Chapter #1 THEM OLD BONES
It has been said that when heaven rains, hell’s fires freeze, and all those things the world thought could never happen, suddenly happen.
The rain had been a long time coming for Steve Somers. He had spent the better part of the last five years engrossed in research for the McNama Institute’s Cell Biology department. He sat now in his office—which was
less of an office and more of a makeshift cubicle set up at the back of the lab. Flicking his pen, he sat on hold with the Senior Vice President of the company, waiting to find out if the funds he needed to complete the research had been approved.
Bored with the drone of silence from the other end of the line and bothered by the fact that he sat surrounded by tests that needed to be run and microbes that needed to be examined and categorized, he let out a small sigh and flicked the pen across his desk, then tucked the phone
under his chin in an effort to get more comfortable. The coffee he had picked up on the way into work that morning sat in the same place he had set it down when he first walked in. He pulled the cup closer, thought about taking a drink, then suddenly mindful of the surge of agitation that was sure to come from the additional caffeine, he reconsidered and set it back down. Instead, he stretched back in his chair, letting the blood flow more freely through to his muscles, looked out the window, and let his mind rest for a moment in wondering. He thought about the reports on cell regeneration he still needed to sift through. He thought about the vacation he wanted to take at some point. He thought about lunch.
And then his glance fell to his laptop screen and an email sitting in his inbox from his dad Jack. Attached to it was an article about an Israeli archeologist in the Sinai Desert: “Steve, saw this in the Toronto Star. Check out the reference to Moses’s age and the bones of Joshua halfway down. Could be the lynch pin you’re looking for,” Jack had written briefly in the email. Steve opened the attachment again and scanned the article until he came to the section his dad was talking about. “Moses was a hundred and twenty years old when he died, yet his eyes were not weak nor his strength gone,” Deuteronomy 34:7. The article went on to talk about a rogue archeologist named Dr. Ariel Sivski. “Dr. Sivski has recently been asked to resign from the Israeli Archeological Institute after it was discovered she was leading a dig team in the excavation of an ancient gravesite rumored to have the bones of ancient Hebrew soldiers from Israel’s Desert Period, most notable of whom was Joshua son of Nun.
Steve scanned down to the middle of the article. “According to ancient Jewish scrolls, after spending nearly 40 years leading a weary band of freed Hebrew slaves through the desert, the legendary Moses passed the mantle of leadership down to his protégé, Joshua. Though nearly 80 years of age himself, Joshua managed to transform the remaining tribes into an impressive band of Israelite soldiers before leading them on a bold military campaign against the ancient warlords in the fertile region that spanned between the River of Egypt and the Euphrates River. According to documents recently released from the Israeli Archeological Institute, Dr. Sivski has purposed to recover the bones of these ancients Israelites in hopes of substantiating the claims that they were indeed able to maintain prodigious levels of health, strength and stamina at such advanced seasons of life.” The article concluded by saying that reports were circulating that Dr. Sivski’s team had disappeared immediately following rumors that they had indeed found the remains of ancient Israelites.
What really struck Steve most about the article, though, was the photo toward the bottom of Dr. Sivski herself. She was in her early thirties and there was a unique vibrancy about her. She stood in the midst of the dig crew, one arm wrapped fondly around a Frenchman standing to her right and the other arm linked casually with a woman dressed in military fatigues. The rest of the crew huddled around the trio and were leaning in to them. Dr. Sivski’s eyes looked off in the distance, laughing, apparently amused by something someone had just said. Her long, black hair had been pulled back off her neck into a loose bun at the nape of her neck, but a few loose curls had escaped and fell softly on her shoulders. There was something, too, about the way she stood with her weight casually thrown on to one leg, a wide smile on her lips, that belied a relaxed confidence which somehow made the audacity of the venture she was a part of seem sensible, appealing even. Behind the dig crew in the distance, a group of Bedouins sat huddled around a campfire, a few looking up into the camera. Everything about it felt familiar to Steve. The feeling was so strong it was as if he had been there with them when the photo was taken.
