by Paul L Maier
“Oh, Professor Weber,” said Brother Gregorios, who had just appeared in the doorway, “have you seen enough of our tattered collection?”
“Yes, thank you, good brother.” Then he whispered to Shannon, “Just put this back exactly where you found it.”
On the way back to the hotel, Jon unpacked his strategy. “We had no time to get into the text, Shannon, so telling anyone there what we found would have been totally premature. And foolish! If the thing is authentic-and how in the world could it not be?-it will stun the entire scholarly world. Report it too early, and it would become a cause celebre and complicate any evaluation. We could even be denied further access to it.” If Jon had one questionable habit, it was his proclivity to overexplain things to people, born of many years’ teaching university undergrads, who, in fact, needed his careful reiteration of what might have seemed obvious.
The moment they returned to the Hilton, Jon headed for his laptop, found the folder on the early church fathers, and opened a work by Eusebius called Vita Constantini – The Life of Constantine. He paged through the document until he came to chapters 36 and 37, where he read aloud, for Shannon’s benefit, the dated though colorful translation from The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church. It began with Eusebius’s transcription of Constantine’s own letter, written from Constantinople to Eusebius in Caesarea. VICTOR CONSTANTINUS, MAXIMUS AUGUSTUS to Eusebius, It happens, through the favoring providence of God, our Savior, that great numbers have united themselves to the most holy church in the city which is called by my name. It seems, therefore, highly requisite, since that city is rapidly advancing in prosperity in all other respects, that the number of churches should also be increased. Do you, therefore, receive with all readiness my determination on this behalf. I have thought it expedient to instruct your Prudence to order fifty copies of the sacred Scriptures, the provision and use of which you know to be most needful for the instruction of the Church, to be written on prepared parchment in a legible manner, and in a convenient, portable form, by professional transcribers thoroughly practiced in their art. The procurator of the diocese has also received instructions by letter from our Clemency to be careful to furnish all things necessary for the preparation of such copies; and it will be for you to take special care that they be completed with as little delay as possible. You have authority also, in virtue of this letter, to use two of the public carriages for their conveyance, by which arrangement the copies when fairly written will most easily be forwarded for my personal inspection; and one of the deacons of your church may be entrusted with this service, who, on his arrival here, shall experience my liberality. God preserve you, beloved brother.
Jon looked up from the screen in jubilation. “What you found was written on parchment, Shannon. You found one of the fifty. Scholars have been looking for that edition since the early centuries of the church!”
“Yes, but don’t the ‘Scriptures’ ordered by Constantine include the Old Testament? I just found the New.”
“Well, they were supposed to be portable, so they were most likely in two volumes, exactly as the title ‘Book Two’ implies. Anyhow, in the next lines, Eusebius tells how he responded to the emperor’s letter.” Such were the emperor’s commands, which were followed by the immediate execution of the work itself, which we sent him in magnificent and elaborately bound volumes of a threefold and fourfold form. This fact is attested by another letter, which the emperor wrote in acknowledgment…
“‘Threefold and fourfold form’? Whatever can that mean?” Jon wondered.
“Maybe three or four columns of writing per page?” Shannon suggested.
“Why not? Excellent, Shannon! What we saw were four columns per page, and remember how carefully the calfskin cover had originally been tooled? That’s it! That’s one of them!”
Shannon smiled, but her reserve showed that she wasn’t quite ready to celebrate. She shook her head and asked, “But why would they put something so incredibly valuable as that in their junk room?”
“Well, who knows when it landed there? We’ll try to find out. But probably they did it for some stupidly simple reason, such as a missing back cover. That room was full of mangled books.”
“Okay, Jon, let your mind roam. What, finally, is the ‘world-shaking’ importance here? Might it not be simply an early edition of the New Testament that we all know? And if so, what’s the big deal?”
“You know the rule, Shannon: the earlier, the more authoritative. The Bible has come down to us with thousands of tiny variations. None of them amount to a hill of beans, despite sensationalizing claims to the contrary. But now textual scholars will have a tremendous new source to work with in getting us the best possible reading of what the biblical writers actually wrote. And who knows what else we might find in the text? For openers, even issues regarding the Canon come into play here: what books are included in that early New Testament, and which are left out?”
Shannon quickly found Jon’s enthusiasm contagious and said, in a beaming smile, “I bet you’ll have trouble sleeping tonight!”
“You bet, and for the next two nights, my darling, since the debate is tomorrow. But after that, I’m loading up our cameras with freshly charged batteries to photograph every last inch of that incredible document.”
In a great bound, Jon now leaped to the mini fridge in their suite, hauled out a bottle of Dom Perignon, popped the cork, and filled two glasses with bubbly. “I know this is too traditional, sweetheart, but… a toast to Shannon Jennings Weber, amazing archaeologist, scintillating scholar, dauntless discoverer of precious codices, and magnificent mate! By the way, we’ll both have trouble sleeping tonight!”
The night before the debate was indeed rather sleepless for Jon, and not only because he and Shannon were celebrating God’s magnificent gift of marital love-itself a proof of his existence. He was also chagrined to realize that instead of fighting nervous concern over the forthcoming debate, his mind was focused on the ancient codex Shannon had discovered. It was almost as if he had told himself, “Let’s get this debate thing out of the way so I can finally read what’s in that document!”
Now, on the sun-drenched morning of September 3, while their motorcade wound its way to Hagia Sophia, he came to his senses. How selfish, how very solipsistic could he get? Millions across the world would be watching the debate-either live or later on DVD, and over the next hours he had to defend the faith as best he could rather than fixate on a dilapidated manuscript. The Crusaders were unable to succeed militarily against Islam eight centuries in the past; was he, perhaps, supposed to try making up for that intellectually? Then again, he was glad he had not ventilated such wild thoughts to Shannon, for she would have replied, “The faith will survive nicely without your success or failure, dear!” Shannon was God’s gift to Jon for many reasons, not least of which was to keep her husband humble. As the magnitude of the event finally registered with Jon, he wondered why it had taken him so long to invoke divine help. Although he was not in a private oratory but in the midst of urban bedlam, he offered up the most earnest silent prayer of his life.
It was difficult for them to get inside the basilica, since it was surrounded by a host of humanity even an hour before the debate was to begin at 9:30 a.m. The lovely park that extended between Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque several blocks to the west had turned into a temporary parking lot for television and communications vans, each sprouting relay dishes aimed toward their counterparts outside the western upper gallery of the basilica.
Surrounded by Turkish gendarmes, Jon’s party made its way through the small west portal into Hagia Sophia. Overhead inside the passageway they saw a magnificent, semicircular mosaic of Constantine offering the city of Constantinople to the Virgin Mother and Jesus. To the right was Justinian, offering Hagia Sophia to the same pair-all against a gleaming background of golden mosaic. Jon offered up another quick prayer to the Christ who received these gifts to bless the debate.
Inside, they walked do
wn a side aisle, under the vast dome overhead, and toward a dais erected at the southern end of the sanctuary. Several times Jon stopped at a given row, exchanging a glad hello with a friend from the States who had made the long trip to Istanbul. Shannon, in fact, had to shoo him on several times.
On the eastern side of the sanctuary, Abbas al-Rashid and his party were approaching the dais. It was the first time Jon had seen his debate partner in the flesh, but he answered well to the many photographs he had seen of the sheikh in the press and on television. He was a fair Islamic counterpart to Jon-the same solid, broad-shouldered frame, medium-tall height, and square-cut visage, but perhaps five years older and with dark hair and deep brown eyes. He was wearing a Western-style suit but with Islamic headdress, perhaps a compromise to please both extremes among his faithful seated in the eastern sector.
As they took their seats in the front row on the opposite side, Jon-almost instinctively and without forethought-got up and walked across the aisle to shake the sheikh’s hand. Abbas unleashed a broad smile and shook Jon’s hand with evident enthusiasm. Both sides of the audience erupted into applause. It was an unanticipated and pleasant touch.
At 9:33 a.m., three men emerged from somewhere in the apse and stepped up to the dais. One of them Jon had already seen emblazoned on the Turkish lira, no less than the president himself-all six feet of him and his trademark mustachioed face that resembled a latter-day Suleyman the Magnificent. He moved to a central microphone and opened in Turkish, then English: “In the name of the Republic of Turkey, it is my privilege to welcome you to Haya Sofya and this important debate between Imam Abbas al-Rashid, the grand sheikh of al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt, and Dr. Jonathan P. Weber, professor of Near Eastern studies at Harvard University in Cambridge, USA. To my right is the Muslim mufti of Istanbul, His Excellency Mustafa Selim, who will be one of the moderators, and to my left is His All Holiness Bartholomew II, the Eastern Orthodox Christian Patriarch, who is the other moderator. May Allah-God guide all our proceedings here today.”
He then stepped down from the dais.
The Muslim moderator stood and approached the microphone, directing the audience, again in three languages, to don their headgear. From now on, there would be simultaneous translations of all speakers in the agreed-upon languages of Turkish, Arabic, English, Greek, Farsi, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Russian, and Chinese. The appropriate language would be transmitted via Bluetooth wireless technology to all earphones mounted on the thousands of heads in the audience. The expense for this arrangement-well into six figures-was the gift of a Saudi oil magnate.
Mustafa Selim announced the rules of the debate, which both sides had agreed upon weeks earlier. It would be a much freer exchange than U.S. presidential debates, in which the contest was merely “Who can answer the same question better?” rather than the rough-and-tumble of give-and-take. Next, Patriarch Bartholomew presented a brief commentary on the rules, promising that both moderators would intervene as little as possible and cautioning the audience against raucous responses of any kind, which would result in ejection by government police. Both parties in the debate were then invited to offer brief opening statements.
Abbas won the coin toss but elected to go first. He began with an air of confidence. “I am honored to have this discussion with one of the foremost Christian authorities in the world today, a man whose scholarship is admired by all, including Islamic scholars. But I will try to show him-and the world-that Islam has superseded both Judaism and Christianity as Allah’s, as God’s, greatest, fullest, and final revelation and that the prophet Muhammad-may Allah’s peace and blessing be upon him!-is greater than the other prophets that we both respect, namely Abraham, Moses, and Jesus of Nazareth.
“I will liken Judaism to the elementary school in our knowledge of Allah, Christianity to the secondary or high school, but Islam as the university. I will point out the impossibility that God could be three rather than one or marry a human woman and have a son by her. I will honor Jesus of Nazareth as a great prophet, to be sure, but not as God or the Son of God. Nor was he crucified, as claimed by the Christian Scriptures, which suffered errors early on in their transcription from the original authors.
“I will also demonstrate that Islam has higher moral standards than Christianity, and for that reason Allah has blessed his believers with greater territorial success and conversion rates than Christianity. And at the close of our debate, I hope that Professor Weber will recognize the truth of Allah’s revelations through his holy Prophet-may Allah’s peace and blessing be upon him!-and perhaps even accept the one true religion as proclaimed in the Holy Qur’an.”
At that, Abbas sat down and received thunderous applause from the eastern side of Hagia Sophia.
Jon had taken in every syllable of al-Rashid’s opening statement, parts of which were predictable, others not, such as his opponent’s ingenuous hope for his conversion. Jon squeezed Shannon’s hand and walked to the dais.
Noting the contrast between the two halves of his attentive audience, he began. “I find it a privilege to dialogue with one of the great theologians of Islam. Grand Sheikh Abbas al-Rashid is known not only for his vast knowledge but also for his generosity and wisdom. If you’ll permit a personal reference, his was the major voice in averting great danger from me some months ago due to a mistranslation in one of my books. I remain in your debt, my friend.”
Spirited applause broke out from both sides of the sanctuary, which al-Rashid acknowledged with a gracious nod of appreciation to both Jon and the audience.
Jon resumed. “As a Christian, of course, I will have to maintain that all knowledge about Jesus Christ is far more reliable from contemporary and eyewitness sources rather than from a differing version that first arose six centuries later. I will have to correct some misinterpretations that Islam has about Christianity and its doctrine of the Trinity and affirm that Jesus did indeed die on a cross, and that he rose again as he and the prophets had predicted. I will have to challenge the claim that the Qur’an is God’s greatest revelation-” he heard murmuring from the eastern half of the sanctuary-“and that the Christian Scriptures suffered errors as they were recopied across the centuries.
“While I have great respect for the second largest religion on earth, I shall have to point out problems in the claims of Islam, while finding those of Christianity provable by a massive amount of outside evidence. In any case, I look forward to a fascinating interchange with the grand sheikh.”
As Jon left the podium, parallel applause broke out on the Christian side.
The debate then moved into the format they had agreed to, which was now announced by both moderators: Islam’s problems with Christianity Christianity’s defense Christianity’s problems with Islam Islam’s defense (Both parties are limited to fifteen minutes each in the above segments) A general exchange Final summation: Christianity Final summation: Islam
The moderators also announced the schedule: two morning sessions, separated by a break, and two similar afternoon sessions following an interim for lunch. “And lest anyone complain that this is too long,” Patriarch Bartholomew added in a genial touch, “debates in the past lasted for days, not hours. Martin Luther’s famous debate at Leipzig in 1519, for example, lasted eighteen days. We don’t intend to inflict that on you!” Laughter followed intermittently, depending on the varying speed of the translators.
Jon and Abbas now took their seats, each at the end of a table on the dais so that they could face one other, while the two moderators sat in the middle. Both sides had agreed that only the person speaking at a given time would stand and use a lectern.
Abbas al-Rashid stood and opened with warm enthusiasm. “Thank you, people of all faiths, for joining us today for what we believe will be a very important discussion, which is long overdue. And yet this is not the first time Christians and Muslims have debated their respective beliefs. In fact, major discussions have taken place for the past fourteen centuries, and we are pleased to add our o
wn efforts to that proud tradition.
“As for problems I find in Christianity, let me begin with simple logic and mathematics. The program began today at a specific time-not three different times. And so, if Christianity confesses one God-as do Jews and Muslims-they cannot also confess that God is three. This is not monotheism, but polytheism, specifically, tritheism: the worship of three different gods. To be sure, Christians try to speak of one divine essence and three personalities in what they call the Godhead, but this doctrine of the Trinity, so-called, fails all tests of logic. By no calculation does one equal three, or three equal one. This point alone, I believe, refutes Christianity as a viable religion for any who believe that God is one.”
Loud partisan applause again broke out, until silenced by the moderators. Jon was less than comfortable in realizing that Abbas had immediately attacked the one logical weak point of Christianity. Only the problem of evil was greater, but that was common to all three monotheistic religions. Jon looked at Osman Al-Ghazali to see if the Arabic translator was doing an accurate job. Much of Abbas’s Arabic Jon could understand, but he wanted to be sure. He had had a bitter enough experience with mistranslations! Each time that he heard “Allah” in Arabic, the translator rendered this as “God,” which was perfectly acceptable, since that was the generic term for God in Arabic.
Abbas seemed to press his lips together, perhaps to keep from smiling. He glanced quickly at his notes and then resumed. “We who follow the Prophet-may Allah’s peace and blessing be upon him!-also find it nearly blasphemous that Christians should think that almighty God had a marital affair with a human woman in conceiving Jesus. The sovereign Lord is certainly beyond that sort of thing, unless you equate him with mythologies invented by the Greeks and Romans: Zeus and his many affairs with anyone in skirts in heaven or earth.” He paused briefly for the laughter greeting his remark. “We esteem Mary highly, of course, but we refuse to make her part of the Godhead. We also regard Jesus as a great prophet. Indeed, we believe that he was virgin-born and that he shall return, as he has promised. But to include him in what you call your Trinity? Never!
