divine digits revisited The Urth list — 3 messages, 2 voices, 11 Nov 1997 https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/256 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. ============================================================================== Joshua A. Solomon — 11 Nov 1997, 13:31 A while back I noticed that "God's fingers" are mentioned in two of Gene's latest stories. Re-reading "The Eyeflash Miracles" last week, I noticed that they crop up there too. Originally, I guessed that "God's fingers" were responsible for the circumstances around which the plot revolves. I still think that I'm right, but only indirectly. SPOILER WARNING FOR "THE EYEFLASH MIRACLES" The eponymous miracles are perfromed by our genetically enhanced hero, Little Tib. One of the supporting characters is, among other things, a theologist. He sees "the hand of God" in these miracles and he wants to know what Little Tib sees when he is performing them. Another character derisively suggests that the theologist is trying to take "God's fingerprints." Little Tib says that he sees angels. In this story anyway, the hand of God is responsible for what Little Tib sees. I.e. his revelations. (He can't *really* see anything; he is blind.) As revelations are the circumstances around wich the plot revolves in other Wolfe works (particularly the Soldier stories and the Long Sun series), my initial guess was somewhat correct. I am not sure if this interpretation is consistent with "God's fingers" as rendered in the recent stories. (Sorry, I've forgotten their titles. Wolfe published 3 in Asimov's and F&SF in the last year or so. The two that I've been able to track down both mentioned "God's fingers.") Anybody else know of any other references to God's fingers? bee -- Joshua A. Solomon Institute of Ophthalmology Bath Street London EC1V 9EL Voice: (44) 171 608 6924 Fax: (44) 171 608 6846 j.solomon at ucl.ac.uk http://vision.arc.nasa.gov/personnel/jsolomon ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Jim Jordan — 15 Nov 1997, 01:08 follows, by subject match Joshua A. Solomon Joshua, Remind us of the other stories where God's fingers are mentioned. Biblically: 1. God wrote the 10 Commandments with His own hand. 2. At Belshazzar's Feast (Daniel 5), God's fingers wrote judgement on the wall. 3. Jesus wrote with His hand on the ground in John 8, in the story of the woman taken in adultery. Possible connexions? Nutria ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Joshua A. Solomon — 15 Nov 1997, 12:46 follows, by subject match Jim Jordan > Jim Jordan wrote: > Remind us of the other stories where God's fingers are mentioned. "Try and Kill It;" "Counting Cats in Zanzibar." bee -- Joshua A. Solomon Institute of Ophthalmology Bath Street London EC1V 9EL Voice: (44) 171 608 6924 Fax: (44) 171 608 6846 j.solomon at ucl.ac.uk http://vision.arc.nasa.gov/personnel/jsolomon ------------------------------------------------------------------------------