viscount aero wrote:My claims and that citation above derive from the recent book "The Velikovsky Heresies" by Laird Scranton (which is actually a pro-Velokovsky work). Perhaps the author is incorrect
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XidALJh3m7g
My greater point is that Velikovsky proposes a very specific billiard game, direct contact or near direct-contact, of celestial bodies that have disrupted the solar system's planetary orbital configuration in a very short time. Every celestial body involved would have to have been in the perfect position, at the most exact timing, for any of this to actually happen.
To add, if these are all recent events, why are the orbits of the planets involved today highly stable and non-eccentric?
Don't get me wrong, I think Velikovsky is a visionary as previously stated. He was on to some very important and necessary shifts in cosmology. This is why he has maintained a following almost 70 years after his Collisions book was published. I'm not rejecting him out of hand, not at all. I'm just highly skeptical of the specific billiard game aforementioned.
The planets we're discussing are electromagnets. Venus as a comet would have an electromagnetic tail stretching for millions of miles. If the planets and or comet approached each other with positive and negative poles facing each other there might have been magnetic attraction. Repulsion with ++, or --. A dance of sorts as described in Worlds in Collision.
Discussing the descriptions from legend as the work of Dr Velikovsky is missing the point. Author after author have discussed the worldwide catastrophes associated with Exodus since the event. Rockenback in 1602 had the big picture. Donnelly added details in the 1800s. It's the descriptions from the survivors that counts. Dr Velikovsky noticed the electrical nature of the events more than his predecessors. And he organised the events in an approachable way.
The dates and agents aren't important. Just the descriptions of events. When the "River of Fire" described in Worlds in Collision becomes plasma similar to the aurora a new vision is possible.
michael