{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/697",
    "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'"
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  "archive": "whorl",
  "thread": {
    "id": 697,
    "subject": "Against Literalism",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1999-10-18T09:20:11+00:00",
    "last": "1999-10-18T09:20:11+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<whorl-v0010-0129@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "David_Lebling",
        "address": "david_lebling at avid.com"
      },
      "date": "1999-10-18T09:20:11+00:00",
      "subject": "(whorl) Against Literalism",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "alga wrote:\n<<Yes, indeedy-doody. The four gospeleers of the NT come to mind instantly,\nwriting decades, and dubiously, after the death of their biographee. If you\nthrow Thomas in, five gospeleers.>>\n\nNutria responded:\n<<Each of us has her/his own view of the origination of the gospels. What\nmatters here is what Wolfe's view is, and it's not what you describe. Since\nBLS and OBW are highly theological novels, its important to assess what the\nauthor had in mind....>>\n\nWhoa, there, R.O.U.S.!  Silk isn't Christ.  There need be no direct parallelism\nwith the Gospels, regardless of Wolfe's religious views.  _The Book of Silk_ is\n_like_ a gospel, but isn't one. Silk is Christ-like (or Moses-like, a closer\nmatch in my opinion, with Auk as Aaron).  Wolfe has played around with these\nreligious analogies before: _Urth of the New Sun_ is full of stuff that would\nprobably have gotten him a visit from the Inquisition four hundred years ago.\nWolfe may hold all sorts of specific beliefs anent the validity and accuracy of\nthe Gospels, but he's an educated man, and certainly is aware of the dissenting\nviews, and can use them to \"inform the narrative,\" as the saying goes. He spends\na lot of time joking on exactly this theme with respect to Silk's enlightenment:\nwas it a god, or was it a burst blood vessel? Similarly, the authorship of _The\nBook of Silk_ may be entirely mundane, as described by Horn in the current\nvolume, or divinely inspired; Horn wouldn't necessarily know that he had been\ninspired!\n\nIt's much more fun this way.\n\n     -- Dave Lebling\n     (aka vizcacha)\n\nps: Nutria, if you check out vizcachas in the appropriate reference material,\nyou will find that they are small rabbity sorts of things which live in the high\nAndes. A Nutria's blood-flecked fangs would probably freeze before it got a\nchance to devour one of the innocent little creatures.\n\n\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun."
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}