OT: Re: "mnemonic possession"

[Jonathan Lighter]

So what happened to the reanimated corpses as they walked in Jerusalem?
Anything? Did they stay reanimated?

JL


On Mon, Oct 28, 2013 at 1:44 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: OT: Re: "mnemonic possession"
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> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Oct 28, 2013, at 1:11 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>
> > I admit with embarrassment that there are indeed zombies in the
> > Bible, although I would have been correct had I written "zombies".  I
> > have been instructed to study the tale of Lazarus;  Isaiah 26:19; 1
> > Corinthians 15:52 (although Arnold forced me to find that from a
> > quotation); and Matthew 27:50 - 53 (which better fits the modern
> > conception: sleeping saints arise en masse and march into the city).
> >
> > Zombies as reputably characterized (Wikipedia) are not required to
> > assemble in hordes, march lurchingly, have fixed stares, or dismember
> > living humans and consume the parts.  They merely must have been
> > magically raised from the dead and become animated.
>
> Looks to me like Wikipedia is defining zombiehood down…
>
> LH
>
> >
> > However, another authority (the OED) requires soullessness, which
> > would seem to eliminate all  the Bible's zombies.  Or am I once again
> > ignorant -- if an entity with a soul (e.g., humans) is raised from
> > the dead, is it then soulless?
> >
> > Joel
> >
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