Subject: Re: (urth) Some problems if the Pancreator/Outsider is theHoly Trinity

From: Andrew Reeves <abreeves at mail.utexas.edu>
Date: Mon, 10 Jun 2002 20:08:00 +0000

James Jordan wrote:

> .... remember that Urth is a universe-cycle before ours. These events
> predate the promise to Noah by about 50 billion years maybe. We don't know
> that such a promise had been given to any Urnoah in Urth history. Nor,
> returning to the first point, do we have to assume that God managed Briah
> precisely the same way He manages our cycle.
>

I've come across this stated in the archives before; is the source an
extra-textual Wolfe interview or the like?  The reason I ask is because it seems
odd that in a whole different cycle of creation you'd still get the Apollo moon
landing whose picture is recognizable as such.  And as someone else mentioned,
how would Severian's box with BOTNS make it through the singularity?

That aside, what's going on with that window into the 20th c. in the botanical
gardens?

Andrew

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From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Tue, 11 Jun 2002 05:58:32 +0000

>At 03:08 PM 6/10/2002 -0500, you wrote:
>>James Jordan wrote:
>>
>>extra-textual Wolfe interview or the like?
>
>         Yes.
>
>>The reason I ask is because it seems
>         Well, the fact that is does somehow pass through the singularity,
>on board the Ship perhaps, or in the Yesod Library, is the intra-textual
>indicator that these events are in our past. That's always the problem with
>Wolfe: which of the tiny hints are important and which of the hints are not
>hints at all?

In addition to the objections raised by others, there are all those stories
in the Brown Book, clearly recognizable to students of Classical mythology
as founded on Earth's mythology. It also contains a direct quote from
Genesis, and another from Marlowe's FAUSTUS. No. No. No. Urth is in our
Earth's far future.

Facts aside, as well as theological difficulties, the notion of Severian,
turning water into wine, being baptized, dying and being resurrected, a
world savior, etc., in a previous iteration of creation, makes him the
prototype for Jesus. Kind of cheapens the whole Holy Spectacle, doesn't it?
Putting the cart before the horse.

Not to mention it plays hell with Nick Gevers' idea of placing 5HC in the
SUN universe. A separate creation with an Earth, complete with Ireland,
Scotland, Wales, and New York City, DAVID COPPERFIELD, and Catholic saints
(all mentioned in the text), stretches credulity past all endurance.

-Roy

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From: James Wynn <crushtv at hotpop.com>
Date: Tue, 11 Jun 2002 14:54:28 +0000

I seem to recall an expansion theory in which the universe eternally
expands, collapses, and expands again in an unending cycle of big bangs and
big gnabs. According to this theory, each universe will would be precisely
(or *almost* precisely) like the ones preceding it because it started the
same way. I understand this theory is now out-of-favor with recent evidence
that the universe cannot ultimately collapse. But it wouldn't have been at
the time of writing.

This could reconcile Wolfe's claim with the familiar references in the
story.

But in my heart of hearts I believe Wolfe concocted this explanation to
rescue himself from having to constantly justify theologically everything in
the BOTNS. I DO recall that he denied Severian is Christ. He said he was a
"Christ figure", but that's merely a literary term.

-Crush

-----Original Message-----
From: James Jordan [mailto:jbjordan4 at cox.net]
Sent: Tuesday, June 11, 2002 9:55 AM
To: urth at urth.net
Subject: Re: (urth) Some problems if the Pancreator/Outsider is theHoly
Trinity

JJ: This universe that you sought in Briah are part of it. Is that our
universe? Or is that a universe that resurrected saints have set up in the
world to come as part of the cities that they made?
GW: No. I thought of it as a long past universe. Something that we are
repeating rather than something that we are.

http://www.op.net/~pduggan/gwjbj3.html

That was my source.

Nutria (JJ)

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From: James Wynn <crushtv at hotpop.com>
Date: Wed, 12 Jun 2002 13:56:23 +0000

I really would NOT place a lot of weight on this particular statement of
Wolfe's in the quoted interview. It's just too difficult to reconcile the
other clues. I think there is no doubt when Wolfe was writing this
FUTURISTIC novel he imagined it in the future. I think the following
statement is more explanatory:
"I was toying with those ideas, I think, rather than trying to make sense of
them. Is our resurrection going to be in another universal cycle? Well, yes,
maybe it is. I don't know. We don't know what is really meant by the world
coming to an end, and God rolling up the sky like a carpet and all that. It
is all picturesque language. Figurative language to try to give a general
idea to an audience that would not be capable of understanding the
actuality. And I am not sure we are more capable of understanding that
actuality than they were. It is like the Genesis story. I don't believe in a
literal apple and I don't believe that literally biting into the fruit had
this effect but if you have to explain to a bunch of primitives how men
differ from animals and where men went wrong in differing from animals, this
is a pretty good way to do it."
"Toying" is an important word here. Based on the Wolfe answer I'm quoting
here, I'd say trying to make tBotNS fit with Christian theology in every way
(or most ways) is like trying to create a perpetual motion machine or trying
to rectify general relativity with quantum mechanics: It seems so logical
and straightforward, but then....

-- Crush
------------------------------------------------------
Matthew said:

But no, placing tBotNS in a distant past distresses me.  It's too complex.
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From: Andy Robertson <andywrobertson at clara.co.uk>
Date: Wed, 12 Jun 2002 15:28:37 +0000

It is logical and straightforward.  It is called Quantum Electrodynamics.

    hartshorn

----- Original Message -----
From: "James Wynn" <crushtv at HotPOP.com>

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From: James Wynn <crushtv at hotpop.com>
Date: Wed, 12 Jun 2002 15:23:28 +0000

I think it's funny that someone would call quantum electrodynamics
"straightforward".

Clearly there should be a novel about wherever you work. ;-)

- Crush

-----Original Message-----
From: Andy Robertson [mailto:andywrobertson at clara.co.uk]
Sent: Wednesday, June 12, 2002 10:29 AM
To: urth at urth.net
Subject: Re: (urth) Some problems if the Pancreator/Outsider is theHoly
Trinity

    hartshorn

----- Original Message -----

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