The Last Ember Entertains and Educates

IFCJ: The Last Ember Entertains and Educates
The Last Ember Entertains and Educates
October 21, 2009

Dear Friend of Israel,

In the recently released novel, The Last Ember, lawyer and classics scholar Jonathan Marcus is sent to Rome by his law firm to defend a client accused of stealing an ancient stone map. At first, Marcus—who worked similar cases in the past—thinks it's just another client, but, soon, a secret message carved into the map sends him on a search for one of the most prized objects of antiquity: the great golden Menorah or lampstead (Exodus 25:31) that stood in the Holy Temple, and which was carried off by the Romans after they destroyed the Second Temple.

Marcus' hunt ultimately leads him to the old city of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount, where the two Holy Temples stood, which Jewish tradition identifies as the holiest spot on earth and which is sacred to Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Here, Marcus uncovers a sinister plot by the Muslim authority that oversees the Mount: The overseers are trying to destroy Jewish and Christian holy relics buried in the centuries of rubble and dirt beneath the Mount's surface—erasing evidence of a Jewish and Christian presence on the site and thereby re-writing history.

Levin's story, though fiction, is inspired by real events. Using both his background as a classics scholar and his experiences as a clerk for Israel's Supreme Court, Levin is drawing on allegations that the Islamic Waqf—the land trust that has overseen the Temple Mount for hundreds of years—is actively destroying Jewish and Christian antiquities underneath the Mount. The Israeli Supreme Court—not known for its nationalism—has declared that the Waqf violated laws on 35 separate occasions by removing more than 20,000 tons of soil and unceremoniously dumping them in the adjacent Kidron Valley. These acts aren't secrets: A resolution introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2007 condemned the Waqf digging and deplored the destruction of antiquities.

One doesn't need a PhD in archaeology to realize that the Temple Mount likely holds remains that would be of enormous significance, historically and religiously. And yet the Waqf excavated (apparently to allow it to build underground mosques) with massive construction equipment—the sort that would crush stone and ceramics—without so much as allowing archaeologists a peek beforehand. Nor did they allow in anyone from the Israeli Antiquities Authority, the governmental agency that has to okay every single construction project in the country to check that the land being plowed or excavated doesn't hold any items of archaeological significance.

More than one observer—including the archaeologists and historians who formed the "Academic Committee to Prevent the Destruction of Temple Mount Antiquities," which has worked to bring attention to the issue—has posited that the Waqf's disregard for the historical record underneath the Mount's surface is intentional—and maybe even as sinister as Levin's engaging plot.

For years, Palestinian and Waqf leaders have been openly dismissing Jewish and Christian claims to the Temple Mount, going so far as to assert that the Temples never existed at all—obliterating thousands of years of Jewish and Christian history in the Holy Land.

There wasn't "a single stone proving that the Temple of Solomon was there, because historically the Temple was not in Palestine," PLO Leader Yasser Arafat told a London newspaper in 2004, acceding that the archeological record only shows evidence of a "shrine of the Roman Herod."

Arafat was arguing that talk about ancient Temples was just a way for Israelis to tighten their grip on the ancient city, and he charged that archaeologists were falsifying the historical record to bolster Jewish claims to Israel: "They are now trying to put in place a number of stones so that they can say 'We were here.' This is nonsense. I challenge them to bring a single stone from the Temple of Solomon."

Thanks to the Waqf's digging, it's possible that archaeological evidence of the first Temple cannot, in fact, be found—because it's been destroyed.

Without archaeological proof, many believe, the Biblical record means nothing. Already, mainstream media outlets refer to the Temple Mount by its Arabic name, Haram al-Sharif, and make passing reference to the Jewish "belief" that the Temples once stood on it. What was once sacrosanct knowledge in the West is now considered merely a matter of one religion's faith.

The academic discipline of archeology has become explosively politicized.

Israeli archaeologists seek to dig for truth, to examine what the Holy Land's earth has to tell us today. The Waqf has sought—openly and with pathetically few challenges—to make that truth-seeking impossible.

Thus, The Last Ember, which is a first-rate thriller, also carries a deeper message: Ancient artifacts are more than just "rocks." They tell us where our nations and faiths came from, and have a critical bearing on our understanding of history and of truth.

If you're looking for a novel that educates as well as entertains, look no further than The Last Ember. Pick up a copy today, and prepare to be taken on a memorable ride, full of suspense and intrigue, through biblical and ancient history.

This history has an important bearing on what is happening in the present day; sometimes, to understand our present and future, we must look backwards. In this case, we must look to the ground beneath us, trusting that "Faithfulness springs forth from the earth, and righteousness looks down from heaven." (Psalm 85:11)

With prayers for shalom, peace,

Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein
President

© 2009 International Fellowship of Christians and Jews
www.ifcj.org