Chap. 5 - The Long Day of Joshua and Six Other Catastrophes; LDOJ; PattenLDOJ

WHEN LEWIS AND CLARK, early American explorers first came upon the three forks at the headwaters of the Missouri River, they of necessity had to select names. The names chose were in honor of important contemporary statesmen, Gallatin, Jefferson and Madison, a president and two members of his cabinet.

We are the first to identify and differentiate the series of catastrophes and their cyclic nature. Each requires a name. For example, the catastrophe of 701 B.C. has been named “The Isaiahic Catastrophe” since Isaiah was the dominant figure of the time in Hebrew history.

Concerning the catastrophe of October 25, 756 B.C., there was no single dominant figure in Judah, either militarily, politically or theologically. (The king, Uzziah, had desecrated his own image in the eyes of the prophets and priests.)¹ Four prophets, each of whom wrote briefly of this catastrophic era, are in the canon of scripture. They are Amos, Joel, Jonah and Nahum. Of the four prophets, the two more significant men are Joel and Amos, hence the “Joel-Amos Catastrophe.”

Dating The Catastrophe

Dating the Isaiahic Catastrophe was easy, for there is no doubt of the exact day. This is not so with the Joel-Amos Catastrophe, for the literatures of these prophets are not precisely-dated. We have five ways of arriving at a date and not all five harmonize. These five methods are as follows:

1) BY THE MODEL. The model presented in Chapter IV indicates that 54 years was the average for the cycle of conjunctions from one catastrophic intersection location to the other. The average is not the rule. Therefore the model, if valid, suggests any one of the three following dates:

2) BY AMOS. Amos described the catastrophe (as a raash, or “earth-shaking”), and dated it, but in an incomplete way by modern standards.

The “earthquake” was not a localized earth tremor as we think of today, but a planetary catastrophe, a “day of commotion,” better translated as an “earth-shaking.” This particular day (which we believe was October 25, 756 B.C.) was sufficiently memorable and vivid in contemporary times, that 200 years later the prophet Zechariah described it quite strikingly:

Zechariah was talking about coming catastrophism as modeled after the historical catastrophic scenes, in this case, the Joel-Amos holocaust. Localized earthquakes today are hardly a subject for casual point-making in contemporary literature; however, contemporary earthquakes are no comparison to the condition being described. The same word, “earthquake,” describes two rather different phenomena.

In Amos' introductory verse, he indicates he began to prophesy two years before the celestial holocaust. (Since Mars was in a two-year resonance orbit with Earth, Amos saw Mars pass over roughly a million miles away during the autumn of 758 B.C.)² This close fly-by may have had something to do with his prognostication of the next fly-by, and of his call to the prophetic office. He plainly predicted that the next scheduled fly-by would be replete with celestial wrath which no nation in the Middle East (his world) could escape;³ it would be fierce. The two year warning period in the book of Amos must have been based on his cosmic observation and insight that the next pass would indeed be severe, so severe that it would rival the historic holocausts of The Long Day of Joshua, Sodom-Gomorrah and the Exodus Catastrophe.

Amos dates his message as being during the reigns of Jeroboam II, King of Israel, and Uzziah, King of Judah. A knowledge of the precise dates of their reigns will enable us to further define or limit the time period for Amos' catastrophic pronouncement. The dates of their reigns are as follows:

The overlapping dates of the sole regencies of Jeroboam II and Uzziah (also known as Azariah) are 767 B.C. to 753 B.C.

In Chapter 7 of the book of Amos, Amos had a confrontation with the religious establishment of Northern Israel, specifically the council leader of the priests of Bethel (the king's chapel). Amos considered these priests, involved deeply in Baalism, to be representatives of the apostasy, not of bona fide faith. Because of his insight into the corrupt character of the nation and coming political instability, Amos prophesied the approaching demise (by assassination) of Jeroboam's dynasty,⁵ Tradition indicates that Amos was eventually put to death⁶ for his opposition to establishment apostasy (which also happened to Isaiah).

Amos' dire prophecy of the end of the dynasty was certainly pronounced in the latter years of the reign of Jeroboam II, after 760 B.C. Amos' prophetic career began at least two years before Jotham's co-regency in 750 B.C. This picture of Amos' persecution, inspired by apostate clergymen, suggests a date of about 758 B.C. The celestial holocaust enveloped the Middle East two years after Amos' call as the first of the writing prophets.

3) BY JONAH. Jonah was another fire and brimstone prophet who is best-known because he was swallowed by the big fish. More important was Jonah's call, a mission directed by God to go to the huge, growing militaristic Nineveh⁷ (capital of Assyria) and preach. His message was not a message of brotherhood or disarmament, neither was it a popular message. It was to be about the coming judgment from the Lord -- fire and brimstone.

Observe the specificity of timing. Forty days before the Joel-Amos holocaust, September 15, 756 B.C., Mars was visible and visibly approaching 20,000,000 miles distant. The leadership of Northern Israel had little time for Amos. In contrast the leadership of Assyria, and of its capital, Nineveh, received Jonah's message with sobriety, not scorn.

The Scriptures indicate that the city was not destroyed in 756 B.C. but neither was it left fully intact according to a Talmudic account:

The schedule of the catastrophe, or even the fact of the catastrophe is necessary background missed to date by all Christian and Jewish Biblical commentators. Assuming Jonah had some cosmic knowledge, some calendric knowledge and some historical perspective, and since Mars was 20,000,000 miles away and approaching, logically the leadership of Assyria would listen to Jonah. They did listen, however briefly.

Jonah is mentioned in Antiquities of the Jews by Josephus. His “sojourn” to Nineveh is discussed (Book IX, Chapter X, section 2), and the death of Jeroboam II is discussed next, in the first line of section 3. The implication is that Jonah's series of sermons and prognostications in Nineveh were given toward the end of the reign of Jeroboam II. The king's death occurred in 753 B.C. Thus either the date 756 B.C. or 754 B.C. would satisfy the general context for the occurrence of the catastrophe. Our preference is 756 B.C.

4) BY JOSEPHUS (Antiquities of the Jews). Josephus describes some of the crustal shift, and the urban geography in and around Jerusalem (Book X, Chapter IX, section 4). A part of a mountain broke off, and formed a landslide, which rolled as far as the king's garden. The landslide is recorded as having rolled four furlongs, or about half a mile. Such an earth deformation (together with the associated astronomical commotion) was remembered for generations. This landslide of splitting off of part of a mountain formed the basis of prophetic notes such as have already been quoted from Zechariah.

Josephus recorded this geophysical event on “that remarkable day” when Uzziah went into the temple, not just to worship, but to offer incense sacrilegiously upon the golden altar, a function reserved only for the temple priesthood. (Uzziah apparently had been seized with some degree of dread, fear and panic. We suspect the source of his fear was the immediate and close Martian approach of 756 B.C., by that eventful day, well within the Earth-Moon system.) One development that day was Uzziah's sacrilege, a second was the landslide, and yet a third was a severe breaching or bowing of joists and rafters in the temple.

5) BY THE TALMUD. Another method of dating the Joel. Amos Catastrophe is to determine when Uzziah first discovered “leprosy.” Jotham assumed his co-regency at about this time. The Talmud indicates that Jotham's co-regency began in 756 B.C. if he died in 731 B.C. with which Thiele concurs.

Thus we conclude that Jotham's reign extended over 25 years as the Talmud indicates, and ended in 731 B.C. Uzziah's nervous disorder was a progressive condition, beginning in 756 B.C. and forcing his retirement from public life. This establishes more firmly our preferred date of 756 B.C. for the Joel-Amos holocaust.

A Historical Frame Of Reference For Cosmic Catastrophism

Isaiah foresaw and pictured the coming holocaust of 701 B.C. in terms of earlier ones such as the Sodomn-Gomorrah, the Exodus and the Long Day of Joshua. Amos thought as Isaiah thought. Amos also used history and past catastrophic holocausts as models or patterns for the imminent cosmic crisis. This is to say that a good cosmologist in that era¹² had to be a good historian, and a good historian had to have a catastrophic frame of reference.

In these three references, we believe Amos compares the coming holocaust to the ancient holocausts, to the Long Day of Joshua, to the Exodus Catastrophe and to the even more ancient Sodom- Gomorrah holocaust. There were differences. The Long Day of Joshua Catastrophe occurred primarily in the morning, whereas Amos was predicting a similar kind of polar migration, only in the afternoon, Palestine time, and polar migration in another direction (the day would shorten rather than lengthen). Amos advised his contemporaries that they could understand what was coming by understanding the earlier holocausts. We shall indicate also that when these more ancient catastrophes are better understood (as they are discussed in Chapters VII, VIII, and IX), a more complete understanding of this Joel-Amos Catastrophe will be achieved.

The Joel-Amos Catastrophe As Forecast And Described By Amos

Amos was not, by modern standards, a well-travelled man. Probably he did not travel beyond the confines of Palestine, but he did travel in both Northern Israel and Southern Judah. Yet in Amos book, chapters 1 and 2, Amos reveals himself as a regional, if not global, prophet. In the year 758 B.C., just as Mars had completed its final orbital lap before the holocaust, he prophesied that fire and brimstone would fall on eight different lands or nations in the Middle East. The lands doomed to fire and brimstone destruction two years hence included Ammon, Edom, Judah, Moab, Northern Israel, Philistia, Phoenicia (Tyre), Southern Judah and Syria. These are all nations contiguous to Judah or Israel. Even though he was not a “world” traveller, his prognostication included the idea that astronomical judgment was in the offing for all lands, not just Jerusalem or Samaria, Judah or Israel.

The Joel-Amos Catastrophe As Described And Forecast By Joel

Joel, the prophet, in his written text, did not refer to historical holocausts for the pattern of coming astronomical crisis; however, he may have been a well-read and astute historian of cosmic crisis like Amos and Isaiah, for certainly he was a prophet of cosmic crisis.

The Joel-Amos Catastrophe As Described And Forecast By Nahum

Traditional Bible commentaries place the message of Nahum about the time of the fall of Nineveh to Babylonian armies, about 612 B.C. Dake, in Dake's Annotated Reference Bible, dates Nahum between 786-757 B.C., a dating in which we concur. His description of cosmic holocaust points toward his living during the era of catastrophism, and this ended in 701 B.C. We conclude that he, Jonah, Amos and Joel form a quartet of fire and brimstone prophets of circa 760-750 B.C. Two (Amos and Joel) addressed their messages to the Hebrews and two (Jonah and Nahum) addressed their messages to Nineveh and the militaristic Assyrian Empire.

Here are four prophets of the eighth century B.C., Amos, Joel, Jonah and Nahum. Two record a similar outline of a wayward, drifting Israel suffering from poor religious leadership and inadequate political leadership. Of the three cities (Samaria, Jerusalem and Nineveh) addressed by these men, the most pagan was Nineveh. It was, surprisingly, the king and leadership of this metropolis who listened and repented, however briefly. They at least honored Jonah and Nahum and their words. Jerusalem, on the other hand, was tired of the prophets, and Samaria would not tolerate the hard-hitting words of Amos. ¹⁸

The Geometries Of The Catastrophes

CASE ONE: If Mars is approaching the Earth from within Earth's orbit (i.e. Mars has recently passed its own perihelion), then an inside pass of Mars (inside Earth's orbit) leads to Mars passing ahead of Earth, hence losing energy. This is required for Earth's orbit (year) to be lengthened and Mars' orbit to be shortened. This case occurred during the Isaiahic Catastrophe. ¹⁹

CASE TWO: If Mars is approaching Earth from outside Earth's orbit (i.e. from its remote aphelion), then an inside pass of Mars is also going to occur, that is, Mars passes behind Earth. In this case Mars will gain energy and Earth will lose energy and will lose angular momentum, just the opposite of Case One.

During the 1800 years (2500 B.C. to 701 B.C.) when Mars was in the resonant orbit, and having its conjunctions oscillating back and forth once every 108 years on the average, there were about 33 half-cycles. It is something like a ping-pong game in which each opponent hits the ball back across the net for 16 consecutive times, the net corresponding to the perihelions of both Earth and Mars in early January. Then on the 17th cycle, like a ping-pong ball which overshoots the end of the table, Mars finally went out of resonance and into an entirely new orbit.

In the approaches which are all Case One, Mars will appear to rise in the early part of the morning and will set about 12 hours later, or about 8 P.M. At the height of the catastrophe, Mars will appear close to the Sun (and an eclipse of Earth is possible). As it approaches conjunction, the Sun is shining on the opposite side of it, and it will diminish in its image to a bright slit of reflected light.

In the approaches which are Case Two, the October catastrophes (such as this one), Mars will rise about 2 P.M, and set about 2 A.M. It will appear as a three-quarter crescent in the eastern sky, which crescent narrows as Mars approaches the Earth, and looms larger in size. Normally in the Case Two events, Earth passed the intersection location of the two orbits ahead of Mars, and Mars then lapped Earth on the inside, as its three-quarter crescent diminished to a shiny but thin slit. Again in this geometry an eclipse of Earth was possible. This is what the Celtics of Britain saw, when they developed the lore of a celestial witch on a broomstick, screeching and traversing across the heavens, the cosmic broom being her trailing symbol, portrayed as celestial locomotion.

TABLE VI

CASE ONE AND CASE TWO GEOMETRIES

We have already discussed a “Case One” catastrophe, the Isaiahic event. We have just completed discussion of a “Case Two” catastrophe, the Joel-Amos event. This catastrophe was typical in its timing, the 54 and 108 year cycles. It was also typical in its geometry. But it was somewhat atypical in its severity. Of the 30 or 35 close Martian fly-bys since 2500 B.C. only a half dozen equalled it in severity; only two or three exceeded it.

Summary

NOTES

Flavius Josephus, translated by William Whiston, Antiquities of the Jews, Briageport, Connecticut: M. Sherman, 1828, Vol. II, Book IX, Chapter x, section 4, p. 236. ↩︎
From an extrapolation from Table V, page 103. ↩︎
In chapters 1 and 2 of the book of Amos, he predicts a blizzard of bolides and meteors (fire) will fall on seven Middle Eastern Nations, all of them contiguous with Northern Israel or Southern Judah. ↩︎
Edwin R. Thiele, The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings, Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1965, p. 205. Our list is a simplification of Thiele's where he allows for the inexact correspondence between the Hebrew civil calendar beginning in September, the Hebrew Religious calendar beginning in March, and our Julian calendar, an adaptation of the revised Roman calendar. ↩︎
For this unpleasant pronouncement Amos was banished from Israel, and then was persecuted even in exile. Subsequently Jeroboam II died in 753 B.C., apparently of natural causes. He was succeeded by his son Zechariah who was assassinated in 752 B.C., and the dynasty was ended. Other assassinations of regents in Northern Israel occurred in 752 B.C. (Shallum, Zechariah's slayer and successor), 740 B.C. (Pekahiah) and 731 B.C. (Pekah). ↩︎
Louis Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews, Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1913, Vol IV, p. 262. “However, the fearlessness of Amos finally caused his death. King Uzziah inflicted a mortal blow upon his forehead with a red-hot iron.” ↩︎
Nineveh was a city of over 1,000,000 persons at this time, and the world's leading metropolis. It was what Moscow is to Russia, nerve-center and capital of a cruel, expanding state. ↩︎
Louis Ginzberg, op. cit., Vol. IV, p. 252-253. ↩︎
Josephus, op cit., Vol. II, Book IX, Chapter X, section 4, pp. 236-237. ↩︎
The “bright rays of the sun” which Josephus discusses indicates that severe structural damage was done to the temple. Josephus and rabbinic commentary in the Talmud suggest that these unusual rays, shining on Uzziah while he was in the sanctuary in his sacrilegious act, were the cause for his subsequent “leprosy.” That it was a nervous disorder is not doubted, but whether it was a nervous breakdown or an infection of Mycobacterium leprae is an open question.

Ginzberg's Legends of the Jews (Vol. VI, p. 358), a compilation of rabbinic commentary, says the following: The statement of Josephus that a ray of sunlight caused Uzziah's leprosy is evidently based on haggadic interpretation of [Hebrew word] meaning “shone” in regard to the sun. See, however, also Vol. III, p. 303, also note 197 on p. 90 in connection with death by CELESTIAL FIRE as a punishment for the laity usurping the priesthood... As to the earthquake taking place on the day on which Uzziah attempted his sacrifice, see references cited ... in Jerome Amos 1:3. ↩︎
Louis Ginzberg, op. cit., Vol. IV, p. 264. ↩︎
The same is true today. ↩︎
Greek cosmo-mythology tells of two floods. One ended the era of the Titans and the other ended the era of the Minoans, or the dynasty of Minos of Crete. Amos differentiates between the two floods, the first of which we believe was global and the second was but regional. The era of the Titans was the age of Noah: the time of Minos was the time of Moses. ↩︎
When the volcano Krakatoa blew up in August, 1883, the sky was dark at noon at towns in Java which were hundreds of miles distant, and at various elevations including at Bandung, 2600 feet above sea level. This was due to the air pollution caused by volcanic dust, ash and cinders. A symphony of volcanic eruptions due to a close Mars fly-by is believed to be the “day of the Lord,” a day of darkness and gloominess. It is an explanation for why the sun would become red in the sky, as it is in the localities near forest fires. ↩︎
There would be extreme crustal distortion caused by tides of magma and many collapsed buildings. The Talmud states that Jotham, who assumed co-regency about 756 B.C., went to great endeavors to repair the breaches in Jerusalem's walls, and refurbish other damaged architectures including the temple. ↩︎
Amos, like Elijah and Isaiah, chastised his people severely for their belief in astrology rather than faith in God the Creator. Astrology was associated with worship of Baal-Mars and Ashtoreth-Venus, idolatry, sexual orgies, infant sacrifice, witchcraft and Satanism, forming an unholy religious system. ↩︎
We believe Amos was describing first the path of Mars in the heavens and second the Earth's rotation or spin nature. Translators have missed both the word translation and the surrounding context. ↩︎
Samaria was the capital city of Northern Israel. Here Ashtoreth and Baal (Venus and Mars) were the supreme deities, not Jehovah. Those faithful to Jehovah were few and with modest influence. The priesthood was apostate, and the morality of the nation was in poor condition, immorality being a part of the Baalish system. The feeling against Biblical doctrine was somewhat vicious, although rejection was not yet total, The postscript to this situation is that Samaria's days were numbered. Assassinations in a series took four of her kings within 25 years, and her political and economic stability deteriorated rapidly. Many emigrated. By 720 B.C. the idolatrous city was destroyed by Assyria and the survivors removed as slaves; the nation disappeared forever. Samaria would have done well to heed Amos, and had it done so it would have survived. This is because faith and spirit are the heart and soul of a nation, and when a nation loses its faith it loses a great deal. Amos compared Samaria and Bethel to Sodom and Gomorrah, two earlier cities whose days had been numbered. Five steps of moral and spiritual deterioration of the nation are foreseen and outlined by Moses in Leviticus 26. The fifth stage results in national destruction and captivity; Amos foresaw that Israel was well along on this path into the fifth cycle of discipline, as outlined by Moses, and he warned the nation to return to the Lord.

For further information on these five cycles of discipline and five increasingly decadent generations, see Kenneth L. Jensen, Wisdom The Principal Thing, Seattle: Pacific Meridian Publishing Co., 1971, pp. 101 f. ↩︎
The resonance model requires Mars to pass inside of Earth in both cases. The one exception to this was the Exodus Catastrophe when Mars passed outside Earth, and apparently almost went out of resonance, because the next catastrophe occurred in 42 years instead of the normal 54-year cycle. ↩︎

DETAILS	CASE ONE	CASE TWO
Date	3rd week of March	4th week of October
Geometry	Leaving perihelion	Approaching perihelion
Geometry	Inside fly-by normal	Inside fly-by normal
Distance of Mars	60,000 to 200,000 miles	60,000 to 200,000 miles
Time of Day in Palestine	Varies	Varies

Isaiahic	Date	March 20, 701 B.C.
Catastrophe	Distance	Mars estimated at 70,000 miles perigee
	Geometry	Mars north of Earth's ecliptic plane
	Pass	Mars passed inside of Earth's orbit
	Rotational Scheme	Palestine at mid-day during perigee
	Case	Case One
Joel-Amos	Date	October 25, 756 B.C.
Catastrophe	Distance	Mars estimated at 100,000 miles perigee
	Geometry	Mars north of Earth's ecliptic plane
	Pass	Mars lapped inside of Earth's orbit
	Rotational Scheme	Palestine at mid-morning during perigee
	Case	Case Two

Chapter V

The Joel-Amos Catastrophe

circa October, 25, 756 B.C.

Naming The Catastrophe