Real or Fake? Could this couple's Bible 'codices' tell the true story of Christ's life?

[Pastor Dale Morgan]

Perilous Times

Real or Fake? Could this couple's Bible 'codices' tell the true story of Christ's life?

A British couple have told of their part in the mystery of whether copper and lead books could provide a near-contemporary account of the life of Christ.

They are the British couple at the centre of the gripping revelation that has exhilarated Biblical scholars and historians alike: the discovery of 70 ancient lead and copper sealed books, bound with wire, whose pages could be contemporary accounts of the final years of Jesus' life.

The books, credit card sized codices, are thought to be among the earliest existing Christian documents, possibly predating the writings of St Paul.

David Elkington, 49, a religious author, and his wife Jennifer revealed that the codices had been found in a remote cave in eastern Jordan - a region to which it's believed early Christians fled after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem.

''We are now working with the Jordanian authorities to repatriate the artefacts,'' they announced four days ago. And then the couple promptly disappeared.

A tirade of vicious death threats, they claimed, had left them fearful for their safety and they retreated to a remote rent farmhouse in Gloucestershire where, last week, The Sunday Telegraph tracked them down.

According to the Elkingtons they have been involved in a cloak and dagger escapade to safeguard the priceless religious artefacts from the clutches of unscrupulous foreign mavericks intent upon making millions in the Middle East's shadowy black market in antiquities.

''It has been a race against time to protect the collection's future,'' says Elkington. ''The shenanigans that have gone on have all the makings of an Indian Jones yarn.''

Their story, remarkable by all accounts, is certainly worthy of a Raiders of the Lost Ark film: it is a tale of gory death threats and gun shots; sinister mafia-style gangs, fearful academics in flight and double dealings.

''We've had guns fired at us in Jordan, which was a warning we had got too close, and told if we didn't back off our 'heads would be cut off and put on spikes,'' says Elkington. ''We've even been contacted by Robert Watts who was involved in producing the Indiana Jones films about the possibility of a movie.''

The Elkingtons' role as saviours of the lost symbols is certainly dramatic - if, indeed, all is as it seems. But it does throw up as many questions as it does answers about the treasure trove that has electrified academics, many of whom predict the cache, many of which is written in code, if authenticated, could eclipse the importance of the Dead Sea Scrolls - the religious texts which include the earliest known copy of the Ten Commandments which were found in 1947. And perhaps about the Elkingtons themselves.

How the couple became involved is an intriguing tale. The codices, which could profoundly change the perception of what happened in the years between the death of Jesus and the emergence of the letters of St Paul once they are translated and decoded, were found five years ago in a cave in Jordan.

The cache is believed to have surfaced when a menorah - a Jewish candlestick - was exposed in a flash flood. Quite how they fell into the hands of Mr Hassan Saeda, an illiterate Israeli Bedouin, remains a mystery, although the fact that he has previous convictions for fraud and smuggling suggests they were not entirely above board.

The Elkingtons are vague about how they became aware of the treasure trove three years ago, insisting a ''friend'' was emailed images of them.

"When I first saw them I thought they had to be fakes," Elkington says. ''I could see the language was ancient Hebrew and I thought: 'these are bloody good fakes.' But when I researched the sealed books in the book of Revelations I knew these codices had to be examined by experts.''

Elkington tracked down Mr Saeda who initially agreed that the historian could help have the codices authenticated.

''What I didn't know is that he was double dealing,'' says Elkington. ''On the one hand he had me wanting to do this legitimately, involving the Jordanians who naturally want the artefacts repatriated. On the other he had a consortium of ''businessmen'' pushing him to sell them on the black market, promising that he - and they - would make a lot of money.''

When the Elkingtons travelled to Jordan in 2008 to visit the caves where the codices were found, they were accompanied by Jordanian soldiers as the site lies within a military zone.

"We were just emerging from the caves when someone, from up above on a ridge, opened fire on us," says Mrs Elkington.

"We knew it was a warning that we were getting too close. Getting in the way of the men who wanted to make money from these priceless, precious items. Someone had also set fire to a tyre by our jeep. Another warning."

The Elkingtons kept the codices existence quiet while they conducted more research into their provenance. In May last year they visited the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, at Lambeth Palace who suggested they contact Margaret Barker, a former president of the Society of Old Testament Study and an expert on early Christian studies.

"The email I received back from Margaret began with one word," says Elkington. "It was wow! She sounded exactly like Joan Hickson playing Miss Marple. And she was terribly excited. She became our guide, helping us to contact the right people."

Scrapings were taken from two of the sealed books and initial laboratory tests proved promising.

Miss Barker, however, was initially cautious.

''There have been so many hoaxes,'' she says. But before long she became fascinated.

''These metal books could be vital and unique evidence for the earliest Christians in their homeland,'' she says. ''And if they are a forgery, then what are they a forgery of? Most fakes are drawn on existing material. But there is nothing like this that I have ever seen. The Book of Revelation tells of a sealed book that was opened only by the Messiah. Other texts from the period tell of sealed books of wisdom and of a secret tradition passed on by Jesus to his closest disciples. That is the context for this discovery.''

Other scholars were similarly entranced. Professor Philip Davies, Emeritus Professor of Biblical Studies at Sheffield University also became involved.

"Given the spate of forgeries we have had recently about Biblical matters most scholars do not want to stick their heads up,'' he says.

''But if this is a hoax then it is incredibly elaborate. But the possibility of a Hebrew Christian origins certainly suggested by the imagery and, if so, these codices are likely to bring dramatic new light to our understanding of a very significant, but so far little understood, period of history.''

Encouraged by the experts' views the Elkingtons again contacted Mr Saeda who, to their astonishment, flew to Britain and arrived on their doorstep. ''It was like something out of a movie, they appeared out of the blue dressed in heavy coats during the summer. He and his hench men looked like a bunch of mafia men.'' During dinner with the couple Saeda astonished them further by suddenly pulling a velvet pouch from around his neck and extracting one of the artefacts. ''He was touching it lovingly,'' says Elkington. ''He was like Gollum with the ring in Lord of the Rings. He was obsessed with it.''

Saeda allowed the couple access to two of the codices which, amazingly, they still possess. Although Elkingham won't reveal where he keeps them, he did show us the ones he has. One of them, heavily inscribed, bears the words ''congregation of the faith'' in ancient Hebrew, he says. Another he believes may have been a type of identity card that would have been sewn into the hem of a robe.

''Once Saeda realised that our intention was to have the cache returned to Jordan - and we plan to return the pair we have within weeks - he began a series of threatening phone calls,'' Elkington says. ''He is one of those extremely mercurial men. One minute quiet, the next threatening. When we travelled out to Israel to meet him again a few months later he became vicious and started asking for £250,000 as a fee to have the codices filmed. We got endless phone calls saying we would be beheaded.''

Proper laboratory tests on the entire cache cannot be carried out until it is safely repatriated but initial metallalurogical tests indicate that some of the lead used may date from the first century, based upon the form of corrosion detected. According to Elkington the experts he consulted insisted the effect could not be achieved artificially.

This week, once the announcement was made, the Jordanian Department of Antiquities in Amman, released a statement saying it will take whatever action necessary to ensure the artefacts are returned to their homeland. And there, one would imagine, the Elkingtons' role in what may be the archeological find of the century should end. But not so. Mr Elkington - suave and silver-haired, with a cut glass accent despite his solidly working class background and who, oddly, is also known by the Christian name Paul - has clearly put much effort into ensuring the artefacts don't simply disappear into the lucrative Middle East black market.

But though he insists his only motive is to protect the 2,000-year-old texts, Mr Elkington does have one other rather timely and co-incidental involvement with the treasure trove that has so excited academics: on Monday April 11 his agent, Johnathan Lloyd from Curtis Brown, will be trying to find a publisher for a book the couple have written on the codices, and their action packed efforts to protect them, at the prestigious London Book Fair. The Elkingtons' insist Mr Lloyd has been ''holding off'' selling their manuscript until they had made their news announcement of the discovery, ''not the other way round.''

According to Mrs Elkington: ''We made the news announcement now, as there was a very real threat that Hassan Saeda and his cohorts would sell the codices on the black market very soon. The fact that London Book Fair happens to be in a few weeks time is pure co-incidence. Convenient, albeit not necessary, to sell the book. We have never been motivated by commercial means, although acknowledge that, like everyone else, we have to make a living and we have a story to tell that hopefully the public will appreciate.''

Whether the artifacts prove to be authentic is anyone's guess at the moment. That the Elkingtons' have ''a story to tell'' is most certainly true. And one that Indiana Jones fans will definitely appreciate. Should it come to a cinema near you.

* Additional reporting Rebecca Lefort