Accordingly, the Vatican III ecumenical council referred to in this book is also fictional and first appeared in my prior novel, More Than a Skeleton. A council with such a name, however, might indeed take place in the future.
As for the two new biblical documents “discovered” in this novel, one should not conclude that our present Scriptures are in any way incomplete or insufficient without such addenda. They are merely what many biblical scholars would put at the top of their wish list were such a manuscript discovery to take place in fact.
Finally, the question of whether ancient texts-biblical or secular-may be copyrighted successfully is rather open, especially if the texts require some critical reconstruction. In America, the prevailing view is that such texts are in the public domain and do not have copyright protection; whereas in Europe and elsewhere, this is not necessarily the case. Several years ago, for example, the German Bible Society invoked copyright protection on the Nestle edition of the Greek New Testament, claiming that Zondervan’s New International Version translation relied too heavily (though justifiably) on the Nestle text. Yet it has not brought suit against the Grand Rapids publisher to date.
Thank you for reading these pages.