Editing Many Waters (section)

==Major themes==
The story largely concerns the teenaged twins' emotional coming of age, but, like the other three novels about the Murry family, includes elements of [[fantasy]] and Christian [[theology]] such as the [[seraph]]im, a heavenly race of angels, and the [[nephilim]], a race of giants that were the result of the mating of mortal women and angels, are the main antagonists of the story (see Genesis 6:1-4 <ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+6:1-4;&version=31;|title=Bible Gateway passage: Genesis 6:1-4 - New International Version|website=Bible Gateway}}</ref>).<ref>[[Christian Kracht|Kracht, C.]], & [[David Woodard|Woodard, D.]], [https://www.wehrhahn-verlag.de/public/index.php?ID_Section=3&ID_Product=577 ''Five Years''] ([[Hanover]]: [[:de:Wehrhahn Verlag|Wehrhahn Verlag]], 2011), p. 181.</ref>{{rp|181}} Author Donald R. Hettinga notes that the world of Noah's oasis is especially difficult for "the empirically minded twins" to accept because in L'Engle's theology of "a gradual Fall", it is still populated by manticores and unicorns, "everyone can still see angels," and some people "can still converse intimately with God."<ref name="Hettinga">{{cite book
  | last = Hettinga
  | first = Donald R.
  | title = Presenting Madeleine L'Engle
  | publisher = [[Twayne Publishers]]
  | year = 1993
  | location = New York
  | pages = [https://archive.org/details/presentingmadele00dona/page/111 111–119]
  | url = https://archive.org/details/presentingmadele00dona/page/111
  | isbn = 0-8057-8222-2
  | url-access = registration
  }}</ref> Similarities to the fantasy-science fiction works of [[C. S. Lewis]], always present in L'Engle's oeuvre, are particularly notable here. The twins' difficulty in believing in things that exist outside their empiricist world is a trait they must overcome in the story, because it is only by believing in a "virtual unicorn" that they can obtain transportation back to their everyday world.<ref name="Hettinga"/>