Date: Fri, 19 Apr 2002 14:39:13 -0500
From: James Jordan 
Subject: Re: Belated thoughts RE: (urth) Shadowy reflections on an 

At 02:20 PM 4/19/2002, you wrote:
>On Fri, 19 Apr 2002, James Jordan wrote:
>
> >          As for how all this fits with conventional Christian eschatology;
> > well, it does not have to. The events are in the midst of history, not at
> > its full end. But the Bible repeatedly uses Flood language to refer to
> > invading armies and other similar disasters, and also relates the Flood to
> > baptism. Thus, Wolfe can have a Flood-event in the midst of history, which
> > is a judgment on an old Ur-world and also a baptism of that world, 
> ushering
> > in a new Ushas world.
>
>Which raises the question again, are there no more rainbows on
>Urth?  (Other than the one Severian pulls butterflies out of, that is.)
>
>-Rostrum

Cool question!! Is history running backwards on Urth, so that we are moving 
back toward a Garden of Eden with a Green Man? Probably not, I guess. I 
guess we just have to leave this problem to authorial license.
         For those who might not know, Rostrum refers to Genesis 9:11-16.
         Hey, I do have an answer, though it may be more than Wolfe 
intends. The rainbow is generated by the sun. If the Old Sun winks out for 
an instant before the New Sun kicks in, then briefly there is no rainbow, 
so there can be another Flood. Can't recall if this is so, though.
         That the best I can do!

Nutria


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