‘The Word’: A combat between fact and faith
August 1, 2006 | 12:00am
There are a number of ways by which people get hold of their faith. Many inherit it in the transmission of baptismal grace. Some discover it through a religious experience. Others obtain it through hoaxes and deception. Consider the Agoo apparition in the early 1990s. Consider that debunked legend that the Septuagint version of the Old Testament is a work of 70 scholars who came up with exactly the same Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible though each of them was working in isolation.
There is no material of faith that has been so loved as target and victim of a hoax more than the Holy Bible. The reason for this is man’s irresistible tendency to embrace truth and mystery by way of perspicacity and fact. Though scholars and religious authorities have insisted that the Bible is a book of faith – and has to be seen through the eyes of faith – many faithful cannot drive away the longing that the book they love most must also be a book of fact. Taking advantage of this intense longing, commercial hoaxers find in the Bible their most priced commodity.
Irving Wallace exposes the art – or probably, science of biblical hoax, which gets more sophisticated age after age – in his labyrinthine roller-coaster The Word. And the centerpiece of this exposition is, again, that classic combat between fact and faith. When I picked up the book, I threw away my prejudices against bestsellers like The Da Vinci Code and The Qumran Scrolls, which likewise unveil biblical fiascos. I decided to accept The Word with a fiction-frenzy attitude – neither with a believer’s eyes nor with an exegetic sense.
The Word opens with a man in his emptiest condition – a ruined marriage, disconnection from his only child, grief over his dead father, and a faith outraced by disturbing questions. The man is Steve Randall, a public relations expert. At this moment of hollowness, no amount of achievement in his career could retrieve him. Having been in such state before, I easily related to Randall’s character. The fears, the uncertainties, the angst – they cloak both of us and I joined Randall in his desire to give up. The phone rings with a caller urging us to open the Holy Bible and read Matthew 28:7. Both of us could only return a half-grin and express doubt over the Holy Book’s capability to redeem.
"Then go quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He has been raised from the dead, and indeed is going ahead of you to Galilee, there you will see him.’ This is my message for you." For Randall and me, this verse is primarily an eye-opener, though it is more of a code for a powerful group called Resurrection Two. As a reader, I followed with Randall in joining this select group of biblical scholars, theologians, archaeologists, politicians, publishers, and monks to promote the archaeological finding, which contains the story most awaited by the world. Jesus Christ indeed lived, and was therefore real, not just an invention of some desperate cults. This is The Word, the lost sayings of Jesus, the so-called Q, the other source of the gospels of Matthew and Luke. This is the Gospel of James, now proven as a true-blood brother of Jesus from the union of Joseph and Mary. As Randall reads an advanced copy of the gospel, he rebuilds his lost faith and becomes a true believer in The Word. I am one with him in his fascination with the most intriguing details of the gospel: Jesus survived the Crucifixion and lived 19 years more.
Now afire with holy zeal, Randall prepares to publicize and publish this new Bible in the hopes of re-galvanizing the billions of Christians worldwide. Unfortunately, for his newfound sense of holy mission, he is given incontrovertible evidence that the new gospel is a magnificent fraud, perpetrated by a master hoaxer who has had a decades-old feud with the Catholic Church. When Randall attempts to bring this evidence to the attention of the powerful men and women of Resurrection Two, they stonewall him by assuring him that his evidence against the project is itself a hoax and that the new Bible is the one which is incontestable. When Randall ignores warnings to lay off, he encounters men trying to exterminate him and to bury the evidence of this forgery for all eternity. By the book’s end, Randall fails, and the new Bible is published amid waves of glorification. The tripartite marriage of international business, politics and religion has once again triumphed.
I have to admit that when Randall discovered the new Bible to be a hoax I wanted to turn away from his character. I was caught up in a wish that The Word was real. I wanted rather to remain with Resurrection Two and refuse to entertain anything against the project. After all, the effects and the responses would certainly be positive – people would regain their faith. At that, I was certainly caught off-guard. I realized that I was like the many faithful who could not be content with regarding the Bible through the eyes of faith and for the purpose of religious and moral direction. I, too, have this eagerness to approach the Bible as a book of fact pointing to the historicity of the God I believe in, to a confirmation that Jesus is not a kind of Socrates, who is arguably an invention of Plato.
Hence, while Randall pursued his determination to expose the deceptive Resurrection Two, I was left behind still tied to the marvel brought about by the new Bible. The Word managed to hold a strong grip on me for a long time.
There are weak points in the book, though. First, some characters are left hanging. I wonder what happened to that girl who was cured after reading the new Bible. Second, the sexual Olympics are quite pointless. They may be titillating for the reader but I could not see how they had any meaning for the characters. Above all, I find the ending to be lame. Well, maybe Irving Wallace wants his reader to provide the feet for The Word’s message to come across.
The power of the book lies in its being a test of faith. Randall accepted the offer not so much to boost his career but to bolster his faith. However, his newfound faith is not that strong to confront with religious firmness the following questions: Is there any truth? Is the Bible we know and trust something we should believe in? Does it matter if any version of the Bible is authentic or not if it produces noble outcomes? The Word throws these questions straight back to me and put me into the crossfire between fact and faith. And I come to stand before a Church doctor’s reminder that the ultimate test of a believer’s faith is to continue to believe even when experience and science tell him not to.
I read the book twice. If only I was of mature reading age in 1972, the year The Word was published, I could have read it scores of times by now. And I am sure it would continue to invite me. I am eager to read it a third time. The book truly impels me to examine how I have obtained and embraced my faith. Is it merely by baptism? Is it profoundly by religious experience? Or am I just riding in a hoaxer’s boat? There is no book that prompted me to seriously face and ponder these questions more than Irving Wallace’s The Word. Indeed, the book has contributed to liberating me from the naiveté that has animated my faith. I hope many Filipino believers would also read it and be liberated as well.
There is no material of faith that has been so loved as target and victim of a hoax more than the Holy Bible. The reason for this is man’s irresistible tendency to embrace truth and mystery by way of perspicacity and fact. Though scholars and religious authorities have insisted that the Bible is a book of faith – and has to be seen through the eyes of faith – many faithful cannot drive away the longing that the book they love most must also be a book of fact. Taking advantage of this intense longing, commercial hoaxers find in the Bible their most priced commodity.
Irving Wallace exposes the art – or probably, science of biblical hoax, which gets more sophisticated age after age – in his labyrinthine roller-coaster The Word. And the centerpiece of this exposition is, again, that classic combat between fact and faith. When I picked up the book, I threw away my prejudices against bestsellers like The Da Vinci Code and The Qumran Scrolls, which likewise unveil biblical fiascos. I decided to accept The Word with a fiction-frenzy attitude – neither with a believer’s eyes nor with an exegetic sense.
The Word opens with a man in his emptiest condition – a ruined marriage, disconnection from his only child, grief over his dead father, and a faith outraced by disturbing questions. The man is Steve Randall, a public relations expert. At this moment of hollowness, no amount of achievement in his career could retrieve him. Having been in such state before, I easily related to Randall’s character. The fears, the uncertainties, the angst – they cloak both of us and I joined Randall in his desire to give up. The phone rings with a caller urging us to open the Holy Bible and read Matthew 28:7. Both of us could only return a half-grin and express doubt over the Holy Book’s capability to redeem.
"Then go quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He has been raised from the dead, and indeed is going ahead of you to Galilee, there you will see him.’ This is my message for you." For Randall and me, this verse is primarily an eye-opener, though it is more of a code for a powerful group called Resurrection Two. As a reader, I followed with Randall in joining this select group of biblical scholars, theologians, archaeologists, politicians, publishers, and monks to promote the archaeological finding, which contains the story most awaited by the world. Jesus Christ indeed lived, and was therefore real, not just an invention of some desperate cults. This is The Word, the lost sayings of Jesus, the so-called Q, the other source of the gospels of Matthew and Luke. This is the Gospel of James, now proven as a true-blood brother of Jesus from the union of Joseph and Mary. As Randall reads an advanced copy of the gospel, he rebuilds his lost faith and becomes a true believer in The Word. I am one with him in his fascination with the most intriguing details of the gospel: Jesus survived the Crucifixion and lived 19 years more.
Now afire with holy zeal, Randall prepares to publicize and publish this new Bible in the hopes of re-galvanizing the billions of Christians worldwide. Unfortunately, for his newfound sense of holy mission, he is given incontrovertible evidence that the new gospel is a magnificent fraud, perpetrated by a master hoaxer who has had a decades-old feud with the Catholic Church. When Randall attempts to bring this evidence to the attention of the powerful men and women of Resurrection Two, they stonewall him by assuring him that his evidence against the project is itself a hoax and that the new Bible is the one which is incontestable. When Randall ignores warnings to lay off, he encounters men trying to exterminate him and to bury the evidence of this forgery for all eternity. By the book’s end, Randall fails, and the new Bible is published amid waves of glorification. The tripartite marriage of international business, politics and religion has once again triumphed.
I have to admit that when Randall discovered the new Bible to be a hoax I wanted to turn away from his character. I was caught up in a wish that The Word was real. I wanted rather to remain with Resurrection Two and refuse to entertain anything against the project. After all, the effects and the responses would certainly be positive – people would regain their faith. At that, I was certainly caught off-guard. I realized that I was like the many faithful who could not be content with regarding the Bible through the eyes of faith and for the purpose of religious and moral direction. I, too, have this eagerness to approach the Bible as a book of fact pointing to the historicity of the God I believe in, to a confirmation that Jesus is not a kind of Socrates, who is arguably an invention of Plato.
Hence, while Randall pursued his determination to expose the deceptive Resurrection Two, I was left behind still tied to the marvel brought about by the new Bible. The Word managed to hold a strong grip on me for a long time.
There are weak points in the book, though. First, some characters are left hanging. I wonder what happened to that girl who was cured after reading the new Bible. Second, the sexual Olympics are quite pointless. They may be titillating for the reader but I could not see how they had any meaning for the characters. Above all, I find the ending to be lame. Well, maybe Irving Wallace wants his reader to provide the feet for The Word’s message to come across.
The power of the book lies in its being a test of faith. Randall accepted the offer not so much to boost his career but to bolster his faith. However, his newfound faith is not that strong to confront with religious firmness the following questions: Is there any truth? Is the Bible we know and trust something we should believe in? Does it matter if any version of the Bible is authentic or not if it produces noble outcomes? The Word throws these questions straight back to me and put me into the crossfire between fact and faith. And I come to stand before a Church doctor’s reminder that the ultimate test of a believer’s faith is to continue to believe even when experience and science tell him not to.
I read the book twice. If only I was of mature reading age in 1972, the year The Word was published, I could have read it scores of times by now. And I am sure it would continue to invite me. I am eager to read it a third time. The book truly impels me to examine how I have obtained and embraced my faith. Is it merely by baptism? Is it profoundly by religious experience? Or am I just riding in a hoaxer’s boat? There is no book that prompted me to seriously face and ponder these questions more than Irving Wallace’s The Word. Indeed, the book has contributed to liberating me from the naiveté that has animated my faith. I hope many Filipino believers would also read it and be liberated as well.
BrandSpace Articles
<
>