Folio 001
Iona: An Island of Books, Relics, and Dangerous Memory
Why a small Hebridean island became one of the most consequential centers of faith, learning, pilgrimage, and manuscript culture in the medieval world.
7 minute read
Open folio →Research archive · Open folios
Field
Notes
The history, language, manuscripts, and scholarship beneath The First Silence.
The documentary atlas
The world behind the novel
Enter through the surviving art, manuscripts, places, and objects that inform the story.
Path I
The world of the novel
Islands, manuscripts, language, and the histories that enter The First Silence. The documented past remains distinct from the novel's invention.
Folio 002
Babel: Language, Pride, and the Violence of Fracture
Genesis gives the collapse of a city and the confusion of speech only nine verses. The questions created by that silence have lasted for millennia.
6 minute read
Open folio →Path II
The scholarship beneath it
General-reader guides to the texts, practices, and interpretive problems Michael has studied as a biblical scholar.
Folio 003
Demons, Protection, and the Dead Sea Scrolls
The ancient response to evil was not limited to expelling a demon after attack. Some texts sought protection before the danger arrived.
7 minute read
Open folio →