by Paul L Maier
Shannon put down the translation and realized she’d been quietly weeping. She wiped her eyes, shaking her head back and forth in awe over what she had just read. Finally she said, “So that’s what happened after the record in Acts breaks off! Jon, this is just… fabulous new information-absolutely fabulous! But help me a bit with these new characters. Seneca I know, but who is that Tigellinus character?”
“Seneca and Tigellinus were the good and bad influences, respectively, in Nero’s life. Seneca tutored young Nero and really did a great job of running the Roman government for the first five years of Nero’s administration while that teenager was still growing up. But shortly after the events you just read, Seneca retired because Tigellinus, the nasty new prefect of the Praetorian guard, was gaining more and more influence over Nero. From then on, that walking glob of garbage pandered to Nero’s every whim and seduced him into the debauchery for which he would later become notorious.”
“Well, maybe that explains why Nero doesn’t seem to be the brutal monster here that we usually expect, even though his bias for Tigellinus was pretty disgusting. But in your translation, he seems almost ‘normal,’ shall we say?”
“Yes, he was. Exactly. Seneca ran Rome for Nero’s first five years-wrote his speeches, handled his appearances-and he did such a great job of it that the later emperor Trajan would claim that the quinquennium Neronis -the first five years of Nero-were the finest government Rome ever had. And Trajan was right: Seneca was also the great Stoic philosopher, you’ll recall.”
“And was he really Gallio’s brother?”
“Yep!”
“Why didn’t they have a common name, then?”
“Gallio’s original name was Annaeus Novatus, brother of Annaeus Seneca, but he was adopted by a wealthy, childless senator named Lucius Junius Gallio the Elder. The one who judged Paul was Gallio the Younger.”
“And Paul knew all that?”
“He must have, which probably is why he appealed to the tribunal of Nero in the first place. Paul had some kind of friend at court-the very brother of the man who had set him free in Corinth!”
Shannon grinned and nodded. “That Paul was a survivor. But one of the arguments raised on his behalf was that Christianity was not illegal. If so, then why did Nero persecute believers? He’s notorious for that.”
“This is AD 62, Shannon. The Great Fire of Rome didn’t ignite until July of 64, two years later. When Nero got blamed for that, he switched the blame to the Christians in order to save himself. Christianity was illegal only from that point on.”
“And that Flavius Sabinus person? Was he really mayor of Rome at that time? And a Christian?”
“‘Yes’ to the first, and ‘we’re not sure’ for the second. His mother-in-law was Christian, and his sons definitely were since one of them died as a martyr. But I haven’t told you yet who his brother was, have I?”
“No, but I didn’t ask.”
“Ask.”
“Okay, who was Sabinus’s brother?”
“Merely a fellow named Flavius Vespasian, the future emperor of Rome.”
She laughed. “Oh, Jon, this is unbelievable. That part of Second Acts pulls it all together, doesn’t it, like some kind of crossroads of the past.”
“Now you see why I’m just a wee bit excited over all this?” Then he stopped smiling and added, “It’s just… so sad that the church couldn’t have had this document over most of the past centuries.”
Three weeks later, Jon called to order the special session of the Institute of Christian Origins and welcomed twelve guest scholars from the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts. He also introduced Monsignor Kevin Sullivan, who had flown in from Rome. Under one roof, then, were many of the world’s finest experts on textual scholarship. Some had been on translation committees of such modern New Testament versions as the RSV, NRSV, TEB, NIV, Jerusalem Bible, ESV, NLT, and an alphabet soup of others. Almost all had managed to massage their schedules, simply canceling any impediments in view of the important announcement they suspected was awaiting them in Cambridge.
“Ladies and gentlemen-fellow scholars,” Jon opened, “I thank you all for disrupting previous plans in order to be present today. I hope you’ll find that effort more than rewarded. What I’ll announce shortly is something so unparalleled, so very extraordinary, that your critical faculties must immediately question these discoveries, and I actually look forward to any decent skepticism in that regard.”
Smiles broke out around the two long boardroom tables that had been set up.
“When you do digest the tidings I bring- and if you’re able to put your skepticism on a short tether-your first impulse will be to call home, call friends and colleagues, call your university, or call the media. Doing so, however, will only complicate the very exciting task ahead of us. And so I’m pleading for a latter-day miracle, namely, that even though there are fifty-eight people in this room, we maintain strict secrecy until we’ve made all appropriate preparations prior to a general announcement to the world. Might we agree on that?”
The last phrase raised a buzz around both tables, along with the expected affirmations. The irrepressible von Schwendener, sitting to the chair’s left, whispered, “What is this, Jon-another Dead Sea Scrolls discovery?”
“No, Heinz, it’s much more important than that.”
“What?” he erupted in hardly a whisper.
Jon resumed. “Since context is of utmost importance, let’s begin by giving you the background of what we found. First, archaeologist Shannon Jennings Weber-who also happens to be my wife-will discuss her dig at Pella last summer.”
Shannon summarized her experiences in the Trans-Jordan, focusing on her serendipitous trip to the little Greek Orthodox church, her dialogue with the priest in charge, and her discovery of the Hegesippus copy that mentioned Luke’s third treatise to Theophilus, presumably “Second Acts.” This raised a fusillade of questions from the group, many of them answered when she flashed a slide of the manuscript page involved on a screen at the end of the conference room.
“This gave us the first hint that our New Testament canon might not be entirely complete,” Shannon concluded. “Yet later, when Jon and I were on our manuscript hunt this past summer and inquired of archivists and authorities at Athens, Meteora, and Mount Athos, no one had ever heard of a second Acts, and so it dropped from our ‘desktop,’ so to speak.”
“Did you find any other references to it since then?” asked Henry Innes MacAdam of Princeton.
“Stay tuned, Mac,” Shannon said with a little smile.
Next, Jon reported briefly on their experiences at the other Greek archives but devoted the lion’s share of his time to their dialogues with Bartholomew II and their experiences at his Ecumenical Patriarchate in Istanbul. His graphic report was only enhanced as he flashed image after image on the screen of the patriarchate. When he reached the geniza, however, the room stilled to a hush. These scholars knew that this was where many great discoveries had been made in the past.
They were not disappointed. First Jon showed a series of photographs of the ancient bookstand in the southwest corner of the room, then a close-up shot of the codex itself. Several photographs of the codex followed after it had been placed on the worktable.
Jon would have signaled a drum roll, if such had been available, for he announced, “The next photograph, my colleagues, you will never forget.” On a full screen, he projected the title page of the codex and waited silently for it to sink in.
One by one, little whimpers of recognition broke out along both tables as they translated the Greek, then louder and louder comments until Jon finally said, “Yes, my friends. As you have no doubt discerned for yourselves, this is one of the fifty copies of the New Testament that the Emperor Constantine authorized Eusebius of Caesarea to prepare on the finest vellum available!”
After a moment of sepulchral silence, boisterous applause broke out at the conference tables. Edwin Yamauchi of Oxford exclaimed, “Go
od heavens! Scholars have been searching for one of those ever since textual scholarship began with Erasmus in the sixteenth century! Please tell us you have the entire Bible here.”
“Wish I could, Ed. But here’s a consolation prize: how about the entire… New… Testament?”
Bedlam took over the chamber. There was cheering and roaring and raucous celebration. Jon finally had to remonstrate, tongue in cheek, “Tsk, tsk, my colleagues. As critical scholars, aren’t we supposed to be cool and dispassionate about this?”
When the chuckling ceased, Jon continued. “Well, my friends, all future editions of the Greek New Testament will have to take this manuscript into account.” He flashed page after page of the beautiful four columns of Greek on vellum. “Obviously, we now have one of the great uncial codices of the New Testament, which is clearly the equal-if not the superior-of the Sinaiticus, the Vaticanus, and the Alexandrinus.”
“Oh, that’s for sure,” Brendan Rutledge said. “I think this, not the Sinaiticus, could well be the new aleph!” He referred to the “a” symbol designating the first and greatest uncial text.
“Now jest a cotton-pickin’ minute,” called out Jesse Trumbull of New Orleans Baptist Seminary. “We’ve all heard the expression, ‘This is too good to be true,’ and then that lit’rally is the case: not true! Professor Weber has shown us some mighty intriguin’ material here, but it’s only slides and images-not the actual document itself. Now I’m sure he doesn’t mean to trick us, but aren’t we all critical scholars here? Why do we fall all over ourselves to assume that this is authentic and then go hollerin’ and cheerin’ and carryin’ on? Remember Bernard Madoff? He was the best in the business when it came to Wall Street-until they found out that he was only the biggest Ponzi around. Hey, I’m not sayin’ that Jon’s any Madoff, and all this may be right as rain, but don’t we have to ask the good professor about the codex itself and its whereabouts?”
“Yes, I think we do,” Jon responded, smiling. “And I’m so glad you brought this up, Jesse. Shannon and I were also somewhat skeptical at first, but when we photographed page after page after page, we realized that this could not possibly be forged. Still, we plan to do appropriate authenticity testing of the codex itself as soon as we can. And in answer to your question about its location, we left it with the Ecumenical Patriarch in Istanbul, since it is the property of the Eastern Orthodox Church. To be sure, we gave him some firm suggestions as to optimal security arrangements and preservation of that extraordinary document.”
“Well, I’m happy to hear that,” Trumbull replied.
“Have you read it all yet, Jon?” Sally Humiston wondered.
“‘Checked it all out’ might be the best answer, though I have read some parts in much greater detail than others. The material reflects the same general manuscript tradition as the Sinaiticus, but with several very important differences: our codex, for example, does not include the Epistle of Barnabas or Shepherd of Hermas as does the Sinaiticus.”
“What does it include?” Mac MacAdam asked.
“Simply and happily, all twenty-seven books of our canonical New Testament-no more, no less.” Then he caught himself and added, “No, sorry. I misspoke.”
“You did?” Mac persisted. “Would you care to unpack that?”
Jon paused for several moments, then said, “Well, I guess it’s time to unload another little surprise for you.” He pressed a button on his laptop and flashed more columns of beautiful, uncial Greek onto the screen. It was the last chapter of Mark. “Here we have the last chapter of Mark from the codex,” he added.
