Catastrophism and the Old Testament, Chapter 2

Hesiod was an ancient Greek writer of the 8th century B.C. He was a contemporary of Isaiah, and just one generation after such "fire and brimstone" prophets as Amos, Joel and Jonah, all of whom we shall meet in Chapters VI and VII. In Greece Hesiod saw the same celestial events which Isaiah and Sennacherib saw in Palestine. Hesiod described Ares, the son of Zeus (or Jupiter, technically "Zeus-pater") in the following way.

We believe that one of the names of Mars was "son of Amphitryon" even as Herakles (Hercules) was also an ARCHETYPE FOR MARS to the Greeks. On this particular occasion, probably during the final flyby, Mars made a rapid rush, indeed one at about 27,000 m.p.h., past the Earth. Mars, or Ares, swept in, in an orbit that no doubt had a slight arch or curve. If Mars was 30,000 miles away on this occasion, its two satellites (Deimos and Phobos) could have been as close as 20,000 and 25,000 miles respectively. Note that Venus (Athene) is perceived as observing the scene as a distant participant.

The Blazing, Celestial Steeds. In Greek mythology, the steeds of Mars were two in number, as they accompanied the raging Ares. Their ancient Greek names were Deimos and Phobos. Deimos means "great dread or awe,"² and from Phobos comes our English word, "phobia". A phobia is an uncontrollable, unextinguishable fear, much like what the ancients must have felt as they saw Mars approaching, night after night and hour by hour.

Through a freak of history, Deimos and Phobos (which were discovered in 1875 by astronomer Asaph Hall) were named by Hall in accord with ancient Greek mythology.³ Thus it is that the names of the ancient companions of Mars are identical with the current satellites of Mars. It is our conclusion that their journey across the solar system was altered radically following the nightside flyby of 701 B.C., when the ancient catastrophic orbit of Mars unravelled and rounded out.

Deimos and Phobos, the Satellites. Deimos is a small, potato-shaped body, a fragment 6x8x10 miles in dimensions. It is pocked up with hundreds of yet tinier craterlets. These craterlets were the product of tiny collisions of Deimos with ring system debris, when Mars had a ring system.

Phobos, somewhat larger, is 12x14x17 miles in size and is similarly marked with tiny craterlets. The largest crater is named Stickney after Hall's wife, who encouraged him to persist on the night he made the discovery of Phobos in August 1875. Stickney is 6¼ miles in diameter, a relatively massive crater on such a small fragment. There are hundreds of other craterlets on Phobos ranging all the way down to a few yards in diameter.

In the uniformitarian theory, one is forced into the position that these two tiny companions of Mars were captured on the fly, somehow. Mars is only 1/3100 as massive as Jupiter, but allegedly has done very well to capture two since the massive Jupiter has captured only twelve.

However, in the catastrophic theory, these two tiny companions of Mars are the only remaining bits of evidence of a former ring system which Mars once had. The pitlets and craterlets are also evidence of the ancient debris and hence of a ancient rocky ring system which impacted them.

In the theory of Planetary Catastrophism, there had to have been "a broom" to sweep out the debris in the ancient ring system of Mars. That broom existed; it was the Earth's gravitational field. There were about 85 sweeps forward (85 October case flybys) and there were about 85 sweeps backward (85 mid-March flybys). These two lonely, tiny satellites thus dramatize the dramatic difference between catastrophism and uniformitarianism. In the uniformitarian theory, there is no explanation for the craterlets, which are similarly numerous on both tiny trabants.

Viewing Deimos and Phobos. If the ancient Greeks discussed the two tiny steeds (or companions) of Mars, it follows that they must have seen them. Mars is 4200 miles in diameter, and its distance from the Earth averages about 120 million miles. Phobos has a diameter average of 14 miles. The diameter of Phobos is 1/300 that of Mars. In order for Phobos to be seen as dramatically as Mars is today, Phobos would have had to have been within 500,000 miles, or twice as far out as the Moon.

The diameter of Deimos averages & miles. Its diameter is 1/525th that of Mars. In order for Deimos to be seen as well as we normally see Mars, it would have had to have been less than 300,000 miles distant. But, there is every indication that during flybys, both steeds were seen much more easily than is the remote Mars of today.

APOLLO. The Greeks traded with the Phoenicians. They acquired timber, manufactures, and many other things, including the alphabet. In Punic, the Phoenician language, the word for Mars was Baal, sometimes represented as Ba'al. This word was a derivative from the Babylonian word, Bel. In Chaldean, Bel and Ishtar were Mars and Venus. In Phoenician they were Baal and Ashtarte. In Greek they were Apollo and Athena. The Greeks softened the "b" into a "p" and added the "a" at the front end.

In the Bible, when the Jews were in the Babylonian captivity, there were such names as Belteshazzar, a wise man, and Belshazzar, a king. For Neo-Babylonians to name kings and wise men after Mars indicates a substantial degree of fear, awe, dread or celestial respect. In Old Testament history, this same name, Baal, is seen in the name of Jezebel, a Phoenician princess, and Jerubbaal, a nickname for Gideon, a famous Hebrew judge. In Roman history, Baal is seen in the names of Hasdrubal and Hannibal, two famous Carthaginian generals whom the Romans fought. The Carthaginians were descendants of Phoenician colonists.

In the opening pages of Homer's The Iliad, the reader will meet two priests of Apollo/Baal. These were Greek priests who reportedly could conjure up the future and read the stars. They seem to have advised Achilles, Agamemnon and Menelaus that March of 809 B.C. would be another catastrophic occasion, and the celestial wrath of Ares-Apollo would once again fall on Troy in the form of celestial lightning. The metaphor they used to describe the arrival of the expected lightning was through the silver bowstring of Apollo Shootafar. More of the local scenery of this flyby will be examined in Chapter VI. Our momentary observation is that, if Homer were blind, what he recorded must have been the celestial observations of his advisors, his friends, who were "his eyes."

In Figure 1, Mars is depicted so that its orbit in the catastrophic era was 720 days. Jupiter's orbit was 4320 days, and Mars was in 6:1 resonance with Jupiter's orbit, even as Mars was in 1:2 resonance with the Earth's orbit. In the Old Testament, especially in the era of the Judges and the prophets, Baal and Asharte were constantly linked. Mars, the destroyer, was feared widely and was worshipped by the sacrifice of babies (usually the firstborn son) to its fury and in its oven-belly, a charnel house of pitiful infant screams amid pagan rituals. Ashtarte, who never threatened the Earth, was considered the goddess (or deity) of fertility, including agriculture and sex. It was worshipped with the sex act and its priestesses were temple prostitutes. Venus has an orbit of 225 days. In the catastrophic era, the Earth had an orbit of 360 days. By simple mathematics, one discovers or is led to suspect that Venus was in an 8:5 orbital resonance with the Earth. Hence it was also in a 16:5 orbital resonance with Mars. Furthermore, Mars approached the Sun as close as 75 million miles, just 8 million miles from the orbit of Venus (see figure 1.)

In the catastrophic era, prior to 700 B.C., when the Earth had a 360-day orbit, it seems that there was a "celestial choir" of planets. Venus revolved in 225 days; the Earth in 360 days, Mars in 720 days, Jupiter in 4320 days and Saturn in 10,800 days. In addition, the Moon revolved in 30 days. All of these six celestial bodies were orbiting in a timing harmony. With reference to the Earth's former orbit, that harmony was as follows: Moon 12:1, Venus 8:5, Mars 1:2, Jupiter 1:12 and Saturn 1:30.

GORGON. In ancient Greek literature, Gorgon was a fearful monster that appeared occasionally in the heavens. Gorgon always threatened destruction and distress. This is how Hesiod described Gorgon, the celestial monster.

Gorgon seems to have had spiral coils of hair emanating from it; it was a hairy sight indeed. The coils or spirals of hair might have a correlation with charged particles, funneling down toward the Earth through the vortex (in the Northern Hemisphere over Greenland) of the Van Allen belts. A twisting, snake-like spiraling movement is described repeatedly in Greek mythology when describing the hairdo of Gorgon. (The Medusas is another similar description to Gorgon, describingthe same aspects of Mars flybys.)

Homer also devoted some description to Gorgon during the flyby, whose dating we have discovered to be March 809 B.C. Homer's description is as follows in The Iliad.

The picture of Gorgon by Hesiod and by Homer can be compared usefully to the scenario of Leviathan in the Book ofJob (chapter 41). This scenario can also be compared usefully to the presentation of the celestial cherub as seen in II Samuel 22 and Psalm 18.

Gorgon, very fierce and hairy, was pictured by the Greeks as fierce with "eyes." If imagined as eyes," such would add a theoretical element of sight or intelligence to Gorgon. Mars has three particularly large craters, which are Hellas (diameter 990 miles on so small a planet), Isidis (diameter 600 miles) and Argyre (diameter 500 miles). These are all on a planet with a diameter of only 4200 miles. The Hellas Crater covers almost 40° of longitude in its Southern Hemisphere. It could have been identified as an "eye socket" when Mars was one million miles distant. Thus we have isolated two features of the frightful Gorgon, its "shining spiral hair" and its "eyes" of whom three were particularly prominent.

PHAETHON, sometimes known as Phaethon Apollo, appears in both Greek and Roman literature. Ovid in his Metamorphoses borrows extensively from Hesiod's Shield of Herakles and his Theogony.

Ovid, like Hesiod, pictured the Phaethon event as an occasion on which Phaethon (the son of Apollo) volunteered to give his father a vacation for one day. He, Phaethon, would take the reins of the celestial steeds, Deimos and Phobos. He would guide the chariot of Mars across its celestial trajectory or path. The story by Ovid continues that the celestial steeds felt a rookie's hand at the reins and bucked. The result was that the chariot of Mars careened across the aether. Getting it fixed before the next sunrise was a major all-night repair occasion for the Greek celestial deities.

Ovid lived from 43 B.C. (?) to 17 A.D. This is 700 years later than Hesiod. Observe that Ovid was a catastrophist even though he lived in the second uniformitarian era. Ovid perceived that the Earth had an axis and spinning poles, that is, that the Earth rotated once every 24 hours rather than having a revolving Sun. Later, certain Greeks considered Apollo to have been the sun deity, but that is a mistake. During the catastrophic era, the sun deity was Helios, and Apollo was Mars. Observe that Ovid drew attention for some reason to something positioned in the zone of the zodiac identified as Cancer, the Crab. Jupiter was in Cancer during every October flyby, as shall be demonstrated in a later Chapter. We speculate that it was Jupiter to which Ovid, or better Hesiod, had reference.

We cannot say at this point that the Phaethon story coincides with the timing of either the Elijah Catastrophe (864 B.C.) or the Jonah-Amos-Joel Catastrophe (756 B.C.) or even the Long Day of Joshua (1404 B.C.). It could be a composite, or a mosaic of several October flyby descriptions.

It could be an embellishment via a later flyby of an earlier one. Observe the phenomena. There is earthquake activity, a celestial path of Mars, the two steeds of Mars, the chariot of Mars with circular rotating wheels, a careening spin axis, celestial lightning falling from the aether, the whip of Phaethon, and the reference to Cancer and its menacing celestial claws. In addition there is fire breathing out of the nostrils of the two steeds.

TYPHON (A GRIM REAPER). Typhon was not the planet Mars itself, as was Gorgon. Rather it was a Hellenic representation of the silver bowstring of Apollo Shootafar. It was similar to the celestial Sword of the Lord seen in Biblical descriptions of flybys. It is best explained by a flux tube of charged particles, flowing between Mars and the Earth at remarkably high voltages, amperages and wattages. This phenomenon and another similar electrical phenomenon in the arena of Jupiter today will be described in Chapter III.

As Mars rotated in addition to its flyby trajectory, it behaved like an electric generator. As Mars approached the Earth, it nicked the Earth's magneto-head" region of its geomagnetic field. One to three hours later, the magneto-tail" of Mars raked the side of the Earth facing Mars. Usually during the October flybys the hemisphere facing Mars was the Eastern Hemisphere. Usually in mid-March flybys the hemisphere facing Mars was the Western Hemisphere.

The aurora of current which flowed between Mars and the Earth was visible, both during the day and at night. It was shaped like a loop. A section of it was shaped like a scimitar, a curved sword. It glistened like a polished sword. Its length was Pi times the distance of Mars, whatever distance that was up to 125,000 miles at which distance the flux tube vanished. For reasons yet to be presented, it is known that the flux tube current measured in the million volt range. Its amperage was in the ten million ampere range, and its wattage was in the billion watt range as the Silver Bowstring ofApollo Shootafar swept the face of the Earth with electrical discharges (Thunderbolts.)

Based on a computer analysis and celestial mechanics, we found that Mars always would make a sunward side flyby, which, when viewed from Polaris, was a clockwise motion. Simultaneously, the Earth's spin was advancing in a counterclockwise direction. This led to the production of much friction between the Earth's crust and its underlying region, the mantle, and that friction was generated into a recharged planetary magnetic field. As mentioned earlier, the geometry of the arrangemnent dictates that Greece, at a latitude of 45° or so, was rotating from west to east at a rate of about 700 m.p.h. Simultaneously, Mars was moving clockwise, at a rate of about 1000 m.p.h. with respect to the subpoint on the Earth's surface directly under Mars. These two rates added to 1700 m.p.h. This was the velocity at which Mars (and its planetary magnetic tail) was sweeping across Eurasia.

Apollodorus described the Silver Bowstring of Apollo Shootafar or Typhon, as advancing on an east-to-west direction. This is correct. He described it as advancing in a marine environment. Its advance began in Phoenicia, and from there it moved past Rhodes and on past Crete to Sicily, where Mt. Etna was erupting. In our model, this means that Typhon advanced in a westerly direction across the Mediterranean Sea at a rate of about 280 miles in 10 minutes. It advanced 1200 miles (from Phoenicia to Sicily) in a time span of about 45 minutes. Apollodorus described Typhon's appearance and progression in this manner:

The geographical progression is from Syria and Phoenicia westerly to Cilicia (Southern Turkey), past the Aegean Sea, to Thrace, and again westerly on toward and past Sicily. "Sicles" were identified with Typhon, even as they are with angels of judgment in Judeo-Christian thought. One can hardly imagine the degree of apprehension felt and the extent of celestial drama seen during those flyby occasions.

The length of Typhon can be estimated. If Mars were 40,000 miles distant, it was 40,000 miles times Pi, or 125,000 miles. If Mars were 80,000 miles, the Silver Bowstring of Apollo Shootafar was 250,000 miles long. Our analysis leads us to conclude that the electrical loop of ions and charged particles formed when incoming at a distance of about 125,000 miles from the Earth.

What was its width? This is only a guess; our guess is not wider than 8,000 miles, which is the diameter of the Earth. What was its thickness? This might be discerned by measuring the thickness of a similar loop of electricity flowing between Io and Jupiter. That loop or aurora of current is 800,000 miles long. We do not have data on its width or thickness at this point in tỉme.

Apollodorus, like Ovid, was a catastrophist who lived in a uniformitarian century, the 6th uniformitarian century. His precise dates are unknown, but what is known is that he lived in the 2nd century B.C. He further described Typhon in this manner:

It is appropriate here to share an insight concerning the noises, voices, yelpings, bellowings and hissings which Apollodorus mentions. One of our Seattle research team members, Leonard Schroedter (an aeronautical engineer), was at Fairbanks, Alaska, during the severe winter of 1949-1950. On Christmas eve, great manifestations of Northern Lights occurred. Magnetic storms spun galvanometers off their center pins. Electrons came down at temperatures below -300° F. and hit the Earth's upper atmosphere. Here they created vast red and green curtains, the Northern Lights, which spread out for thousands of miles. Schroedter saw the functioning of the Van Allen belts nine years before they were discovered in 1959.

At that time, a great, unearthly -80° F. cold mass of heavy air (unearthly even for Alaska) settled over the Yukon Valley and spread out hundreds of miles in a gigantic cold front. This cold front was triggered by astronomical phenomena, perhaps from magnetic storms on the Sun.

Simultaneous with the sighting of the massive red and green curtains, Schroedter heard massive noises which, he thinks, were vibrating at the same wave lengths on which the human brain thinks. No amount of ear-stopping or ear plugs could drown out those screechy, witchy noises. They were at subliminal levels. Note that Apollodorus continues in a similar vein.

So it was that Apollodorus described Mars flybys which had ceased some 5 to 6 centuries earlier. He was a superb catastrophist even though he was a half millennium removed from the time of the last flyby event.

As some historians today specialize in the Age of Rome or early medieval times, so Apollodorus specialized in the history of the Heroic Age of Homer and Hesiod. Modern historians, literary critics and scientists have called his descriptions "myths," but it would seem that Apollodorus did not consider it "Santa Claus stuff." He considered it history of a bygone age which had bygone conditions.

Mars appears in a variety of forms in Greek literature of the Heroic Age. Among these forms are Ares, Apollo, Phaethon Apollo, Gorgon, Typhon and probably Medusa. There are 12 to 15 archetypes of Mars in ancient Greek literature according to David Talbott, editor of Aeon.

Mars appears only three times in the New Testament, and all three, incidentally, in a setting at Athens in the 17th chapter of the Book of Acts. Paul was interacting with the academia of ancient Athens on Mars Hill. (In the language of the Hellenes, it was Ares Hill, but the text was Latinized at some point.)

In Athens, there was an institution dating back to the Heroic Age, at which time Mars (as Ares) was pictured as dispensing judgment or justice. A member of this ancient court sect was called an "Areopagite," also derived from Ares. Dionysius was such a sect member (see Acts 17:19 and 17:34).

Most people suppose that Mars does not appear in the Old Testament accounts. Perhaps this is because the words "Mars" and/or Ares" are not to be found. However, in other forms, Mars the planet is discussed. So also are side effects of Mars flybys including such activities as tides in the oceans, earthquakes, renewed volcanism, widespread fires from celestial lightning strikes, celestial lightning discharges, shock waves emanating from celestial lightning strikes and "the magnetic typhoon." Mars the planet can be identified in the Old Testament in no less than ten different terms, as we shall see.

1 - MARS AS A DESTROYING ANGEL. In the Old Testament, angels take at least two forms, personal guardians and dispensers of divine judgement and justice. The latter is sometimes referred to as a "destroying angel." In the New Testament, angels are seen essentially in the guardian role, although that is not entirely true.

In the Old Testament, three major catastrophes, each occurring on or about March 20/21, are associated with "a passover" and with a "destroying angel" involved in that passing over.

One of the best-known is the catastrophe of 1447 B.C., the Exodus Catastrophe, when Moses led the children of Israel out of Egypt. This passover event involved the decimation of the Egyptian militia which followed the escaping Hebrews who were fleeing eastward and southward to the Sinai Peninsula.

On this occasion, the angel was extremely destructive. Such is clear in Exodus 12:13, 12:23, 12:29 and Psalm 114.

Another well-illustrated case is during the catastrophe of 972 B.C., the Davidic Flyby. This was during the next-to-last year of David's illustrious reign. It is twice recorded in Scripture, in II Sam. 24:15-16 and in I Chronicles 21:14-17.

The third case from the Old Testament is the catastrophe of 701 B.C., also a mid-March passover. This was the last of an estimated 85 mid-March flybys dating back to 9900 B.C.

If this was an electrical discharge of interplanetary dimensions, it indicates that the Angel had a planetary magnetic field. If, on the next day or two, it would be discovered that the shadow on a large, 80-foot high sundial shortened a significant amount, say ten spans or 6 feet, such would indicate that the same Angel of the Lord also had a gravitational field, one strong enough to readjust the Earth's spin axis location, the North Pole. This also happened. (See Isaiah 38:8.)

In addition to having a planetary magnetic field and a planetary gravitational field, to have been seen by Isaiah, or Hezekiah, or Sennacherib, it would have been seen by reflected sunlight; so it must have had reflection. If this was Mars, as seems to be the case, and if it made a nightside flyby as also seems to be the case, at a distance of 30,000 miles, that reflection can be estimated. It was a "full Mars" (like a full moon).

Mars has an albedo, or reflective ability of 15% of sunlight received, while the Moon's albedo is only 7%. Mars has a diameter of 4200 miles while the Moon has a diameter of 2200 miles. Mars at 30,000 miles would cover 230 times as much of the skyscape as would the Moon at 240,000 miles. By simple multiplication (230 times 15 divided by 7), the Mars shine that night is estimated at 492 times, nearly 500 times more moonglow than during a normal full moon with a clear nocturnal sky. This, apparently, was also reported as the imposing shield of Herakles by Hesiod, some 750 miles away near Athens and at the same time. This gives some idea of how frightful-appearing was the angel, which did destroy some 185,000 among the encampment of Assyrian soldiers in one, single discharge.

2 - MARS AS A PILLAR OF FIRE BY NIGHT AND A CLOUD BY DAY. The children of Israel fled Egypt and arrived in the vicinity of Mt. Sinai in about 40 days. Mt. Sinai, Moses informs us, was still in the process of volcanic eruption.

Mt. Sinai had been a dormant volcano, but it was activated, apparently due to stress during the recent flyby. If that passover was by the planet Mars, Mars would have created a subcrustal tide in the magma, just below the Earth's crust. This is the zone of the mantle, a 1700-mile thick zone of magma, or lava. Assuming that subcrustal tides were the triggers that renewed the volcanism, this is a yet second indication that the Angel of the Lord could possess a gravitational field. That gravitational field was not small; it was derived from a planet with over 10% of the mass of the Earth.

If the Earth was experiencing renewed volcanism, so was Mars, but even more so, because the Earth's invading gravitational field was an invasion from a planet ten times as massive. Gravitational attraction at the sea level of the Earth is three times as strong as is the gravitational attraction at the surface of Mars.

Mars has the largest volcano known in our solar system, the giant Olympus Mons. Olympus Mons has a base with a 200-mile diameter. This volcanic base covers more acreage than does the state of Illinois. Olympus Mons has a caldera, a blowhole 50 miles in diameter. This is large enough to stuff New York City into its blow-hole and have plenty of room left for many of the suburbs in Connecticut and New Jersey. This is only one of a dozen large volcanoes on tiny Mars. They are so large because Mars made so many flybys of the Earth, and the Earth being larger than Mars can produce great subcrustal tides.

During the flight of the children of Israel toward the Sinai Peninsula, the volcanoes of Mars were giving off masses of gases. They were bleeding or extruding massive lava flows. Mars was losing most of its volcanic gases. Mars cannot retain most gases due to its limited gravity; gases just wander off into space. Volcanic gases were one component in 1447 B.C. of the cometary tail of Mars.

A second, and perhaps greater component was evaporated ices from the lakes of Mars, lakes that had been formed and frozen 1000 years earlier by the icy spray, turned into sudden rivers. Between the volcanic gases and the water vapor dispersion, Mars must have had a tail about 150 million miles long. Mars had a velocity of about 1.8 million miles per day. It travelled 100 million miles in about 55 days. This was seen, resplendently, as the pillar of fire by night, .a spreading tail of Mars reflecting sunlight across some 150 million miles of space.

In Greece, pillars (or columns) of Corinthian, Doric or Ionic types were tall and straight, with a height of 8 or 9 times the pillar diameter, with no tapering. In Egypt, however, architecture of pillars was different. The Egyptians had obelisks, which also served as sun dials.

As previously mentioned, the shape of an Egyptian obelisk, an Egyptian pillar, is very similar to the shape of a comet with its nucleus and its ever-widening cometary tail. A careful differentiation needs to be made between Egyptian pillars and Greek pillars in order to appreciate this remarkable cometary condition of Mars and its likeness to an Egyptian obelisk.

3 - MARS AS A FIGHTING STAR. There was another October flyby 108 years after the Long Day of Joshua. In Northern Palestine, the Hebrews were still contesting and skirmishing with the Canaanites for control of the land, which had been subdued only in part by Joshua's armies a century previously. The ancients in the Middle East were quick to join in military battle during a Mars flyby; perhaps their astrologers felt that the coming flyby would deal their enemies a defeating blow and would thus lighten the work of the military and lessen their casualties while increasing the casualties of the opponent. Such an occasion, we believe, was October 24 or 25, of 1296 B.C. One reads the following in the Book of Judges.

"They" it is suspected, were Mars and its satellites. Their "course" was the catastrophic orbit of Mars, depicted in Figure 1.

On the flyby of 1404 B.C., the Long Day of Joshua, the thunderbolts from the Lord were selective, hitting (a) the Canaanite concentration of iron armor and (b) the general locale of the Canaanite divisions. In this event 108 years later, in 1296 B.C., it should not be overlooked that Sisera (the Canaanite colonel) had 900 chariots, and those chariots were made of iron (Judges 4:3), much like lightning rods.

The following verse of Scripture suggests how Sisera was defeated, and it also suggests how badly the rabbis of our early uniformitarian era have bungled the translation and have diminished understanding.

In Hebrew, "horsehoofs" is iqqebah or protuberances, as hooves might be viewed to a horse. "Pransings" is dabarar, which means to curve, to move irregularly, to move rapidly, and occasionally to gallop, which a pransing horse indeed does.

But in our theory, this usage of dabarar refers to the trajectory of Mars, its arc or orbit, and its rapid progress (27,000 m.p.h or 650,000 miles per day) in moving across the aether or cosmos. "Mighty ones" in Hebrew is 'abbiyr, meaning angel, bull, chief one or stout-hearted one. It was an angel of the destroying type, not a bull and not a horse. As it was in the case of the Long Day of Joshua, the celestial lightning was attracted to the iron lightning rods, in this case, the 900 chariots. When the lightning struck, its amperage was enormous, perhaps in the millions of amperes. A shock wave of lethal proportions could render Canaanite soldiers dead from concussion, without as much as a drop of spilt blood.

4 - MARS AS A CELESTIAL CHERUB. "Cherub in Hebrew is keruwb, from which the English word "cherub" is derived. In modern parlance, a cherub is a lovable baby or child. In ancient Hebrew parlance, it was an angel, once again of the destructive classification. The following is a psalm ascribed to David, and it may be descriptive of the flyby of 972 B.C., or it may be a description of a collage of earlier October flybys.

This description is twice recorded in Scripture, as this passage is also found virtually verbatim in Psalm 18. If by repetition, additional importance is signified, Psalm 18 is a particularly important psalm, with its portrayal of catastrophic scenes.

Themes very similar to Psalm 18 occur in Ovid's Metamorphoses and in Hesiod's Shield of Herakles. Themes very similar to Psalm 18 occur in Apollodorus and throughout the great book of Isaiah. Themes similar to this are also found in the Book of Amos and in Homer's The Iliad. We could pick out ten or twelve thematic similarities of Mars catastrophism in the psalm, but rather than do this, perhaps some of the readers will want to make their own independent analysis of such themes. We shall postpone further analysis of Psalm 18 until Chapter V, where the Davidic Flyby of972 B.c. is analyzed at some length.

5 - MARS AS LEVIATHAN, THE CELESTIAL MONSTER. Leviathan was a celestial monster, not (as some have suggested) a hippopotamus, a rhinoceros or a crocodile. It was a monster of the celestial deep, not of the Jordan River. The following scenario will be found to be much like the Celestial Cherub just discussed. Indeed it is thought that both descriptions are of Mars flybys, one in 1620 B.C. and the other during 972 B.C. Both apparently were October flybys.

This scene is found in the Book of Job, chapter 41. This chapter is part of the speech of God, a speech containing the finest display or panorama of creation in the Bible.

The double "bridle" comes from a word which means halter or to curb. It may be a reference to the two orbits, or paths, of Deimos and Phobos, circling Mars. The "neesings" suggests a gusty expelling of perhaps volcanic lava eruptions. The "eyes" and "eyelids" may be a sighting of the major craters, Hellas, Isidis and Argyre. The "smoke" may be volcanic gases being expelled from the volcanic cones in the region of the Tharsis Bulge. The nether millstone" has connotations of movement, and it perhaps is a meteorite, part of the former ring system of Mars crashing through the Earth's atmosphere. Such meteorites were given religious significance by the Arabians and the ancient Romans, among others.

When "even the mighty are afraid," it is something like the king of Assyria, to whom Jonah delivered a sermon of coming destruction. The king listened among others, and all the city repented. The Hebrews scheduled their somber feast of atonement at this autumnal time of the year, apparently not certain whether or not the world would be coming to an end. The Romans scheduled their comparable somber "feariday," the armilustrium, at the same time. The Celtics scheduled their ancient "Halloween," replete with screeching witches riding on broomsticks across the aether. All, even the courageous men of war, were afraid.

"Sharp stones," like the nether (lower) millstones, may well represent debris from the ring system of Mars, meteoritic, stony materials. The ocean was "boiling like a pot," an indication of tidal waves and perhaps occasional submarine volcanism in the Eastern Mediterranean. The "shining path" is the cometary tail or wake of Mars, spreading its evaporating vapors into space. Describing the deep as "hoary" again indicates water vapor in the cometary tail of Mars but only in that era after the Noachian flood. A proper analysis of Leviathan, like the proper analysis of the cherub in Psalm 18, is an essential aspect of understanding Earth history. Any number of parallels between Leviathan and Greek cosmology can be made.

Sometime during this era of the 2nd millennium B.C., a meteorite from the ring system of Mars fell toward the Earth and landed in Western Central Arabia. It fell through the atmosphere, and burned due to atmospheric friction, but it was large enough that it did not burn up. It landed at what is now Mecca. The ancient Arabians considered this meteorite from Mars to have cosmic and religious importance for 2000 years preceding Mohammed and Islam. Islam absorbed the holy meteorite into its faith. Today the meteorite is known as the Kaaba, and it resides in the Islamic holy of holies. It has been kissed by uncounted hundreds of millions over the last 1400 years.

The composition of the Kaaba is of interest because catastrophists believe it is a brother to Deimos and Phobos. Furthermore, it is a brother to other ring system escapees which became Earth-region asteroids such as Amor, Eros, Icarus and Apollo. Furthermore, it is a little cousin to the general asteroids including Ceres, Juno, Pallas, Vesta and nearly 3,000 other known asteroids. There is no reason the Kaaba shouldn't be drilled for an assay from the bottom, while the top is maintained for the Muslim pilgrims. Being a sort of holy grail of Islam should not exempt it from reasonable scientific analysis. The Kaaba is probably no different in general composition from the asteroids Deimos and Phobos. Its difference is in its journey, first as part of the ancient ring system circling Mars and secondly in its journey into the Earth's atmosphere, as it was swept out by the Earth's gravitational field from the former Martian ring system.

Who knows what an assay might find? Perhaps traces of iridium will be found, to further tie it into the matrix of ancient catastrophism.

6 - MARS AND VENUS AS BAAL AND ASHTAROTH. Baal and Ashtaroth are derived from the Chaldean Bel and Ishtar, the planets Mars and Venus. The Phoenicians also named their month of October "Bul" after Baal. The Hebrews named the same month "Marchesvan" for Mars' month.

In its catastrophic orbit (see Figure 1), Mars approached the Sun to about 75 million miles, which was within 8 million miles of the orbit of Venus. As previously mentioned, it seems that there was a resonance ratio of 16:5 between the two planetary orbits, and 3:1 between the Venusian spin rate and the orbit of Mars. Baal and Ashtaroth worship formed the core of the cosmic pantheism of the Phoenicians and of the Canaanites.

The Hebrews who settled the northern provinces of Palestine did so amid the partly defeated Canaanites. It seems the Hebrews held the countryside and the Canaanites held the cities, but in due time, the populations mixed in ties of all kinds, religious, economic, educational, transportation, etc.

With an understanding of the catastrophic orbit of Mars, suddenly it becomes easy to understand such a tendency for worship of Mars and by extension, for worship of Venus or for Jupiter also. The Hebrew legacy from Abraham and Moses was to worship the Creator who created, among other things, the planets, and not to worship the planets themselves.

Baal appears in a variety of forms in the Bible. Some are names already mentioned such as Jezebel and Belshazzar. Some are geographic places where Baal images were worshipped, such as the "high places," frequently where lightning was more apt to strike, in groves of trees on hilltops. Sometimes Baal appears in some form of hardware or statuary. In its variety of forms, "Ba'al" appears at least 180 times in the Old Testament and probably more than 200 times. By contrast, Ashtarte in various forms occurs about 18 times, only one-tenth as often. This is one measurement of the greater significance of Mars in the Mars versus Venus pantheon in ancient cultures.

In our time, cities and ladies are almost never named after planets, and if so, it is Venus as a feminine idea, not as a planetary idea. In the 2nd millennium B.C., kings, queens, wise men and common folk as well often had some form of Baal incorporated in their names in the Levant, as did some cities (like Baalbek). Further still, Baal usages indicate a keen degree of attention directed toward the celestial regions.

7 - MARS AS NERGAL, THE ASSYRIAN MARS. During the 8th century B.C., the Assyrian Wars were a series of tragic disasters for the Northern Kingdom as well as for Judea. The Assyrian deity "Nergal" was Mars to them. This form occurs occasionally in the Bible when recounting the Assyrian Wars. In addition, for general interest, Nirgal Valles is the name of a valley on Mars which contains a prominent dry river bed. Whoever fixed this name may have known of this ancient name association.

8 - MARS AS A ROLLING THING BEFORE THE WHIRLWIND. This term is used by Isaiah. The reference is Isaiah 17:13.

Isaiah was living in the shadow of the forthcoming flyby of 701 B.C. and as a youth had witnessed the flyby of 756 B.C.

The word for "whirlwind" in Hebrew is cuwphah. It is a tempest, a storm, and it seems to to be a description of ions fluxing down in a spiral motion through the vortices of the radiation belts, the Van Allen belts. The "rolling thing" in Hebrew is galgal. It is perhaps not stretching things to interpret this word as a "rotating wheel in the heavens." It would be a clarification had it been translated "like a rotating thing before the whirlwind." Mars, a gyroscope (a rotating sphere), rotates in 24 hours, 40 minutes. "Gyroscope" may be the best of all translations.

9 - MARS AS ARCTURUS. The term "Arcturus," is found twice in the Book of Job. In each case, "Arcturus" in Hebrew is 'ayish. This, coupled with "Ma" (the great), is one form of the ancient Hebrew term for Mars. In each of the two citations in the Book of Job, 'Arcturus" or ayish is associated with kheycil and khima. Kheycil is Jupiter (and the month in the Jewish calendar of Chislieu or Kislev is thus named after Jupiter). Khima is the planet Saturn. Thus, in the Book of Job, these three are the triad of planets that were once in orbital resonance with the Earth and with each other. Rabbis of the uniformitarian era mistranslated these three as constellations, Arcturus, Orion and Pleiades. Christian scholars to date have followed suit.

In Job 9, the beleaguered Job is found with his commiserating friends, Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar. Poor comforters that they were, they discussed Earth history. None of them objected to Job's analysis, which suggests assent. Job's analysis was as follows.

Fiat Creationists are on record as considering this to be poetic material, totally unrelated to the Earth's orbit, spin axis or crustal deformation for any planet.

In reality, Fiat Creationists (supposed defenders of orthodoxy) understand, as Christ once put it, "neither the Scriptures nor the power of God." Such was a critique by Christ when he faced the extra-orthodox of his time. Thus, when evolutionists or humanists of one kind or another concede in debate conditions that Fiat Creationists understand the Bible, they concede too much.

The second occasion where 'ash or 'ayish is found in the Book of Job is in the majestic speech of God, where the subject of creation (astronomical, biological and climatological) is discussed. That part which relates to Mars, Jupiter and Saturn is as follows.

The phrase "the sweet influences of khima-Saturn" deserves some attention. This is particularly so since we have stated that every October catastrophe featured Jupiter in Cancer, at 12:00 with respect to Figure 1. Every fifth occasion of an October flyby, Saturn was in Capricorn at 6:00 with respect to Figure 1 and 180° opposite to Jupiter. Both planets in such a position lengthened the "a" axis and narrowed the b axis of the Martian orbit, and their effects added. Thus, on mega-catastrophic days such as in October of 2484 B.C., 1944 B.C., 1404 B.C. and 864 B.C., the gravitational influences of khima-Saturn were the opposite of sweet, very bitter. The word translated as "sweet influences" in this case is ma'adannah which means great "influence" or "bonds," and comes from the primary verb meaning "to tie or bind." How the translators deduced sweetness from this word is unclear. Ma'adannah is the single Hebrew word translated as both "sweet" and "influences." In our opinion, the ma should have been translated "powerful" influences rather than "sweet" influences.

The phrase for "loose the bands of kheciyl-Jupiter" is also of interest. "Loose" in Hebrew is pathach and is well-translated. It means to unstop, to ungird, or to loosen. "Bands" in Hebrew is mowshekah, which means something like pulling or drawing, and it comes from a primary verb meaning to draw, as to draw water from a well. It is pulling as with a cord or as with a band. It also has a timing aspect, meaning to delay or to prolong.

That Mars ordered its orbit according to Jupiter's position was testimony to the drawing power, or controlling power of Jupiter. In this post-Newtonian era, this controlling power is known as gravity. Jupiter's mass happens to be 32 times that of Saturn, and 3100 times that of Mars. Ancient star gazers did not understand gravity, but it appears that indeed some of them were trying, with some limited success, to achieve an understanding of orbits. Both "sweet influences" and "bands" speak of attraction, and that attraction we understand would have to be gravitational.

10 - MARS AS MAZZAROTH. Following the discussion about Mars (ayish), Jupiter (kheciyl) and Saturn (khima), and binding, bands, loosened bands, and sweet influences, there is a discussion of Mazzaroth, and its arrival, and whether that arrival is or is not on schedule. Both mazzarah, and its related word mazzalah refer to a planet in a zone of the zodiac. It is possible that one of these words refers to Mars in a mid-March flyby and the other refers to Mars in an October flyby, but this is speculative.

It is to be noted that mazzarah is associated in the same verse with ayish. In our age, Jove and Jupiter are the same. In that age, mazzarah and "ma" ayish may have been the same. It is to be noted that ayish, or Mars, is under discussion WITH ITS, OR HIS SONS. The Hebrew word is ben. Perhaps it has reference to Mars ben Deimos and Mars ben Phobos. If not, to what other pair of planetary sons or satellites might it have reference?

After discussing Mars, Jupiter and Saturn (not Arcturus, Orion and Pleiades), the Creator's discussion turns to even more far-reaching issues. "Knowest thou the ordinances of heaven? "Ordinances" in Hebrew is chuggah and means appointment, custom, ordinance or statue. We have laws in science and some of them such as Kepler's laws pertain to orbits. The prime root chug means appointment boundary, decree, measure, law, time or statute. "Dominion" in Hebrew is mishtar, which can also mean jurisdiction.

The questions of the Creator in Job 38 are precisely the underlying questions of the book in hand. It pertains to the understanding of the workings (past and present) of the solar system and how they have applied to the Earth in all three ages, the primordial, the catastrophic and the present uniformitarian. Job's suffering and the great sermon he received from the Lord (concerning creation) occurred in or about the 17th century B.C. This was about 162 years, or 3 half cycles preceding the account of creation penned by Moses.

The same three planets, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, that are grouped together amid catastrophic and cosmological questions in the Book of Job are the same three that were of supreme interest to the populace of pioneer Rome and their flamens, or priests of Mars. The Hebrews named the month of the October case flybys for Mars, Marchesvan. The Romans, for whatever reason, did it differently. They named the month of the spring flybys or passovers for Mars, our month of March. The notes may have been in a different key, but the tune was the same.

Most students of the Bible such as pastors or rabbis will say that Mars is not in the Old Testament and occurs on only one occasion in the New Testament. On the contrary, words occur in the Bible for Mars derived from languages such as Assyrian, Chaldean, Egyptian, Neo-Babylonian, and Punic as well as from Hebrew. A rough count can be made to quantify the number of times Mars appears as a planet in one form or another.

Furthermore, there were a wide variety of side effects from Mars flybys, especially the closer ones and especially the October ones when Palestine in the daytime faced the wrath of Mars directly.

There were all kinds of words which the King James translators used in attempting to describe conditions, fearful conditions, of which they had no experience or knowledge. The Jewish rabbis of the post-exilic (early uniformitarian) era had the same problem. A variety of examples have already been given including "pransings" and "like horses hoofs" for curved paths and for the astronomical motion of Mars.

The following is a partial list, an incomplete list, but it is indicative of some of the kinds of English words used by translators to try to interpret catastrophic scenes. The word for "pestilence" for instance occurs 47 times. The word for "tumult" or shock wave occurs 21 times. Some of these vague and ambiguous words and phrases are as follows.

This list of 33 terms is abbreviated. When the count of these terms is totaled and when the list is expanded to include such terms as "prancing" and "like horses hoofs," the total will doubtless exceed 800. Add to this the 227 terms for the planet Mars itself, and the list of catastrophic words and phrases in the Old Testament balloons to over 1000 instances. This is frequency. Indeed, such themes of catastrophism (which we know to have been cyclic) dominate certain books including Amos, Exodus, Jonah, Joshua, Judges, Nahum, Job and especially including the majestic Book of Isaiah.

With these first two chapters, the groundwork is laid for an abbreviated, non-technical discussion of the catastrophic scenes themselves, often as reported by ancient eye-witness observers. Such a non-technical discussion ensues. A technical discussion, designed more for scientific analysis, is scheduled for our sequel volume. (See Chapter VIII)

Hesiod. Ann Arbor, Univ. of Mich. Press, 1959. Shield of Herakles, lines 450 - 464. Translator- Richmond Lattimore. ↩︎
Personal correspondence, Lynn Rose of University of Buffalo, N.Y., to Donald W. Patten. ↩︎
The names of Greek celestial players from literature of the heroic age is often used for the names of planets, satellites and asteroids. Hall had the honor of naming the two satellites he had just discovered. At the suggestion of one Mr. Madan of England, Hall chose the same names, Deimos and Phobos, which were the legendary companions of Mars, or Ares, in ancient Greek literature. ↩︎
Hesiod. Shield of Herakles, lines 223 - 236. ↩︎
Homer, The Iliad. Roslyn, N.Y., Walter J. Black, 1942, p. 84. Book V paragraph 57. Translator - Samuel Butler. ↩︎
Ovid, Metamorphoses. Book II (The Story of Phaethon,) selections. Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press, 1958, p. 48 f. Translator - Rolfe Humphries. ↩︎
Apollodorus, The Library, vi-3. Translator - Sir James G. Frazer. ↩︎
Loc. cit. ↩︎
Loc. cit. ↩︎
Loc. cit. ↩︎

A.	Mars as Baal or Bel	181
B.	Mars as a Destroying Angel	16
C.	Mars asa Pillar of Fire	14
D.	Mars as Leviathan	5
E.	Mars as Nergal	4
F.	Mars as Arcturus	2
G.	Mars as a Celestial Cherub	1
H.	Mars as a Fighting Star	1
I.	Mars as a Rotating Wheel	1
J.	Mars as Mazzaroth	1
Total	In Old Testament	227