From: Paul C Duggan <pduggan@world.std.com>
Subject: (urth) Re: Digest urth.v005.n050
Date: Thu, 20 Nov 1997 13:36:04 


[Posted from URTH, a mailing list about Gene Wolfe's New Sun and other works]

> From: "Tony Ellis" <tellis@futurenet.co.uk>
> Subject: Re: Dr. Talos' Play
> 
> As we might expect from a play called "Eschatology and Genesis", this
> is also a re-telling of the Genesis story. The Biblical Genesis story is
> itself a re-telling of earlier Sumerian genesis stories, as I'm sure =
> Wolfe
> knows. There is even a throwaway reference to a Greek genesis myth:
> in Greek mythology the survivors of the flood are told to repopulate the
> world by throwing stones (the bones of Mother Earth) over their =
> shoulders,
> and in the play we have:
> 
> MESCHIANE: It might come to life. I heard something once about
> raising sons from stones.
> 

I had originally thought that that was a reference to Jesus words about
being able to raise up stones as sons of abraham as a warning to those who
trusted in their heritage to save them. I don't know if that fits the
reference very well without looking.


> The names Meschia and Meschiane... I have an idea that these are the
> names of Adam and Eve in another (Hebrew?) genesis myth. Any ideas?

I remember from the Urth Dictionary that they were from the (persian)
Koran?

> Nod, the giant, is one of the Nephilim. Go back to the Biblical Genesis
> story and you'll find the Nephilim described as the offspring of angels
> and the "Sons of God" - one of those little details which reminds us that
> this story originated as Sumerian creation myth. Who were the Sons of
> God? Nobody knows for sure, but they obviously have no place in the 
> conventional Christian universe.

Huh? Part of the Bible but not the "christian universe"? I guess most
assume they perished in the flood (except for grendels mother :-).

Or they just represent the godly line of seth intermarrying with the
cainites.

"I am an impure thinker. I am hurt, swayed, shaken, |  paul           + | +
elated, disillusioned, shocked, comforted, and I    |                 --|--
have to transmit my mental experiences lest I die." |                 + | +
                     --  Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy    |  pduggan@world.std.com