A Point of Order

God does promise Noah that He will not again destroy all the world by water. The coming of the White Fountain does not violate this promise, because all the world is not destroyed. If "all the world" means the land masses, then it is not so much destroyed as rearranged -- if the prophecies of the coming of the New Sun are as accurate as they seem to be, the old continents are destroyed and new continents arise. Sev winds up on an island in the middle of a vast sea; but that's where a continent used to be. You wouldn't expect to find a new continent right where the old one was. If "all the world" means, as it does in many languages (e.g., French "tout le monde"), "all the people in the world," then, again, this is clearly not the case -- we see a few people saved; there is no particular reason to assume that similar scattered people do not survive all over the globe; indeed, though Wolfe's ultraDickensian tenedency toward plotting-by-coincidence could in fact have Severian run across the only survivors, combining that with (some of) them also being folks he already knows one way or another seems, to me, excessive; more likely there are a number of survivors and Synchronicity Central brings him to the ones he knows. Republicans must always be on guard against sounding Teutonic. -- P. Noonan

Tsk. Tsk. Blattid, Blattid, Blattid, I just cannot let this one pass. ;-) If I accept your argument, then G-d didn't destroy the earth with water the first time since Noah, his wife, his sons and their wives all survived along with lots of animals (a protection, please note, that the New Sun did not provide). So why make the promise in the first place? The survivors of Usha's Deluge sailed for some time before arriving at that island - commensurate with the receding of the waters ala Noah's Flood. Nope. If the World is not "destroyed by flood" with the advent of the New Sun then there IS no destroying by flood. Ge 8:21-22 ...the LORD said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done. While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease. Ge 9:11 And I will establish my covenant with you; neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth. -- Crush -----Original Message----- From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes [mailto:ddanehy at siebel.com] Sent: Monday, June 17, 2002 11:03 AM To: 'urth at urth.net' Subject: (urth) A Point of Order God does promise Noah that He will not again destroy all the world by water. The coming of the White Fountain does not violate this promise, because all the world is not destroyed. If "all the world" means the land masses, then it is not so much destroyed as rearranged -- if the prophecies of the coming of the New Sun are as accurate as they seem to be, the old continents are destroyed and new continents arise. Sev winds up on an island in the middle of a vast sea; but that's where a continent used to be. You wouldn't expect to find a new continent right where the old one was. If "all the world" means, as it does in many languages (e.g., French "tout le monde"), "all the people in the world," then, again, this is clearly not the case -- we see a few people saved; there is no particular reason to assume that similar scattered people do not survive all over the globe; indeed, though Wolfe's ultraDickensian tenedency toward plotting-by-coincidence could in fact have Severian run across the only survivors, combining that with (some of) them also being folks he already knows one way or another seems, to me, excessive; more likely there are a number of survivors and Synchronicity Central brings him to the ones he knows. Republicans must always be on guard against sounding Teutonic. -- P. Noonan