The Jerusalem Scrolls

The Jerusalem ScrollsVATICAN SECRET ARCHIVE THRILLERSBOOK FIVE GARY MCAVOY Copyright © 2023 by Gary McAvoy All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted under current copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher at the email or postal address below. Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-954123-26-7 Paperback ISBN: 978-1-954123-27-4 eBook ISBN: 978-1-954123-28-1 Library of Congress Control Number: 2022923990 Published by: Literati Editions PO Box 5987 Bremerton WA 98312-5987 Email: [email protected] Visit the author’s website: www.GaryMcAvoy.com This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, long-standing institutions, agencies, public offices, events, locales and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or have been used in a fictitious manner. Apart from historical references, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. All trademarks are property of their respective owners. Neither Gary McAvoy nor Literati Editions is associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. Contents Books by Gary McAvoyMap of the Holy LandPrologueChapter 1Chapter 2Chapter 3Chapter 4Chapter 5Chapter 6Chapter 7Chapter 8Chapter 9Chapter 10Chapter 11Chapter 12Chapter 13Chapter 14Chapter 15Chapter 16Chapter 17Chapter 18Chapter 19Chapter 20Chapter 21Chapter 22Chapter 23Chapter 24Chapter 25Chapter 26Chapter 27Chapter 28Chapter 29Chapter 30Chapter 31Chapter 32Chapter 33Chapter 34Chapter 35Chapter 36Chapter 37Chapter 38Chapter 39Chapter 40Chapter 41Chapter 42EpilogueFiction, Fact, or Fusion?Author’s NoteAcknowledgments Books by Gary McAvoy (In the order written) FICTION THE MAGDALENE CHRONICLES Series The Magdalene Deception The Magdalene Reliquary The Magdalene Veil VATICAN SECRET ARCHIVE THRILLERS Series The Vivaldi Cipher The Opus Dictum The Petrus Prophecy * The Avignon Affair * The Jerusalem Scrolls NONFICTION And Every Word Is True * Co-authored with Ronald L. Moore Map of the Holy Land Prologue THE ROMAN EMPIRE – 1ST CENTURY Gathered somewhere in Rome in their vast underground mithraeum, or temple, the forty syndexioi—devout initiates "united by the handshake”—chanted in unison as they bound themselves to their pagan deity. One end of the arched-stone chamber featured the vivid hues of a tauroctony—a painted scene of their god Mithras slaughtering a sacred bull. From the first through the fourth centuries, Christianity and Mithraism embodied two rival factions reacting to a similar series of cultural influences. Mithraism flourished for three hundred years before being extinguished by harsh persecution from the more politically powerful Christian population. Comprised largely of Roman soldiers, Mithraists had found a covert camaraderie, a brotherhood of like-minded followers who shared a secret knowledge of the universe, specifically its constellations and cosmic movements. Little remains of this once-vibrant cult apart from archeological evidence of thousands of their subterranean mithraea, or temples, throughout the Roman Empire, many hundreds of them in the city of Rome alone. JUDEA – 1ST CENTURY Before Titus Flavius Vespasianus, better known to history as Vespasian, became Emperor of Rome in 69 CE, he was a famed and revered Roman legate—the equivalent of a high-ranking general—who, a year earlier, had led an army 60,000 strong through the hot barren deserts of Judea in a years-long war against the Jewish population of the Holy Land. On orders from Emperor Nero, Vespasian was commanded to suppress the major rebellions of Jews against the Roman Empire in what came to be called the Great Jewish Revolt, a five-year war fought mainly in Roman-controlled Judea. The Jews were greatly outnumbered and suffered devastating destruction of their towns, expropriation of their lands for Roman military use, and widespread displacement of Jewish people from their ancestral homes. At the base of the terraced cliffs on the northwestern shores of the Dead Sea—located in what was then called Palestine—a secluded ascetic community of some twelve hundred mystic Jews called the Essenes could foresee their destiny. The Romans were coming to destroy their community and their ways of life. It was only a matter of time. Desperate to preserve and protect their life’s work—an extraordinary library of nearly a thousand sacred biblical scrolls, the product of their tribe’s past two centuries of scribal efforts—they carefully wrapped the parchments and papyri in linen, placed them into tall clay jars, and concealed them in a series of caves not far from their homes on a dry marl plateau called Qumran. They then fled to save themselves, hoping to return at some later time to resume their lives and continue their work. But the Essenes never returned to their home, having been vanquished after the Roman Siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE. Their precious scrolls sealed in the nurturing protection of earthen jars lay undisturbed in the arid climate of the Qumran caves for nearly two thousand years. JUDEA, ISRAEL – 20TH CENTURY It was in the spring of 1947 when a fifteen-year-old Bedouin shepherd named Muhammed edh-Dhib from the Ta’amira tribe was tending his herd of sheep and goats among the hilly escarpments of the Qumran desert when one of the goats went missing in search of better pastures. Muhammed scrambled up the rocky, sloping hillsides in search of his caprine runaway when he chanced upon one of the many hidden caves in the area. Hoping to flush out the goat, but wary of entering a dark hole in the desert alone, the young boy erred on the side of caution and tossed in several stones, for Muslim lore decreed that when in the suspected presence of dark spirits, stones must be thrown at them. Muhammed did not want to encounter dark spirits in an underground cave. He only wanted his goat. But to his puzzlement, each time he threw a stone into the cave opening, he heard the sound of an object cracking and breaking. In a newspaper interview he gave later, young Muhammed was quoted as saying, “I started throwing rocks inside the cave, and every time I was throwing a rock I was hearing a sound of breaking pottery. At that time I