From: "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes" 
Subject: RE: (urth) Cim Glowing
Date: Thu, 30 May 2002 09:13:57 -0700

Apologies to those bored by such things...

> > While I have no doubt that such a tradition exists, I can find no
> > trace of it, and it certainly isn't "Biblical" as I understand the
> > word -- full-text searches on both a King James and an NIV produced
> > no trace of this. In fact, it's actually kind of a classic "stump
> > the Bible expert" question to ask where Cain's wife came from,
> > since the Bible doesn't say anything about it.
> >
> > I wonder if maybe this is a tradition from Kaballah or Talmud?

> It's from the Book of Jubilees (Chapter 4: Verse 9):  

[quote deleted but fascinating]

> ... surely not all of the Pseudepigrapha are tainted --
> especially Jubilees, which was allegedly written by 
> the Lawgiver himself.

Well, that gets kind of problematic ... for example, we have 
a Gospel (really just a collection of kerygma) that was 
allegedly written by Thomas, but is clearly Gnostic in its 
content and rejected from the canon of every orthodox church. 
On the other feeler, there are books which are universally 
accepted by the churches and are of highly doubtful authorship,
such as some of the epistles traditionally attributed to Paul.

I've never read Jubilees, and don't know of any church, or 
synagogue, for that matter, which considers it to be canon 
(though it is cited in several of the canonical texts...); I 
thus claim that my basic statement above (that this is not a 
"biblical tradition") stands unaltered.

When you say it is attributed to "the Lawgiver," are you 
referring to Moses, or to the Deuteronomist, or ...?

Ob.LupineContent: I've said it before, but I think that it's
more appropriate than ever here ... I think that YA of the 
many things several of Wolfe's books are "about" is an attempt 
to provide, in a non-Biblical context, an experience similar
to that of a Biblical exegete attempting to determine the 
historical facts lying behind a given text, divinely inspired
but written by one or more humans, edited and redacted by many
humans, transcribed and translated by humans ... any or all of 
whom may have not only inserted their own errors, but added or
suppressed matter suited to their own agendae ... all of this
guided by the assumption that the Holy Spirit, as the true 
Author, ensures that the truth the text is to convey (though 
not necessarily the historical facticity of the narrative 
content) is preserved incorrupt ... Wolfe stands in precisely 
this relation to his many fallible and unreliable narrators; 
what _Wolfe_ wishes to convey, is conveyed, however obscurely, 
despite -- and even because of! -- his narrators' varoius 
transformations, suppresisions, distortions, and occasional
outright lies.

--Blattid


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