{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1600",
    "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it.  Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.",
    "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'"
  },
  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 1600,
    "subject": "Digest urth.v026.n006",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1999-04-29T19:19:01+00:00",
    "last": "1999-04-29T19:19:01+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0026-0065@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Ori Kowarsky",
        "address": "orik at sprint.ca"
      },
      "date": "1999-04-29T19:19:01+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Re: Digest urth.v026.n006",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Nicholas Gevers wrote:\nIn response to Ori Kowarsky's recent defence of his non-Christian\nreading of the Urth Cycle: eloquently argued, Ori, but I detect a\nmajor inconsistency in your posting. Initially, you describe the\nChristian allusions in BOTNS as detritus from past ages, part of the\neclectic symbolic soup of Wolfe's posthistory; then, you maintain that\nthere's no sign that Christ has been present in Severian's universe,\nthat Christian salvation can apply there, etc. But surely the survival\nof Christian iconography and theology into Severian's age means that\nChristianity has been present on Urth, but has faded into abeyance\nover time? There is plenty of textual evidence to support the\nexistence of the Bible as a text familiar in some respects to the\npeople and hierodules of Briah: the presence of Christian missionaries\nwho can read from Exodus in the Jungle Garden; copious references to\nGenesis in Dr. Talos's Play; the fact that the religion of Typhon's\ntime was analogous to Catholicism, and as such parodied by the gods of\nthe Whorl in LONG SUN. Surely, Severian is a reiteration of a\nmessianic pattern encountered previously on Urth or Earth, not only in\nApu-Punchau and the Conciliator, but also in Christ.\nAs for the Urth Cycle not enacting the pattern of Revelations, etc.:\nhow literally should Biblical prophecies be taken?"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Thank you, Nicholas, for your generous words.  My post, I think, was a\nlittle muddled, so I'd like to quickly re-iterate:\n\nI agree with your analysis that the idea of an Urth without a Christian past\nis unsupportable, and would happily leave it at that.  In UOTNS Tzad makes a\ncryptic little asides (it's quoted in my \"urth ... Christain Text\" post)\nwhich seems to imply that Tzad is from a universe in which Christ existed,\nas opposed to Sev's universe, in which it is implied (for the first time in\nthe series) that he did not.  Neither situation dramatically erodes my\npoint."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "In any case, as\nI've argued previously, the God described by Wolfe is a highly\nperverse being, at least from a mortal perspective; His Plan is vast\nand complicated, entailing cruel manipulation of humanity, to the\npoint of genocide; in my view, the Increate's behaviour is a warning\nto the reader that the actions of God (and his counterpart the Author)\nare best not taken for granted. If Severian's cosmos is not ours, it\nemanates from the same Creator, and any variations it presents on the\npattern of our universe are deliberate and elegant, if often\ninscrutable, variations performed by that Artist."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I think a characterization of the Increate as a science fiction author would\nbe a theodicy which surpasseth Job."
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}