{dfp-include} Catastrophism/Planet X
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Title: Catastrophism/Planet X
Submitted by: research-bpr@philologos.org
Date: April 11, 2003
URL: http://philologos.org/bpr/files/Sky_Signs/ss027.htm

Catastrophism/Planet X

9 Nissan, 5763
April 11, 2003

1. Catastrophism/Planet X
2. Excerpt from Velikovsky book "Ages in Chaos" on Similarities between Papyrus Ipuwer and the Exodus
3. Example of Manuscripts Used
4. Recent News Stories
5. Links of Interest


Catastrophism is the belief that at certain times in earth's history there have been sudden, dramatic events that have altered the landscape. This flies in the face of evolutionary thought with its description of slow, plodding, subtle earth changes that have taken millennia to form. One of the most recent documented examples of catastrophism is the Mount St. Helens eruption—a few scant seconds changed the skyline forever.

One of the greatest proponents of catastrophism was Immanuel Velikovsky. He wrote a book in the mid 20th century called "Worlds in Collision" where he theorized that the Bible narrative along with myths, legends and ancient manuscripts from around the world document cataclysmic events in history. One of these is the time period that included the ten plagues and the Exodus from Egypt. Seeing there are so many parallels between these and the "plagues" in the book of Revelation it would seem to be a fertile area to examine in these end-times. Taking as our axiom that "there is nothing new under the sun," history is the place to look for examples of the future events described within the last book of the Bible.

Velikovsky starts off the first book in his series describing different theories on the creation of the solar system and sums them all up by saying:

"The origin of the planets and their satellites remains unsolved. The theories not only contradict one another, but each of them bears within itself its own contradictions."
This leaves the door open for his hypothesis which deals with comets—their formation, close encounters with earth and subsequent altered paths as a consequence of the interaction with our solar system. Seeing we weren't around at the beginning of the solar system every theory is only speculation so:
"The most we can do, it is believed, is to investigate one planet, the one under our feet, in order to learn its past; and then, by the deductive method, to apply the results to other members of the solar system."
This seems like good science, however, the name Velikovsky in scientific circles is tantamount to a curse word and the brouhaha after the publishing of "Worlds in Collision" even sparked what is now called the "Velikovsky affair" where he was mercilessly skewered by "educated men" while remaining on the best-seller list for many, many weeks. His views were, and still are, very controversial.

The bulk of the book is made up of quotes from different sources from peoples, cultures, and traditions that span the entire globe. For each heading there are at least 3-4 sources quoted, which on their own may not be very impressive, but drawn together as he has done present a mighty convincing tale. Take, for instance, one section he tackles entitled, "World Ages." He explains that:

"A conception of ages that were brought to their end by violent changes in nature is common all over the world. The number of ages differs from people to people and from tradition to tradition. The difference depends on the number of catastrophes that the particular people retained in its memory, or on the way it reckoned the end of an age."
He then backs this up with these examples:

  • "In the annals of ancient Etruria, according to Varro, were records of seven elapsed ages. Censorinus, an author of the third Christian century and compiler of Varro, wrote that 'men thought that different prodigies appeared by means of which the gods notified mortals at the end of each age. The Etruscans were versed in the science of the stars, and after having observed the prodigies with attention, they recorded these observations in their books."
  • "The Greeks had similar traditions. 'There is a period,' wrote Censorinus, 'called "the supreme year" by Aristotle, at the end of which the sun, moon, and all the planets return to their original position. This "supreme year" has a great winter, called by the Greeks kataklysmos, which means deluge, and a great summer, called by the Greeks ekpyrosis, or combustion of the world. The world, actually, seems to be inundated and burned alternately in each of these epochs.'"
  • "Anaximenes and Anaximander in the sixth pre-Christian century, and Diogenes of Apollonia in the Fifth century, assumed the destruction of the world with subsequent recreation."
  • "Heraclitus (540 to 475 BC) taught that the world is destroyed in conflagration after every period of 10,800 years."
  • "Aristarchus of Samos in the third century before the present era taught that in a period of 2,484 years the earth undergoes two destructions—of combustion and deluge."
  • He goes on to quote from the Stoics, Hindus, Mazdaism, Chinese, Incas, Aztecs, Mayas, Hawaiians, Jewish traditions.

There is enough information of this sort in each section to determine for yourself whether or not he has made his case. After reading this section I come away with the understanding that many cultures had a tradition that there were certain time periods, they for the most part called "ages," where there was some sort of catastrophic event that heralded the close of one age and the beginning of the next. This is a detailed example of what you can find for each of the following areas discussed below.

The first half of the book deals with the middle of the second millennium BC when the earth "underwent one of the greatest catastrophes in its history." A new member of the solar system, a comet, came very close to earth. Coming into contact with the tail of this comet, these phenomena were seen:

  • earth covered with a red dust that made bodies of water look bloody (Mayan manuscript says the earth quaked, sun's motion interrupted, and waters in the rivers turned to blood; Egyptian Papyrus Ipuwer states "The river is blood." "Men shrink from tasting, human beings thirst after water"; Finnish Kalevala describes cosmic upheaval and the world being sprinkled with red milk; Tartars tell of when "blood turns whole world red," etc.)
  • earthquakes, noisy earth
  • rain of fire, naphtha

    (Does this explain the origins of the oil deposits in the Middle East? Is the Jordan Rift Valley which ends in the lowest place on earth, the Dead Sea, the path of a huge incoming bolide that deposited its "tail" in the regions surrounding it?)

  • prolonged night in one hemisphere, prolonged day in other hemisphere
  • hurricanes
  • great ocean tides
  • "battle in the sky"
    "The events in the sky were viewed by the peoples of the world as a fight between an evil monster in the form of a serpent and the light-god who engaged the monster in battle and thus saved the world."
  • great lightnings between earth and comet
  • "the collapsed sky"
  • boiling earth and sea (the interior of the earth pushed outward toward comet) (Mount Sinai?)
  • earth's rotation changed, used to be East to West, now West to East
  • reversed polarity of earth
  • loathsome vermin
  • changes in times and seasons
    (Velikovsky thinks this first encounter with the comet happened around the time of the Exodus. This seems to help explain to those people who wonder why God needed to tell Moses how to arrange the calendar in Exodus 12 that it wasn't because Moses somehow forgot the workings of the calendar [he was trained, after all, in Pharaoh's house] but that the world had gone crazy and times and seasons needed to be re-established [some believe that Exodus 12 was just God establishing his own calendar]. There is a section in "Worlds in Collision" that speaks of how the Chinese Emperor Yahou's reign was remembered because he sent scholars to different parts of China to find out where north, south, east and west were and to draw up a new calendar because the seasons were out of whack; there had been a period of time where the sun didn't set for ten days and other cataclysmic events happened. Both Moses and Emperor Yahou supposedly were speaking of the same time period.)

Every one of the items listed above could be said to be included in the book of Revelation and makes me wonder whether the manifestation of all the signs in that apocalyptic book might be explained by the passing of a comet close to earth? Within a short period of time every "curse" recorded there could come to pass and be considered a fulfillment of the wrath of God.

The earth came into contact with a comet, which Velikovsky names as the planet Venus; it came close to the earth and then was trapped into its present orbit as the 2nd planet closest to the sun in our solar system. Ancient tablets corroborate his theory as they show only four known planets: Mercury, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn adding Venus, the fifth, at a later date. This is hard to understand seeing Venus is so easily seen in the sky nowadays unless at one time it wasn't there (or maybe considered as a permanent member?). Early traditions speak of how Venus had a tail, a "beard," had "horns" like a bull. It was also called the "star that smoked" and was considered the one that became wild and attacked the planets. The month of April was dedicated to Venus. Venus along with the Moon and the Sun were considered the Babylonian holy trinity. Human sacrifices were offered to the Morning Star in various places.

Other names for Venus are:

  • Morning Star
  • Ishtar
  • Lucifer
  • Phosphorus
  • Baal
  • Athene
  • Noga
  • Isis
  • star of lamentation
  • queen of heaven
  • celestial cow (start of Hindu cow worship)

Venus had once been a comet. After close encounters with the earth it settled into an elliptical orbit that threatened not only earth but Mars as well. Velikovsky postulates that Venus' close approach to Mars on one of these passes pushed it off its path and close to earth at the time of the Iliad and the Odyssey about seven centuries after the events of the Exodus; he believes Homer wrote of this close encounter in both books. Before that time Mars had never been feared but after its close approach to the earth it became the god of war and the peoples of the earth trembled at the name. As it approached the earth its atmosphere was stretched out and appeared like a sword and it, too, caused cataclysmic events to unfold.

The rest of "Worlds in Collision" describes how Mars impacted the earth and is outside the scope of this study. The near approach of a comet/planet towards earth, whether Venus or Mars, culminated in the same phenomena being felt throughout the world as has been described above. Having said that, I would like to point out a few things of interest in the section on Mars:

  • Amos predicted "a cosmic upheaval and after the catastrophe Isaiah, Joel, Hosea and Micah insisted unanimously and with great emphasis on the inevitability of another encounter of the earth with some cosmic body."
  • some astronomical event warranted the adoption of a new calendar in 747 BC
  • Seneca relates of a time when "the luminaries crossed their former paths obliquely; the poles were shifted; the year lengthened, the orbit of the earth became wider."
  • destruction of Sennacherib's army coincides with manuscripts from around the world describing celestial phenomena; Talmud and Midrashim say on Passover; Confucius records March 23, 687(?) BC
  • Roman tradition states that the conception of Romulus, the foundation of Rome and the death of Romulus were accompanied by celestial signs.
    Plutarch writes: "The legend says that Romulus was conceived in the first year of the second Olympiad (772 BC) when the sun was totally eclipsed. According to Latin historians, on the very day of Rome's foundation, the sun was disrupted in its movement and the world was darkened. In Romulus' time 'a plague fell upon the land, bringing sudden death without previous sickness,' and 'a rain of blood' and other calamities. Earthquakes convulsed the earth for a long period. Jewish tradition knows that 'the first settlers of Rome found that the huts collapsed as soon as built.'

    "The death of Romulus occurred when, according to Plutarch, 'suddenly strange and unaccountable disorders with incredible changes filled the air; the light of the sun failed, and night came down upon them, not with peace and quiet, but with awful peals of thunder and furious blasts,' and amidst this storm Romulus disappeared.

    "Ovid's description of the phenomena on the day of Romulus' death is this: 'Both the poles shook, and Atlas shifted the burden of the sky...The sun vanished and rising clouds obscured the heaven...the sky was riven by shooting flames. The people fled and the king [Romulus] upon his father's [Mars'] steeds soared to the stars.'"

  • "when Mars clashed with Venus, asteroids, meteorites and gases were torn" from the tail and formed "newborn comets" They "looked like revolving torches or writhing snakes; they assumed the form of spinning wheels, and the celestial phantasmagoria appeared like swift chariots, changing their forms [they] looked like horses racing along the sky, and then again like a host of warriors, leaping, climbing irresistible." (Ezekiel 1?)
  • "there are seven archangels each of whom is associated with a planet"; Michael/Venus, Gabriel/Mars
  • orientation of palaces, obelisks, water clocks show discrepancies that are attributed to the movement of the earth in its orbit
  • lengthy section on the change from 360 day years to 365 1/4 day years


Cosmic collisions amongst the planets of our solar system have happened since time immemorial. You have only to look at large craters on earth and the pock-marked moon for evidence of deep impacts as well as the recent Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 encounter with the planet Jupiter (interestingly, Velikovsky believes Venus was torn from Jupiter).

"Traditions about upheavals and catastrophes, found among all peoples, are generally discredited because of the shortsighted belief that no forces could have shaped the world in the past that are not at work also at the present time, a belief that is the very foundation of modern geology and of the theory of evolution. 'Present continuity implies the improbability of past catastrophism and violence of change, either in the lifeless or in the living world; moreover, we seek to interpret the changes and laws of past time through those which we observe at the present time. This was Darwin's secret, learned from Lyell.' It has been shown in this book, however, that forces which at present do not act on the earth, did so act in historical times, and that these forces are of a purely physical character. Scientific principles do not warrant maintaining that a force which does not act now, could not have acted previously. Or must we be in permanent collision with the planets and comets in order to believe in such catastrophes?"


Planet X

May 15, 2003 has been chosen by some in the "planet x" community as the time when a mysterious tenth planet will make its way into our solar system and wreak havoc on the earth and surrounding planets. Is this true or false? I don't know. The date seems to be pure speculation and some have hypothesized that someone (conspiracy theorists take note!) is pushing this date so that when it comes and goes with nary a ripple in space everyone will laugh it off and forget the whole thing until the REAL menace shows up months or years later—they're selling a false sense of security as not to panic the general public.

"ZetaTalk began on January 19, 1995 in Michael Lindemann's ISCNI chat group, and lead its introduction by announcing that at approximately May 15, 2003 the world would experience another pole shift...In short, ZetaTalk was the source of a warning about a passage of Planet X in 2003. Accept no substitutes." (http://www.zetatalk.com/index/px2003.htm)
Whether or not May 15th will be the day when something comes close to earth or not isn't the concern of this study for, as I said, I don't know about the date. What I DO believe is that something IS scheduled to make a near approach to earth. After reading and studying Velikovsky's work for the last decade I have become more and more convinced that it is just a matter of time, and during my lifetime, that the earth will witness another close encounter with some large object, whether comet or planet, which will inaugurate the Day of the Lord and the end of the present age and the beginning of the Millennial Messianic Age. There are too many parallels between what is recorded in ancient history and what is recorded as future events in the book of Revelation to be just a coincidence—it takes more faith to believe that it won't happen than to believe it will.

Some questions:

  • what used to be in the asteroid belt?
  • why is the sun acting so strangely even after solar maximum has come and gone?
  • why is the weather so crazy? is it man-made or space age?
  • why so many close calls with asteroids lately? better data recording or cosmic push?
  • why all the hype for a May 15th Planet X encounter? where do they get this stuff?
  • is there anything out there heading our way? is it a comet, Planet X, Nibiru, Rahab, New Jerusalem, Satan's Hammer, Wormwood or a figment of someone's overactive imagination?
  • what happens if we're wrong?


White cult on the move as doomsday approaches

The expected arrival of the Panawave Laboratory doomsday cult in the normally tranquil Yamanashi Prefecture village of Oizumi has unsettled residents, as the motorcade of cultists continued to snake around central Japan on Friday.

The white-clad cult members, who were forced by police Thursday to leave Hachiman, Gifu Prefecture, where they had occupied a section of road for a week since April 25, made a short journey in their fleet of white vehicles and arrived at a neighboring village of Kiyomi in the predawn hours of Friday.

The dozens of cultists immediately covered crash barriers and trees alongside the road where they have parked their vehicles with white cloths, which they believe will protect them and their ailing guru from "harmful electromagnetic waves."

Local authorities have promptly demanded cult representative Keiichi Hasegawa to move out. The cult members are expected to move on from their latest stopover, which has put the residents of Oizumi, their likeliest final destination, on full alert.

In Oizumi, Panawave Laboratory members are constructing dome-shaped structures, which they claim to be resistant to any kind of natural disasters.

The cult's publications indicated that its members are convinced that the human race will be destroyed on May 15 this year because of a dramatic change in the angles of the Earth's axis.

In response, the Oizumi Municipal Government set up a task force Friday to deal with the cult.

Eighty members of the task force were drawn from local assembly members as well as representatives from Oizumi villagers. They will hold their first meeting on Saturday.

"All of us will work together to get rid of them if they do come to our village," Akira Kobayashi, a deputy mayor of Oizumi, said.

Meanwhile, the discovery of a mysterious white van in the Tokyo suburb of Chofu prompted residents to alert police.

Eyewitnesses said the vehicle has been parked at a parking lot in the city's Jindaiji district for the past couple of weeks.

Although there was no one was inside the van, the interior was all painted prompting police to investigate whether the vehicle, which bears number plates issued in Okayama, is related to the Panawave cult. (Compiled from Mainichi and wire reports, May 2, 2003)

( http://mdn.mainichi.co.jp/news/20030502p2a00m0fp025001c.html)

(Many people believe that the end-time book of Revelation is another Exodus scenario.)


Excerpt from Ages in Chaos,
by Immanuel Velikovsky:

"It is not known under what circumstances the papyrus containing the words of Ipuwer was found. According to its first possessor (Anastasi), it was found in "Memphis", by which is probably meant the neighborhood of the pyramids of Saqqara. In 1828 the papyrus was acquired by the Museum of Leiden or Rijksmuseum van Oudheden in the Netherlands and is listed in the catalogue as Leiden 344.

The papyrus is written on both sides. The face (recto) and the back (verso) are differentiated by the direction of the fiber tissues; the story of Ipuwer is written on the face, on the back is a hymn to a deity. A facsimile copy of both texts was published by the authorities of the museum together with other Egyptian documents. The text of Ipuwer is now bolded into a book of seventeen pages, most of them containing fourteen lines of hieratic signs (a flowing writing used by the scribes, quite different from pictorial hieroglyphics). Of the first page only a third -- the left or last part of eleven lines -- is preserved; pages 9 to 16 are in veery bad condition -- there are but a few lines at the top and bottom of the pages -- and of the seventeenth page only the beginning of the first two lines remains.

In 1909 the text, translated anew, was published by Alan H. Gardiner under the title, The Admonitions of an Egyptian Sage from a Hieratic Papyrus in Leiden. Gardiner argued that all the internal evidence of the text points to the historical character of the situation. Egypt was in distress; the social system had become disorganized; violence filled the land. Invaders preyed upon the defenceless population; the rich were stripped of everything and slept in the open, and the poor took their possessions. "It is no merely local disturbance that is here described, but a great and overwhelming national disaster."

Gardiner... interprets the text as though the words of a sage name Ipuwer were directed to some king, blaming him for inactivity which has brought confusion, insecurity, and suffering to the people. "The Almighty", to whom Ipuwer directs his words, is a customary appellation of great gods. Because the introductory passages of the papyrus, where the author and his listeners would be likely to be mentioned, are missing, the presence of the king listening to the sage is assumed on the basis of the preferred form of certain other literary examples of the Middle Kingdom. In accordance with this interpretation, the papyrus containing the words of Ipuwer is called, in the Gardiner edition, Admonitions of an Egyptian Sage.


Egypt in Upheaval

The Papyrus Ipuwer is not a collection of proverbs... or riddles; no more is it a literary prophecy... or an admonition concerning profound social changes. It is the Egyptian version of a great catastrophe.

The papyrus is a script of lamentations, a description of ruin and horror.

    PAPYRUS 2:8 Forsooth, the land turns round as does a potter's wheel.

    2:11 The towns are destroyed. Upper Egypt has become dry (wastes?).

    3:13 All is ruin!

    7:4 The residence is overturned in a minute.

    4:2 ... Years of noise. There is no end to noise.

What do "noise" and "years of noise" denote? The translator wrote: "There is clearly some play upon the word hrw (noise) here, the point of which is to us obscure." Does it mean "earthquake" and "years of earthquake"? In Hebrew the word raash signifies "noise", "commotion", as well as "earthquake". Earthquakes are often accompanied by loud sounds, subterranean rumbling and roaring, and this acoustic phenomenon gives the name to the upheaval itself.

Apparently the shaking returned again and again, and the country was reduced to ruins, the state went into sudden decline, and life became unbearable.

Ipuwer says:

    PAPYRUS 6:1 Oh, that the earth would cease from noise, and tumult (uproar) be no more.

The noise and the tumult were produced by the earth. The royal residence would be overthrown "in a minute" and left in ruins....


I shall compare some passages from the Book of Exodus and from the papyrus. As, prior to the publication of Worlds in Collision and Ages in Chaos, no parallels had been drawn between the Bible and the text of the Papyrus Ipuwer, the translator of the papyrus could not have been influenced by a desire to make his translation resemble the biblical text.

    PAPYRUS 2:5-6 Plague is throughout the land. Blood is everywhere.

    EXODUS 7:21 ... there was blood throughout all the land of Egypt.

This was the first plague.

    PAPYRUS 2:10 The river is blood.

    EXODUS 7:20 ... all the waters that were in the river were turned to blood.

This water was loathsome, and the people could not drink it.

    PAPYRUS 2:10 Men shrink from tasting -- human beings, and thirst after water.


The fish in the lakes and the river died, and worms, insects, and reptiles bred prolifically.

    EXODUS 7:21 ... and the river stank.


The destruction in the fields is related in these words:


    PAPYRUS 4:14 Trees are destroyed.

    6:1 No fruit nor herbs are found..

This portent was accompanied by consuming fire. Fire spread all over the land.

    EXODUS 9:23-24 ... the fire ran along the ground.... there was hail, and fire mingled with the hail, very grievous.

    PAPYRUS 2:10 Forsooth, gates, columns and walls are consumed by fire.

The fire which consumed the land was not spread by human hand but fell from the skies.

By this torrent of destruction, according to Exodus,

    EXODUS 9:31-32 ... the flax and the barley was smitten; for the barley was in the ear, and the flax was boiled. But the wheat and the rye were not smitten: for they were not grown up.

It was after the next plague that the fields became utterly barren. Like the Book of Exodus (9:31-32 and 10:15), the papyrus relates that no duty could be rendered to the crown for wheat and barley; and as in Exodus 7:21 ("And the fish that was in the river died"), there was no fish for the royal storehouse.


The fields were entirely devastated.

    EXODUS 10:15 ... there remained not any green thing in the trees, or in the herbs of the fields, through all the land of Egypt.

    PAPYRUS 6:3 Forsooth, grain has perished on every side.

    5:12 Forsooth, that has perished which yesterday was seen. The land is left over to its weariness like the cutting of flax.

The statement that the crops of the fields were destroyed in a single day ("which yesterday was seen") excludes drought, the usual cause of a bad harvest; only hail, fire, or locusts could have left the fields as though after "the cutting of flax". The plague is described in Psalms 105:34-35 in these words: "... the locusts came, and caterpillars, and that without number. And did eat up all the herbs in their land, and devoured the fruit of their ground."

    PAPYRUS 6:1 No fruit nor herbs are found... hunger.

The cattle were in a pitiful condition.

    EXODUS 9:3 ... the hand of the Lord is upon the cattle which is in the field... there shall be a very grievous murrain.

    PAPYRUS 5:5 All animals, their hearts weep. Cattle moan....

Hail and fire made the frightened cattle flee.

    EXODUS 9:19 .. gather thy cattle, and all that thou hast in the field...



The ninth plague, according to the Book of Exodus, covered Egypt with profound darkness.

    EXODUS 10:22 ... and there was a thick darkness in all the land of Egypt.

    PAPYRUS 9:11 The land is not light....

"Not light" is in Egyptian equivalent to "without light" or "dark". But there is some question as to whether the two sentences are entirely parallel. The years of wandering in the desert are described as spent in gloom under a cover of thick clouds....


The Last Night before the Exodus

According to the Book of Exodus, the last night the Israelites were in Egypt was a night in which death struck instantly and took victims from every Egyptian home. The death of so many in a single night, even at the same hour of midnight, cannot be explained by a pestilence, which would last more than a single hour. The story of the last plague does seem like a myth; it is a stranger in the sequence of the other plagues, which can be explained...

...Apparently we have before us the testimony of an Egyptian witness of the plagues.

On careful reading of the papyrus, it appeared that the slaves were still in Egypt when at least one great shock occurred, ruining houses and destroying life and fortune. It precipitated a general flight of the population from the cities, while the other plagues probably drove them from the country into the cities.

The biblical testimony was reread. It became evident that it had not neglected this most conspicuous event: it was the tenth plague.

In the papyrus it is said: "The residence is overturned in a minute." On a previous page it was stressed that only an earthquake could have overturned and ruined the royal residence in a minute. Sudden and simultaneous death could be inflicted on many....

    EXODUS 12:30 And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he, and all his servants, and all the Egyptians; and there was a great cry in Egypt: for there was not a house where there was not one dead.

A great part of the people lost their lives in one violent shock. Houses were struck a furious blow.

    EXODUS 12:27 [The Angel of the Lord] passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt, when he smote the Egyptians, and delivered our houses.

The word nogaf for "smote" is used for a violent blow, e.g. for thrusting with his horns by an ox.

The residence of the king and the palaces of the rich were tossed to the ground, and with them the houses of the common people and the dungeons of captives.


    PAPYRUS 4:3, and 5:6 Forsooth, the children of princes are dashed against the walls.


    PAPYRUS 6:3 The prison is ruined.


To it correspond Exodus 12:30:


In Exodus 12:30 it is written:

    ... there was a great cry in Egypt.

To it corresponds the papyrus 3:14:


The statues of the gods fell and broke in pieces: "this night... against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment" (Exodus 12:12).

A book by Artapanus, no longer extant, which quoted some unknown ancient source and which in its turn was quoted by Eusebius, tells of "hail and earthquake by night [of the last plague], so that those who fled from the earthquake were killed by the hail, and those who sought shelter from the hail were destroyed by the earthquake. And at that time all the houses fell in, and most of the temples."

The earth was equally pitiless towards the dead in their graves: the sepulchers opened, and the buried were disentombed.

    PAPYRUS 4:4, also 6:14 Forsooth, those who were in the place of embalmment are laid on the high ground.


Revolt and Flight

The description of disturbances in the Papyrus Ipuwer, when compared with the scriptural narrative, gives a strong impression that both sources relate the very same events. It is therefore only natural to look for mention of revolt among the population, of a flight of wretched slaves from this country visited by disaster, and of a cataclysm in which the pharaoh perished.

Although in the mutilated papyrus there is no explicit reference to the Israelites or their leaders, three facts are clearly described as consequences of the upheaval: the population revolted; the wretched or the poor men fled; the king perished under unusual circumstances....

    PAPYRUS 4:2 Forsooth, great and small say: I wish I might die.


The escaped slaves hurried across the border of the country. By day a column of smoke went before them in the sky; by night it was a pillar of fire.

    EXODUS 13:21 ... by day in a pillar of a cloud, to lead them the way; and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light; to go by day and night.


The translator added this remark: "Here the 'fire' is regarded as something disastrous."

After the first manifestations of the protracted cataclysm the Egyptians tried to bring order into the land. They traced the route of the escaped slaves. The wanderers became "entangled in the land, the wilderness hath shut them in" (Exodus 14:3). They turned to the sea, they stood at Pi-ha-Khiroth. "The Egyptians pursued after them. The Egyptians marched after them." A hurricane blew all the night and the sea fled.

In a great avalanche of water "the sea returned to his strength", and "the Egyptians fled against it". The sea engulfed the chariots and the horsemen, the pharaoh and all his host.

The Papyrus Ipuwer (7:1-2) records only that the pharaoh was lost under unusual circumstances "that have never happened before". The Egyptian wrote his lamentations, and even in the broken lines they are perceptible:



Excerpt from Ages in Chaos, by Immanuel Velikovsky (pages 18-31)

(Here are some examples of the texts Velikovsky used when formulating his theory.)




Joshua implores sun and moon to stand still



Legends of the Jews, Louis Ginzberg


The task of protecting the Gibeonites involved in the offensive and defensive alliance made with them, Joshua fulfilled scrupulously. He had hesitated for a moment whether to aid the Gibeonites in their distress, but the words of God sufficed to recall him to his duty. God said to him: "If thou dost not bring near them that are far off, thou wilt remove them that are near by." (37) God granted Joshua peculiar favor in his conflict with the assailants of the Gibeonites. The hot hailstones which, at Moses' intercession, had remained suspended in the air when they were about to fall upon the Egyptians, were now cast down upon the Canaanites. (38) Then happened the great wonder of the sun's standing still, the sixth (39) of the great wonders since the creation of the world.

The battle took place on a Friday. Joshua knew it would pain the people deeply to be compelled to desecrate the holy Sabbath day. Besides, he noticed that the heathen were using sorcery to make the heavenly hosts intercede for them in the fight against the Israelites. He, therefore, pronounced the Name of the Lord, and the sun, moon and stars stood still. (40) The sun at first refused to obey Joshua's behest, seeing that he was older than man by two days. Joshua replied that there was no reason why a free-born youth should refrain from enjoining silence upon an old slave whom he owns, and had not God given heaven and earth to our father Abraham? (41) Nay, more than this, had not the sun himself bowed down like a slave before Joseph? "But," said the sun, "who will praise God if I am silent?" (42) Whereupon Joshua: "Be thou silent, and I will intone a song of praise." (43) And he sang thus:

























The first 4 volumes of Ginzberg's Legends of the Jews are online but the 5th and 6th volumes that hold the footnotes are not.
http://philologos.org/__eb-lotj/vol4/p01.htm#THE SUN OBEYS JOSHUA)


38. Berakot 54b; Tan. Wa-Era 16; Ephraem I, 210F. Comp. vol. II, p. 357.

39. PRE 52. On the "seven great miracles," of which the stand-still of the sun is one, see note 272 on vol. I, p. 291.

40. PRE 52, and comp. vol. III, p. 61. Opinions differ as to how long the sun stood still; see 'Abodah Zarah 25a; Targum Hab. 3.11, according to the reading of Mahzor Vitry 171; Shu'aib, Bereshit (end). The miracle took place on a summer's day in the month of Tammuz; comp. Seder 'Olam 11; Aggadat Esther 29.

41. Tan B. III, 68; Tan. Ahare 9; BR 6 (end). Comp. vol III, pp. 18-19. Opinions differ as to what is meant by the "Book of Yashar" of which Joshua spoke on that occasion (Josh 10.13). Gen., Num., Deut., and Jud. are named by one authority or another as the book to which Joshua referred; comp. BR, loc cit.; 'Abodah Zarah 25a; Yerushalmi Sotah 1, 17; Targum 2 Sam 1.18 (here the "Book of Yashar" = Pentateuch); Jerome, Is. 44.2 and Ezek. 18.4. Comp. Ginzberg, Haggada bei den Kirchenv., 39-41.


43. Tan. B. III, 68; Tan. Ahare 9. On the conception that the praise of God rendered by the pious might take the place of the song chanted by nature to the glory of God, see DR 11.5, and note 947 on vol. III, p. 471.

44.Yashar Joshua, 135b-136a. As during the war for the defence of the Gibeonites a great miracle was wrought for Joshua, so also later in his war against the united kings of Canaan (see Josh. 11), when the enemies of Israel at the prayer of Joshua "became still as a stone"; Mekilta Shirah 9, 43a. Comp. note 515 on vol. III, p. 269.


Periodic collapses of the firmament

They said; "Once every 1656 years (296) the heavens convulse as He did in the days of the Flood. Come, let us make supports for it. (297)


296 The period that elapsed between Creation and the Flood.

297 Ber. Rab. 38, 6.

(Bereishis, Book 1: Genesis


Sun Stood Still

Talmud - Mas. Avodah Zarah 25a

[The same Rabbis also discuss the following:] And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed until the nation had avenged themselves of their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jashar. What is the book of Jashar? � Said R. Hiyya b. Abba in the name of R. Johanan: It is the book of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,1 who are designated as righteous,2 as it is said, Let me die the death of the righteous:3 And where is this incident hinted at [in Genesis]? � And his seed shall fill the nations:4 When shall [Ephraim's fame] reach the nations? When the sun shall stand still for Joshua. And the sun stayed in the midst of the heaven and hasted not to go down about a whole day.5 How long [is day-time said to have lasted]? � Said R. Joshua b. Levi: Twenty four hours: [The sun] moved for six hours and stood still for six, then it moved for six and stood still for six, then it moved for six and stood still for six; the whole incident equalled a whole day.

R. Eleazar said: Thirty-six hours; it moved for six hours and stood still for twelve, it then moved for six and stood still for twelve so that the halt alone equalled a whole day. R. Samuel b. Nahmani said: Forty-eight; it moved for six and stood for twelve, it then moved for six and stood still for twenty-four, for Scripture says, and hasted not to go down about a whole day, which implies that the previous halt did not equal a whole day. Some report that it is the additional hours of daytime which are disputed. R. Joshua b. Levi said: They were twenty-four; it moved for six and stood for twelve, then moved for six and stood for twelve � its halt thus equalled a whole day; while R. Eleazar said: Thirty-six; it moved for six and stood for twelve, then moved for six and stood for twenty-four [which is meant by] and hasted not to go down about a whole day. R. Samuel b. Nahmani said: Forty-eight; it moved for six and stood for twenty-four, then moved for six and again stood for twenty-four; the standing still [at noon] equalled that of setting time; as the one at setting time equalled a whole day, so the standing still [in the midst of the heaven] equalled a whole day.

A Tanna taught:6 Just as the sun stood still for Joshua, so did the sun stand still for Moses and for Nakdimon b. Gorion. [As to the case of] Joshua, there are the scriptural verses; [that of] Nakdimon b. Gorion is a tradition;7 whence do we know about Moses? � It may be derived from the identical [expression] I will begin [used in the two cases]. Here is written, I will begin to put the dread of thee,8 and there, referring to Joshua, it is written, I will begin to magnify thee.9 R. Johanan10 said: It may be derived from the use of the identical word teth11 ['put'] [in both cases]. Here is written, I will begin to put the dread of thee,12 and there, concerning Joshua, it is written, In the day when the Lord put the Amorites.13 R. Samuel b. Nahmani said: You can detect it in the very wording of the verse itself, [The peoples that are under the whole heaven] who shall hear the report of thee, and shall tremble and be in anguish because of thee:14 When did they tremble and were in anguish because of Moses? When the sun stood still for him.

The question was asked: [Does not Scripture say in the case of Joshua] And there was no day like that before it or after it?15 [The answer given was,] You may explain this [to mean that] there was none that lasted as long as that one; or, if you wish, you may say it means that there were no hailstones [as in the case of Joshua], of which it is written, And it came to pass, as they fled from before Israel, while they were in the going down of Beth-Horon, that the Lord cast down great stones from heaven upon them unto Azeka and they died.16

FOOTNOTES: (1) I.e., the Book of Genesis.
(2) Josh. X, 13. rah, righteous.
(3) Num. XXIII, 10, which is taken to refer to the peaceful ending of the Patriarchs.
(4) Gen. XLVIII, 19, spoken of Ephraim to whose tribe Joshua belonged.
(5) Josh. ibid. The wording implies a double halt by the sun: (a) in the midst of the heaven, i.e., at noon; (b) hasted not to go down, i.e., towards evening.
(6) V. Ta'an. 20a.
(7) V. Ibid.
(8) Deut. II, 25, referring to Moses.
(9) Josh. III, 7.
(10) In Ta'an. R. Samuel b. Nahmani is given.
(11) ,,.
(12) Deut. ibid.
(13) Josh. X, 12.
(14) Deut. ibid.
(15) Josh. X, 14.
(16) Ibid. 11.

(The Soncino Talmud CD, Davka Corporation, 1991-1995)


Hail of hot stones

Talmud - Mas. Berachoth 54b

'Hailstones [abne elgabish]'. What are 'abne elgabish'? A Tanna taught: Stones [abanim] which remained suspended for the sake of a man ['al gab ish] and came down for the sake of a man. 'They remained suspended for the sake of a man': this was Moses, of whom it is written, Now the man Moses was very meek,5 and it is also written, And the soldiers and hail ceased, and the rain poured not upon the earth.6 'They came down for the sake of a man': this was Joshua, of whom it is written, Take thee Joshua the son of Nun, a man in whom there is spirit,7 and it is written, And it came to pass as they fled from before Israel, while they were at the descent of Beth-Horon, that the Lord cast down great stones.8

(5) Num. XII, 3.
(6) Ex. IX, 33.
(7) Num. XXVII, 18.
(8) Josh. X, 11.




(Legends of the Jews,

News Items of Interest


The World's No.1 Science & Technology News Service

Anomalies hint at magnetic pole flip

19:00 10 April 02

Exclusive from New Scientist Print Edition

The Earth's magnetic poles might be starting to flip say researchers who have seen strange anomalies in our planet's magnetic field.

The magnetic field is created by the flow of molten iron inside the Earth's core. These circulation patterns are affected by the planet's rotation, so the field normally aligns with the Earth's axis - forming the north and south poles.

But the way minerals are aligned in ancient rock shows that the planet's magnetic dipole occasionally disappears altogether, leaving a much more complicated field with many poles all over the planet. When the dipole comes back into force, the north and south poles can swap places.

The last reversal happened about 780,000 years ago, over a period of several thousand years. Now Gauthier Hulot from the Institute of Earth Sciences in Paris and his colleagues think they have spotted early signs of another reversal.

South African anomaly

They used data from the �rsted satellite to study strange variations in the Earth's magnetic field. In particular, one large patch under South Africa is pointing in the opposite direction from the rest of the Earth's field and has been growing for hundreds of years.

The anomalies have already reduced the overall strength of the planet's magnetic field by about 10 per cent. If they continue to grow at the same rate, the Earth's dipole will disappear within just two millennia.

But �rsted is the first satellite to take a snapshot of the Earth's magnetic field for 20 years, and such scant data makes it difficult to predict future shifts.

"We can't really tell what will happen," says Hulot. "But we speculate that we're in an unusual situation that might be related to a reversal."

Journal reference: Nature (vol 416, p 620)

Nicola Jones

( http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992152)


(What could be headed our way?)


BBSNews - 2003-04-01 -- The Universe clearly works weekends; delivering one of the brightest and closest gamma ray bursts yet on Saturday, March 29, at 6:37 a.m. EST.

NASA's High-Energy Transient Explorer (HETE) detected the burst, signaling the birth of a black hole, in the constellation Leo. For more than 30 seconds, the burst out shone the entire Universe in gamma rays, and its afterglow was still over a trillion times brighter than the sun two hours later. This was the brightest burst yet detected by HETE and is in the top one percent of all bursts in terms of intrinsic brightness. Within seconds, HETE nailed down a location and subsequently relayed the coordinates to the astronomy community, allowing hundreds of scientists and amateur astronomers to join the observation, from Australia to Finland and across the ocean to America. Observations continue to pour in as scientists attempt to unravel what caused the burst. The region is still too bright to determine which galaxy this burst came from.









By Dr David Whitehouse
October 21, 2002

Astronomers have discovered the first object ever that is in a companion orbit to the Earth.


But it shares the Earth's orbit around the Sun, at first on one side of the Earth and then escaping to travel along our planet's path around the Sun until it encounters the Earth from the other side. Then it goes back again.

Researchers are speculating that 2002 AA29 could be visited by astronauts or used to understand the threat to our planet posed by such rocks from space.

2002 AA29 was discovered by the linear automated sky survey project on 9 January 2002.

Martin Connors of Athabaseca University in Canada writes in the journal Meteoritics and Planetary Science that it, "moves in a very Earth-like orbit," and is the "first true co-orbital object of Earth."


According to Helena Morais of the University of Lisbon and Allesandro Morbidelli of the University of Nice, writing in a paper to be published in the journal, Icarus: "2002 AA29 seems to be in a temporary horseshoe-like orbit with the Earth."

This puts 2002 AA29 is in the same class as 3753 Cruithne, a similar rocky body in a horseshoe orbit around the Earth.

But astronomers classify 2002 AA29 as the first real co-orbital body found associated with the Earth because it more completely shares the Earth's path around the Sun.

Co-orbiting asteroids have been found around other planets.

Over 1,200 so called "Trojans" have been found moving either ahead or behind Jupiter.

Eight such objects have been found associated with Mars.


It is clear that 2002 AA29 was discovered by accident at a time when it was at one end of its horseshoe orbit and, being at its closest to the Earth, was bright enough to be detected in an automated sky survey.

Detailed observations of its trajectory through space show that 2002 AA29 will reach its minimum close approach to the Earth -- 12 times the distance between Earth and the Moon -- at 1900 GMT on 8 January 2003.

Thereafter it will travel ahead of the Earth moving faster than our planet does, until after 95 years it will catch up with the other side of the Earth and then reverse its motion.

Analysis of 2002 AA29's motions have revealed a remarkable event that happens to it every few thousand years.


It remains a second moon to Earth for about 50 years until it escapes.





(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2347663.stm )


By Dr David Whitehouse
Thursday, 12 September, 2002

So, it looks like Earth does not have a new "moon" after all.

The latest analysis of the mysterious object called J002E3 suggests it could well be a leftover Saturn V rocket component from one of the Apollo lunar missions.

The suspicious, fast-moving object was discovered on 3 September by Bill Yeung from his observatory in Arizona, US. Initial orbit calculations indicated that it was only about twice as far away as the Moon, and in orbit around the Earth.

At first, astronomers were not sure whether the object was a passing chunk of rock that was captured by the Earth's gravity, or a piece of space junk.

Now the mystery may have been solved thanks to a retrospective analysis of its movement through space. The object is most likely from the Apollo 12 mission, launched on 14 November 1969.

Returned to sender

It seems that the object was in orbit around the Sun until April of this year when it was captured by the Earth's gravity. The capture occurred when the object passed near the Earth's L1 Lagrange point, a region of space where the gravity of the Earth and Sun approximately cancel.

J002E3 is the first known case of an object being captured by the Earth, although Jupiter has been known to capture comets in the same way.

The most recent analysis of J002E3's pre-capture orbit about the Sun shows that it was always inside the Earth's orbit, and that it may have come within the Earth's vicinity in the early 1970s or late 1960s.

This suggests that J002E3 was very likely orbiting the Earth during this period before escaping into solar orbit.

Experts say that it is likely that this object is one of the Apollo Saturn rocket's third stages. The brightness of J002E3 seems to match the expected brightness of such a component.

Analysis of J002E3's orbit suggests that there is a chance of it impacting the Moon in 2003, and an outside possibility of it burning up in the Earth's atmosphere sometime in the next decade or so.

(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2253385.stm )


NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Wednesday, July 17, 2002

Donald Savage
Headquarters, Washington
(Phone: 202/358-1547)

Martha J. Heil
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
(Phone: 818/354-0850)
















January 22, 2002

Meteor clue to end of Middle East civilisations

By Robert Matthews, Science Correspondent






Until now, archaeologists have put forward a host of separate explanations for these events, from local wars to environmental changes. Recently, some astronomers have suggested that meteor impacts could explain such historical mysteries.


"It was a purely accidental discovery," Dr Master told The Telegraph last week. "I was reading a magazine article about the canal-building projects of Saddam Hussein, and there was a photograph showing lots of formations - one of which was very, very circular."

Detailed analysis of other satellite images taken since the mid-1980s showed that for many years the crater contained a small lake.

The draining of the region, as part of Saddam's campaign against the Marsh Arabs, has since caused the lake to recede, revealing a ring-like ridge inside the larger bowl-like depression - a classic feature of meteor impact craters.




A date of around 2300 BC for the impact may also cast new light on the legend of Gilgamesh, dating from the same period. The legend talks of "the Seven Judges of Hell", who raised their torches, lighting the land with flame, and a storm that turned day into night, "smashed the land like a cup", and flooded the area.

The discovery of the crater has sparked great interest among scientists.

Dr Benny Peiser, who lectures on the effects of meteor impacts at John Moores University, Liverpool, said it was one of the most significant discoveries in recent years and would corroborate research he and others have done.

He said that craters recently found in Argentina date from around the same period - suggesting that the Earth may have been hit by a shower of large meteors at about the same time.

(http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml%3B$sessionid$41ZD1XYAAA5OLQFIQ MGCFFWAVCBQUIV0?xml=/news/2001/11/04/wmet04.xml&sSheet=/news/2001/11/04/ix homef.html%5C)

Links of interest:


I would like to type all of the book "Worlds in Collision" and put it with the rest of the ebooks on the website but I know that would be a huge copyright violation. If anyone knows of how to get permission to do this, please email me.

2. Worlds in Collision, Part Two, Chapters 1, 2, 5, excerpts of 3, 8, 9
Worlds in Collision, Chapter 3

3. Velikovsky: Bonds of the Past 1972 movie by Henry Zemel.

4. Please see excerpts from "The Prophecy Trilogy" by Anthony Larson:
And the Moon Shall Turn to Blood
And the Earth Shall Reel To and Fro
And There Shall Be a New Heaven and a New Earth

5. Do a Google search with the words "catastrophism" and "velikovsky" which will give you more than enough reading material on this subject.

6. Do a Google search with the words "planet x" as your query.

7. Listen to http://www.jmccanneyscience.com/ radio program on Planet X. A few things to consider: he seems to have a huge chip on his shoulder and is having a war with NASA which he spends a lot of time talking about; his philosophy of life does not seem to include the Bible—seems to be a humanist who thinks people can change the world; he believes the Heaven's Gate people were murdered; secular commentary. I have his book "Planet-X, Comets & Earth Changes" but the jury is still out.

8. Please see Hail, Hale-Bopp!.

9. Books online by Donald W. Patten on catastrophism:
The Biblical Flood and the Ice Epoch
The Mars-Earth Wars
Catastrophism and the Old Testament (The Mars-Earth Conflicts)




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