Creationism, Myths & Catastrophism

Beyond the boundaries of established science an avalanche of exotic ideas compete for our attention. Experts tell us that these ideas should not be permitted to take up the time of working scientists, and for the most part they are surely correct. But what about the gems in the rubble pile? By what ground-rules might we bring extraordinary new possibilities to light?

Moderators: MGmirkin, bboyer

Locked
Lloyd
Posts: 4433
Joined: Fri Apr 04, 2008 2:54 pm

Re: Creationism, Myths & Catastrophism

Unread post by Lloyd » Wed Dec 18, 2019 8:46 am

1949

JP, yes, the site I used for translating English words relevant to catastrophism into Hebrew includes modern Hebrew, but I figured there's probably some ancient Hebrew mixed in with them, esp. the words that have no vowels. I just wanted to get started to see if anything interesting shows up and I think a few interesting things did show up already. My understanding is that ancient Hebrew had no vowels, except aleph or "A". So all of the other vowels don't belong in ancient Hebrew. Right? I thought the following were interesting.
Saturn: shab'tay (khvkhv lkht) shav'taiy
sun: shemesh
comet: kokhav shaviyt
sky: shamayim, rakiya, sh'chakiym
heaven: gan eden; shamayim
angel: mal'akh
(Comments:)
Moloch = Saturn? = angel? (Talbott equated the possible Saturn configuration with an image of an angel)
Sabbath = Saturday = Saturn Day
Jupiter = tzedek
Melchizedek = Saturn-Jupiter?

Important Points:
http://futureschool.boards.net/thread/2 ... astrophism
Submit Notes here: http://us20.chatzy.com/21300370777374

Thread Update: https://bit.ly/35oGT9g

Lloyd
Posts: 4433
Joined: Fri Apr 04, 2008 2:54 pm

Re: Creationism, Myths & Catastrophism

Unread post by Lloyd » Wed Dec 18, 2019 10:27 am

Great Deep
http://creationwiki.org/Great_deep
"The phrase great deep is found in four places in the Bible. It is translated from two Hebrew words, רב, rab (an adjective meaning, much, many, great) and תהום, tĕhōm (a noun meaning, water making noise and translated as deep, depths, deep places, abyss, the deep, sea). Tĕhōm is derived from the root verb הום, hūm meaning to make an uproar or agitate greatly.[2] In the Hebrew language, the phrase תהום רבה, tĕhōm râbâh became a stereotyped compound noun and therefore always used without the definite article, thus there was not this or that great deep but rather an all encompassing great deep.[1][3]"

User avatar
Brigit Bara
Posts: 643
Joined: Tue Dec 30, 2008 1:37 pm

Re: Creationism, Myths & Catastrophism

Unread post by Brigit Bara » Wed Dec 18, 2019 11:24 am

JP and Lloyd, while you work on the great list of catastrophist terms you are looking for, let's learn to count in Hebrew.
https://www.linguajunkie.com/wp-content ... 24x575.png



Image
Last edited by Brigit Bara on Wed Dec 18, 2019 12:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.
“Oh for shame, how these mortals put the blame upon us gods, for they say evils come from us, when it is they rather who by their own recklessness win sorrow beyond what is given…”
~Homer

User avatar
Brigit Bara
Posts: 643
Joined: Tue Dec 30, 2008 1:37 pm

Re: Creationism, Myths & Catastrophism

Unread post by Brigit Bara » Wed Dec 18, 2019 11:38 am

Image


I believe you may want to look at the word for Seven. The number seven is a handy term to understand, since it figures so prominently in both the Old and New Testaments. It's most significant use is the first three chapters of Genesis, which describe the seven days of re-creation (1-2-3-4-5-6-7), by the forethought of God who is Spirit, through the agency of His spoken word.

The institution of the seventh day of rest is described in the Ten Commandments.

As they say, a text without a context is a pretext. So let's look at the institution of the Sabbath, the word in question, and also gain a little familiarity with one of the most important passages in ancient Hebrew, and indeed, one of the most important passages in all of history.

  • 20 And God spoke all these words, saying:

    2 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of [a]bondage.

    3 “You shall have no other gods before Me.

    4 “You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; 5 you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting[c] the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, 6 but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.

    7 “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.

    8 “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. 11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.

    12 “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you.

    13 “You shall not murder.

    14 “You shall not commit adultery.

    15 “You shall not steal.

    16 “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

    17 “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s.”
Last edited by Brigit Bara on Wed Dec 18, 2019 12:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.
“Oh for shame, how these mortals put the blame upon us gods, for they say evils come from us, when it is they rather who by their own recklessness win sorrow beyond what is given…”
~Homer

User avatar
Brigit Bara
Posts: 643
Joined: Tue Dec 30, 2008 1:37 pm

Re: Creationism, Myths & Catastrophism

Unread post by Brigit Bara » Wed Dec 18, 2019 11:58 am

The prohibition against the worship of idols was in complete contrast to all of the Ancient Near Eastern cultures. Egypt had over 3000 temples, each containing an idol, a carved image.

Assyria, Sumer, Egypt, Canaan, Babylon all practiced idolatry. Especially, above all, the Greeks and Romans did; both attempted to wipe out the Hebrew Scriptures; both attempted to forbid the practice of Judaism, and both attempted to place their idols of Zeus/Jupiter in the Temple in Jerusalem. This was called Hellenization, and Romanization. It actually was quite a brutal process of imposing Greek and Roman idols, banks, and culture on the occupied nations of their empires.

These idols also involved an extensive priesthood, monumental structures, and enormous amounts of slave labor required to build these pyramids and ziggurats, and columns. After all, in order for anything to be beautiful, it had to be huge, said the Romans.

What you will find in the Old Testament is instructions for the People of Israel to build...
“Oh for shame, how these mortals put the blame upon us gods, for they say evils come from us, when it is they rather who by their own recklessness win sorrow beyond what is given…”
~Homer

User avatar
Brigit Bara
Posts: 643
Joined: Tue Dec 30, 2008 1:37 pm

Re: Creationism, Myths & Catastrophism

Unread post by Brigit Bara » Wed Dec 18, 2019 12:02 pm

...a tent.

And within the tent -- which served as the center of worship for 400 years -- in the Holy of Holies, was a golden box, with a pair of angels hovering over a seat, and in the box:

the ten commandments.

The written word.
“Oh for shame, how these mortals put the blame upon us gods, for they say evils come from us, when it is they rather who by their own recklessness win sorrow beyond what is given…”
~Homer

User avatar
JP Michael
Posts: 97
Joined: Sat Oct 26, 2019 9:19 pm

Re: Creationism, Myths & Catastrophism

Unread post by JP Michael » Wed Dec 18, 2019 5:22 pm

Lloyd wrote: My understanding is that ancient Hebrew had no vowels, except aleph or "A". So all of the other vowels don't belong in ancient Hebrew. Right?
Hebrew is, like Arabic, Akkadian, Ugaritic, Canaanite and other Semitic languages, a consonantal alphabet. That is, the written text technically consists only of consonants. The spoken form obviously has vowels, otherwise you have an impossible-to-pronounce language. That said, four of the Hebrew consonants can function in written text as vowels. Two of these four are called by Hebrew linguists mater lectionis, mother letters, due to their proliferation as vowel-consonants. These mater lectionis are the letters vav ו (vowels o & u) and yod י (vowel i, and diphthongs ai, oi, ei & ui). The others are aleph א (silent; aleph carries any vowel and can be combined with yod to form diphthongs) and hey ה (a and e; used mostly at the end of a word, frequently combined with yod for the diphthong ei). The consonant ayin, ע, depending on one's local Hebrew accent, can also be silent and thus only carry its corresponding vowel sound (if any), but it is never regarded as a vowel-replacement letter due to its past function as a glottal stop/gutteral.

Examples:
יָיִן - yayin (wine): The first yod is a full consonant, the second is mater lectionis vowel i.
אוֹר - 'or (light): The initial aleph is silent, carrying its vowel sound o through the mater lectionis vav following it.
אֹהֶל - 'ohel (tent): The initial aleph is silent, carrying only its vowel sound o. This example does not utilise a mater lectionis vav but rather the short form.
דָּוִיד - Dhavid. The vav is a consonant, v, whereas the yod is mater lectionis vowel sound i.
אֱלֹהֵי אַבוֹתֶנוּ - 'elohei 'avoteinu (the God of our fathers): This phrase has it all. Initial aleph carrying the short vowel e, with both hey and mater lectionis yod combining to form the diphthong ei; a second aleph carrying the vowel a, with a first vav acting mater lectionis for vowel o, and the second vav acting mater lectionis for the vowel u.

Since Hebrew written texts are typically vowelless (otherwise known as unpointed text), it can leave questions of pronunciation and meaning when homonyms (words with identical consonantal spelling but different vowels/meanings) or singular (hapax legomenon - words occuring only once in a textual corpus) vocabulary items appear.

After the destruction of the Jerusalem archives in 70 & 132 AD, Jewish scholars invented various methods of recording Hebrew vocalisation due to fears of losing the original pronunciation of what is otherwise a vowelless text. The most prominent two of these being the Masoretic tradition and the Babylonian tradition, with the Masoretic tradition eventually reigning supreme as it is to this day (all the vowel pointing above is in accordance to the Masoretic tradition). Since Judaism considered the text (especially the Torah, less so the Prophets and the Histories/Poetry) to be divine and unalterable, both systems utilise, like Arabic, various dots and dashes above, below and inside the consonants to indicate vowel sounds and other items of interest to Hebrew grammar or recitation (eg. cantillation marks). Alterations of the consonantal text itself was unthinkable.

User avatar
Brigit Bara
Posts: 643
Joined: Tue Dec 30, 2008 1:37 pm

Re: Creationism, Myths & Catastrophism

Unread post by Brigit Bara » Thu Dec 19, 2019 10:25 am

Within the psychoanalytic model of history, here's a thought:

There was planet worship in the ancient world. It becomes more fully appreciable to the modern mind when we look at the extraordinary work of Velikovsky and those who have carried on his work. It appears that all of the Ancient Near Eastern monumental societies had gods by the names of the planets, and idols, and priesthoods, and grand building projects to house the gods. There is yet another albatross that came with the planet worship: they came with Sun-kings, emperors, and aristocrats who actually claimed to be the descendants of these planetary gods, who must be obeyed. This descent from the gods contributed significant support to the caste systems of law which we see so often with the ancients. For some of us, these are real problems with the ancient world.


However, would it be possible within the psychoanalytic approach to history for there to be some "black swans"? Is it possible for the pshychoanalist in viewing history to find any exceptions to the rule that ancient people worshiped planets? Suppose there were repeated and clear prohibitions against worshiping any body in the sky, or any idols of them? (Or anything physical, for that matter.)

Doesn't this actually prove the validity of the rule?

Or suppose there was another category of response to the trauma of planetary catastrophes.

What if the culture did not respond with any sytemised worship, such as we find in the Mediterranean, but instead, simply told extraordinary stories in which it is clear that the electrical catastrophes actually made the world a safer place for humans to live in, because it killed and fossilized the the gigantic creatures that were destroyed in the process?
“Oh for shame, how these mortals put the blame upon us gods, for they say evils come from us, when it is they rather who by their own recklessness win sorrow beyond what is given…”
~Homer

User avatar
nick c
Site Admin
Posts: 2483
Joined: Sun Mar 16, 2008 8:12 pm
Location: connecticut

Re: Creationism, Myths & Catastrophism

Unread post by nick c » Thu Dec 19, 2019 3:20 pm

Brigit Bara wrote:There was planet worship in the ancient world.
That is correct. But stars/planets were not just worshipped. They were the Gods.

As the catastrophic era faded into the dark recesses of the human collective mind, the stories of the planet Gods became anthropomorphised and eventually the true meaning was buried beneath a layer of archetypal imagery. Myth ceased to be cosmic history and became...well, myth (as we understand that word today.)

In Mesopotamian cuneiform, "god" and "star" are represented by the same (dingir) symbol
Remember, in the ancient world everything in the heavens was a star, other than the Sun and Moon. A planet was wandering star, a meteor was a falling star, a comet was a hairy star/dragon star/sword star/etc...Of the least concern was the "fixed stars" as they provided the landscape or background of the heavens.
Dingir

Dingir (usually transliterated diĝir) is a cuneiform sign, most commonly the determinative for “deity” although it has related meanings as well. As a determinative, it is not pronounced, and is conventionally transliterated as a superscript “D” as in e.g. DInanna. Generically, dingir can be translated as “god” or “goddess”.

The sign in Sumerian cuneiform (DIĜIR) by itself represents the Sumerian word an (“sky” or “heaven”), the ideogram for An or the word diĝir (“god”), the supreme deity of the Sumerian pantheon. In Assyrian cuneiform, it (AN, DIĜIR) could be either an ideogram for “deity” (ilum) or a syllabogram for an, or ìl-. In Hittite orthography, the syllabic value of the sign was again an.

The concept of “divinity” in Sumerian is closely associated with the heavens, as is evident from the fact that the cuneiform sign doubles as the ideogram for “sky”, and that its original shape is the picture of a star. The original association of “divinity” is thus with “bright” or “shining” hierophanies in the sky.

The Sumerian sign DIĜIR originated as a star-shaped ideogram indicating a god in general, or the Sumerian god An, the supreme father of the gods. Dingir also meant sky or heaven in contrast with ki which meant earth. Its emesal pronunciation was dimer.

highlights added

By the time of the Greeks and Romans the knowledge that the gods were the planets had already been lost to all except an erudite few.
Aristotle wrote:
A tradition has been handed down by the ancient thinkers of very early times, and bequeathed to posterity in the form of a myth, to the effect that these heavenly bodies are gods, and that the Divine pervades the whole of nature. The rest of their tradition has been added later in mythological form to influence the vulgar and as a constitutional and utilitarian expedient...

highlight added
https://books.google.com/books?id=ENjYg ... &q&f=false

Lloyd
Posts: 4433
Joined: Fri Apr 04, 2008 2:54 pm

Re: Creationism, Myths & Catastrophism

Unread post by Lloyd » Fri Dec 20, 2019 10:36 am

Brigit said: "The prohibition against the worship of idols was in complete contrast to all of the Ancient Near Eastern cultures."

In his article, "Atenism & Early Judaism", at http://qdl.scs-inc.us/2ndParty/Pages/8232.html , Charles Chandler shows that Judaism likely came from Egyptian Atenism. He shows the similarities between Atenism and Psalm 104, similarity between the Ark of the Covenant and artifacts found in the tombs of Akhenaten and Tutankhamun, including the ark of Anubis and Tutankhamun's sarcophagus, similarity between names of top religious officials, etc. Elsewhere I think he said the Egyptians had the custom of circumcision before Judaism did.

User avatar
JP Michael
Posts: 97
Joined: Sat Oct 26, 2019 9:19 pm

Re: Creationism, Myths & Catastrophism

Unread post by JP Michael » Fri Dec 20, 2019 12:01 pm

Ugh. That article by Chandler had so many exegetical, theological and logical errors it would take me more time than it is worth to refute them all. Here's a sample.
  • 1. Correlation does not mean causation (Hymn of Aten vs Psalm 104). Just because one religion's document has themes similar, or even identical, to another religion's document does not mean one caused the other. Given the significant divergences in both texts, namely the bits hidden behind carefully placed ..., this conclusion quickly evaporates.

    2. Abraham's monotheism predates both Judaism and Atenism, both textually and historically. Of course Chandler can challenge the general consensus here, but the onus is on him to demonstrate that Abraham's monotheism, passed down through patriarchal lineage from Abraham to Moses, was not the actual precursor for Judaism's monotheism rather than Atenism.

    3. Dating of Atenism is easily challenged. Having just finished reading Ages in Chaos, I feel that some of Velikovsky's strong arguments dating Tutenkhamun in the 10th-8th centuries, alongside King Jehoshaphat of Judah and King Ahab of Israel, it is more likely that Atenism was inspired by Solomon's monotheism and temple, and the noticeable change in Egyptian temple/altar adornments by the same. Solomon's expansive 10th century Judaism influenced Egyptian religion for a time, not the other way around. That the Hymn of Aten is similar to Ps 104 suggests possible contemporaneous authorship in time, not necessarily religion.

    4. Hebrew shabbat is not a compound, neither is it derived from the root for seven (שבע, sheva'). It is a noun derived directly from the verbal root of the same letters, שבת (shabat), which means to rest or desist exerting oneself:
    Jeff Benner wrote:(fem., שבת / sha-bat ) Translation: CEASING Definition: A stopping of work or activity; An activity curtailed before completion. The seventh day of the week (often translated as Sabbath) when all business ceases for rest and celebration. [1]
    Furthermore, the source cited by Chandler is horrendously outdated in terms of Hebrew linguistic data. I would strongly advise him to at least be consulting Benner's excellent Ancient Hebrew Lexicon, if not Koehler/Baumgartner/Hartmann/Kutscher's HALOT (Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament), the most extensive, up-to-date standard lexicon for Hebrew studies.

    At worst, Chandler is simply picking and choosing lexical data (eg. Greek sabbaton and Babylonian sabbatu; the former is direct Greek transliteration of the Hebrew and has no genuine Greek root, entirely unattested prior to the Septuagint and most certainly is not derived from the word 'light') that suits his assumptions whilst dismissing, or simply being ignorant of, actual Hebrew root-letter orthography.

    5. Again, Chandler distorts the actual data to suit himself regarding the origins and pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton. The Divine Name YHWH is derived from the common verbal root היה, hayah, to exist. Common Jewish tradition supposes that the name is too holy to pronounce, except by the High Priest and only on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, once per year. As a result, they substitute the title Adonai, Lord/Master, for the personal Name YHWH when reciting any text in which it appears. The vowel pointing for YHWH is the vowels for the Hebrew word adonai, and when erroneously combined, as a certain cult has done, the word becomes Jehovah (YeHoVaH).

    The actual use of the Tetragrammaton, especially by King David in the chronicles of Samuel and also in the Psalms, shows that the Name was actually pronounced more regularly in the past in general worship and daily practice (eg. Judges 13:23, Manoah's wife uses the Name in a discussion with her husband and is not stoned for blasphemy; cf. Leviticus 24:10-16). That the Hebrew adon has a phonetic similarity to Egyptian Aten does not mean it was etymologically derived from it; in fact the Hebrew root does not mean 'the first, the one-and-only, the indivisible', it means
    Jeff Benner wrote:The ruler as the foundation to the community or family. [2]
    It has, intrinsic to its etymology, nothing at all to do with sun worship, Egyptian deities or any other of Chandler's pick-and-choose fancies.
Peace.

[1] J. Benner, Ancient Hebrew Lexicon of the Bible, H7674.
[2] J. Benner, Ancient Hebrew Lexicon of the Bible, H0113.

User avatar
CharlesChandler
Posts: 1802
Joined: Tue Aug 19, 2008 6:25 am
Location: Baltimore, MD, USA
Contact:

Re: Creationism, Myths & Catastrophism

Unread post by CharlesChandler » Fri Dec 20, 2019 9:43 pm

JP Michael wrote:1. Correlation does not mean causation (Hymn of Aten vs Psalm 104). Just because one religion's document has themes similar, or even identical, to another religion's document does not mean one caused the other. Given the significant divergences in both texts, namely the bits hidden behind carefully placed ..., this conclusion quickly evaporates.
I agree that one correlation does not mean causation. But when the number of correlations is beyond chance, that is causation. I cite the following similarities in my article on Atenism & Early Judaism:
  • monotheism,
  • the ban on idolatry,
  • Psalm 104,
  • the Ark of the Covenant,
  • the rule of published law,
  • fringed linen prayer shawls,
  • the names of the key people,
  • the sabbath, and
  • the name of God.
That's a lot of correlations.

And note that these are rather central issues for both faiths. So these aren't peripheral similarities -- these are the credenda of the faiths, and they're the same. The significance is not to be underestimated. For example, if you believed the bulk of the credenda for Islam, but with a few peripheral differences, you wouldn't be somebody adhering to just any faith of your choosing -- you'd be a Muslim, while the differences would identify you as a member of a splinter sect. Not acknowledging the profound influence of Islam in defining the essential tenets of your faith would just be plagiarism on your part. So this is what I'm saying about early Judaism -- there are enough similarities, on important enough points, that you really can't say that the two faiths emerged independently of one another.

Furthermore, if two faiths of such similarity appeared on opposite sides of the globe, scholars would see the similarities, and wonder how the ideas traveled. Well, if both faiths emerged within a couple hundred kilometers of each other, and within a couple hundred years, you don't even have to wonder about how the ideas could have traveled so far -- rather, you could only wonder how they could not.

Analogously, if I spent the 4th of July eating apple pie and waving a small flag with stars & stripes on it, you could argue that it doesn't mean that I'm swearing allegiance to the US -- maybe I just like the taste of apple pie, and coincidentally, I think that stars & stripes make a pleasing balance of contrasts on a flag. And of course I'd love the 4th of July because my two favorite things are everywhere. ;) But if you were to argue that growing up in the US, I somehow didn't know that these are emblems of US patriotism, you'd be quite completely wrong -- there's just no way for someone growing up in the US to not know such things. And if I had strong anti-US feelings, I wouldn't be caught dead at a 4th of July rally, no matter how much I love apple pie, stars, & stripes. Likewise, there's no way that the early Jews didn't know that the credenda of their faith had substantial similarities with Atenism. There's also no way that they didn't know that they would be persecuted for adhering to the tenets of a faith that had been strongly suppressed in Egypt. They did it anyway. So it's too many correlations to dismiss as chance, and their credenda ran contrary to the dominant political forces at the time, meaning that the Jews had to have a powerful reason for holding onto these beliefs. That cannot possibly be a coincidence.
JP Michael wrote:2. Abraham's monotheism predates both Judaism and Atenism, both textually and historically. Of course Chandler can challenge the general consensus here, but the onus is on him to demonstrate that Abraham's monotheism, passed down through patriarchal lineage from Abraham to Moses, was not the actual precursor for Judaism's monotheism rather than Atenism.
I agree that Abraham came before both Moses & Akhenaten. So he could have inspired both faiths. But the only "evidence" of Abraham's monotheism is to be found in a book written by Moses, and which doesn't make mention of Abraham's writings, if there were any, meaning that the point is only as strong as one's pre-existing belief in the veracity of Moses' word. And aside from acknowledging only one Lord, the book makes no mention of Abraham's adherence to all of the other credenda in common between Atenism & Judaism. For example, nowhere in Genesis did Abraham mention the sabbath. We should consider that to be an odd omission, if the credenda came from Abraham.
JP Michael wrote:3. Dating of Atenism is easily challenged. Having just finished reading Ages in Chaos, I feel that some of Velikovsky's strong arguments dating Tutenkhamun in the 10th-8th centuries, alongside King Jehoshaphat of Judah and King Ahab of Israel, it is more likely that Atenism was inspired by Solomon's monotheism and temple, and the noticeable change in Egyptian temple/altar adornments by the same. Solomon's expansive 10th century Judaism influenced Egyptian religion for a time, not the other way around. That the Hymn of Aten is similar to Ps 104 suggests possible contemporaneous authorship in time, not necessarily religion.
I haven't read Ages in Chaos, but thanks to the Amarna letters, we know a great deal about the last pharaohs of the 18th Dynasty in Egypt, including their contemporaries Suppiluliuma & Tushratta, well-known rulers in the 14th C. bce. So putting Akhenaten & Tutankhamun in any other century will be tough, and just noting a Jewish influence in Egypt during Solomon's time doesn't make Tut his contemporary -- you'd have to establish that it had to be Tut and no other pharaoh responsible for the assimilation of Jewish ideas in that period.
JP Michael wrote:4. Hebrew shabbat is not a compound, neither is it derived from the root for seven (שבע, sheva'). It is a noun derived directly from the verbal root of the same letters, שבת (shabat), which means to rest or desist exerting oneself...
No, that isn't a derivation -- that's just two different forms of the same word. So that doesn't address my point about the word having originated as a compound, before the compound had come into common usage, as a verb and a noun. It's just saying that when the word was first used in the OT, it already meant what it means today, so that's proof that it couldn't possibly have any other derivation, which is just self-certification. I'm calling attention to the similarity between sabbaton and saba-Aten. And they aren't just similar sounding words -- in late Babylonian, they meant the same thing, sabbatum meaning pacify, Sun, or light. This would make sense if every 7th day, the Jews pacified themselves and worshiped a Lord who made his face to shine down on them (i.e., like a Sun god).
JP Michael wrote:5. That the Hebrew adon has a phonetic similarity to Egyptian Aten does not mean it was etymologically derived from it.
That might be true, but it's an argument that would have been lost on the ancient Jews. In a region dominated by Egypt, if the name of your Lord is phonetically equivalent to the name of an Egyptian god, and if that's not what you meant, you simply chose the wrong phonemes. Analogously, if I were traveling in Saudi Arabia, and if I addressed all of my prayers to Allah, everybody would think that I was worshiping the God of Islam. Of course, 3000 years later, scholars might argue that due to the differences between my beliefs and Islam, I couldn't have been a Muslim, and any apparent similarity between my God & theirs was just coincidence. But you can't travel in Saudi Arabia without knowing that Allah is the God of Islam, and when it comes to the names of their gods, people don't overlook such things -- they clearly identify their allegiances. So I wouldn't use "Allah" as the name of my God just because I liked the way the phonemes rolled off the tongue -- I would use that name only if I wanted to declare my loyalty to that God. And if I lived in an area where Islam was being persecuted, and if I still used "Allah" as the name of my God, it would only mean that I intended to practice Islam even at my own risk. For the Jews to continue to worship Adonai even after Atenism had been suppressed can only mean that they held onto their faith, even at their own risk.
Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and he'll spend the rest of the day sitting in a small boat, drinking beer and telling dirty jokes.

Volcanoes
Astrophysics wants its physics back.
The Electromagnetic Nature of Tornadic Supercell Thunderstorms

Lloyd
Posts: 4433
Joined: Fri Apr 04, 2008 2:54 pm

Re: Creationism, Myths & Catastrophism

Unread post by Lloyd » Sat Dec 21, 2019 8:03 am

JP, re Ages in Chaos, Akhenaten & Tutankhamun, I believe the Thunderbolts team, esp. Talbott, Cardona and Cochrane, were not able to concur with Velikovsky's revised chronology in Ages in Chaos nor with Velikovsky's claims that Venus caused the plagues at the time of the Exodus and of Joshua ca. 1400s BC, and that Mars caused cataclysms ca 700 BC. Most catastrophist scholars seem to agree that cataclysms occurred earlier, about 2300 BC.

Re "Hebrew shabbat means to rest or desist exerting oneself", you agree, don't you, that shabbat refers to shamash = Saturn? What about the Hebrew word for comet also resembling shamash? Charles mentioned similarity between sabbaton and saba-Aten (also Adonai). He said "in late Babylonian, they meant the same thing, sabbatum meaning pacify, Sun, or light. This would make sense if every 7th day, the Jews pacified themselves and worshiped a Lord who made his face to shine down on them (i.e., like a Sun god)." I think the Thunderbolts team agree with Velikovsky that Aten = Athena = Venus. Charles doesn't seem to have investigated that idea yet, but I think Atenism likely did come from former
experiences with Venus.

Another thing you said earlier about Earth having orbited Saturn during the Great Flood, the Thunderbolts team does not support the idea that Earth ever orbited Saturn. Instead, Venus, Mars and Earth apparently followed behind Saturn as the system came into the solar system, and then the system broke up upon getting close to the Sun or Jupiter.

User avatar
CharlesChandler
Posts: 1802
Joined: Tue Aug 19, 2008 6:25 am
Location: Baltimore, MD, USA
Contact:

Re: Creationism, Myths & Catastrophism

Unread post by CharlesChandler » Sat Dec 21, 2019 10:04 am

Lloyd wrote: Sat Dec 21, 2019 8:03 amI think the Thunderbolts team agree with Velikovsky that Aten = Athena = Venus.
I agree that Aten = Athena. There is archaeological evidence of commerce between Amarna & Athens. More significantly, the Archaic Athenians claimed that they weren't of Ionian origin like all other Greeks, but rather, that they were from Asia Minor. If they were, they would have been from Kizzuwatna, with its capital city of Atana, which was first attested in Akhenaten's time, and which absorbed refugees from the Levant after Atenism/Judaism was suppressed. So the ideas went from Amarna, to Jerusalem, to Atana, and then to Athens.

I don't know about the correlation between Athena & Venus.
Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and he'll spend the rest of the day sitting in a small boat, drinking beer and telling dirty jokes.

Volcanoes
Astrophysics wants its physics back.
The Electromagnetic Nature of Tornadic Supercell Thunderstorms

User avatar
Brigit Bara
Posts: 643
Joined: Tue Dec 30, 2008 1:37 pm

Re: Creationism, Myths & Catastrophism

Unread post by Brigit Bara » Sat Dec 21, 2019 1:37 pm

Interesting. As a general observation, I would say Mr. Chandler's ideas have a few things to recommend them.

The most important is that it recognizes that the One God of Genesis, who creates all things by spoken word, has to be taken back in the Hebraic tradition at least to Moses, in the 18th Dynasty. That is really a long stride.

The Exodus Pharoah in my view is Thutmose III.

If any one has any texts of ancient Egyptian law, as cited above for proof of Atenism, I would be very grateful to have it. Some years ago I searched everywhere I could in books and I could not find any. The reason given was because the Pharaoh's word was law. What a megalomaniac.
“Oh for shame, how these mortals put the blame upon us gods, for they say evils come from us, when it is they rather who by their own recklessness win sorrow beyond what is given…”
~Homer

Locked

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 2 guests