Elisha's Bones - Don Hoesel [14]
“What’s your interest in the story, Gordon?” Asking this question seems a better choice than engaging the man in a debate about the historicity of Scripture. That’s not a discussion I’m prepared for, nor one I would want to participate in even if my thirteenth-century Incan stone ducks were all in a row.
“In a way, I’ve already mentioned it.” He leans forward, pushing himself away from the embracing couch, closing the distance between us. Everything about his posture and his manner suggests conspiratorial excitement. “Tell me, what would happen if you and I were at lunch with the president and, halfway through dessert, he pulled out a gun and shot the waiter?”
It’s an odd question considering the previous subject matter, and I’m left feeling stunned for a few seconds. Gordon, though, is waiting for an answer, so I take a stab at it.
“He’d be arrested and they’d haul him off to jail. President or no, you can’t indiscriminately shoot people.”
He looks irritated at my response and waves it off.
“My fault. You’re using today as a frame of reference. Let’s say that it’s the 1960s and we’re supping with Kennedy? What would happen then?”
I think I see now where he’s going with this. “In that case, you and I would be whisked away and we’d never be heard from again. The waiter’s death would be described as an accident, and anyone who saw anything would either be killed or cowed into silence.”
“Ah, that’s more like it. But the predominant characteristic of the event is that it would disappear from history, at least to the extent that something like that can be covered up. But there’s always someone willing to talk, even if the history books are scrubbed clean. And that’s where the absence of information attracts attention. It’s the secrecy that draws people in, Jack. Tell people something, no matter how farfetched, and most will believe it. Tell them nothing—”
“And you’ve got a conspiracy,” I finish.
“Right. It’s the lack of information.” Gordon’s eyes bore into mine. “Just two verses, then nothing. Gone. Scrubbed from history—as much as could be done. But someone talked and so they couldn’t erase it entirely. They minimized it.”
A heavy silence settles over us, and it seems darker in the room. Gordon’s face remains lit by the waning fire. It’s difficult for me not to get caught up by his passion, his magnetism. What makes it easier to retain a clinical distance is my understanding of what Gordon has implied, and then what he wants from me. Gordon Reese thinks—believes—that the bones are real. Worse, he wants me to find them for him.
I consider my words, but no matter how I try to couch my terms, I cannot dilute what needs to be said.
“Mr. Reese, I think you’re reaching. You can’t use a silence of historical record to prove a conspiracy—especially not in a document as old as Second Kings.” I feel odd even using the word conspiracy. “And if the story were true, who would try to cover it up? And why? Besides, there’s no biblical precedent for hiding a miraculous event. Quite the contrary, in fact. Anything even remotely supernatural was documented with great care.”
Gordon leans back, but not enough to signify disengagement.
“One of the interesting things about the story—the thing that sets it apart from many others in the Bible—is that there were so few witnesses. This was not Elijah on Mount Carmel, or the Ark of the Covenant smiting the Philistines with boils. This was a small group of men, alone in a cemetery. A much easier event to keep quiet.”
“Except that they didn’t keep it quiet. It’s right there in black and white.”
“Only to the extent that the Roswell crash is recorded in underground journals, or in the fashion that people whisper about the mysterious circumstances surrounding the death of Marilyn Monroe. No, Jack, it looks to me as if the writers of this section of the Scriptures—and remember, this was likely penned by a group of scholars during the Assyrian captivity— chose to treat this as legend, since they could not force it out of collective lore.”
A part of my brain is now charting my exit from this