(urth) You have the wrong creation you ninny - eschatology and genesis

[Lee]

>Daniel Danehy-Oakes: The Outsider gives Silk a clear vision of

>the passion of Christ. 


I don't think that is clear. A Jesus-like figure is crucified but so were 

many others crucified, even on Good Friday. Crucifixtion is not prima facie 

evidence that a person is Christ. If the Outsider's vision had included a 

resurrection three days later I'd be more convinced it was Jesus "Christ"


And again I have to ask: it that was Christ then what happened to Christianity?

How did it disappear? Why didn't the Second Coming ever happen? (surely not

Severian). For me there are too many missing pieces for this planet to be

Earth.


>Dionysus, as a dying-and-reanimated god, is generally considered a
>prefigurement of Christ.


Exactly how I see it, which is why Silk and Dionysus (not Christ and Jehovah) 

figure into not only the Short Sun story but BotNS (an issue I'll address in 

another post). I see Urth as pre-Christian. But that is just my view.



>Marc Aramini: When Vodalus says that Urth has been named thus since the utmost 

>reaches of antiquity, it is a pun on the sound.  It sounds the same but is 

>spelled differently - the same name but a different connotation.


Right, Vodalus is saying Urth is Earth. But why then, does Wolfe also provide 

the Thea story which Vodalus contradicts? Vodalus presents himself as having

the greater authority and dismisses Thea's story as cute and charming.


But Thea's story is far more detailed and specific, lending it a veracity which

Vodalus' off-hand explanation does not possess. Though she does not deign to 

re-contradict her lord, I think Thea has a much more knowledgeable source of

information than Vodalus: Father Inire. We know Inire was involved in Thecla's

childhood. Surely he was involved in Thea's.



This debate is in interesting contrast to another one previously discussed. When 

Gene Wolfe specifically stated in an interview that an abo had replaced Dr. Marsch, 

the debate on that subject instantly ended.


But when Wolfe specifically states that Urth is a previous iteration of Earth in an 

interview, the debate continues on to this day. We haven't heard from James Wynn in a 

while but I know he was in the "Urth is Earth" camp.


>From my perspective, if Urth is not in a different universe than Earth then I don't

see any purpose in Wolfe introducing the sequential universe model in Citadel of the

Autarch. Why bring up other universes if we aren't ever going to see them and 

everything happens right here in our universe?