Are the Neighbors REALLY the Neighbors?

Lee Berman · 15 Feb 2011, 21:12 · from 2011-February.txt.gz

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From: severiansola at hotmail.com (Lee Berman)
Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2011 16:12:48 -0500
Subject: (urth) Are the Neighbors REALLY the Neighbors?
Message-ID: <SNT123-W45772843508D11DFE6D07CFD30 at phx.gbl>

>Dan'l Danehy-Oakes: There's some argument about what it means. The majority believe that
>it comes from a misreading of Exodus, as I indicated previously;
>however there is a group who believe that the horns on Moses' head
>were Michelangelo's attempt to depict "radiant" in stone, which, if
>so, obviously didn't work out so well.

Okay, I was confused whether this was a Koran or Exodus misreading. Looks like it was a Latin
translation of the Bible that got "cornuta" or horned as the description of Moses' face while
the Greek got "glorified" and Hebrew got "radiant".

But you know, I'm with Wolfe here. The ancient people were just as smart and clever with words
as we are. Perhaps more so, since their visual depictions were more limited and labor-intensive
than ours. They knew they were messing around by calling Moses "horned". And surely a master like
Michaelangelo would know that giving a guy only two short stubby "rays of light" would make a
jewish guy look more goat-like than radiant. http://www.christianity-revealed.com/cr/images/moses1.jpg

The whole statue of Moses looks very Dionysian to me.
http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/michelangelo-sculptures-16.jpg

>Moses bound to/under a rock? Where's this?

Well, not with a chain. But he was unable to go past Mt. Nebo, only viewing the promised land from there.
And he died soon after viewing it. Does Wolfe (and Michaelangelo?) make the connection between Moses and
Prometheus/Azazel and scapegoats? I dunno. Bringer of fire, light, laws, war, weapons, beautification and
taking the blame and punshment from a jealous father god seems to be a recurring underlying theme in ancient
religion. (actually bringing water inappropriately was apparently Moses' biggest sin).

>Suddenly I have a glimpse of an interpretive schema in which Typhon is actually the real hero of the Solar cycle...

I kinda know what you mean. I always hated Typhon and considered him the worst of all villains. Until it occurred
to me that he didn't really do anything so bad, especially with regard to Severian. No different than what
Severian did to Eata in coercing him to be his second. Some conquering, some ruling, some sexual perversion but
no worse than the Commonwealth is, in its current state. Who did more for humanity, Typhon or Severian...?

It seems to me that maybe in the Sun Series things are just reversed from Christianity. The Outsider is a dark God who
casts sun and light gods as villains, while ours is a God of Light who casts the dark gods of paganism as villains.
Is finding balance what Jesus did for our universe? Grasping at straws but...at least grasping.

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