by Paul L Maier
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.”
“Maybe because they’re more intelligent than their idols,” Jon remarked. “Many of them read, you know, and our news magazines have reprinted large sections of Second Acts-and
all of Mark’s ending-so they can see for themselves how beautifully it fits with the biblical record.”
“True enough. But now for the piece de resistance, Jon. I’ve saved the best for last.” Ferris had a huge grin on his face. “Here’s how the AP covered a comment by someone you know. Name happens to be Melvin Morris Merton.”
Jon groaned. “Here we go again. So that’s why the AP called me for a statement yesterday. And what did our manic minister have to say this time?”
“Read and enjoy.” He thrust page two of the morning New York Times onto Jon’s desk. He picked it up and read: San Antonio, TX (AP)-The Rev. Melvin Morris Merton denounced the Constantine Codex this past Sunday in a sermon during his current Texas crusade. He called the document a fraud, and Professor Jonathan and Shannon Weber, the discoverers, “aiders and abettors of fraud, perhaps even the hoaxers themselves.” “The so-called Second Acts isn’t even an original concept,” Merton said. “In 1801, a man named C. S. Sonnini translated and published in London an original Greek manuscript that has the concluding material of Acts in the form of a chapter 29. Scholars have long been looking for such a document, so it seems that Dr. Weber has conveniently ‘provided’ another one. Christians should take this one no more seriously than other frauds perpetrated upon the church. I have no doubt that Sonnini’s ‘Acts 29’ is far more ‘authentic’ than what Professor Weber claims to have found. “This is just another sign that Christ will return very soon,” Merton said. “One of the most important markers that the end is near will be when the Antichrist-or people doing the work of the Antichrist like Professor Weber-try to deceive the public.” Neither Professor Jonathan Weber nor his wife Shannon could be reached for comment at this time, although sources assume they are still in the Greater Boston area.
“What a pile of garbage!” Jon said as he finished the piece. “Can’t anyone put a muzzle on that braying donkey? Why in the world would the AP and the Times take that man seriously?”
“Probably because you didn’t return the AP’s call.”
“Good point, Dick. I’m on it.”
Jon opened his laptop and hammered out a statement. In an Associated Press dispatch yesterday from San Antonio, the Rev. Melvin Morris Merton tried to impugn the authenticity of the Constantine Codex by claiming that a manuscript translation by C. S. Sonnini from the nineteenth century, titled “Acts 29,” had greater validity. No scholar in the world has taken the Sonnini document seriously, since it has St. Paul visiting Britain, where he meets druids who claim descent from Hebrews who were in Egyptian bondage. Supposedly Paul then traveled to Gaul, Belgium, and finally Switzerland, where he prayed at Mount Pilatus that God would send a sign proving that Pontius Pilate committed suicide there. “Acts 29” goes on to claim that a great earthquake followed, waters of a lake in the mountain turned into the form of Jesus on the cross, and a voice from heaven absolved Pilate of guilt over his role on Good Friday. If Reverend Merton prefers to believe this clumsy forgery rather than the Constantine Codex, he is welcome to it. His latest attack on my wife Shannon and me in connection with the codex does not merely border on libel but is fully libelous in fact. Considering the source, however, I will not exert a moment’s effort in filing a suit. Reverend Merton’s sad record speaks for itself, and I extend my sympathy to all his followers.
“What say, Richard? Approve?”
Ferris read the screen on Jon’s laptop, chuckled, and gave him a thumbs-up.
“Then it’s enough for that flake. What I really wanted to do was quote an old Chinese proverb as a bit of advice for Merton: ‘It is better to let people think you are a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.’”
While Merton’s negative responses were frivolous, others were not. Most criticism came from responsible conservative Christian theologians who were not disputing the authenticity of the codex, but who worried lest the new material be included in the Canon. Opening the Canon would set a dreadful precedent, they argued, and could lead to “hopelessly subjective tampering with God’s Word,” as one of them wrote. “Our present Bible has served us well for the past two thousand years, so there’s no need to change it now.”
Jon, Shannon, and the ICO made no attempt to respond to such informed concern, since the issue was entirely out of their hands and was instead something that time and the global church would have to decide. They did, however, notice a powerful swelling support for calling an ecumenical church council to discuss the issue.
The swell became a near tidal wave two months later when Monsignor Kevin Sullivan served as Vatican spokesman at a much-heralded press conference in Rome. He began by reporting that archaeologists had returned to the basilica of St. Paul to resume work on what was believed to be the tomb of the great apostle. His next statements would produce world headlines. “A thin probe was inserted through a small hole in the lid of the marble sarcophagus through which pilgrims used to drop petitions. Because the hole had since been mortared over, drilling was necessary. In the words of Vatican archaeologist Giuseppe Montini, ‘We drilled a hole only where there had been a hole.’ Strobe photography through small cameras attached to the probe revealed much of the interior, which showed skeletal remains partially covered with purple linen that was laminated with gold trim, some of which the probe was also able to retrieve. Small bone fragments were also recovered, which were then subject to radiocarbon testing. The tests revealed an age of about eighteen hundred to nineteen hundred years, thus a provenance from the first or second century. “This is powerful evidence not only that the mortal remains of the apostle Paul are inside, but it also confirms, and is confirmed by, the recently discovered manuscript titled Second Acts within the Constantinian Codex. The last lines in that document tell of the execution of the apostle Paul, his burial in a purple cloak near the Ostian Way, and even the detail regarding a wooden cross placed on his chest. Such a cross was indeed discovered atop the sternum of skeletal remains in the sarcophagus. “Furthermore, the skull and highest neck vertebrae in these remains are separated from the rest of the spinal column, testifying to death by decapitation, exactly as church tradition and, most recently, the Constantinian Codex have indicated. “Accordingly, church tradition and archaeology have now confirmed both the identity of the skeletal remains and the authenticity of this newly discovered text. This is indeed a marvelous day in the history of Christianity!”
Over the next months, a prodigious number of scholarly papers dealing with the Constantine Codex were read at special theological conferences across the world. Just as the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls spawned entire libraries of monographs, dissertations, articles, books, commentaries, and indices, so the codex soon became the central focus of academic attention.
Jon and Shannon had to curb overzealous colleagues in the ICO who were pleading with them to become publicly proactive in the gathering momentum to have the new codex material admitted into the Canon. They steadfastly refused because it would detract from the objectivity of their discovery were they to declare, in effect, “We discovered this material, and now we want it in the Bible.”
Accordingly, news several months later greeted them as a shock, albeit a happy one. The Vatican in Rome and the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Istanbul made the announcement simultaneously at noon on September 15 (1 p.m. in Istanbul). His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI and His All Holiness Patriarch Bartholomew II invited world Christendom to an ecumenical council to be held in the city of Jerusalem beginning on March 15, six months hence. The conclave would be known officially as the Ecumenical Council of Jerusalem. The purpose of the council was to discuss matters involving the canon of the New Testament, although other items of general concern to Christianity would also be part of the agenda.
Jon was on the phone to Kevin Sullivan the moment he finished reading the announcement, which had flashed across his computer screen, courtesy of Reuters.
“Thanks for letting me know about this in advance, Kevin,” Jon said in what passed for a tone of annoyance, whether fe
igned or genuine.
“Sorry, Jon. I was going to call you this evening, since I thought the announcement wouldn’t come until tomorrow. Benedict sometimes does things without the benefit of my advice.”
Jon chuckled. “Not a problem! So it’s really going to happen, is it? But why Jerusalem and not Rome?”
“Well, we had the last one-Vatican III-so it was time for the East-Constantinople. But Muslim Istanbul is hardly the best place on earth for a great Christian gathering, is it? Jerusalem’s in the East, and Israelis are a shade more hospitable to Christians.”
“Figures. But now to the big question, Kev: format?”
“You’ll be glad to know that we’re following the suggestion you made the last time I was in the U.S., just before I had to fly back to Rome.”
“You mean the ‘Logan Plan’?”
“The same. Remember, I wanted to call it the ‘Weber Plan,’ but in your great humility, you deflected the name to that of the airport instead?”
“That’s right, Kev; I’m famous for my humility!”
Both chuckled at the oxymoron.
“Well, we’re going to use that plan,” Kevin continued. “All participating church bodies will be assured that any decisions made by the Ecumenical Council of Jerusalem will be advisory only, not binding. If individual church bodies wish to endorse them officially or not is up to them.”
“Fabulous. It’s really the best way to go. We agreed that the new council will not have the overpowering authority of the great ecumenical councils of the past, or the smaller delegations across the world could get paranoid.”
