{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/5838", "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": 5838, "subject": "(no subject)", "messages": 14, "voices": 10, "first": "2010-12-17T09:03:09+00:00", "last": "2010-12-21T22:38:24+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2010-12-17T09:03:09+00:00", "subject": "(urth) (no subject)", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "In a previous discussion of this topic I found it a pretty compelling conclusion that\nif Briah is Christian and Urth is Earth in the future then either:\n \n1. God has broken his Covenant with humanity to never again send a Flood.\n \nor\n \n2. Severian, Tzadkiel and the White Fountain are (somehow) entirely secular and have nothing\nto do with God.\n \nor maybe..\n \n3. Severian and everyone around him are not really humans so God was allowed to Flood earth again.\n \n \nI have been assuming everyone here is familiar with Gene WOlfe's words in the James Jordan interview:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "JJ: This universe that you set in Briah, or part of it--is that our universe? Or is that a universe that \nresurrected saints have set up in the world to come as part of the cities that they made?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "GW: No. I thought of it as a long past universe. Something that we are repeating rather than something that \nwe are." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \n \nI have heard all the arguments on both sides, and I am not one who thinks an author always has the final word on \ninterpretation of his own work. I AM a person who thinks human beings very rarely just sort through\nall existing evidence to come to their conclusions. Especially in today's complex world, there is just too\nmuch contradictory evidence on both sides of any controversial issue.\n \nInstead what we do is start with a conclusion and then sift through the evidence to find support for it and\ntry our best to ignore or invalidate all evidence to the contrary that we encounter.\n \nSo for me, the time has come to stop the evidence war on this and each ask ourselves about the personal reasons \nwhich have led us to the conclusion we have regarding Christianity in the Sun series.\n \nFor me, it was simply the Gene Wolfe quote. Previous to finding it, I hadn't considered the anti-Flood covenant\nor the Norse meaning of \"Urth\" or any of the other evidence. Since I am not a Christian or religious, it didn't \nbother me to think that Severian and the story I treasure was not in a Judeo-Christian universe. I was willing to\ntake Gene Wolfe at his word. I'm not too political but I am rabidly anti-torture and generally averse to \nparasitic exploitation of humans by other humans in the manner of chatelaines-khaibits. So, distancing myself\nfrom Urth isn't so difficult at all, for me.\n \nI think there are perfectly valid personal reasons for one to perfer the Christian interpretation of Briah and Urth.\nI'd be interested in hearing a bit of self-analysis from whomever is willing to share. \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<4D0B3089.4090209@io.com>", "from": { "name": "Jeff Wilson", "address": "jwilson at io.com" }, "date": "2010-12-17T09:42:33+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Intentional Errors", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 12/17/2010 3:03 AM, Lee Berman wrote:\n\n\nIn a previous discussion of this topic I found it a pretty compelling conclusion that\nif Briah is Christian and Urth is Earth in the future then either:\n1. God has broken his Covenant with humanity to never again send a Flood." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I think it the flood thing was an oversight, though the retcon of it \nbeing a previous creation is a laudably clever answer to the riddle of \njust how far in the future the books are set.\n\nOf course it could be one of the intentional errors put in the book, \nlike in Islamic art, though also as part of the collection of golden age \nSF tropes. Whacking great technical bloopers appear in otherwise classic \nstories, and this would explain the unexplainable problems like how tall \nthe Wall of Nessus really is, or Lune's \"closer\" orbit." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com\nComputational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana\n< http://www.tamut.edu/CIL >" } ] }, { "message_id": "<8AA1C469-001F-4996-909C-6E88426C4C89@butcherbaker.org>", "from": { "name": "Son of Witz", "address": "sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org" }, "date": "2010-12-17T15:18:57+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Deluge", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Dec 17, 2010, at 1:03 AM, Lee Berman wrote:\n\n\nIn a previous discussion of this topic I found it a pretty compelling conclusion that\nif Briah is Christian and Urth is Earth in the future then either:\n\n1. God has broken his Covenant with humanity to never again send a Flood.\n\nor\n\n2. Severian, Tzadkiel and the White Fountain are (somehow) entirely secular and have nothing\nto do with God.\n\nor maybe..\n\n3. Severian and everyone around him are not really humans so God was allowed to Flood earth again.\n\n\nI have been assuming everyone here is familiar with Gene WOlfe's words in the James Jordan interview:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "JJ: This universe that you set in Briah, or part of it--is that our universe? Or is that a universe that \nresurrected saints have set up in the world to come as part of the cities that they made?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "GW: No. I thought of it as a long past universe. Something that we are repeating rather than something that \nwe are." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I have heard all the arguments on both sides, and I am not one who thinks an author always has the final word on \ninterpretation of his own work. I AM a person who thinks human beings very rarely just sort through\nall existing evidence to come to their conclusions. Especially in today's complex world, there is just too\nmuch contradictory evidence on both sides of any controversial issue.\n\nInstead what we do is start with a conclusion and then sift through the evidence to find support for it and\ntry our best to ignore or invalidate all evidence to the contrary that we encounter.\n\nSo for me, the time has come to stop the evidence war on this and each ask ourselves about the personal reasons \nwhich have led us to the conclusion we have regarding Christianity in the Sun series.\n\nFor me, it was simply the Gene Wolfe quote. Previous to finding it, I hadn't considered the anti-Flood covenant\nor the Norse meaning of \"Urth\" or any of the other evidence. Since I am not a Christian or religious, it didn't \nbother me to think that Severian and the story I treasure was not in a Judeo-Christian universe. I was willing to\ntake Gene Wolfe at his word. I'm not too political but I am rabidly anti-torture and generally averse to \nparasitic exploitation of humans by other humans in the manner of chatelaines-khaibits. So, distancing myself\nfrom Urth isn't so difficult at all, for me.\n\nI think there are perfectly valid personal reasons for one to perfer the Christian interpretation of Briah and Urth.\nI'd be interested in hearing a bit of self-analysis from whomever is willing to share. \n_______________________________________________" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I see Christ there because it is heaped with Christian symbols. I am not Religious.\n\nAgain, a BOOK tells us WHY the Deluge happened. In fact, hundreds and hundreds of stories tell of the deluge differerently, with different causes. I believe the Deluge happened in our Earth's past, but any guess as to why is the province of that realm of Speculative Fiction known as Revelation. So what is to say that Severian's Deluge isn't our own, and the scripture has it wrong? Just sayin'." } ] }, { "message_id": "<131648.72206.qm@web58204.mail.re3.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2010-12-18T15:32:01+00:00", "subject": "(urth) flooding and scripture", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "On the flood and whether it is a transgression of scripture -\nThis is one case where the actual religion of the author has an influence on the way the book was written. A strict perspicuous reading of scripture is NOT a feature of catholic orthodoxy. Indeed, the bible itself and any contradictions contained therein can be dismissed out of hand since the bible was put together by men, and the first 11 chapters of genesis which may contradict any science or themselves are easily washed away by allegorical exegises, something literal minded protestants cannot do, who appeal to biblical ultimate biblical authority.\n\nWhen talking to the literal reading protestant interviewer, Wolfe seems to slip back into an evasive tactic to deal with the problem of God breaking his word, but while writing, I think his original intention did not see a second deluge as a problem because genesis is an allegory in his mind, it is not a literal story, it is simply a nonfactual truth that reveals a deeper truth, so the details ARE NOT AS IMPORTANT AS THE SYMBOLIC TRUTH.\nSo he thinks for a second and says, I have multiple universal time lines, oh yeah, this is a different timeline, and solves the biblical problem in terms his protestant audience ideologically agrees with.\n\nSo he may change his story later when talking to protestants who cannot view portions of the bible as nonfactual and nonauthorititative because they tend to ideologically supplant the parts for the whole: well, if any part is untrue, the whole thing can be untrue. Yet Gene, knowing full well that stories like that of the good samaritan are in the bible but ARE ONLY STORIES ANYWAY, and never existed except to highlight a more nonfactual but truer absolute truth, does not have to be concerned with the details of the symbols when creating, especially in the first 11 chapters of Genesis, which are regarded as a story for primitive man in terms he could then understand, not being factual but being true none the less. This is something that is absent for the most part in Protestant philosophy because it allows too much room for ecclesiastical interpretation and selection and can come to an abusive control over doctrine and policy - read, the Catholic\n church of the middle ages. BUT ironically it makes Catholicism much more suited to surviving science. Oh, those early chapters were just a story like the good samaritan to teach us God was real, that flood is a symbol of god's purification, and we need not be concerned with the exact details.\n\nJust my Catholic opinion. Maybe I'm wrong.\n--- On Fri, 12/17/10, Lee Berman wrote:\n\n\nIn a previous discussion of this topic I found it a pretty compelling conclusion that\nif Briah is Christian and Urth is Earth in the future then either:\n\n1. God has broken his Covenant with humanity to never again send a Flood.\n\nor\n\n2. Severian, Tzadkiel and the White Fountain are (somehow) entirely secular and have nothing\nto do with God.\n\nor maybe..\n\n3. Severian and everyone around him are not really humans so God was allowed to Flood earth again.\n\n\n\n " } ] }, { "message_id": "<7D9DA5C6-4EF6-45C6-887A-683EA7B52BBC@butcherbaker.org>", "from": { "name": "Son of Witz", "address": "sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org" }, "date": "2010-12-18T16:36:59+00:00", "subject": "(urth) flooding and scripture", "in_reply_to": "<131648.72206.qm@web58204.mail.re3.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Thanks for that Aramini. Great post.\nI don't know the ins and outs of the sects, but I LOVE hearing it when ANY Christian can look at the scripture, understand it as allegory, understand that while not being \"factual\" something can still be \"true\". I don't want to offend any Christians, but I almost never encounter any who are willing to look at the symbols with new eyes.\n\nAnd somehow I'm proud to have pulled you out from lurking... :D\n\n~witz" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Dec 18, 2010, at 7:32 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:\n \nOn the flood and whether it is a transgression of scripture -\nThis is one case where the actual religion of the author has an influence on the way the book was written. A strict perspicuous reading of scripture is NOT a feature of catholic orthodoxy. Indeed, the bible itself and any contradictions contained therein can be dismissed out of hand since the bible was put together by men, and the first 11 chapters of genesis which may contradict any science or themselves are easily washed away by allegorical exegises, something literal minded protestants cannot do, who appeal to biblical ultimate biblical authority.\n \nWhen talking to the literal reading protestant interviewer, Wolfe seems to slip back into an evasive tactic to deal with the problem of God breaking his word, but while writing, I think his original intention did not see a second deluge as a problem because genesis is an allegory in his mind, it is not a literal story, it is simply a nonfactual truth that reveals a deeper truth, so the details ARE NOT AS IMPORTANT AS THE SYMBOLIC TRUTH.\nSo he thinks for a second and says, I have multiple universal time lines, oh yeah, this is a different timeline, and solves the biblical problem in terms his protestant audience ideologically agrees with.\n \nSo he may change his story later when talking to protestants who cannot view portions of the bible as nonfactual and nonauthorititative because they tend to ideologically supplant the parts for the whole: well, if any part is untrue, the whole thing can be untrue. Yet Gene, knowing full well that stories like that of the good samaritan are in the bible but ARE ONLY STORIES ANYWAY, and never existed except to highlight a more nonfactual but truer absolute truth, does not have to be concerned with the details of the symbols when creating, especially in the first 11 chapters of Genesis, which are regarded as a story for primitive man in terms he could then understand, not being factual but being true none the less. This is something that is absent for the most part in Protestant philosophy because it allows too much room for ecclesiastical interpretation and selection and can come to an abusive control over doctrine and policy - read, the Catholic church of the middle ages. BUT ironically it makes Catholicism much more suited to surviving science. Oh, those early chapters were just a story like the good samaritan to teach us God was real, that flood is a symbol of god's purification, and we need not be concerned with the exact details.\n \nJust my Catholic opinion. Maybe I'm wrong.\n--- On Fri, 12/17/10, Lee Berman wrote:\nIn a previous discussion of this topic I found it a pretty compelling conclusion that\nif Briah is Christian and Urth is Earth in the future then either:\n\n1. God has broken his Covenant with humanity to never again send a Flood.\n\nor\n\n2. Severian, Tzadkiel and the White Fountain are (somehow) entirely secular and have nothing\nto do with God.\n\nor maybe..\n\n3. Severian and everyone around him are not really humans so God was allowed to Flood earth again.\n\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4D0CE488.8040904@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2010-12-18T16:42:48+00:00", "subject": "(urth) flooding and scripture", "in_reply_to": "<131648.72206.qm@web58204.mail.re3.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I think that is a vitally important concept in reading Wolfe. Once \nagain, BOTNS, like all other books, is a book made of other books, and \nthe Bible is stories." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 12/18/2010 10:32 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:\nOn the flood and whether it is a transgression of scripture -\nThis is one case where the actual religion of the author has an \ninfluence on the way the book was written. A strict perspicuous \nreading of scripture is NOT a feature of catholic orthodoxy. Indeed, \nthe bible itself and any contradictions contained therein can be \ndismissed out of hand since the bible was put together by men, and the \nfirst 11 chapters of genesis which may contradict any science or \nthemselves are easily washed away by allegorical exegises, something \nliteral minded protestants cannot do, who appeal to biblical ultimate \nbiblical authority.\n..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Just my Catholic opinion. Maybe I'm wrong." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Jack Smith", "address": "jack.smith.1946 at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-12-19T02:07:17+00:00", "subject": "(urth) flooding and scripture", "in_reply_to": "<4D0CE488.8040904@verizon.net>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Most protestants do not read the scriptures literally either. There is a\nstrong emphasis on the conscience of the individual, as opposed to top-down\nauthority, which fits in well with scientific inquiry. The know-nothing\nliteral-minded anti-evolutionists are a small minority." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Sat, Dec 18, 2010 at 11:42 AM, David Stockhoff wrote:\nI think that is a vitally important concept in reading Wolfe. Once again,\nBOTNS, like all other books, is a book made of other books, and the Bible is\nstories.\n\n\nOn 12/18/2010 10:32 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "On the flood and whether it is a transgression of scripture -\nThis is one case where the actual religion of the author has an influence\non the way the book was written. A strict perspicuous reading of scripture\nis NOT a feature of catholic orthodoxy. Indeed, the bible itself and any\ncontradictions contained therein can be dismissed out of hand since the\nbible was put together by men, and the first 11 chapters of genesis which\nmay contradict any science or themselves are easily washed away by\nallegorical exegises, something literal minded protestants cannot do, who\nappeal to biblical ultimate biblical authority.\n..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Just my Catholic opinion. Maybe I'm wrong." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "---\navast! Antivirus: Outbound message clean.\nVirus Database (VPS): 101217-1, 12/17/2010\nTested on: 12/18/2010 11:42:48 AM\navast! - copyright (c) 1988-2010 AVAST Software.\nhttp://www.avast.com\n\n\n\n\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4D0D74D1.9080907@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-12-19T02:58:25+00:00", "subject": "(urth) flooding and scripture", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Jack Smith -\nMost protestants do not read the scriptures literally either. There \nis a strong emphasis on the conscience of the individual, as opposed \nto top-down authority, which fits in well with scientific inquiry. \nThe know-nothing literal-minded anti-evolutionists are a small minority." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\"Literal-mindedness\" and a lack of skepticism about Genesis is not \nreally a small minority among _observant_ Christians, Jews, or Muslims \nin my experience, including observant Catholics. And for many of those \n\"anti-evolutionists\", Science is their day job, just not their \nreligion. And perhaps that's all we need know about Wolfe's Christan \nbeliefs and why tBotNS could be interpreted as potentially violating \nthem: SF fantasy is his day job.\n\nu+16b9" } ] }, { "message_id": "<0009DC1F177949B1B4EF9E20B4936A1F@jill>", "from": { "name": "Gerry Quinn", "address": "gerryq at indigo.ie" }, "date": "2010-12-21T15:14:18+00:00", "subject": "(urth) flooding and scripture", "in_reply_to": "<4D0D74D1.9080907@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "From: \"James Wynn\" \nJack Smith -\nMost protestants do not read the scriptures literally either. There is a \nstrong emphasis on the conscience of the individual, as opposed to \ntop-down authority, which fits in well with scientific inquiry. The \nknow-nothing literal-minded anti-evolutionists are a small minority." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "\"Literal-mindedness\" and a lack of skepticism about Genesis is not really \na small minority among _observant_ Christians, Jews, or Muslims in my \nexperience, including observant Catholics. And for many of those \n\"anti-evolutionists\", Science is their day job, just not their religion. \nAnd perhaps that's all we need know about Wolfe's Christan beliefs and why \ntBotNS could be interpreted as potentially violating them: SF fantasy is \nhis day job." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I don't really follow. Do you think Wolfe is a Bible literalist? I would \nfind it easier to believe he is a crypto-communist!\n\n- Gerry Quinn\n " } ] }, { "message_id": "<4D10D1E1.4000607@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-12-21T16:12:17+00:00", "subject": "(urth) flooding and scripture", "in_reply_to": "<0009DC1F177949B1B4EF9E20B4936A1F@jill>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "James Wynn-\n\"Literal-mindedness\" and a lack of skepticism about Genesis is not \nreally a small minority among _observant_ Christians, Jews, or \nMuslims in my experience, including observant Catholics. And for many \nof those \"anti-evolutionists\", Science is their day job, just not \ntheir religion. And perhaps that's all we need know about Wolfe's \nChristan beliefs and why tBotNS could be interpreted as potentially \nviolating them: SF fantasy is his day job." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Gerry Quinn-\nI don't really follow. Do you think Wolfe is a Bible literalist? I \nwould find it easier to believe he is a crypto-communist!" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "It's true. You've failed to follow.\n\nThat thread was regarding why and whether \"The Book of the New Sun\" \ncontradicted Christian theology. What I said was that there is no reason \nWolfe would have necessarily felt compelled to have Severian's \nfuturistic world align with Christian theology. So, the basic plot and \nsetting of the novel is irrelevant.\n\nu+16b9" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Jack Smith", "address": "jack.smith.1946 at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-12-21T21:15:00+00:00", "subject": "(urth) flooding and scripture", "in_reply_to": "<4D10D1E1.4000607@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Forgive me if this discussion of Biblical literalism is getting off-topic.\n The relevance to Wolfe, I think, is how Christians and Christian writers\nregard the holy scriptures.\n\nMarc Aramini views Protestants as reading the Bible in a literal fashion,\nwhile Catholics read it figuratively. James Wynn says that in his\nexperience both Catholics and Protestants lack skepticism about Genesis.\n\nIt seems to me that the main Christian tradition has never favored a literal\nreading of scripture. But I don't have the evidence at hand to back that\nup. Let me just give the view of my Presbyterian Church:\n\n\"The Scriptures, given under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, are\nnevertheless the words of men, conditioned by the language, thought\nforms, and literary fashions of the places and times at which they were\nwritten. They reflect views of life, history, and the cosmos which were then\ncurrent. The church, therefore, has an obligation to approach the\nScriptures with literary and historical understanding. \"\n\n\n \" Scripture is not authoritative for any and everything, in any and every\nquestion. It is not an encyclopedia of information about every area of human\nknowledge and understanding. So, for instance, it is not appropriate to go\nto the biblical sources for scientific understanding of such things as\nbiology, astronomy, the structure of the universe, or historical knowledge\nin general. \"\n\n\n*Presbyterian Understanding and Use of Holy Scripture*, 1982" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Tue, Dec 21, 2010 at 11:12 AM, James Wynn wrote:\n\n James Wynn-" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "\"Literal-mindedness\" and a lack of skepticism about Genesis is not really\na small minority among _observant_ Christians, Jews, or Muslims in my\nexperience, including observant Catholics. And for many of those\n\"anti-evolutionists\", Science is their day job, just not their religion. And\nperhaps that's all we need know about Wolfe's Christan beliefs and why\ntBotNS could be interpreted as potentially violating them: SF fantasy is his\nday job." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Gerry Quinn-\n\nI don't really follow. Do you think Wolfe is a Bible literalist? I would\nfind it easier to believe he is a crypto-communist!" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "It's true. You've failed to follow.\n\nThat thread was regarding why and whether \"The Book of the New Sun\"\ncontradicted Christian theology. What I said was that there is no reason\nWolfe would have necessarily felt compelled to have Severian's futuristic\nworld align with Christian theology. So, the basic plot and setting of the\nnovel is irrelevant.\n\nu+16b9\n\n\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "danldo at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-12-21T21:38:30+00:00", "subject": "(urth) flooding and scripture", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Jack,\n\nThanks for the Presbyterian view. Here's the (fairly nuanced)\nCatholic view, from the Catechism of the Catholic Church:\n\n108 Still, the Christian faith is not a \"religion of the book.\"\nChristianity is the religion of the \"Word\" of God, a word which is\n\"not a written and mute word, but the Word which is incarnate and\nliving\". If the Scriptures are not to remain a dead letter, Christ,\nthe eternal Word of the living God, must, through the Holy Spirit,\n\"open [our] minds to understand the Scriptures.\"\n\n109 In Sacred Scripture, God speaks to man in a human way. To\ninterpret Scripture correctly, the reader must be attentive to what\nthe human authors truly wanted to affirm, and to what God wanted to\nreveal to us by their words.\n\n110 In order to discover the sacred authors' intention, the reader\nmust take into account the conditions of their time and culture, the\nliterary genres in use at that time, and the modes of feeling,\nspeaking and narrating then current. \"For the fact is that truth is\ndifferently presented and expressed in the various types of historical\nwriting, in prophetical and poetical texts, and in other forms of\nliterary expression.\"\n\n111 But since Sacred Scripture is inspired, there is another and no\nless important principle of correct interpretation, without which\nScripture would remain a dead letter. \"Sacred Scripture must be read\nand interpreted in the light of the same Spirit by whom it was\nwritten.\"\n\n134 All sacred Scripture is but one book, and this one book is Christ,\n\"because all divine Scripture speaks of Christ, and all divine\nScripture is fulfilled in Christ\" (Hugh of St. Victor, De arca Noe 2,\n8: PL 176, 642: cf. ibid. 2, 9: PL 176, 642-643)." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Matthew Weber", "address": "palaeologos at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-12-21T21:41:29+00:00", "subject": "(urth) flooding and scripture", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Tue, Dec 21, 2010 at 1:15 PM, Jack Smith wrote:\n\nIt seems to me that the main Christian tradition has never favored a\nliteral reading of scripture. But I don't have the evidence at hand to back\nthat up. Let me just give the view of my Presbyterian Church:\n\n\"The Scriptures, given under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, are\nnevertheless the words of men, conditioned by the language, thought\nforms, and literary fashions of the places and times at which they were\nwritten. They reflect views of life, history, and the cosmos which were then\ncurrent. The church, therefore, has an obligation to approach the\nScriptures with literary and historical understanding. \"\n\n\n\" Scripture is not authoritative for any and everything, in any and every\nquestion. It is not an encyclopedia of information about every area of human\nknowledge and understanding. So, for instance, it is not appropriate to go\nto the biblical sources for scientific understanding of such things as\nbiology, astronomy, the structure of the universe, or historical knowledge\nin general. \"\n\n\n*Presbyterian Understanding and Use of Holy Scripture*, 1982" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I think it would be fairer to say that there has always been a tension\nbetween the tendency to interpret Scripture literally and the tendency to\ntreat certain elements in it figuratively. There was great hostility to\nDarwinian theory from Anglican clergy, for example, although we wouldn't\nthink of the Church of England today as being particularly interested in\nBiblical literalism. But the goalposts have moved, in a sense, with each\nmajor scientific discovery, and we're forced to sift our understanding of\nScripture with what we know about how our world works--though to be frank I\ndon't think a figurative interpretation of the first 10-15 chapters of\nGenesis really has much of an effect on the validity of Christianity, any\nmore than understanding that the parable of Dives and Lazarus was a story\nJesus made up to illustrate a point.\n\nHaving a knowledge of literary genre and historical context is indispensable\nfor understanding the Bible. On the surface, there's nothing objectionable\nabout the Presbyterian statement above, although the limits for that\nhermeneutic don't seem to be set very clearly. There's an awful lot of\nspecial pleading and fancy dancing in the mainline churches these days\nregarding Scripture, most of it looking for loopholes to justify things\nwhich are fairly clearly condemned in it. It's unfortunate that many seem\nto abstract their religious principles from their politics, rather than the\nother way around." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Matt +\n\nThere is something beyond the grave; death does not end all, and the pale\nghost escapes from the vanquished pyre.\n Sextus Propertius (54 B.C.-A.D. 2), Elegies, IV, vii, 1" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4D112C60.2060202@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-12-21T22:38:24+00:00", "subject": "(urth) flooding and scripture", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Jack Smith-\nMarc Aramini views Protestants as reading the Bible in a literal\nfashion, while Catholics read it figuratively. James Wynn says that in\nhis experience both Catholics and Protestants lack skepticism about\nGenesis. It seems to me that the main Christian tradition has never\nfavored a literal reading of scripture. But I don't have the evidence\nat hand to back that up. Let me just give the view of my Presbyterian Church:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes-\nThanks for the Presbyterian view. Here's the (fairly nuanced)\nCatholic view, from the Catechism of the Catholic Church:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Matthew Weber-\nI think it would be fairer to say that there has always been a tension\nbetween the tendency to interpret Scripture literally and the tendency\nto treat certain elements in it figuratively. [snip] There's an awful lot of special pleading and fancy dancing in the mainline churches these days regarding Scripture, most of it looking for loopholes to justify things which are fairly clearly condemned in it." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I really can't say anything about the opinions of people who write \ncreeds and Statements of Faith. I have known only people who sit in the \npews. Of those who attend church devotedly, religiously so-to-speak, \nregarding what is said in Science Journals they have a curious or \nprofessional interest. About what is said in the Bible they care a great \ndeal. That includes Catholics. On the whole, their attitude is like that \nof Roman Catholic Flannery O'Conner regarding the Eucharist:\n\n \"Well, toward morning the conversation turned on the Eucharist,\n which I, being the Catholic, was obviously supposed to defend. Mrs.\n Broadwater said [snip] now she thought of it as a symbol and implied\n that it was a pretty good one. I then said, in a very shaky voice,\n Well, if it's a symbol, to hell with it.\"\n\nu+16b9" } ] } ] }