the misty Washington morning.
The White House had given him this lavishly furnished house with living rooms, a catering staff, a library of poetry books, and a handsome life salary for the sole purpose of interpreting the poem.
Who else could have been entrusted with such an onerous responsibility? After ten years at the University of California in Los Angeles, fifteen years at Emory and Harvard Universities, and a Nobel Prize in literature, Professor Muse Letterman was the most suitable to explain the ancient poem and say the location of Eden and the tree of life.
Only a few remember that his first name was Jones. He earned the moniker, Muse, after interpreting a sonnet that had baffled his colleagues at Harvard by just reading the first and the last fourteenth lines.
But now, the Muse seemed to be failing him.
Where-is-the-tree-of-life?
The answer depended in knowing where Eden was. He looked at the Hebrew version of the poem to determine if some letters that could provide a hint to the meaning were missing:
השיטפוןבא, וטיאטאאתהעץשלחייםהלאה, אפילועדן+o
עדיין, הגןוהעץנשארים, כ/כפישאלוהיםפסקבהתחלה+o
He was not an authority in the language, but he found no missing lines. They were just two Hebrew lines ending with the same mystic symbols. A team of professors at Stanford University had done the Hebrew-to-English transl
ation. So there could be no fault in the English rendering. Hebrew must be the language of equivocators, he thought.
Why do they call this the Methuselah poem? He might just as well be living in Methuselah house! House of mystery. House of secrets. He shrugged his shoulders again.
The professor now decided to reread the cryptological interpretation accompanying the poem by the cryptologists. He did not know how many times he had read it. He sat and read it again:
An Interpretation of the Symbol of the Methuselah Poem by Cryptologists, Dr. Lipson Divine and Mr. Sayer Oracle
The +o symbol following the Methuselah poem is a pointer to the location of the Garden of Eden and the tree of life. The + sign stands for the pagan cross, originating from Tammuz, the deified Nimrod. Worshipers of the Babylonian gods used the symbol, which was later adopted in modern religious worship.
The o sign represents the sun which rises from the East, and could be a reference to ancient worshipers of the sun god, Mithras. However, the circular symbol can be found on church windows of today.
When we looked at the composite sign +o, we think it might mean a sex symbol used in worship at the temple of Ishtar, goddess of love and war. Also, the complete symbol could represent the cross and circular signs on church windows.
We looked at it again in conclusion and think that the whole sign refers to either a pagan temple or a church.
The above is the interpretation of the symbol +o with reference to the poem.
Signed by: Dr. Lipson Divine and Mr. Sayer Oracle
The professor laughed for the first time after rereading this, and stood up again. That was the vaguest report that he had ever read! Why? An interpretation of the symbol should assist him in explaining this baffling poem. But it seemed that even the renowned symbologists were more confused.
They were doing permutation—simple guesswork. Either North or South. Heaven or earth. Land or sea. Black or white. They were not sure of anything. Just shuffling cards. They should have been conjurers!
Talk of sex symbol. Is this supposed to be a love story? Were they suggesting that the tree of life is in the temple of Ishtar or Cupid? Or which pagan god or goddess for that matter was housing Eden and the tree of life? Ridiculous!
Also, which church were they talking about? Is it the old Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Lutheran Church, or the Egyptian Coptic Church? Is it the Anglican Church, the Church of God, the New Jerusalem Church, the Mormon Church, or the Church of Christ Scientists?
He wanted to search on-line for names of churches, but he gave it up. That would only compound the problem. He would get one million results!
How could Eden and the tree of life be in one of those places? And who could undertake the task of finding it? They were talking from two sides of the mouth!
It reminded him of Croesus, the stupendously wealthy king of Lydia. The king had gone to the oracle at Delphi to inquire if he would win a war against King Cyrus the Great of Persia. “If Croesus crosses the Halys, he would destroy a mighty empire,” the oracle had told him.
The all-believing King Croesus went to war against King Cyrus but he was defeated by the Persians and chained as a prisoner. The punch line was that the oracle later told him that it was his fault because when he heard the prophecy, he didn’t ask whose kingdom would fall.
King Croesus was done in by double talk. Not for a professor like Muse. It was not the cryptologists but the Nobel laureate who had the answer.
Now, where was the original garden of bliss?
As the professor stood contemplating, the FBI director drove in. He quickly sat, waiting . . .
Knowing the meaning of the poem was crucial. It would open the way to the location of the lost tree of life in Eden. America and China needed it to make an elixir of life in a new world superpower game.
In the Bible book of Genesis chapter 2, it said that God made Adam and Eve, the first man and woman, and put them in Eden. This was a garden of eternal bliss, by a river of four tributaries and abundant fruit trees.
God had commanded the pair to eat of every fruit of all the trees of the garden except one. In chapter 2 verse 17, it clearly says: “But as for the tree of the knowledge of good and bad you must not eat from it for in the day you eat from it you will certainly die.”
Well, Adam and Eve, deceived by the Devil, ate the forbidden fruit, fell under the sentence of death, and died. But they would have lived on if they had gotten hold of the fruit of another tree in the same garden: the tree of life.
To prevent them from reaching this tree, God did something according to Genesis chapter 3 verse 24: “And so he drove man out and posted at the east of the garden of Eden the Cherubs and flaming blades of a sword that was turning itself continually to guard the way to the tree of life.”
It is that way to the fruit tree that gives eternal life that America and China were searching for. The first country to reach it would remain the undisputed world superpower throughout eternity.
The fruit of the tree would be used to develop a panacea for sickness, aging, and death. Adam and Eve would have reversed death if they had braved the cherubs and the flaming swords and eaten of the fruit.
Next to the long life that the citizens of the discoverer would enjoy is the economic power. The elixir would generate massive revenue from patients around the world, and the country has the right to save or allow the rest of the world to perish.
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About the Book
Kamelon murders his best friend with the intention of marrying his billionaire fiancee. What happens next in this suspenseful thriller will leave the FBI scratching their heads.
About the Author
Arthur Zulu is a novelist, playwright, scriptwriter, and essayist. He is also a ghostwriter, editor, and blogger.
The author’s published works are available in various reading formats in most online bookstores.
Connect with Arthur Zulu
On Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/arthurzuluwriter
On Twitter:
http://twitter.com/ArthurZulu
Visit the author’s blog:
http://www.arthurzulu.blogspot.com
Mailto: [email protected]
Tel.: +234 81222 49488
Thank you for reading this book! Please leave a review.
###
