Creationism, Myth and Catastrophism

[JP Michael]

Thread continued from here.

Lloyd, any chance you can whack a thread summary on this first page of the new forum just for the sake of easy continuity? Cheers.

[JP Michael]

I just want to point out, before I go into depth about some of the matters raised by Lloyd, how important it is to compare lexical items to textual frequency and contextual semantic range of meaning. No end of fallacies occur by utilising lexical data alone, hence why I also bothered to give the relevant Strongs reference numbers for each lexical item so any interested researcher can follow up word frequencies and contextual semantic nuances for relevant words of interest using concordance searches. Just because a word can have a certain meaning or originates from a particular etymological derivation, doesn't mean it should have that meaning in a given textual context or that etymological derivation still applies. Each item needs to be assessed in their relevant contexts so as to avoid erroneous or fallacious conclusions.

"Har’el (H2025 with spelling variant H741) – Hearth-altar, lit. god-hill."
Does el = God and Har = hill?
Sounds like the Saturn configuration, i.e. the hill or mountain that appeared to reach up to Saturn at the north polar axis, where the pole star is now.

This word occurs only in Ezekiel 43:15-16, referring only to the altar-hearth of Ezekiel's temple complex. It would be a fallacy to invest too much into its disputed orthography, but I posted it as an item of limited interest.

"Ophel (H652 from H651) - Darkness, of the type that falls down as divine punishment."
Does el = God and Oph = cataclysmic darkness?
Sounds like the time of chaos during the Saturn system breakup.

Ophel is not derived from a compound; it is a separate root in and of itself. The word occurs 9 times in the Hebrew corpus: Job 3:6; 10:22 (x2); 23:17; 28:3; 30:26; Psalm 11:2; 91:6; Isaiah 29:18. Of these 9 items, only three have arguable association with cataclysm (Job 23:17; 30:26; Psalm 91:6). Of those three, Job 30:26, read in context to the whole chapter, is definitely associated with other cataclysmic concepts.

"Galgal (H1534) – Whirlwind; wheel. From a root meaning to go around in circles."
"Gal (H1530 from 1556) – Billow, mound, heap, wave, gushing water."
Sounds like the Great Flood cataclysm during the Saturn system breakup.

The issue is demonstrating that gal(gal) is associated with the Flood narrative.Whilst never used directly of the Mabbul of Genesis 7-8, it is used of cataclysmic forces in Psalm 77:18 and again in Isaiah 17:13. In Jeremiah 47:3 it is used in association with a flooding torrent (verse 2), but the context with 'chariots' infers that 'wheels' and not 'whirlwinds' is intended.

"Tehom (H8415 from H1949) - Deep sea, from a root meaning roaring, loud or tumultuous."
Brigit said it only means the sea, but if other early cultures equated it with the sky, then that may still have been the original meaning.

Brigit's analysis of Tehom could have gone much further than it did. One needs to establish from the usage in Tehom that it did mean a celestial sense of the roaring, black sea of space, as opposed to the roaring, black seas of water, rather than simply could have meant it. I think Brigit's points stand. I will delve further into this later as I do not have time to analyse it right now.

"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."
Sounds like the "ouroboros": a circular symbol depicting a snake, or less commonly a dragon, swallowing its tail, as an emblem of wholeness or infinity, which is the same as the Aten, the enclosure around early Saturn formed by the cometary debris from Venus.

I actually had the same impression and figured this could use its own in-depth study. There have been many attempts throughout the history of Biblical scholarship to identify exactly what the Hebrew 'leviathan' was, and I feel this could do with a whole new study in the light of Peratt and van der Sluij's plasma cosmology. Again, I will attempt to develop this specific study further at a later time.

"Saraph (H8314 from H8313) - Fiery serpent. See also under spirit/wind/angel."
Sounds like the dragon = comet Venus.

I do not think this can be so easily equated with an equals sign. This point needs to be argued, not simply equated.

[Lloyd]

THIS THREAD'S SUMMARY FROM 2019 TO NOW (First ten pages, mainly just what seems important to me)
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1N6D ... 2ddIM/edit

[Lloyd]

MAIN TOPICS OF THIS THREAD

My purpose for this thread was to discuss what in creationism, the Bible and ancient myths may help determine what major cataclysms occurred, how and when in ancient times.

DEFINE CATASTROPHISM
Can we agree to define catastrophism as the science of natural catastrophes or cataclysms that have caused widespread human deaths. What have been the main catastrophes?

THE BIBLE AND ANCIENT MYTHS
These are what Velikovsky originally tapped for clues about ancient cataclysms. Creationists have a lot of info that can help us.
https://creation.com/
https://www.icr.org/
Catastrophist resources can help with ancient myths.
http://www.catastrophism.com/intro/sear ... oom_query=
https://www.saturniancosmology.org/files/thoth/
https://www.thunderbolts.info/wp/daily- ... 9-archive/

ELECTRICAL FORCES IN CATASTROPHISM
EDM Formation of Atlantic Ocean & Deposition of Sedimentary Strata (EDM: electric discharge machining):
https://www.thunderbolts.info/wp/2013/0 ... an-fjords/
https://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2005 ... matter.htm
https://www.thunderbolts.info/forum/php ... 4&p=117342
https://thunderbolts.info/wp/forum3/php ... 73a5a3bb02
http://www.saturniancosmology.org/files ... sscars.txt
https://www.thunderbolts.info/wp/daily- ... 9-archive/

OTHER IMPORTANT MODELS
_Asteroid Impact Formation of Atlantic Ocean and Rapid Continental Drift:
http://newgeology.us/ & https://youtu.be/_IIE8UnvPUg
_Nebular Theory of Formation of the Solar System:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PL3YNQK960Y
_Charles Chandler’s Model for Star & Planet Formation (Charles' model also involves mainly Electrical Forces):
http://qdl.scs-inc.us/?top=6031

ADDITIONS?
Does anyone want to mention other important resources that we should be using in this discussion?

[Lloyd]

JP, what biblical Hebrew words do you consider most promising for helping prove ancient cataclysms?

Or do you think it's best to focus more on Noah's flood?

I think Gordon (Webolife) said the "fountains" were caused by meteorites hitting the oceans etc. Do you concur? I mean is that how the text seems to read or suggest or just hint?

[JP Michael]

JP, what biblical Hebrew words do you consider most promising for helping prove ancient cataclysms?

Depends what you mean by 'proof' I suppose! Word studies can be a line of interesting secondary or tertiary evidence, but contextual/thematic studies are superior in every way. It is always better to derive Biblical catastrophism and related themes from explicit statements from the texts themselves, in addition to logically deducible statements from the texts. I still need considerable time to formulate my thoughts into a coherent whole, but Velikovsky has written on this point to some length in Worlds in Collision. One of my favourite quotes from that work is the following:

The Jewish people did not obtain all of its 'supremacy' in that one day at the Mountain of Lawgiving; this people did not receive the message of monotheism as a gift. It struggled for it; and step by step, from the smoke rising from the overturned valley of Sodom and Gomorrah, from the furnace of affliction in Egypt, from the deliverance at the Red Sea amid the sky-high tides, from the wandering in the cloud-enshrouded desert burning with naphtha, from the internal struggle, from the search for God and for justice between man and man, from the desperate and heroic struggle for national existence on its narrow strip of land against the overwhelming empires of Assyria and Egypt...[1]

That is to say the Jewish nation and religion was born out of catastrophic events. If that is so, we ought to see copious reference to such themes in Scripture. Indeed, as Velkovsky said well before me, the Bible is full of such references, explicit and implicit. Such arguments do not rest on the weaker evidence of lexical studies alone.

Or do you think it's best to focus more on Noah's flood?

Obviously, the Deluge is the most blatant and explicit reference to catastrophism in the Bible. But I will admit I am not at all content with creationism's emphasis on the Flood alone at the expense of later instances of catastrophism, such as the events of the Exodus and events during the life and times of the prophets (eg. Elijah, Amos, Isaiah, Joel). As I have said before, this is a very significant deficiency in current creationist modelling and theorising. They exalt the Deluge as the be-all-end-all and ignore almost all the rest of the Biblical data regarding post-Deluge catastrophism. This is a significant error and needs remediation.

I think Gordon (Webolife) said the "fountains" were caused by meteorites hitting the oceans etc. Do you concur? I mean is that how the text seems to read or suggest or just hint?

The issue, as you know well, is defining two items in Genesis 7-8. What, exactly, are the "fountains of the great deep" and the "windows of heaven"? Most creationists suggest that the 'fountains of the great deep' are subterranean water sources that burst open, and the 'windows of heaven' are clouds of torrential rainfall. Creationist geology emphasises the 'fountains' as the primary source of flooding, with the 'windows' as secondary. I question this conclusion given the repeated emphasis in the text on the two phenomena working simultanenously, with a greater emphasis on the 'rain falling from heaven' (Gen 7:12; 8:2-3). I think Isaiah 24:18-24 has much to say in interpreting the 'windows of heaven' for it is used there of a cosmic catastrophe.

Another issue in my mind is an assumption that it is impossible for enough evaporation of the oceans to cause the destructive rainfalls the Scriptures talk about. This assumption ignores or downplays electrical weather phenomena as a primary driving force of the cataclysm, and also ignores or downplays any role of interplanetary electroplasma phenomenon as a mechanical cause of the breakup of Earth's geology. A meteor strike hitting the ocean won't cause the necessary breakup that intense electroplasma interactions would, like the proto-sun, Saturn, flaring up in contact with our new Sun's plasmasphere. Earth's proximity to Saturn during this event I posit is more than adequate as a cause for electrical continental breakup and immense world volcanism.

Creationist runaway subduction models admit they have no answer for dealing with the excess heat, that is, why did the rain cease after only 40 days? However if Saturn ceased flaring after 40 days, you have an immediate cessation of electrically-induced tectonic activity on Earth. There is no heat problem when the cause is electrical, and that cause can cease in a moment's notice.

[1] I. Velikovsky, Worlds in Collision (Doubleday, 1952), p. 297.

[CharlesChandler]

As concerns The Flood, here's my take, quoted from my article on Between Adam & Abraham:

As concerns the flood in Noah's time, most scholars looking for historicity assume that the flood would have been a river overflowing; others have studied tsunamis. Recent research has identified another possibility — there is evidence of a meteoric airburst over the Dead Sea in the Middle Bronze Age, around 1740 bce. The explosion knocked down mud-brick walls up to 10 km away, and with just half the energy of the airburst over Tunguska, Siberia in 1908 ce (which knocked down trees over 30 km away). The flash was bright enough to instantly vitrify clay, as if it had been fired in a kiln for hours. Surely anybody nearby looking directly at the airburst would have been blinded. The shock wave in the air also would have created a wave in the Dead Sea that would have crashed ashore and flooded the surrounding farms with salt water. This might explain why the land was barren through the Late Bronze Age, and wasn't cultivated again until early in the Iron Age — salt water is toxic to wheat & barley. Thus "The Flood" could have been simply a wave of biblical proportions in the Dead Sea.

The authors of the airburst research note significant parallels with the peculiar story of Sodom & Gomorrah in Genesis 19, such as the blinding light, people becoming entombed in salt (such as Lot's wife), and fire raining down from above, which would have been the meteor shower after the airburst. In the Torah, the destruction of Sodom & Gomorrah occurred on Abraham's watch, and the radiocarbon date of ~1740 bce for the airburst would seem to confirm of the Masoretic chronology, in which Abraham was born in 1813 bce. In the present thesis, Abraham couldn't have been born much before 1420 bce, which was already much too late for him to have witnessed the event. ~1740 bce was closer to the time of Noah, born in 1803 bce, suggesting that Noah's Flood was part of the destruction of Sodom & Gomorrah. The Akkadian account of the event describes both fire from above and a wave — just not from the open ocean, which is how an unusually large wave in the Dead Sea would have been described. Destruction by both fire & flood was also mentioned by Philo, Josephus, and others in the 1st C. ce, though they accepted the conventional chronology, in which the fire & flood were not coupled. Still, the Torah itself strongly implies that Sodom & Gomorrah were subjected to a flood in addition to fire from above in that the inhabitants sought safety in the hills, which is how one gets away from a flood, but not how one gets away from a flaming meteor shower and flash fires all around, where going for a swim would be a better idea.

[Webbman]

There's always the Atlanteans who managed to break through the firmament which resulted in them flooding the world with the water above somewhere around 10000 BC but you need to be a flat earther to believe that.

I know its pretty outlandish but this is the "world of lies" so anything is possible!

[Lloyd]

I lost access to this forum for a few days, but the problem is solved now, apparently.

Charles, have you read of any physical evidence of a flood with the Sodom and Gamorrah cataclysm? Do you suppose that flood was like a tidal wave from a bolide hitting the Dead Sea or maybe the Mediterranean Sea some distance away?

At any rate, Noah's flood would have occurred several centuries before that cataclysm, which latter (Sodom and Gamorrah) seems to have been local, rather than global. What persuaded me that there was a global flood was noticing that sedimentary rock strata are largely composed of either sandstone, mudstone, or limestone, usually many feet or meters thick and that it's absurd to think that only sand eroded by rainfall and deposited for thousands or millions of years over large areas, often continent-wide, and then only mud for another period of many millennia and then only lime and so on. Thick strata can only be deposited by floods (sometimes by winds, or also many here would say by EDM), not gradual sedimentation. There are said to be 6 megasequences of sedimentary rock strata worldwide (mainly in large "basin" areas, which may have formed by large bolide impacts) with nonconformities between adjacent megasequences. And the nonconformities indicate there was sheet erosion (due to "regression" or falling water levels of a flood) of short duration after each deposit of a megasequence, because there is little evidence of localized erosion, such as ditches, gullies, or canyons, between adjacent megasequences. So all 6 megasequences appear to have been deposited in a short timespan of about 6 months or more.

John Baumgardner's research team theorized that the Great Flood was caused by a large object orbiting Earth elliptically, so that the flooding occurred by tidal forces during each close approach (perigee) of the object, with about a month between each perigee, so that each flood lasted a few days, followed by falling water levels and then rising again a few weeks later and so on. The Shock Dynamics impact that split up the supercontinent occurred toward the end of the flood, so mountains didn't exist until then, so it was easier to flood the entire supercontinent before mountains formed. The sediments that formed the sedimentary rock strata came from the continental shelf of the supercontinent and other parts of the seafloor. The time of the flood appears to have been about 2400 BC or earlier. C14 dating indicates that coal, dinosaur bones etc are only 20 thousand or so years old (but C14 levels probably went up and/or down during cataclysms, so it's only a relative measure).

There are still near-Earth asteroids today, but at that time there were probably many more, which continued to cause cataclysms periodically, like the Sodom and Gamorrah impact.

Any comments?

Others here will probably want to discuss EDM involvement in ancient cataclysms, but they can bring that up when they're ready.

Webbman, why do you say only flat-earthers can believe the Atlantean theory you mentioned?

JP, is there a dictionary online of ancient or biblical Hebrew? I'd like to see one that is transliterated into the English (European) alphabet.

Maybe between you and Charles you could come to a consensus about whether Moses (or he and some contemporaries) invented Hebrew in whole or in part.

The TB team seems to suppose that the Saturn system broke up at about the time of the Great Flood. I can find quotes eventually, if you like. I interviewed Cardona on the forum a few years ago and he shared quite a bit there. I think they, like Velikovsky, suspect that the Moon was captured by Earth at that time. So it could be the Moon that was on an elliptical orbit that caused the Great Flood by tidal forces.

[Webbman]

i gather they brought the catastrophe "upon themselves" in a tower of babel kind of way and as crazy/psyop-y as it sounds breaking through the firmament is what causes the earth to fill up. So you need a firmament to break through.

i dont know the truth of it but think for a second about relativity or bending of space and time. Now take a flat earth and bend it over a globe and suddenly relativity makes perfect sense

[JP Michael]

JP, is there a dictionary online of ancient or biblical Hebrew? I'd like to see one that is transliterated into the English (European) alphabet.

Benner's Ancient Hebrew Lexicon has a limited amount of romanisation, but has the advantage of being organised by Strongs numbers, the lexical standard ever since James Strong completed his lexical magnum opus in 1890. Some of the issues I have discovered with Benner's lexical treatment is he is only interested in the Hebrew corpus (Aramaic items are omitted), his romanisation is of his own invention (ie, he does not use 'industry standard'), and the whole basis of his project is founded on the logical fallacy of Hebrew mindset vs. Greek mindset. His lexical contributions still remain of significant use, however.

As I suggested once before, I actually use e-Sword as my standard Bible program simply because it is free and has most of the resources I require (although I do donate to support the E-Sword project). E-Sword comes with Strongs Hebrew/Aramaic and Greek definitions pre-installed. Thayers Greek Lexicon and the Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB) Hebrew/Aramaic Lexicon can be added to those, also free, which I strongly recommend. The only deficiency in all those resources is their age and lexical methodologies. Thayers and BDB are decent, but there have been significant advances in lexical studies since due to the discovery of the Hebrew Qumran corpus and the Bodmer/Elephantine papyrii collections for Greek.

If investing in physical items would interest you, I actually have William L. Holliday's Concise Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, which is a 1 volume version of the far more comprehensive Hebrew-Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (HALOT), the standard modern lexicon for Hebrew studies. I also recommend Louw & Nida's Greek Lexicon, which is and excellent resource based on semantic domains rather than alphabetised entries, but has the drawback of being for specialist use; one really needs to know what they're doing with the languages to properly utilise such advanced resources.

All the above, including the full HALOT, are available on Logos Bible software if you are interested in that kind of monetary investment.

[JP Michael]

Maybe between you and Charles you could come to a consensus about whether Moses (or he and some contemporaries) invented Hebrew in whole or in part.

Consensus on this point would be meaningless. Extant scholarship cannot even decide whether the proto-Hebrew script originated in Egypt (Sachs, Goldwasser) or Canaan (Petrovich), and for those who say Egypt, whether it was a novel, albeit primitive, tool invented by Canaanite miners on the Sinai peninsula, or else a derivative of an extant but otherwise unattested alphabet in use by Egyptian nobility and priests.

I will also point out there is a treasure trove of unexcavated Hebrew texts in Saudi Arabia, the true location of Mt Horeb/Sinai. The Saudis know it and refuse to permit archaeologists into the area; worse still, they plan to bury the evidence under their 'smart city state', Neom (look it up; that's where Biblical Mt Sinai is located).

I frankly do not care much where or when Hebrew originated. The alphabet and language existed in Moses' time and he used it to record the entirety of the Torah for his own blood race who spoke and used the same (as the scraps of evidence out of Saudi Arabia demonstrates). It was not an invention of Moses' generation, that much can be concluded with certainty.

[Lloyd]

This new forum is disappointing so far. There seems to be only about 10% as much activity as before. Members must still be having problems. I had a message that I was banned permanently for spamming, which was an error and was fixed, but maybe others have had similar problems that haven't been fixed yet. Or maybe some figured they were banned and left.

I think it's worth compiling a list of major findings in catastrophism. So here 'tis.

MAJOR FINDINGS IN CATASTROPHISM
_1950 Velikovsky found that ancient myths appear to have been based on real events, i.e. large-scale cataclysms, caused by planets, comets and other objects from outer space, especially Mars and Venus.
_1980 Dave Talbott, like Velikovsky, found from myths that Earth was apparently a satellite of Saturn a few thousand years ago and was part of the Saturn system, along with Mars and Venus.
_ … Some Creationists (like Ian Taylor?) found that sedimentary rock strata were apparently mostly deposited by Noah's Flood.
_1992 Mike Fischer found that continental drift was apparently caused by an asteroid impact on the former supercontinent shortly after Noah's Flood, which also caused formation of mountain ranges.
_ … Guy Berthault did experiments that showed that sedimentary strata are formed by floods.
_ … John Baumgardner found that Noah's Flood likely was caused by a large object on an elliptical orbit around Earth, which produced tidal forces at perigee that caused megatsunamis that deposited the sedimentary rock strata in 6 megasequences at something like monthly intervals for a 6 month period or so.
_ … Charles Ginenthal on ancient maps and ice sheet flooding.
_ … Charles Chandler on electrical formation of stars, planets etc.
_ … I found that rock strata must have formed rapidly, instead of gradually.
_ … Mike Fischer reported on C14 dating of dinosaur bones, showing 20,000 to 40,000 years old.

There are plenty more to add, but I'll try to later this week. Everyone is welcome to pitch in. Maybe we can try to contact missing members too.

Thanks for the note (which follows), Nick. Good luck. You're a scuba diver now?

[nick c]

Lloyd,

Glad to see that you can post.

Yesterday we had a deluge of Noachian proportions of spam from "guests" and that discouraged members from posting.
All of the spam has been deleted and the back door seems to have been closed.
If any members from 2.0 are having problems signing in or posting to 3.0 please go back to 2.0 and send me a PM. As you know, the PM feature of 2.0 is still working.
I am periodically checking 2.0 for PM's.

We will figure out a solution. This is the first week of 3.0 and there are going to be glitches.
Nick

[Yogi]

Yes I think you are right about "glitches" or other related functionalities. Trying to add a few images won't work.Maybe its me but will keep trying.