Dear All:
What about Eve and the Serpent? Hearing of course. Then Moses' delay on Mt
Sinai (hence the golden calf -- if he hasn't come down by now he's
probably not going to), Pharaoh (same cycle) hardening his heart after
repeated evidences of a very dramatic nature; Elijah ("What doest thou
here Elijah?"). There is also a story (I can't recall it accurately
enought to locate) of a prophet commanded not to eat and then one claiming
to be a prophet says that God has countermanded the order; the true
prophet eats something and later gets eaten by a lion for disobeying the
original command. A cruel story; but a very good parallel to RC and his
dreams and visions I should have thought, despite not really being about
the senses (although it is as much about the senses as Una and RC's
encounter with Archimago etc etc the parallels flesh out) -- can any one
recal the name of the prophet to help with locating the story?
Any of the scoffers in the OT would do in a general way. Had Elisha given
any sense-evidence of his calling before the boys taunted him (and got
eaten by bears for their pains?) Looking at longer rhythms, after how long
in the wilderness did the children of Israel complain to moses that they
had been led to canaan (of high walls, giants, milk and honey) only to be
destroyed there -- and after how much sense-evidence of God's leading
them. ("God" in all these cases is variously Yahweh, Elohim and so on.) I
mean to moan that God is now not goig to continue to fulfil his promises
after the plagues, the red sea, the pillar of cloud and fire, the manna,
quail (?), earth swallowing and the Sinia business (twice) and all that
sounds a bit like one sense-impression confuting the other for lack of
faith.
If none of all these from the riches of the list is what you are looking
for then that is probably the most interesting thing about the whole
business. I haven't read Jim's posting yet (the one with a health
warning), but is all this sense business a later onset?
Marvellous list.
JBL
J.B. Lethbridge, PhD
English Seminar
University of Tuebingen
Wilhelmstrasse 50
72074 Tuebingen
Germany
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