“But Benjamin…” He stopped himself before he could use the past tense.
“He is Orthodox, though I believe the Lord is working on his heart.” He was watching Scott intently, doing a little profiling of his own. “How is my brother?” he asked.
Scott stopped chewing, frozen, and stared blankly at Isaiah.
Isaiah sighed deeply, and his eyes filled with water. “How did he die?” The question came through quivering lips, but he was emotionally strong, quick to assemble a dam that would stay the tidal waves of comprehension — though they would inevitably drown the very foundation of his reality. But not right now.
“He was shot by an imposter.”
Isaiah closed his eyes, and a tear rolled down his cheek. Then he looked up to the ceiling, taking a couple of deep breaths while rubbing his swollen eyes. “Forgive me,” he whispered.
Scott stared down at the table. “I’m sorry you had to find out this way.”
“I never suspected that old age would be the means of his departure.” He leaned forward and off the sink. “But I can’t do anything for him now, can I? So we should find out why he sent you here.” He pulled a pair of reading glasses from the chest pocket of his flannel shirt. Then he walked over to the doorway and picked up the two books. Sitting down in the empty chair across from Scott, he wiped his eyes and slid the glasses up over his nose. “This came from a priest, you said?” He opened the first page.
“Yes.”
“Ah. The Testament of Solomon. Father Baer.”
“You knew him?” Scott asked, surprised.
A modest smile. “Yeah. I knew him. But since you have his books, and my brother sent you here with them, I’m guessing he’s dead as well.”
Scott nodded solemnly.
Isaiah flipped through the pages.
“How did you know him?” Scott asked.
Peeking over the top of his lenses, he answered, “A while back, before things really started changing, he was working with my brother and some others on a secret project. These are some of his notes.”
“What kind of project?”
“A sort of treasure hunt. But the world being what it is now, they decided that discovering this ‘treasure’ would lead to certain ramifications they wanted no part of. So they decided not to pursue it after all, to let God deal with it in His own way, in His own time.”
Scott leaned forward. “Are you saying these books are part of some old quest to find something?”
“In a way, yes. Though the most important one is missing.”
“What do you mean?”
Isaiah looked up at him. “He had at least three books that I know of. You only have two.”
“Could Father Baer have lost one?”
Isaiah smiled. “You didn’t know him, did you? No, that would be impossible.”
Scott thought back to the house, to the priest’s words and the messenger bag. He wondered if Daniel could have taken it. “What was in the other book?” he asked.
Isaiah held up a finger. “Hold on. Let me look at this for a minute.” He was going through the text, paying careful attention to the drawings while simultaneously trying to hold closed the flood gates of grief.
Mayhew walked back into the room, but when no one acknowledged him, he just leaned against the doorframe.
After a few minutes, Isaiah closed the book and picked up the other one, attempting to lose himself in the riddle his brother and the priest had worked on together.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve heard any of this.” He sat staring into space for a few moments. “I can’t imagine what would make them pick it up again.”
“Why is that?” asked Mayhew from the doorway.
Isaiah lifted his red eyes to him. “Because they’d chosen to abandon their work on it, to never touch it again.”
“Why?”
“They didn’t know what would happen if the world was awakened to its existence, what the consequences would be.”
“You’re talking about the ring of Solomon?” Mayhew asked.
He nodded. “And what it unlocks.”
Scott pointed at the books. “And these books give clues as to what that is?”
“Not really. These were the first books he kept, when their investigation was still in its early stages. These are just records of literature referring to the ring, their efforts in trying to establish a historical basis for its actuality on the physical plane.”
“I was told that there was perhaps a truth behind the legend,” Scott said.
Isaiah shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t know. I don’t know how anyone would know without it being found.”
Scott squinted. “Found?”
“The ring.”
Staring into his eyes, Scott declared, “They did find it.”
Isaiah’s eyes shot upward, a sudden expression of surprise illuminating his face. “What?”
“You didn’t know?” Mayhew came off the door and walked into the kitchen.
“When did this happen?”
“A couple of weeks ago,” Mayhew answered. “They found it somewhere in the Middle East. We’re not sure where.”
“And my brother and Father Baer?”
Scott nodded. “They had it in their hands.”
Isaiah pushed himself off the table and leaned heavily against the chair, his hands grasping the table’s edge. He was stunned, his eyes open wide. “I don’t believe it,” he whispered. Then he looked up at Mayhew, then over to Scott. “Tell me what happened.” And he closed his eyes, his mind trying to evaluate this new information and what it might mean.
“A woman named Melissa Strauss brought the ring into the country.”
“Melissa Strauss… I saw her on the news.”
“Yeah, well, she was no terrorist. She sent the ring to a friend of mine, and the CIA tracked it to his house. I intervened.”
“And so they came after you?”
“Naturally.”
He turned his attention to Mayhew. “You’re a member of the Resistance?”
He nodded. “We were positioned in Adirondack Park, in a captured gulag. That’s where the Mossad agents showed up with the priest.”
Isaiah studied him. He didn’t seem to care one way or the other whether or not Mayhew was in the Resistance. “How’d you meet my brother?”
Scott rubbed his head. “The military attacked the camp, and we fled to a nearby house. Father Baer was injured pretty badly... that’s when he gave me the books, and its where he was killed. Anyway, we eventually got picked up by the CIA, but the Mossad ambushed them, taking us and the ring to your brother.” While their cuts, weary faces, and burnt clothes told of a much more complicated version, he didn’t feel the need to expound any further at the moment.
Isaiah took his glasses off and massaged his temples with his fingers, and Scott shoved another cracker in his mouth.
Finally, Isaiah asked, “Where’s the ring now?”
“It just drove off down the street.” There was a hint of frustration in Mayhew’s voice.
Scott clarified. “Benjamin’s men have it. They said they were taking it to their boss. Whoever that is.”
Isaiah pushed the chair back, stood up, and walked over to the kitchen sink. Staring out the window, he asked, “You have no idea what is happening, do you?”
Their silence affirmed Isaiah’s suspicion.
Still staring out the window, Isaiah watched snow begin to fall. “Do you know what the Copper Scroll is?”
“No,” Scott said.
But Mayhew didn’t share the same level of ignorance. “Spring of 1952, found in 3Q near Qumran. Took them four years to figure out how to open it because the oxidization had made the copper so brittle. It’s supposed to be some kind of treasure map indicating where the priests hid the Temple treasures before the Romans came.”
Isaiah sighed, but it wasn’t a sigh of relief. Instead, it sounded as if a huge burden suddenly landed square on his shoulders. He whispered, “Let’s go for a wal
k.”
31
Isaiah led them toward an open field as a lazy shower of snow fell gently along their path. His hands were in his pockets, and he occasionally stole a glance back at the two surprise visitors, his mind attempting to stay afloat within the strange, bottomless ocean of mystery.
Scott watched his breath crystallize in front of him and pulled his stolen jacket, scorched and torn, a little tighter. The surrounding fields were quickly turning white, and the leafless trees scattered around their edges were creaking in the gentle wind. Other than a few houses barely visible across the horizon, the area was void of human activity. He hoped it would stay that way. Turning toward Mayhew, who had been given a warmer jacket by Isaiah, he asked, “What’s this Copper Scroll you were talking about?” He didn’t want to burden Isaiah with unnecessary questions, not while he was obviously deep in thought about something, the death of his brother most likely.
Mayhew’s words came with clouds of their own. “The Dead Sea Scrolls were found in 1947,” he began, “and then over the next few years, more than eight hundred scrolls and over a hundred thousand fragments were discovered.”
“Of what?”
“Old Testament manuscripts, partial manuscripts, commentaries...” A large snowflake landed on his nose. “But in 1952 a scroll was discovered that was unlike all the others, one made of copper. It took them four years just to come up with a plan on how to open it without destroying it.”
“How’d they do it?”
“They cut it in strips. Turns out it wasn’t that bright of an idea. A lot of the text was lost due to the cutting.”
Scott watched a fox run from the field and into a wooded area about two hundred yards ahead. “Did they decipher any of it?”
“If memory serves, I think it consisted of an obscure version of ancient Hebrew, a version different from all the other Dead Sea Scrolls, and some Greek cryptograms.”
Scott raised an eyebrow while pushing his hands into his pockets and lifting his shoulders up to his ears against a sudden wind that swirled the white powder settling at their feet. “That doesn’t mean anything to me.”
“There were sixty-four lines in the scroll, each one describing some sort of treasure. I think they estimated the whole thing to account for two hundred tons of treasure.”
“From where?”
“From the Temple in Jerusalem. At one point there was an increase of twenty-five tons of gold and silver per year coming into it. Nebuchadnezzar took it all to Babylon, but Nehemiah and Ezra eventually saw that it was returned.”
“The Temple held that much wealth?”
“In the book of Ezra, it says that Artaxerxes authorized a four ton contribution to be given to the Temple’s reconstruction efforts. And when Herod expanded the Second Temple, the wealth only increased. Even Jesus made reference to the Temple’s gold.”
Scott frowned. “That’s what it is? A treasure map to the Temple’s lost wealth?” He wondered if that’s what everyone was after, mere gold. It was a timeless tale, but somehow Scott didn’t think the world’s Elite would be all that concerned about some lost gold. Not when they controlled global economies, printed their own money, and owned the world bank.
“That’s the general belief, but as far as I know, most of the locations listed only reveal evidence of earlier excavation.”
“Any idea what this Scroll would have to do with the rings?”
Mayhew shook his head. “Not at all.”
At that point, Isaiah turned and entered the conversation, breaking out of his musings. “He doesn’t know, because he completely misses the essential mystery of the Scroll.” He slowed down and waited for them to catch up. “A common belief regarding the Scroll is that the priests of the day, believing Ezekiel’s prophecy of Gog and Magog to be upon them, hid not only the Temple’s treasures but also everything essential for maintaining the practice of their religion. Those who take this view as their own believe that the Scroll was made two years before the Romans burned Jerusalem to the ground, in 68 AD. Others, however, believe the Scroll was made before the Babylonians destroyed the city, much, much earlier. Either way, the Copper Scroll is, as Mayhew suggested, an inventory of the Temple’s hidden treasures and religious instruments.” He paused and started walking again. “The sixty-fourth line in the Scroll speaks of another scroll, one that is believed to be the key needed in order to unlock the secrets within the Copper Scroll itself. Some refer to it as the Silver Scroll.” He turned and looked at Mayhew. “That is the mystery.”
Scott asked, “A silver scroll?”
Isaiah shrugged. “Some think it’s just a copy of the same scroll…” He went silent for another moment, seeming to contemplate the thought. “In the book of Jeremiah, God promised that the Temple treasures would be restored after the captivity in Babylon. It’s a common theory that that promise is actually applicable to our time, that the treasures will be found in the not too distant future and will provide the final incentive required to construct a new Jewish Temple.” He took his hands out of his pockets and rubbed them together. “The Temple Scroll, found at Qumran in 1956, describes a Jewish Temple that has yet to be built, touching also on ritual cleanliness, the sacrifices and offerings as according to the festivals, and statues of the king and his army. Along with the preserved instructions in the Temple Scroll, the Copper Scroll may provide what’s needed to reestablish Judaism’s sacrificial system and erect its next, or final, Temple.”
“Your brother took issue with that,” Scott stated softly.
Isaiah managed a small smile. “He knew that any temple requiring UN sanction could never be the one that Ezekiel prophesied about, the true and final Temple that the Jewish people have been waiting for. As a Messianic Jew, I tend to agree with him.”
“Why is that?” Scott asked, not quite getting his meaning.
After blowing into his hands, Isaiah set his eyes out into the distant woods and began explaining his particular view of Christian eschatology and how it complimented his brother’s conviction. “The Bible says the prophet Daniel, because of his familiarity with Jeremiah’s writings, knew that the Babylonian captivity was about to expire, and so he sought God concerning the future of Israel. I believe, as do many theologians, that God answered him by sending a vision of Israel’s overall future and not just the immediate revelation Daniel was probably seeking. Within the vision was a timetable centered on seventy weeks of years, or four hundred and ninety years. But the vision disconnects the last week from the first sixty-nine. We interpret that as a gap within the timeframe of Israel’s history, between the first four hundred and ninety years — which started with the command to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, but I won’t get into the details,” he looked up to the snow clouds as he continued, “— and the seventieth and final week of Israel’s history. Theologians refer to this ‘gap’ as the Church Age, the Age of Grace, or the Times of the Gentiles. Anyway, when that gap expires with the rapture of the church, as some believe, those final seven years of Jewish history will begin. It’s a period of time that the prophets called ‘The Time of Jacob’s Trouble.’ The second half of the week, of the seven year period, Jesus called ‘a time of such great tribulation such as the world has never seen.’ And this is all book of Revelation stuff — the Antichrist, False Prophet, Mark of the Beast…”
Scott breathed into his own hands, recalling something Edward or Jack once said. “I’ve heard that the Antichrist is supposed to make some kind of covenant with Israel at the beginning of this tribulation and that he would break it at some point?”
“Yeah,” Isaiah responded, “what Daniel called ‘The Abomination of Desolation.’ Jesus told his disciples that when that took place, the people of Judea were to flee into the wilderness in order to escape the Tribulation. It’s described as a time of purification for the nation, as well as judgment on the wicked.
“And then, as the prophecies go, Jesus Christ will return and build the final Millennial Temple that Ezekiel told of, and all of
Israel will be saved and worship their Messiah.”
But Scott shook his head. “I’m not connecting the dots.”
Isaiah sighed again. “According to this view of biblical prophecy, there will be a Temple during the Tribulation, built by the Antichrist, animal sacrifices taking place. This Temple though, as I’ve explained, is not the one Messiah will build but the one the Messiah will destroy upon His return. That’s why my brother is…” he choked on the word, corrected himself, “was opposed to its being built. And, as he probably explained to you, God’s glory will be absent from it.”
“And you’re opposed to it being built because...”
“My Christian theology of grace, the finished work of Christ on the cross, and the writings of Paul make it impossible for me to recognize a rejuvenated system of Judaism as honoring God. As Jesus said, ‘If you reject me, you reject the Father.’ A religion that does not acknowledge the Messiah’s work is one that is not compatible with my own.”
After a while of ensuing silence, Scott shook his head again. “But what does this have to do with the ring, with the Copper Scroll?”
Isaiah stopped. “Didn’t you hear what I said? There is going to be a Temple during the last seven years. Put in place by the Antichrist, the leader of the New World Order.” And then he trailed off in a whisper. “I can’t believe they found it.” He headed back toward the house, calling out over his shoulder as his guests tried to keep up, “The Copper Scroll contains sixty-four clearly distinct sections. Each one begins with the description of a hiding place and ends with a description of what can be found there. Most of the treasure is described as silver, gold, or some other precious material. Except for the last one. In that case, the treasure described seems to be of a different nature and seems to include the key needed to decipher the Scroll. I can’t remember exactly what the sixty-fourth section says, but I know that Father Baer had it written down in one of his books.”
Mayhew hadn’t been in the room when Isaiah mentioned additional books, so Scott was looking for some kind of reaction from him. But the reference must’ve passed over his head, because he didn’t bat an eye.
The Solomon Key Page 22
