Posted by Fred Askew on January 10, 1997 at 10:42:11:
In Reply to: Stones of Fire posted by Lynn on January 10, 1997 at 09:23:30:
: In one of the few passages of the Bible that talks about Lucifer, it states that he once, "...walked among the stones of fire". Are there any heavenly bodies that could be described in this way? I believe stars are made of gas, aren't they?
The fun thing about poetic phrases is that they're so vague they can mean almost anything.
An area of volcanic activity would have "stones of fire". Even an extinct volcano would have stones that had obviously been melted some time in the past. Coal and naptha form "stones" that burn. Oil and tar deposits on the surface often coat stones. Pebbles on a hot day in the desert can burn blisters on your feet, even through shoes. Depending on how you interpret the phrase, the majority of people on Earth have "walked among stones of fire."
And maybe it doesn't mean an actual place at all. Maybe the phrase just sounded neat to the guy who wrote it, like "The Duke of Earl" or "The Sounds of Silence." This is one more example of why mathmatics is the language of science instead of poetry.
Fred Askew
Austin TX