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  "Tell me about it. I delivered it."

  I raise my eyebrows and inquire, "Normal delivery?"

  "In every respect. Beautiful baby."

  “Jud...”

  "Uh-huh?"

  "Was Mary a virgin?"

  "Mary who?"

  "Holy Mary, Mother of God."

  "Oh, that Mary." He chuckles, purses his lips, chuckles again. "From the medical standpoint, no, she was not a virgin. Not unless they were using in vitro techniques in ancient Israel. Even with in vitro, though, there has to be a human father to supply the fertilizing sperm. A virgin could be fertilized in vitro then implanted without losing her virginity but I doubt very much they knew how to do that two thousand years ago. Even today it is a very delicate procedure, with more failures than successes."

  He is fully a doctor again and the old eyes are sparkling with the intellectual activity. I want to keep that going. "I read somewhere once about spontaneous fertilization using electrical stimuli."

  He takes his first sip of root beer, speaks almost absently. "I heard of that, too, but I doubt it has ever been done with humans."

  "Why wouldn't Mary the Mother of God have been fertilized that way, though, allowing for supernatural influences?"

  I have walked right into it, see. He smiles as he tells me: "Because she had a boy. A spontaneous fertilization would always produce a female offspring. To get a male you need the Y chromosome and women don't carry them. Sperm do, and that's the only thing little boys are made of."

  "Maizy had a girl."

  "That's right."

  'Two X chromosomes."

  "That's right. An X-Y pairing will result in a boy. An X-X pairing makes a girl."

  "What is the actual effect of tubal blockage?"

  "The actual effect." We are doctoring again. "Well...an ovum ripens inside the ovary and gets spit out. The Fallopian tube captures it and begins working it toward the uterus. If sperm are present in the tube, fertilization can occur. Bang—you've got an embryo right there in the tube. It continues its journey on into the uterus where it attaches itself to the lining and you've got yourself a successful pregnancy."

  "But when the tubes are irreversibly blocked..."

  "Well now they're using in vitro to solve that problem in some cases. That literally means in glass. They remove the mature ovum from the mother and place it in a dish with active sperm. If fertilization occurs, the embryo is implanted in the mother's uterus. Nature has been helped a bit, that's all, but all the rules still apply. An X from the daddy sperm produces a girl. A Y from the daddy makes a boy. What's all this about, Ford?"

  I smile and say, "Miracle babies."

  He smiles back. "I believe in miracles."

  I say, "But not in immortality."

  "Didn't say that. Said, I think, I'm in favor of it."

  "But you've never seen a soul."

  "Quit looking for it, long time ago."

  "Why?"

  "Waste of time. The human body does not have a soul."

  "Sure of that, huh?"

  "Uh huh. We don't have souls. Souls have us."

  "That makes a difference, doesn't it."

  "Damn right it does. Hear the same stuff from brain surgeons, except they're looking for the mind. You can't go into the brain looking for a mind. On the other hand, you cannot go into the mind except through the brain. What does that tell you, Ford?"

  I say, "Minds have brains."

  He slaps my knee. "Right. And souls have bodies."

  I grin and say, "See what you mean, yeah."

  "It makes a difference. I never saw a soul because I spent all my tune messing with bodies."

  "Did Maizey McCall have a miracle baby?"

  The ninety-one-year-old retired medical doctor produces a long black cigar from an inside pocket, lights it, and says to me, "Damn right she did."

  Chapter Twenty-Four: State of the Art

  Biblical peoples were not as unsophisticated as modem sophisticates would have them. They lived in a far simpler time, sure, but these people baked bricks and built homes and temples, they practiced agriculture and animal husbandry, they sailed the open seas and engaged in international commerce.

  They knew where babies come from, too.

  Maybe they had never seen an ovum or a sperm, but neither have most moderns, at first hand. Certainly the ancients had the cause-and-effect relationship all worked out as regards the role of sex in procreation. Perhaps they did tend to think of the female as soil prepared for planting, but of course many modern men think of women as dirt, too. At any rate, the most ancient biblical scriptures refer to the man's ejaculate as his seed, and they certainly knew that any seed had to find fertile soil if it were to produce anything. But they were a lot smarter than that, even, because they knew all about child-bearing ages and the role of menstrual cycles in the woman.

  As far back as Abraham, at least, they knew that.

  Genesis 18:11 makes that very clear: "Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in age; it had ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women." That meant she'd gone through menopause. Sarah knew what that meant because she laughed when the Lord promised her and Abraham a baby, when she was ninety and Abraham a hundred years old.

  See? Even in that antiquity it was enough to laugh at God himself over such a thing. Surely he jested! But he did not jest, if you believe the Bible. This is prelude to the birth of Isaac.

  Can we take this stuff literally? I mean, okay, faith has been defined as a belief in something that the senses refute—but many modern Christians apparently try to hedge their faith by rationalizing. Like: "Well, it was never intended that we take this literally."

  Baloney.

  Those old guys told it like it was. If we don't want to believe it, okay, let's just not believe it. But for crying out loud let's not make idiots out of those people just so they won't offend our twentieth-century sensibilities. Liars, maybe; okay—but not idiots.

  When father Abraham tells us that the Lord appeared to him by the oaks of Mamre—along with a couple of angels, I guess—and that he entertained them and fed them—what are we to make of that if we can't take him literally?

  What would be nonliteral?

  That he dreamed it? Or that he was suffering a delusion? Or that three Bedouins conned him out of a free meal? These same guys went on to wipe out Sodom and Gomorrah. Did Abraham's delusion do that? And was Sarah so deluded, also, that at the age of ninety she hallucinated a pregnancy that produced Isaac, later the father of Esau and Jacob? How much can we nonliteralize this stuff?

  The apologists tell us that they reckoned time differently in those days. Obviously Adam could not have lived eight hundred years. And Sarah could not have conceived a child at the age of ninety. No matter how you reckon the time, though, the nonliteralists cannot wipe out Sarah's amusement at God's promise or the entirely literal and common-sense statement that "it had ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women."

  I have to go with the religious conservatives in the matter. Either believe it or don't; but don't try to rewrite the script for your own comfort.

  I believe that when one of the ancients talked about sitting down and breaking bread with the Lord, that is precisely what he meant to say. He is walking along a dusty road. Nobody is anywhere around. Suddenly the Lord appears from nowhere and makes personal contact. Often angels also appear: these do not have wings and they are not wraiths; they are flesh and blood and can easily be mistaken for ordinary folks. Apparently they are capable of being harmed, too, just like ordinary folks, because sometimes the reporter protects them from other ordinary folks. Like at Sodom, when Lot took in the same group who approached Abraham at Mamre. (Genesis 19.)

  Lately a new generation of literalists have been having great fun reinterpreting scripture from a UFO viewpoint. Also many clerics privately (and a few publicly) have taken to reexamining the Bible in this light—and it does make for fascinating reading. They note that references to the Lord in these account
s often sound as though the reporter is describing a force rather than an entity, and the angels do sound an awful lot like beings who have emerged from a UFO. Indeed, the word angel is derived from the Greek angelos which means messenger.

  Think about it, and remember that these were very worldly men, responsible men, tribal leaders and so forth. They were sophisticated at a certain level, but remember that this was before the machine age on earth. There were no machines. How does a guy describe a mind-blowing machine if he has never seen even a refrigerator or a washer?

  Check out this description, from Ezekiel: "As I looked, behold, a stormy wind came out of the north, and a great cloud, with brightness round about it, and fire flashing forth continually, and in the midst of the fire, as it were gleaming bronze."

  Ezekiel was a priest, a learned man. In those days, the priesthood represented an educated elite. These guys were like professors of today. Yet Ezekiel for all his sophistication had no model to fall back on in trying to describe what he saw. How would a North American Indian witch doctor who'd never been exposed to civilized technology—not even a pickup truck or a jeep—describe a phantom jet thundering through the skies?

  "And from the midst of it came the likeness of four living creatures. And this was their appearance: they had the form of men, but each had four faces [designs?], and each of them had four wings. Their legs were straight, and the soles of their feet were like the sole of a calf's foot; and they sparkled like burnished bronze."

  From the midst of the fire? These "living creatures" seem to be an attempt to convert something technological into something natural (or supernatural), the only way Ezekiel had to relate the phenomenon.

  "...and their wings were spread out above; each creature had two wings, each of which touched the wing of another, while two covered their bodies. And each went straight forward; wherever the spirit would go, they went, without turning as they went."

  He's talking about components of the whole, I think. "The spirit" is the whole. Try to describe a helicopter to someone who has never seen or heard of one.

  "In the midst of the living creatures there was something that looked like burning coals of fire, like torches moving to and fro among the living creatures; and the fire was bright, and out of the fire went forth lightning. And the living creatures darted to and fro, like a flash of lightning."

  Try describing beacons and whirling lights to someone who has never heard of electricity.

  "Now as I looked at the living creatures, I saw a wheel upon the earth beside the living creatures, one for each of the four of them. As for the appearance of the wheels and their construction: their appearance was like the gleaming of a chrysolite [a gemstone]; and the four had the same likeness, their construction being as it were a wheel within a wheel."

  Or like a turbine?

  "When they went, they went in any of their four directions without turning as they went. The four wheels had rims and they had spokes; and their rims were full of eyes round about. And when the living creatures went, the wheels went beside them; and when the living creatures rose from the earth, the wheels rose. Wherever the spirit would go, they went, and the wheels rose along with them; for the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels."

  Without turning as they went, eh?

  "Over the heads of the living creatures there was the likeness of a firmament [blue sky], shining like crystal, spread out about their heads."

  Okay. Tell the kid about glass domes before he's ever seen a window pane.

  "And under the firmament their wings were stretched out straight, one toward another; and each creature had two wings covering its body. And when they went, I heard the sound of their wings like the sound of many waters, like the thunder of the Almighty, a sound of tumult like the sound of a host; when they stood still, they let down their wings."

  Ever been in a football stadium with the home team in a goal line stand, fourth and inches? Talk about tumult and "the sound of a host"...

  Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi, has just described to you his "visions of God" in the land of the Chaldeans by the river Chebar..."and the hand of the Lord was upon him there."

  Shall we take him literally?

  Why not. Ezekiel was not the first or only biblical figure to describe the Lord in such terms.

  In Exodus 13, when Moses and the Israelites were withdrawing from Egypt, it is written: "And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them along the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, that they might travel by day and by night; the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night did not depart from before the people."

  Later, in the wilderness, Exodus 19: "On the morning of the third day there were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mountain, and a very loud trumpet blast, so that all the people who were in the camp trembled. Then Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God; and they took their stand at the foot of the mountain. And Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire; and the smoke of it went up like the smoke of a kiln, and the whole mountain quaked greatly. And as the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses spoke, and God answered him in thunder. And the Lord came down upon Mount Sinai, to the top of the mountain; and the Lord called Moses to the top of the mountain, and Moses went up. And the Lord said to Moses, "Go down and warn the people, lest they break through to the Lord to gaze and many of them perish."

  Moses spent a lot of time going up and down Mount Sinai, which would seem very time-consuming except for an earlier clue in Exodus 19:3: "And Moses went up to God, and the Lord called him out of the mountain, saying, 'Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob, and tell the people of Israel: you have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself*..."

  So how literal can you get? These guys were not talking about dreams or wraiths or apparitions. They were describing real-world events in space and time, in the only words available to them. The Lord was usually described as a mind-boggling force, rather than as an individual, and there were always angels around for the personal interchanges.

  Thus, in Genesis 18: "And the Lord appeared to him [Abraham] by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the door of his tent in the heat of the day."

  Very real world. Picture old Abraham sitting there, trying to get a little respite from the heat, when this thing appears from nowhere.

  "He lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, three men stood in front of him."

  Three men. Where the hell did they come from? And where is the Lord at this moment?

  "When he saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them, and bowed himself to the earth, and said, 'My lord, if I have found favor in your sight, do not pass by your servant. Let a little water be brought, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree, while I fetch a morsel of bread, that you may refresh yourselves, and after that you may pass on—since you have come to your servant.'"

  Ghosts don't need food and drink, do they. And why would father Abraham grovel before these guys that way unless he'd recognized them as angels from the Lord—or whatever you prefer to call their vehicle. Never mind; in the ensuing conversation, it is obvious that Abraham has revised his identification; there are now "the Lord" and "two men."

  "They said to him, 'Where is Sarah your wife?' And he said, 'She is in the tent.' He said [my italics], 'I will surely return to you in the spring, and Sarah your wife shall have a son.' And Sarah was listening at the tent door behind him. Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in age; it had ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women. So Sarah laughed to herself, saying, 'After I have grown old, and my husband is old, shall I have pleasure?' The Lord said to Abraham, 'Why did Sarah laugh, and say, 'Shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am old?' Is anything too hard for the Lord? At the appointed time I will return to you, in the spring, and Sarah shall have a son.' But Sarah denied, saying, 'I did not laugh'; for she was afraid. He sai
d, 'No, but you did laugh.'"

  The Lord sounds charmingly human there, doesn't he.

  The angel Gabriel does, too, in Luke, and advanced years is still no bar to fertility: "In the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah, of the division of Abijah; and he had a wife of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless. But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and both were advanced in years.

  "Now while he was serving as priest before God when his division was on duty, according to the custom of the priesthood, it fell to him by lot to enter the temple of the Lord and burn incense. And the whole multitude of the people were praying outside at the hour of incense. And there appeared to him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense. And Zechariah was troubled when he saw him, and fear fell upon him. But the angel said to him, 'Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer is heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John.'

  "And Zechariah said to the angel, 'How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years.'

  "And the angel answered him, 'I am Gabriel, who stand in the presence of God; and I was sent to speak to you, and to bring you this good news.'"

  Gabriel is going to be a busy angel, though. In the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy, he is dispatched by God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, "...to a virgin bethrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin's name was Mary. And he came to her and said, 'Hail, O favored one, the Lord is with you!'

  "But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and considered in her mind what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, 'Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.'"

  According to scripture, this is how we got John the Baptist and Jesus the Christ...and the real world has not been the same since.