The metaphysic of presence

Re Barry Baldwin’s essay (June).
A point of clarification. I think it’s wrong to give the impression that Northrop Frye in The Great Code asserts Jesus couldn’t read or write. Frye uses the example of Jesus writing on the ground at John 8:6. He writes, “It is already clear that what has been called the metaphysic of presence meets us at every turn in the Bible, and that the spoken word either takes precedence of the written word or lies closely behind it.” To misunderstand this point of emphasis could lead to missing the point of Frye’s magnificent oeuvre — that the particular transformative power of biblical language resides in the human imagination.