Miller Unity Project

1. Auflage 2012
ISBN: 978-0-9906463-2-7
Verlag: SJM Corporation, Inc.
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 205 Seiten

The Unity Project is a futuristic novel about a global war between the secularist technocrats and the theists.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Miller, J. R.

Leseproben

The Sacred Texts

While the battle was heating up in America, it was already hot in the Far East. Russian forces had already advanced deep into Kazakhstan, while Chinese forces moved into Nepal and Burma. They encountered very light resistance, and were making good progress on their drive toward the Islamic Front Nations, destroying every last vestige of religion as they raced towards the south.

The speed of the advance of the secularist forces surprised the theist leaders. An urgent meeting of the Council of Elders was called. The meeting was being held in Alexandria Egypt because of its prominence as a center for the antiquities trade. There was a conference on paleography being held in Alexandria, which was to be attended by the internationally recognized expert on antiquities, Professor Alexander Clark.

The Council had received news that the secularists were destroying bibles and copies of the Koran and the Torah in America. The Council members knew it was only a matter of time before the secularists would begin destroying all the sacred texts and that they would need help if they were to have any chance of saving the remaining copies. They needed someone they could trust, and someone who had access to the great libraries of the world if they were to be successful. That someone was Alexander Clark.

Professor Clark, also known as the Librarian, was a Professor of Philosophy at Oxford University and the Director of Scholarship and Collections at the British Library. Professor Clark was a worldrenowned expert on ancient manuscripts and paleography. He was also a good Christian, and had the knowledge and the access to help save the sacred texts. The professor had been invited to the Council of Elders meeting to present the latest information on the sacred texts.

“As you know professor, the godless ones are on a crusade to destroy religion. In so doing, they wish to destroy the sacred texts. We have called upon your services to help us secure the sacred texts before they can be destroyed,” explained Nicholas.

“The secularists know that to completely destroy religion, they must destroy the sacred texts. The sacred texts are the foundation of our faith, without them we have nothing,” replied Professor Clark.

“What can you tell us about the sacred texts?” asked Elijah.

The professor began his presentation, “As you know, there is still disagreement between various Christian sects about which books belong to the Bible. There are books included in the Septuagint and Vulgate, which are excluded from the Jewish and Protestant canons of the Old Testament. Both the western Catholic and eastern Orthodox churches base their Old Testaments on the Septuagint, a Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament.”

“The oldest existing version of the New Testament, long preserved at St. Catherine’s monastery on Mount Sinai, is now in the British Library. The British Library’s New Testament is pocket-sized, bound in crimson leather, and richly illustrated. There is also the Stuttgart Copy, which is complete with title page and preserved in its original binding, it resides in the Württemberg State Library in Stuttgart. The only other known copy of Tyndale’s New Testament, in St. Paul’s Cathedral, London, has 59 leaves missing. Tyndale’s Worms New Testament, which was translated from the Greek original, was the first copy of the New Testament printed in English. In the spring of 1994 the British Library acquired this New Testament for a little over £1,000,000.”

“Apart from the two copies of the Gutenberg Bible in the British Library there are 46 other complete copies of the Bible or substantial fragments worldwide. Six of these are in the United Kingdom. The Bodleian Library in Oxford has a complete copy printed on paper. There is a copy in Cambridge University Library and Eton College has a copy on paper. At Lambeth Palace in London, the palace of the Archbishop of Canterbury, there is a copy of Volume 2, printed on vellum. The John Rylands Library in Manchester has a copy on paper, and there is a copy in the National Library of Scotland.”

“The oldest surviving copies of the Koran were discovered in the ancient Great Mosque of Sa’na in 1972, when the building was being restored after heavy rainfall. Until this discovery there were three ancient copies of the Koran. One copy in the Library of Tashkent in Uzbekistan, and another in the Topkapi Museum in Istanbul, Turkey, date from the eighth century. A copy preserved in the British Library in London, known as the Ma’il manuscript, dates from the late seventh century.”

“The Dead Sea scrolls were discovered between 1947 and 1960 at sites along the Dead Sea. The scrolls date to 150 BC and 5 BC. In addition to the oldest known versions of some Old Testament books, the scrolls include long-lost originals of several books of the Apocrypha and non-biblical Jewish religious works such as the books of Enoch, Jubilees, and the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs. Most of the originals of the scrolls are at the Rockefeller Museum in East Jerusalem, the rest are at the Israel Museum’s Shrine of the Book in Jerusalem. Fragments of the Dead Sea scrolls are also on display at the Archeological Museum in Amman, Jordan.”

“There are three main versions of the Hebrew Bible. There is the Masoretic text of the Torah of which the oldest known copy is the Aleppo Codex. The scribe Shlomo Ben-Buya’a copied the Codex over one thousand years ago. In 1958, the Aleppo Codex was brought to Jerusalem, where it remains in the Shrine of the Book at the Israel Museum. The oldest complete text is the Leningrad Codex, which dates to the tenth century AD. Then there is the Septuagint, which is a Greek translation of the Torah, made under Ptolemy in the third century BC and the Peshitta, a translation of the Christian Bible into Syriac, a variant of Aramaic. The earliest known copy of the Peshitta dates to 445-460 AD. The Leningrad Codex is in St. Petersburg, Russia, at the Russian National Library where it has been since the mid-1800s.”

“The Vedas are the most important sacred texts of Hinduism. The most important of the Vedas is the Rig Veda, which is a collection of 1,028 Hymns written in praise of the most important gods of the Vedic period. The Upanishads are a collection of writings composed between 600 - 200 BC. They are concerned with learning about Brahman, the all-pervading life force, and the relationship between Brahman and the universe. The British Library collection of Hindu texts and associated literature has been built up continuously since the end of the eighteenth century when European scholars first began a serious study of Hinduism. Acquired in 1789, the collection includes the earliest manuscript set of the Vedas to reach Europe.”

Professor Clark was finishing his presentation when there was a knock on the door. It was a messenger with a note for the Archbishop. The Archbishop read the note and with a look of dismay said, “The Russians have just invaded Kazakhstan and are moving rapidly to the south.”

“Nicholas, we must move quickly if we are to get to the Library of Tashkent in Uzbekistan before the Russians do. There are other mosques with valuables that must be moved and we have no forces or defenses in the north,” pleaded Mustafa.

“There is no way we will be able to secure all of the sacred texts, we must focus on getting the most complete copies for each of the major religions,” said Surya.

“We must act quickly and get to the sacred texts before the secularists, or they will all be destroyed. I will secure the Codex Sinaiticus New Testament, the Tyndale’s New Testament, the Rig Veda, and the Ma’il Koran from the British Library. My associate Dmitry Ivanov at St. Petersburg State University will secure the Leningrad Codex from the Russian National Library. The texts will be shipped to Khartoum, Sudan and stored there until the preparation of the final storage site is complete,” said Professor Clark.

“We wish you Godspeed on your mission professor. Please let us know if you need any assistance. We will meet again soon. I will contact you with the time and location,” said Nicholas.

With the news of the rapid advance of secularist forces, the meeting ended so the theists could work on securing the sacred texts. Professor Clark returned to London and immediately began his work while the others returned to the fight.

The Librarian’s Mission

Upon his return to London from the Alexandria Council meeting, Professor Clark began working on his plan and preparations to save the sacred texts. Fortunately, he already had most of the things he needed. He had special cases for the sacred texts, and there were plenty of readily available forgeries and replicas of the sacred documents. Many art and manuscript forgeries are so well done that even experts have a difficult time determining their authenticity. His plan was simple. Go to the library with the replicas in his briefcase, replace the original texts with the replicas, put the originals in his briefcase and exit the library.

With the preparations complete the day to retrieve the sacred texts had arrived. Professor Clark was feeling extremely anxious. He had never done anything unethical or illegal in his entire life. He tried to calm down and concentrate on the importance of his mission. He thought about William Tyndale who sacrificed everything for his beliefs. It was William Tyndale’s translation and publication of the New Testament that opened the bible to the masses. For his reformist views and challenges to the church and state he paid...