Ancient textual evidence for planetary catastrophe?

[moses]

Genesis 2:10-14: "Now a river went out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it parted and became four river heads." One river is described as "encompassing the whole land of Havilah," one "encompasses the whole land of Cush." One "goes toward the east of Assyria...The fourth is the Euphrates." These are odd verses and rarely ever referred to, because they do not seem to match any terrain known today.

IMHO, this describes a smaller globe, and the four rivers were the great mid-ocean ridges, for reasons I will try to show. Brigit.

The four rivers were four Birkeland currents that came from Mars/Saturn and
went past the Earth in the region of 1/ the Pacific ridge, 2/ the Atlantic ridge
3/ the Indian ocean ridge and 4/ through the centre of the Earth.
Mo

[Grey Cloud]

Hi Nick,
Re the bombers: Perhaps one of the crew discarded a lighted cigar and it melted the ice sufficiently for the aircraft to sink?

And always remember Grey Cloud's Iron Law:
Whatever an expert says, always assume the exact opposite.

[Grey Cloud]

Genesis 2:10-14: "Now a river went out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it parted and became four river heads." One river is described as "encompassing the whole land of Havilah," one "encompasses the whole land of Cush." One "goes toward the east of Assyria...The fourth is the Euphrates." These are odd verses and rarely ever referred to, because they do not seem to match any terrain known today.

IMHO, this describes a smaller globe, and the four rivers were the great mid-ocean ridges, for reasons I will try to show. Brigit.

The four rivers were four Birkeland currents that came from Mars/Saturn and
went past the Earth in the region of 1/ the Pacific ridge, 2/ the Atlantic ridge
3/ the Indian ocean ridge and 4/ through the centre of the Earth.
Mo

Hi Mo,
Do you have one shred of evidence for any of the above?

[Solar]

Also, and most unfortunately, it doesn't appear that one can question the reliability of radioisotope dating without being labeled a "creationist" Nonetheless, assumptions such as ...

-radioisotope decay rates have been constant
-no "parent" or "daughter material has been added or taken away from the specimen
-"daughter" material was present at that start

... color the landscape.

[Grey Cloud]

I've asked / suggested this before but can someone open another thread for the physical evidence? I'm not interested or knowledgeable in the sciences (too many modern experts involved). I much prefer dealing with things in black and white, i.e. texts and ancient ones at that.
Thanking you in advance for your co-operation.

[Grey Cloud]

Something I forgot in my reply to Brigit. Re the longevity of the earlier Biblical characters: try dividing the age figure by 12, e.g. Adam was 230 when he fathered his first-born and 700 when he croaked. Thus:
230/12 = 19 at fatherhood and 700/12 = 58 at death.
These people used a lunar calendar.

[kevin]

Something I forgot in my reply to Brigit. Re the longevity of the earlier Biblical characters: try dividing the age figure by 12, e.g. Adam was 230 when he fathered his first-born and 700 when he croaked. Thus:
230/12 = 19 at fatherhood and 700/12 = 58 at death.
These people used a lunar calendar.

Would the years be divided by twelve?
13 perhaps?
230/13=17.69
700/13=53.85
Kevin

[Grey Cloud]

Something I forgot in my reply to Brigit. Re the longevity of the earlier Biblical characters: try dividing the age figure by 12, e.g. Adam was 230 when he fathered his first-born and 700 when he croaked. Thus:
230/12 = 19 at fatherhood and 700/12 = 58 at death.
These people used a lunar calendar.

Would the years be divided by twelve?
13 perhaps?
230/13=17.69
700/13=53.85
Kevin

Hi Kevin,
12 plus leap month apparently. You can do the maths if you wish.

[kevin]

Grey cloud,
yes of course, a couple of links to those that observed the moons rather well, and the consequences of where the crystals in the skies were.
http://freepages.history.rootsweb.ances ... /0moon.htm
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=NYPY ... source=wet
Kevin

[kevin]

Grey cloud,
this looks a note worthy link from one of the above links,
http://www.piney.com/BabIndex.html
Kevin

[seasmith]

Kevin, GC,

Re: the "moon wheels" from Kevin's freepage source above-

However here I make a category of the Indian naksatras and the moon wheel with ca 28 rays alternatively 56 rays.

For the exact counting 27 mansions of the moon would not do. The system counting nights is maybe the oldest invention and the Indians made it a system with 28 mansions and the 28 at asterism Vega was used for intercalation.

But why then 56 rays? Hard to know but the intercalation asked for following two whole years. Another possibility is that they maybe counted "forthnights" and the use of counting "new moon" and "full moon" that are natural events "as-we-see-it". The 56 so-called Aubrey holes at Stonehenge could have been the first thought when they began to make the observatory.

http://freepages.history.rootsweb.ances ... /0moon.htm

I think you are probably both familiar with T. Peratt's work-

B. Records From Antiquity With 56- and 28-Fold Symmetry
The number of 56 and 28 fold symmetry objects from antiquity
is manifest. These range from concentrical petroglyphs
around the world to geoglyphs (stone-rings), megaliths, and
other constructs. The most renowned of the 56 fold symmetric
megaliths is Stonehenge.
Stonehenge is a unique structure; a megalithic ruin (51.22
N, 0.167 W) located west of the town of Amesbury, Wiltshire,
U.K. [55]–[63].

Fig. 47. (Top Left) Windjana pictograph, Australia. (Top Right) Petroglyph,
Northern Arizona. (Bottom) Overlay of the Australia and Arizona figures. The
gray-white “embossed” figure is the Northern Arizona petroglyph while the
Australian pictograph is the “flat” black overlay. TheWindjana “ellipse” is fitted
to the outer concentric of the Northern Arizona petroglyph....
that this is a horizon image.

Other 56-fold images are found as far as 15 000 km away so
that different angles of observation should allow the location of
the incoming plasma to be determined. For example, Fig. 48

(can't copy his pictures here)

http://public.lanl.gov/alp/plasma/downl ... quityZ.pdf

Maybe counting moon intervals, maybe depicting other remarkable celestial events ??

s

[nick c]

Hi Kevin and Grey Cloud,
The lunar explanation for the ages of Methuselah and company just does not stand up to the math. Since there is approximately 12.37 lunar cycles in a year, then:
Kenan begat Mahalalel at 70...70/12.37= 5.6 years old,
Mahalalel begat Jared at 65...65/12.37= 5.25 years old,
Enoch begat Methuselah at 65... 5.25 years old,
seems way to young to be doing any begatting,
and Methuselah, at 969 y, the oldest man would be 78 years old, now that seems close, but it is hard to imagine that nobody attained an age older than 78 years.
Of interest,

A close reading of the dates in the Old Testament reveals that Methuselah is said to have died in the year of the Great Flood, but the bible does not indicate if the cause of his death was by drowning.
http://www.experiencefestival.com/a/Met ... /id/525316

My take on the extremes of age is, to whatever extent these reports are reliable, that they do not represent solar years or lunar months as we presently know them to be. (Perhaps they represent a different calendar or reckoning to another celestial relationship, perhaps one that no longer exists.) As far as I know, these precise longevities stand alone, with no clearcut reinforcement from the myths of other nations. So, imhop, in this case, conclusions based on any numerical precision are of little value and somewhat meaningless .

nick c

[Grey Cloud]

Hi Nick,
Don't know which flavour of the Bible you got your ages from but the Septuagint, which is the oldest, gives:

Adam, the first man, became the father of Seth when he was 230 years old, and lived for another 700 years, until the 135th year of Mahalalel.
Seth became the father of Enosh when he was 205 years old, and lived for another 707 years, until the 20th year of Enoch.
Enosh became the father of Kenan when he was 190 years old, and lived for another 715 years, until the 53rd year of Methuselah.
Kenan became the father of Mahalalel when he was 170 years old, and lived for another 740 years, until the 81st year of Lamech.
Mahalalel became the father of Jared when he was 165 years old, and lived for another 730 years, until the 48th year of Noah.
Jared became the father of Enoch when he was 162 years old, and lived for another 800 years, until the 280th year of Noah.
Enoch became the father of Methuselah when he was 165 years old, and lived for another 200 years, until he was taken away in the 33rd year of Lamech.
Methuselah became the father of Lamech when he was 167 years old, and lived for another 802 years. The number of years assigned to Methuselah [by the Septuagint] suggests that he survived for (?) 22 years after the time of the flood; but we know that in some copies of the text, it is stated that he lived for another 782 years [after the birth of Lamech], and died at the time of the flood.
[p81] Lamech became the father of Noah when he was 188 years old, and lived for another 535 years. Lamech died before his father Methuselah, in the 535th year of Noah.
Noah became the father of Shem, Ham and Japheth when he was 500 years old, 100 years before the time of the flood. The flood occurred in the 600th year of Noah, and he lived for another 350 years after the flood, until the 83rd year of Eber.

http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/euseb ... 1_text.htm

The Hebrew Masoretic and the Hebrew Samaritan versions give figures like those you used. They are below the Septuagint list at the above quote which comes from Eusebius' Chronicle. Eusebius mentions the Methusaleh thing.

Eusebius does a decent scholarly job in the Chronicle. He gathered, e.g., all the histories of Babylon he could and correlated the dates etc.
There is asimilar problem with the Babylonian kings. Their reigns run into figures which would make the Vedas blush. But it seems to me that something has been lost in the translation from sexegesimal to decimal. For example, the first king Alorus ruled for 10 sars, where 1 sar = 3,600 years. To me if you knock off a zero and take a sar to be a year, i.e. 360 days then we are back in the real world. Unfortunately, the Babylonians list is just regnal years not lifespans so one can't do a direct correlation. It was Eusebius who came up with the lunar 'years' idea. He mentions it in relation to the Babylonian and Egyptian dates but is silent where the Hebrew dates are concerned.

[StefanR]

Eusebius does a decent scholarly job in the Chronicle. He gathered, e.g., all the histories of Babylon he could and correlated the dates etc.
There is asimilar problem with the Babylonian kings. Their reigns run into figures which would make the Vedas blush. But it seems to me that something has been lost in the translation from sexegesimal to decimal. For example, the first king Alorus ruled for 10 sars, where 1 sar = 3,600 years. To me if you knock off a zero and take a sar to be a year, i.e. 360 days then we are back in the real world. Unfortunately, the Babylonians list is just regnal years not lifespans so one can't do a direct correlation. It was Eusebius who came up with the lunar 'years' idea. He mentions it in relation to the Babylonian and Egyptian dates but is silent where the Hebrew dates are concerned.

I could give you the opinion of Fabre d'Olivet about that if you want, but it will take some typing for me. He also makes some remarkes about the Septuagint in that respect, and the Indians in relation to the Egyptians.

[nick c]

GC:

Don't know which flavour of the Bible you got your ages from

I am using the King James, so I assume that would be the Masoretic version. The point is that I don't think that the ages of the antediluvian figures are based on a lunar calendar. This is further shown by Genesis 6:3:

And the Lord said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.

This passage is interesting because it says that in the future man will be limited to 120 years, and that is the maximum age a human can presently attain. By implication, since the ages of Methuselah and company are given in the previous chapter, this is saying that they lived a long time and in the future man will not be allowed to live that long. This excludes the conclusion that they were using a lunar calendar. Otherwise the passage makes no sense since it would be saying that man would only be allowed to live to 10 years old (120/12=10, using a lunar calendar.) Furthermore, after the deluge people were begatting at 30 years or so, and not living anywhere near as long. From this I have to conclude that the writers meant what they said, people before the deluge lived many hundreds of years. Not that I necessarily believe that to be literally true, but that rather that is what is meant in the text.
nick c