Creationism, Myth and Catastrophism

[Lloyd]

JP, you're not upset that Charles has his own view of history, are you?

Both of you guys (and others), I repeat: what are your best evidences for your dating of the Amarna period … [and do you have comments on Rohl's quotes above? Looks like Rohl dates Amarna a few centuries earlier than Velikovsky does.]

Of course, you can take your time answering, but I'm eager to hear of what your evidences are. And I may keep looking elsewhere for evidence too.

[JP Michael]

By use of retrocalculation software it can be confirmed that only once in all recorded history has a total eclipse happened over Ugarit at sunset, at 6:09 pm on May 9th 1012 BCE. So if the interpretation as an eclipse is correct, there can be no doubt at all over the date.

My issue with this comes from the EU perspective of earth-celestial history: how can one retrocalculate an eclipse of the sun by the moon given the uncertainty of the positions of the planets during the catastrophic upheavals noted historically and mythologically in the period 1500-747 BCE? How do you know this eclipse was the moon and not Mars or Venus passing between sun and earth?

JP and Charles (and anyone interested), what are your best evidences for your dating of the Amarna period and do you have comments on Rohl's quotes above? Looks like Rohl dates Amarna a few centuries earlier than Velikovsky does.

I already quoted Velikovsky's own summary here. I do not want to type all that out again!

JP, you're not upset that Charles has his own view of history, are you?

There's a difference between having a view, and having an incorrect/falsified view. The evidence I have surveyed thus far continues to suggest that Charles' view is nothing more than ad-hoc pseudohistory based on faulty or falsified assumptions and a lack of willingness to engage critically with empirical evidence that flatly contradicts his position. Instead, he just builds more and more ad-hoc 'may have' hypotheses, much like evolutionary theory does, to ensure his whole edifice looks like it's still standing.

Please keep in mind I am preparing for MTh research (perhaps PhD if my grades are good enough) so most of my attention is focused on that at the moment. I will be sharing my research as I go as much of it is pertinent to this thread & forum. I will be starting with an in-depth project on the Hebrew dragon (leviathan/tanniyn) and the changing sky of the ancient Hebrews.

[Brigit]

Lloyd wrote: ↑Sun Jan 12, 2020 9:45 am
By use of retrocalculation software it can be confirmed that only once in all recorded history has a total eclipse happened over Ugarit at sunset, at 6:09 pm on May 9th 1012 BCE. So if the interpretation as an eclipse is correct, there can be no doubt at all over the date.

My issue with this comes from the EU perspective of earth-celestial history: how can one retrocalculate an eclipse of the sun by the moon given the uncertainty of the positions of the planets during the catastrophic upheavals noted historically and mythologically in the period 1500-747 BCE? How do you know this eclipse was the moon and not Mars or Venus passing between sun and earth?

While I think the TB Project has been non-commital about the dates, except to say that the break up of the Saturnian system happened within human memory, I would be interested to know if there are any of the EU scientists who have worked out weather the Earth captured the moon at that time.

How the Earth got its moon is not settled in mainstream astronomy, but it does appear that more and more science media assumes the moon was formed in its present position, as a companion of Earth -- eg, The Big Splat. But there is still room for those in the mainstream who say the moon was captured. I expect there may be a division within the Electric Universe as well, at least about the timing of the capture of our satellite.

I think the evidence is overwhelming that it was captured. The only plain statements about the capture of the moon I recall just now is in the POTD which describes the inclined orbit around the earth as one indication that it was captured.


It shares a similar axial tilt with Jupiter, which would associate it as possibly a former satellite of that planet, rather than of Saturn.


Perhaps someone knows of a Kronos article or a chapter in Velikovsky I can have a little look at.

[JP Michael]

Perhaps someone knows of a Kronos article or a chapter in Velikovsky I can have a little look at.

You might like to check out Velikovsky's unpublished manuscript In the Beginning. I've only skim read it but i remember it having a portion on the moon with mythological citations of its origin. It'd be a good place to start. Lloyd might know of some articles from Kronos, SIS, Pensee or others hidden behind that paywall.

[Lloyd]

CATASTROPHISM SEARCHES
You can do searches behind the pay wall for free and get a few lines of context. I did a search now on <Moon captured> without quotes and got 192 quotes from catastrophist literature at http://www.catastrophism.com/intro/sear ... t%5B%5D=-1

One quote says Bellamy theorized that the Moon was captured 11,500 years ago. I did an interview with Cardona in 2010 to 2011 at http://www.thunderbolts.info/forum/phpB ... =10&t=3824 and we discussed the Moon a little, I think. I'd have to look through the thread to find it. But I think he said the Saturn system apparently broke up about 4,500 to 5,000 or so years ago and that the Moon was captured at that time. He also agrees in the Thoth newsletter at https://www.saturniancosmology.org/files/thoth/ that a great flood occurred during the breakup at that time, partly from water that was previously suspended in the tornadic plasma column between the four planets of the Saturn system.

JP, I'm sure Charles is interested in any solid evidence you have, regardless of where it leads. We probably all look forward to the best evidence you (and anyone else) have to share.

[JP Michael]

Thanks for that tip, Lloyd. I realise I was fairly harsh in my criticism of Charles but I would hope you'd both be as critical of my proposals as well.

I will, at some point, actually register for a time in order to access the Catastrophism literature for my upcoming projects, but not yet (and when I do I will probably just spend a few days to download the whole archive to my dropbox!)

In other news,

Subject: Creationism, Myths & Catastrophism: Biblical Hebrew Catastrophism Words List

I have omitted reference to the gods and names of mentioned gods, as that deserves more intense treatment on its own

I am rather glad I waited on this because I have stumbled across a scholarly work that covers that entire subject in 1001 pages of ANE studies:

K. van der Torn, B. Becking and P.W. van der Horst, Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible. Brill/Eerdmans, 1999.

The book has entries divided into three descriptive sections and a reference section:

• I. Word Etymologies, including comparisons to ANE cognate languages and other pertinent linguistic data.
• II. ANE/Mediterranean cultural/religious/historical context. This section does not incorporate Biblical data, only extra-Biblical.
• III. Biblical context. This section only incorporates Biblical data, not extra-Biblical. Includes speculative and variant readings across manuscript families (eg. Masoretic vs. LXX vs. Latin vs. Syriac, etc)
• IV. Reference material.

Furthermore, the work covers the entire Biblical corpus, OT, NT and Apocrypha (eg. 1-4 Maccabees, Tobit, Sirach) but not Pseudepigrapha (eg. 1-4 Enoch).

The work does suffer some notable deficiencies, namely lack of any acknowledgement of or interaction with scholarship regarding the Saturnian configuration. This means that some of the entries have potentially skewed or misapplied interpretations, particularly the Moon, which, as Talbott's The Saturn Myth repeatedly points out, is regularly misinterpreted for the revolving Saturnian crescent in ANE iconography and religious art.

Still a very solid resource as it is replete with reference material and worth the spam from Academia to download a copy (and fortunately the notifications spam can be turned off in your academia profile settings, or unsubscribe!)

[Lloyd]

JP, I see that Wikipedia also has a topic on Bible Deities at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category: ... brew_Bible

They have 37 entries at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Baal
3 at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Beelzebub
and 9 at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Yahweh

After those 3 links, they have a link to the Dictionary you mentioned, followed by 56 other related links. Under A they list Anat, Asherah, Astaroth, Astarte all of which I think Velikovsky considered to represent the planet Venus, which Aten is also likely related (as Ouroboros). They also list "Asherah pole" there, which links to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asherah_pole which I wanted to check out. It says as follows.

An Asherah pole is a sacred tree or pole that stood near Canaanite religious locations to honor the Ugaritic mother-goddess Asherah, consort of El.[1] The relation of the literary references to an asherah and archaeological finds of Judaean pillar-figurines has engendered a literature of debate.[2]
The asherim were also cult objects related to the worship of the fertility goddess Asherah, the consort of either Ba'al or, as inscriptions from Kuntillet ‘Ajrud and Khirbet el-Qom attest, Yahweh,[3] and thus objects of contention among competing cults. In translations of the Hebrew Bible that render the Hebrew asherim into English as "Asherah poles," the insertion of "pole" begs the question by setting up unwarranted expectations for such a wooden object: "we are never told exactly what it was", observes John Day.[4] The traditional interpretation of the Biblical text is that the Israelites imported pagan elements such as the Asherah poles from the surrounding Canaanites. In light of archeological finds, however, modern scholars now theorize that the Israelite folk religion was Canaanite in its inception and always polytheistic, and it was the prophets and priests who denounced the Asherah poles who were the innovators;[5] such theories inspire ongoing debate.[6]

The Garden of Eden contained the sacred tree, or tree of life, as per the Saturn myth. Eden appears to be equivalent to Aten, the ouroboros, the sacred circle, formed by comet Venus around the Saturn configuration. As above, so below. Adam and Eve had doppelgangers in the sacred circle in the Garden of Eden. The tree was the appearance of the plasma column, the angel, or ornament on top of a Christmas tree is the Saturn configuration with its plasma column. Also, Jack and the beanstalk with the giant and the goose that laid golden eggs. Saturn looked like a golden egg. Jack may have been Mars, who cut down the beanstalk, severed the plasma column. Mars was also Santa, who, prior to that, went up and down the Christmas tree at the north pole.

The altar may also have represented the polar column. Cain and Abel made altars to burn incense or something. Altars, like pyramids, obelisks etc, may have represented the polar column.

[Brigit]

catastrophism subtopic: lunar capture

Thank you for the resources regarding the timing of the capture of the moon. In Velikovsky's unpublished book, he said,

There is no evidence to suggest whether the Moon was a planet, a satellite of another planet, or a comet at the time of its capture by the Earth.

This work has the feel of a 2nd or 3rd draft, and his focus in this chapter is on correlating myths from both sides of the Atlantic which preserve folk stories about the moon. So when he says there is no evidence one way or another for the previous status of the moon, he means in the myths. He introduces physical arguments occasionally in this section, and they are fascinating, but his primary concern is with presenting the legends he has found. He concludes the earth once did not have a moon.

Whatever atmosphere it may have had(13) was pulled away by the Earth, by other contacting bodies, or dissipated in some other way.
Since the time the Moon began to accompany the Earth, it underwent the influence of contacts with comets and planets that passed near the Earth in subsequent ages.

Whether a person approaches the problem here from a conventional astronomical viewpoint, or from an Electric Universe standpoint, the moon is strange because it is so bone dry. All of the supposed icy deliveries of water from space debris simply does not show on the moon, but managed to fill the ocean basins on earth. And comets also have proven to be arid bodies. Also, the moon was barely splashed with ocean water, in any other model.

The so-called discoveries of water on the moon always fray with time. The fact that these two bodies accompany one another and one did not get wet is one of the most wonderful scientific opportunities for study in the entire solar system. It provides the most important physical laboratory for electrical scarring possible, because the two are partners but bear completely different electrical scars. This is what I have been hyperfocused on for the last 10 years.

The mass of the Moon being less than that of the Earth, the Moon must have suffered greater disturbances in cosmic contacts. During these contacts the Moon was not carried away: this is due to the fact that no body more powerful than the Earth came sufficiently close to the Moon to take it away from the Earth for good; but in the contacts that took place the Moon was removed repeatedly from one orbit to another.

Here Velikovsky faces a dragon of his own. How could there have been so many close planetary encounters, so close that there are intense electrical discharge exchanges, and yet the moon retains its partnership with the earth? This seems rather a hurdle to overcome -- or maybe it is the most important hint about the timing of the capture. Here Velikovsky has suggested a few lunar orbital jumps, a little reminiscent of an electron jump in an atom. If anything like this could occur, it would have to be observed among the moons of Saturn or Jupiter in real time. Otherwise, this is too hard of an argument to sustain. There have to be other options, preferably several.

The variations in the position of the Moon can be read in the variations in the length of the month. The length of the month repeatedly changed in subseqent catastrophic events—and for this there exists a large amount of supporting evidence.

A subject everyone here knows more about than I do.

[Brigit]

catastophism subtopic: the motion of Saturn and its speed in space prior to capture

Now just for fun I wanted to see how far Saturn could travel through empty space towards the Sun in 13 centuries,
at its present speed.

8760 hours/year x 21,675 mph Saturn = 189,873,000 miles per year
This is roughly 2 astronomical units per year.

That means Saturn could travel 2 AU per year, and 200 AU per century. The orbit of Pluto ranges from @30-40 AU distance from the Sun per year.

Clearly, this does not mean it did, or that it has not been either accelerated or slowed during capture, or barely moving relative to the motion of the sun away from it, etc etc. But I don't think that Saturn and Jupiter (plus others possibly) were sitting in space stationary relative to the sun when they were captured, so I just did this to show myself that the speed of bodies at their present rates could be significant enough to make a difference in terms of human centuries. It's not a real calculation of anything.

Supposing a year 3300 BC for the break-up of the Saturnian System, with satellite earth in tow; the sun could have swept up Saturn&co when it reached @70 AU, the radius of the heliosphere (where crossed by a Voyager). This could have happened within a century.

So far, there is plenty of time for regularization of the sky and the moon by 2000 BC. The use of known astronomical events in archaeology after that time would not have to be discarded.

[Brigit]

Now if I am lucky, webolife will come over and write me a ticket for breaking the law of the conservation of energy.

[Lloyd]

MOON FORMATION ETC

Brigit, here are some of my favorite authors on Moon formation etc.

Mike Fishcer
https://www.newgeology.us/presentation4.html
https://www.newgeology.us/presentation47.html

Charles Chandler
http://qdl.scs-inc.us/?top=11388
http://qdl.scs-inc.us/?top=15407
http://qdl.scs-inc.us/?top=11405

Creation.com
http://qdl.scs-inc.us/?top=12625

Charles' model is electrical, but he explains elsewhere what's wrong with other EU ideas on that.

[JP Michael]

I do not understand the emphasis upon meteor impacts in the material cited above when the majority of cratering is caused via EDM. This is not to deny some significant impact events in the past, neither does it deny cratering (calderas) via volcanism (which is, essentially, related to electrical discharge phenomenon). But impact craters have specific characteristics, especially the sedimentary folding at the crater rims as the ejecta folds the underlying geological layers back over itself. Volcanism has its own distictive cratering features, especially non-circular calderas and copious basalt formations. EDM exhibits scalloping, crater chains and craters-within-craters, in addition to fractal chasms and production of chondrules.

Furthermore, electrical discharge in cosmic plasmas can cause instantaneous 'accretion'. It does not require gravitational attraction, neither millions of years, to 'accrete' a lump of rock via a single ED event.

[Lloyd]

IMPACT CRATERS

JP, I listed some sources on EDM impact theory a few weeks ago in this thread and some non-EU theories too. And I said recently that I'll let EDM proponents bring up the topic here when they're ready. So maybe now is the time to discuss that a little at least.

Following are some quotes from Charles first.

Re: New Crater on Moon
http://www.thunderbolts.info/forum/phpB ... &start=135
_by CharlesChandler » Tue Mar 04, 2014 6:04 pm
_justcurious wrote:
- the crater shapes are very difficult to explain with an "impact only" hypothesis
_[[CC:]] They are difficult to explain purely with Newtonian mechanics, which would predict oval-shaped craters, and we only find circular craters. But that doesn't prove that the craters were gouged out by EDM. I rather think that the impacts generate thermonuclear explosions. With velocities greater than 10 km/s, how could they not? The instantaneous pressure on impact should be off the charts. The circular craters are then created by the relativistic velocities of the nuclear ejecta, where the radial velocities are so much greater than the incident velocities that there is no elongation of the craters. ...
_by CharlesChandler » Tue Mar 04, 2014 11:39 pm
… Somewhere in here, we have to ask the question of why an electrostatic discharge would excavate a crater. If you're going to say that it was all EDM, where the discharge wandered around, sculpting out a perfectly symmetrical shape, you don't know much about EDM. An uncontrolled, sustained discharge might wander, but it doesn't produce a smooth-bottom, symmetrical shape. Rather, it produces a highly irregular surface. Laboratory demonstrations of symmetrical dust craters created from discharges are not from the discharges, but rather, from the miniature shock front that you get when the arc stops. The discharge channel collapses, and then the air bounces off of itself. In other words, it's exactly the same process that creates thunder. You get the same effect when you shut off an acetylene torch -- the symmetrical cavity in the air that was being kept open by the flame collapses, and then the air bounces off of itself, creating a little popping sound. Well, if there was some dust there, you might get a little crater excavated by that little shock wave. But since the Moon doesn't have an atmosphere, there aren't going to be any shock waves from an imploding discharge channel.

There's quite a bit of discussion copied at http://qdl.scs-inc.us/?top=10962 on Causes of Planetary Cratering and Scarring.

You said: "impact craters have specific characteristics, especially the sedimentary folding at the crater rims as the ejecta folds the underlying geological layers back over itself."

EDM hasn't been shown to do that, that I know of. The only energy available with EDM is the momentum of electrons, such as in lightning on Earth. That little energy can't produce much of an effect on any body. The momentum of the bolide is what has enough energy to produce large effects, i.e. craters etc. EDM may carve rilles or trenches at impact sites. But it's the energy of the thermonuclear explosion from a bolide impact that first produces a small hole in the terrain a little wider than the bolide and when the bolide bores into the terrain, the explosion pushes the surface strata at the circumference of the hole up and outward, turning that strata over onto the adjacent strata and produces a much larger crater than the size of the bolide.

Charles' model is electrical too. Thermonuclear explosions are electrical.

[JP Michael]

You said: "impact craters have specific characteristics, especially the sedimentary folding at the crater rims as the ejecta folds the underlying geological layers back over itself."

EDM hasn't been shown to do that, that I know of.

When I spoke of 'impact craters', I meant physical bolide impacts, not electrical arc discharge.

This article by creationist physicist Barry Setterfield goes through in some detail the difference between the two (he ignores volcanic caldera formation as a fairly self-explanatory cratering phenomenon): Crater Origins.

Much of Setterfield's work is based on the research of C.J. Ransom, "Laboratory Modeling of Meteorite Impact Craters by Z-pinch Plasma," The Open Astronomy Journal, 2011(4 Supp.2-M4): 185-190

I find it interesting that Barry makes no mention of nuclear events. Now that does not mean it is excluded, but that a qualified physicist does not even consider it, either from blindsight or from evidence. I will send him an email and ascertain his thoughts on the matter.

Most extant creationist research on cratering accounts EDM forces in crater formation as little or no consequence, eg. Danny Faulkner [1]. Like their secular counterparts, they're mostly self-compartmentalised to bolide-impacts only and 'dirty snowball' comets.

[1] D, Faulkner, "A biblically based cratering theory," Journal of Creation 13(1):100–104, April 1999. A search for 'electric' and 'crater' does not even occur once in 'standard' creationist literature. Barry Setterfield, mentioned above, is considered at the 'Plasma lunatic' fringe of creationism by 'standard' creationist modelling.

[Brigit]

catastrophism subtopic: the "two great lights" of Genesis 1; months absent

In the vein of the question about whether Genesis 1-11 is a catastrophic history, besides the flood, I would like to continue.

We already noted that in the Mosaic account of creation, there is a plain statement about the purpose of the placement of the heavenly bodies:

• Then God said, “Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and seasons, and for days and years; and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth”; and it was so.

• Then God made two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He made the stars also.
  God set them in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth,
  and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good.

This conveys two simple truths to the reader: 1. That the heavens and the earth were made by the forethought and spoken word of God, who is spirit: it is a spiritual event, followed by a physical fulfillment. There is a declaration of purpose (forethought), and then a fulfillment which reflects and re-states the guiding idea behind the event. This denies materialism, for God is spirit, and it denies polytheism, and the Cosmic Egg model of the Big Bang, because there are no battling and vying forces which are responsible for the universe we see. 2. That the bodies in the heavens are to be used as a timepiece, and are only a part of all of creation.

We already explored the fact that the Genesis account does not name the Sun and Moon; it says that there are "two great lights". This is possibly a linguistic indication that there was a different sky in the past.

It is also interesting that the heavens are to be used for "signs and seasons, and days and years." Once again, it is perfectly legitimate to use the motions of the celestial bodies for marking time and celebrating seasonal changes. That is, having festivals for harvest and spring, or the equinoxes, does not require the worship of these bodies. But there is a curious omission: at this time, there are days and years, but not months.

I am not saying this is an absolute statement in Moses that there was no moon in the most ancient days, but it may be indicated a second time; first by saying that there were "two great lights," and second by omitting the lunar cycle, which is marked by months.