MDDM Ch. 75 Job, 26:5 through 7
Terrance
lycidas2 at earthlink.net
Thu Sep 12 20:43:44 CDT 2002
jbor wrote:
>
> I'm relieved to hear that God hasn't unsubscribed!
Just paring his fingernails I suspect.
>
> I'd compare this incident to when Mason is thrown by his horse and spends
> his confinement "reading I Corinthians, in which Paul's case for
> Resurrection proceeds from Human bodies to Animal Bodies, and then to Bodies
> Celestial and Terrestrial, and the Glories proper to Each, to Verse 42,-- "
> and arguing about it with both the book and a shade of Rebekah (409).
>
> It's a point of characterisation that has these two ardent men of science
> immediately turning to their Bibles (which they carry around with them
> always, and know off by heart) in moments of distress and uncertainty. But
> the particular chapters and verses which they choose to read are hugely
> ironic, not only in respect to the purpose Pynchon ascribes to each man for
> reading the particular excerpt, but also in and of themselves, for the
> revealed inconsistencies of Christian protocol in the first instance
> (resurrection of animals, planets with souls etc) and of Biblical exegesis
> in the latter (who is actually saying what to whom, and why).
Yup. It's that old battle of reason and faith again. I guess we could
talk about Thomistic Man too, but that would not be very useful. Silly
me.
Wonder why P had Dixon drop the book and read it as it lies.
What's also interesting is the fact that Wicks turns not so much to
scripture but to all sorts of other books. Like in Chapter 4 where he
turns another Greek--Epictetus.
Very Apt and full of irony as well.
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