MDDM Ch. 75 Job, 26:5 through 7

[jbor]

on 11/9/02 4:52 PM, Doug Millison at millison at online-journalist.com wrote:

> Minor point of correction:  the book of Job attributes these lines to Job
> himself, not one of his interlocutors.

Your correction is incorrect. As I wrote, some versions of the Bible do
attribute the lines from Job 26:5 through 14 to Bildad the Shuhite, replying
to Job and answering his questions at 26:1-4. For example:

http://www.dailybible.com/tev/09/tev0911s.htm

It certainly makes sense to read the passage as a dialogue (Part III is
often entitled 'Third Dialogue') rather than a monologue, though elsewhere
I've seen the whole verse attributed to Job. It's interesting that Pynchon
has again chosen a piece of scriptural text about which there is some
controversy (cf. the fragment from the Gospel of Thomas in GR), but I don't
think it makes any difference at all to Dixon, or to Pynchon's text, who is
taken to be the speaker of the three lines.

> Just curious, but how would a Biblical affirmation of Hell counteract
> doubts about Science?

The lines in question assert the existence of "inhabitants" in Hell, which
is located "under the waters". Dixon wants to believe that he has been taken
into Hell and bewitched by devils so that he might discount the doubts they
have thrown on the capacities of the human "Sensorium" i.e. empirical
observation.

best