The Source: Analysis of Major Characters

Author: James A. Michener

First published: 1965

Genre: Novel

Locale: Tell Makor, in western Galilee

Plot: Historical

Time: 1964, with flashbacks covering approximately twelve thousand years of Israel's history, beginning c. 9831 b.c.e. (before common era)

Dr. John Cullinane, a forty-year-old Irish American archaeologist from a museum in Chicago, the leader of an expedition to excavate one of the mounds in Galilee known as Tell Makor. He is exceptionally well educated for the job, having learned to read Aramaic, Arabic, and ancient Hebrew script, as well as Mesopotamian cuneiform and Egyptian hieroglyphs. He is also trained in ceramics, metallurgy, ancient coins, and problems of biblical research. Although he is Catholic, his religiosity is not so much a matter of ardent participation as another intellectual interest. He is moved by some of the Jewish religious ceremonies he observes in Israel. Cullinane's easy religious tolerance and ecumenical spirit contrast with the religious passions that emerge in the history of this area, particularly the fanatical devotion to Jewish law that survived multiple disasters.

Jemail Tabari, an Arab trained at Oxford, a first-rate scientific archaeologist. When the Jews threatened to capture Palestine from the Arabs, young Jemail, then twenty-two, fought the Jews vigorously. After his army was crushed, however, he chose to stay in Israel and work with the Jews to rebuild the war-torn area. He is the last of an unbroken line of the ancient family of Ur, which originally occupied Makor. He and his Jewish friend Eliav are the ones who make the final breakthrough to the ancient, long-buried well that was the source of water for Makor, a Hebrew word meaning “source.”

Dr. Ilan Eliav, a Jewish statesman and archaeologist, the official watchdog of the dig, whose job is to see that the valuable tell is not mutilated. Cullinane finds out early that Eliav is Bar-El's fiancé, but this fact does not prevent the rivals from enjoying mutual respect. The former history of Eliav is not revealed to either Cullinane or the reader until the last flashback, dated 1948, when the Jews drove the Arabs from the area, then called Safad. Eliav had been a German Jewish immigrant named Isidore Gottesmann. His father had shipped him to Amsterdam during the rise of the Nazis, and he became part of the Jewish underground operating along the German border. English agents spotted his abilities and turned him into an excellent soldier. They then sent him to Syria with a secret unit to keep Damascus out of German hands. There, he met members of the Jewish Brigade from Palestine and acquired their vision of a free Israel. When the British left Galilee, virtually handing over power to the Arab majority, Gottesmann and a small band of Jews rose up and took over the town, fighting against great odds. Gottesmann's seventeen-year-old wife died in this action. The bitter Gottesmann, worn down by many years of warfare, changed his name to the Hebrew Ilan Eliav and vowed to devote his life to the new Israel.

Dr. Vered Bar-El, a Jewish archaeologist and Israel's top expert in dating pottery. She is an extremely attractive, thirty-three-year-old widow, about whom the reader knows little of a personal nature. She was a young girl in those fateful days when Jewish men, women, and even children launched their desperate assault against the Arabs. Later in that war, she, with gun blazing, rescued Eliav when he was captured. Few details emerge, however, about her attachment to Eliav. When legal complications in traditional Jewish marriage law concerning widows threaten to endanger Eliav's political career, Vered surprises everyone by marrying the rich American Jew Paul Zodman, who financed the dig.

Paul J. Zodman, a Chicago businessman and thoroughly Americanized Jew who has little patience for the old rigid religious laws of Orthodox Judaism. He still considers the State of Israel as the source and preserver of Jewish heritage, however, and willingly pours money into projects that confirm the Jewish homeland.

Ur, a caveman and hunter of the prehistoric period that first saw some attempts to domesticate plants and animals. Ur himself would never have deviated from the familiar hunting pattern of his ancestors had it not been for his wife, who was responsible for gathering wild plants. She conceived the idea of planting seed near the cave and, later, tricked Ur into neglecting the hunt so that he could protect their wheat fields. She is also credited with the beginnings of religion, and her daughter first domesticated a wild dog.

Urbaal, Ur's descendant, a farmer who, in 2202 b.c.e., prayed to a father-god El, as well as Baal-of-the-Storm, Baal-of-the-Waters, Baal-of-the-Sun, and the love goddess Astarte. In spite of the vehement objections of his second wife, Timna, he dutifully allowed her firstborn son to be sacrificed to Melak, god of death and war. Ultimately, however, unruly passions overcame the law-abiding farmer. He fell in love with a priestess of Astarte and killed a herdsman who was a rival for the privilege of lying with her in the temple for seven days and nights as part of an institutionalized fertility ritual. He fled from the city and took refuge at the altar of Joktan, an approaching desert nomad.

Joktan, a desert nomad who was thought to be the forerunner of the Hebrews and was the first Habiru to see Makor. He worshiped only one god, El. After the death of Urbaal, Joktan married his widow, Timna. Urbaal, Joktan, and Timna became parts of later religious myth. Joktan was a heavenly stranger who arrived from the east. Urbaal became the god Ur-baal, the principal god of Makor, and Timna became an aspect of Astarte. Amalek, the herdsman Urbaal killed, was transformed into Melak, the god of war. Timna/Astarte rescued Baal from the realm of darkness by killing Melak and scattering his fragmented body over the fields. This ritual brings the wheat to germination and the olive trees to blossom. In later times, Ur-Baal became simply Baal, the dying and resurrected earth god of the Canaanites.

Uriel, the astute Canaanite governor of Makor in 1419 b.c.e, also a descendant of Ur. He allows a large group of Hebrews led by an old man, Zadok, to settle outside the town.

Zadok, a man who calls himself “the right arm of El-Shaddai,” the god of “the mountain that no man ever sees.” Although both Zadok and Uriel were men of integrity and generally tolerant of each other's religion, Zadok was shocked by the temple prostitution involved in the worship of Astarte. When Zadok's daughter married Uriel's son and began to worship the fertility goddess, Zadok declared the town an abomination. El-Shaddai spoke to Zadok and ordered him to kill every man of the town, take the children as his own, and distribute the women among his men. Zadok objected to this cruel assignment, but his hot-blooded sons slaughtered the Canaanites, as well as their sister, and burned Makor.

Jabaal, called the Hoopoe, a man who, in 963 b.c.e, accepts Yahweh as the great deity of the outer heavens while continuing to worship the earth god Baal as the local deity. Hoopoe is a descendant of Governor Uriel but a rather ridiculous figure—a short, stocky man with an oversized bottom that wiggles as he walks and a large, bald head covered with freckles. Children and most other people call him Hoopoe, the name of a common bird that seldom flies, instead running from place to place poking into holes for insects. The man is an excellent architect who rebuilds the walls of Makor and creates a remarkable tunnel to the well, which is vulnerable to attackers because it is outside the city walls. He then buries the well in an underground chamber so that no one could see the source of water. This chamber is the hidden well found by Tabari and Eliav.

Jehubabel, a pudgy, middle-aged wise man living in 171 b.c.e. Mediocre in talent, Jehubabel is a master of commonplace knowledge. He is tediously prone to quoting old Jewish proverbs but is neither forceful nor particularly religious. He does, however, confront the Canaanite Governor Tarphon, though Tarphon is not very impressed by Jehubabel's objections to the ban against circumcision. Driven by forces that he does not understand, Jehubabel risks his life to perform the circumcision ritual in secret. His greatest trial, however, is when his son Benjamin has his foreskin reconstructed so that he can participate in the Greek games. Appalled at his son's betrayal and heresy, Jehubabel crushes his son's skull with the knotted walking stick of a nearby cripple.

Abd Umer, a man born a slave but now a servant of Muhammad in 635 c.e. He achieves an almost bloodless conquest of Makor. Neither Jews, Christians, nor pagans offer any resistance.

Rabbi Laki, the shoemaker, the most beloved of three rabbis who come to Safad in 1559 c.e. He is short and grossly fat, neither brave nor learned, but full of goodwill. He is a buffoon of the spirit. His people had fled the Inquisition from Spain to Portugal, then from Lisbon to Italy. Rabbi Laki senses the hatred of the Christians there as well and foresees a Jew-burning in a vision. Years later, after he had become a beloved leader in Safad, his vision came to pass, and he returned to the congregation he had abandoned. He was honored thereafter as a martyr.

Rabbi Eliezer bar Zadok, the leader of the Jewish community of Gretz, Germany, where his ancestors had come from Babylonia a thousand years before. When both Catholics and Protestants were castigating Jews as well-poisoners, ritual murderers, and practitioners of black magic, Rabbi Eliezer started on the long and dangerous journey to Turkey. In Safad, he became famous for codifying Jewish law.

Dr. Abulafia, a distinguished medical man in Avaso, Spain, whose Jewish ancestors had become Christian in 1391. The Avaro Inquisition had begun ferreting out thousands of persons of Jewish background who had accepted baptism, claiming they were secret Jews. They tortured and burned some six thousand on flimsy evidence. After watching a personal friend die in the fire, the sickened Abulafia circumcised himself with a pair of scissors, cried “I am a Jew,” and fled Spain. He became a noted Kabbalist scholar in Safad.