From: "Alice Turner" <akt@attglobal.net>
Subject: (whorl) Re: Digest whorl.v010.n036
Date: Sun, 17 Oct 1999 15:58:48 


> >Well, Ratty, you're wrong, I do agree. My very point was that Horn,
exactly
> >like Mathew (the most egregious of the gospeleers, IMO--and I will
happily
> >cite how), when he wasn't present at an event, made free to invent, but
with
> >the sincerity of love and the drive of evangelism, which is, I suppose,
what
> >Alex means by the Holy Spirit. That, however, doesn't quite make it fact.
>
> Ah, but Rat & I would attribute to the Holy Spirit the result that Matthew
> never actually _gets it wrong_--contradictions are only apparent,
resulting
> from reading things in the wrong sense.  How exactly this applies to
things
> like "who WAS the high priest at time X?" and such I forget at the moment
and
> is probably out of the list's scope, anyway.

How do you know that? I think Matthew gets it very wrong, and on purpose. I
think he totally invents the ties to Zoroastrianism (the Magi) and Osiris
(the flight to Egypt) for the very understandable reason that he wants to
emphasize the afterlife (there being no real Jewish connection, and that of
the Persians and the Egyptians being strong and powerful). There is
absolutely no evidence for Herod's slaughter of baby boys. Matthew is a
fabulator, much like Wolfe. The other gospeleers are quite different.

> Which is highly relevant to OBW/The Book of Silk if we (as I would assume
we
> all do) think Horn & Nettle writing are meant to be analogous to writing a
> Gospel.  In other words, sure Horn wanted to get it right out of "love and
the
> drive of evangelism"--but if you take the model Wolfe's probably using, he
> really DID get it right.  Which, as far as I know, just the desire doesn't
> guarantee.  That's where we seem to differ.  Given Wolfe's penchant for
> having "secular" things act suspiciously as if at the behest of the
Outsider,
> this strongly suggests Horn had help (from Mainframe or something) to
> guarantee he got it right.  On the other hand, since in Long Sun the
Outsider
> does directly Enlighten Silk it can't be ruled out that Horn really does
have
> direct supernatural aid in writing the Book of Silk.

I do *not* think that Horn had help from Mainframe. Horn is clearly, at
first anyway, before "merging," a "frail vessel." The analogy is with Paul,
about whom Christian factions are still fighting. I must say, I think the
computer model is downright brilliant, especially considering Wolfe's age;
not to be unPC, but people over 60 have a hard time with computers,
generally.

-alga



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