Ancient textual evidence for planetary catastrophe?

[nick c]

Hello GC,
I am not of the opinion that interpretations of myth involving human motivations, moral lessons, metaphysical interpretations, and so on, are mutually exclusive to theories of planetary catastrophism, ie it's not a one or the other proposition. It is a case of apples and oranges. Imhop these concepts were added after the fact, by philosophers, teachers, spiritual leaders of the post catastrophic era. Thinkers who tried to make sense and find relevance from a body of sacred stories, handed down and told to them from childhood, of capricious gods and impossible monsters...a surreal landscape filled with fantastic imagery. Those teachers and spiritual leaders were people of our own era, that is from the period of a stable solar system. This includes Plato, Aristotle, and authors of most other extant books, treastises, etc. They are on our side of that line, Plato, Aristotle, et al only knew regular movements of celestial bodies, other than the occaisional comet.

I would argue that conceptually Venus and Isis are very different. Ptolemic times are too late for me.

Actually, I liked the Cleopatra reference for the very reason that it is late and from Ptolemaic times. I was connecting the identity of Isis with Venus because the star of Isis is important in the Canopus Decree, which is of course a product of the Ptolemaic dynasty. Here we have a Ptolemaic Queen of Egypt equating herself with Isis/Venus, is it not plausible that a document from the same dynasty refers to Isis in the same way? Furthermore, I doubt that she would just invent the equation herself, their must have been an existing tradition which she seized upon for her own political purpose, otherwise no one would buy into it.
Isis actually possessed many of the attributes associated with Venus that is why she eventually became equated with various Venerian goddesses throughout the ancient world, including the Canaanite Astarte and Hathor in Egypt...

Eventually temples to Isis began to spread outside of Egypt. In many locations, particularly Byblos, her cult took over that of worship to the Semitic goddess Astarte, apparently due to the similarity of names and associations....
...This also led to the merger of Hathor and Isis frequently, because of common characteristics.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isis

Well wikpedia aside, Isis became equated to various Venerian goddesses and the reason for this is most logically common characteristics.
see also (the Canaanite Venus) Astarte/Isis:
http://collectionsonline.lacma.org/mweb ... 0&type=101
It is my thinking that Isis is a Venerian goddess that was imported to Egypt, although in the conventional chronology it would have been in a very ancient time, since she first appears in 5th dynasty texts. The Isis/Osiris story is parallel to Ishtar/Tammuz. Ishtar is the Babylonian goddess of Venus. Both Ishtar and Isis roam around the heavens to revive the dead God.

Notice in your quote about the archaeological and epigraphical evidence that it says Isis merged with Venus and Aphrodite. To me this implies that they were previously separate.

Seperate in the sense that they are from two different nations, but still personifications of the same planet, but as a result of cultural intercourse people connected the two by equating characteristics and attributes. This is an analogous process as would occur within the same nation, as two gods or goddessess of differing sub groups or tribes are realized to be the same, as the sub groups merge into a larger nation. That is one reason why we encounter so many names for the same gods within the same country.
Anyway, I would like to explore Isis and the calendar reform of the Canopus Decree (as I think the mainstream interpretation is flawed) in more detail later, if time and the flow of the thread permits.


With regard to "venire" and "to come," you are correct, it describes Venus as the goddess of love, she who comes to all. The phrase "[url2=http://www.yourdictionary.com/venire]ad venire[/url2]" translates as "to arrive." As an example it is also a legal expression meaning a summons "to appear" before the court for jury selection.

Noun 1. venire - (law) a group of people summoned for jury service (from whom a jury will be chosen)

So to equate the word Venus with an arrival or appearance is not a stretch. Venus is she who appeared, that is a newcomer. This interpretation is consistent with the thesis, albeit only a tiny piece of the puzzle. Of course it makes no sense if one looks through uniformitarian tinted glasses.

Pliny the Elder. Thank you very much for this, it's absolutely wonderful.

Your welcome. Pliny is cool. If I am not mistaken he perished in the eruption of Vesuvius.
Since you are English, here is the English version
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/holland/pliny2.html

If it is Venus why is it red and not green? It looks to me more like a Sun and Moon combo given that the horns and the circle are two separate parts. If the horns are Venus why aren't they red too? The Islamic crescent is Venus.

As far as the disc on Hathors headdress, I would not identify it as Venus, notice I wrote "celestial body." It is the Sun that Hathor wears on her headdress surrounded by the serpent (uraeus) and enclosed between horns. I would agree that the Islamic "star in crescent" shows the same theme as (Venus) horns surrounding the Sun god. For now I will leave it at "sun god," as I am sure any further discussion on this would derail the thread.

That's a bit unfair when the thread title is Ancient Textual evidence and you come up with websites, Velikovskian and Saturn theory texts.

I have discussed numerous ancient textual sources in the course of this thread...the Ninsianna Tablets, Canopus Decree, the Old Testament, Plato, Pliny, Aristotle, Varro and so on.
If I referred to works by writers on planetary catastrophism it is only that those scholars have already done extensive research on this subject, and their works in turn contain ancient textual references as well as antidote explanations to uniformitarian interpretations. In fact they have covered the subject so extensively that if we were to exclude topics covered in those books and journals there would be little left to discuss.

On the Aristotle quote. I don't think that I, in any way, took it out of context. It says what it says, as I reiterated in the 6 points I made at the end of the post. I would say that whether or not Aristotle (same applies to Plato) agreed with the statement is irrelevant, the point is that he is reporting what he says comes from ancient sources, whether Greek, Egyptian, or Babylonian. It says that the gods were originally the Heavenly bodies and gives a reason for the anthropomorphisation. He saw fit to include that opinion in his book. I was surprised that this was in a book from Aristotle as I consider his writing to be the at the root of uniformitarianism.

Right, back to Pliny. Did you notice either of these?

18. (20.)--WHY THUNDER IS ASCRIBED TO JUPITER.
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/pt ... ad%3D%2321

You are stealing my thunder! I was saving that for later.

nick c

[seasmith]

~

GC
“”I'd sooner read the original and make up my own mind - hence the thread title.””

Yer still accepting Some body’s translation.
Hence, the more parallel sources to compare, the better. Verdad?

GC
“”…Greeks, certainly at the time of Alexander, interacted with Indian culture and specifically with Indian philosophers.””

I consider the Indus valley to be the eastern arc of the “Fertile Crescent”

~

[seasmith]

~
Getting a bit off topic here, but in response to your comments-

GC
“”From your quote
The Greek settlers identified their god Hermes with Thoth...
None of the stuff in that quote concerns classical Greece, it is all Hellenistic Egypt. … This is a different age, more modern than ancient.::

Baboon - early form of Djehuty, Late Predyn. ca 3050 BC
(Aegyptishes Museum, Berlin)

Predynastic

“”Djehuty-(Thoth), as in periods to come, was already the protector of the art of writing, teaching and wisdom, and his spouse Seshat, likewise the protectress of writing and measuring.””

http://www.philae.nu/akhet/history1.html

GC
::Re the Judgement of Paris. I don't see it as Truth, Beauty, Love.
Paris is the archetypal creature of the senses/passions. Spoilt younger son. As the younger prince he has the perks but none of the responsibilities of th heir. Similar comments are made regarding Menalaus but he is not as bad as Paris and eventually comes good.
Paris is the man not to aspire to.
Hera - Wife of Zeus. Represents law and authority. Left brain
Athene - Human mind.
Aphrodite - Love(-) Desire, possession, lust. Right brain…. ””

~ Think it was Blake, who said something like: “ There is aught else, save Beauty and Truth”.
To which my pretentious rejoinder would be that: that ‘aught’ may be called Love.

GC
“”DNA? I wont have that sort of language in my thread thank you.“”

That comment was a little surprising…

??

[seasmith]

0123456789

"If the doors of perception were cleansed
everything would appear to man as it is,
infinite."

William Blake

[Grey Cloud]

Hi Nick,
You wrote:

Imhop these concepts were added after the fact, by philosophers, teachers, spiritual leaders of the post catastrophic era.

This, I think, is the main sticking point between us. I am arguing the contrary, that the knowledge predates anything, catastrophic or not.

Thinkers who tried to make sense and find relevance from a body of sacred stories, handed down and told to them from childhood, of capricious gods and impossible monsters...a surreal landscape filled with fantastic imagery.

This I cannot accept in any, way shape or form. I don't mean to sound insulting but I find this attitude truly arrogant. This also applies to Velikovskians and Saturn theorists in general.
[Restricting myself to the Greeks]
In the Blue corner we have: Homer, Pythagoras, Thales, Parmenides, Heraclitus, Empedocles, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle (to name but a few). All of whom had access to a substantial body of literature which is lost to us, including that of thinkers whose names have not come
down to us.
In the Red corner we have: Velikovsky, Dave Talbott, Dwardu Cardona and Ev 'Starf*cker' Cochrane. None of whom have ever seen a planetary scale plasma discharge, or a new planet enter a solar system (any solar system), or a planet change position in a solar system, or any
of the other things upon which their theories are based. And, with the exception of Velikovsky, how many original manuscripts have these people read?

According to your reasoning, the former group did not understand their own history and culture to the extent that they could not make out the 'true' message of their literary (and oral) heritage. On the other hand, the latter group, at a remove of over two millenia (almost three in the case of Homer), and from the perspective of any entirely different culture, have it sussed.

Another problem I have with the reasoning of, especially the Saturn theorists, is that they say, on the one hand that 'originally' planets=gods but that as time went on this was lost or obscured, yet on the other they constantly refer to Hellenistic and Roman notions to back up their claims. To me, this is trying to have your cake and eat it.

Both Ishtar and Isis roam around the heavens to revive the dead God.

What dead god? Or, in your terms, what dead planet?

We can look at the Canopus decree if you wish but as I stated in my last post, I don't see anything of great significance in it.

As to the Latin grammar, I don't know Latin and I'm not particularly interested in things Roman, so getting involved in tenses and participles is not something I'm that interested in.

I have just re-read the whole of Book 12, 1-10. Nowhere in there does Aristotle equate a god with a planet. He says that the gods are formed from first substances, which in turn move spheres, each of which contains a planet or planets. He also states that planets are eternal,
because they move in a circular motion, and this seems to sit somewhat at odds with the notion of a dead planet, let alone a dead god. This same first substance also do the same thing with stars which also doesn't sit too well with god=planet.

Ninsianna Tablets, Canopus Decree, the Old Testament, Plato, Pliny, Aristotle, Varro and so on.

You have indeed, but I was thinking more of:
http://www.kronia.com/library/journals/ventablt.txt
http://www.skepticfiles.org/neocat/ammi.htm
http://www.bearfabrique.org/Catastrophism/floods/ice8
http://www.egyptianmyths.net/horus.htm
http://www.roman-empire.net/articles/article-028.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isis

You are stealing my thunder! I was saving that for later.

Sorry, I wondered how you had missed it, I should have guessed. In the section you quoted from Pliny said that he was going to talk about the Great Year later but I couldn't find it anywhere. Any ideas?

[Grey Cloud]

Hi Seasmith,
You wrote:

Yer still accepting Some body’s translation. Hence, the more parallel sources to compare, the better.

Yes indeedy, but I try to off-set by getting to know which translations are deemed the best. I also have lots of other sources with which I compare and contrast things. As these are either not ancient or are ancient but 'esoteric' or 'occult' I do not cite them on this thread. I'm fighting with one arm tied behind my back.

I consider the Indus valley to be the eastern arc of the “Fertile Crescent”

So do I. In fact I have my own tin-pot theory involving a de-populated eastern Mediterannean and Middle East region, including up to the Black Sea and eastern India.

Predynastic

“”Djehuty-(Thoth), as in periods to come, was already the protector of the art of writing, teaching and wisdom, and his spouse Seshat, likewise the protectress of writing and measuring.””

Exactly, he already had the attributes from the earliest times. In your image he doesn't look much like a planet. As I've stated elsewhere, the Egyptians had a weird way of looking at things. Would you associate the god of writing, teaching and wisdom, etc with a Baboon? Wouldn't be my first choice. A Secretary bird perhaps?

BTW you have put up some great images on various threads.

~ Think it was Blake, who said something like: “ There is aught else, save Beauty and Truth”.
To which my pretentious rejoinder would be that: that ‘aught’ may be called Love.

Fair comment, but Truth and Beauty are absolutes, each exists in and of its own right. Love isn't, one needs something to love and someone or thing to do the loving. And if there is only The All, then who is loving who? Does your arm love your leg?

DNA? I wont have that sort of language in my thread thank you. That comment was a little surprising…

Why? You don't believe all this stuff the experts are cranking out on an almost daily basis, to be fact do you? These same experts can't cure the common cold but according to them cures for MS, cancer, diabetes etc, etc, are just over the horizon. And they can also tell you how closely you are related to some primate from x 'million' years ago. I've yet to across an explanation as to how DNA fits in with Darwinian evolution, i.e. how did DNA evolve?.

I'm partial to a bit of Blake:

If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite
For man has closed himself up till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern.

The Voice of the Devil
All Bibles or sacred codes have been the causes of the following Errors:--
1. That Man has two real existing principles, viz. a Body and a Soul.
2. That Energy, call'd Evil, is alone from the Body; and that Reason, call'd Good, is alone from the Soul.
3. That God will torment Man in Eternity for following his Energies.
But the following Contraries to these are True:--
1. Man has no Body distinct from his Soul; for that call'd Body is a portion of Soul discern'd by the five Senses, the chief inlets of Soul in this age.
2. Energy is the only life, and is from the Body; and Reason is the bound or outward circumference of Energy.
3. Energy is Eternal Delight.
Those who restrain Desire, do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained; and the restrainer or Reason Usurps its place and governs the unwilling. And being restrained, it by degrees becomes passive, till it is only the shadow of Desire.

The ancient tradition that the world will be consumed in fire at the end of six thousand years is true, as I have heard from Hell.

Six thousand years is roughly three ages or one season of the Great Year.

All taken from, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.
See also his 'Memorable Fancy 4' from the same book.

[seasmith]

planeto katastro

“”DNA? I wont have that sort of language in my thread thank you. That comment was a little surprising…””

Only surprising in light of the fact that, for all organic life on Earth, DNA seems to be the only physically observable common denominator.

GC
“…In your image he doesn't look much like a planet…

”

Re Catastrophe vs Planetary identity:
Neither does the Ibis, but they both present that forward-looking, probing, inquisitive countenance. [As a note, I’m not equating any of the ancient deities with planets. We’ll let the Saturn theorists do that. Attributes or not quite the same as equations ].

“s,
Have no problem with the philosophy of the thesis.
Would it count as an argument Against "Ancient Textual Evidence for Planetary Catastrophe", ?
or For the concept of a Steady State Solar System, (for say the past xx million years)?”

GC
“Everything moves, everything changes, nothing stands still.

[152e] And on this subject all the philosophers, except Parmenides, may be marshalled in one line--Protagoras and Heracleitus and Empedocles--and the chief poets in the two kinds of poetry, Epicharmus, in comedy, and in tragedy, Homer, who, in the line
"0ceanus the origin of the gods, and Tethys their mother", (Hom. Il. 14.201, 302.)
has said that all things are the offspring of flow and motion; or don't you think he means that?

Theaetetus
I think he does.

Socrates
Then who could still contend with such a great host,

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/pt ... query=152e
Parmenides said that nothing changes and that any apparent change was an illusion.
Both parties are correct, they are talking about two different things IMO. The first lot are talking about the physical universe and Parmenides is talking about the underlying Universe.
The cyclical nature of time dictates the changes. To everything a season and all that.
Modern experts can't give a reliable forecast of the weather more than three days hence yet they have no problem telling you exactly what was occurring anywhere in the universe millions or even billions of years ago.
Ignore humans for a moment and think of how many creatures Nature kills with flood, drought, landslide, earthquake, volcano, etc, etc on a yearly basis. Nature is cruel? Nature is a blind force? No. Nature is telling you that 'death' is no big deal. Death is just a transition
from one cycle to another. Today is a good day to die and all that. The actual dying can be somewhat problematic though.
Winter is the time of preparation, Spring is birth and growth, Summer maturity and fruition (reproduction), Autumn decay and death.
Everything works to that same four-phase cycle. The precession of the equinoxes or the Great Year is exactly the same.
Planetary catastrophe is definitely on the menu as far as the Ancient Wisdom is concerned. Though, theoretically at least, we could stop it.””
…

With all due respect partner, thou seemest to be 'jitterbugging' around this one.

GC
“BTW you have put up some great images on various threads.”

Thank you
~

Maybe Blake was an Alchemist ??

[junglelord]

Modern experts can't give a reliable forecast of the weather more than three days hence yet they have no problem telling you exactly what was occurring anywhere in the universe millions or even billions of years ago.

Its amazing how they act like they must be right.
Forever we are told they are smarter then us....the scientist.
We are chastised for thinking something other then what they dream up.
Our dreams are babble.
Their dreams are solid facts.
Experts running around telling us what imaginations are valid.


I believe in free thinking.
I believe every idea is a seed.
Not all seeds germinate.
Some are against just spreading seed around.
They only plant in rows.
Very linear.

In the end none of us can predict the weather past three days.
I think that says a lot.
I would rather tend to my own garden then bother running around
pointing out so called "weeds" in other peoples gardens.

This is free gardening.
Its based on cycles and seasons.
It is not time and money big business.
Its your own garden.
Yet they act like a conglomerate who own all the wealth.

Science and Religion at present have no seperation...full of weeds.
Trying to choke the life out of all of us.
However your own ideas and dreams....they are the garden to cultivate.
Ignore the overlords and grammer police.
We need to ignore small minds and listen to our innear voice.
The gardens all look good.
Cheers.
JL.

[nick c]

Here is some more evidence from Babylonian cuneiform tablets that there was something "amiss" with the planet Venus.
These are astrological interpretations of various observations of Venus made by ancient Babylonians, and includes the previously discussed Ninsianna (Amizaduga) tablets, plus many others. The date is probably early 1st millenium BCE, I believe that the authors are looking at a date ca 1000 BCE at least for some of the tablets. However, the tablets could be copies of older observations, so dating is difficult, but for our purposes we can simply say they represent ancient Mesopotamian observations with astrological commentary. Here is information on the book, and the authors who made the translations.

This third fascicle of Babylonian Planetary Omens contains the edition of all cuneiform texts dealing with the planet Venus known to us. Most of these tablets are kept in the British Museum; the large number of unpublished texts were transliterated and the previously published texts were checked and collated from the originals. The texts are accompanied by translations, and each group of texts is commented upon by David Pingree from the point of view of the text history and astronomical significance. A general introduction, also by David Pingree, analyzes the descriptions of Venus that occur in the texts in terms of astronomical phenomena. Indices are included to facilitate the study of this large corpus.
More details
Babylonian Planetary Omens: Part Three
By Erica Reiner, David Edwin Pingree
Contributor Erica Reiner
Published by BRILL, 1998
ISBN 9056930117, 9789056930110
http://books.google.com/books?id=j1cHZv ... ry_s&cad=0

The authors are strict uniformitarians, and consequently, their analysis is biased by the a priori assumption that the Venus appeared to move in the same way then, as it does today. That is to say, the possibility that the observations may be evidence that Venus and/or Earth may have moved on different orbits is not a viable option, indeed, mentioning such would be academic suicide. So this initial bias will color their comments when anomalous phenomena are reported by the Mesopotamian observers, but I will examine them from the point of view of what was being reported, not what is "astronomically possible."
It is my opinion that the tablets were copies of observations and their associated astrological omens from an earlier time, it is also possible that they represent the transition of the Venus comet from an elliptical orbit to the present one. The Venus comet, on an elliptical orbit could have had a perihelion (closest approach to the Sun) somewhere in the vicinity of the present orbit of Venus. And an aphelion (farthest point from the Sun) possibly beyond (and intersecting) the orbit of Earth, or, falling just short of the orbit of Earth which means it would have at that time been in an [url2=http://www.heavens-above.com/glossary.a ... ior+planet]inferior[/url2] (to Earth) orbit. Again, not much can be said about details of the orbits of Earth and Venus, other than the descriptions are not consistent with the present. Whether there are differences in the orbits (and/or inclinations to the ecliptic) of Earth and/or Venus is yet to be determined.

[url2=http://books.google.com/books?id=j1cHZv ... t#PPA10,M1]Babylonian Planetary Omens[/url2]

VAT 10218:67: "Venus- in her right horn a star comes close to her"
VAT 10218:68 "Venus- in her left horn a star comes close to her."

This is a description of Venus as a disc, displaying a crescent phase. The ancients all around the world associated Venus and its' personified deities with horns, her symbol is often represented by a cow or a bull. Although there have been a few reports of people with sharp eyes and the best possible conditions seeing this phenomenon today that explanation appears to be inadequate to explain such an observation. The report is that a star appeared near one horn or another implying that Venus appeared as a sizeable disc. The horns of Venus, as seen through a telescope today are much more exagerated than the crescent of the moon forming an exaggerated C shape, due to the fact that Venus has an extensive atmosphere.

K.3601:24=K.2346:14=ND 4362:8 "Venus has a beard."
K.3601:25=K.2346:15=ND 4362:9 "Venus rises and has a beard."

This says quite literally...Venus is a comet, or, Venus has cometary tail. "Bearded star" is an ancient term for comet, our word comet is derived from the Greek "kometes" which means "long haired star." If Venus was already in an orbit inside of the Earths' orbit, perhaps it's plasmasheath was still in glow mode or was at times in glow mode, giving Venus the appearance of having a glowing cometary tail.
See [url2=http://www.jstor.org/pss/1256726]The Bearded Venus[/url2].

It is also known that what for us is the "tail" of a comet was for the ancients its "beard."

That the tablets use the expression "Venus has a beard" plainly states that the planet was displaying a shining cometary tail, it is a straight forward interpretation of the text. The uniformitarian bias of the authors (of Babylonian Planetary Omens) prevent them from understanding what was literally stated in the ancient tablets- Venus is a comet!
In addition to this:

9.1 Venus has a "head" or a "rear."

In todays terminology the comets are described as having a "head" as well as a "tail."

VAT 10218:2 "Venus -- her light is terryfying(?)."
K.800:8 "Venus flashes (sur) and her light falls on the earth." For SUR see BPO 2,18-19
D.T.47:6 "Venus--at her appearance (KUR) her light is as smoky as fog."

The authors state that this indicates some sort of cloud or atmospheric phenomenon, however this is selling the Babylonian observers short. Comets are often described as "smoking stars" or terrifying stars. The tablets are not saying that the light is obscured by fog or a cloud, but rather the light itself is "smoky as fog," describing a diffuse glowing coma around the planet. The authors are having more difficulties relating this to the view of Venus today.

VAT 10218:11: "Venus at her appearance halves heaven and stands."....
...In omen 15, Venus appears ina MURUB4 AN-e, "in the middle of the sky"; this expression, since the omen affects the kings of all four quarters, must be intended to refer to midheaven. Venus, of course, can never be seen so high above the horizon at night...
...These kings, of course, are simply repeated from omen 15 where their presence is motivated by Venus' being "in the middle of the sky," a position it no longer enjoys, even in fantasy, in omen 16.

The authors are perplexed by the statement that Venus' is seen in the Midheaven. They call it a fantasy, and elsewhere in the book an "astronomical impossibility" which causes them to offer a rather lame alternative about splitting the horizon, even though the text plainly tells us that Venus is in the midheaven. Yet this is reminiscent of Isaiah 14:12-15 where Lucifer (a Latin name for Venus) is said to have destroyed cities and tried to reach the heights of heaven (directly overhead, ie- the midheaven) and was cast down (only visible near the horizon before sunrise or after sunset) and became the morning star. In my opinion there are two possibilities here, either Venus was seen blazing overhead (in the midheaven) at night or it was so bright that the comet Venus could be seen overhead in the daytime, or both. This was not a calculated astrological position, it is plainly an observation since that is consistent with the content of the rest of the tablets and as the words "at her appearance" would indicate.


I have only scratched the surface of the valuable information contained in these tablets, and have summarised some of the points. For instance, Venus mentioned as having a beard appears other than the particular instance to which I referred. There is also mention of diffuse glows, "sirhu," surrounding Venus. Much of the value that these texts can provide has escaped us due to the inability to read what is plainly written in the texts by uniformitarian researchers.
nick c

[seasmith]

NICK C,


Hmmmn... That whole book of Isaiah's seems to be full of earth-shaking destruction and desolation.


s

[nick c]

Hmmmn... That whole book of Isaiah's seems to be full of earth-shaking destruction and desolation.

Hello seasmith,
Yes, Isaiah is an especially catastrophic book. But the Old Testament is filled with catastrophes. An OT weather forecast might read...partly sunny with a 60% chance of a rain of fire and brimstone
It is interesting that the writers of the OT interpret it as God meting out punishment for man's sinfulness, when human's were actually just in the wrong place at the wrong time. This was the Hebrew culture's subjective interpretation of the awesome but impersonal forces of nature.

nick c

[moses]

Good work Nick.
Mo

[Grey Cloud]

Hi Nick,
I stand corrected on the tablets. Plus I'm awarding you an extra point for the word 'fascicle'.
There is an element of synchronicity in this (I've had a really weird couple of weeks). Since I finished the Iliad a couple of weeks ago it has been raining insights. Because of these insights I had another look at the affair of Ares and Aphrodite from the Odyssey (as quoted in one
of my previous posts).
Once again I went from yes it is to do with catastrophe, to no it isn't, to don't know. I'm also trying to interpret this story in light of my esoteric interests which is related to catastrophism - I went throught the same thing with this also.

I agree with your assessment of the uniformitarian academics coming up with lame reasons/justifications. These Babylonian guys were first rate astronomers and they didn't make up the prediction part in order to keep the funding coming in. The prediction/prophesy thing is part and parcel of their religion/science and overall worldview. The movement, beards, tails etc is what they observed. They did not observe a regular planet doing its regular things and then add on all this stuff to impress the king or whoever.

Where, I think, I disagree with you is in calling Venus a comet. I can see where you are coming from with the beard and tail but I get the impression from reading the book that these Babylonians were decribing something they knew but that something was doing something unusual or irregular. This is how they are getting the prediction part. They know the attributes of Venus and know the attributes of the other bodies so they can do their calculations as to what factors will be predominant.

If Venus was an intruder or newcomer then I don't think they would be abel to be so 'exact' or specific. Against this one could argue that if this eccentricity of Venus had been going on for some generations(?) then they could have built up a 'picture' of what happens when she is in a certain spot or exhibits a tail or beard etc.

Now, there's interesting. I just did a search this book for 'Mars' and on page 6 it states that "Mars appears only twice in our material. First under the name MUL MAN-ma, 'the Strange Star' it comes close to Venus and secondly as MUL Makru, the 'Red Star'it enters into Venus and does not come out again".
This brings to mind the affair of Ares and Aphrodite. Ares is an outsider to the Olympians in that they don't like him. Aphrodite is loved by them. In some versions of his birth he is born of Hera only, he has no father, (which should be Zeus). Here's a bit of Homer:
Homer, Iliad 5. 385 ff (trans. Lattimore) (Greek epic C8th B.C.) :
"[Zeus speaks :] `Many of us who have our homes on Olympos endure things from men, when ourselves we inflict hard pain on each other. Ares had to endure it when strong Ephialtes and Otos, sons of Aloeus, chained him in bonds that were too strong for him, and three months and ten he lay chained in the brazen cauldron; had not Eeriboia, their stepmother, the surpassingly lovely, brought word to Hermes, who stole Ares away out of it, as he was growing faint and the hard bondage was breaking him.'"
I'll read up on this story later but here we have Mars in chains again. In fact several characters get to beat up on Ares (Athene, Herakles and Hephaestos more than once). My money would be on Mars being the 'newcomer' to the solar system and Venus moving around as a result. Are
there any 'Mars tablets' that you know of? [No jokes about Mars bars please].

It seems to me that the authors of this book know nothing about mythology in general, only astronomy and how to read Babylonian.

These ancient texts always raise more questions than they provide answers. Still, it keeps me off the streets.

[For some reason the post reply bit wont work properly on this computer, I can't quote or use any other buttons or smilies. Worked okay on the pc I used prior to its death this afternoon]

[nick c]

Greetings Grey Cloud,

Plus I'm awarding you an extra point for the word 'fascicle'.

Yes, when I first saw that, I thought it was a racing bike

These Babylonian guys were first rate astronomers and they didn't make up the prediction part in order to keep the funding coming in. The prediction/prophesy thing is part and parcel of their religion/science and overall worldview. The movement, beards, tails etc is what they observed. They did not observe a regular planet doing its regular things and then add on all this stuff to impress the king or whoever.

Agreed. The observations were of paramount importance in their society, not to be trifled with. This was serious business to them, each observation was an omen or portent having benefic or malefic influences for the king, the land, and all his subjects. It is somewhat insulting when modern investigators imply that the astrologer/astonomer/priests could not comprehend the effect of an earthly cloud or fog on the appearance of a planet.

Where, I think, I disagree with you is in calling Venus a comet.

We (most planetary catastrophists) only call Venus a comet because that is the manner in which it was described by the ancients. We must remember that the ancients typically referred to a variety of celestial bodies as "stars." So fixed stars, planets, meteors, and comets are "stars," using some adjective to distinguish between the types, for example: wandering star (planet), falling star (meteor), and hairy star, bearded star, feathered star, sword star, serpent or dragon star (all comet names.) Venus is associated with all these names in one place or another. Of course, the modern concept of a comet compared to the Venus comet is like comparing the 'Geico gekko' to Godzilla (hmmm the celestial fire breathing dragon never leaves our psyche.) The EU gives credence to this new view of comets in that any object, regardless of size, can appear as a "comet" (ie with a glowing plasma tail and diffuse coma) given an orbit which subjects it to changing electrical conditions.

Are
there any 'Mars tablets' that you know of?

I don't know of any 'Mars tablets' as such, however, Mars had a major role as did other bodies. [url2=http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/00sub ... tm#Planets]Mars[/url2] was devastated, getting the worst end of the exchanges. I have limited my focus to texts dealing with Venus, for simplicity. Imhop, the entire solar system has been radically reordered within the collective (pre written history) memory of the human race. The most severe catastrophes must have taken place during this earlier time. This reordering may not have been completed until historical times. The placing of Venus in it's present orbit may have been the last act of the drama.

nick c

[Grey Cloud]

Hi Nick,
The observations were of paramount importance in their society, not to be trifled with.
I dare say that there could be serious implications for ones health and well-being. I've just come across this from Manly P Hall:

The Babylonians were 'searching the heavens for Truth, not facts'.

I thought you were using the word 'comet' in the more general sense and I don't have problem with that.

I did some reading up on Ephialtes and Otos last night. Their names mean 'nightmare' and 'doom'. I don't have the necessary astronomical knowledge, of constellations etc, to be sure but my Spider Senses tell me that the story is telling you in what part of the sky these two appeared etc. For example:

Pseudo-Hyginus, Astronomica 2. 40 (trans. Grant) (Roman mythographer C2nd A.D.) :
"[Constellation Krater, the Bowl.] Others [it is] the jar into which Mars [Ares] was thrown by Otus and Ephialtes."

They grew by 'nine fingers' each day. Mars/Ares went out to fight them but was 'captured' and locked in a 'bronze' jar or vase for 13 months (a lunar year). Eventually Hermes/Mercury had to rescue Ares who was nearly dead. Ephialtes and Otos died young, before they 'grew beards'.

As usual, when reading up on this I got side-tracked and ended up reading all sorts of stuff about Ares. I have reconsidered my statement in my last post about Mars being the 'newcomer'. I don't think he is a newcomer as such but that his original position or
station was further out in the solar system as he appears to be the one who is constantly involved in battling 'giants'. This would also make more sense in that Ares is an Olympian but one who is 'kept at arms length' so to speak by the other gods. He's tolerated rather than
liked.
In the age of the Titans, the planet Mars was associated with Dione (Goddess) and Krios (Ram, ruler, great lord). It had nothing to do with war as such.

The way I see things at the moment is that the Titanomachy is a re-jigging of the solar system. The subsequent battles between individul Olympians and various 'monsters' is the aftermath of this, i.e. various stragglers and rogue bodies being disposed of as their
orbits bring them back into the solar system, or close proximity to it.

If I can make some time I will have a look at the other tales involving Ares and 'giants etc.