Subject: (whorl) Horn "Help"

From: Alice Turner <akt at attglobal.net>
Date: Fri, 15 Oct 1999 17:18:45 +0000

An Enraged Enormous Rat is something to see, all right, horrid red eyes
aglow, lice-ridden fur bristling, slimy fangs dripping...

But I digress. The Rat wrote:

 How dare you imply that I'd forgotten Nettle's help? Don't forget that
Nutria's eat Vizcachas alive bite by bite (whatever Vizcachas are)! Hyoomr
aside, I still find it hard to understand how either of them could have
known many, many of the things in TBLS. Inventing "typical" dialogue is a
long way from the large stretches of material they had to learn from other
people, and I'm having trouble thinking of how they might have learned all
this stuff, and from whom. But what I really need to do is re-read the
Quartet through Horn's eyes, and see if it is really possible that he and
Nettle could have written it without "supernatural" help. Has anyone done
this?

Yes, indeedy-doody. The four gospeleers of the NT come to mind instantly,
writing decades, and dubiously, after the death of their biographee. If you
throw Thomas in, five gospeleers.

-alga

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From: Jim Jordan <jbjordan at gnt.net>
Date: Fri, 15 Oct 1999 17:37:26 +0000

>throw Thomas in, five gospeleers.

Alga! Talk about slime! ;)
	Each of us has her/his own view of the origination of the gospels. What
matters here is what Wolfe's view is, and it's not what you describe. Since
BLS and OBW are highly theological novels, its important to assess what the
author had in mind....
	Unless one is a deconstructionist, I guess. Algae is kind of amorphous, so
maybe.... ;)

Slobbering Rat-face

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From: Alex David Groce <alex_groce at gs246.sp.cs.cmu.edu>
Date: Fri, 15 Oct 1999 19:15:23 +0000

>        Each of us has her/his own view of the origination of the gospels. 
> What matters here is what Wolfe's view is, and it's not what you describe. 
Since BLS and OBW are highly theological novels, its important to assess what 
> the author had in mind....
>        Unless one is a deconstructionist, I guess. Algae is kind of 
> amorphous, so maybe.... ;)

Ah, but as someone actually going through the conversion process right now,
I think formal Catholic position is "sure the gospels were written later, under
difficult circumstances, etc." but that, of course, they overcame this by aid
of the Holy Spirit.  So Wolfe could be giving us an analogous process here--
with "mainframe possession" or something secularly explicable doing the
Outsider's work--which is a favorite Wolfe tactic.  The Dr. Crane hypothesis
COULD hold, but a kind of narrative Occam's Razor makes it seem ridiculous--
if the explanation is just a brain tumor, it's very odd that Silk walks in the
pattern of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

>From Father Henry Wansborough, general editor of the New Jerusalem Bible, in
Oxford a few years back I found out that very orthodox Catholics are much more
comfortable saying John was written in 70+ AD than many similarly orthodox 
Protestants.  The historical approach to the Gospels and the Theological
approach aren't necessarily opposed, because Christianity is quite concerned
with historical events--the claim of the Incarnation is a historical as well
as metaphysical claim.  So, perhaps zapping "dubiosly," what Alga said might
match Wolfe's views.  In fact, that the canon had to develop and the Gospels
didn't just instantly appear after the resurrection is part of the Church's
fundamental argument about the Magesterium and Sacred Tradition.

"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." John 8:32
--
Alex David Groce (agroce+ at cs.cmu.edu)
Ph.D. Student, Carnegie Mellon University - Computer Science Department
8112 Wean Hall (412)-268-3066
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~agroce

---

From: Jim Jordan <jbjordan at gnt.net>
Date: Fri, 15 Oct 1999 19:04:00 +0000

At 07:15 PM 10/15/99 -0400, you wrote:
>of the Holy Spirit. 

	Yes, you and I and Wolfe agree, and Alga (almost certainly) doesn't. My
only point was that we have to consider what Wolfe had in mind. (Well, I'm
a Reformed Protestant, and I imagine those synagogue-trained Jews demanded
a book-narrative right away, and I imagine Matthew started writing on
Pentecost evening -- but that's for a different list and debate!).
	To return to topic, I'm just toying with the fact that so much else in the
Silk story is gospel-tracking, that it seems likely that some kind of
equivalent of the inspiration of the Spirit would also be tracked, and it
seems likely to me based on the data I've presented. Of course, am I right?
Time will probably tell, as we read the next two volumes.

Nutria