The Christ Clone Trilogy 01 - In His Imagery
By
James Beau Seigneur
Simple Arithmetic
Monday, July 29,2019
Ambassador Lee Yun-Mai of China called to order the session of the United
Nations Security Council and welcomed each of the new members and Alternates on
behalf of the whole Council. The position of the Security Council President
rotated among the ten regions on a monthly basis, and so regularly fell to each
of the Primary members. On occasion, when a Primary was not in attendance, the
Alternate from that region would stand in. It was not a particularly cherished
position, but in the absence of a Secretary-General it provided the only point
of focus for the press. Ambassador Lee was one of the most experienced members
of the Council. Now in her seventies and with more than thirty years of
diplomatic service, she had served during all but three of the years during
which Hansen was Secretary-General. As much as anyone, she hoped to limit the
spectacle of the event that was about to unfold, but the election of the first
Secretary-General since Jon Hansen would not be without its drama. In much of
the world the proceedings were being carried live, with an expected total
audience of a half-billion listeners and viewers. Under the circumstances, it
was unrealistic to hope for total abstinence from grand-standing by the members.
Italian Ambassador Christopher Goodman sat quietly at the C-shaped table in the
place assigned to the European Alternate member of the Security Council. There
was little for him to do but watch: as an Alternate he had no power to nominate,
second, or even vote on the election of the new Secretary-General. On most
matters before the Security Council, he could speak when the floor was opened
for debate, but for the election of the Secretary-General there would be no
debate, only nominations, seconds, and votes. Despite the magnitude of the
matter before them at this moment, the Alternate members would have to be
satisfied to be front-row observers.
If Christopher had needed any distraction, there were many other pressing
matters to think about. Secretary Milner's projections about India had been
right on target. Nikhil Gandhi, the former Indian prime minister, had won the
seat as Primary member of the Security Council from India, and, as expected,
Rajiv Advani was now in India seeking to replace Gandhi as prime minister. Even
more pressing was the famine in Pakistan and Northern India. WithHansen's death
the work to provide an appropriate level of relief had come to a virtual
standstill. Christopher's replacement at FAO, along with ECOSOC's Executive
Director Louis Colleta, were doing all they could with the resources available,
but the matter was now stalled, awaiting debate by the Security Council. Even if
it did finally come to the floor for a vote, without the driving force of Hansen
to guide it through, there was little hope that sufficient relief from the
food-producing regions would be approved.
Christopher was in no position to help. As the Alternate from Europe,
Christopher had replaced Moore as Chairman of the World Peace Organization (WPO).
While Christopher's experience would have better suited him to work with
Executive Director Louis Colleta as the Alternate in charge of ECOSOC, that
position had been held for the last two years by the ambassador from Australia.
Under current world conditions, ECOSOC offered far greater visibility and hence
the Australian ambassador had no interest in giving it up just because someone
else was better qualified for the position.
With no sign of relief and the Pakistani refugee camps growing ever more
crowded, those who had the strength were attempting to cross the border into
India. Many were intercepted and returned to Pakistan by the United Nations
Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP), which had monitored the
border between the two countries since 1949. But with sixteen hundred miles of
border, half of which were traversable (the other half lying in the Great Indian
Desert), the number of refugees pouring across into India was far more than the
U.N. forces could handle.
The Indian government, while expressing sympathy for the plight of the refugees,
responded to the attempted migration by sending its military forces to protect
its borders against 'invasion.' India had its own problems with famine and had
no interest in allowing any additional mouths at its meager table. So far the
Indian military had shown restraint, choosing in most cases to simply escort
refugees back across the border with a stern warning. There were a few dozen
shootings and beatings, but these were the exceptions. Whether the policy of
restraint would continue under a government led by Rajiv Advani remained to be
seen. Despite the efforts to stop the migration, UNMOGIP estimated that hundreds
of refugees eluded capture on a daily basis, and there was no telling how long
the Indian government would allow this to go on before resorting to unrestrained
military force.
Once in India, refugees who made it through soon found their efforts to be
futile. Although food was not as scarce as in Pakistan, it was impossible to
purchase and nearly impossible to beg or steal. Even when the refugees had
money, the Hindu merchants chose to sell what little they had to their own
people, unless a sufficient premium could be paid to convince them to do
otherwise. Added to the refugees' problems were the cultural and religious
differences between Pakistanis, who are nearly all Muslims, and Indians, who are
predominantly Hindu.
At the FAO, Christopher might have been in a position to do something to help.
As the Chairman of the World Peace Organization, his job had the wholly
different focus of keeping the refugees from pouring into another region and
minimizing the chance of a major outbreak of violence. At the Pakistani/Indian
border more than just countries and cultures met. It was also the demarcation
between the U.N. regions of India and the Middle East, and between Muslims and
Hindus. Adding one more element to the amalgam was a third region, China, which
shares a border with both India and Pakistan. For decades, even with the easing
of tensions that had occurred under Hansen, the Indian government had provided
covert support to the Tibetan Buddhist followers of the Dali Lama who sought the
separation of Tibet from China. China, meanwhile, maintained a very strong
relationship with Pakistan.
Were this not enough to distract Christopher from the Security Council
proceedings, there was another matter as well. Christopher's predecessor at WPO,
Albert Moore, had left numerous unfinished matters. Prominent among them was a
U.N. treaty with Israel to formally extend expired diplomatic agreements, ensure
the exchange and safe delivery of diplomatic packets, and provide diplomatic
immunity for visiting officials. The treaty had very little to do with military
issues, but after being shuffled around the other agencies for two and a half
years because no one could convince the Israelis that it was in their interest
to sign it, someone decided that it should go to WPO because one of the more
obscure provisions was a mutual agreement of non-aggression. It was ironic that
such a treaty was even necessary, but Israel — which had become a nation as a
result of a vote by the United Nations General Assembly — had later resigned its
membership because of the reorganization of the Security Council, and was now
the only country in the world that refused membership in that body.
As far as the Israelis were concerned, the old agreements with the U.N. could
stand just the way they were. They saw no reason to renegotiate and were
reluctant to open themselves up to new demands. The Israeli resignation from the
United Nations originally had been viewed by her Arab neighbors as an
opportunity to isolate Israel from the rest of the world. They had sought a
complete and immediate halt of all trade with Israel, but that attempt was
doomed from the start. Ultimately, a non-binding resolution and statement of
principles was adopted by the General Assembly which prohibited sales of
advanced weapons to Israel, but the resolution had exactly the opposite effect
than was hoped for by Israel's opponents. For the first seven years after their
war with the Arab states and then with the Russian Federation, Israel's
defensive arsenal consisted primarily of the huge weapons caches left behind by
the Russians. Most of the Russian weapons were inferior to those Israel
possessed prior to the war, but with modifications they were made workable.
Since that time, while most countries' military budgets were being cut back,
Israel had maintained a constantly increasing defense budget. The upshot was,
that while her Muslim neighbors grumbled loudly, there was no real possibility
that they'd attack Israel again anytime in the foreseeable future. Israel could
afford to be a little smug.
Albert Moore, who had never expended much effort on his responsibilities as
Chairman of WPO, had not even tried to get the new treaty with Israel signed.
There was evidence that he had let slide or mismanaged a number of other duties
as well. The one thing he did seem to do well was to appoint his friends to
positions in WPO's administration.
With the formalities behind them, Ambassador Lee opened the floor to nominations
for the position of Secretary-General. One of the perhaps less democratic
holdovers from the days before the reorganization of the Security Council was
the manner in which the Secretary-General was elected. The dominance which the
'Big Five' demanded when they established the United Nations in 1945 included
the assurance that the choice of the Secretary-General would be someone who met
with the approval of all five. Since no one with ties to any of the five
permanent members of the Security Council would be considered unbiased by the
other four members, it was agreed that the Secretary-General would be from a
country that was not aligned with any of the members of the Security Council.
The decision was made, therefore, that the Security Council would select a
candidate who was mutually acceptable to all parties, and would then offer that
candidate to the General Assembly for approval.
During the years of Secretary-General Hansen, this procedure had not been an
issue. Hansen had proven during his first five-year term that he placed no
region over any other, not even his own. At the conclusion of each of his first
two terms Hansen was renominated by the Security Council and re-approved by the
General Assembly. It was assumed by most that the same would be true at the end
of his third term. With the death of Hansen, the Security Council was faced with
the sticky problem of finding a candidate who was satisfactory to all ten
Primary members. The disapproval of any one of the members would, in effect,
veto the nomination. And it was no longer possible to select a Secretary-General
from a non-aligned country: with the reorganization of the Security Council on a
regional basis, every country became aligned.
The net result for this meeting was that everyone knew from the outset that this
day would see no consensus on the selection of a candidate. Perhaps the days of
cooperation among regions which had existed under Hansen's rule would return in
time under the new Secretary-General. For now, however, there was far too much
at stake to allow such hopes to overrule cautious reason. It was not that there
was unwillingness to compromise, but no one wanted to risk voting for a
candidate who might someday allow the interest of his own region to take
precedence over theirs.
First to be recognized by the chair was Ambassador Yuri Kruszkegin of the
Republic of Khakassia, representing Northern Asia. Following the devastation of
the Russian Federation, Kruszkegin had left the United Nations to help form the
new government of his home province of Khakassia, but had returned to the U.N.
five years later. His election to represent Northern Asia on the Security
Council had been unanimous by the members of that region. Kruszkegin rose and
nominated Ambassador Tanaka of Japan, the Security Council member representing
the Pacific Basin region. Japan had been very supportive of the countries of
Northern Asia in their efforts to rebuild after the war with Israel. Even before
the United Nations voted to eliminate trade barriers, Japan dropped many of the
trade impediments between itself and the nations of Northern Asia. These steps
had been very important to the reconstruction of that region and Kruszkegin was
repaying the debt. The nomination was seconded by Ambassador Albert Moore of
France, representing Europe. Moore's reasons for seconding the nomination were
far from clear. There was no reason Ambassador Tanaka should have been
unacceptable to Europe, but neither was it believed that Europe had any clear
reason to second the nomination. The best guess of most observers was that Moore
was hoping for something in return.
The chair opened the floor for additional nominations and recognized the
ambassador from Ecuador representing South America, who nominated Jackson Clark,
the ambassador from the United States. The nomination was seconded by
American-educated Ambassador Nikhil Gandhi of India. Most observers expected the
American to be nominated, but weren't sure how it would play out. Ambassador
Clark had only recently resigned as the U.S. President in order to replace
Ambassador Walter Bishop, who had died in the crash along with Hansen. Clark
also succeeded Bishop as an Alternate member of the Security Council and was,
therefore, present at the meeting, sitting two seats to the right of
Christopher. The nomination made it clear just what Clark had in mind when he
resigned the U.S. presidency: he wanted to be Secretary-General. The Primary
member from North America, Canadian Ambassador Howell — still in poor health but
delaying his resignation — was expected to provide a third vote for his southern
neighbor.
Again the floor was opened for nominations, and the chair recognized Ambassador
Ngordon of Chad, representing West Africa. Ambassador Ngordon nominated
Ambassador Fahd of Saudi Arabia, who represented the Middle East. The nomination
was seconded by the ambassador from Tanzania, representing East Africa. The
basis for this final coalition was easily recognizable as one of common religion
and proximity.
The vote was as split as it possibly could be. Since no one could be nominated
without the support of at least two regions, and no region could nominate or
second anyone from their own region, the maximum number of nominations possible
was three. Only China had abstained; all other votes were committed. Whoever
would eventually be chosen would need the approval of all ten regions and that
appeared to be a long way off. For now there was nothing to do but to go on to
other business.
Tuesday, July 30,2019 — The Temple Mount, Jerusalem
Scott Rosen was lost in thought as he walked out across the crowded outer
courtyard which surrounded the newly reconstructed Jewish Temple. As it had been
in ancient days, this nearly square courtyard, called the Court of the Gentiles,
was as close to the holy places of the Temple as non-Jews were allowed to come.
The mood here had much more the air of carnival than of worship or of reverence.
Nowhere was this more inescapable than in the column-lined covered portico
encircling the perimeter of the Court of the Gentiles. Here, housed in
haphazardly misarranged booths and stalls, temple money changers dickered rates
of exchange with worshipers to convert various currencies into Tyrian shekels —
the only currency acceptable for temple offerings — and nearby traders offered
pigeons, doves, lambs, rams, and bulls for purchase as sacrifices.
Scott paid no attention to the cacophony. His mind kept going back to a
conversation he had the day before. It had started out as a perfect day. The
weather had been beautiful, the traffic was light. A meeting he wanted to avoid
and for which he hadn't prepared was indefinitely postponed. The extra time
allowed him to tackle some interesting and important work and within two hours
he had come up with a way to solve a major problem that had seemed unsolvable to
everyone else who had looked at it. An overdue rent check for the house that had
belonged to his parents arrived in the morning mail. Sol, the proprietor at the
kosher deli he frequented had added an extra scoop of tuna to his sandwich and
had given him the biggest dill pickle Scott had ever seen. That's when the day
began to sour.
Sol came over to talk with Scott while he ate and Scott invited him to sit down.
It had started innocently enough: they talked about politics and rising prices
and discussed the latest gossip from around the Temple and religious issues: all
topics they had discussed before, and upon which they almost always agreed. Then
Sol mentioned that he had been reading his Bible in the ninth chapter of the
book of Daniel and said that the prophecy at the end of the chapter said that
the messiah — or 'King Messiah' as he is called by religious Jews — was supposed
to come before the second temple was destroyed. Since the second temple was
destroyed in 70 A.D., Sol said, the messiah must have already come. Scott tried
to tell him how crazy that was: that if King Messiah had come they would surely
have known; but Sol just kept on talking. He said that according to Daniel's
prophecy, the messiah would come 483 years after the decree to rebuild the city
of Jerusalem after it had been destroyed by the Babylonians. According to Ezra
chapter 7,45 that decree was issued in 457 B.C.E.46
and when you take into account that there was no year zero, that would mean that
the messiah had come in the year 27 B.C.E.47
Sol pulled out a calculator to show Scott how it all worked out but Scott
stopped him. "Sol, what you are doing is very serious. It is forbidden by the
Talmud."
"What?" asked Sol in surprise.
"Calculating the time of King Messiah's coming based on the ninth chapter of
Daniel," Scott answered authoritatively. "But. . ."
"In the Talmud, Rabbi Jonathan put a curse on anyone who calculates the time of
the Messiah based on Daniel's prophecies," Scott declared.48
Sol mulled this over for a moment. Scott, confident he had settled the question,
took another bite of his sandwich. Taking advantage of Scott's full mouth, Sol
rejoined the exchange. "But that can't be right," he said, to Scott's
sandwich-strained chagrin. "Why would the Talmud not want us to know when Daniel
said King Messiah would come?"
Scott forced down his food. "Sol, prophecy is hard to understand. You can't just
pull out a calculator and figure out what a prophecy means."
"Why not? That's what Daniel did to interpret the prophecy of the prophet
Jeremiah. And that's in the ninth chapter of Daniel, too — the same chapter as
the prophecy of when King Messiah would come. Of course Daniel didn't have a
calculator, but it's still simple arithmetic."
"Look, Sol, you're dealing with things you don't understand."
But Sol wasn't ready to quit. "Don't you see, Scott? If the Messiah came in 27
A.D., then we did not recognize him. Don't you get it? 27 A.D. There's only one
person who fits the description."
"Stop it, Sol! I don't know what's gotten into you, but this is wrong, and I
won't listen to it. If you fear HaShem, you'll be at the Temple tomorrow with
your sin offering asking forgiveness." Scott used the orthodox method of
referring to God as 'HaShem,' meaning 'the name,' rather than saying Yahweh or
even 'God,' in order to avoid any possibility of blasphemy.
Sol didn't say any more but it was clear that he felt no guilt which would
warrant an offering at the Temple. Scott grabbed the rest of his sandwich and
pickle and left. Sol just didn 't realize what he was saying, Scott thought. If
he does that sort of thing with his other customers, he won't have any business
left.
Outside the Temple on the broad steps leading down to the street, Scott was
distracted from his recollections by someone calling his name. The voice had
come from the direction of a large group of tourists, recognizable by their
cameras and paper yarmulkes, so he assumed the call had been for some other
Scott.
"Scott," came the call again, but this time he spotted its source coming toward
him at a brisk pace.
"Joel," he called back to his friend and professional colleague of many years.
Joel Felsberg had been a part of the team with Scott fifteen years before,
during the Russian invasion. "What brings you to the temple?"
Unlike Scott Rosen, Joel Felsberg had never spent much time on matters of
religion. The only times he came to the Temple were with relatives or friends
who were visiting from the United States. "Scott," he said again, out of breath
and ignoring Scott's question. "I've found him! I mean he's found me."
"Slow down, Joel," Scott said. "Who have you found? What are you talking about?"
Joel, who was of average build and just under five feet seven inches tall,
leaned close to the much larger Scott Rosen and whispered, "the Messiah."
Scott Rosen looked around quickly to see if anyone else had heard, and then
grabbed Joel's arm and walked quickly down the Temple Mount through another
crowd of tourists. The smaller Felsberg, who was easily eighty pounds lighter
than Rosen, had no choice but to accompany him. "I've found him," Felsberg said
again, as he tried desperately to keep up.
"Be quiet!" Scott warned as he pulled Joel along.
When they reached the parking lot some hundred and fifty yards away, they
stopped next to Scott's van. He looked around to be sure no one was within
earshot and finally spoke, "Are you crazy?! That's nothing to joke about. And of
all places: right on the steps of the Temple! Maybe you don't take your religion
or your heritage seriously but some of us do. If anyone had heard you ..."
"No, Scott. I'm not joking. I've seen the Messiah. I've seen him," Joel
interrupted.
"Shut up, Joel! You didn't see anybody. So just shut up!"
"But. . ."
"Shut up!" Scott said again, this time grabbing Joel's shirt and shaking his
fist in his face. Joel fell silent but the maelstrom was still in Scott's eyes.
Scott dropped his fist and began to release his grip. "Is the whole world going
mad?" he asked. "First Sol and now you!"
"But..." Joel said again. Scott took hold of Joel's shirt with both hands now,
lifting him onto his tiptoes, and brought his face within inches of his own
until they were eye to eye.
"If you say one more word," he said through his teeth, "I swear by the Temple of
HaShem that I will ..." Scott caught himself. Swearing by the temple was serious
business; next to swearing by God himself, there was no more powerful and
binding an oath. It was not to be made in anger or haste. Scott released his
grip and pushed Joel, who stumbled back into the side of a car. "Just get away
from me until you've come to your senses."
Joel picked himself up and looked into Scott's eyes with a sincerity that even
Scott could not doubt. "I really have seen him," Joel insisted.
There was nothing else to do. Scott couldn't bring himself to actually hit his
old friend. They had been through too much together. They had fought side by
side to save Israel those fifteen years ago, there in that bunker beneath the
streets of Tel Aviv. They had been heroes together. There was nothing left for
Scott to do but ask the obvious question. "Where?! Where have you seen him?" he
asked, finally resigning himself to having this conversation.
"In a dream."
For a moment Scott just stared, dumbfounded. From the beginning, Joel had known
how weak that answer was going to sound but it was the only one he had, and to
his mind, that was what God had given him to say. "And he's coming to establish
his kingdom," he added finally.
Suddenly Scott's anger changed to concern. He had been wrong to be so brutal.
Joel was obviously delusional. Scott had dreams from time to time that felt so
real they seemed real even in the waking world. Apparently, Joel couldn't
separate dream from reality. "Joel," he said sympathetically, "It \vasjust a
dream." ,
"But it wasn't just a dream."
"I know, Joel," Scott said in the most consoling tone he could muster. "It must
have seemed very real to you. But it was just a dream."
"No, Scott. Don't you see? I've been wrong all these years. And so have you."
The conversation was taking an unexpected turn. "What do you mean?" Scott asked.
"We've been wrong all this time. My sister Rhoda and her rabbi have been right
all along. Don't you see, Scott? Yeshua really is the Messiah!" And then just to
be sure Scott fully understood what he had said, Joel used the English version
of the name, "Jesus is the Messiah!"
That was the last straw. Scott Rosen's eyes filled with rage. He didn't care
whether Joel was delusional or not; this was too much. He grabbed Joel by the
shoulders and shook him. "You and that damned rabbi, you're both meshummadim\"
he said, using the Hebrew word for traitors. Scott violently threw him to the
ground. Joel's left wrist and forefinger snapped as he tried to break his fall.
"I don't know you!" Scott screamed. "I never knew you! You're dead! You never
existed! If you ever talk to me again, I'll kill you!"
Scott got in his van and drove off, leaving Joel to nurse his wounds.
46 Before Current Era, or B.C.
47 Current Era, or A.D.
48 Sanhedrin, Tractate 976, Nezikin Vol. 3, Rabbi Samuel B. Nahmani speaking in the name of Rabbi Jonathan.