“There are twenty-four thousand copies, in multiple languages, with the earliest fragments dated within a hundred years of the originals.”
Eli straightened slightly. “And that means?”
“A lot. Compared to other ancient texts, like Homer, Plato, the histories that are never questioned as ‘real,’ well, it’s not even close. No one doubts the life of Alexander the Great, and his story is based on two manuscripts written four hundred years after he died. Most classical sources have under twenty copies and gaps of seven hundred to fourteen hundred years between the original and the earliest surviving manuscript.”
He stared at her. “And that means…”
“It means the gospels are in a category by themselves.”
“Oh.” He breathed the word. “I’ve heard something like that, but it’s good you know it.”
Good? She wasn’t sure if that’s what she’d call it.
“It was interesting,” she corrected, not loving the word but she didn’t have a better one. “As a scientist. I expected to find a religion, and instead I found a very well-documented set of ancient texts.”
“Kate.”
“Hold on. There’s more.” She felt herself warming to the topic, probably because the next part was the most fascinating, at least to her. She wanted him to know and appreciate that.
“There’s a line in the Psalms,” she said.
“You read the Old Testament?”
“Some of it,” she said. “The Old Testament is woven into the New, I discovered, with key players quoting many passages. It’s incumbent upon a scientist to read the footnotes, you know.”
He smiled. “References,” he corrected. “But what line in Psalms?”
“The one that says the earth and the heavens will wear out like a garment.”
“Um…” He squinted. “I think that’s 102? Not positive. Why?”
“Why?” she scoffed softly. “That is the second law of thermodynamics, Eli. And it was written about three thousand years before Clausius.” At his look, she added, “A German physicist considered the founding father of thermodynamics. Honestly, I can’t imagine how a musical shepherd in the Bronze Age figured out that the universe is winding down, but he did.”
Eli closed his eyes. “David,” he whispered. “Oh, Kate.”
“Don’toh, Kateme yet, I’m not done.”
But his eyes glimmered with victory.
“There are also extra-biblical references to the darkness at the crucifixion,” she added. “I know you wanted me to look into that.”
“The resurrection,” he corrected. “No one doubts the crucifixion.”
“Well, there are findings that support statements in the gospels. Phlegon, a Greek historian, wrote about three hours of darkness, and a great earthquake, exactly in the year and month they believe Jesus was crucified.”
He leaned in, straighter, alert, visibly fighting the urge to throw a fist in the air and claim a win.
Her heart dropped, but she continued. “He thought it was an eclipse, but the timing rules an eclipse out—the moon was full, you can’t have a solar eclipse during a full moon, it’s astronomically impossible. So, something happened that day. Something he had to explain. He wasn’t a Christian. He had no reason to confirm anything.”
Eli remained so still, she doubted he was breathing.
“And Francis Collins is a Christian,” she said, knowing she was all over the place, but didn’t have her notes.
“Who?” he asked.
“Francis Collins ran the Human Genome Project. He was the head of the National Institutes of Health for ten years. He converted from atheism in his thirties after reading C.S. Lewis. The man mapped DNA for a living and?—”
“He’s a believer,” Eli finished, looking at her with the careful excitement she had been dreading. There was enough awe in his voice to let her know he wasn’t going to love the end of this conversation. But she’d get him there in a way that would ideally ease the pain. “Kate, that’s amazing. Exactly what I’d hoped you’d learn and I just couldn’t tell you without…well, you had to find this out on your own.”
