Joel C. Rosenberg
The Copper Scroll
To Caleb, Jacob, Jonah, and Noah,
whom I love with all my heart.
May you never forget there is a treasure
more precious than gold.
Cast of Characters
• James “Mac” MacPherson
• William Harvard Oaks
• Jon Bennett, Former Senior Advisor to the President
• Erin McCoy Bennett, Former CIA Operative
• Natasha Barak, Hebrew University Professor of Near East Archeology
• Marsha Kirkpatrick, National Security Advisor
• Jack Mitchell, Director of Central Intelligence
• Lee James, Secretary of Homeland Security
• Scott Harris, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation
• Bob Corsetti, White House Chief of Staff
• Ken Costello, Senior Advisor to the President
• Indira Rajiv, Director of the NAMESTAN Desk, CIA
• Chuck Murray, White House Press Secretary
• David Doron, Prime Minister of Israel
• Dr. Eliezer Mordechai, Former Head of Mossad
• Avi Zadok, Current Head of Mossad
• Mustafa Al-Hassani, President of Iraq
• Khalid Tariq, Chief Political Aide to the President
• Ruth Bennett, Mother of Jon Bennett
• Salvador Lucente, European Union Foreign Minister
• Dr. Yossi Barak, Chief Archeologist of the Israel Museum
• Viggo Mariano, Sicilian Operative
AUTHOR’S NOTE
The journey that follows is fiction.
The prophecies upon which it is based are true.
In 1947, two Bedouin shepherds tending their flocks in the Judean hills not far from Jerusalem stumbled upon the greatest archeological discovery of all time. Over the course of the next few years, hundreds of manuscripts and fragments — what became known to the world as the Dead Sea Scrolls — were found in the caves of Qumran.
Some of the scrolls contained whole books of the Bible, including the oldest known copy of the book of Isaiah, foretelling key details of the coming Messiah. Other scrolls contained descriptions of religious life in the ancient community of the Essenes, a monastic Jewish sect. Still others foretold a coming “War of Gog and Magog” and the building of a great new Jewish Temple in the earth’s last days.
But in 1952 another scroll was found in those same caves, and this one was strangely unlike all the others. It was not, for example, made of sheepskins or parchments. Instead, the message of the scroll had been engraved on copper, a costly and rare procedure. But why? What mysteries did this scroll possess? What message could it possibly contain that was more valuable, more worthy of protection, than Isaiah’s messianic prophecies or the detailed architectural plans of a future Temple?
Members of a small team of experts entrusted with the scroll’s care were eager to know. But they had a problem. Nearly two thousand years of oxidation had caused the Copper Scroll to become brittle and in danger of disintegration. They could not simply unravel the scroll without risking the very real probability that its precious contents would be lost forever. It took archeologists nearly four years to conceive a method to open the Copper Scroll, and when they did, they were stunned by what they found.
The New York Times broke the story to the world on June 1, 1956: “Dead Sea Scrolls Tell of Treasure.”[1]
In a front-page, top-of-the-fold story that captured the imagination of readers around the world, the Times reported that the messages hidden within the Copper Scroll “sound like something that might have been written in blood in the dark of the moon by a character in Treasure Island.” Somewhere, hidden in the forbidding hills of the Judean wilderness on the West Bank of the Jordan River, lay a treasure of almost unimaginable proportions. “The documents tell of hoards of fabulous value,” said the Times. “If the treasure exists, it includes 200 tons of gold and silver,” just waiting to be found.
Was it legend, or was it real?
In his groundbreaking 1960 nonfiction book The Treasure of the Copper Scroll, archeologist John Marco Allegro — a member of the original team that opened the scroll — concluded that not only was the treasure real, but its importance extended far beyond the wealth it listed. “There is,” he wrote, “hardly an aspect of Near Eastern archeology, history, and religion that it does not in some way illumine.”[2]
And yet, half a century later, the treasure has never been found, and so many questions remain unanswered.
Johns Hopkins University professor P. Kyle McCarter Jr. once told a gathering of archeologists at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington:
The Copper Scroll does not fit into any of the categories customarily included when the Scrolls are discussed…. It is not in the Rockefeller Museum in Jerusalem nor in the Shrine of the Book…. [I]t is written in a language that is different from the language of any of the other Scrolls. It is written on a material that is different… and its content has no parallel…. It does not resemble any of the other Qumran Scrolls — or anything else, except pirates’ treasure maps in Hollywood. It is an unusual phenomenon, an anomaly.[3]
In the summer of 2005, just before the publication of The Ezekiel Option, a colleague and I traveled halfway around the world to see this “anomaly” for ourselves at the Jordan Archaeological Museum in Amman. We had the chance to study it up close, to read its text, to compare it with other Dead Sea Scrolls, and to hear whispers of a story that has never been published. Until now.
There are some who believe that the dazzling treasures of the Copper Scroll will be uncovered in our lifetime, perhaps very soon. What’s more, some believe this “anomaly” of history — this “unusual phenomenon”—will lead us to an even greater discovery, to the most important archeological find of all time, one that will shock the world and in the process trigger the end of days.
Are they correct? Should such whispers be listened to or dismissed as ancient legends and myths? It remains to be seen. But it is here that our story begins.
Joel C. Rosenberg
Amman, Jordan
June 2005
PREFACE
Ezekiel’s War was over, but the world was still reeling.
In a single day, millions had perished. Entire cities had been laid waste. Even now, many lay smoldering, virtually uninhabitable. The entire geopolitical system had been upended, and an eerie hush seemed to have settled over the world.
Where would the hammer fall next? Could what had happened to Moscow and Tehran and Khartoum and Damascus still happen to Washington or Chicago or Los Angeles? Some said no. They believed the worst was now behind them, that a new age of peace and prosperity was about to dawn.
It was a tempting premise.
1
"Dead Sea Scrolls Tell of Treasure: 'Key' to Vast Riches Written on Copper Is Deciphered," Stanley Rowland Jr.,
2
John Marco Allegro,
3
P. Kyle McCarter Jr. "The Mystery of the Copper Scroll,"