The Way of Sorrows: The Angelus Trilogy - Softcover

Steele, Jon

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0451476786 ISBN 13: 9780451476784

Verlag: Blue Rider Press, 2016

Inhaltsangabe

Otherworldly Special Agent Harper must stop the remnants of the Nephilim from capturing and destroying Katherines half-mortal/half-heavenly child and save humankind from utter destruction.

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JON STEELE is an award-winning journalist and author of The Watchers and Angel City. Born in Spokane, Washington, he traveled the world, working as a cameraman for Independent Television News. After a twenty-year career, Steele wrote the critically acclaimed War Junkie. He cowrote, codirected, and shot Baker Boys: Inside the Surge, a documentary about an American combat unit in Iraq. He lives in Switzerland.

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The Essenes (so named in The Jewish Wars by the historian Josephus) were one of three sects of Judaism that included the Pharisees and Sadducees in the first century AD. Known for their settlement at Qumran, where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in 1947, the sect also established communes across ancient Israel. They lived an ascetic life, abstained from animal sacrifice in religious practices, and performed good works on behalf of the afflicted. One community was encamped outside Jerusalem’s walls near the “Essene Gate” (now sealed) at the time of the crucifixion of Jesus. After AD 73, the Essenes vanished from history.

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre marks the traditional site of Golgotha, the Place of the Skull, where Jesus was crucified and buried. Modern archaeologists and historians agree the church was erected over the ground where Romans crucified seditionists and criminals, and that most probably Jesus was crucified somewhere within the walls of the church in AD 36. However, there is no credible archaeological or historical evidence that Jesus was buried there.

The Dome of the Rock (built in AD 691) is the Islamic shrine that stands atop Temple Mount in Jerusalem. It is built over the site of the Second Temple of ancient Israel (destroyed by Rome in AD 70). Together with Al-Aqsa Mosque, also atop Temple Mount, the Dome of the Rock marks the third holiest site in Islam. It stands over what is known as the “Foundation Stone.” This stone is sacred to all three of the Abrahamic faiths. Jews believe it to be the place where Abraham nearly slaughtered his son Isaac in a test of faith as commanded by God. Christians revere the stone as a place where Jesus prayed in the time of the Second Temple. Muslims believe the stone to be the place from where Mohammed ascended to heaven.

The Third Temple (to be built in the time of the Messiah) was prophesied in the Book of Ezekiel and has yet to be built. Jews believe the Third Temple will provide a dwelling place for God to return and live among His people again. Messianic Christians believe the building of the Third Temple marks the “end of days,” when Jesus will return to officiate the Final Judgment. Construction of the Third Temple would require the destruction of Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock.

The exact year and circumstances of Yeshua ben Yosef’s death are not clearly known. For the sake of this story, the author has drawn on archaeological and historical evidence as presented by Dr. Shimon Gibson in his work The Final Days of Jesus. Also, the author has chosen to denote historical dates as BC and AD instead of BCE and CE.

PERFECTUM

In the name of the Pure G-d.

These words are written many years after the destruction of Jerusalem, which came on the ninth day of Av, 3830. Know that I am a son of the light who served the teacher of righteousness at Qumran near the Salt Sea. Our settlement stood three parsa’ot in distance from Jericho, which is also now destroyed. The destruction of Qumran came on the twenty-fifth day of Sivan, three years after the fall of Jerusalem. It came at the hands of the Tenth Legion Fretensis of Rome, who marched along the Salt Sea to conquer the Zealots at Masada and so end the Jewish revolt.

This is how it happened.

On the twenty-first day of Sivan, Roman outriders reached the summit of the mountain that separated us from Jericho’s ruins. In doing this they discovered our commune on the plateau below them. The outriders observed us through the afternoon and left before sunset. In those hours they learned we had no fortifications or weapons of any kind. Four days had passed when a great cloud of dust rose from the desert and there was the clamor of boots and drums. Then appeared the vanguard of the Tenth Legion leading more than five thousand soldiers onto the Masada Road. Their helmets and lances caught the dawn and their shields bore the color of blood. By this sign we knew our sacrifice was at hand, as it had been prophesied to us by seven angels of the Pure G-d. And so it was that upon reaching the trail that climbed the plateau to our commune, the main body of the legion continued south while the fifth cohort of infantry and archers broke away to attack Qumran.

•   •   •

As this prophecy came to pass, and being the youngest of my order, I was instructed by the teacher of righteousness to take refuge in the cavern of solitude, which is set apart from the commune. It was a scriptorium for transcriptions of the holiest scrolls as judged by the teacher. Here, one of the chosen scribes would live alone for many days in proper meditation before writing the holy name of the Pure G-d.

I was young and had yet to be selected for this duty, though I longed to assume it. So it was with sadness that my ascension to the cavern was not as one of the chosen scribes but to bear witness to the annihilation of my order, and then live a life of isolation to the end of my days. Within the cavern were a bed, a table and stool, lamps, and sacred oil to burn for light. There were quills and ink-making tools and sheets of fine vellum. There were food stocks in jars and a cistern outside the cavern’s entrance that gathered rain as it flowed from the mountains.

This duty was commanded of me by the teacher of righteousness so that one of our number might survive and continue to watch for the man of signs and wonders, who would come to reclaim the things entrusted to us by the seven angels of the Pure G-d. For the seven did know this man and guarded his tomb for a period of thirty-four years; from the time of the man’s death until his tomb was abandoned when Jerusalem was destroyed. And upon abandoning the man’s tomb the seven angels appeared to us to reveal the truth of the man’s death, entreating us to aid them in their sacred purpose. Now knowing the cousin of this man, who was called the Baptist, and upon hearing the voices of the seven angels of the Pure G-d, the teacher of righteousness identified them as the forces of light named in the War Scroll of our order. We pledged our souls to them and agreed to watch over the way of the man’s return. We pledged in full knowledge that the forces of darkness, who sought to wipe all memory of the man from the world, would one day destroy us as they had destroyed Jerusalem.

The cavern of solitude was located in the canyon above Qumran and hid from the world by an outcrop of rock at the entrance. There were narrow fissures in the stone allowing me to see down onto the commune and witness the slaughter of my order. All my brethren, including the teacher of righteousness, suffered greatly before giving up their souls to death; but all kept their vow to not reveal any knowledge of the man of signs and wonders, though this knowledge was cruelly demanded of them.

The cohort then raided our stores of food and wine. Becoming drunk they ransacked the scriptorium for plunder. Finding nothing to please them, they took up battering rams and demolished the commune to rubble. But this destruction did not sate them, and they were overcome with savagery. They pounded their chest armor with fists; their curses filled the canyon with wickedness. Some drew swords and hacked apart the bodies of the dead, others built great fires; then was my brethren’s flesh roasted and eaten. This unholy feast lasted into the night until a stupor came over the soldiers and they lay on the ground to sleep. Black clouds concealed the moon and stars that night, and when the fires ended there was no light of any kind; as if all the world had gone into hiding from the evil befallen us. At dawn, and hearing no sound, I went to the entrance of the cavern. There was no sign of the fifth...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Blue Rider Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2016
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0451476786
• ISBN 13: 9780451476784
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 491
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar