“Rewriting them how?”
“Moses and others believed that the River Jordan was the border of Israel, but the deuteronomists believed that Israel included Transjordan, which justified aggression to the east. There are many other examples: the predeuteronomic law said nothing about a monarch. The Law as laid down by the deuteronomic school reflected a monarchist system. The predeuteronomic law was largely concerned with sacred matters, while the deuteronomic law’s main concern is the education of the king and his people—secular matters in other words. The deuteronomists insisted on centralizing the religion in the Temple in Jerusalem, destroying the outlying cult centers. And there is another feature that Lagos found significant.”
“And that is?”
“Deuteronomy is the only book of the Pentateuch that refers to a written Torah as comprising the divine will: ‘And when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself in a book a copy of this law, from that which is in charge of the Levitical priests; and it shall be with him, and he shall read in it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the LORD his God, by keeping all the words of this law and these statutes, and doing them; that his heart may not be lifted up above his brethren, and that he may not turn aside from the commandment, either to the right hand or to the left; so that he may continue long in his kingdom, he and his children, in Israel.’ Deuteronomy 17:18–20.”
“So the deuteronomists codified the religion. Made it into an organized, self-propagating entity,” Hiro says. “I don’t want to say virus. But according to what you just quoted me, the Torah is like a virus. It uses the human brain as a host. The host—the human—makes copies of it. And more humans come to synagogue and read it.”
“I cannot process an analogy. But what you say is correct insofar as this: After the deuteronomists had reformed Judaism, instead of making sacrifices, the Jews went to synagogue and read the Book. If not for the deuteronomists, the world’s monotheists would still be sacrificing animals and propagating their beliefs through the oral tradition.”
“Sharing needles,” Hiro says. “When you were going over this stuff with Lagos, did he ever say anything about the Bible being a virus?”
“He said it had certain things in common with a virus, but that it was different. He considered it a benign virus. Like that used for vaccinations. He considered the Asherah virus to be more malignant, capable of being spread through exchange of bodily fluids.”
“So the strict, book-based religion of the deuteronomists inoculated the Hebrews against the Asherah virus.”
“In combination with strict monogamy and other kosher practices, yes,” the Librarian says. “The previous religions, from Sumer up to Deuteronomy, are known as prerational. Judaism was the first of the rational religions. As such, in Lagos’s view, it was much less susceptible to viral infection because it was based on fixed, written records. This was the reason for the veneration of the Torah and the exacting care used when making new copies of it—informational hygiene.”
“What are we living in nowadays? The postrational era?”
“Juanita made comments to that effect.”
“I’ll bet she did. She’s starting to make more sense to me, Juanita is.”
“Oh.”
“She never really made much sense before.”
“I see.”
“I think that if I can just spend enough time with you to figure out what’s on Juanita’s mind—well, wonderful things could happen.”
“I will try to be of assistance.”
“Back to work—this is no time for a hard-on. It seems that Asherah was a carrier of a viral infection. The deuteronomists somehow realized this and exterminated her by blocking all the vectors by which she infected new victims.”
“With reference to viral infections,” the Librarian says, “if I may make a fairly blunt, spontaneous cross-reference—something I am coded to do at opportune moments—you may wish to examine herpes simplex, a virus that takes up residence in the nervous system and never leaves. It is capable of carrying new genes into existing neurons and genetically reengineering them. Modern gene therapists use it for this purpose. Lagos thought that herpes simplex might be a modern, benign descendant of Asherah.”
“Not always benign,” Hiro says, remembering a friend of his who died of AIDS-related complications; in the last days, he had herpes lesions from his lips all the way down his throat. “It’s only benign because we have immunities.”
“Yes, sir.”
“So did Lagos think that the Asherah virus actually altered the DNA of brain cells?”
“Yes. This was the backbone of his hypothesis that the virus was able to transmute itself from a biologically transmitted string of DNA into a set of behaviors.”
“What behaviors? What was Asherah worship like? Did they do sacrifices?”
“No. But there is evidence of cult prostitutes, both male and female.”
“Does that mean what I think it does? Religious figures who would hang around the temple and fuck people?”
“More or less.”
“Bingo. Great way to spread a virus. Now, I want to jump back to an earlier fork in the conversation.”
“As you wish. I can handle nested forkings to a virtually infinite depth.”
“You made a connection between Asherah and Eve.”
“Eve—whose Biblical name is Hawwa—is clearly the Hebrew interpretation of an older myth. Hawwa is an ophidian mother goddess.”
“Ophidian?”
“Associated with serpents. Asherah is also an ophidian mother goddess. And both are associated with trees as well.”
“Eve, as I recall, is considered responsible for getting Adam to eat the forbidden fruit, from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Which is to say, it’s not just fruit—it’s data.”