Ah Pericles - I salute your infinite patience and wakefulness. I drifted off a few posts back... a bit like a bad seminar that you really needn't have attended.

Ah BOAZ! my dear fellow, I take it all back......

Pericles,

Its true, I do aspire to satire, perhaps more often than not, in this forum. Indeed, my user name, paying due regard to copyright (the Australian branch of the family spells the name with two 'p's), was in part chosen as a tribute to that most delightfully succinct piece of satire achieved by Winston Groom, at the mouth of his character, Forrest Gump, of the Ku Klux Klan. That bit about the tablecloths broke me right up when I first heard it, and it still does today.

Groom's Forrest effectively satirised himself in this instance, and I am firmly of the belief that the very best satire may be that achieved at one's seeming own expense. In this context could I commend to you, if you have not already seen it, "The Big Engine that Could- A Tale of the Days of Steam" that can be found here: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=884#15541 and in two subsequent posts further down the thread.

I would most dearly love to accept your accolade, but I fear I must now emerge from the smokescreen and play 'Gloworm' to your 'Hipper'. It would be dishonest of me to continue to bask in the glory of your tribute, as your salute is due another.

I have but taken that which is writ upon the pages of the scriptures, not only in the plain dictionary meaning of its words in English translation, but also in the context, as I best understand it, of the Hebrew conventions and understandings as to levirate marriage as at around the time those scriptures were first written. The writings relating to the posterity of Josiah are riddled with seeming contradictions and enigmas. I have simply sought to allow those writings to resolve unequivocally their own seeming contradictions. It is my contention that they can do so in every single detail. When they do so, I completely agree with you that it may be able to be seen as the satire you describe, but it is the satire of their Author upon Himself!

Mr Gumpp, thank you for that link.

But I'm afraid I must now send you a bill for a replacement keyboard, as I was drinking coffee while reading.

NOWW....WHO would have thought ! :)

The interaction between Forest and Pericles is alone priceless.. SEE..where a topic can lead you blokes ?

1/ Forrest has demonstrated a knowledge of Scripture that I can only longingly aspire to. Clearly we are dealing here with a person of considerable breadth of knowledge.

2/ Others have grappled with the issue itself, and I'm sure we have all benefited from the various perspectives.

3/ Forrest has also demonstrated that there depths and layer upon layer of incredibly interesting information about ancient society and culture 'there' for the uptaking in the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures.

I apologise to any indigenous person who may have read this thread and felt that their situation was being 'sidelined'... as I stated earlier.. the title was deliberately provocative.

The 'religious' aspect that I've been criticized for, was not so 'religious' as cultural. There is a Mosaic command to the effect of a man raising a child to his dead brothers name, but I don't refer to that for 'divine authority' for the practice, simply to show that it became a cultural practice of the Jews.

All in all.. a most rewarding discussion thus far. (On the entertainment and information levels)

Forrest was battling to stay on topic. Trains (and Forrest liked trains) of thought were becoming tangled, then interwoven, and then irrelevant again, as he sat and sat on the park bench in his own inimitable way. It was a beautiful sunny morning, and from somewhere not too far away in his head, the strains of an old melody being sung by Doris Day could be heard.

"Tra la laa, Fiddly dee dee, it gives me a thrill,
To wake up in the morning to the mocking bird's trill.
Tra la laa, fiddly dee dee ......."

Mocking! That was it! A vision of his dear departed mother came to him in a flash.

"Forrest" she was admonishing in her most severe manner, "God is not mocked!"

Forrest had never forgotten that day - he had got in big trouble! Ever since, Forrest had been (at least so far as he thought his mother knew) a basically good boy: yes, he told the odd risque joke, and sometimes swore, but he didn't blaspheme. And Forrest well knew that he had done more than the odd bit of mocking, here and there - but mostly here. There was no way he could possibly have accepted Pericles' award for that particular bit of satire that would, in the moment of acceptance, have become mocking! Memories of the atrial fibrillation, and the creeping ever so carefully around the house in slippers, thinking 'no, not tonight, surely' and 'but the kids are still young' were still fresh in his mind, even though the AF had self-corrected and the angiogram was good. "Would have loved the award, but not worth the risk" thought Forrest to himself.

Forrest had also been grappling with what it was that Pericles had found so priceless in that particular quote for a long time. He speculated to himself as to what Pericles' real name could be. "Could it possibly be Slutskin?" he wondered, "or ...." Suddenly he had the answer as to what had so amused Pericles.

And he had a generation stolen from Matthew's genealogy! He was back on topic!