Page - 163 - in Limina - Grazer theologische Perspektiven, Volume 3:2

163 | www.limina-graz.eu Frank G. Bosman | The turning of Turing’s tables like EL0HIM or the Milton Library Assistant (MLA). The levels are arranged around several “hubs”, all aesthetically dedicated to a certain period in hu- man history, although the scenery has visibly decayed over time: the Ro- man Empire (“World A”), ancient Egyptian civilization (“World B”), medi- eval European society (“World C”), and the – strangely modern-looking – forbidden “Tower”, to which access is forbidden by EL0HIM. Listening to EL0HIM At the beginning of the game, the player is shown program-lines projected onto a cloudy sky (“Prologue”): a “child program” is loaded and booted. Then, the player finds his or her first-person avatar at the beginning of “World A”, while EL0HIM introduces itself to the player as a disembodied voice from above: “Behold, child. You are risen from the dust and you walk in my garden. Hear now my voice, and know that I am your maker, and I am called EL0HIM. Seek me in my temple if you are worthy.” The name is an obvious reference to the Hebrew word Elohim denoting “God” in the He- brew Bible. The entity keeps on pouring out religious notions and phrases. If the player steers the avatar too far away from the puzzles, EL0HIM will give a warning echoing the Gospel of John (1:1): “The words are everything. Where the words end, the world ends. You cannot go forward in an absence of space. Repeat.” Another example: The ‘tetrominos’ (geometrical shapes, comprised of four squares) that have to be collected at the end of each level to unlock further areas in the hub levels, and which are described as “sigils of our name” (“Level A1”) are a reference to Exodus 3:14, where God reveals his name as the tetragrammon YHWH (“tetromino.html”, under “various texts”). And later, EL0HIM explains its “covenant” with the player’s avatar, who is continuously addressed as “my child”: “Let this be our covenant: these worlds are yours, and you are free to walk amongst them and subdue them. But the great Tower, there you may not go. For in the day that you do, you shall surely die.” EL0HIM’s words refer to Israel’s covenant with God in Abraham (Genesis 15:18), to the “subduing” of the earth by humankind (Genesis 1:28), and the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1–9). Eventually, when the “child”/player reaches the hub of “World C”, a medi- eval cathedral, although devoid of religious paraphernalia, they are invited “The words are everything. Where the words end, the world ends. Repeat.”