“Count on it!” Zoe said as she turned on a lamp next to the window and gathered up some of the papers on the desk and stacked them atop a thick padded envelope. “I’ll be right back after I drop these off at the hotel’s safe deposit box and check to see if Max’s package has arrived.” She gave him a lascivious look. “Then you’d better be prepared, mister.”

Seth went into the bathroom and turned on the hot water. He heard the room door close as Zoe left, then stepped into the shower.

There was no doubt that Zoe was right about the widespread spiritual corruption that underlay organized religion, he thought as he stood under the water. There was no doubt that both early Judaism and Christianity saw God as incorporating both male and female. The first chapter of Genesis clearly described an androgynous God where men and women were equal. Then at a much later date, some creative church official added the Adam and Eve story in Genesis 2, obviously to support the doctrine of male domination.

As he shampooed, Seth ran through in his mind the indisputable historical research that proved that what people viewed as Judaism or Christianity today represented only a tiny fraction of the religious diversity that had existed in the early days of their development. But church officials shaped religion to fit their culture and political needs, all the while telling the faithful that it was the other way around. To make this work, church officials winnowed through texts and scriptures and rejected those that failed to support the god they wanted to worship. Equally authoritative scriptures were burned as heresy because they didn’t support orthodox dogma.

He rinsed his hair and began to soap up, conscious of the soreness that still edged the puckered bullet scars.

The Christian Bible of the year 1300 contained more books than the same Bible of 1700 because the church revised history as dogma changed. Were people who worshiped according to the older Bible and believed the now-missing chapters going to get kicked out of heaven?

He rinsed off the soap, turned off the water, and reached for a towel.

How could anyone possibly overlook the fact that the selection of writings for inclusion in scripture was a political act and that all of the books had been extensively rewritten to conform to dogma as it changed from era to era? Many books of the Torah could not have been written by Moses as alleged because they contained historical references that occurred after the prophet’s death. Similar problems afflict the books in the Christian New Testament, where there was scant or no evidence to conclude that the books were written by those who were supposedly the authors.

Seth toweled off and finger-combed his hair as guilt sat like a stone on his heart. Raised as a strict Presbyterian, he could never shake the feeling that he was going to hell because he questioned the absolute perfection and holiness of the New Testament.