At the start of the book, Adam’s life is at a standstill. He has little to show for his research of the cult of the dead in ancient Israel, until he discovers a tablet that sheds light on shadowy underworld figures known as the Healers in Canaanite myth and the Bible. While the Healers are mentioned frequently in the ancient texts, their theological role and origin have never really been fleshed out, said Morris.

On the day Adam finds the tablet, he loses his grandfather, the man who raised him. As Adam mourns, he labors to interpret the text. Are the Healers ancestors of the ancient Jews? Are they the original inhabitants of the land? Are they gods? Or all three? As Adam examines the tablet for answers, he unwittingly unearths family secrets that test his loyalties and entangle him in the police investigation of Danny, an old family friend.

Morris said his grief over the death of his grandfather—with whom he was very close—was an inspiration for the book. In Jewish tradition, Morris said, burying the dead is seen as the last act of kindness one can do for a loved one. He recalled his grandfather’s funeral:

“I remember taking the shovel and not wanting to give it up, that I felt like this was my last opportunity to have this deep, personal, physical connection, to be able to do something for my grandfather, and I was very reluctant to share that,” said Morris. “Of course, I did, because it’s a community of mourners who all need to be able to participate, but it was a wrenching thing to give the shovel away.”

The characters developed quite apart from Morris’ own story. However, that the character Adam can only permit himself to explore his grief through texts and study, is not too far from Morris’ analytic approach to life. Elsewhere, Adam’s best friend is a “disaffected gay Catholic biologist” and his love interest is a liturgical composer “struggling to hold on to her belief.” As for the Healers, Morris said he first learned of them in a college course.

“They merited only a short discussion in the class, but they loomed very large in my imagination and I read as many books as I could over the years that addressed the relationship between Judaism and Canaanite culture,” he said.

As a scientist, Morris didn’t take writing fiction lightly. He is very involved with several faculty groups around the University and counts several English professors among his friends. He said he looked at the novel, which he self-published, as something to be “built,” and the scientist in him wondered, “What makes this work?” His process was very practical.

“When I first started working on the book, I wouldn’t call it my novel, I called it ‘my folly,’ because it felt hubristic. What’s a geneticist doing writing a piece of fiction?” he said. “How could I presume to do something like that?”

As the novel developed he showed it to colleagues who were “incredibly supportive” and offered constructive feedback. Several Fordham professors are thanked in the acknowledgments. Karina Martin Hogan, Ph.D., assistant professor of theology, helped Morris with his Hebrew grammar “because she knows this stuff inside and out,” he said. But the archeological research was his own.

“The philology, where Adam is actually trying to interpret the tablet, understanding what’s happening, and the Bible studies, these have been passions of mine for a very long time,” he said.

He said ultimately, the idea of a scientist writing fiction isn’t that big a deal at a place like Fordham.

“One of the things people say about a Jesuit university, particularly about Fordham, is that you can bring your whole self to work,” he said. “If you have passions outside of your particular field, that still informs who you are and you have the opportunity to bring those passions to your relationships with your colleagues or to your students or to your scholarship.”

But Kattan Gribetz had come across a curious fact: Many Koreans read the Talmud.

Kattan Gribetz had seen a news article and one television clip on the Talmud’s immense popularity in Korea. On a whim, she ordered copies of the Korean translation, even though she didn’t speak or read the language.

As chance would have it, Kim went to Kattan Gribetz’s office to pick up a paper from class, and Kattan Gribetz asked her if she had ever heard of the Korea-Talmud connection. Kim, who grew up in Southern California and went to a Korean school on the weekends, said she told her professor that the perception of popularity must be overblown.

Later that day, however, she called her mother and asked if she had heard of the Talmud.

“She told me that everyone in Korea has a copy of the Talmud, though she didn’t realize it was a religious text,” said Kim.

Thus began a two-year research project of translating and comparing the Korean versions to the Babylonian Talmud and other ancient rabbinic texts.

The project was fostered through the University’s Undergraduate Research Program (LINK). Together, Kim and Kattan Gribetz attended two conferences in two countries and produced a paper, “The Talmud in Korea: A Study in the Reception of Rabbinic Literature,” that will soon be published by the Association for Jewish Studies Review.

Along the way, Kim said the project also brought her closer to her parents and her culture.

“I called them a lot more because I had so many questions about certain words or nuances I couldn’t pick up on, because I wasn’t born and raised in Korea,” said Kim. “I pride myself on being a part of two different cultures, but this was definitely a wakeup call; there are a lot of things I don’t know about Korea.”

Kattan Gribetz said their research explored the roundabout journey of the Korean Talmud. In the late 1960s, Rabbi Marvin Tokayer, who had been stationed in Tokyo and Seoul as a chaplain with U.S. Air Force earlier in his career, returned to Japan as a rabbi.  There, a Japanese historian convinced him that a translation of the Talmud could be popular in Japan because people were curious about Judaism and Jewish history. In his book, Tokayer dispensed with the Talmud’s specifically Jewish laws and rules, and focused on themes that would resonate with a Japanese audience, such as hospitality, education, and kindness.

At some point, said Kattan Gribetz, Tokayer’s highly edited anthology of Talmudic stories found its way into a Korean translation. Illustrations and aphorisms were added, making the Korean version closer to Aesop’s Fables than to the rabbinic texts with which most Jews would be familiar.

“It’s strange that there’s such a small connection between the Babylonian Talmud and these books, and we were curious to see who was writing them and where they came from,” said Kim.

The two read through dozens of Korean versions and presented their findings at the 2016 international conference of the Society of Biblical Literature—which happened to be taking place in Seoul, South Korea. This past December they presented the research again in Kim’s hometown of San Diego at the Association for Jewish Studies conference.

“I couldn’t read the text without Claire, and she didn’t know enough about rabbinic sources to connect the two,” said Kattan Gribetz. “Ours was the perfect collaboration.”

Kim, who double majored in English and art history, graduated on Feb. 1. She is now interning in the education department at the Guggenheim Museum and at the Asian American Arts Alliance. She said the project was a highlight of her time at Fordham.

“I know that it is rare for a university professor to be working with an undergraduate student on a research project like this, as well as to continue fostering me through submitting the article after graduation,” she said. “Being able to experience all of it with Dr. Kattan Gribetz and my parents was just lovely.”