Manse Everard of the Time Patrol meets Cyrus and also Hiram:
"Everard remembered how the Bible gloated (would gloat) over the wealth of Solomon and whence he got it. 'For the king had at sea a navy of Tharshish with the navy of Hiram: once in three years came the navy of Tharshish, bringing gold, and silver, ivory, and apes, and peacocks -'"
-Poul Anderson, "Ivory, And Apes, And Peacocks" IN Anderson, Time Patrol (New York, 2006), pp. 229-331 AT p. 240.
I have written "1 Kings 10.22" in the margin. For another literary reference to ivory, apes and peacocks, see here.
Seeking fellow time travellers, Jack Havig visits Jerusalem for Passover in 33 AD. Havig describes crucifixions to Robert Anderson whose relative writes science fiction...
I want to mention the Bible in the works of a few other writers but first I need some breakfast.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I've tried to think of other science fiction or fantasy writers who quote from the Bible as often as Poul Anderson did--but it's hard to think of any off the top of my head. I recall Asimov quoting the Bible in THE CAVES OF STEEL. And I think Walter Miller did so as well in A CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWEITZ. And possibly Julian May did so as well in either her SAGA OF PLIOCENE EXILE or GALACTIC MILIEU series. And that's about it.
Sean
Paul and Sean:
Roger Zelazny's Lord of Light, set on a planet where the Hindu gods are very physical and present (they're actually humans who augment their mutant powers with technology unavailable to the commoners), has a scene at the end in which the main character, who's revived Buddhism, quotes from Ecclesiastes (with a few elisions) as a benediction of sorts at the death of a Christian semi-adversary.
Renfrew swallowed another drink.
"'Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit,'" he said. "It was a will greater than mine that determined I die in the arms of the Buddha, that decided upon this Way for this world.... Give me your blessing, oh Gautama. I die now..."
Sam bowed his head.
"'The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north. It whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again according to his circuits. All the rivers run into the sea, yet the sea is not full. Unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again. The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be, and that which is done is that which shall be done. There is no remembrance of former things, neither shall there be any remembrance of things that are to come with those that shall come after...."
Then he covered the Black One with his cloak of white, for he had died.
Kaor, DAVID!
That does fit in with what I remember from reading Ecclesiastes. The bleak pessimism and melancholy of Qoheleth can make for bracing reading!
Sean
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