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the Greek and Hebrew sources it came from, but then I learned that the world is full of different manuscripts that don't agree with each other. Between higher criticism and lower criticism, we find out that half of what the Bible says Christ said, He didn't. The New Testament and the Old Testament both have to be weighed, and then you must pick and choose, and you can't ever be a hundred per cent sure. And then we find out Christ wasn't the only sun god to die and be raised from the dead at the end of December. Angels are Djinn, Egypt had a one-god faith, and so did others. The deeper you dig, the more you find out it's all a lot of guesswork made out of nothing more than what people wanted to believe, filtered through a cultural legacy of kings and court politics. What isn't made up is plagiarized from a dozen different pagan religions. Scribes added their own notions and didn't bother copying what they didn't like. That business in Mark about handling snakes just came out of nowhere.
    "And then that Scientific American article I read last year really rubbed my nose in it. I went and looked at a couple of books on astronomy and cosmology. It's the sheer size of the universe! Out of all the stars and all the galaxies, and the billions of light years between them, and space itself expanding at the edges faster than light, there's just too much of it for me to believe that there could be someone in charge of it all, watching us on this one little planet and guiding our affairs, who is even aware I exist, much less cares.
    "Did I tell you that Tom saw Doctor Smith coming out of a liquor store? He went in and asked the cashier what he bought. The cashier said he 'bought the same brand of bourbon he always buys.' I couldn't believe it! When I was growing up, Christians didn't drink. That was a sin, and sinners were going to hell. And Doctor Smith is the best teacher I have this term. If that's what Christianity is here, it's not what I came for." He shook his head again at the contradictions. "I have to find something else to do. I can't do this!" He'd spoken quietly, but he was drained, out of words, out of anything more to say.
    She took her time answering, meanwhile getting the coffee going and loading up the toaster. "Albert, I said, 'for better or worse, 'til death do us part.' But that was a promise before God, and if there isn't any God, then there isn't any promise. I'll start packing if I have to. I can take the kids and go back home and teach full-time again, and you can go wherever you want. But neither of us is going anywhere until you take it to the chapel and talk to God. Calm down and think it through. Settle in your own mind whether He exists or not. Right now you're not thinking clearly. You know, normally I'd love to win an argument about the Bible with a divinity student, but normally I wouldn't need to remind you that the passage in Mark about handling snakes doesn't come completely out of nowhere. Yes, we both know it isn't in the better manuscripts. Still, Paul got bitten by a viper on Malta in Acts 28 and came to no harm, when he should have died. And in Isaiah it says there will be a time when snakes shall not hurt a child, and then Psalms 91 talks about walking on lions and adders. So go to the chapel, go pray, before we think about going our separate ways. I'm telling you, I still believe. I am not going to give it up, and I am not going to live a life unequally yoked. So you go now, and let me know what you decide."
    ****
    When he came back to their tiny student apartment close to midnight, he had two books in his hand. He was surprised and touched to see a pot of chili keeping warm on the stove. He wouldn't have blamed her for making herself and the boys a sandwich, washing up, and going to bed, but she was sitting up on the sofa bed in the front room waiting for him. He was hungry as a lost coyote. She didn't say anything, she just let him gather his thoughts and his words, and waited for him to