THE FLOOD, THE EXODUS AND THE DAY OF THE LORD

By Roger Waite

"For after seven more days I will cause it to rain on the earth forty days and forty nights, and I will destroy from the face of the earth all living things that I have made."(Gen.7:4)

“Then the LORD said to Moses, "Rise early in the morning and stand before Pharaoh, and say to him, 'Thus says the LORD God of the Hebrews: "Let My people go, that they may serve Me, for at this time I will send all MY PLAGUES to your very heart, and on your servants and on your people, that you may know that there is none like Me in all the earth.”’”(Exod.9:13-14).

INTRODUCTION

The above Hebrew scriptures found in the books of Genesis and Exodus introduce us to two tremendous catastrophes that came upon the earth around the years 2305 B.C. and 1447 B.C. respectively according to the Biblical record.

The first, a worldwide flood that covered all the mountains of the earth wiping out all land-based life except for Noah, his family and an ark full of land animals which repopulated the earth after this traumatic event. This tradition pervades mythology all around the world in a major and very persistent way.

The second is the account of the plagues of Egypt that occurred in the middle of the second millennium according to the Bible. The Bible makes no comment about the plagues reaching beyond Egypt but Immanuel Velikovsky in his ground-breaking and controversial work “Worlds in Collision”, first published in 1950, attempted to prove with an immense wealth of ancient historical records and mythological sources behind him that the plagues described in the book of Exodus shook the WHOLE WORLD!

He not only tried to show that these plagues were felt around the whole world but went one step further by identifying the agent of destruction used by the “Great Architect of Nature”. He attempted to show all of the plagues were consistent with the effects of a near passing of a cometary body of massive proportions. It was so massive, as was the destruction around the world, that he made the extraordinary conclusion with the backing of many ancient records around the world that one of our planets was born shortly before these catastrophic events and had a series of passings and near collisions with the earth as a massive fiery comet. It wasn’t the fact that the plagues were felt around the whole world that shook up the scientific establishment so much, but the fact that some of the planets moved in a completely different way in our heavens in man’s short history that shook and offended so many.

Velikovsky, after reviewing some of the great number of ancient historical and mythological records that showed that the ancients revered the planet Saturn and consistently spoke of it formerly as rivalling the Sun in brightness, also theorized that Saturn was once another sun in our solar system which went nova. The effects of Saturn going nova according to various sources he used were what triggered off the collapse of the water canopy which formerly existed in the earth’s atmosphere described as the “waters which were above the firmament” in Genesis 1:7. This collapse of the water canopy caused the great Flood of Noah’s time.

In the ensuing years following Velikovsky’s theory about the planet Saturn those in the field pursuing this line of research regarding the Saturn Theory, most prominent among them being David Talbott, have taken the Saturn Theory in quite a different direction to that originally proposed by Velikovsky. The most prominent theory involving Saturn today is the polar configuration theory, which I don't personally subscribe to, which states that orbiting with the earth was Saturn, Jupiter, Mars and Venus in a co-linear orbit. In order, the line of planets was the Earth, Mars, Venus, Saturn and behind Saturn from the earth’s view was Jupiter. This line of planets rotated around its centre of gravity as it revolved around the Sun before catastrophic events led to the disassembling of the configuration.

Those who have thrown their weight behind the polar configuration theory give the impression that Velikovsky’s Exodus scenario is incompatible with the polar configuration theory which they believe to be correct. Velikovsky placed the catastrophic effects described all around the world at least a millennium too late is the sentiment. Velikovsky described Venus as only appearing in our heavens from around the time of the Exodus while the Sumerian and early Egyptian texts tell us that they saw Venus in the heavens before 2000 B.C. This is seen as a fatal flaw in Worlds in Collision and Velikovsky’s Exodus scenario. In this article I want to explore this question of whether the Saturn Theory is incompatible with Velikovsky’s Exodus scenario.

One of the best ways to prove a position is to compare and contrast it with the opposing point of view. This is the approach that I want to use in showing the strength of the position I believe regarding the events surrounding the Flood and the Exodus. The astronomical scenario I will attempt to show evidence for at the time of the Flood remains in the speculative but after I complete this section I hope that you agree with me that it is at least a strong hypothesis connecting many of the facts together regarding this time. Accompanying it will be much geological evidence also proving the Flood was a historical reality.

There has been much astronomical, geological and archaeological evidence that has come forth in the past decade or two that throws much weight behind Velikovsky’s Exodus scenario described in “Worlds in Collision” and its geological companion “Earth in Upheaval” that one could be almost tempted to affirm it as fact and not just speculation. Author Charles Ginenthal recently published a 400 page book entitled “Carl Sagan and Immanuel Velikovsky” which completely destroyed the famous scientist’s critique of “Worlds in Collision” and provided an immense wealth of new scientific, astronomical and geological evidence supporting Velikovsky. I will summarize this new evidence later on in this book.

What I plan to do in this article is to, first of all, give an overview of the evidence of what the ancients believed the heavens looked like. From there I want to explore the polar configuration theory and look at the strengths and weaknesses of the theory. Then I want to look at the strengths and weaknesses of an alternative Saturn Theory and then I want to go through the strengths and weaknesses of Velikovsky’s Exodus scenario. To conclude with I will develop a kind of a grand unified theory built on the historical background we will cover that shows how I believe the plagues of the Day of the Lord will occur and that the plagues are not separate, independent events but consequences of a singular method by which God will punish mankind.

THE EVIDENCE FOR THE SATURN THEORY (The Flood)

Saturn

The best place to start with the Saturn Theory is to show some of the evidence that Saturn once rivalled the Sun in brightness. Dwardu Cardona’s excellent paper “Intimations of an Alien Sky” covers this topic and much more. It is available from Ted Holden’s catastrophism site on the internet (http://www.access.digex.net/~medved/Catastrophism.html). That internet site has many articles to download on subjects related to what I will be covering in this article. Here are a few quotes from Dwardu Cardona’s “Alien Sky” paper which show how the ancients viewed Saturn.

“Diodorus Siculus, who lived in the first century B.C., had reason to report that the Chaldeans regarded Saturn as the most prominent of the planets:

“‘But above all in importance, they [the Chaldeans] say, is the study of the influence of the five stars known as planets [the one named Cronus by the Greeks (i.e., Saturn)] is the most conspicuous.’

“As viewed from Earth, this is simply not so. Venus is much more prominent. It is easily the brightest of the planets...In contradistinction, Saturn is a very difficult object to observe. Even Bob Forrest, one of the strongest opponents of cosmic catastrophism, was moved to display his bewilderment when he stated:

“‘The only puzzling thing about this passage [of Diodorus] is the way Saturn is said to be the most conspicuous of the planets. All else is fairly routine.’...

“To give but one other example, and later we shall give others, we note here one of the Sanskrit names of the planet Saturn, that is Grahanayakah. This name is composed of the words "graha(h)", "planet", and "nayakah", "chief or leader." Thus, according to this name, Saturn is, or at least was, considered the leader of the planets, in fact, the chief planet...

“What was it, however, that made the Babylonians allude to Saturn as the most prominent of the planets, prominent enough for them to refer to it, inter alia, as En-Me Sarra, that is "Lord of the law of the Universe"? One must admit, that is quite a lofty title to bestow on what appears to be a mere pin-point of light in the present night sky.

“The clue to Saturn's prominence, even loftiness, was supplied by Diodorus in the very same passage we have already partly quoted. There this writer continues to report that "the [planet] named Cronus [i.e. Saturn] by the Greeks they [the Chaldeans] call the star of Helios”

“It is somewhat odd that Forrest did not find this statement as "puzzling" as the one which proclaims Saturn to be the most prominent of the planets. Odder still is that he relegated it to the unimportance of "fairly routine" reporting because, to the Greeks of Diodorus' time, Helios was the sun. From it are derived such sun-oriented English words as "heliacal," "heliocentric," and "heliograph." Why would the Babylonians have referred to the planet Saturn as the star of the Sun?

“R.C. Thompson might have been the first to discover, even if not entirely understand, this Babylonian verity. Thus, another Babylonian name for the planet Saturn was (Mul) Lu-Bat Sag-Us and we find it stated in an astrological report from that nation that "(Mul) Lu-Bat Sag-Us (il) Samas Su-u," which Thompson translated as "[the planet] Saturn is the star of the sun."

“Actually, Diodorus should have known that this belief was already common among the scholars of his own nation. Eratosthenes of Alexandria, who thrived somewhere between 276 and 194 B.C., and whose astronomical, mathematical, and geographical knowledge enabled him to measure the circumference of the Earth, identified the planet Saturn as the star of the Sun, as so did several other Greek writers. Among the Greeks, this belief continued down to the 6th century A.D. as is known through the neo-platonic philosopher Simplicus who also called Saturn the star of the Sun.

“Meanwhile shemesh, and therefore Shamash, means "to be brilliant," and while this may be an apt name for the Sun, one would hardly think of alluding to the pin-point of light that is Saturn by the same appellation. And yet this is precisely what the Babylonians did. Thus while we understand that Shamash was the name of the planet Saturn as well as the Sun, is it also to be understood that Saturn was once believed to have been as brilliant as the Sun?

“There is, again, no point in claiming that these were metaphorical epithets meant to be applied to the god and not the planet he represented because, to the ancients who venerated him, the god and the planet was one and the same. And this, incidentally, is not merely my contention, or that of those colleagues who have recently become involved in studying the Saturnian phenomenon. Conventional mythologists had recognized this fact for themselves even though they found it very difficult to accept....Rawlinson himself found these epithets "very difficult to reconcile with the notion that, as a celestial luminary, [Ninip] was Saturn." Somewhat like Jensen, he, also, sought to explain the situation by appealing to astral bodies other than the one indicated by the texts themselves. As he wrote:

“These phrases appear to point to the Moon, or to some very brilliant star, and are scarcely reconcilable with the notion that [Ninip] was the dark and distant Saturn.

“Elsewhere, and earlier, Rawlinson had indicated the same bewilderment when he asked: "How is it possible that the dark and distant planet Saturn can answer to the luminary who [or which] 'irradiates the nations like the sun, the light of the gods'?"....

“In fact, ask any mythologist to name the solar god par excellence and the name of Ra (or Re) is bound to come up. Not only was Ra the Egyptian Sun god, he was the Sun itself. As James Frazer echoed this Egyptological dictum: "That Ra was both the physical sun and the sun-god is of course undisputed". And yet, an Egyptian Ostrakon from Ptolemaic times identifies Ra as the Greek Kronos, which is the planet Saturn.”

Dwardu Cardona in a post called “Ra as Saturn” on the kronia internet forum which I am subcribed to informs us that:

“The Egyptian Ra was, by the Egyptians themselves, assimilated to the god Atum, and, in fact, this deity is often referred to in Egyptian documents as Atum-Ra. This god bore a specific and strange characteristic. Atum was honored as a sun of night. Now, I ask you, does the Sun shine at night?...

“This sun of night was also anthropomorphosed by the Egyptians as the god Osiris. Mariette-Bey long ago had it stated that ‘originally, Osiris is the nocturnal sun.’ This contention was also shared by Budge who informed his readers that ‘the Egyptian texts suggest that in late times the Sun-god of night may have been regarded as a form of Osiris.’

“A sun of night was also believed in by the Assyro-Babylonians. But there, this sun of night was identified as the planet Saturn. As Morris Jastrow Jr. had it stated: ‘Strange as it may seem to us, the planet Saturn appears to have been regarded as 'the sun of night'...’ In view of the fact that Atum-Ra, as well as Osiris, was likewise lauded as a sun of night, should we not then give credence to the identification of Ra as the same Saturn?”

That Saturn was identified as a sun or star in most ancient cultures and seen in such a completely different way than the faint, slow-moving pin-prick of light it is today, is at the heart and core of the Saturn theory.

Velikovsky suggested that the intense light of seven days mentioned in Isaiah 30:26 is the same as the seven days mentioned in the Flood account and that this intense light, remembered in the ancient seven-day light festival of the Saturnalia, commemorates the time of the flood when there was intense light for seven days. This, he speculated, was a nova or something similar to it in our solar system. But what went nova if this happened? The name Saturnalia implies Saturn.

In a Kronos article entitled “On Saturn and the Flood” Velikovsky wrote:

“I have already discussed the statement, contained in the Tractate Brakhot of the Babylonian Talmud, which points to the celestial body Khima as the source of the Deluge: and I have shown why Khima is to be identified with Saturn.

“Hindu sources also provide information which links the planet Saturn with the Deluge. This Catastrophe is said to have taken place during the Satya yuga, in the reign of Satyavrata, who is usually identified as Saturn. Actually, it becomes apparent that the whole epoch named Satya yuga was the Age of Saturn as well as of the Deluge. Sir William Jones, who occupied himself mainly with comparative linguistics and with Hindu lore, expressed this very thought. He wrote that the Satya yuga meant the Saturnian Age, and that this was the Age of the Flood.”

Now let’s have a look at some of the evidence of where in the sky it was positioned and the relationship between Saturn and the other planets at this time.

In an internet post entitled “Polar Sun” Dave Talbott writes:

“When you look at the northern sky at night, the stars you see are actually cutting a circle around a motionless point. This wheeling of circumpolar stars around the visual center is, of course, due to the rotation of the Earth. You can see this motion through a time lapse photograph of the circumpolar region....That stationary point, in the ancient religious and astronomical systems, is the sacred center and summit.

“The French scholar Jacques Enel, in his study of Egyptian imagery, for example, assures us that the Egyptians remembered Atum's station as ‘the single, immovable point around which the movement of the stars occurred.’ To the Egyptians, states Enel, ‘Atum was the chief or center of the movement of the universe at the pole’....The texts say of Atum - ‘The Great God lives fixed in the middle of the sky.’

“Much the same language is used by the eminent Egyptologist, T. Rundle Clark, who tells us the pole was the place par excellence. Atum, according to Clark, is ‘the arbiter of destiny perched on the top of the world pole.’ So when the text declare that ‘the great god lives, fixed in the middle of the sky,’ the reference is to the polar station, according to Clark....

“Remember that the sun god Atum and the sun god Ra were one and the same, though the Egyptians insisted that the god himself evolved with the unfolding events. The god who was Atum became Ra[Ra was the oldest of the Egyptian gods and the god Atum in time was merged with Ra] in the course of his own unfolding, as the originally formless god began to acquire certain distinct attributes.

“Thus Atum's counterpart Ra, according to the sources themselves, ‘rests on his high place.’ He does not roam about the sky. Like Atum, Ra is the pivot, with the lesser lights revolving around him. These are, as the texts say, the ‘stars who surround Ra.’ ‘These gods shall revolve round about him.’ ‘The satellites of Ra make their round.’ Again, the picture is of a stationary god serving as the pivot of celestial motions.

“As I have already noted the ancient Sumerian counterpart of Atum was the creator-king An, the Akkadian Anu, whose ‘terrifying glory’ was a repeated subject of the hymns and rites. This was ‘the terror of the splendour of Anu in the midst of heaven,’ and the starworshippers did not mean by the ‘midst’ of heaven some vague and unfamiliar metaphor. The ‘midst’ (kirib sami, Kabal sami, meant, very concretely, the cosmic center), making the polar god, according to Robert Brown, Jr., a nocturnal sun. The words translated as the ‘midst’ mean, according to Brown, ‘that central point where Polaris sat enthroned.’

“Both Sumerian and Akkadian texts are replete with references to the ‘firm’ and ‘steadfast’ or ‘motionless’ character of the dominant gods. The great god Enki of Eridu is ‘the motionless lord,’ and god of ‘stability.’ A broken Sumerian hymn, in reference to Ninurash, a form of Ninurta, reads:

“‘Whom the 'god of the steady star' upon a foundation.

To...cause to repose in years of plenty.’

“What, then, of the famous Assyrian and Babylonian god Shamash, the sun god whom we now recognize as Saturn? A remarkable fact is that Shamash ‘comes forth’ (shines) and ‘goes in’ (declines, diminishes) at one spot, the ‘firm,’ ‘stable’ or motionless station of ‘supreme ‘rest’.

“This place par excellence was symbolized by the top of the ziggurats the famous Babylonian axis-towers constructed as symbolic models of the Cosmos. Hence, the uppermost level was deemed the ‘light of Shamash,’ and the ‘heart of Shamash,’ denoting (in the words of E.G. King) the pivot ‘around which the highest heaven or sphere of the fixed stars revolved’....

“The recurring concepts are these: a stationary location, the celestial place of rest, the place round which the heavens turn, and the cosmic center, the place where the myths begin. Firmness, stability, pivot, axis, center, and summit or zenith. The imagery is both archetypal and universal.

“To the Hindus the sacred celestial spot, the province of the creator-king, was the place of ‘supreme rest,’ called also ‘the motionless site.’ The Hindu Dhruva, whose name means ‘firm,’ stands on this very spot--’a Spot blazing with splendor...and which subsists motionless.’ In the Sanskrit texts, Dhruva means the celestial pole.

“What remains to be explained by mythologists is that the sun god Surya ‘stands firmly on this safe resting place.’ Surya, states the Sanskrit authority V.S. Agrawala, ‘is himself at rest, being the immovable center of his system.’ Just as the Egyptian and Mesopotamian sun gods ‘rise and set’ in one place, Surya occupies samanam dhama--’the same place of rising and setting.’ The words translated as ‘rising’ and ‘setting’ can only mean the phase of brightness followed by the phase of receding light.

“Another name for the stationary sun, according to Agrawala, is Prajapati. ‘The sun in the center is Prajapati: he is the horse that imparts movement to everything.’ The motionless Dhruva, Surya, and Prajapati compare with the light of Brahma, called the ‘true sun.’ This is the ancient sun, the texts say, which ‘after having risen thence upwards ... rises and sets no more. It remains alone in the center.’ Here, too, center and summit are synonymous. Brahma, observes Rene Guenon, is ‘the pivot around which the world accomplishes it revolution, the immutable center which directs and regulates cosmic movement.’

“Moreover, this stationary and axial character of the greatest gods seems to be common to all of the primary celestial figures in Hindu myth, with its diverse pantheon gathered from so many cultural traditions. The god Varuna, ‘seated in the midst of heaven,’ is the ‘Recumbent,’ and called the ‘axis of the universe.’ ‘Firm is the seat of Varuna,’ declares one of the Vedic hymns. In him ‘all wisdom centres, as the nave is set within the wheel.’ One of Varuna's forms is Savitar, the ‘impeller.’ While the rest of the universe revolves, the impeller stands firm. ‘Firm shalt thou stand, like Savitar desirable.’

“According to ancient Chinese astronomy the revered Emperor on High, prototype of kings, stood at the celestial pole. Chinese astrologers, according to Gustav Schlegel, regarded the polar god as ‘the Arch-Premier ... the most venerated of all the celestial divinities. In fact the Pole star, around which the entire firmament appears to turn, should be considered as the Sovereign of the Sky.’ It was thus proclaimed that the celestial pole was the seat of the supreme ruler Shang-ti, mythically, the first king of a great dynasty in the remote past. His seat was ‘the Pivot,’ and all the heavens turned upon his exclusive power.

“Raised to a first principle, the polar power became the mystic Tao, the motor of the Cosmos. The essential idea is contained in the Chinese word for Tao, which combines the sign for ‘to stand still’ with the sign for ‘to go’ and ‘head’ The Tao is the Unmoved Mover, the supreme ruler, who ‘goes,’ or ‘moves’ while yet remaining in one place--revealing a striking correspondence with the images of the polar power in other lands....

“A stunning example of the polar Saturn is provided in Chinese astronomy, where the distant planet was called ‘the genie of the pivot.’ Saturn was believed to have his seat at the pole, according to the eminent authority on Chinese astronomy, Gustav Schlegel. In the words of de Saussure, Saturn was ‘the planet of the center, corresponding to the emperor on earth, thus to the polar star of heaven.’....

“Significantly, these same overlapping images of a polar sun or sovereign luminary at the pole occur in the Americas. In southern Peru the Inca Yupanqui raised a temple at Cuzco to the creator god who was superior to the sun we know. Unlike the solar orb, he was able to ‘rest’ and ‘to light the world from one spot.’ As the pioneering Mesoamerican scholar, Zelia Nuttal, noted many years ago, the only reasonable position in the sky for fulfilling this requirement is the celestial Pole. ‘It is an extremely important and significant fact,’ writes Nuttall, ‘that the principal doorway of this temple opened to the north.’ (Since the north celestial pole is not visible from Cuzco, 14° below the equator, Nuttall assumed that this tradition of a polar sun was carried southward.)

“It seems that the memory of the central sun established itself around the world. Other reflections of the polar power in the Americas are noteworthy.

“Cottie Burland tells us that, among the Mexicans, ‘the nearest approach to the idea of a true universal god was Xiuhtecuhtli, recalled as the Old, Old One who enabled the first ancestors to rise from barbarism. Xiuhtecuhtli appears as the Central Fire and ‘the heart of the Universe.’ ‘Xiuhtecuhtli was a very special deity. He was not only the Lord of Fire which burnt in front of every temple and in the middle of every hut in Mexico, but also Lord of the Pole Star. He was the pivot of the universe and one of the forms of the Supreme Deity.’ An apparent counterpart of this central fire is the Maya creator god Huracan, the ‘Heart of Heaven’ at the celestial pole.

“The Pawnee locate the ‘star chief of the skies’ at the pole. He is the ‘star that stands still.’ Of this supreme power they say, ‘Its light is the radiance of the Sun god shining through.’

“To the traditions of a polar power cited above should be added the following:

“In the Persian Zend Avesta the creator-king Ahura Mazda rules from atop the world axis, the fixed station ‘around which the many stars revolve.’ Iranian cosmology, as reported by Leopold de Saussure, esteemed the celestial pole as the center and summit of heaven, where resided Kevan, the sovereign power of heaven, called ‘the Great One in the middle of the sky.’ Throughout the ancient Near East, according to the comprehensive research of H. P. L'Orange, the ‘King of the Universe’ appears as a central sun, ‘the Axis and the Pole of the World.’

“These archaic traditions can help us re-interpret the images of the sun god kept alive by Greek and Roman symbolists. In astrological representations, the primeval ‘sun’ occupies the central, axial position while the other planets or stars revolve around him. The definitive celestial profile of Helios is as Basileus Helios, the Royal Sun, recognized by Franz Cumont as the prototype of terrestrial kings or princes surrounded by their guards. In the time of the Roman emperor Nero, the sun-god was still remembered as the axis, the genius loci, the center of the cosmos, and presented as such in astrological depictions, with the emperor himself serving as the terrestrial image of the original sun god.

“It is significant too that, as noted by John Perry (Lord of the Four Quarters), the Etruscans--predecessors of the Romans--claimed there was one supreme deity, held to be the axial ‘Pole’ Star.

"According to Jewish and Muslim Cosmology,’ wrote the eminent authority on Semitic religions, A.J. Wensinck, ‘the divine throne is exactly above the seventh heaven, consequently it is the pole of the Universe.’ (An echo of the ancient tradition will be found in the words of the prophet Isaiah, who locates the throne of El in the farthest reaches of the north.)

“Amongst Finno Ugric peoples, the supreme ruler of the sky is Ukko. As stated in the Finnish Kalevala the seat of Ukko was at the Pole. And this assertion, according to the prominent chronicler Uno Holmberrg, was part of a pervasive tradition of the creator-king seated atop the world pole.

“A remarkable counterpart is provided by the Ashanti of Ghana, who remembered the old sun god as ‘the dynamic center of the Universe, from which lines of force radiate to all quarters of the heaven.’ Thus, according to the Ashanti, this former sun god is "the center around which everything revolves."

‘This idea of an ancient sun god ruling from the axial center stands in dramatic contrast to the common suppositions of mythologists and historians. To the modern mind nothing could be more absurd than a polar sun. Yet the unmoving sun is the ancient tradition, as noted by E.A.S. Butterworth in his insightful work, The Tree at the Navel of the Earth. Upon evaluating the archaic images of Helios and other ancient sun gods, Butterworth concluded that this luminary ‘is not the natural sun of heaven, for it neither rises nor sets, but is, as it seems, ever at the zenith...There are signs of an ambiguity between the pole star and the sun.’

“How could such an improbable ‘ambiguity’ have dominated the cosmological thought of ancient starworshippers--in every corner of the world? Butterworth's insights have a considerable history behind them. The precedence of the cosmic center among the great ancient cultures has been noted and documented by others. Almost a hundred years ago, William F. Warren, in his groundbreaking work, Paradise Found, identified the celestial pole as the home of the supreme god of ancient races. ‘The religions of all ancient nations...associate the abode of the supreme God with the North Pole, the centre of heaven; or with the celestial space immediately surrounding it. [Yet] no writer on comparative theology has ever brought out the facts which establish this assertion.’

“In the following years a number of scholars, each focusing on different bodies of evidence, reached the same conclusion. The controversial and erratic Gerald Massey, in two large works (The Natural Genesis and Ancient Egypt), claimed that the religion and mythology of a polar god was first formulated by the priest-astronomers of ancient Egypt and spread from Egypt to the rest of the world. In a general survey of ancient language, symbolism, and mythology, John ' (Night of the Gods, two volumes) insisted that mankind's oldest religions centered on a god of the celestial pole....

“In preceding segments we have reviewed these unexplained associations--

- Helios as Saturn; Helios as central sun, and Helios as axis of the celestial revolutions.

- Akkadian Shamash as Saturn, Shamash as central sun, Shamash at the polar ‘midst’ and ‘zenith.’

- Egyptian Atum-Ra as central sun, Atum-Ra as Saturn, Atum-Ra atop the world pole.

“According to Jastrow, Babylonian astrological texts could not have presented the equation of Saturn and the sun more boldly: ‘THE PLANET SATURN IS SHAMASH’....

“Who, then, is the great god--the god of terrifying radiance--whose coming out or coming forth inaugurates the day?

“This god of the archaic day, beginning at sunset, is in fact called Shamash, Ra, Helios, and Sol--the very god explicitly identified with the planet Saturn.”

Dwardu Cardona writes in the abovementioned internet post entitled “Imitations of An Alien Sky”:

“In the Persian BUNDAHISH, the planet Saturn was assigned as the guardian of Gah - "the great one of the middle of the sky" - who was the Pole Star.

“In China, the planet Saturn is called Tchou-niou-tchi-chin, a name that translates as ‘Genie [or spirit] of the Pivot.’ This Pivot, however, which in Chinese is rendered as T'ien-Tchou, that is ‘pivot of the sky,’ was their name for the Pole Star. Thus, when the Chinese refer to Saturn as the ‘Genie of the Pivot,’ they are claiming that Saturn was the ‘Soul of the Pole Star’....

“The polar positioning of Saturn, as it is found described in myth, has not gone unnoticed by mythologists. But, again, because this makes for an impossible situation in today's sky, it was not accepted as a factual statement by the ancients. Thus, for instance, de Santillana and von Dechend were forced to state that ‘the reader is not the first to be perplexed by an imagery which allows for the presence of planets at the pole.’ As they themselves asked: ‘What has Saturn, the far-out planet, to do with the pole?’ And they answered with these words: ‘It is not in the line of modern astronomy to establish any link connecting the planets with Polaris ... Yet such figures of speech were an essential part of the technical idiom of archaic astrology ...’ But here one is bound to ask: Is it probable that all ancient cultures would have used the same analogy, that is of a Saturn situated at the pole, as a ‘technical idiom’ of their ‘archaic astrology’?

“Like most other nations, the Babylonians had more than one name by which they alluded to the planet Saturn. One of these was Ninip (or Ninib and even Nirig). Under this name, the planet was deified as ‘the ghost of the elder god’ and ‘the black Saturn, the ghost of the dead sun.’ Is our present Sun dead?

“Saturn, on the other hand, does not shine with its own light. It does, of course, reflect the light it receives from the Sun but, as seen at its present distance from the Earth, this is hardly enough to proclaim it a sun. But if it DID once shine as a sun of night, as the ancients assert, and if it later dimmed to become the unobtrusive pin-point of light we now see in the night sky, we can understand why the planet was alluded to as ‘the ghost of the elder god’ and ‘the ghost of the dead sun.’"

The references that speak of Saturn as the sun-star at the celestial pole are found all around the world. These references hardly fit the Saturn of today or any other heavenly body we know of.

If we are to believe the ancients we must recognize that Saturn once was situated directly over the Earth’s north pole and was seen very brightly where the star Polaris is situated today at the north celestial pole.

Venus

The ancients also spoke of the relationship between Saturn and other planets in a completely different way than what we see today. Let’s, first of all, look at some of the details about the planet Venus.

A couple of the best sources for material on the role of Venus are David Talbott’s terrific article “The Great Comet Venus” and another article entitled “The Origin of Velikovsky’s Comet” which he co-wrote with Ev Cochrane that appeared in the Kronos magazine.

Here are a few quotes from the latter which will give us some good background material.

“The extensive and interlocking symbolism of the Saturnian band is discussed fully in The Saturn Myth. There, it is shown that this single band provided the visual basis for numerous mythical images of the great god's dwelling, including such well-known forms as: the cosmic Eye, crown, throne, shield, temple, and city. Each of these symbols, however, occurs in such explicit association with the mother goddess(always associated with the planet Venus) as to amount to a straightforward identity: the goddess was originally and fundamentally the Saturnian band. Analysis of the related symbolism reveals two elementary facts. Together, they pose the riddle we will seek to resolve:

“1 ) In ancient representations of the enclosed sun, the separate band was called the mother goddess; 2) The consistent planetary representative of the mother goddess was Venus.

“There is no better source of information on the enclosed sun the vast ritual texts of ancient Egypt. With the emergence of the hieroglyphic language, the enclosure of the old sun god appears as the Aten, written (as a circle with a smaller circle inside), the very symbol under discussion.

“Contrary to common assumption, Egyptian texts make clear that the Aten is the enclosure itself and not the sun which rests within the band. A frequent title of Ra is am-aten-f - "dweller in his Aten", a title likewise given to both Atum and Horus. "Spacious is your seat within the disk [Aten] ", reads a Coffin Text. Of Osiris, the Book of the Dead declares: "Oh, great god, Who livest in thy divine Aten."

“As if to emphasise the point, Egyptian scribes and artists often drew only the band itself when denoting the Aten - O . Then literal reading is "enclosure" or "circle", and Ra is the "sender-forth of light into his Circle". "I am the one who is in his Circle", he announces. The tangible character of the band could not be more explicitly stated. But having no reference point in nature, Egyptologists have habitually looked past the band to the enclosed god himself in trying to interpret the language.

“To the Egyptians, the band was very real. They called it the "enclosure of Fire-Light" - the great god's brilliant and enduring halo of "glory" or "splendor". It was the "chamber" or "house" of the primeval sun, and the Egyptian myths of "the Beginning” elaborate in various ways how the great band came into existence....It is the radiant "womb" in the sky, the Great Mother herself, in which the sun god shines as the "Great Seed"....

“The Aten symbol is a picture of the visible wheel of the primeval sun god, who was Saturn. To recognize this is to possess an extraordinarily simple explanation of some of the most elementary mythical images. The literal equation is:

“Band of the Aten = circle of Fire-Light (halo,

glory, splendor)

= sun god's dwelling

= sun god's "body"

= the Great Mother....

“Consider the mysterious Eye of heaven. T. Rundle Clark has observed that this baffling yet pervasive symbol is the key to an understanding of ancient Egyptian religion, especially the religion of the Great Mother....

“What was the Eye? Why were all the major Egyptian goddesses Isis, Hathor, Nut, Sekhmet, Bast, and others - called "the Eye of Ra"?

“Recognition of the mother goddess(Venus comet encircling the sun-god) as the Aten-band disposes of the mystery. The Eye is simply the band. The sun god is the "pupil" of the Eye. When the texts say that the great god "dwells in the Eye", they simply confirm the identity. The sun god is "encircled with the protection of his Eye". "I am in the Eye", he says. "I am he who dwelleth in the Eye." Ra, whose hieroglyph is the enclosed sun, is thus "the aged one of the pupil of the Eye". Since the band of the Aten is also the "mistress" of the sun god; since the goddess is explicitly termed "the Eye"; and, since the sun god shines as the "pupil of the Eye" - can there be any doubt as to the capability of this elementary sign to resolve the "mystery"? Is not the expert's failure to recognize the band in concrete terms the cause of the question in the first place?”

It should be noted that Dave and Ev have since moved from their previous position stated in the above quotes from believing that Venus was outside of the disk of Saturn to currently believing that Venus was inside the orb of Saturn as seen from the earth. This question of whether Venus was seen inside or outside of Saturn as seen from the earth is at the heart of the matter of a correct understanding of what the ancients saw in the heavens.

At this stage I am not entirely sure of what caused this paradigm shift in Dave’s understanding of Venus’s role in the Saturn Theory but I have a fair idea. I believe it has more to do with the consistent symbolism of the goddess Venus as the feminine heart of the sun-god. A heart is something that is within someone’s body not something outside of it. Added to that there are ancient references of the planets standing in line, what we would today term as a conjunction of planets and Dave believes that Venus formed part of a great constant conjunction.

Following are some of Dave Talbott’s recent comments regarding the celestial role of the ancient mother-goddess Venus from a post on the kronia forum.

“The pictograph of Ra is a circle uch smaller circle in the center. The rationale for the investigation of this symbol was an overarching question in my mind concerning the relationship of the Egyptian mother goddess and warrior hero to that Ra-sign, a symbol which is, of course, repeated around the world.

“I resolved to go to the most fundamental and well-documented facts. So I looked meticulously at the image of the Uraeus serpent, a common hieroglyph for "goddess" in Egypt. What is the relationship of the Uraeus to the Ra-sign? And what is the relationship of the Uraeus to the hero? It soon became clear that in reference to the "original condition" of Ra, the Uraeus, also called the "Eye" of Ra, refers to the circle inside the Ra-sign.

“And not just a circle, but a sphere. The name of Sekhemet, the Eye-goddess par excellence, comes from a word meaning "little orb." "Little" is a relative term, suggesting a relationship to something else. And in the most explicit sense, the hieroglyphic Eye of Ra means both a little orb, and "the center." Hence, by the Eye of Ra, the Egyptians symbolists meant a small orb in the center of the much larger orb of Ra (whom the texts describe as possessing the "Sole Eye")--exactly as implied by the Ra-sign. Another Egyptian word for the smaller sphere was the feminine hati-heart of Ra, often symbolized by a stone (meaning an orb, not a circle) inseparably tied to the goddess. From other symbols of the Eye-goddess (equation of the Eye and the primeval "egg", depiction of the heart as a spherical "vase,",and numerous cross-cultural images) no conclusion was possible other than that, in the remembered "original condition" of Ra, the god's single eye meant an orb....

“But this elementary reasoning led to a further issue bearing directly on the relationship of goddess and warrior-hero. In Egyptian art the Uraeus-Eye is commonly presented in a unique relationship to a red stone or sphere, signifying the sun god's innermost, masculine "heart of carnelian." In this relationship the Uraeus does not look like a sphere but a narrow band. The same form appears in familiar representations of the Aten and of the Shen-bond. But in all three instances the common form is a white, gold or turquoise band around a red disk, stone or orb. This orb never means "goddess." It is always masculine.

“Hieroglyphically the red disk, the "heart of carnelian," means the warrior hero, the masculine ab-heart of Ra. So the hero was called "the heart of the heart" (ab en hati). Two different words are used in the Egyptian expression: The ab-heart means the unborn hero (who is called the ab-heart of Ra). The second means the goddess, who is called the (feminine) eye, heart and soul of Ra.

“Different line of reasoning lead to the same elementary relationship of goddess and hero to the sun god. If the goddess is the Eye of Ra, and the unborn hero is an even smaller sphere within the Eye, no one should be surprised to find that the unborn hero was called the "pupil" (arit) of the sun god's Eye. Hence, taking only the acknowledged meanings of words, one can deduce that the inner circle in the hieroglyph of Ra denotes two orbs in juxtaposition, the larger appearing as a narrow band around the second.”

There was a period of time when the planet Venus acted and looked like a comet. The Mexican Indians relate that Venus smoked. "The star that smoked...was Sitlae choloha, which the Spaniards call Venus." The Chaldeans said that the planet Venus "was said to have a beard". These parallel with similar observations made in India and Egypt. The Chinese wrote, "Venus was visible in full daylight and while moving across the sky, rivalled the Sun in brightness.” Dozens of references could be cited that emphasize this idea over and over again that Venus was once a comet.

Dave Talbott and Ev Cochrane write the following about the Venus-comet in ancient Egyptian writings:

“The Egyptian word for "comet" is seshet, while the root sesh means "hair". Literally, seshet is "the encircling hair-star" or "the revolving lock of hair". Though the notion of cometary "hair" is easy to understand, and agrees with the universal ancient language of the comet, the idea of encirclement (present also in the terminology of other lands) is consistently overlooked. In the Egyptian language, this idea is expressed very concretely. Thus, the root meaning of seshet carries the sense "to revolve around", "to tie round", "to gird on", as well as "band", "belt", "crown", etc. In fact a straightforward interpretation of the related words suggests that the Egyptian "comet" reflects a unique prototype - a comet unlike anything seen in modern times. The prototypal "hair-star" stretched itself around the central sun. Seshet the "comet" is virtually indistinguishable from the Aten-band, a fact overlooked by Egyptologists as a whole, even though seshet—as frequently used by the Egyptians (and conventionally translated)—means nothing else than "the circle of the Aten".

“That this cometary apparition was the famous sun-encircling serpent-dragon is strongly supported by a further consideration: the Egyptians also invoked a serpent goddess Seshet, identified with both of the Venus goddesses Isis and Hathor”(The Origin of Velikovsky’s Comet).

Mars

Now we’ve given quite a fair overview of the role of Venus. Amongst the many quotes given above there were snippets of the role of Mars in all of this. Mars is consistently represented as the hero-warrior with various different titles around the world. In the quick summary of world mythology below, pay note of the role of the warrior-hero Mars for that planet’s role in the Saturn Theory.

Much of our understanding of what the ancients saw and had passed onto them as what the heavens looked like was passed down in the vast realm of world mythology. There are consistent themes that run through the world’s mythology that give us clues and enlighten us further on the more direct ancient references we have quoted above.

The consistent themes that run through mythology that tell of this original story and the battle of the heavenly gods goes like this:

- The age of the gods began with the Golden Age(the world before the great Deluge). This Golden Age was a time looked back very longingly by the ancients.

- This age was ruled by the universal monarch, the good king, the founding king known as Kronos and Saturn and many other different titles.

- The great God ruled from the stationary spot in the middle of the heavens.

- The creator king had a consort who was the universal goddess noted for her staggering beauty and long flowing hair - Venus, Ishtar, Diana, Isis and many other titles.

- The goddess was also mother of the reborn-king, the son of the universal monarch.

- The universal monarch possessed a single, central, luminous eye.

- Once a great mountain or pillar rose from the earth and provided a support to the dwelling of the gods.

- The hero/warrior was called at this perfect time the pupil of the eye.

- The great king died or was displaced. His displacement leads to the collapse of the golden age.

- The collapse of the golden age leads to the feared dragon and the clash of the titans. The feared dragon is identified as the same planet as the beautiful goddess - Venus. This feared dragon as it reaches for the earth is also pictured as a witch or old hag with wiry hair or a witch’s broom. All the various images of a comet - beautiful hair of the goddess when she is glorious and doesn’t threaten the earth, the red dragon, the witch with her wiry hair as the former goddess now threatens the earth and the witch’s broom - are all attributed to Venus.

- The world enters a great catastrophe of unprecedented scale.

- The warrior with his sword(excalibur, etc.) slays the dragon at this time of world catastrophe.

- Comets are constantly viewed with overwhelming fear and signify the death of kings.

- The universal monarch is displaced by his son(Jupiter) who now reigns.

Across the page are a number of the many, many pictographs that show many of these themes and give a graphical representation of what the ancients saw in the heavens from the Eye of Ra, stars inside crescents, the enclosed sun, wheel of Shamash (Saturn), the encircling dragon, etc representing Venus encircling Saturn.

Physical evidence for the Flood

By far the best sources for geological evidence for the Flood are Velikovsky’s “Earth in Upheaval” and Charles Ginenthal’s article entitled “The Flood” available from the earlier quoted internet website. Here are just a few pages sampling the physical evidence for the Flood.

“In 1984, William R. Corliss stated that a bone bed had been discovered south of Tampa, Florida, with paleontologists declaring it one of the United States' richest fossil deposits. This bone bed yielded bones of more than 70 species of animals, birds and aquatic creatures. About 80% of the bones belong to plains animals, such as camels, horses, mammoths, etc. Bears, wolves, large cats and a bird with an estimated 30-foot wingspan [were] also represented. Mixed in with all the land animals are sharks' teeth, turtle shells, and the bones of [freshwater] and salt water fish. The bones are all smashed and jumbled together, as if by some catastrophe. The big question is how bones from such different ecological niches--plains, forests, oceans--came together.

“The fact that marine and terrestrial animals were buried in the same soils and sediment level where human bones or artifacts have been found suggests that an immense, recent flood occurred.

“Velikovsky described the Cromer forest beds in Norfolk, England: In Cromer, Norfolk, close to the North Sea coast, and in other places on the British Isles, "forest beds" have been found. The name derives from the presence of a great number of stumps of trees, once supposed to have rooted and grown where they are not found. Many of the stumps are in upright positions and their roots are often interlocked. Today, these forests are recognized as having drifted: The roots do not end in small fibers, but are broken off, in most cases one to three feet from the trunk.

“Bones of [60] species of mammals, besides birds, frogs and snakes, were found in the forest-bed of Norfolk. Among the mammals were the saber-toothed tiger, huge bear, mammoth, straight-tusked elephant, hippopotamus, rhinoceros, bison and modern horse....Two exclusively northern species--glutton and musk-ox--were found among animals from temperate and tropical latitudes.

“Immediately above the forest-bed, there is a freshwater deposit with arctic plants--arctic willow and dwarf birch--and land shells. Astarte borealis and other mollusk shells are found ‘in the position of life with both valves united.’ These species ‘are arctic, but, as the bed seems in other places to contain Ostreaedulis, [a mollusk] which requires a temperate sea, the evidence is conflicting as to the climate.’

“What could have brought together, or in quick succession, all these animals and plants from the tundra of the Arctic Circle and from jungles of the tropics, from lush oak forest and from desert, from lands of many latitudes and altitudes, from freshwater lakes and rivers, and from salt seas of the north and south?”(The Flood, Charles Ginenthal)

“Velikovsky describes muck deposits filled with millions upon millions of broken bones of extinct mammoth, mastodon, super bison and horse found throughout the lower reaches of the Yukon and according to F. Rainey in American Antiquity, 1940, Volume 5, ’may be considered to extend in greater or lesser thickness over all unglaciated areas of the northern peninsula" [of Alaska and into northern Canada. The] "millions upon millions of animals torn limb from limb [are]...mingled with uprooted trees."

“Throughout these masses of shattered bones and trees is volcanic ash. And the depth of these masses of bones, trees and ash is great, "as much as 140 feet." F.C. Hibben of the University of New Mexico ["Evidence of Early Man in Alaska", American Antiquity, VIII (1943), p. 256] states that, ‘Although the formation of deposits of muck is not clear, there is ample evidence that at least portions of this material were deposited under catastrophic conditions. Mammal remains are for the most part, dismembered and disarticulated, even though some fragments yet retain, in their frozen state, portions of ligaments, skin, hair and flesh. Twisted and torn trees are piled in splintered masses... At least four considerable layers of volcanic ash may be traced in these deposits, although they are extremely warped and distorted."

“Velikovsky then informs us that, ‘In various levels of the muck, stone artifacts were found, 'frozen in situ' at great depths and in apparent association, with the Ice Age fauna, which implies that 'men were contemporary with extinct animals in Alaska.' [See Rainey, American Antiquity, V, p. 307] Worked flints, characteristically shaped, called Yuma points, were repeatedly found in the Alaskan muck, one hundred and more feet below the surface. One such spear point [according to Hibben, American Antiquity, VIII, p. 257] was found there between a lion's jaw and a mammoth's tusk. Similar weapons were used only a few generations ago by the Indians of the Athapascan tribe, who camped in the upper Tanana Valley. [See Rainey, American Antiquity, VI, p. 301] [And Hibben in American Antiquity, VIII, p. 256 writes] 'It has also been suggested that even modern Eskimo points are remarkably Yuma like,' all of which indicates that the multitudes of torn animals and splintered forests date from a time not many thousands of years ago.’

“William N. Irving and C.R. Harington in Science, report having found the jaw bone of a child perhaps eleven or twelve years old in the graveyard of the permafrost of the Yukon. In Siberia on the other side of the Arctic Ocean are found mass graveyards of mammoth bones by the millions upon millions as well as on the New Siberian Islands.

"In the stomachs and between the teeth of the mammoths were found plants and grasses that do not grow now in northern Siberia. 'The contents of the stomachs have been carefully examined,' [according to Whitney in the Journal of the Philosophical Society of Great Britain, XII (1910), p. 56] they showed the undigested food, leaves of trees now found in Southern Siberia, but a long way from the existing deposits of ivory. Microscopic examination of the skin showed red blood corpuscles, which was a proof not only of a sudden death, but that death was due to suffocation either by gases or water, evidently the latter in this case. But the puzzle remained to account for the sudden freezing up of this large mass of flesh so as to preserve it for future ages.

"What could have caused a sudden change in the temperature of the region? Today the country does not provide food for large quadrupeds, the soil is barren and produces only moss and fungi a few months in the year; at that time the animals fed on plants. And not only mammoths pastured in northern Siberia and on the islands of the Arctic Ocean. On Kotelnoi [according to Whitney above, p. 50] 'neither trees, nor shrubs, nor bushes exist...and yet the bones of elephants, rhinoceroses, buffaloes, and horses are found in the icy wilderness in numbers which de