Tim Lahaye & Bob Philips - Babylon Rising 02 - The Secret On Ararat

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The Secret On Ararat - Babylon Rising 02
Tim Lahaye & Bob Philips
DEDICATED TO the memory of famed astronaut Colonel James Irwin, who walked on the moon in
1971. His faith in Jesus Christ and the Bible caused him to search diligently during the 1980s for the
ever-elusive Ark of Noah, which many believe will one day be found high in the rugged mountain peaks
of Ararat, where it has been preserved in ice for about five thousand years–waiting for someone like him
to locate what many expect will be "the greatest archaeological discovery of all time."
FORWARD
Even before the Great Earthquake of 1810, which blew out close to a third of the upper regions of
Mount Ararat, sightings of the remains of Noah's Ark had been reported. Scores of credible people
claim to have seen it, from mountain people who live in the area to professional explorers. There is
credible evidence that at least one hundred fifty White Russian soldiers saw and examined it in 1917, just
prior to the Bolshevik Revolution. The evidence for the preservation of that irrefutable proof of the Bible
story of Noah and his family preserving humanity could well be the most important archaeological
discovery of all time.
Yet when all the stories are assembled there is a frightening thread that weaves through them. There must
be a sinister force that has opposed all the searchers' valiant efforts up to the present from seeing the light
of day. But we believe the tempo of exploration is heating up and that we may indeed be the generation
that will finally reveal Noah’s Ark for all the world to see.
Michael Murphy, noted archaeologist of Babylon Rising fame, will, in this book, The Secret on Ararat,
lead the most perilous expedition to date. One that could provide another exciting step in the fulfillment of
prophecies of the end time…which Jesus Christ predicted would be like “the days of Noah.” Can
anyone seriously doubt that society today is very similar to the pre-flood days of Noah?
ONE
BREATHE. He desperately needed to breathe. But he knew instinctively that if he opened his mouth to
try and suck in a breath, he would die.
Gritting his teeth fiercely, Murphy opened his eyes instead. And a pair of yellow, animal eyes stared
back. Then a wildly gaping jaw came into focus through the greenish gloom, pointed teeth bared in a
silent snarl. Murphy reached out, expecting the teeth to clamp down on his hand, but the dog face had
disappeared, sucked back into the watery darkness.
It was no good. He had to get some air into his lungs before they burst. He turned his face upward,
toward the feeble light, and after an agonizing few seconds during which he had the horrifying sense that
he was sinking, not rising, his head broke the surface.
He sucked in a huge, spluttering breath, simultaneously grabbing on to the narrow stone ledge that
projected from the side of the pit. Resting his head against the jagged rock, he could feel something warm
mingling with the freezing water. Blood. As the pain suddenly hit him, a wild carousel of thoughts started
racing round his brain.
Laura. He would never see her again. She wouldn't even know he had died here, in this remote,
godforsaken place. She would never know his last thoughts had been about her.
Then he remembered. Laura was dead. She'd died in his arms.
And now he was about to join her. With that thought, his body seemed to relax, accepting its fate, and
he felt himself slip-ping back into the surging torrent.
No! He couldn't give up. He couldn't let the crazy old man win at last. He had to find a way out.
But first he had to find those puppies.
Clutching the ledge with both hands, Murphy took a series of quick, deep breaths, hyperventilating to
force as much oxygen as possible into his lungs. He'd done enough cave diving to know he could stay
under a full two minutes if he had to. But that was under ideal conditions. Right now he had to contend
with the effects of shock, blood loss, and bone-shaking cold—all the while trying to find two little dogs
somewhere in a swirling maelstrom. As he let himself slip back under the freezing water, he
wondered—not for the first time—how he man-aged to get himself into these messes.
The answer was simple. One word: Methuselah.
_____
Murphy had been making his way carefully through the cave, fanning his flashlight across the dank black
walls, when he found himself standing not on loose shale but what felt like solid wooden planks. Ever
alert to tricks and traps, Murphy instinctively reacted as if he'd just stepped onto a tray of burning
coals—but before he could leap aside, the trapdoor sprang open. As he felt himself plunging into the
void, a familiar cackling laugh shattered the silence, echoing crazily off the rock walls.
"Welcome to the game, Murphy! Get out of this one if you can!"
As Murphy cartwheeled through space, his brain was still trying to come up with a suitable response.
But all that came out was a grunt as he slammed into the ground like a bag of cement and the air was
punched out of his lungs, before the impact flung him sideways and his head connected with a boulder.
For a moment all was black, buzzing darkness. Then he raised himself up on his hands and knees and his
senses re-turned one by one: He could feel the damp grit between his fingers; he could taste it in his
mouth; he could smell stagnant water; he could dimly make out the shadowy walls of the pit he'd fallen
into.
And he could hear the fretful whining of what sounded like two cold, wet--and very scared—little dogs.
He turned toward the sound and there they were, shivering together on a narrow ledge. A pair of
German shepherd pup-pies. Murphy shook his head: He always tried to prepare him-self for anything
where Methuselah was concerned, but what were a couple of puppies doing in the middle of an
under-ground cave complex miles from anywhere? Could they have gotten lost and somehow wandered
this far from the surface? He didn't think so. Much more likely they were there because Methuselah had
put them there.
They were part of the game.
Fighting his natural instinct to gather the bedraggled pups tightly in his arms and tell them everything was
going to be okay, he approached the ledge cautiously. They looked so help-less. But that didn't mean
harmless. Nothing in Methuselah's games was harmless, and if he had put them there for Murphy to find,
then something about the dogs was out of whack. He just had to figure out what.
Just then the steady dripping sound that had been nagging away at the back of Murphy's consciousness
since he landed in the pit started to get louder. He turned in the direction of the noise and suddenly it
became a roaring, as a huge wave of water surged through a narrow gap in the rocks. In a second a
frothing tide was tugging at his ankles, pulling him off balance. Forgetting Methuselah's mind games, he
pushed himself back toward the ledge, scooped up the puppies, and stuffed them under his jacket. His
eyes darted round the walls of the pit, looking for anything that would help him find a way out, as the
rising water swirled around his chest. The puppies were just a diversion, he thought bitterly, fighting to
keep his footing. He hadn't spotted the real danger until it was too late. "Don't worry, fellas, I'll get you
out of here," he assured them with more confidence than he felt. Then the torrent lifted him off his feet and
the panicking dogs squirmed out of his jacket.
Fighting to keep his head above the surface, he grabbed for them, but his fingers closed on icy water and
then he too was engulfed, spinning out of control like a bunch of wet clothes in a Laundromat washer.
He closed his eyes, and even as his lungs started hungrily demanding air, he tried to find a calm place in
his mind where he could think. He checked through his options. The water would soon reach the level of
the trapdoor, which was no doubt se-cured against
escape. So, search for another way out under the water, or look for the puppies again before they
drowned? If he tried to find a way out on his own, the puppies would be dead by the time he found it. If
he tried to save the puppies first, he'd probably wind up too exhausted to find a way out. If there was a
way out.
So much for his options.
The only shred of hope he could cling to was the fact that this was a game. And a game, however
deadly, still had rules.
But there was no way he could figure them out while his lungs were screaming and his thought processes
were beginning to go fuzzy due to lack of oxygen.
Get some air. Then go after those puppies. If he was still alive after that, maybe God would give him
some inspiration.
When Murphy walked into the lab, he was greeted by the sight of a young woman bent over a
workbench, her jet-black hair, tied back in a ponytail, making a stark contrast with her crisp white lab
coat as she scrutinized a sheet of parchment. She didn't look up as the door clicked shut behind him, and
he stood for a moment, smiling at the expression of fierce concentration on her face.
"What are you grinning at, Professor?"she asked, her eyes never leaving the parchment.
"Nothing, Shari. Nothing at all. It's just nice to see someone so absorbed in their work, is all."
She gave a short "hmph," still not looking up, and Murphy's smile broadened. Shari Nelson was one of
the top students in his biblical archaeology class at Preston University, and for al-most two years she had
been his part-time research assistant. In that time he'd come to appreciate her passion for the subject, her
limitless capacity for hard work, and her sharp intelligence. But most of all, he valued her warm and
generous spirit. She might be pretending to ignore him right now, but they'd been through enough tragedy
and heartache together in the past year, with the deaths of his wife and her brother still painful every hour
of every day, for him to know that she would drop everything—even a fascinating ancient parchment like
the one she was studying—if he needed her.
"So what's up, Shari? Did the results from the carbon-dating tests on our little pottery fragment come
in?"
"Not yet," Shari replied, returning the parchment to the clear plastic container on the bench. "But
something has definitely arrived for you." She gestured toward a large white envelope with the purple and
orange lettering of Federal Express.
Shari watched eagerly as Murphy picked up the package. Clearly she'd had a hard time containing her
curiosity while she waited for Murphy to arrive at the lab.
"Strange," he mused. "No return address. Just Babylon. Doesn't look like it went through the usual
FedEx mailing process." He heard Shari gasp. Babylon, she knew all too well, could only mean one thing:
a whole heap of trouble.
Murphy carefully opened the envelope and shook the contents—a smaller envelope with the words
Professor Murphy printed in heavy marker and a xeroxed page from a map—out onto the workbench.
He glanced at the map, then opened the second envelope. Inside was an index card with three words
typed on it.
CHEMAR. ZEPHETH. KOPHER.
He handed it to Shari while he examined the map. A route had been marked in pink felt-tip from
Raleigh, moving west, across the border into Tennessee. Where the snaking line stopped, there were an
X and four barely legible words written in a spidery scrawl:
"Cave of the Waters. Mean anything to you, Shari?"
"It sounds like somewhere you definitely don't want to go," she replied firmly.
He winced. Exactly what Laura would have said. Same tone of voice, even.
"It's coming back to me. I've heard of this place. It's in the Great Smoky Mountains . . . past Asheville,
somewhere between Waynesville and Bryson City." If he remembered it right, the cave was discovered
in the early 1900s but had never been fully explored, because the high water table in the area—not to
mention at least three underground streams that ran through it—caused the chambers to flood
periodically. It was supposed to contain a vast labyrinth of passageways, but no one knew how far they
extended. Caving expeditions had been officially discouraged after three cavers were lost without a trace
in the early seventies.
"Okay, so we've got directions to a cave. Now, what about the message on the card? What do you
make of it, Shari?"
She repeated the words. "Chemar. Zepheth. Kopher. It's Hebrew. No problem there. But beyond that
it's got me stumped. Does it have something to do with Babylon?"
"It wouldn't surprise me," he said, stroking his chin thoughtfully. "But right now it doesn't mean any more
to me than it does to you."
"And there's no signature anywhere, and no return address. So how can we find out who sent this?"
Murphy gave a half-smile. "Come on, Shari. A mysterious message in an ancient language? A set of
directions to a remote spot? Babylon? He didn't really need to sign it, did he?"
Shari sighed. "I guess not. I was just hoping . . . you know, that it might be something else. Something
innocent. Not one of these crazy games where you—"
She could tell Murphy wasn't listening anymore. He was studying the map intently, already halfway there.
Her heart sank as she realized there was nothing she could do to stop him.
All she could do now was pray.
It had been a beautiful drive from Winston-Salem past Lake Hickory. He'd left before sunup and
covered the 280 miles in good time. Now the bright sunshine at his back was giving way to a sharp chill
as he made his way farther into the mountains with their thick covering of majestic oaks and pine. He
stopped to check the map again and turned down a dirt road, which bumped along for a hundred yards
or so before he reached a fork. He stopped again. This time the map didn't help. Frowning, he laid it on
the dash and stepped out onto the sunbaked dirt. He looked in both directions. Both roads snaked into
the trees in similar fashion. Nothing to choose there.
What was it Yogi Berra used to say?
When you come to a fork in the road, take it.
He shook his head. Thanks, Yogi. You're a big help. Then something caught his eye in the thick weeds
at the side of the road. He knelt down and cleared away the foliage from a rusting sign. The yellow paint
was almost gone, but he could just make out the words. CAVE OF THE WATERS. Then something
else, in red paint this time. DANGER.
He carefully raised the sign and stuck it firmly back in the ground. It seemed to be pointing left. "I haven't
even got there yet, and already you're playing games, old man," he muttered, getting back in the car and
slamming the door shut. He revved the engine and turned up the narrow track.
It took another half hour to arrive at the cave entrance. At first, as the dirt track came to an abrupt stop
in front of a huge oak, Murphy suspected another of Methuselah's tricks. Beyond the oak, the
mountainside rose steeply, covered with dense undergrowth. There was no sign to tell him he was at the
right place. Searching for a sign to indicate where he was supposed to go, he felt his scalp begin to
prickle as the reality of the situation struck him. He was alone. Unarmed. Miles from the nearest
habitation. At the invitation of a madman who had tried to kill him on several previous occasions and who
was probably watching him from some hideaway on the mountain at this very moment. He could almost
feel the crosshairs moving over his heart.
When you put it like that it didn't sound good.
But he'd come too far now to think of turning back, and he trusted in God that he was doing the right
thing. After all, this might be a game, but the stakes were high. For a biblical archaeologist such as
himself, they couldn't be any higher.
He scanned the mountainside, looking for any irregularity that would indicate the entrance to the cave,
and his eyes caught a glint of metal amid the rocks and scrawny bushes. He squinted into the glare and
tried to focus on the spot. There was some-thing, definitely. Whether it was the cave was another matter,
but what choice did he have? He hefted his backpack and started up the slope.
Twenty minutes later he was standing on a horizontal out-crop, wiping the sweat from his eyes and trying
to catch his breath. In front of him was a tangle of wire—what had clearly once been a chain-link fence
designed to seal off the gaping hole in the rock. This was what had caught his eye from the bottom of the
mountain. He crouched down and gingerly eased himself around the wire, stepping into the mouth of the
cave.
He pulled his flashlight out of his backpack and switched it on. The two cardinal rules of cave
exploration came unbidden into his mind: Never cave alone, and never cave without three sources of
light. And, I guess you could add, never enter a cave when you know there's a psycho lurking in there
somewhere, he thought.
Although the cave entrance was relatively wide, it quickly narrowed, and Murphy soon had to crawl on
his hands and knees over the floor of loose stones and grit. After a few minutes of gentle twists and turns,
the only light he could see was the beam of his torch, and the familiar thrill, a unique mix of anxiety and
excitement that all speleologists experience on entering a new cave system, took over. It had been years
since he'd been caving, but the smell of damp limestone and the instant adrenaline surge reminded him of
caving holidays with Laura in Mexico—and particularly the extraordinary Flint-Mammoth Cave System
in Kentucky. It was said to be over 221 miles long—the longest in the world—and while they'd covered
only a fraction of it, the sense of infinite depth was awesome. If you kept going, you could imagine you
might eventually reach hell itself. But that wasn't the deepest cave. That distinction belonged to the
Gouffre Jean
Bernard in France, which wound its way 1,600 feet below the earth. Every year they'd planned on
making the expedition, and every year they'd never quite managed to find the time in their hectic lives of
teaching and digging for artifacts. And then .. .
Murphy shook his head and refocused on the task at hand. He could feel the humidity increasing as the
temperature in the cave plummeted. Drops of water from stalactites on the ceiling started falling onto the
back of his head and over his face, and he wiped them away with his sleeve. He pushed him-self on,
despite the soreness in his knees and elbows, hoping the cave wasn't narrowing further. After another ten
minutes, he decided to take a breather, easing himself onto his back. Energy conservation was a key
element of survival in this kind of unfamiliar environment. Something he'd learned from Laura. "You've got
to pace yourself, Murphy," she used to tell him. "It isn't a race, you know."
And he needed to keep his wits sharp. He wasn't just dealing with an unmapped cave system where he
might plunge off a sheer cliff into fathomless space, or which at any moment could narrow into a stone
vise from which he'd never be able to extricate himself. At every step he had to remember why he was
here. Methuselah had planned it all. And that meant there was some artifact of great value for an
archaeologist—especially a biblical archaeologist—waiting for him at the end of his journey. But
Methuselah wouldn't be content to see him rack up a few scrapes and bruises in search of his prize. For
his own insane reasons, Methuselah required Murphy to risk his life. That was how you played the game.
And the game could begin at any moment.
Taking a deep, calming breath, he rolled back onto his hands and knees and crawled forward. Soon the
cave walls started to get higher and the floor flattened and broadened out. After a few minutes he could
walk easily without ducking his head, and then a sudden turn brought him to a large chamber. Playing his
flashlight over the walls, he looked for some sign that someone had been here before him. Something out
of place, anything that didn't look natural. But all he could seewas water glistening on sheer black walls
and a cluster of stalactites hugging the roof over his head.
"No booby traps that I can see," he muttered to himself. "Nothing here that God didn't create unless I'm
much mistaken." So why was his scalp beginning to itch? Why was his subconscious mind telling him
something wasn't right?
Then it hit him. It wasn't what he could see. It was what he could hear. Just on the very edge of
audibility. A muffled keening, almost a whining sound. Like an animal—maybe more than one animal—in
distress. But how could that be? No animal could survive down here—except possibly bats, and this was
too deep even for them, surely.
He moved slowly toward the sound, hefting his flashlight like a weapon, every sense alert for danger.
And that was when his feet first touched the wooden planks.
His lungs full of air, Murphy had difficulty pushing himself down into the icy depths of the flooded pit, but
after a few powerful strokes he managed to grab on to a rock projecting off the bottom, and took a
moment to get his bearings. He could feel the rush of water at his back as it continued to power its way
into the cave. He figured that must be where the light was coming from that turned what would have been
pitch-black into a ghostly, greenish gloom. And the puppies must have been swept in the opposite
direction. He launched himself forward, hoping for a glimpse of thrashing limbs. Then suddenly he
felt rather than saw the two little bodies sweeping past him. He reached out a hand but it was too late.
But something about the way the puppies seemed to be pulled through the water gave him hope. It was
almost as if they were in a giant bath and were being sucked down the plughole. In which case water was
going out of the pit as well as coming in.
Maybe there was a way out after all.
He followed in the direction the puppies had taken, and after a few strokes he could see them, their little
bodies churning in the water as dirt and debris streamed toward a narrow gap in the rock wall. He
thought of going back to the surface for another breath, then realized that this was his only shot. Either
they managed to push their way out now or they were done for.
Scooping the puppies up and stuffing them back into the front of his jacket, he could feel them squirming
in utter panic as the last molecules of oxygen disappeared from their lungs. Finding a handhold on the
wall, he braced himself, then kicked his legs forward until his feet disappeared into the crevice. Every
instinct told him to get himself back out, to get back to the surface, knowing that he was probably doing
no more than wedging himself into a fissure from which there would be no escape, but he grimly forced
himself farther in, his feet now above his head, the water pushing past him through the crack.
As his torso was squeezed into the fissure, he braced his arms across his chest, hoping he'd be able to
protect the pup-pies from being crushed. By now he wouldn't have been able to force himself back out
even if he'd wanted to. The force of the escaping water held him fast. There was only one way to go, and
that was deeper into the crack. With a twist of his hips, he corkscrewed farther in, the jagged sides of the
opening scraping deep lacerations into his thighs. But he hardly felt the pain. He was a machine now, with
just one purpose: to get through to the other side.
As his head entered the fissure, he could feel his lungs about to give out. In the next five seconds he
would take a breath and they would fill with water. For the puppies it was probably al-ready too late.
Their movements had become less urgent. Perhaps it was just the flow of water that made them seem
alive. With his last scrap of willpower he kicked forward, and a giant hand suddenly seemed to be pulling
him through from the other side. With a violent wrench, his head bumping roughly against the rock, he
was spewed out onto the floor of another chamber. As the waters still surged over him, he managed at
last to take a huge gulp of air—along with a large mouthful of water—into his lungs.
Choking violently, he raised himself onto his hands and knees, and for the first time in what seemed an
eternity, his head was fully out of the water, caressed by an icy blast of precious air. And then it was
being caressed by two eager pink tongues, as the puppies struggled out of his jacket, yelping with joy as
they filled their little lungs. Murphy found he was gasping, laughing, and crying for joy all at the same time.
Once he had managed to steady his breathing and regain his composure, he tried to take stock of his
surroundings. Behind him, he could hear the water still pouring through the gap in the rock, but thankfully
this chamber was not filling up like the other one. The flood tide remained just a few inches deep and
seemed to be draining away through a sinkhole at the other end. For now, at least, they were safe, and
Murphy gave silent thanks for their delivery.
That was when he noticed he was shivering uncontrollably. Hypothermia. The chief cause of death
among cave explorers. And the subject of a class on wilderness survival he himself had taught. He
remembered the young man at the back who had raised his hand at
the end of the lecture.
"How long does it take for a person to die of hypothermia?" he had asked.
"That depends," Murphy had replied, "on how fast your core temperature drops. When it drops to
ninety-six degrees, you begin intense shivering. Between ninety-five and ninety-one degrees the ability to
think is reduced. Your speech starts to slur and you become disoriented. As the core temperature drops
to between ninety and eighty-six, muscle rigidity and amnesia kick in. Pulse and respiration slow and you
get a glassy stare. Between eighty-five and seventy-seven degrees, death will occur."
That had seemed to impress the questioner. And it impressed Murphy now that he could remember it
word for word. So amnesia hadn't kicked in yet. The good news was he was still in the intense-shivering
stage. But it was nothing to get complacent about. The next stage was when you couldn't think straight,
and thinking straight was what he needed to do right now. Especially since he didn't have a torch
anymore and he somehow had to keep control of two surprisingly lively pup-pies, who seemed to have
already forgotten their near-drowning ordeal as they splashed and yelped happily in the shallow, muddy
water.
He gently pushed one of the pups away as it started gnawing at his wristwatch. How could he think
straight when—of course! "You've got more sense than I have, you clever little pooch," he said happily,
touching the button on the side of the Special Forces watch. A small blue light illuminated the chamber for
a few feet around him. He switched it off again to conserve the battery and tried to think. The water was
draining out of the chamber through one exit, but he'd had enough of water for one day. He certainly
wasn't going to risk diving into the sinkhole in the hope that he'd emerge into another air pocket. But
something else gave him a sliver of hope. The right side of his body was a little colder than the left, and
that meant the air must be moving slightly. There was a breeze coming from somewhere and therefore
maybe a route to the surface.
He switched the light on again and swung his wrist in a slow arc around his body. His eye was caught by
a narrow pillar of rock in the middle of the cave. Something oddly shaped was perched on the top. He
crawled over to it cautiously, herding the puppies in front of him. Reaching up, he ran a hand over the
object. It felt like a chunk of some kind of very dense wood, the sort of sea-worn fragment you might
find washed up on a beach. Had Methuselah put this here? Was this what he had come for? Was his
prize for risking his life a worthless piece of flotsam?
There was no point speculating about it now. If Methuselah had finally cracked, that wasn't such a big
surprise, and if this was the booby prize, then maybe Murphy deserved it for agreeing to play a
madman's game by a madman's rules. He slipped the piece of wood into a pocket in his combat trousers
and turned his face back in the direction of the gentle breeze.
"Come on, you guys. Unless you've got a better idea, I think it's time to follow our noses and see if we
can get back home."
TWO
Jerusalem, A.D. 30
THE LANKY STRANGER ELBOWED his way through the milling crowd. Even though he was taller
than most, the constant jostling made it difficult to see who was speaking. But one thing was certain:
Whoever it was seemed to have the crowd's attention. People were pushing against those in front of them
to try and get nearer the front. Some were even trying to stand on baskets or bundles of cloth to get a
better view. A child pulled at his mother's skirts, desperate to know what was going on, and the stranger
hoisted him onto his shoulders with a smile. The boy clapped his hands in delight and the woman nodded
her thanks, shyly. The crowd seemed to quiet all at once, as if on cue, and a man began speaking softly
but clearly. Feeling the excitement of those around him, the stranger strained to hear....
______
It was his first visit to Jerusalem, and he had never experienced any-thing like it. In the marketplace the
noise of people bartering with one another was overpowering. Every now and then he would stop and
watch people who were yelling at each other so vehemently he thought a fight was about to break
out—until suddenly they slapped palms and the deal was done. It was a far cry from his sleepy village in
the hills, where no one ever seemed to get excited about anything. And the multitude of stalls, with
produce so various and exotic he found himself-staring openmouthed like an idiot, was truly incredible.
Open baskets were filled with every kind of fruit and grain imaginable. Slaughtered carcasses of sheep,
goats, and cows hung from poles that held up the tent coverings over the merchants, who cried their
wares while lazily swatting at the flies that swarmed over the freshly cut meats. Women selling brightly
colored bolts of cloth called to him, gesturing to him to feel the quality of the material—one even grabbed
his arm roughly and tried to pull him into her stall. Shiny jewelry and polished daggers dazzled the eye,
while the raucous din of ducks and geese in wicker cages assaulted the ear.
He could quite easily have allowed himself to be pushed and pulled this way and that through the market,
like a leaf caught in an eddy, for the rest of the morning, but he'd been told by his cousin—older and
more experienced in the ways of the world—that the
city contained greater wonders, things a man should see if only once in his lifetime. His journey from his
village to Jerusalem, to offer the annual half-shekel of silver required of every adult male, might be the first
of many. Maybe one day he might even live in the city (though how a poor shepherd would make a living
there he didn't know). But it would be foolish to trust the future in such troubled times as these, when the
Roman occupation made everything uncertain. The wise thing would be to see all Jerusalem's wonders
now, while he had the chance.
He strode purposefully out of the marketplace, and the walls of the upper city began to rise in the
distance. As he climbed the steeply ascending roadway, he passed the Parbar, where the sacrifice
animals were kept, and laughed to hear a sudden burst of squealing. Then the huge stone slabs of the
Dung Gate loomed up before him, and he felt his pulse quicken as he stepped through into the city
proper.
What he saw made his breath catch in his throat. The huge walls surrounding Herod's Temple dazzled
with their whiteness. Some of the foundation stones were over sixty-five feet long and four feet high. He
couldn't imagine how mere men could have fashioned such things from the bare rock. Their very
existence seemed to speak of the majesty and omnipotence of God.
Then his eyes were drawn to the side, where the power of Rome boldly showed itself under the shadow
of the great temple walls. A century of Roman legionaries, their oiled leather body armor gleaming,
swords and spear points glinting in the sun, were marching toward the Fortress of Antonia, where they
were quartered. The clatter of their iron-shod sandals over the ancient flagstones sent a momentary shiver
through him. Then he pressed on eagerly toward his goal.
He had heard that the temple had seven entrances but that he must go up the arching viaduct ramp from
the lower city. That was the most spectacular, his cousin had said. But what could be more spectacular
than what he had already seen?
He walked through the arch to the courtyard, past the enormous bronze gates that he had heard it took
摘要：

  TheSecretOnArarat-BabylonRising02 TimLahaye&BobPhilips     DEDICATEDTOthememoryoffamedastronautColonelJamesIrwin,whowalkedonthemoonin1971.HisfaithinJesusChristandtheBiblecausedhimtosearchdiligentlyduringthe1980sfortheever-elusiveArkofNoah,whichmanybelievewillonedaybefoundhighintheruggedmountainpea...

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