Jesus Video

The Relic is a 1998 published science fiction novel by Andreas Eschbach. Eschbach was for " Jesus Video " award for the fourth time with the German Science Fiction Award in 1999. In the novel, it is about a skeleton that is found in an archaeological dig and is 2000 years old. This is an instruction manual of a video camera, which will come only in three years on the market. The find is apparently a time traveler, which is probably Jesus Christ filmed. The Finder now suspect that his camera is buried somewhere. A race between the sponsor of the excavations, the student Stephen Foxx and the Vatican, which wants to see such a video did not publish begins.

The novel has since been published in many languages ​​and also filmed for television in 2002 under the title Das Jesus Video.

Action

The American college student Stephen Cornelius Foxx found in archaeological excavations under Professor Charles Wilford -Smith in Israel, the remains of a man who died 2000 years ago. In addition to the grave is a linen bag in which a video camera is an instruction manual, which seems to be 2,000 years old also and their associated video camera also another three years to come to market. The first assumption by the Fund shall be the skeleton of a time traveler who should have traveled 2000 years into the past to make a video of Jesus Christ. The media mogul and financier of the project, John Kaun, is a search for the associated camera in motion, the suspect hidden researchers including filming at a secret location. He gets assistance in the German writer Peter Eisenhardt, the Kaun is designed to help with his imagination to find the camera, and several specialists in archeology, which will find their expertise upon the Israel of that time, a suitable hiding place for the camera, where they could survive for 2,000 years unnoticed. Kaun seems to have almost unlimited financial reserves.

But Stephen Foxx wants to find the camera on your own. He is supported by the archaeological assistant Judith Menez and her brother Yehoshuah, a professor at the local university. The three young people are John Kaun always one step ahead, partly because Stephen Foxx had embezzled a folded letter in his finding that the three can make partially legible in the Institute of Yehoshuah. In this it is clear that the time traveler was not part of a planned action, but with nothing but a camera in his hand fell by accident during a holiday in Israel by the time and had resurfaced in Israel in the time of Jesus. He writes in the letter that he was taken by a family, learned their language and later married. He also writes of how he heard of Jesus, filmed him and where he hid the camera. While they are hiding in the Institute, they are found by Ryan, Kaun security chief, but can escape. In this case, the letter is destroyed, and parts of the creation of the laboratory begin to burn. Stephen, Judith and Yehoshuah suspect because of the letter the camera near the Wailing Wall buried, but must realize that the visible part of the Western Wall is only the top and the camera would have to be thus buried in 20 meters depth. The father of Judith and Yehoshuah, a man who inquired earlier about the wall, revealing the two, that it, a tunnel exists at the point where the camera is suspected of the three, which was previously investigated by anyone. It was several hundred years ago dug by monks who had built a monastery in a nearby desert.

The three conclude from this and from other evidence, that the monks must have found the camera and keep hidden in her convent. When they finally reach the monastery, they are found Kaun and his security guards, of which they were persecuted all the time. Stephen and Judith make it but to follow one of the monks in a hiding place. There they discover that their theory was right and actually keep hidden the monks the camera. Every hundred years, it may one of them look in the mirror, as he is called by them, and turn on the camera for a split second and see the face of Jesus. You get the camera with the requirement to show everyone the image of Jesus, present and flee through a fountain through which they make it out of the monastery. However, the two get lost in the desert and be found just before the thirst of Kaun who saves both, and the camera takes. When they come back in an erected Kaun hospital, they see how Kaun takes a look at the video in the next room. A representative of the secret service of the Vatican named Scarfaro, the Kaun had previously drawn attention to the utopian demand of 10 billion dollars for the non-publication of video, gain access to Kaun gives, shoots him and steals the video to make it on the spot to destroy. Foxx gets a five-year entry ban applicable to Jerusalem, because the only thing that could be proved against him, the damage of archaeological artifacts in the excavation and was working as chief of his software company further.

Three years later, Stephen Foxx makes a few observations and discoveries by which he gets the idea that the former prospector Charles Wilford -Smith knew more than he cared to admit. Together with the writer Eisenhardt he goes to him to England and confronts him. In his thesis, which he admits all Thus, Wilford -Smith 1947 had accidentally discovered a Sony cassette, with whom he then but could not do anything yet, because such cartridges were not yet developed. Only after the first videos were invented in the following decades and a major brand Sony was, it dawned on him what he must have discovered at that time. He gave up his job and began to study sometime in hopes of finding the missing camera archeology. When he discovers that the camera, after he had been looking for years, would be released in a few years, he loses his interest to look after her. The aging professor shows them the video that shows Jesus whose appearance conforms to the common notion, as he eats bread with others and takes other everyday things. Shortly thereafter, they are again attacked by intelligence agents of the Vatican, which are followed Foxx and acquire even this video. While Foxx is excited about the video, Eisenhardt is disappointed and expresses the assumption that it must be provided. Wilfordt -Smith reveals the two that he has numerous copies and already passed on and that the video may no longer be destroyed.

After another two and a half years Eisenhardt Stephen visited in his home in America, where he was further convicted of a friend's restaurant, while the latter is due to illness prevented. He notes that this makes Stephen together with Judith, he had visited after his five years in Israel and since then together with her. They talk about the video and Stephen tells him that a kind community has formed, which meet regularly to watch the video and Stephen has become something of a leader. While the two are talking, a young man enters the restaurant, which has a conversation with the two. It turns out that this man wants to travel next to Israel to see the famous religious sites and proud of it tells us that he has specially bought a new modern camera: It is clear that this young man will be the one will travel a little later unintentionally through time and the Jesus video will rotate.

Continuation

In April 2014 Eschbach announced through the newsletter their homepage that a manuscript entitled " The Jesus Deal" is almost completed. Is involved and both a continuation and a history of " The Jesus Video". The novel will be published before the Frankfurt Book Fair in the fall of 2014.

Spending and adaptation

• The novel was published in 1998 in the snow Kluth -Verlag originally in hardcover under the title "Jesus Video" ( ISBN 3-7951-1625-2 ) and found little resonance. Only the paperback edition in Bastion Luebbe Verlag 2000 received the name of " The Jesus Video" ( ISBN 3-404-14294-2 ) and quickly became a bestseller.
• " The Jesus Video" was published by Lubbe Audio as an audio book, read by Matthias Koeberlin. (ISBN 3-7857-3178-7 )
• The book has been filmed for television in a 5 - million - euro production of ProSieben Matthias Koeberlin and Naike Rivelli in the lead roles. It was the plot, especially the final, changed massively.

Translations

• French: Jésus video, translated by Claire Duval. ( L' Atalante Edition, Nantes 2001) ISBN 2-84172-167-1
• Italian: Lo specchio di Dio. ( Fanucci Editore, Roma 2002) ISBN 88-347-0892- X
• Japanese: two-volume edition ( HAYAKAWA Shobo, Tokyo, 2003) ISBN 4-15-041030-5 ISBN 4-15-041031-3 and
• Polish: Wideo z Jezusem, translated by Joanna Filipek. ( SOLARIS, 2004) ISBN 83-88431-98-6
• Czech: Video s Ježíšem, translated by Eva Patkova. ( Knižní club, Prague 2004) ISBN 80-242-1204-8
• Dutch: Het Mysterie Messiah, translated by Peter de Rijk. ( Karakter Uitgevers ) ISBN 90-6112-043-8
• Russian: Видео Иисус, translated by T. Nabatnikow. ( Zakharov Publishers, 2005) ISBN 5-8159-0433-3
• Spanish: El vídeo jesús, translated by Henrike Fesefeldt and José María Faraldo. ( Bibliopolis, 2007) ISBN 978-84-96173-56-9
• Hungarian: A Jézus video ( Aranyszarvas Kiado, 2007) ISBN 978-963868787-6