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?

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JP Michael
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Re: Creationism, Myths & Catastrophism

Unread post by JP Michael » Tue Dec 24, 2019 9:46 am

WARNING - Strong sarcasm present in sections of the following. Read at your discretion!
Lloyd wrote: Sun Dec 22, 2019 12:23 pmWhat are they? I don't know what those "stronger lines of argument" are, so I can't compare them with Charles' & others' lines of argument.
Then I suggest cracking open a copy of Ages in Chaos and having a read! Yet for the sake of charity, I will simply quote two (lengthy) portions from Mr. V himself, the first from the beginning of the book and the latter from the end. Please persevere in reading them. I also strongly welcome any comments by veteran members of this board who may be familiar with specific criticisms of Velikovsky's Egyptian chronology revision as presented in Ages in Chaos and by later scholarship. As I remarked earlier in this thread, I've only been at this topic for 4 months. Some of you fine folks here have been going at this for more than 50 years, surely!
Immanuel Velikovsky wrote:Many wondrous things happen when historical perspective is distorted. In order to understand the scope of the displacements in the history of the ancient world, one must try to conceive of the chaos which would result if a survey of Europe and America were written in which the history of the British Isles were some six hundred years out of line, so that in Europe and America the year would be 1941 while in Britain it would be 1341.

As Columbus discovered America in 1492, the Churchill of 1341 could not have visited this country, but must have visited some other land the scholars would be divided in their opinion as to the whereabouts of that land and met its chief. Another chief, not Franklin Delano Roosevelt of Washington, would live in history as cosigner of a charter with Churchill of Britain in 1341.

But as American records would speak of Churchill who crossed the ocean in the early forties of the twentieth century, British history would also have a Churchill II, six hundred years after the first one. Cromwell would also be doubled by the same process. He would have to live three hundred years before Churchill I and also three hundred years after him, or three hundred years before Churchill II.

The First World War would be fought twice, as would the Second. The First World War, in its second variant, would follow the Second World War, in its first variant, by five and three quarter centuries.

By the same token, the development of the Constitution, the cultural life, the progress of technology and the arts, would appear in chaotic distortion.

Newton in England would become an early forerunner of Copernicus instead of following him. Joan of Arc would revive the old traditions of the suffragettes of the post-Victorian days; she would be burned twice with an interval of six hundred years between; or, with the growing confusion of history, she would have to return to the stake a few centuries from today to suffer her death again.

In the case presented, not only the history of the British Isles would be doubled and distorted, but also the history of the entire world. Difficulties would, of course, arise, but they would be swept away as oddities. Complicated theories would be proposed and discussed, and if accepted, they would establish themselves as new, strong obstacles to a correct perception of past history.

Ancient history is distorted in this very manner. Because of the disruption of synchronism, many figures on the historical scene are "ghosts" or "halves" and "doubles." Events are often duplicates; many battles are shadows; many speeches are echoes; many treaties are copies; even some empires are phantoms.

The primary error can be found in Egyptian history; because of retardation, the history of Egypt was taken out of real contact with the histories of other peoples. Events in which the people of Egypt and the people of Assyria or Babylonia or Media were involved were recorded in the histories of these peoples from the Egyptian annals; the same events were then described for the second time in the history of Egypt, the annals of these other peoples, participants in the events, being the source.[1]
Immanuel Velikovsky wrote:If one is determined to keep to the traditional construction of history and insist that the letters of el-Amarna were written to and from archaic Canaanite princes, he is also bound to maintain that in Canaan events occurred which recurred half a millennium later in the time of Jehoshaphat and Ahab. This makes it necessary to hold that there already was a city of Sumur, of which not a relic remained; that this city, with a royal palace and fortified walls, was repeatedly besieged by a king of Damascus, who had a prolonged dispute and recurrent wars with the king of Sumur over a number of cities, in a conflict that endured for a number of decades; that on one occasion the king of Sumur captured the king of Damascus but released him; that on the occasion of a siege of Sumur by the king of Damascus the guard attached to the governors succeeded in driving away the Syrian host from the walls of Sumur; that on the occasion of another siege of Sumur the Syrian host, hearing rumors of the arrival of the Egyptian archers, left their camp and fled, every detail an exact image of what happened again half a millennium later at the walls of Samaria.

The traditional construction of history implies also that the king of Damascus, who was at the head of a coalition of many Arabian chieftains, succeeded in formenting a revolt by a Trans-Jordan king named Mesh against the king of Sumur, whose vassal he was, and this rebellious vassal king captured cities of the king of Sumur and humiliated his people, as in the days of Mesha's rebellion against the king of Samaria. That Rimuta was the place in dispute between the king of Damascus and the king of Sumur, as Ramoth was in the second epoch; that the king of Sumur had a second residence where a deity was worshiped whose name, Baalith, was the same as that of the deity introduced by Jezebel, and the king of Sumur planted groves in his second residence, like Ahab in the field of Naboth; that the king of Damascus organized a number of ambuscades against the king of Sumur, and the king of Sumur each time managed to escape death, like the king of Samaria of the second period; that the king of Damascus became gravely ill, yet did not die from the illness but was put to a violent death on his sickbed, like the king of Damascus of the second period.

This hypothetical scholar would also be bound to admit that all these coincidences happened at a time when the land of Sumur was visited by a drought, and the springs dried up and a severe famine followed; that the drought lasted several years and caused starvation of the people and epidemics among the domestic animals; and that the inhabitants departed from the realm of the two residences everything just as it happened in the second period.

He would have to maintain that the two periods do not differ in any respect whatsoever, and that each event of one period has its twin in the other. The land of Edom was ruled by a deputy of the king of Jerusalem in both cases. Tribes from as far away as Mount Seir invaded Trans-Jordan in both cases. In the first period as in the second, the invaders threatened Jerusalem and caused the population of the kingdom to flee from their homes. The king of Jerusalem, like Jehoshaphat centuries later, was afraid of being driven with his people from their inheritance and expressed his fear in similar terms, but everything turned out well when the tribes of Mount Seir and Trans-Jordan rose up one against the other, as they did five to six hundred years later.

This scholar would also have to admit that the military chiefs of the Canaanite king of Jerusalem signed their letters with the same names as the military chiefs of Jehoshaphat, king of Jerusalem, and that the names were as peculiar and unusual as, for example, lahzibada (Jehozabad) and "son of Zuchru" ("son of Zichri"), or Addaia (Adaia), or Adadanu (Adadani, Adna), who was again the first among the chiefs; that the governor of Sumur had the same name as the governor of Samaria of the later period (Amon), and that the keeper of the palace in Sumur was named Arzaia like the chief steward, Arza, of the king of Israel. Again, in the city of Shunem (Shunama) lived a "great lady/' and already in the first period some miracle had happened to her so that she was called Baalat-Nese. And again, the king of Damascus had a military governor (Naaman, lanhama), by whose hand "deliverance was given to Syria," and who at first was feared by the king of Sumur but later on became the latter's friend, like his reincarnation six hundred years later.

Further, the successor of the murdered king of Damascus, by the name of Aziru or Azaru, acted like Hazael of the second period: he oppressed the land of Sumur; he conquered almost all the land of the realm; he burned with fire the strongholds and villages of the king of Sumur; he even spoke with the same peculiar expressions as Hazael did later on.

This scholar would also be faced with the fact that in the second period the city of Irqata again lost her king, and that King Matinu- Bali and King Adunu-Bali, under the leadership of Biridri, defied the mighty invader from the north, just as happened in the first period when a Biridia (Biridi) assumed the task of leading the kingless city of Irqata and King Mut-Balu and King Aduna against the invader from the north. In both cases this invader was the king of Assyria and the lord of Hatti. In both cases he was victorious over the coalition of Syrian and Palestinian princes helped by Egyptian battalions. In both cases he received placating presents from Musri (Egypt) in the form of rare animals or figures of such animals. Again, the long of Damascus, Hazael, battled with him between Lebanon and Hermon as did Azaru of the first period. Again, the kings of Tyre and Sidon, harassed by this invader, left 'their cities and departed in ships, as they did six hundred years earlier.

In both periods the art of ivory work flourished, and identical patterns were produced: designs and execution, characteristic of the earlier period, were repeated in the second period, and have been found to be so similar that they have been taken for copies of the art objects of the first period.

In both periods the same architecture and stone workmanship (Megiddo, Samaria) found expression.

In both periods the same idiomatic Hebrew was spoken.

Can one accept such a series of coincidences? And if it is accepted, is it only to have the old difficulties present themselves again? If the Habiru were the Israelites, why, then, in the Book of Joshua, which records the conquest of Canaan, and in the letters of el-Amarna are no common name and no common event preserved?

At the beginning of this work I placed before the reader the unsolved problem of the correlation of Israelite and Egyptian histories. Of these two ancient nations, one professes to have had close ties with the other; actually the biblical story moves in the light and shadow of the great kingdom on the Nile. Egyptian history, on the other hand, in all its numerous inscriptions, on stone and on papyrus, denies any real contact with the neighboring kingdom on the Jordan. Even the glorious age of King Solomon, so exalted in the Old Testament, appears to have passed entirely unnoticed by the Egyptian kings and their scribes. And more than that, the great events of the Israelite past their long bondage in Egypt
and their departure from that land under unusual circumstances appear to have been entirely unknown to the conventional history of Egypt. For that reason the time of the Exodus is debated and placed at almost every conceivable time point of the Egyptian past, from the beginning of the New Kingdom presumably in -1580 down many centuries. The uncertainty as to the time of the sojourn in Egypt and the departure is the direct result of the absence of references to the children of Israel in Egypt and to their leaving the country, and of the sterility of information concerning the relations as neighbors of these two peoples during the period covered by the Scriptures.

We have attempted to solve the problem of the synchronization of the histories of these two peoples of antiquity, both of whom occupy major places in the history of the ancient world. We made this attempt after we recognized that the biblical story of the Exodus contains frequently repeated references to some natural catastrophes. Logic thus required us to look in extant Egyptian sources for references to some disturbance in nature.

The search proved not to be fruitless. The Leiden Papyrus Ipuwer is a record of some natural catastrophe followed by a social upheaval; in the description of the catastrophe we recognized many details of the disturbances that accompanied the Exodus as narrated in the Scriptures. The inscription on the shrine from el-Arish contains another version of the cataclysm accompanied by a hurricane and nine days* darkness; and there we found also a description of the march of the pharaoh and his army toward the eastern frontier of his kingdom, where he was engulfed in a whirlpool. The name of the pharaoh is given in a royal cartouche which proves that the text was not regarded by its writer as mythical.

If we have in these documents the same story as found in the Book of Exodus, then a synchronical point between the histories of these two ancient nations is established. But here, where we expected to reach the solution of the problem of the date of the Exodus in Egyptian history, we were confronted with a problem that made the question of the date of the Exodus shrink into insignificance. Whatever theories have been offered concerning the time of the Exodus, not once has the thought occurred that the Israelites left Egypt on the eve of the arrival of the Hyksos. Consequently we found ourselves faced with a problem of very different magnitude. Either Egyptian history is much too long or 'biblical history is much too short. Must Egyptian history be shortened by some "ghost" centuries, or biblical history lengthened by the same number of lost" centuries?

We could not know the answer to this problem until we traveled a long distance through the centuries of ancient history. We noticed a path on which to start this journey. If the Israelites left Egypt on the eve of its invasion by the Hyksos, who arrived from Asia, we might, perchance, find in the Scriptures a reference to a meeting outside the borders of Egypt of the children of Israel and the invaders. Actually, even before they reached Mount Sinai, the Israelites encountered the hordes of Amalekites. We turned to the old Arabian writers and found that the tradition of the Amalekites as the dominant tribe among the Arabs, who invaded Egypt and ruled it for four or five hundred years, is alive in the Arabian literary heritage from their early past.

As we compared point after point in the Egyptian hieroglyphic, Hebrew biblical and post-biblical sources, and Arab autochthonous traditions found in their medieval writings, we were forced to conclude that the time of the Hyksos domination of Egypt was the time of the Judges in scriptural history. The equation of Hyksos and Amalekites gave additional support to the synchronization of the fall of the Middle Kingdom and the Exodus. We then had to examine the historical moment of the collapse of Hyksos rule in Egypt and the end of Amalekite domination in the Near East. In the siege of Auaris, the Hyksos fortress, by Ahrnose, some foreign troops played a decisive role. From parallels in the Book of Samuel it could be determined that it was King Saul, the first Jewish king, who was victorious over the Amalekites at el-Arish; and with the help of many proofs we could establish that el-Arish occupies the position of the ancient Auaris.

David was a contemporary of Ahmose, founder of the Eighteenth Dynasty, and of Amenhotep I; Solomon was a contemporary of Thutmose I and Hatshepsut. And we found that the celebrated journey to God's Land and Punt was the voyage to Palestine and Phoenicia described in the Scriptures as the visit of the Queen of Sheba.

We compared many details and always found that they coincided. But this drove us to the next station on the road. Five years after Solomon's death the Temple of Jerusalem and its palace were sacked by a pharaoh. Thutmose III succeeded Hatshepsut. If we were traveling on the right road, again we had to find a correspondence here: Thutmose III must have sacked Jerusalem of the treasures of its palace and Temple. This he actually did, and the pictures of his booty correspond very closely, in shape and number, with the description of the loot taken by a pharaoh in the fifth year after Solomon's death.

Under the next pharaoh Palestine was invaded again, according to scriptural and Egyptian sources. This time, however, the expedition was far from being victorious.

For three generations biblical scholars proved to the full satisfaction of all that many parts of the Scriptures were products of much later centuries than the Scriptures would indicate. Then, during the 1930s, with the discovery of the Has Shamra texts, the estimate was revised in the diametrically opposite direction: the same biblical texts were now regarded as a heritage of Canaanite culture, six centuries older than the biblical texts. However, the collation of material from Hebrew literary sources, from Ras Shamra, and from Egypt convinced us that not only the earlier reduction of the age of biblical prose and verse but also its present increase is erroneous. In saying this we are actually ahead of what we may legitimately assert: we still do not know which of the two histories, Egyptian or Israelite, must be readjusted. At the same time we observed how the histories of other ancient countries and peoples accord with either the Israelite or the Egyptian chronology; and how the histories of Cyprus, Mycenae, and Crete, in correlating with one side or the other, create confusion in archaeology and chronology.

In three consecutive chapters we collated the historical evidence of three successive generations in Egypt (Hatshepsut, Thutmose III, Amenhotep II) and in Palestine (Solomon, Rehoboam, Asa), and found unfailing correspondence. It is possible that by sheer accident one age in Egypt bears a close resemblance to another age, and thus offers ground for a spurious coevality; but it is quite impossible that three consecutive generations in Egypt and in the neighboring Palestine of two different ages could produce consistent correspondence in so many details. What is even more striking, these three consecutive generations in Egypt as well as in Palestine were not selected at random, but were forced upon us by the deliberations and parallels of the earlier chapters, in which we scrutinized the time of the Exodus and the following centuries until Saul, and in Egypt the last days of the Middle Kingdom and the following centuries of Hyksos rule until the rise of lie New Kingdom.

It would be a miracle, indeed, if all these coincidences were purely accidental. Anyone familiar with the theory of probabilities knows that with every additional coincidence the chances for another grow smaller, not in arithmetical or in geometric progression, but in a progression of a higher order; therefore the chance would be a trillion or quadrillion against one that all the parallels offered on previous pages are merely coincidences.

Following the three consecutive generations in Egypt and Palestine, there were Amenhotep III and Akhnaton in Egypt and Jehoshaphat in Judea and Ahab in Israel. It could not be by mere chance that the fourth generation again presented a picture in which the details fit together like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. The histories of two lands and the vicissitudes in the lives of their rulers and their peoples could not be in complete correspondence were there not exact synchronism. And so it happened that in this fourth generation the rulers and prominent personages in one country actually wrote letters to the rulers and prominent personages in the other country and received written answers from them. To what extent details and events correspond during those years of famine, sieges, invasion from Trans-Jordan, and military pressure from the north has been recounted at length. And this sequence of invariable correlation and conformity gives us a feeling of security that we are not on the wrong path.[2]
-----
Lloyd wrote:Charles says Moses was an official under Akhenaten. Akhenaten started something like monotheism, but Moses took it a bit further. It's conceivable to me that there were some people during the time of the Golden Age, or the Saturnian age, who understood that the planets were not gods, and those people were either atheists or believed in a God of universal consciousness etc, and Moses may have come from that tradition. The ancient myths would have been conceived by the many people who thought the planets actually were gods.
And the Scriptures say Moses was (emphatic past tense) a pharaonic official until his self-imposed exile for murdering an Egyptian taskmaster (Exodus 2:11-15). He was never re-appointed to his post. New Testament commentary even goes so far as to suggest that Moses willingly chose to be mistreated as a fellow Hebrew (descent, not association) rather than partake of a rich and lavish lifestyle as an Egyptian high official (Hebrews 11:24-25). Again, Moses identification with the Hebrew-Israelite race is reaffirmed in New Testament commentary: "When he was forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brothers, the children of Israel" (Acts 7:23). It is unquestioned, at least in the Scriptures, that the children of Israel are the biological descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Israel (Acts 7:8), and that Moses is unequivocally one of them. Chandler ignores all the internal evidence to simply state:
Charles Chandler wrote:"When the plight of his followers in Egypt became desperate, Moses returned to negotiate on their behalf." [3]
That is to say that Moses is not at all interested in his biological relatives. The Hebrews (or is it Israelites?) in Egypt aren't even related to him; Chandler's Moses is 100% Egyptian and his 'brother' Aaron is the royal son of Queen Tiy.[4] The possibility that Moses' heart actually yearns in compassion for his blood-relatives is dismissed with the simple perjorative handwave, 'followers'.

Of course, another contradiction that Chandler is wont to ignore is the fact that Moses had no followers, at least according to that excellent exposition on Moses' history in the Book of Acts:

"This Moses, whom they rejected, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge?’—this man God sent as both ruler and redeemer by the hand of the angel who appeared to him in the bush. This man led them out, performing wonders and signs in Egypt and at the Red Sea and in the wilderness for forty years." (Acts 7:35-36)

And just so no exegetical worming takes place here, the 'they' in the quote above refers to his Hebrew brothers, the same ones who were groaning because of their affliction in slavery, the same ones Moses had visited 40 years prior from his high and haughty residence in Pharaoh's palace and at which time they rejected him as their potential deliverer and judge. Moses recoiled at the thought of returning to them just as much as he recoiled at the thought of returning to Pharaoh (Exodus 3:11; 4:1). I find it rather peculiar that even a Jewish commentator like Stephen would announce to his own blood-race that the first time Moses attempted to act on behalf of his people, the Hebrew-Israelites, they rejected him. Of course, Stephen is arguing for the present Jewish rejection of Jesus as Messiah being synonymous to Moses' generation's initial rejection of the deliverer of their time, but the point remains. According to the Scriptures, Moses spent 40 sorry years in Midian with 0 followers of his new monotheist religion waiting for him back in Egypt. I wonder why?

Forty years later (Acts 7:30), Moses was no longer serving in Egypt under any official capacity until he suddenly burst onto the scene with his brother Aaron, both direct biological descendants of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Levi, Kohath and Amram (Exodus 6:16-20); Hebrews, not Egyptians, contra Chandler. And his mission?

"You and the elders of Israel shall go to the king of Egypt and say to him, ‘The LORD, the God of the Hebrews, has met with us; and now, please let us go a three days' journey into the wilderness, that we may sacrifice to the LORD our God.’" (Exodus 3:18; see also 5:1-3 which has the name 'Israel' [six times in the whole chapter] and 'Hebrews' in the same encounter with Pharoah, indicating the two are unequivocally understood as the same enslaved people group).

Question: what are the Israelites doing in Egypt with the Hebrews? Why are both groups ('us') supposed to go into the wilderness to worship YHWH?

Of course, it probably never could occur to Chandler that the God of the Hebrews is the same as the God of the Israelites who is the same as the God of their fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, as the Scriptures repetitively assert. It is simply not possible that Moses was called to serve "God of your [biological] fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob" (Exodus 3:6; compare Acts 7:31-32), or that his monotheism has roots far deeper and far older than Atenism and might, like Abraham, have actually originated with a supernatural divine call from the God who speaks, promises, intervenes in human affairs, fulfills his word and can never lie or fail to perform what he has spoken.

Nope, Chandler's Moses is Egyptian! He has to be, there is simply no other believable option. He was born in Egypt, named in Egypt, educated in Egypt, married in Egypt, a military general in Egypt, old Ramose even carried a 100% Egyptian acacia wood staff, just like the ones you see in the old Egyptian commercials engraved on the wall! Talk about a true patriot! And since the only available Egyptian monotheist was Akhnaton, the only possibility is that Moses amalgamated their religion into his own cult, created a following, earned the ire of a newer, returned-to-polytheism Pharaoh and had to leg it with his horde of faithful, obedient disciples. Apparently.

Yet the Scriptures I read show no end of grumbling, complaining and even outright apostasy against Moses and his leadership, so much so that Moses asks YHWH why he was ever chosen for the task at all and wished to die (Numbers 11:11-15). Of a people who, so disenchanted with Moses, decide to return to Egypt in rebellion (Numbers 14:4). This YHWH displays his most discomforting aspect during the wilderness wanderings: fiery wrath against the disobedient disciples of Moses. Why is all this recorded, and at such length? Why does it matter so much to the author of the Torah that the disobedience of the people, their sinful cravings, their unbelief? Why this long and laborious narrative about some religious failure whose people all died in the wilderness? Hardly the best way to encourage converts for a new theological revolution, don't you think? Our God, the God of our fathers, will kill you all if you make him angry! Now obey! Rargh! Or is it?

I wonder who is the Scriptural God of Moses' fathers, according to Chandler's theory? Ah, yes, I forgot. The Egyptian records are 'older' and therefore 'superior'. I must keep reminding myself that the whole Hebrew scriptures thing is just King Josiah's recombinatorial finesse, a fine patchwork of whatever the Elohist, Yahwist and Priestly scribes before him had managed to invent along the way. Add Josiah's magnum opus, Deuteronomy, with a splash of Redakteur and wallah! Let's conveniently ignore how Josiah managed to forge an entire 15th Century BCE suzerain-vassal treaty, complete with very detailed laws, rules and regulations for the vassal and threatenings from the suzerain, YHWH, slapped Moses' name on it and passed it off as credible and authentic, employed the elegant Redakteur to edit out all references in the rest to Egyptian Atenism (don't forget every time we recite YHWH in our secret language we remember our true faith! Secret! Shh!), fabricated an entire Hebrew (or is it Israelite?) genealogy of mythical dudes starting with ol' Adam and, unfortunately, the Christians keep perpetuating the same sorry mistake when this guy Christ came along saying he's the fulfillment of the promises made by ol' Aten, I mean YHWH, to Mr. Abe ben Terach. Sorry about that, Christians! Luke was wrong because Josiah made it all up, and the rest, like Stephen's 1st century AD exposition, is outdated by older, more reliable Egyptian sources! Oops!

If this method is not wanton ignorance of anything actually related to the genuine narrative of Scripture rather than the flat imposition of Chandler's Egyptian a-priori narrative upon Scripture, please tell me what it really is because this is all I am seeing. I realise you want to defend your friend, Lloyd, but should you do so at the expense of critical thinking and thorough analysis of all the available evidence? Chandler's presentation is unfortunately severely lop-sided, superficial, and a sorry reliance on Source Criticism, in spite of those theories being debunked for some 20 years, sweeps all objections away in one fell swoop. Anything that cannot be swept away, like the sabbu-aten compound, is simply explained away with an unprovable sub-hypothesis. Until he addresses these significant methological deficiencies, I feel no need to interact further with it.
Lloyd wrote:Let's have quotes, please. I think you misunderstood the material.
Since I do not have The Electric Universe in my possession, I have to rely on Cardona's disagreement with Thornill's proposal of Saturn's magnetosheath and Earth's orbit in it. Referring to the hypothesis of heat/light reflection from the inner plasmaspheric boundary of proto-Saturn, Cardona writes:
Dwardu Cardona wrote:It is this reflection that has failed to meet total acceptance by some of our supporters. Wallace Thornill, for one, has made it clear that he does 'not subscribe' to this idea. And yet he is still of the opinion that it was proto-Saturn's magnetosphere that was responsible for Earth's past encircling warmth. It was, according to him, this 'glowing shell' tat radiated heat and light to its sattelite. Any cosmic body within that shell, he maintains, would 'receive the same energy per square meter over its entire surface, regardless of its rotation rate, axial tilt and orbit eccentricity.'[5]
And again:
Dwardu Cardona wrote:One major problem with Thornill's model is that a planet immersed in a brown dwarf's glowing sphere does not merely make for a world without ice caps, as he reported, it would also make for one that could not have experienced an ice age at all, let alone an entire series of such ages with all that they tend to bring with them... One other problem is that Thornill's model depicts the exemplary world, or satellite, within a brown dwarf's red anode glow as orbiting around the dwarf, with such a world having no latitudinal temperature differences. As he had earlier written: 'Another interesting consequence is that all objects orbiting [in such a region] would receive the same energy per unit area of their surface.' Geological, glaciological, and paleontological evidence, however, contests this by indicating that Earth's northern region had always been warmer than more southerly latitudes. And this is understandable when one considers that, contrary to Thornill's model, primordial Earth was not in orbit around proto-Saturn but lay suspended directly beneath its southern pole while sharing the same axis of rotation.[6]
I welcome you to grab your own copy of The Electric Universe and discern for yourself if Cardona is reporting Thornill correctly, unless one of the other forum members wishes to dig this up (p.84) and put a quote or two below.

[1] I. Velikovsky, Ages in Chaos (Doubleday, 1955) pp. xxi-xxii.
[2] Velikovsky, pp. 332-339. If you want the details, read the book.
[3] C. Chandler, Akhenaten, Moses and Atenism.
[4] C. Chandler, Akhenaten, Moses and Atenism Of Aaron it is claimed, "At the other end of his lifespan, he couldn't have been born much before 1385 bce, if he was in fact the oldest son of Queen Tiye, who is believed to have been born in 1398 bce — thus she gave birth to Thutmose-Aaron at the age of 17, at the very beginning of her limits." Of Moses it is claimed, "We know very little from the secular records about Ramose the vizier. We know that he was the son of Nebi, the mayor of Memphis. His wife Merit-Ptah was the daughter of May, the commander of the chariotry. And Ramose was the distant relative of a very prominent Amun priest in Thebes."
[5] D. Cardona, Newborn Star (Telwell, 2019) p. 43, citing W. Thornill and D. Talbott, The Electric Universe (Mikamar, 2007) p.84.
[6] Cardona, p. 45. Emphasis and brackets in original. The citation of Thornill in this quote comes from W. Thornill, "Stars in an Electric Universe," AEON V:5 (Jan, 2000) p.48.
Last edited by JP Michael on Tue Dec 24, 2019 10:42 am, edited 2 times in total.

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nick c
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Re: Creationism, Myths & Catastrophism

Unread post by nick c » Tue Dec 24, 2019 10:33 am

The equation of Moses with Akhenaten originated with Freud. Velikovsky, who personally knew Freud, strongly disagreed.
His point was that there is a better well known figure who equates with Akhenaten. The mythological Oedipus.
Velikovsky builds a fascinating case in his book:
Oedipus and Akhenaten - Myth and History
https://archive.org/details/in.gov.ignca.11354/page/n7
https://www.velikovsky.info/oedipus-and-akhnaton/

https://www.amazon.com/Oedipus-Akhnaton ... 0671831933

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JP Michael
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Re: Creationism, Myths & Catastrophism

Unread post by JP Michael » Tue Dec 24, 2019 10:43 am

Thanks Nick. I've actually started that one now and I'm rather excited to read it in the light of the various discussions in this thread.

Lloyd
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Re: Creationism, Myths & Catastrophism

Unread post by Lloyd » Tue Dec 24, 2019 4:14 pm

2693

I hope Charles, JP and maybe others may like to comment on the following.

I just read this:
A CRITICAL RE-APPRAISAL OF THE BOOK OF GENESIS [SIS C&C Workshop]
(Search at https://bit.ly/34VOUBs)
From: SIS Chronology and Catastrophism Workshop 1987 No 1 (Sep 1987)
... by Damien F. Mackey, Frank Calneggia and Paul Money
Following is an outline of the article.
"Introduction
... Part One: Key to the Structure of Genesis
... (i) The Colophon Phrases
... Toledoth, or Family History
... Nature of the Colophon
... Two Supporting Facts
... (ii) The Catch-Line Phrases
... References
... Part Two: Moses as Compiler of the Book of Genesis
... The Evolution of the Hebrew Language
... (i) In the Creation Story
... (ii) In the Paradise Story
... (iii) In the Flood Story
... (iv) In the Joseph Narrative
... The Titles for God
... The Problem of Moses
... The First Chapter of Genesis
... From Adam to Moses
... Conclusion
... Notes and References"

Here are some quotes.
"Introduction
... Pre-archaeological theories such as those advanced by Graf and Wellhausen suffer from almost total ignorance of the methods and styles of the ancient scribes, since these became known only after the vast libraries of the ancient world were excavated and their data slowly and painstakingly sifted by modern scholars. The JEDP explanation of the structure of the book of Genesis, as laid down by Wellhausen and his colleagues, will be seen to be completely artificial and out of touch with the book's real and very simple structure, which we shall lay bare before the reader with the help of Wiseman. Our paper will also address another striking feature inherent in the book of Genesis, but which scholars today totally overlook or ignore. We are talking about the incontrovertible fact that the language of Genesis - as indeed of the entire Pentateuch - is so saturated with Egyptian elements, from first chapter to last, that one is forced to admit that the entire narrative was written from an Egyptian perspective [[by Moses]]."
"... (i) The Colophon Phrases
Documents were written in Assyria and Babylon were [[sic]] generally inscribed upon stone or clay tablets. It was customary for the ancient scribes to add a colophon note at the end of an account, giving particulars of title, date, and the name of the writer or owner, together with other details relating to the contents of a tablet, manuscript or book[6."
"... [[T]]he master key to the method of compilation which underlies the structure of the Book of Genesis is to be found in the use of the colophon."

The authors say the Colophon used in Genesis is the Toledoth, or Generations phrase, and the mistake made by most scholars, including JEDP, is to assume that the phrase comes at the beginning of each section of Genesis, instead of at the end, where it belongs.

Eleven colophons used in Genesis are these.
1 1:1 to 2:4 This is the book of the origins of the heavens and the earth
2 2:5 to 5:2 This is the book of the origins of Adam
3 5:3 to 6:9a These are the origins [or histories] of Noah
4 6:9b to 10:1 These are the origins [or histories] of the sons of Noah
5 10:2 to 11:10a These are the origins [or histories] of Shem
6 11:10b to 11:27a These are the origins [or histories] of Terah
7&8 11:27b to 25:19a These are the origins [or histories] of Ishmael and Isaac
9-11 25:19b to 37:2a These are the origins [or histories] of Esau and Jacob.

The colophons indicate that Genesis was compiled from ancient documents passed down through the patriarchs in the form of clay tablets. The tablets used catch-line phrases to indicate which tablet came in what numerical order. Moses (apparently) included the catch-line phrases when he transcribed the tablets into the Bible.

So the documents that Moses copied for Genesis were apparently originally written by those named in the colophons, i.e. Adam, Noah, the sons of Noah, Terah, Ishmael, Isaac, Esau and Jacob.

Here are more quotes.
"Part Two: Moses as Compiler of the Book of Genesis
... Due to the fact that the average Egyptologist could find no more than occasional connections between Hebrew and Egyptian because of a lack of expertise in Hebrew, they simply took it for granted that Egyptology had very little to yield for the study of the Bible, as Yahuda points out [1. ... Professor Yahuda ... was one of those extremely rare Egyptologists who had a masterful knowledge of classical Hebrew and the Bible as well. ... Yahuda is convinced ... that only in this epoch, from the time of Joseph to Moses, would Hebrew have begun to develop gradually into a literary language, 'until it reached the perfection which we encounter in the Pentateuch' [5. ... Yahuda submits that the dialect which they brought with them from their Canaanite home could not but have absorbed Egyptian elements in the course of this lengthy period [7, "and in adaptation to the Egyptian have continued to develop, to extend, and even to modify its original grammatical form and syntactical structure" [7. ... [[T]]he Babylonian influence in the language is so minute as to be almost non-existent. ... In the pre-Egyptian part of Genesis [[before Joseph]], Egyptian loanwords occur, as do idioms and phrases considered by Biblical scholars as being typical of this portion of Genesis, but which can be explained only from Egyptian. Added to these, according to Yahuda, are "other highly significant Egyptian influences on the composition, style and mode of narration," and on many conceptions concerning the well-known stories of Genesis such as the Creation, the Flood, and even the Tower of Babel."
"... From Adam to Moses
We do not know the extent of writing before the Flood, but, if our thesis is correct, we can know something about the literary method employed. It appears that the original form of the ancient tablets was considered to be so sacred that future copyists and translators left it embedded in their newer texts. Adam and Noah's histories (and probably those of other antediluvian Patriarchs, e.g. Enoch) were preserved in the Ark and beyond by the sons of Noah who, according to the sources compiled by Ginzberg, had books [49. These sacred histories, undergoing translation and possible transliteration, were brought from Mesopotamia by Abraham and his family and remained in Canaan during the years of sojourning there. They were added to by each successive generation. Finally, when Jacob migrated to Egypt, he would have carried the histories with him, copies of which almost certainly found their way into the Egyptian archives to which Joseph would have had access."
"... Conclusion
... Yahuda, since he followed the conventional system of chronology which places Moses in the New Kingdom era of Egyptian history, tended to concentrate on New Kingdom examples when drawing parallels with the Bible from Egyptian history. But a thorough examination of the influence of the Egyptian language on the Pentateuch may eventually enable scholars to pin-point the precise era of Moses, once an accurate and complete revision of Egyptian history has been achieved."

"Notes and References
... A. S. Yahuda, The Language of the Pentateuch in its Relation to Egyptian (Oxford U. P., 1933)
... L. Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews, vol.V (Philadelphia 1955)
... P. J. Wiseman, Ancient Records and the Structure of Genesis (Thomas Nelson, 1985)
... P. J. Wiseman, Clues to Creation in Genesis (Marshall, Morgan& Scott, 1977)
... R. K. Harrison, Introduction to the Old Testament, Eerdmanns 1969"

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Re: Creationism, Myths & Catastrophism

Unread post by CharlesChandler » Tue Dec 24, 2019 7:08 pm

JP Michael wrote: Tue Dec 24, 2019 9:46 amStrong sarcasm...
...made for a brisk, entertaining read. ;)
JP Michael wrote: Tue Dec 24, 2019 9:46 amThe Hebrews (or is it Israelites?) in Egypt aren't even related to him; Chandler's Moses is 100% Egyptian and his 'brother' Aaron is the royal son of Queen Tiy.[4] The possibility that Moses' heart actually yearns in compassion for his blood-relatives is dismissed with the simple perjorative handwave, 'followers'.
Actually, I'm saying that the group represented by Moses was, before they left Egypt, 100% Egyptian, like Moses. The group would have included people who had been at Amarna, who were relocated to Avaris when Tutankhamun moved the capital back to Thebes in 1329 bce. By the time of the Exodus in 1312 bce, the group would have also included children of the Amarna residents, along with commoners who had fallen in with them at Avaris. Since Amarna was the capital under Akhenaten, the people moving there would have included the ruling class -- aristocracy with administrative positions at Akhenaten's court. Thus they would have been from the same class of society as Moses, and a lot of his cousins would have been there. I think that Moses risked the wrath of the pharaoh to manage their relocation to Moab in 1312 bce, and that Moses was the driving force behind the new faith. But it wasn't until after 1312 bce that the Atenist exiles merged with Transjordan Bedouins in Moab to form what would be known as the Hebrews. Meanwhile, on the other side the Jordan, the Patriarchs were managing the Covenant, and the Israelites had yet to merge with the Hebrews, which didn't happen until the Israelites had their own Exodus to get away from Merneptah in 1208 bce. So Moses' "followers" were neither Israelites nor Hebrews -- they were Atenists.
Acts 7:35-36 wrote:This Moses, whom they rejected, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge?’—this man God sent as both ruler and redeemer by the hand of the angel who appeared to him in the bush.
This is not inconsistent with a high priest from Amarna, such as Moses, being put in charge of the Atenist exile from Avaris in 1312 bce, and without the people being consulted. I call attention to the bitter complaints of the people, beginning with their harsh treatment at Amarna (i.e., having to find their own straw to make mud-bricks), and continuing across the Red Sea ("Is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness?"), and all of the way to the Promised Land. This was a group of people who had been assigned a leader, who himself was still subordinate to the pharaoh, and under whose authority the people suffered.
JP Michael wrote: Tue Dec 24, 2019 9:46 amQuestion: what are the Israelites doing in Egypt with the Hebrews? Why are both groups ('us') supposed to go into the wilderness to worship YHWH?
I take this as the word of M. le Redakteur.
JP Michael wrote: Tue Dec 24, 2019 9:46 amWhy does it matter so much to the author of the Torah that the disobedience of the people, their sinful cravings, their unbelief? Why this long and laborious narrative about some religious failure whose people all died in the wilderness? Hardly the best way to encourage converts for a new theological revolution, don't you think? Our God, the God of our fathers, will kill you all if you make him angry! Now obey!
I consider this to be an excellent question. Clearly it was a captive audience, not a popularity contest on the part of Moses. The authoritarianism in Judaism is not characteristic of Egyptian religion, nor of Indian for that matter (which was practiced in Mitanni). I'm of the opinion that this is the lingering memory of a time when "God" was a ruthless politician who was trying to isolate and ultimately annihilate a bunch of heretics.
JP Michael wrote: Tue Dec 24, 2019 9:46 amIf this method is not wanton ignorance of anything actually related to the genuine narrative of Scripture rather than the flat imposition of Chandler's Egyptian a-priori narrative upon Scripture, please tell me what it really is because this is all I am seeing.
Atenism cannot rightfully be called Egyptian, since it was an aberration in its own time, and suppressed as heresy thereafter, so completely that it was unknown until modern times. Judaism is even further removed, since it rejects the most essential tenet of Atenism: that the pharaoh is the sole instance of God. I rather think that both Atenism & Judaism were the handiwork of Moses, though while still in Egypt, it was usurped by a megalomaniac to establish a new flavor of the pharaoh's divine right to rule. Once out of Egypt, the exiles were not totally outside of the reach of the long arm of the pharaoh, but Judaism is surely closer to the true intent of Moses than Atenism ever would have been.
JP Michael wrote: Tue Dec 24, 2019 9:46 amI realise you want to defend your friend, Lloyd, but should you do so at the expense of critical thinking and thorough analysis of all the available evidence?
Lloyd is also my most verbose critic, so I think that you have him figured wrong. ;)
JP Michael wrote: Tue Dec 24, 2019 9:46 amChandler's presentation is unfortunately severely lop-sided, superficial, and a sorry reliance on Source Criticism, in spite of those theories being debunked for some 20 years, sweeps all objections away in one fell swoop.
I don't know of a theory, good or bad, that hasn't been debunked. Christian Apologetics has been debunked more times than I can count. Case closed? Not exactly. The point here is just that we shouldn't allow our search for truth to be eclipsed by consensus politics. We all have to sort through the evidence, and decide what to believe. If we want to find out who agrees with us, and who does not, we have to expose our reasoning to others. There is an opportunity to learn when they reveal flaws in our reasoning. But just because somebody disagrees doesn't mean that we're wrong, nor would it make us right if somebody agreed.

I do agree with the Documentary Hypothesis, which has the Torah as a compilation of at least four different versions of the lore. But I do not agree with the dominant trend in religious studies, which has the whole thing being made up by Josiah, or during the Babylonian exile, or shortly thereafter. I just don't see who would make up something like that, or who would go along with it, had it not been firmly rooted in historical fact. So I'm taking all of the historical details in the Torah and in the Deuteronomic History to be fact. Therein I actually disagree with a lot of Apologists, who cherry-pick a few historical details to identify the period of interest, and then have to treat the rest in the vaguest of terms. Compared to them, I'm the Literalist. ;) But a secular analysis, to be worth anything at all, has to abide by the rules of repeatable scientific fact. For example, superhuman lifespans cannot be taken at face value. And self-certification cannot be taken as support. So I don't hold the Egyptian records in higher esteem than the Tanakh -- I place more weight on points that have independent corroboration.
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Re: Creationism, Myths & Catastrophism

Unread post by JP Michael » Tue Dec 24, 2019 8:39 pm

Unfortunately most of the non-creationist Catastrophist materials, excepting Jno Cook who made this exact criticism, hide behind a paywall I have no intention of accessing at this time. I was not able to read the full articles.

Based on your summary, two ideas were introduced I actually agree with, at least in part.
  • 1. Use of older source material. The toledoth colophons are reminiscent of the sources, at least in Genesis, drawn upon for the pre-Exodus composition. A question remains in my mind as to whether the toledoth frames what comes after it, or what comes prior to it.[1]

    2. Use of Egyptian loanwords in the Hebrew text. It is clear to me that whoever compiled the Torah was well versed in Egyptian language, culture and geography. Whoever wrote Deuteronomy was familiar with drafting 15 century BCE suzerain-vassal treaties, because that is what it is. I think it is an overemphasis, however, to suppose that Egyptian had a significant impact on Hebrew grammar and syntax and I would need to see specific citations with historical comparisons to come to my own conclusion about that point. A 400 year sojourn in Egypt would have had some linguistic impact, to be sure, but the Hebrews were a mostly self-contained race settled within a specific geographical region (Goshen, Gen 46:34, among other verses). It is like a China-town in your city; the Chinese citizens do not cease speaking Chinese fluently even if they live in an English-dominated society.
To this I will add one important note I have gleaned from reading Velikovsky of late: Mr. V nails it when he cites the eerie similarities between the Ras Shamra corpus and Biblical texts. Of important note here is that Ugaritic was a Hebrew dialect written in a variant style (alphabetised form of 30 letters only) of Akkadian cuneiform, demonstrating that cuneiform was a widely used means of writing by the rulers and educated classes at the time.[2] Similarly, the Amarna Letters represent correspondence from Syria, Canaan and other regions in actual Akkadian cuneiform (full logographs/syllables) with the rulership of Egypt at the time. It is clear that Akkadian cuneiform was being used as a written lingua franca by those in the know, even across cultural boundaries, such as King Ahab's plethora of letters beseeching Pharaoh's aid against the king of Damascus. These were all written in Akkadian, not Hebrew nor Egyptian.

This leads me to suppose that it is possible that the original sources utilised by Moses in Egypt for his editorial compilation of Genesis in particular may have been written in cuneiform, possibly even Sumerian cuneiform. I would not even rule out Abraham having been completely versed in Sumerian cuneiform, having originally been a native of Ur himself. The question is whether Abraham might have used cuneiform to write in his ethnic language (Hebrew) or in the language of his nativity (Sumerian).

I also have little doubt that the original copy of the whole Torah that Moses first penned on Mt. Sinai and completed (Deuteronomy 31:24-26) on Mt. Nebo was actually written in the proto-Hebrew script even if he may have utilised cuneiform clay tablet sources, a writing style that persisted well beyond Moses day.

[1] As per the article by C.V. Taylor I cited earlier in this discussion.

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Re: Creationism, Myths & Catastrophism

Unread post by Younger Dryas » Wed Dec 25, 2019 8:06 am

Some food for thought:

Middle Eastern dating is based on comparison of pottery and other objects with Egyptian wares. This dating in turn is based on the various fragments we have of the list of dynasties and pharaohs prepared by Manetho in Ptolemaic Egypt. The original text is lost, but it is quoted partially by many authors in antiquity. The chronological sequence was set out in the 19th century, and is incorrect by about 400 to 600 years, mainly the period of 1200 to 700 BC. Thus the archaeological date of 1200 BC, when all cultural activity in the Middle East came to a sudden halt, is actually 800 BC.

This accounts for a gap in the archaeology of Greece called the "Dark Ages of Greece," after which material culture (of the Mycenaean Greeks) picks up in 700 BC exactly where it left off in 1200 BC. This missing era includes such quasi-mythological adventures as the Trojan War, the exploration of the Black Sea by Jason, and the Dorian invasion. The "Dark Ages of Greece" extends to all of the Middle East. The Greek and Roman historians of 2000 years ago disagree completely with this chronology.

As P. John Crowe, wrote in "The Revision of Ancient History" (SIS Conference, 1999):

"Archaeology, when interpreted with an open mind, has now actually proved beyond reasonable doubt that the Dark Ages did not exist, but the proof is ignored. Vested interest in the status quo has won the day. Huge amounts of public money are being spent on studying this Victorian invention, and hundreds of books written about them without resolving their historicity. Sadly, it seems no one in academia has had the courage publicly to question seriously the basic assumptions upon which Egyptian chronology, the progenitor of the Dark Ages, is founded."
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Re: Creationism, Myths & Catastrophism

Unread post by Lloyd » Wed Dec 25, 2019 2:26 pm

RADIOCARBON DATING SEEMS TO SUPPORT CONVENTIONAL CHRONOLOGY
See the article below. And the second part quoted here says there was a small increase in C14 levels from 2900-2500 BC. Maybe that's another clue that a cataclysm occurred around then.

III. 1 RADIOCARBON DATING AND EGYPTIAN CHRONOLOGY*
Sturt W Manning
https://dendro.cornell.edu/articles/manning2006a.pdf
… The Arnama radiocarbon ages on both known shorter-lived samples (skins, bone and horn) and on the potentially longer-lived wood and charcoal samples, offer a tight and coherent set of results entirely consistent with the historical dates and disprove any radically different chronology.... In support, we might note what seems to be an anomaly in the five-data set. The wood sample Q-2401 yields the second youngest (i.e. second most recent) radiocarbon age, and the animal bone sample Q-2405 yields the oldest age, and, in general, the average age of the likely longer-lived samples (wood and charcoal) at 3045±25BP, is (just) younger than the average age of the shorter-lived samples (animal skin, horn and bone) at 3054±20BP. Yet one would expect the wood sample to be older in real calendar terms than the animal bone sample (by a few years or even a few decades or more). Out of the dating possibilities for each sample, the only way for this likely correct sample relationship to occur is for the wood sample to date around the earliest of its three potential intercept ranges with the calibration curve at c.1368-1360 BC (and not c.1315-1289 BC or c.1280-1262 BC), and for the animal bone sample to date areund the later of its two possible intercept ranges at c.1336-1320 BC (and not c.1394-1375 BC). And, plausibly, for the other three samples to date around or in between these preferred ranges. In turn, the mid to later 14th century BC date range is most likely for the Amarna samples. This is exactly compatible with, and in support of, the standard Egyptian chronology, and, via the cuneiform text linkages attested at Amarna,46 this finding in turn supports and requires the standard Assyrian-Babylonian chronological range for this period."
... 4. Past Radiocarbon Fluctuations (the Shape of the Calibration Curve) the Old Wood Problem, and Egyptian OK [[Old Kingdom]] Radiocarbon Dates
A study by Haas et al.,48 which indicated radiocarbon ages for various OK monuments several centuries earlier than expected, was widely seen as both a problem,49 and by some as a good reason to avoid radioca rbon dating in Egyptology. The Haas et al. finding was largely repeated in the followup study by Bonani et al.50 But it is not at all clear that there is any unknown 'problem'. A key issue is the history of past natural radiocarbon levels; there was in effect a plateau in radiocarbon levels in the period 2900-2500 BC. This means that radiocarbon ages for the period 2900-2500 BC typically could intercept at several places with the radiocarbon calibration curve (i.e. several calendar periods have similar radiocarbon ages). For example, if we consider the OK monuments thought to be constructed c.2600-2500 BC, then the wood employed will, at the latest, have its outermost ring dating then, and the rest of the relevant tree will be progressively older. Depending on species and source of the wood, one might expect an average offset of several decades to a century, give or take a range, for an average wood sample (e.g. compare the +50 ±50 old wood adjustment estimated by Vogel et al.).51 Thus the 'average' wood used in a monument built in the reign of Cheops in the mid or third quarter of the 26th century BC (conventional date ranges) likely dates during the first quarter of the 26th century BC give or take about 50 years- let us say 2587±50 BC in broad terms. If we simulate the radiocarbon age, and its calibration, for 2587±50 BC, we get a result like that shown in Figure III. 1.3. And what we find is that the shape of the calibration curve (which represents the history of past natural variations in atmospheric radiocarbon levels) yields a calibrated age that seems 100-300 years too old in the main and only just includes the real date at the very end of the calibrated range at 95.4% probability. But we calibrated the 'correct' radiocarbon age! The point is that radiocarbon dating of single context events in this period is problematic because of the history of natural radiocarbon variations. Only use of another approach (like wiggle-matching)52 can overcome this limitation.

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Re: Creationism, Myths & Catastrophism

Unread post by nick c » Wed Dec 25, 2019 7:51 pm

RADIOCARBON DATING AND EGYPTIAN CHRONOLOGY*
Sturt W Manning
https://dendro.cornell.edu/articles/manning2006a.pdf


Hi Lloyd,
This paper is totally useless because of built in bias.
The article acknowledges that there have traditionally been problems with radiocarbon dating of Egyptian artifacts:
Over the next few decades a number of radiocarbon ages were
obtained on Egyptian samples. Egyptian chronology continued to be
considered as the known age, and radiocarbon was being compared - tested.
This is a telling quote. The a priori assumption of Egyptologists was that the accepted chronology was correct. And that mainstream chronology was used to test the validity of radiocarbon dating. Is this not putting the carriage before the horse?
If mainstream chronology is used to test radiocarbon dating then how could one conclude that radiocarbon dating validates the conventional chronology? This is not science and the outcome of the test is preordained.
Radiocarbon technology through the 1960s was not capable of
delivering ages of sufficient accuracy or precision to be of actual utility to Egyptologists." In 1970 Save-Söderbergh and ülsson published a
well thought out critical analysis of radiocarbon dates from Egypt."
They highlighted problems of poor association between samples and
presumed historical context (or age), of contamination, and of the need
to achieve replication and inter-Iaboratory checks. But Save-Söderbergh
and Olsson also noted the uncertainties attending the historical dates,
especially those prior to the second millennium BC.
Radiocarbon dating of the 60's was accurate enough to calculate dates. The real problem is that the dates that were calculated did not come close to the mainstream chronology which was a priori assumed to be correct. In fact the few times that Egyptian artifacts were radiocarbon dated they came back consistently hundreds of years too young.
See:
http://varchive.org/ce/tc14.htm
In the meantime, certain systematic disagreement in datings by the radio carbon method with the conventional historical time tables was observed all over the world. But above and beyond this generally observed phenomenon, the Egyptian datings stood unreconciled with the results of the carbon tests. This made quite a few Egyptologists express their disbelief in the carbon method and the physicists even bolder in assuming that the Egyptologists were victims of some undefined systematic error. The perplexing Egyptian dates were discussed at the conference of the workers in radiocarbon that took place in Cambridge July 1962, and two laboratories, of Groeningen in Holland and of the University of Pennsylvania, were entrusted with the task of clarifying the issue. At that time the New Kingdom was apparently not yet investigated on radiocarbon dates, but if it was investigated, the results were never made known.
So the problem is not that early radiocarbon dates were "contaminated" or "inaccurate" but rather that they did not agree with the accepted Chronology which was (and still is, in the author's view) indisputably correct. Therefore the radiocarbon dates needed to be "calibrated," that is, adjusted by dendrochronology which indeed is another chronological tool which has its own problems.
Shaw" quickly tried out high-precision calibration for existing Egyptian
samples using the Irish Oak data of Pearson et L.ı H
Yet, radiocarbon dating is a straightforward process. The carbon isotope C14 is radioactive and decays over time and is converted to another carbon isotope (C12 or C13) which is stable. By comparing the ratios of the isotopes the age of the sample is calculated because the decay rate is assumed to be constant under all conditions.
1. But it has been shown that ambient conditions could alter the ratios yielding incorrect dates. These samples are said to be "contaminated." "Contaminated" is a wild card for mainstream since there is no way to determine before the test what is contaminated.
2. A sample is considered contaminated when the date does not agree with the accepted chronology (in this case Egyptian.) Therefore discordant dates (that don't comply with the accepted chronology which they already assume correct) are thrown out. This process has been documented, see The Extinction of the Mammoth by Ginenthal.

This is not science!

Back to calibration. The linked paper spends a lot of time dealing with just how the precision is increased by calibration to dendrochronology, but is that really what has been done? or does this actually tell us that the radiocarbon dates are not acceptable (because they disagree with conventional chronology) and therefore they need to "calibrated" by another chronological method? As stated above radiocarbon dating involves testing a sample, measuring carbon isotopes, and calculation of a ratio.

If radiocarbon dating is a valid chronological method than it should stand on its own, and not need to be jury rigged to fit into a preconceived (in this case Egyptian) chronological system. The very fact that dates need to be adjusted by another chronological method should send up a red flag, a signal that there are serious problems with radiocarbon dating,

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Re: Creationism, Myths & Catastrophism

Unread post by JP Michael » Wed Dec 25, 2019 11:48 pm

@Younger Dryas: your comments are always full of great information. Thank you!

Nick's citations above are very important for understanding how 14C 'dating' actually works in practice. Radiometric dating (eg. U-Pb, K-Ar, Rb-Sr) operates with many of the same faults.

Besides the a-priori assumptions, I want to make the following observations:
  • 1. 'Dates' are obtained by comparing 14C/12-13C ratios. The assumption is that, at present, it is estimated that this ratio is 1 or 1.5 atoms of 14C per 1012 12-13C atoms in the atmosphere. Carbon-based lifeform X has this ratio of 14C in them and this ratio ceases to maintain equilibrium upon the death of the lifeform. Thus, a decrease in the ratio (14C decreasing at its specified beta-decay rate halflife of 5760 years) is used to calculate approximate age. I did read somewhere that biological systems discriminate against incorporating 14C to varying degrees at the cellular level, but I cannot find the citation right now. So even when the lifeform is alive, the ratio may already be an incorrect comparison to the atmospheric 'standard'.

    2. The present ratio was altered to a small degree by atmospheric atomic testing between the 1950s-1980s. This is never taken into account, even if it has returned to 'stability' now.

    3. The ancient ratio was undoubtedly larger than present, that is, there was likely more 14C in their atmosphere/biome due to higher cosmic ray activity due to intense interplanetary or solar plasmas in the past as per Peratt's research. This would give inflated ages if present ratios were assumed in calculations.

    4. The ancient ratio remains an unprovable unknown, primarily due to uncertainties regarding the strength and/or frequency of high-energy-density plasma/solar events in the past. Thus, any attempt to date a radiocarbon sample must assume a false starting quantity of 14C if a modern ratio is factored for beta decay.

    5. It has already been demonstrated that solar neutrino bombardment events interfere with radioisotope decay rates.[1] Given the intense (solar) plasma events near Earth in our recent past, including during post-Deluge Egyptian history, how accurately can we even measure the amounts of 14C in present samples if the decay rate has changed over time depending onsolar neutrino bombardment?

    6. All tested coal deposits contain detectable levels of 14C, indicating that none of them are millions of years old.[2] I posit that no currently untested future coal deposits will refute this conclusion.
Reliance on 14C for dating is fraught with erroneous, indeed, unprovable, assumptions, in addition to selective treatment of the data as Nick highlighted above. If the 14C dates do not agree with the established 'consensus', they are simply discarded as 'contaminated'. Radiometric dating techniques on rocks do the same thing: get the 'age' of the rock from the fossils first, then test to see if the radiometric data confirm the fossil 'age'. If not, the radiometric date is rejected.

[1] A. Sibley, "Variable radioactive decay rates and the changes in solar activity," Journal of Creation 27(2):3-4, Aug. 2013.
[2] L. Vardiman, A. A. Snelling and E. F. Chaffin, "Radiometric Dating and old ages in disarray," Journal of Creation 20(2):36–41, Aug. 2006. See also J. Mason, "Radiometric Dating," Evolution's Achilles Heels. R. Carter, Ed. (Creation, 2014) pp. 192-213.

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Re: Creationism, Myths & Catastrophism

Unread post by JP Michael » Thu Dec 26, 2019 5:57 am

Lloyd wrote:4. What are the Hebrew words for terms most relevant to catastrophism? E.g. star, aster, disaster, names of planets, gods and names of gods, comet, sun, fire, flood, tidal wave, lightning, thunder, storm, typhoon, space/sky, chaos, void, dragon, serpent, monster (leviathan, behemoth), giant (Nephilim?), spirit, angel, glory, radiant, pyramid, tower, altar, etc (Did Velikovsky discuss any Hebrew terms in Worlds in Collision? Talbott discussed some interesting English words, like aster and disaster). What other terms should be included here?
I have compiled the following extensive but by no means complete selection. I have omitted reference to the gods and names of mentioned gods, as that deserves more intense treatment on its own (namely, collating a complete list according to nationality). I have ommitted Hebrew spellings, retaining only a romanised transliteration. I welcome students of Hebrew to use the Strongs number references and Ancient Hebrew Lexicon (or, if you're in the advanced class, HALOT) for further independent research and concordance searches of word frequencies.

Sun/ moon/stars/planets/sky/space
  • ’Esther (H635) – Star, from Persian and closely related etymologically to Greek aster.
    Zethar (H2242) – Star, from Persian.
    Kokhab (H3556) – Star.
    Kokhab Lekheth - Planet, lit. walking star, akin to Greek astera planetes, wandering star. Unattested in Biblical Hebrew. For individual names, including Sun and Moon, see here. Only Saturn and Venus are named in the Hebrew Scriptures (Amos 5:26 via Akkadian loanwords; Isaiah 14:12).
    Nehar di-nur (H5103 + H5135) – Aramaic; River of Fire, See Daniel 7:10. Interpreted by some Jewish astronomers to mean the visible Milky Way Arm.
    Shamayim (H8064) - Sky, heaven. One etymological argument posits it derives from 'esh+mayim, fire-water.
    Shethar (H8369) – Star, from Persian.
Lightning/Plasma/Electrical/Weapons
  • Bazaq/Bezeq (H965-966) – Lightning
    Baraq (H1299-1301) – Lightning; flashing arrow. From a root meaning to thrust a flashing weapon.
    Chaziz (H2385) – Thunderbolt, lightning flash.
    Chereb (H2719) - Sword. From a root related to heat/dry causing desolation. Only one letter difference from kherub, a type of angel involved in cosmic disaster. See below under Spirits/wind/angels.
    Labbah (H3827) – Flame; flashing spear head. From a root meaning a glimmering flame.
    Lahab (H3851) – Flame; flashing blade. From a root meaning a glimmering flame.
    Lehabah (H3852) – Flame; weapon tip. From a root meaning a glimmering flame.
    Tzelatzal (H6767) – Cymbal? An instrument that vibrates when shaken.
    Romach (H7420) – Lance, javelin.
Comet/meteor/hail
  • Barad (H1258) – Meteor, (hail?)stones. From a root meaning to come down or descend.
    Kokhav Shevit (H3556+ H7627) – Comet, literally an offshoot/branch star. Not attested in the Hebrew Scriptures.
    Elghabish (H417, compound of H410 and H1378) – Hail, lit. Crystals of God. Used only in Ezekiel chs.13 & 38.
Disaster/earthquake/commotion
  • Quake/Convulse/Writhe
    • Ga’ash (H1607) – To shake, quake, convulse, totter to and fro
      Zu’a (H2111) – To tremble, quake, shiver
      Zalal (H2151 cf. H2107) – To shake, tremble, quake
      Chul (H2342) – To twist or writhe in travail and pain.
      Charag (H2727) – To shake in fear
      Charad (H2729) – To quake, tremble, be agitated
      Nut (H5120) – To quake, shake.
      Nu’a (H5128) – To totter, reel, stagger, be tossed about, wander.
      Nefetz (H5311 from 5310) – Scattering, like of pieces of a clay pot smashed with a club.
      Palatz (H6426) – To shudder, tremble repetitively.
      Ragaz (H7264) – To tremble, be perturbed
      Ruf (H7322) – To shake, rock side to side.
      Ra’ad (H7460) – To quake, shudder violently because of a dreadful event.
      Ra’ash (H7493) – To quake, rumble.
    Calamity/Disaster
    • Eid (H343 from H181) - Calamity, from a root meaning reduction to charcoal and ash.
      Ophel (H652 from H651) - Darkness, of the type that falls down as divine punishment.
      Aphelah (H653 from H651) - Gloominess, a darkness that brings sadness or depression with it.
      Ballahah (H1091 from H1089) - Terror, from a root implying the flowing away of function or life.
      Havvah/Hayah (H1942, H1962 from H1933) - Disaster, a wicked or disastrous event.
      Kishshalon (H3783 from H3782) - Toppling down into ruin.
      ‘Akar (H5916) - Disturbance, to be thrown into disorder.
      Ra‘/Ra‘ah (H7451 from H7489) - Dysfunction, unfit for its original created purpose.
Whirlwind/typhoon/cyclone/storm
  • Galgal (H1534) – Whirlwind; wheel. From a root meaning to go around in circles.
    Hamullah (H1999) – Rushing, roaring tumult; speech.
    Zerem (H2230 from 2229) – Rainstorm, thunderstorm, from a root meaning to gush.
    Sa’ah (H5584) – to rush onwards (used only of storm winds)
    Sa’ar/sa’arah (H5591 from 5590) – Strong winds and torrents of a storm; visible rage causing fear.
    Sufah (H5492 from 5486) – Cyclone/Typhoon; reed. From a root meaning to consume something with an open mouth. Yam Suf (Reed Sea) where Moses crossed in the Exodus could be "The Typhoon Sea".
    Ra’am (H7482 from 7481) – Thunder.
    Sha'avah (H7584 from 7582) – A devastating storm with crashing thunder and waves.
    Sa’ar (H8175) – To sweep something away with a stormy wind.
    Sa’ar (H8178 from 8175) – Storm, tempest.
    Se’arah (H8183 from 8175) – Storm.
    Shafah (H8192) – To sweep or scrape bare by scathing winds.
Ocean/Sea/Waves/Floods/Tsunami
  • Gal (H1530 from 1556) – Billow, mound, heap, wave, gushing water.
    Dokiy (H1796 from 1794) – Crushing, destructive waves. From a root meaning to grind into powder.
    Zaram (H2229) – To pour or gush forth in floods.
    Yam (H3220) – Sea, ocean, lake. Fresh or salt.
    Mabbul (H3999) – The Deluge, used only of Noah’s global cataclysm. From a root meaning an overflow that results in new vegetation growing up afterwards.
    Metzullah/Tzullah (H4688/6683) – The deep sea/ocean depths.
    Sheteph (H7858 from 7857) – Overflow, flood, flush with water.
    Shetzeph (H8241 from 7857) – Surge with water, downpour.
    Tehom (H8415 from H1949) - Deep sea, from a root meaning roaring, loud or tumultuous.
Dragon/Monster/Serpent
  • Behemoth (H930, majestic plural of H929) – High/Great Beast. Most likely a sauropod dinosaur. See Job 40:15-24.
    Zocheleth (H2120 from H2119) Snake, lit. retreater.
    Liviathan (H3882 from H3867) – Leviathan, dragon, sea monster. From a root meaning to twist or tie tightly together in a circle. See Job 41:1-34.
    Muppim (H4649 from H5130) - Snake, lit. swayer.
    Nachash (H5175 from H5172) - Serpent, from a root meanting to shine or forthtell omens/divine. Also by etymology H5178, nechosheth, shining brass.
    Pethen (H6620) - Snake, exact species unknown.
    Tzeph’a/Tzeph’oni (H6848) - Poisonous snake, viper lit. extruder.
    Rahab (H7292-7293) – Blusterer, stormy (metaphorically means ‘pride’). Not to be confused with Rachab, a woman’s name meaning 'wide' (H7343).
    Shefifon (H8207 from H7779) - Possibly the horned viper or adder, lit. striker.
    Saraph (H8314 from H8313) - Fiery serpent. See also under spirit/wind/angel. From a root meaning to cremate to ashes.
    Tanniyn (H8577 cf. H8565) – Dragon, sea monster, serpent, crocodile.
Giant
  • Nefilim (H5303 from H5307) – Nephilim. Fallen ones. See Genesis 6:1-4; Numbers 13:33.
    Refaim (H7497) – Rephaim. The dead ones? Derivation uncertain. See Deuteronomy 2:10-12, 20-23; 3:13; Isaiah 14:9.
    ‘Anaq(im) (H6061) – Lit. Neck-Ornament, from a root meaning to encompass or encircle. Patriarch of a race of giants. See Numbers 13:33; Deuteronomy 2:10-12, 20-23.
Spirit/wind/angels
  • Bnei haElohim (H1121 + H430) - The sons of Elohim, a term used of lesser divine beings, angels, a portion of whom departed their usual divine abode to cohabit with human females so as to produce a hybrid race of half-human, half-angel monsters. See Genesis 6:1-4; Job 1:6; 2:1; 38:7; 2 Peter 2:4; Jude 1:6.
    Kerub(im) (H3742) – Cherub, a winged creature with human-animal features. See Exodus 25:20; Ezekiel 10; 28:13-19. Also associated with cosmic disaster, see 2 Samuel 22:7-16; Psalm 99:1.
    Mala’kh(im) (H4397) – Messenger/envoy, from a root meaning to dispatch a deputy. Translated in the LXX with the Greek angelos, angel. Occurs 114 times in the Tanakh, singular and plural.
    ‘Ir (H5894) – Aramaic; Watcher, Wakeful One. See Daniel 4.
    Ruach (H7307 from 7306) – Spirit, breath, wind. Used both of natural, human and divine forces. For samples of the latter, see Judges 9:23; 1 Samuel 16:13-23; 18:10; 19:9; 1 Kings 22:19-23. I actually see a lot of evidence to suggest that ruach = Living Electric 'wind'.
    Sar (H8269) – Prince. Implies hierarchical rulership structures. Used of evil divine powers in Ezekiel 28:2; 38:2-3; 39:1; Daniel 10:13, 20; and of a good divine power, Michael, in Daniel 10:21; 12:1. See also Matthew 12:24; Mark 3:22; Luke 11:15; Ephesians 2:2.
    Saraph(im) (H8314) - Seraphim, an unknown divine creature with six wings. Associated with fire. See Isaiah 6:1-7.
Altar/Temple
  • Be’ah (H872) – Entrance, used only of the Jewish Temple’s main eastern entrance.
    Birah (H1002) – Aramaic; Temple/palace/citadel. Persian loanword used extensively in Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther and Daniel.
    Bayith (H1004) – House.
    Debir (H1687) – Inner sanctuary, that is, the Holy of Holies as a place where YHWH's word is heard.
    Heikhal (H1964 from H3202) – Aramaic; The residence of the God (Temple) or King (Palace).
    Har’el (H2025 with spelling variant H741) – Hearth-altar, lit. god-hill.
    Chamman (H2553 from H2535) – Incense altar, sun pillar. Exclusively used for altars of idolatrous sun-worship and related to the Hebrew word for the burning hot Sun, chammah.
    Lebonah (H3828 from H3836) – Incense (unprepared), from the word for ‘white’.
    Moqedah (H4169) – Hearth, the fire zone atop an altar.
    Mizbeach (H4196 from H2076) – Sacrificial altar. From a root meaning to slaughter/butcher.
    Matztzebah (H4676) – Pillar, stump, memorial place.
    Miqdash (H4720) – Sacred Place, Sanctuary, Holy Place. From a root meaning to set apart for a special function or purpose.
    Miqtar (H4729 from H6999) – Altar of Smoke, place of incense burning. The root of this word is the same as the country, Qatar.
    Qetorah (H6988) – Sacrificial incense smoke blended so as to emit fragrance.
    Qitter/Qitron/Qetoreth (H7002-4) – Incense prepared/mixed for burning.
    Qeren (H7161 from H7160) – Horns [corners] of the Altar. Derived from a root meaning to shine in a fanning ray, or grow horns.

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Brigit Bara
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Re: Creationism, Myths & Catastrophism

Unread post by Brigit Bara » Thu Dec 26, 2019 10:29 am

Catastrophism subsection: the names of the planets not found in the Old Testament

Earlier I said that the names of the planets are not found in the Hebrew Bible. They are referred to in such verses as Deut 4:12 using general terms, and forbidding the worship anything in the sky, or their idols.
  • “And take heed, lest you lift your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun, the moon, and the stars, all the host of heaven, you feel driven to worship them and serve them, which the LORD your God has given to all the peoples under the whole heaven as a heritage.
I added in the same post:

"The references to the multitudes of gods of the people around them, and their idols, are reflected accurately throughout, but the planets themselves remain nameless." » Sun Dec 22, 2019 11:33 am

When archaeology was in its earliest stages, doubt was cast on all of the locations, cities, nations, historical figures, and events of the Old Testament, but slowly as the spade turned over more and more of the ancient ruins and remains, nearly every city and all of the nations have been accounted for. Each of these had gods and idols which were, as I said, reflected accurately throughout the Bible. So for example, the god of Moab was named as Ch-mosh and the god of Assyria was named N-rgal, just as the Old Testament had related.

Again, many, but not all, of the gods of the ancients were named after the planets, which has been made clear to the modern mind by the work of Immanuel Velikovsky, and those who have carried on his scholarship. The worship of the planets was ubiquitous. This is why it may also become more appreciable to the modern mind just how countercultural it was for the Hebraic creation account and law to make it clear that the celestial bodies, the constellations, and the planets were to be used only as time pieces (Genesis 1) -- for example, for determining the solstice. Likewise, the law forbade the worship of anything in the sky, or in the heavens, or on the earth, or in the seas, or their images (the Ten Commandments). It also forbade the practice of soothsaying and astrology. Astrological fortune telling was found in nearly every culture that worshiped the planets. Many types of superstitious practices were unlawful in the Mosaic Law Code, esp. claiming to tell future events through systems of magic such as astrology. So while there is no name in the Biblical Hebrew for any of the planets, the names of the planetary gods of the surrounding nations and empires are present throughout the Old Testament.

An example of the use of the names of foreign planetary gods appears in Amos 5:25, 26:
  • Did you offer Me sacrifices and offerings
    In the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel?

    You also carried Sikkuth your king
    And Chiun, your idols,
    The star of your gods,
    Which you made for yourselves.
These are clearly the names of idols. Therefore I maintain for the objective observer to determine for himself, that while there are indeed the names of foreign gods, which in turn were planets, the Old Testament does not name the planets specifically.


**Unless the "two great lights" in Gen are Saturn and another body, then lighting the sky.
Last edited by Brigit Bara on Thu Dec 26, 2019 11:26 am, 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

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Brigit Bara
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Re: Creationism, Myths & Catastrophism

Unread post by Brigit Bara » Thu Dec 26, 2019 10:50 am

There are several popular theories which attempt to name the definitive source for the five books of Moses. One claims a Babylonian structure and influence; it is indeed the case that the Judeans were deported in 586 BC and placed around the various Babylonian provinces, including the capital.

Another claims an Egyptian source, and that is where the descendants of Jacob and the twelve tribes sojourned for 400 years, growing to a sizable population, though one might say, ghettoized within their own region of Egypt, and later used as Egypt's labor force.

Another claims a Persian influence, and still others claim that the books of Moses are simply rephrased Canaanite myths. And this is where the nation of Judea was located, in the land of the various Canaanite nations.

It is reasonable, I think, to find that the events in the Hebraic tradition pick up language and reflect customs from all of these nations and expansionist empires, because they were present and swept along with the history of the entire region, from 2000 BC onward. These cultures were the backdrop of the events described in the Bible. That is why every theory mentioned above appears to find reasonable support. But the real clue is within the text itself, which says that they were Syrians.

  • “Then the priest shall take the basket out of your hand and set it down before the altar of the LORD your God

    “And you shall answer and say before the LORD your God: ‘My father was a Syrian, about to perish, and he went down to Egypt and dwelt there, few in number; and there he became a nation, great, mighty, and populous.

    ‘But the Egyptians mistreated us, afflicted us, and laid hard bondage on us.
“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

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Re: Creationism, Myths & Catastrophism

Unread post by Yogi » Thu Dec 26, 2019 4:09 pm

I have read some other interesting items over the last few years regarding these things and have come to believe the creation model and E U are not in conflict.

The Velikovsky scenario is not necessary. What explains things better is the principals used by the creation scientists. It is taken to mean that the Earth once had a "canopy" around it at the edge of space accounting for the luxurious environment described in Genesis and found in the fossil record.

When you consider that the same would be true for the other planets, they would be seen without telescopes because of the size of their glowing spheres. At one point in history, possibly at the Exodus, the rest of the planets lost their veils. Exodus 12:12
A genuine, modern-day, nobody.

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JP Michael
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Re: Creationism, Myths & Catastrophism

Unread post by JP Michael » Thu Dec 26, 2019 6:56 pm

@Yogi

Not all creation scientists even accept the traditional version of 'canopy' theory, namely those versions popularised by Kent Hovind and Henry Morris I, that a 'canopy' of water encircled the earth which later collapsed to be one of the two contributing mechanisms of the global flood in Noah's time. Furthermore, the 'canopy' theory finds an interesting parallel in the theories set forth by Wallace Thornill and Dwardu Cardona that the earlier orbit (or if you don't agree with orbit, coaxial rotation) of Earth within the plasmasphere of our first sun, Saturn, would have resulted in abundant, global warmth with a 'mist watering the whole world' (cf. Genesis 2:6). That this is no longer the case indicates that the Earth has changed suns, to which the testimony of ancient history and mythology agrees!

I agree that the planets have 'canopies' but I define this according to modern plasma physics, that is, plasmaspheres. Where Velikovsky plays a crucial role is the initial development of the hypothesis that these planetary plasmaspheres came into contact, 'Worlds in Collision', with one another in the past causing all manner of horrendous disasters throughout human history. These disasters were often interpreted locally and culturally as the handiwork of the regional gods, the gods being the planet-actors responsible for bringing the fury of their wrath upon the Earth. Hence the rich and vibrant accounts of catastrophism throughout the annals of world mythology. It is my belief that the Hebrew account stands alone in that most of its descriptions do not have the fantastical interpretive elements of other world mythologies, preserving what is the genuine history of the world. Yet I also believe that the Bible's record of earth history is far from comprehensive, thus allowing us to explore evidence left for us in world mythology in order to attempt to reconstruct the entire picture of Earth's catastrophic past.

Most creation science ignores at best or rejects uncritically at worst, not only plasma cosmology but also the idea that planetary plasmaspheric collisions were the major overarching mechanism for not only Noah's flood, but all manner of smaller catastrophes that occured after the flood as recorded wordwide in various mythologies. That is a serious deficiency in creationist thinking that this thread was initially started to discuss in all its interlocking strands of evidence.

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