As the era of time comes closer to our modern age, the surviving literature of catastrophism noticeably becomes more voluminous, and also becomes somewhat more precise. In the previous three chapters, we noted that the cyclic phenomenon that the Hebrew writers call the Angel of the Lord possessed a gravitational field which produced extraordinary tides of both the oceanic and the subcrustal varieties. The subcrustal tides produced strong earthquakes and renewed volcanism.

The Angel of the Lord also possessed reflection in the noteworthy case of the pillar of fire by night (and the cloud by day.) Thirdly, the Angel of the Lord possessed electricity, evidenced in the celestial discharges of terrific power and effect. Electrically speaking, the Angel of the Lord also would have had to possess a reasonably rapid rotation in order to generate electricity. These three features, an electrical field, a gravitational field and reflection, will be characteristic of most flybys if the literature is comprehensive, and if it is not comprehensive, two of the three should be expected in flyby scenarios, conservatively speaking.

EXAMPLE #5 – October 24, 1404 B.c. THE LONG DAY OF JOSHUA

Once again, the "fixed time" arrived. The ancients were aware of its imminence. One indication of this is that in Palestine, the Canaanites and the Hebrews met for battle on this day. Throughout the Middle East, the timing of military campaigns on Earth reflected a recognition of the imminence of celestial warfare in the heavens. Seers, star-gazers and prognosticators often advised their military that Mars (or Baal or Nergal or Ares) would render a cosmic assist and would do much of the killing for them.

Palestine in 1404 B.C., known more widely in our age as Israel, was under contest by two armies. The aggressors, the desert nomads, were the invading Hebrews. These nomads were migrating back into their ancestral homeland with a religious fervor. It is conjectured that they were outnumbered about 4 or 5 to 1. Also, the invading Hebrews were less well equipped, since the dominant Canaanites had prohibited commerce in iron and bronze to the interior peoples for any reason. Thus, we surmise, the Hebrews were armed primarily with weapons made of leather, bone, wood, rock and some bronze. The Canaanites had the superior iron armor.

The Canaanites, like their Phoenician cousins to the north in Lebanon, had developed regular commercial routes to ports far and wide, with access to mines in many regions. They had access to copper, iron, tin and other materials inaccessible to the Hebrew nomads. Iron being harder, iron weapons were best. On this particular day, the Canaanite armies were well prepared for combat. Their armor included iron helmets, iron shields, iron spears, iron battle axes and lances, all honed to military sharpness. The Canaanite celestial priesthood very possibly encouraged combat on this day of cosmic visitation, and what military man could argue with the celestial seers? Some time just about dawn of October 24, Canaanite time, the electrical flux tube materialized, perhaps around 5:00 A.M. It materialized at an estimated 120,000 miles from the Earth (on the sunward side) and Mars was closing rapidly. Mars was closing at a velocity of 25,000, or perhaps 27,000 m.p.h. By 5:00 A.M. the Sword of the Lord (the flux tube) formed as Polynesia faced Mars. By 7:00 a.m. the magneto-head of Mars entered the Earth's magneto-tail (as Japan faced Mars). By 9:15 a.m., Mars had crossed the Earth's orbit, some 30 minutes behind the Earth (as India was under Mars). By 10:00 in our model, the two planets were at their closest, 27,000 miles. by 11:00 a.m., Persia (Iran) was directly under Mars.

Also by 11:00, the magneto-tail of Mars began to sweep through the Earth's magnetic field, and to sweep across the Earth's face as Babylonians watched agape. By noon, the magneto-tail of Mars was sweeping Lebanon and Palestine, looking to strike high hills or concentrations of iron. Canaanite concentrations qualified and were struck, perhaps with multiple bolts. By 1:00 p.m. Italy was being struck and by 2:00 Spain as the flux tube began to vanish for another 108 years.

The Noachian Flood flyby is estimated at 15,000 miles, and possibly even 1,000 miles closer. Both the forces causing tidal upheaval and the forces causing electromagnetic induction behave as the mass over the inverse of the cube of the distance. This means in both cases that The Noachian Flood was about eight times or ten times as intense. If one understands this lesser catastrophe, he is well-prepared to understand the more ancient and the more intense flybys.

Just as there was gravitational interaction, so there was magnetic interaction. Figure 10 illustrates the interaction of the two planetary magnetic fields. The distance scale is identical to the scale in Figure 9. For certain reasons to be discussed later, in a sequel book, more technical, it can be deduced that the Earth's geomagnetic field strength was greater than the current .307 Gauss. Its field strength was in the range of 1.0 Gauss, minimum. Nobody knows how big or how strong the planetary magnetic field of Mars was at that time. Our estimate is that the Martian field was in the range of 1.0 Gauss.

With reference to Figure 10, around 9:00 on that morning Mars briefly passed through the edge of the Earth's magneto-head. The spiral hair of Gorgon (or Medusa) must have been spectacular. Even more spectacular was its spiral hair, charged particles swirling in a pair of vortices, when at noon the Earth passed through the magneto-tail of Mars. The Eastern Hemisphere of the Earth was raked electrically as immense discharges sprayed the Earth's surface. This is the approximate time when the thunderbolts began to descend on the iron armor of the Canaanite military forces. Every hint or indication is that the discharges were sudden, deadly, and affected many, many acres of real estate on that famous day.

In Figure 11, the thinking shifts from planetary magnetic fields to subcrustal tides. Both electrical induction and tides function according to the inverse of the cube of the distance, which means that as Mars became closer, the intensity of the interaction escalated rapidly. While the electrical maximum may have been between noon and 1:00 p.m., not so with the tidal maximum, which is modeled at 9:45 a.m., two hours earlier when the two planets were at their closest. We project that subcrustal tides increased from 50 feet at 7:00 a.m. to almost 1500 feet at 10:00 a.m. And then they decreased just as rapidly as they had increased. If the Eastern Hemisphere had a subcrustal tide of 1500 feet on this day, the Western Hemisphere also had a subcrustal tide, but it was less intense, about 500 to 600 feet since there was an important difference in distance of the two hemispheres to Mars. These subcrustal tides contrast with the 3.1-inch subcrustal tide caused by the Moon in our time.

Something very interesting was going on which uniformitarian geology has never imagined. Looking down from Polaris, the North Star, the motion of the big bulge, the 1500-foot bulge, was following Mars. Mars was advancing about 1,000 m.p.h. on a direction that was clockwise. Simultaneously, the Earth was spinning, or rotating, in a direction that was counterclockwise. The gravitational field of Mars (and its accompanying magnetic field) was advancing easterly in the opposite direction as the Earth's centrifugal force. The Earth's centrifugal force is about 100 m.p.h. in the high polar regions, and it is 1000 m.p.h. at the equator. These three fields/forces clashed. The Earth's centrifugal force clashed with the combined gravitational and magnetic fields of Mars. (The Earth's crust was thus briefly pulled both directions simultaneously.)

If one views these three forces as two (with the two forces of Mars combined), an interesting if confusing image occurs. Consider the face of a watch having two hands. Usually both hands (big and little) move clockwise albeit at different speeds. Such is the normal mode with which we are all familiar. Now consider the big hand to move like the centrifugal (spin) force and consider the little hand to move like Mars (both forces combined.) The little hand, briefly, for perhaps 6 or 7 hours, moved counterclockwise. If such a watch were thrust upon a person suddenly, how would he tell time?

CRUSTAL SKID

The Hebrew army had a problem that day. Their problem was not how to defeat the Canaanite militia. The flux tube, striking Canaanite concentrations of iron (armor) took care of that matter. The Hebrew army lacked wrist watches. They lacked pocket watches. They lacked grandfather clocks. They lacked the water clocks which the Egyptians had. The Egyptians would load a water clock, not full, but according to the prescription of the day. It was loaded at dawn. The time of dawn varied a little each day, and so did the prescribed amount of water vary accordingly. By this instrument, the Egyptians knew when it was midnight, or how soon dawn would come. The relatively poor Hebrew army had no way to tell time except by reckoning.

The geophysical scenario which we perceive can in part be described by an example, a metaphor. First consider a raft, floating on a calm lake. It takes a substantial quick shove on the raft to overcome inertia, and to start it "sailing." Once the inertia is overcome, and no additional shoves are applied, it takes a lot of water resistance to damp its velocity, and to slow it down, gradually, to a stop, in a new position on the lake.

Second, consider a new theory for the origin of hydrocarbons, petroleum. Is petroleum scarce or is it plentiful? Thomas Gold, an Austrian engineer, thinks it is plentiful, but deep. He thinks petroleum is not a result of decaying swamp vegetation, pterodactyls and brontosauruses. He thinks that heavy, unstable elements in the Earth's core region give off atoms of helium, carbon and hydrogen. They rise, or bubble up to the surface of the mantle, which is also the bottom of the crust. Here, at the bottom of the crust, the rising atoms are polymerized into methanes, propanes, ethanes and a long list of heavier hydrocarbons at temperatures in the range of 5,000° F. and at immense pressures, 10 and 15 miles below the crust's surface.

The deeper an oil prospector drills, the more likely he is to find helium and methane, (3 and 4 miles down.) This is indicative of the probability that, at the interface between the mantle and the bottom of the crust (known as the "Moho," the Mohorovicic Discontinuity) vast pools of hydrocarbons in fact occur. Thus, in Gold's theory, petroleum is not scarce (as it is in the evolutionary theory); it is plentiful, but it is hard to get at, except where it has seeped up, or where it may have spurted out during ancient crustal rifts and flexes.

The core issue of this chapter concerns the nature of the interface between the bottom of the crust and the mantle, at the Moho. Viscosity is a measure of stickiness. It is natural to think of this region as sticky, because lava flows (at 700° F. or so) from a volcano are slow and sticky. But this area does not have temperatures of 700° F They are 5,000° or 6,000° F., or more, like the temperatures of the gases expelled when Mount St. Helens erupted.

Furthermore, there may be a thin layer of very hot hydrocarbons, essentially a fluid, trapped there on which the crust, like a raft, could "sail." The better question is, "How lubricous is it at the Moho?" The more traditional question is, "How viscous is it at the Moho?" Lubricity is a measure of slipperiness; viscosity is a measure of stickiness. Conditions at the Moho, probably, are a mixture of the two, but a mixture proportioned in which direction? Our suspicion, in agreement with Gold's theory, is that the mixture is proportioned in favor of lubricity. It is slippery between the crust and the hot mantle.

It has already been established that if Mars were at 27,000 miles distant, the Earth's subcrustal tide would be in the range of 1500 feet. Such flexing would assist greatly in separating the crust from the mantle, preparing it for "sailing." First, in our theory, the flexing of the Earth's crust separated the crust from the mantle. Second, that portion of the crust facing Mars tended to move toward Mars and to move in the easterly direction Mars was moving, clockwise.

Normally, the crust is locked on to the mantle, and the two spin together in lock step. On this day, the lock was broken due to crustal flexing. The Earth's crust, and especially the face containing Eurasia, wanted to follow Mars instead of following the mantle. It compromised. It slowed down. In the latitude of Greece and Palestine of that era, about 40° N. latitude, normally the crust rotated at a velocity of 700 m.p.h. On this day, between the hours of 2:00 p.m. and midnight, the crust (and Eurasia) sailed eastward, following the planet. How much did it sail eastward? We do not know. We know that, like a raft on a serene lake, once the crust separated from the mantle and begins to sail eastward, like a raft's inertia, it is damped slowly, and it decelerates slowly, coming to a halt perhaps 8 or 10 hours later. During this time, Eurasia may have sailed eastward 2,000 miles, perhaps 2,500 miles. Four hours would be the equivalent of 2,800 miles. This is what we call "Crustal Skid." It is nothing like the well-publicized term of recent decades, that of Continental Drift.

Precisely how far the Earth's crust skidded east, in our theory is unknown. However, one aspect of crustal skid can be determined from tangent tables. It has to do with the position of Mars in its trajectory, its flyby path. The following presumes Mars made a passover to the north of the Earth's orbital plane. Presuming this, the following can be defended.

1. If Mars were 5° north, there was 1 mile of shift north for every 11½ miles east.
2. If Mars were 10° north of the orbital plane, there was a shift of 1 mile north for every 5.5 miles east.
3. If Mars were 15° north of the ecliptic plane, there was a shift northerly of 1 mile for every 3.7 miles east.

The probability is that the Earth's crust shifted northerly about 260 miles, and it shifted easterly about 2800 miles. This is our guess. Crustal skid (easterly by northeasterly) helps to explain why Jerusalem had a net loss of 10° or 12° of latitude during the October catastrophes, 1500 B.C. to 701 B.C., as was suggested in Chapter I.

SPIN AXIS PRECESSION

Crustal skid was not the only change occurring on that day. There was also a spin axis wobble. The Earth is a gyroscope. A gyroscope is a spinning sphere. Mars is also a gyroscope, spinning at about the same rate, as it so happens. Mars put a torque on the Earth's spin axis during this flyby. Gyroscopic precessions characteristically involve three functions.¹

In the previous examples, we used the metaphors of first, a watch that had hands moving in opposite directions, and secondly, a raft floating on a calm lake. Our third example is that of a barrel-roll. A classic barrel-roll is when a person inside is spun around five, ten or twenty times. In our example of a barrel-roll, it is suggested that the spin axis of the Earth went into a barrel-roll for five or six hours and made a small fraction of a 360° wobble. How much did the spin axis precess or wobble on this occasion is also a guess. Our proposal is that both occurred simultaneously, CRUSTAL SKID and SPIN AXIS SHIFT (or precession). In one case, the engineering principles of slipperiness vs. stickiness, that is, of viscosity and lubricity are of concern. In the second case, well-established principles of gyroscopic precession and torques are the issue. CRUSTAL SKID, as mentioned on a preceding page, is a new concept. It is not continental drift. Continental Drift as a theory has been popularized during the last 25 years for reasons which, in our opinion, lack geo-historical substance. The following is an abbreviated list of differences between the two approaches.

Thus, it may be seen that Crustal Skid and Spin Axis Shift are a pair of concepts which strike at the very heart of uniformitarian thought, but also at the very heart of fiat creation.

Uniformitarians can no longer claim with confidence that there was a group mirage that day of the Long Day of Joshua. Theistic Evolutionists have no basis to agree with the Uniformitarians. Furthermore, Fiat Creationists have no need of a cosmic magician to suddenly stop the Earth's rotation, and some 24 hours later, to restart it, same tilt, same spin rate, same polar locations.

THE PALESTINIAN VIEWPOINT

The Long Day of Joshua has been discussed from the viewpoint of an engineer and a physicist of the 20th century. It has been discussed from the viewpoint of a Planetary Catastrophist. It has yet to be discussed from the point of view of a l5th century B.C. eye-witness soldier, whether of the Canaanite or the Hebrew camp.

The Canaanite colonels agreed with their sooth-sayers that October 24 would be a fine day for their favorite cosmic deity, Baal, to render them a substantial assist. After all, the wild and bloody Hebrews had just destroyed such cities as Ai and Jericho, including all of their population. Their comeuppance was overdue, according to the Canaanite star-gazers, consultants to the colonels. So the militia was called into action, along with their iron armor. The iron armor was honed, right out there in full view of Mars and its celestial flux tube of high-powered electricity. For the ordinary Canaanite soldier, it was a frightening spectacle. In early 1404 B.c. he had watched Mars grow from a distant reddish pinpoint in the nighttime sky to an ever-larger reddish sphere. In the most recent six months, it had traversed several zones of the zodiac as it grew in size. The celestial scuttlebutt was that this was the "appointed year" because Jupiter was in Cancer for the ninth time. Even more ominous was Saturn, in the zone of Capricorn, 180° opposite.

As the summer nights turned into autumn, the reddish planet grew in size, night after night. By the night of October 21 (at a distance of 1½ million miles), its sparkling, circling satellites were prominent. On the next night, the three large craters appeared like eye sockets as they slowly rotated on by. On the night of October 23 (when Mars was 300,000 miles distant), its numerous crater scars appeared littered as thick as smallpox (on one face only). By dawn the next morning, the coiling, spiral hair was weaving across the cosmos. Baal in its celestial chariot was beginning to veer across the sky and its celestial steeds seemed out of control. And there was the flux tube, hidden during the night, but threatening like perhaps a glistening, approaching tornado. Its approach was fast (1700 m.p.h.) and getting faster, bright with snake-like coils, its head brushing the heavens. Its fearsome lightning was ... FLASH! ... ZAP! ... CABOOM! ........

The Biblical account discusses that day in the following terms.

And it came to pass, as they fled from before Israel, and were in the going down to Bethhoron, that the Lord cast down great stones from heaven upon them unto Azekah, and they died: THEY WERE MORE WHICH DIED WITH HAILSTONES than they whom the children of Israel slew with the sword.
Joshua 10:11 (Caps ours)

"Hailstones" in Hebrew is barad, which seems to be inadequately translated. Planetary Catastrophists believe barad means thunderbolts of electricity, not hail or ice balls. The electrical charges would have involved millions, or if not that, hundreds of thousands of amperes. ³ Some of the Canaanite soldiers were vaporized at the site of the strike. Others, more numerous, were killed by the lethal shock waves which spread out radially; they were killed by concussion, with no wound, no blood (except perhaps some coming out the ears).

The text indicates that there were three categories of Canaanite soldiers that afternoon:

1. Those who were killed by celestial lightning and shock waves, the most numerous group.
2. Those who were killed by Hebrew arms, the next most numerous group.
3. Those who survived. They fled to any available place of refuge, a city or perhaps a cave. This group was the least in number of the three groups.

William Whiston

William Whiston translated Josephus works in the 1730's, nearly a century before Faraday, Gauss and Clerk-Maxwell, pioneers of electricity. In this Whiston translation of Josephus, the great historian of the Jews, Whiston conveys a more graphic account of the event. The following is drawn from his landmark work.

The place is called Bethhoron; where he also understood that God assisted him, which he declared BY THUNDER AND THUNDERBOLTS, as also by the FALLING OF HAIL, larger than usual. Moreover, it happened that the day was lengthened ⁴

The falling thunderbolts, or "the fire of the planets," to use Pliny's phraseology, did occur and it was devastating. This electrical phenomenon was one of several features of The Long Day of Joshua, a truly remarkable day in natural history.

If our estimate of the distance of Mars (28,000 miles) is reasonably accurate, in addition to the celestial lightning, there were great oceanic tides, and subcrustal tides of 1500 feet, flexing the crust of the Earth, producing massive earthquakes and renewing dormant volcanoes. Neither Josephus nor the writer of the Book of Joshua discusses earthquakes as a part of this flyby event; nevertheless the quaking can be presumed to have been intense.

Whiston was an astronomer, a mathematician and a theologian as well as an expert in ancient languages. (He succeeded Newton to the Lucasian chair in the department of mathematics at Cambridge.) Whiston was very interested in Earth history, so much so that in 1696 he wrote a book entitled A New Theory of the Earth. It went through several printings. Whiston's theory of The Noachian Flood was that there had been a comet, coming in from beyond Saturn, with a period of 650 or 700 years, which swept in close to the Earth. Its tail drenched the Earth with rain.

By way of interest, if indeed Mars received a vast dump of ice chunks at the time of The Flood, those ices would have suddenly melted upon impact, vaporized recondensed and flowed into rivers, filling lakes which would soon have been frozen solid. Then during the next successive flybys, near perihelion, the strong solar radiation would have melted and vaporized those ices, providing Mars with an icy tail, like a comet, a very handsome one. This perspective of Mars, its ancient orbit and its ancient tail, suggests that while Whiston was mistaken, nevertheless he had some correct elements in his theory.

Even as Whiston, and to a lesser extent, Newton, were writing in favor of catastrophism, Swedenborg and later Kant were producing their uniformitarian cosmologies. The academic communities of England, France and Germany opted against considering or looking to the Bible for clues. Supposedly "enlightened" philosophers recommended against reading the Bible, or listening "to those unenlightened ancient physio-theologians" such as Isaiah or Moses, to cite Lyell's phraseology.⁵ Science makes no mistakes, but it is entirely possible that scientists of that day made a major error in underestimating Biblical history, including the repeated (and our research indicates cyclic) stories of catastrophism.

However, Whiston faced a specific problem in his translating of Josephus. The problem concerned how to handle the Long Day of Joshua account. The Biblical counterpart is the Book of Joshua, chapter 10. In The Antiquities of the Jews, it is found in Book V, Ch. 1, pp. 66. It was not until the 1810's in Germany and the 1830's in England that Bohnenberger and Lang were developing gyroscopic theory. Gyroscopic theory concerns what happens when a torque is placed on the spin axis of a rotating sphere, which the Earth is. So Whiston knew nothing of gyroscopic theory or torques.

Therefore, Whiston added the following translator's footnote to his translation of the Long Day of Joshua scenario.

Whether this lengthening of the day were physical and real, or whether only apparent, cannot now be determined; Philosophers and astronomers will naturally incline to this latter opinion. The fact itself was mentioned in the book of Jasher, now lost, (Josh. x 13), and is confirmed by Isaiah (xxvii 21,) Habakkuk (iii, 11) and by the son of Sirach (Ecclus. xlvi, 4.) ⁶

As historians are well aware, the era 1750 to 1790 was one of rising anti-clericalism throughout Northern Europe. Many academic persons were friendly to certain Masonic groups such as the Jacobins and the Illuminati, secret societies also highly hostile to the church. Those hostile to the clergy and Christianity were hostile to both Biblical history and to Biblical theology, no difference being made between the two.

In this climate, Werner in Germany and Cuvier in France advocated catastrophism in geology, as did many others. Paley and Whewell did so in England, as did Louis Agassiz, the budding Swiss genius in geology. But, the academic leadership at Cambridge, Oxford, Harvard, and Yale paid less and less attention to these perceptive catastrophists.

During Whiston's era in London, in the 1720's and 1730's, students were wondering whether or not the Long Day of Joshua was a massive, collective hallucination. That has problems inherently; hallucinations are always specific to individuals rather than groups. Whiston had difficulty reconciling the passage with "progressive" scientific perspective. On the one hand, he was too wise to disregard the Bible. On the other hand, he was ignorant of gyroscopic theory and spin axis shifts and our more recent catastrophic theory of crustal skids. Therefore, he concluded that the matter "cannot now be determined." "Now" for Whiston was 1730.

These pages are being written in the 1980's, some two and a half centuries later. Spin axis precession and torques are thoroughly understood, even though their behavior is a little strange. One aspect of our understanding is that the spin axis went into a brief, functional barrel-roll. The second aspect of our understanding is that it is essentially slippery between the crust and the mantle. The crust as a unit, riding on a cushion of hot hydrocarbons, skidded a relatively vast distance before it came to a stop. It skidded in an easterly direction, opposite to the Earth's spin and centrifugal force. Minute changes in spin axis tilt and in spin rate are also suspected.

Mordecai M. Noah (1785-1851) appeared in New York with a translation into English of an allegedly ancient source, dubbed The Book of Jasher. It is considered spurious; we do not know the nature of his source. Saying this, his translation of the Long Day of Joshua passage is of considerable interest.

And the Lord hearkened to the voice of Joshua, and the sun stood still in the midst of the heavens, and it stood still SIX AND THIRTY MOMENTS[*], and the moon also stood still and hastened not to go down a whole day. (Chapter 88:64).

[*](Hebrew word), literally times; what portion of time I cannot understand by this term, never used in scripture to express any division of time, so I have translated it "moments." ⁷

In Hebrew, the word for day" in Joshua 10:13 is yowm. It can be used to describe several divisions of time, not just 24 hours. One of them is 12 hours, the sunlight part of the rotational period. That the Sun reportedly stood still "for about a day" thus cannot be assumed to have been for 24 hours. We do not know how long it was, but we have an educated guess. Our guess is that, in combination, the barrel-roll and the crustal skid, that day was lengthened 4 hours, and no more than 6.

Is it too presumptuous to conclude that those natural historians who succeeded Williamm Whiston should have paid more attention to the Werners, the Cuviers, the Conybeares, the Whewells and the Agassiz'? Perhaps, less attention should have been paid to the Swedenborgs, the Kants, the Lyells and the La Places. It is recommended for cosmology and geology that the serious student go back 180 and 200 years to where the crossroads in Earth history occurred. The less-traveled road deserves thorough reconsideration.

A scholarly re-examination of the catastrophist theories will require a review of Greek literature of the Heroic Period as well as of the Old Testament. It is further recommended that the serious modern student should study astronomy, while simultaneously surveying the findings of Voyager, Pioneer, Mariner and of other space missions.

EXAMPLE #6 - October 24, 1296 SISERA AND THE CELESTIAL CENTENNIAL

The term "centennial" is being used here in the anniversary sense, but not in the precise 100-year sense. More precisely, this date is estimated (by cyclic theory) to be the 108th rather than the 100th anniversary of the Long Day of Joshua. One of the principal characters was Sisera, a Canaanite colonel. Sisera was a title (rather than a person) as kaiser is a title, king is title and in former times, tsar was a title. In a sense, "Sisera" could be spelled with a small "s."

This was the era in Biblical history of the judges, a 350-year span of history before the monarchy. In this period of tribal rather than national government, Israel wavered back and forth between following the Lord of hosts, and following the planet deities such as Baal and Ashtoreth, the Phoenician terms for Mars and Venus.

Often, almost in historic cycles, the Israelites faltered in dedication to their Creator. They fell into moral compromise, into political vassalage, into economic hurt and into spiritual malaise. Under dire circumstances, a Yahweh-centered "judge" or patriot arose periodically, and under his leadership, Israel returned to the religion of Yahweh, as taught by Moses.

After the wars of Joshua, Southern Palestine was purged of the Canaanites, and to a lesser extent, so was Central Palestine. The Hebrews never did really conquer Northern Palestine; for a time they controlled the countryside while the Canaanites controlled the cities. Under these conditions, Phoenicians and Canaanites made a strong cultural impact on especially the northernmost of the 12 tribes.

Under this circumstance of periodic vassalage to foreign powers including the Canaanites, Israel was reduced to poverty, to disorganization and to near hopelessness. Under these conditions, in the 108th year after Joshua's Long Day, a new patriotic leader arose, Barak by name, with his aide, Deborah. The following scene can be gleaned from the Book of Judges, chapters 4, 5 and 6. Several details shall be pointed out, some of which might escape the casual reader.

1) COSMIC WARFARE COINCIDING WITH MILITARY WARFARE. Nearing this day, we surmised that the seers and stargazers, priests and prognosticators of Baal recommended to their military that it would be a good season for fighting. They may not have understood the 108-year cycle, mathematically, but we surmise that they did understand the 9th cycle of Jupiter in Cancer (which is the equivalent). October 24th of the 108th anniversary of the Long Day of Joshua catastrophe was approaching. And, no doubt, Baal would get his revenge. The Hebrews were also willing to give battle on this historic anniversary of Joshua's triumph.

2) AN EXPECTED DAY OF EARTHQUAKES AND VOLCANISM. Some 108 years later, the Hebrews in Northern Palestine had expectations for the coming day of cosmic crisis that reminded them of the stories of their ancestors as those ancestors fled Egypt in 1447 B.C. The Song of Deborah recalled those catastrophic times.

Lord, when thou wentest out of Seir,
when thou marchest out of the field of Edom,
the earth trembled, and the heavens dropped,
the clouds also dropped water.

The mountains melted from before the Lord,
even that Sinai from before the Lord God of Israel.

Judges 5:4- 5

As the time of the lawgiving had been one of volcanism and tremors or earthquakes, so would be the expected day of cosmic crisis.

3) ANOTHER LOCAL CONCENTRATION OF IRON. The Northern Canaanite Confederacy was once again wealthy in armor, in shields, in spears, in battle axes, and especially in chariots. Furthermore, they liked mobile warfare in the valleys.

And Sisera gathered together all his chariots,
even nine hundred chariots of iron...
Judges 4:13a

Such a concentration of iron armor was ominous during a time of scheduled electric catastrophism.

4) FIGHTING STARS. One Hebrew word for "stars" is the plural of kowkab. This word means planets in the sense of rolling planets or rotating planets.

They fought from heaven;
the stars in their courses fought against Sisera.
Judges 5:20

According to our theory, these stars were three in number, none other than Mars, Deimos and Phobos. It is suggested that the craters of Mars, like eyes, were seen as Mars rotated, a spinning which happens to be once per 24 hours, 37 minutes, just 41 minutes slower than the Earth's rotation. Also, if tilts could have been measured for both planets, which they weren't, those tilts would have been about 23½° and 24°, like the Earth and Mars today. Is this pair of similarities a result of uniformitarian chance or might it be that there is a better explanation?

5) THE MOTION OF THE FIGHTING STARS. In Hebrew, there is a seldom-used word, cuc, having a variety of meanings. For a horse, its meaning could be to leap or to gallop. Fora crane or a swallow, it could means to swoop or to fly.

Then were the horsehoofs broken by the means of the pransings, the pransings of their mighty ones.
Judges 5:22

In the early uniformitarian era, rabbinical translators (followed by Christian translators) have followed the horse concept; after all, chariots need horses and horses gallop and prance. In our view a better understanding would have been achieved if they had followed the crane or swallow concept and translated in favor of "swooped." The best concept is the celestial concept, and perhaps cuc should have been translated "path in the sky" or "orbit."

"Mighty ones" in Hebrew is 'abbiyr and its meanings can be various, including champion, chief, giant one, powerful one, warrior, bull, and a strong one. Another meaning is "angel," and we suggest a destroying angel rather than a guardian angel. If this word is associated with astronomy, it means the chief planet with its satellites, as we know from the account of the fighting stars examined earlier in Chapter I. In Judges 5:23, a clarification is given for "mighty ones," and in that case the translator did choose the word "angel," correctly in our view.

On this celestial occasion, the lightning struck the chariots in a location known then as Meroz in Northern Israel, in the lowlands. It may well have been within 5 or 10 miles of the modern city of Afula. If archaeologists can discover this site, the probability is that they will find traces of vitrified sand or glass. They may find some discarded iron also, but such is less likely as battlefields in those days were scavenged for scrap also.

The translators were thinking "chariots," "cavalry," "horses," and such whereas on this occasion the ancients were thinking about the "steeds" of Mars, Deimos and Phobos. This is a dramatic case wherein the perspective of the translators makes a vast difference.

EXAMPLE # 7 March 20/21, 1241 B.C. GIDEON'S MIDNIGHT BASH.

The dating of the Celestial Centennial of Sisera is approximate and speculative; approximate in the Bible and speculative since it is based on our discovery of the cyclicism and the timing of those cycles. Our sequel will present the background process and the research which went in to our discovery of cyclicism. One and one half cycles later came the mid-March catastrophe of 1241 B.C. Once again, the dating from the Book of Judges is approximate; this is the middle of the 13th century B.C. and nothing more precise than that can be said. We shall present the military-political background first, and the cosmic background second in discussing this event.

The political-military background of the scene in Palestine in 1241 B.C. was not good for the Hebrews. Once again they suffered from military disorganization, from political disunity, from economic duress, and according to the prophets, from spiritual malaise. (See Judges 2:13 and 10:6). Many had turned to the worship of Baal and Ashtoreth. They became immoral with respect to certain of the ten Commandments. They became compromising ethically, and there was a general social deterioration.

Under such conditions, Palestine was ripe for invasion and pillage or conquest by any one of several neighboring states. Sometimes the oppressing nation had been a neighboring state like Moab. On other occasions, the problem was roving pillagers, like the Amalekites or the Midianites. On this occasion it was the Midianites (who may have been a branch of the Hittites) who were ravaging the Palestinian countryside.

Gideon was a rising Hebrew patriot, an inspired man. He sought to put an end to the pillaging and the plundering. He had a dream. He had an idea. Normally under similar conditions, the Hebrews had put together a ragtag militia of 10,000 or 20,000 untrained soldiers for a major battle, and in so doing, they lacked military success during this century. Inspired, instead of gathering 10,000 poorly-trained troops, many just off the farm, his idea was to gather 300 elite soldiers, select and well-disciplined. Instead of arming these soldiers with the traditional weapons, battle axes, shields, spears and swords, he gathered (1) empty ceramic pots, (2) lamps, and (3) trumpets.

One can be reasonably sure that this occasion was in mid-March for the following citation occurs in Ginzberg's Legends of the Jews,

The day on which Gideon gained his great victory was during the Passover.... ⁸

This was not a passover anniversary of the average year, but rather of a flyby year. Of the previous mid-March flyby of 1349 B.C., nothing is recorded in Hebrew literature. It may have been a relatively weak one, or it may have been a heavy, but unrecorded one.

At midnight on the night of Friday the 13th (of Nisan on the Hebrew calendar), Gideon's small band advanced toward the Midianite encampment with their strange and unique hardware. First, they lit their lamps, perhaps simulating cosmic sparks. Next, they blew their trumpets, perhaps simulating the equivalent of a warning siren. Thirdly, they bashed their pots, simulating shock wave noises of distant celestial discharges. And finally, the 300 soldiers shouted "The Sword of the Lord." The Midianite raiders were spooked during this night. Perhaps they too had heard some celestial scuttlebutt about this being a night of cosmic disorder. The invading raiders packed their military bags and equipment, and without waiting, headed for their homeland.

The interpretation just about to be presented of a scheduled catastrophic flyby makes sense out of this strange and sudden military withdrawal. The Midianite raiders feared being struck by the flux tube of Mars and its celestial discharges, just like their fathers and their grandfathers once were. If such was upon them, there was no time to waste in getting out of the area. If this interpretation is not correct, then what is the logical alternate explanation?

What could strike fear into the hearts of the Midianite raiders based on (a) lighted lamps, (b) blowing trumpets, (c) bashing in of clay pots, and (d) yelling "The Sword of the Lord" or some other such phrase? The Midianite raiders were not a cowardly lot. Yet, their sudden, induced surge of fear was both intense and overwhelming. This fear must have some rationale behind it. That rationale seems to have escaped the rabbis and the Christian commentators, who have no concept of Planetary Catastrophism.

Perhaps what seems so strange and bizarre is not really so. Gideon is to be credited with a remarkable plan, well-executed by disciplined, elite soldiers acting in unison. The unison of the lighting of the lamps and the distant noises obviously was the key to the spooking of the Midianite raiders. Gideon did not want sloppy soldiering for such an occasion. What the Midianite raiders did not know was that the Sword of the Lord functioned between the two planets but only on the sunward side, since Mars invariably made sunward side flybys. Thus the Sword of the Lord was operational in 1241 B.C., but it was raking the Americas in the other hemisphere. The Sword of the Lord had been functional, raking Eurasia some 54 years earlier, but that was an October flyby, one during the daytime of Palestine. Thus, in mid-March catastrophes there was no Sword of the Lord operational in the Middle East. Perhaps Gideon also did not know that, but if he did understand it, he wasn't about to tell the Midianites. Such is the historical scene; we turn now to the astronomical scene.

If one assumes the 360-day year in the catastrophic era, and the 12:1 orbital resonance for the Earth's orbit with Jupiter's, one can calculate the position of any planet for any ancient year. Thus far, the emphasis has been on October flybys. Every 108 years, one occurred. Every fifth such flyby, Saturn was in Capricorn, narrowing down the Martian orbit. Those, we suspect, were the years of the heaviest catastrophes, what we call megacatastrophes.

Every 540 years, there was a megacatastrophe in October. Among the cases cited have been 2484 B.C. (The Flood), 1944 B.C. (The Tower of Babel Discharge) and 1404 B.C. (The Long Day of Joshua.) What would happen if both Jupiter and Saturn were to exchange places? What would happen if Jupiter were in Capricorn (rather than Cancer) and Saturn were in Cancer (rather than Capricorn)? If one traces the positions of the planets back to the final catastrophic year, 701 B.C., one can discover that the zodiacal arrangement was the opposite case, with Jupiter in Capricorn, and with Saturn in Cancer. The 540-year megacycles was operational for mid-March catastrophes even as they were for October catastrophes. In short, conditions in 1241 B.C. were ominous indeed, with the planets Jupiter and Saturn in exchanged position when compared to the Long Day of Joshua.

Thus, in an astronomical sense, The Gideon Midnight Bash was the forerunner, a preview to the Long Night of Sennacherib in 701 B.C. The Long Night of Sennacherib was probably also an extended "day," featuring spin axis precession and crustal skid, except it happened during the nighttime for Palestine. The major difference between The Gideon Midnight Bash and The Long Night of Sennacherib, 540 years later, was that (for whatever reason) in 701 B.c. Mars made its final flyby on the outside, on the nightside of our planet. On the night of March 20/21, 701 B.C., it would have been very appropriate for some midnight soldiers to call out "The Sword of the Lord," as we shall see. (On that night, 540 years into the future, the army invading Palestine would be Assyrian, not Midianite.)

We shall return to Ginzberg. He adds in his Talmudic commentary that in those days, many of the Hebrews themselves were so addicted to the worship of Baal (Baalzebub) that they constantly carried around small images of Mars with them in their pockets and occasionally kissed the image with fervor. Under a uniformitarian scenario, such seems strange and inexplicable, even foolish and silly. Under a catastrophic scenario, one can well understand the popularity of such an ineffective ritual. Such was part of the petitions, pleadings and solicitations to the planet-deity Mars. So also was the sacrificing of infants into its belly oven, demonstrating how sincere and fervent were the worshippers. All of this, including Gideon's Midnight Bash, including kissing images of Mars, and including infant sacrifice reflects the high level of tension and fear which the Hebrews, among other ancient peoples, had for Mars flybys.

EXAMPLE # 8 October 24, 1080 B.C. THE PHILISTINE PHALANX.

This day was another Centennial, a centennial of 108 years rather than of 100.

And as Samuel was offering up the burnt offering,
the Philistines drew near to battle against Israel:
but THE LORD THUNDERED WITH A GREAT THUNDER ON THAT DAY
upon the Philistines, and discomfited them;
and they were smitten before Israel.
I Samuel 7:10 (Caps ours.)

What was the nature of the "great thunder" on that particular day?

In Hebrew, "thunder" is gowl, which includes the idea of both thundering and sparks. "Thundered" is ra'am which means thundering with a great roar, very violently. "Discomfited is an anemic English word from the Hebrew huwm, meaning to make an uproar, to agitate greatly, to destroy, to make a great noise, to ring as a peal of thunder. "Smitten" in Hebrew is nagaph, whose meanings include to gore, to defeat, to inflict, to dash, to slay and to strike, as with a plague. The language of catastrophism is there in full form. But the modern translations have been anemic, flat, and as uninspired as is the economy of Eastern Europe in our era.

Josephus, as translated by William Whiston, provides a little extra clarity:

But things so fell out, that they would hardly have been credited, though they had been foretold by anybody, for in the first place, God disturbed their enemies with an earthquake, and moved the ground under them to such a degree, that he caused it to tremble, and made them to shake, insomuch that by its trembling he made some unable to keep their feet, and made them fall down, and by opening its chasms, he caused that others should be hurried down into them; after which he caused such a noise of thunder to come among them, that it was ready TO BURN THEIR FACES; and he so suddenly shook their weapons out of their hands...

So Samuel, with the multitudes, pursued them to Bethcar, a place so called: and there he set up a stone as a boundary of their victory, and their enemy's flight, and called it "The Stone of Power."
(Caps ours.) ⁹

TIMING. As it was in the case of Gideon's Midnight Bash and with Sisera's Celestial Centennial, the timing of the event is at best approximate from Biblical sources. Precise chronologies again are lacking. However, one can make an approximate dating by locating several timing-related factors. (1) The Philistine Phalanx was routed when Samuel was a young priest, a freshman priest. (2) Under the Code of Moses, priests were invested at the age of thirty, never earlier, never later. (3) The analysis of Finis Dake is that Samuel died at an age of about 98 years. ¹⁰ (4) Samuel died in or about the year 1015 B.C., in the 38th year of Saul's reign. The conclusion is, therefore, that Samuel was born about 1113 B.C. and he was ordained to the priesthood 30 years later, in 1083 B.c. This was three years earlier than the Philistine Phalanx, which is dated by cyclicism at 1080 B.C. Thus, by a convoluted means of dating, the year of 1080 fits for the time when Samuel was a freshman priest.

It is estimated that on this particular flyby day in 1080 B.C., Mars was in the range of 40,000 to 60,000 miles and if so, the subcrustal tide generating earthquakes would have been 150 to 400 feet high. If Mars were 50,000 miles distant, the subcrustal tide would have been in the range of 230 feet. So it was that Josephus indicated that there were great earthquakes, and the ground under the Philistine Phalanx developed sudden fissures. Also it is easy to perceive that, once again, iron armor (this time owned by Philistines) attracted celestial lightning. Further, it is easy to perceive that such lightning did indeed create flash burns and the earthquakes would create sudden fissures as the crust flexed like the belly of a woman in travail, or childbirth.

It is relatively easy to estimate the amount of sub-crustal tide which would occur during a close Mars flyby. The Moon, at 240,000 miles, creates a crustal tide of 3.1 inches. The Sun at 93,000,000 miles also creates a subcrustal tide of 1.4 inches. When the Sun and the Moon are in an alignment, these two figures add.

Mars has a mass of 8.74 times that of the Moon. Therefore, Mars, when it was at a distance of 240,000 miles, created a tide of 27 inches. Tides increase according to the mass over the cube of the distance rule. This means that as the distance between Mars and the earth halved, the tidal intensity increased eightfold. Therefore we can produce the preceding table for sub-crustal tides.

The mass of the Earth is 9.3 times that of Mars. When Mars made close flybys, not only did Mars induce a sub-crustal tide in the Earth and renew dormant volcanoes in so doing, but also the Earth induced sub-crustal tides in Mars. Those tides were 9.3 times as massive as the tides the Earth experienced. Thus, during the Long Day of Joshua (at 28,000 miles), Mars experienced a sub-crustal tide of 13,200 feet. If the Flood flyby was 15,000 miles, Mars on that occasion experienced a sub-crustal tide of 85,000 feet. And if Mars were on a path to come as close as 10,500 miles (and experience a sub-crustal tide of 240,000 feet or 47 miles), it would explode or fragment first. This theoretical zone of fragmentation is what astronomers call "Roches Limit."

This rate of increase becomes dramatic and steep when cast into a curve. See Figure 13. It is in this context that the modest differences Saturn could make in the orbit of Mars, 20,000 to 50,000 miles, is of enormous significance. This is why the days of mega-catastrophism were more severe affairs than were regular catastrophic flyby occasions.

With Mars experiencing such intense sub-crustal tides, and so frequently, it is no wonder that it has giant volcanoes. The volcanic cone of Ascraeus Mons could engulf the state of South Carolina. The volcanic cone of Pavonis Mons could engulf Indiana. And the volcanic cone of the gigantic Olympus Mons could engulf either of the states of Oregon or Utah. Or Olympus Mons could engulf all of New England plus half of New York state. The sizes of these volcanoes, like the ancient renditions of Hesiod and Homer, and like the overwhelming Noachian Flood, are results strewn across part of our solar system, results of the ancient Mars flybys.

Figure 13 represents the same data in a diagram format as Table II. Note the steepness of the curve when the distance of Mars is less than 30,000 miles. Our estimate is that of the 170 or so flybys, about six or seven were within 20,000 miles, and they preceded the Noachian Flood, which at an estimated 15,000 miles, was the closest of them all.

The Philistine Phalanx we are estimating at 50,000 miles, and perhaps even as distant as 60,000 miles. At 60,000 miles it would create a sub-crustal tide of about 150 feet. Earthquakes of this intensity would make a Richter scale of 1 to 10, even if logarithmic, obsolete. A sub-crustal tide of 150 feet or so could easily be expected to create fissures or chasms in regions of crustal instability such as Greece, Palestine, Turkey and Iran. One should not assume that the account of this catastrophe is exaggerated. Josephus did not consider the account exaggerated and neither do we. Samuel, the freshman priest, was the ultimate eye-witness source for this account as found both in the Bible and in Josephus.

Ginzberg, like Josephus, describes this moderate" catastrophe and the defeat of the Philistine Phalanx.

God terrified the enemy first by an earthquake, and then by thunder and lightning. Many were scattered and wandered about aimlessly; many were precipitated into THE RENTS TORN IN THE EARTH, and the rest had their faces scorched, and in their terror and pain their weapons dropped from their hands. (Caps ours) ¹¹

It would appear that some of the Philistine formations were flash-burnt as they watched the electrical discharge or discharges; "they had their faces scorched." This is not unlike many of the citizens of Hiroshima on the day that the first atomic bomb was dropped. "Rents torn in the earth" suggest sudden fissures, the like of which have been known to suddenly occur along earthquake fault zones in the modern era.

This catastrophe in 1080 B.C. was no doubt well remembered, and was, for many years, also celebrated by the victorious Hebrews. Among a large number of Hebrews, Samuel saw it as an eye witness. Records were made and were passed on to future generations. A catastrophe similar to the Philistine Phalanx, the flyby of 1080 B.C., would not recur in Palestine for more than a century. Nevertheless, its next arrival was predicted and widely expected, amid grave fears and anxieties. This flyby would be part of the basis as to why, just before the flyby of 972 B.C., the Hebrews took a national census. Moreover, when the next cataclysm did arrive, it was with a certain timing, "even to the time appointed." (See II Samuel 24:15.)

NOTES