The Sodom-Gomorrah Catastrophe in geometry, location and date, was much like the Exodus Catastrophe and the Isaiahic Catastrophe. All three were major holocausts, and all three were on or- about March 20/21, thus Case One types. All three featured bolides and meteorites, earthquakes and earth-shakings (spin-axis precessions), described cosmic scenery and renewed vulcanism.
The accounts of the Sodom-Gomorrah Catastrophe in Scripture are scant, but are somewhat enlarged in the Talmud and works of Josephus, in addition to other apocryphal Hebrew writings. Much of the cosmic, catastrophic material in the book of Job relates especially to the Sodom-Gomorrah Catastrophe.
THE PATTERN OF HEAVY CATASTROPHES in pairs every four to six centuries has been mentioned. The eighth century B.C. had one pair. The fifteenth century B.C. had another very heavy pair, The twentieth century B.C. also had a heavy pair. In each of these centuries, we have established that one was a Case One catastrophe 1 (on or about March 20/21) and the other a Case Two catastrophe, around the last week of October.
This is not to imply that all was serene between the Sodom-Gomorrah holocaust and the Exodus holocaust. A suspected Job Catastrophe in 1663 B.C. was at the mid-point of the 430 year interval. A suspected Jacob Catastrophe in 1718 B.C. has already been mentioned in Chapter VII. Description of the former comes from the Bible, and description of the latter from The Book of Jasher, 2, 3
BY ANCIENT LITERATURES. The Bible (in the book of Exodus) suggests both the day and the year of the Sodom-Gomorrah event, for the Exodus holocaust was on its four hundred and thirtieth anniversary:
And it came to pass at the end of the FOUR HUNDRED AND THIRTY YEARS, EVEN THE SELFSAME DAY it came to pass that all of the hosts of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt. It is a night to be MUCH OBSERVED unto the Lord for bringing them out from the land of Egypt: this is that night of the Lord to be observed of all the children of Israel in their generations. /(Exodus 12:41-42)
This geometry is a repeat of the two holocausts in the 8th century B.C. and the two of the 15th century B.C.
This 430 year period is also cited in the book of Galatians (3:17). On both historic occasions, (1447 B.C. and 1877 B.C.) Mars, surrounded by swarms of Mars-asteroids, engaged the Earth in a close fly-by, an expected day of appointment. Thus the first “passover” was not in 1447 B.C., only the most memorable “passover.”
The Talmud also dates the Sodom-Gomorrah holocaust in terms of day and month.
The destruction of the cities of the plain took place at dawn of the SIXTEENTH DAY OF NISAN, for the reason that there were moon and sun worshippers among the inhabitants. God said: “... and if I destroy them by night, the sun worshippers will say, Were the sun here, he would prove himself our savior. I will therefore let their chastisement overtake them on the SIXTEENTH DAY OF NISAN at an hour at which the moon and the sun are both in the skies.” 4, 5
AT THE SAME TIME the rain that was streaming down upon the two cities was changed into brimstone. 6
[Shades of the Murrain Plague of the Exodus Catastrophe]
BY MODEL. The model would anticipate March 20/21 (or Nisan 13/14) for the catastrophe, and the literature dating is within two days of the model. The model would anticipate the year 1879 B.C.; the literature dating is within two years of the model. The conjunctive cycle averaged 108 years. There was one short cycle just after the Sodom-Gomorrah event, and as we shall see in the next chapter, one short cycle just before the Sodom-Gomorrah event. Each short cycle was short by just two years.
The Tower of Babel holocaust occurred 52 years earlier than the Sodom-Gomorrah Catastrophe according to the Talmud:
This city [Zoar in the Rift Valley trench] had been founded a year later than the other four including Sodom and Gomorrah]; it was only fifty-one years old, and therefore the measure of its sins was not so full as the measure of the sins of the neighboring cities. 7
For fifty-two years God had warned the godless ; He had made mountains to quake and tremble. 8
Today the crater lake, Lake Bolsena, stands as mute evidence of the Joel-Amos Catastrophe. Rome was founded in its wake. Similarly, the Rift Valley of Palestine stands as further mute evidence of second millennium B.C. catastrophism, a cleavage of the Earth's crust. The five cities of the plain were founded in the wake of this cleavage in 1930 B.C., only to be swallowed up in the very next cycle, in 1877 B.C.
The model predicts that the passover of 1447 B.C. was not the only passover, only the most spectacular. Earlier holocausts on or about March 20/21 occurred in 1659 B.C. and in 1877 B.C. However, unless the ancient rabbis arbitrarily bunched various dates, we have other significant Biblical events occurring on this same day of appointment. For example, Abraham was circumcised on the thirteenth or fifteenth of Nisan, March 19 or 21. 9 Also Abraham 10 11 and his small militia routed the Chaldean force on a midnight raid made on the same night circa 1890 B.C. to 1900 B.C.
Thus by several methods we have shown that the March 20/21 anniversary was meaningful to ancients, and the four hundred thirtieth anniversary of the Sodom-Gomorrah holocaust was the spectacular and destructive Exodus Catastrophe. This was a slight two-year deviation from the model's average.
In our discussion of each of the catastrophes, five categories of data have been selected for analysis. These five categories include (1) the 54 year half-cycle or the 108 year full cycle of conjunctions, (2) the third week of March or the end of October in timing cycle, (3) earthquakes and/or earth-shakings (spin axis precessions), (4) bolides and meteorites (fire and brimstone), and (5) descriptive cosmic scenery. Categories 1 and 2 have just been discussed.
Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah
BRIMSTONE AND FIRE rom the Lord out of heaven;
And he overthrew those cities, and all the plain.
(Genesis 19:24-25)
God then cast A THUNDERBOLT upon the city, and set it on fire ... and laid waste the country with the like burning... 12
And in this month the Lord executed his judgments on Sodom, and Gomorrah, and Zeboim, and all the region of the Jordan, and He burned them with FIRE AND BRIMSTONE, and destroyed them.... 13
That Abraham was concerned with the movements of the planets, the regular and irregular, the close and the distant, is suggested many times in extra-Biblical literature:
And in the sixth week, in the fifth year thereof, Abram sat up throughout the night on the new moon of the seventh month to observe the stars from the evening to the morning, in order TO SEE WHAT WOULD BE THE CHARACTER OF THE YEAR... 14
This his [Abraham's] opinion was derived from the irregular phenomena that were visible both at land and sea, as well as those that happened to the sun and moon, and all the heavenly bodies thus: “If [said he] these bodies had power of their own, they would certainly take care of their own regular motions; but since they DO NOT PRESERVE SUCH REGULARITY.... For which doctrines, when the Chaldeans, and people of Mesopotamia, raised a tumult against him, he thought fit to leave that country ... he came and lived in the land of Canaan...” 15
Berosus mentions our father Abram without naming him, when he says thus: “In the tenth generation after the flood, there was among the Chaldeans a man, righteous, and great. AND SKILLFUL IN CELESTIAL SCENCE.” 16
Thus we see that not only did fire and brimstone occur, but it was astronomical as well as volcanic, that is, meteorites as well as cinders. The coming and going of Mars, or Bel, was watched carefully by many twentieth century B.C. observers, Abraham being one of the leading astronomical observers of the time.
Earthquakes are crustal tremors; earth-shakings are spin axis precessions, involving especially a shift in the location of the two geographical poles. Both are alluded to in the book of Job. Unless these happened during the Job Catastrophe of 1663 B.C., they must be observations of the catastrophe under scrutiny, that of 1877 B.C.
[God] WHICH REMOVETH THE MOUN TAINS, AND THEY KNOW NOT:
(crustal deformation)
which overturneth them in his anger.
Which shaketh the Earth OUT OF HER PLACE
(orbital shift)
AND THE PILLARS THEREOF TREMBLE.
(spin axis shift)
Which commandeth the sun, and it riseth not;
(spin axis shift)
and sealeth up the stars.
(planet identities)
Which maketh Arcturus [possibly Mars],
Orion [possibly Jupiter],
and Pleiades [possibly Venus],
and the chambers of the south [possibly the Milky Way].
(Job 9:5-9)
A crustal tide of 50 or 100 feet (as measured from Earth’s core) was not a common occurrence, but did occur with the occasional catastrophes of this era. We believe there is something more occurring, and some background must be presented here.
Today, the Earth has a polar diameter which is 26 or 27 miles shorter than the equatorial diameter, a result of the spin rate of the Earth causing an equatorial bulge. 17 We have postulated in The Biblical Flood and the Ice Epoch that during the year of the Deluge, there were two close passes, by Mercury rather than Mars, and at distances as close as 25,000 miles. 18 The two passes resulted in crustal tides of mountain-forming magnitude, and the formation of two major cycles of orogenesis. 19 We have also postulated that the Flood interaction, including both fly-bys, caused a relocation of geographical poles. This relocation, including both fly-bys, may have been as much as 5,000 miles. 20
If this massive planetary interaction is correct, then it not only caused a massive relocation of the spin axis locations, but ultimately (not immediately) it caused a relocation of the equatorial bulge due to isostasy. (Isostasy is the tendency of the Earth's crust and underlying magma to maintain a general equilibrium by yielding a flow of molten rock material, magma, beneath the surface under gravitative stress and centrifugal stress.)
A new equatorial bulge zone will develop. It may take centuries for the Earth's new bulge zone to form, and for the former bulge zone to subside. Stresses in some zones developed within the Earth's crust after the Deluge, and an occasion such as a close Mars fly-by would and did trigger the pent up forces within the crust. Earth's new equatorial zone needed to stretch, and this took the form of splits in the Earth's crust, perpendicular to the equator. The Great Rift Valley is the leading example on Earth of one of these splits; a mid-Atlantic Rift Valley is another example. (This is discussed in more depth in The Biblical Flood and the Ice Epoch.) 21 We believe that the Rift Valley cleavage first developed perhaps on or about 2146 B.C., 22 was widened during the Tower of Babel holocaust, and was widened again by the Mars fly-by in 1877 B.C. Thus the massive vulcanism in this particular location was triggered by a sudden brief stress on an already stress-laden crust.
The Great Rift Valley of Africa is perpendicular to the equator, and the widest and most complex near the equator. It is a response of our planet's crust to a new bulge zone, a new equatorial zone, required by migrating polar locations. The poles migrated thousands of miles during the Flood catastrophe requiring a new bulge zone. Note also the Great Rift Valley of Mars which is also approximately perpendicular to the current equator of Mars. See Figure 21 page 148 of chapter V.
In Job 9, Job discusses orogeny in past upheavals. He suggests that God “removeth the mountains and they know not; which overturneth them in his anger.” His three debating comforters (Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar) did not dispute this; they too had seen the Job Catastrophe and had heard about the earlier ones. Thus these four men, in discussing the works of God of old, were discussing literal effects of literal catastrophes, which may be phrased in poetic Hebrew or English, but are nonetheless most historical.
And Abraham gat up early in the moring ... And he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain, and beheld, and, lo, the smoke of the country went up as the SMOKE OF A FURNACE.
(Genesis 19:27-28)
Abraham was an eye witness, standing not far from the edge of the Rift Valley as it cleaved, split, and smoked with volcanic gases, ash, cinders and flowing lava. Needless to say, there is no flood strata at the bottom of the Rift Valley or on its sides, as there is on the surrounding plateaus.
The continental drift theory of Wegener has become popular in the last two or three decades, probably because uniformitarian geologists have no better ways to explain the data without turning toward catastrophism. Wegener's theory states that over the last several hundreds of millions of years, certain crustal plates or shields drifted across the globe, passing through pre-existing crust. This was allegedly achieved, millimeter by millimeter until Africa and South America finally were at least 3,000 miles distant from the original moorage. This is merely a simplistic jigsaw puzzle exercise, only with continents rather than with puzzle pieces. 23, 24, 25 The long term residual stresses of the relocated bulge zone are even today being measured, minute as they are, some 4,500 years under the original events. Minute separations and movements do occur; the findings are valid. However, this slight residual movement has been misunderstood by evolutionary geologists, and is alleged to “prove” the hypothesis of continental drift. What is actually being measured are the effects of the relocation of the equatorial bulge, some 4,500 years later. The widening of the Great Rift Valley, a cleavage to accommodate the new bulge zone, was part of the isostasy of the twentieth century B.C., even as the current minute deviations are a part of the current isostasy.
Over the last 4500 years, the relocating of the bulge zone and the accompanying adjustments in crustal stress have subsided at logarithmic rates, and on a transient decay curve. Geologists, thinking with a uniformitarian view point, schedule minute shifts along arithmetic rates for hundreds of millions of years. Both the catastrophist and the uniformitarian are thus looking at the same data, current minute shifts in crustal stress, but making vastly different interpretations.
Footnote 11, page 255, of this chapter portrayed some cosmological scenery which Abraham saw during a time of catastrophism. The rabbis involved in manuscript preservation have judged that Jupiter was the threatening planet, whereas we propose it was Mars. This parallels the current substitution in encyclopedias of Jupiter for Baal, but our research concludes that Mars was the Chaldean Bel and Phoenician Baal.
God moved, for Abraham's sake, the star Jupiter from the west to the east. .. 26
As a rule, angels proclaim their errand with the swiftness of lightning, but these were angels of mercy, and they hesitated to execute their work of destruction, ever hoping that the evil would be turned aside from Sodom. With nightfall, the fate of Sodom WAS SEALED IRREVOCABLY, and the angels arrived there. 27
Although the record is scant in the book of Genesis, Josephus, and The Book of Jubilees, and is only somewhat enlarged in the Talmud, even so, the Sodom-Gomorrah Catastrophe can be quite well understood. One method is to analyze the extensive cosmology of the book of Job. 28 A second method is to study the resonating orbits the planets once had, and to realize that the Isaiahic Catastrophe and the Exodus Catastrophe were similar to the Sodom-Gomorrah Catastrophe, only on different anniversaries. 29 To understand one catastrophe is, essentially, to under. stand all three. The differences seem to be the time of day or night in which each occurred, the distance between Mars and Earth during the passover, and an inside versus outside pass in relation to the Earth. The Sodom Gomorrah event may thus be viewed as a “repeat performance” as we analyze the cyclic nature of the resonant orbit model, and as we analyze the themes of these ancient catastrophes.
Stonehenge is an ancient astronomical temple in Southern England, on the Salisbury plain. The dates generally accepted for its construction are between 1900 B.C. and 1600 B.C.; it was a pre-Druid construction. We conclude that it was built in response to the Tower of Babel and Sodom-Gomorrah catastrophes, due to the spin axis wobbles of these events. Stonehenge was contemporary with pyramid-building in Egypt.
It was not built by neolithic hunters or bumpkins, but rather by some sophisticated “engineers” with some knowledge of astronomy, mathematics and transport.
At least 82 bluestones, weighing up to 5 tons each, were to be set up in two concentric circles around the center of the enclosure, about 6 feet apart and about 35 feet from the center ... but the ritual significance of such a structure puzzles the scholars of the past. 30
What is of equal interest is that these huge stones were quarried in the Prescelly Mountains of Wales, and were each transported over 300 miles across land, water and land again, to their present location near Southampton. Stone 56 weighed about 50 tons. The central trilithon contained stones one of which was 25 feet long and another 29.7 feet long. 31 Other stones weighed 25 tons as compared to the 45 to 50 tons of the trilithon uprights.
Stonehenge, as it is (lower) and a convincing reconstruction of its mighty monoliths (upper). Stonehenge consisted of an outer circle, no less than 100 feet in diameter, formed by thirty great monoliths with large lintel stones. Within this circle and concentric with it was another circle formed of forty small blue stones. Within this was a horseshoe of five huge trilithons formed by ten monoliths with their imposts. Within the horseshoe were nineteen foreign stones and an altar stone. We propose this edifice was used in Mars-Jupiter-Saturn Worship rather than Sun worship primarily. From Wonders of the Past, Vol. III, p. 652, courtesy of G. P. Putnam's Sons.
How long did it take to erect Stonehenge, and how many laborers were involved? Hawkins has estimated 1,500,000 man-days at a time when England's population may well have been less than 300,000, 32 He adds that this estimate does not include time for developing the necessary architectural plans. Stonehenge was to be an astronomical gauge and observatory.
Hawkins has concluded that this massive structure was designed to calculate the summer solstice, and perhaps also eclipses of the moon. He assumes the Earth's orbit, the lunar orbit, the Earth's spin axis location and tilt, and the Martian orbit were all the same in 2000 B.C. as they are today. We suggest this ancient astronomical observatory was built to track the journey of Mars, and to calculate it. If these early Celts were concerned with eclipses, it was eclipses of Mars, rather than the Moon. (If Mars was astride the ecliptic plane on the Sodom-Gomorrah Catastrophic Day, then the Earth would have eclipsed Mars during its fly-by.)
We have established that there was about a 300 mile to 400 mile polar migration generally toward Alaska and Canada during the Isaiahic Catastrophe. (This resulted in a lowering of latitude for Palestine. ) Spin axis shifts occurred during the Long Day of Joshua and the Exodus Catastrophe, and each time a new polar location occurred. Only after each polar location subsequent to the Sodom-Gomorrah Catastrophe is determined will we be able to “decode” Stonehenge. We predict the decoding will involve sighting and logging of the ancient Martian journey across the heavens. Thus, despite some excellent research by Gerald Hawkins, one's conclusions can only be as good as one's assumptions; and his assumptions of a steady state solar system, and of a steady polar location are not valid. Stonehenge has not been decoded. It, and some 500 other temple sites in Great Britain remain wide open for research. Research from a catastrophic world view surely is both more exciting and more productive than research conducted from a uniformitarian rationale. Uniformitarian geologists bask in the time-worn saying, “the present is the key to the past,” a motto of uniformitarianism coined by Charles Hutton in the eighteenth century. What could be more absurd?
One point should be reiterated. Job was an eye witness, as were Eliphaz, Elihu, Bildad and Zophar, to the holocaust in 1663 B.C., however severe it was in a global sense. Abraham, like Lot, was an eye witness to the Sodom-Gomorrah holocaust, and that eye witness account, in part, has been preserved in the Scriptures. Other ancient materials are helpful, but by comparison are usually inferior. 33 Eye witness accounts are what the Scriptures give for the Long Day of Joshua, for the Exodus Catastrophe with its spectacular noctural passover, and the Sodom-Gomorrah Catastrophe.
The vast effort of the present generation in the field of education apparently tends to make people think non-creatively. Education is designed to produce extroversion and social adjustment but frequently (there are many exceptions) creative people are of the self-sufficient and introverted type.
Liam Hudson
In almost every scientific problem which I have succeeded in solving ... the final solution has come to my mind in a fraction of a second by a process which is not consciously one of reasoning.
Irving Langmuir
Technically, the Sodom-Gomorrah event occurred in 1877 B.C. and the Tower of Babel Catastrophe just 52 years earlier in 1930 B.C. One is in the last half of the twentieth century B.C. and the other in the first half of the nineteenth century B.C. ↩︎
The Book of Jasher, New York: M. M. Noah & A. S. Gould, 1840, 37: 17. ↩︎
We do not propose that each half cycle was 54 years; some were 52, some were 54 and some were 56 in this era. There are literatures describing catastrophism for the dates with stars. The other dates were probably dates of astronomical threat, although full catastrophes could have occurred, descriptions of which did not survive the ravages of time.
March 20/21 1447 B.C. = October 25, 1500 B.C.
March 20/21 1555 B.C. = October 25, 1608 B.C.
March 20/21 1663 B.C. = October 25, 1716 B.C.
March 20/21 1771 B.C. = October 25, 1824 B.C.
March 20/21 1877 B.C. = October 25, 1930 B.C. ↩︎
Louis Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews, Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, I909, Vol. I, p. 256. ↩︎
The Talmud suggests the sixteenth rather than the thirteenth or fourteen of Nisan as the date for this Case One catastrophe. The Exodus and the Isaiahic Catastrophes were on the nights of the 13/14 of Nisan, our March 21, and vernal equinox. In the Sodom-Gomorrah Catastrophe, there is a two day variation from the pattern. This may be attributed to fluctuations of the orbits of the two planets, or perhaps fluctuations of the ancient calendars measuring the orbits. Either way, it was close enough to the day of appointment, the vernal equinox, to support the total pattern. ↩︎
Louis Ginzberg, op. cit., Vol. I, p. 255. ↩︎
Louis Ginzberg, op. cit., Vol. I, p. 256. ↩︎
Louis Ginzberg, op. cit., Vol. I, p. 253. ↩︎
Louis Ginzberg, op. cit., Vol. V, p. 233. ↩︎
Louis Ginzberg, op. cit., Vol. I, p. 231, “The battle fought ... happened on the FIFTEENTH OF NISAN, the night appointed for miraculous deeds.” Abraham with some 300 militia men [and perhaps with some bolidic artillery] routed the forces of Chedalaormer, the Chaldean general. ↩︎
“His victory was possible only because the celestial powers espoused his side. The planet Jupiter made the night bright for him, and an angel, Lailah by name, fought for him. In a true sense, it was a victory of God.” Louis Ginzberg, op. cit., Vol. I, p. 232. [Where did the rabbinical translators get “Jupiter?” Our research suggests Jupiter's son, Mars.] ↩︎
Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, Book I, Chapter XI, section 4, p. 101. ↩︎
R. H. Charles, The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, Vol. I, “The Book of Jubilees,” Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 37. ↩︎
R. H. Charles, op. cit., p. 31. ↩︎
Flavius Josephus, op. cit., Book I, Chapter VII, section 1, pp. 94-95. ↩︎
Flavius Josephus, op. cit., Book I, Chapter VII, Section 2, p. 95. ↩︎
Earth's polar diameter is 7899.5 miles. Its equatorial diameter is 7926.4 miles. The flattening effect on Earth is one part in 293. Some of the larger planets have a larger spin rate and a greater oblateness. Saturn's oblateness is one part in 15, Uranus' is one in 14: Jupiters is one in 14.5 and Neptune's is one in 52. The Martian oblateness is one in 192. ↩︎
Donald W. Patten, The Biblical Flood and the Ice Epoch, Seattle: Pacific Meridian Publishing Co., 1966, p. l48. ↩︎
Donald w. Patten, op. cit., pp. 75 ff. ↩︎
Donald w. Patten, op. cit., pp. 76, 78. There is a basis for postulating that the pre-deluge spin axis was located in the regions of Nigeria and Samoa, not the Arctic Sea and Antarctic continent. The two arcs suggest the fly-by pattern on the rotating planet. That they do not overlap suggests a massive polar relocation on each of the two fly-bys, a relocation far greater than the 300-mile and 500-mile relocations of the later Mars fly-bys which we are studying. See Figure 43, page 312 of chapter XII. ↩︎
Donald W. Patten, I, pp. 252 ff. Note the diagrams of the Great Rift Valley, pp. 254-255 of chapter X. ↩︎
...the name of one was Peleg: for in his days was the earth divided... (Genesis 10:25). Peleg was the fifth generation from Noah and he was also five generations before Abraham; thus his generation was in the middle of that ancient age between the Tower of Babel Catastrophe and the greatest of all the catastrophes, the Deluge. ↩︎
In the continental drift rationale, the continental shields should be composed of andestitic rock whereas the oceanic basins should be composed of basaltic rock. In actual observation, the continental shields are andesitic and the Pacific Basin is composed of basaltic rock; however, the Atlantic Basin is composed of andestic rock contrary to continental drift rationale. In addition, the forces of resistance to shield drift exceed by a magnitude of one thousand any drift force which has been postulated.
A better approach to paleography would include “oceanic shift” rather than “continental drift,” and one example is the Deluge. During the Flood Catastrophe we postulate that an astronomical ice dump added 7% or more to the Earth's hydrosphere, while simultaneously massively deforming Earth's crust. ↩︎
Not only spin axis shift but its associated tidal deformation uplift explains orogeny in a much better manner than does the Wegenerian continental drift with its ill-advised assumptions of millions of years of serene Earth experience in the solar system. ↩︎
Not only have there been spin axis precessions, or relocations. Field reversals and subsequent migrations of the geomagnetic field are suspected. Hence, observing the polarization of the basalt flows from these post-flood lava flows should reflect several locations of the Earth's magnetic poles. We describe seven post-flood catastrophes in this volume, and it may be that there was a field reversal on each occasion. ↩︎
Louis Ginzberg, op. cit., Vol. V, p. 225. ↩︎
Louis Ginzberg, op. cit., Vol. I, p. 253. ↩︎
In the cosmology of the book of Job, the “crooked serpent” in chapter 26: 13 is part of the described cosmic scenery. This is parallel to the crooked celestial dragon of Chinese cosmo-mythology, and to the phoenix bird cosmo-myth of ancient Egypt and Phoenicia. When the time came for the phoenix bird to die, it died by setting its nest and the Earth on fire, burning itself alive: but it was an “immortal” bird. It arose from its ashes, which it deposited on Egypt or whatever the locale, to continue its celestial journey near the Sun. From there it returned periodically to the Earth, as the legend tells, to dump more of its celestial plumage. This legend has similar ingredients to the Phaethon story of Greece and other ancient cosmo-mythologies. ↩︎
The Exodus Catastrophe was on the 430 anniversary of the Sodom-Gomorrah debacle; the Isaiahic Catastrophe was on the 1176 anniversary. Perhaps the Sodom-Gomorrah debacle in itself, was an anniversary of an earlier one “in the days of Peleg when the Earth was divided.” ↩︎
Gerald s. Hawkins, Stonehenge Decoded, New York: Dell Publishing Co., 1966, p. 4,. ↩︎
Gerald s. Hawkins, op. cit., p. 53. ↩︎
Gerald S. Hawkins, op. cit., pp. 73-74. ↩︎
The Phaethon legend of the Greeks is exceptional for its detail in its cosmic description. However in Greek literature it is not dated. And since its description matches the timing of the Long Day of Joshua, we conclude (with about 80% certainty) that it was the Greek version of the Joshuaic scene. It is possible that it describes an earlier scene, such as the Sodom-Gomorrah Catastrophe. This illustrates that both dating and description are essential for historical analysis; one without the other considerably reduces the inherent value of the account. ↩︎
"The Long Day of Joshua and
Six Other Catastrophes" by Patten,
Hatch & Steinhauer
- is ©1973 by Pacific Meridian Pub. Co.
https://www.creationism.org/patten/PattenLDOJ/
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