Chronology & Catastrophism WORKSHOP 2005:1 Click here for cost
[This and all following issues, up to and including 2010:1, contain Steve Mitchell’s column,‘Medieval Europe: Dating and Recent Developments’ in which AD archaeology, the chronology of Bede and AD chronology in general are investigated]
Old Testament Tales, Part VI – Samuel, by David Salkeld [a personal ‘take’ on the biblical stories in the Old Testament]
The consensus view is that I Samuel derives from at least two sources. R. H. Pfeiffer, in Introduction to the Old Testament, says: ‘In contrast with the lucid and objective presentation of historical events and personalities which characterize the early source, the late source … is clouded with legends and distorted by theories’. Can we identify that lucid and objective ‘early source’? As far as the first 16 or 19 chapters are concerned, the answer is ‘probably’. …………………………………..
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Old Testament Tales, Part VII – Samuel and Saul, by David Salkeld
Samuel was ‘displeased’ that the Israelite elders asked for a king. He said they were rejecting God, not him; in reality they wished to be free from his dictatorship and the corrupt rule of his sons. ………………………………. Samuel’s ‘Coronation Proclamation’, is surely the least laudatory of any ever delivered. It starts with his excuse for judicial oppression – ‘my sons are with you’, but I have never stolen from, bribed or cheated anyone’. (Recall that Eli was cursed, although he attempted to restrain his sons. Samuel’s record shows no such attempts on his part; he seems to have lived comfortably while his sons cheated and swindled;……………….
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Rectification of the Assyrian and Babylonian King Lists – A Velikovskian Approach, by Michael G. Reade
Doubt is cast on the reliability of the Assyrian and Babylonian King Lists and some ideas are presented here towards rectifying them by a consideration of the dating of the Ninsianna Tablet records and historical records of violent climatic disturbances. Can references to the era of severe climatic disturbances, claimed by Velikovsky for the 900-700 BC era and associated with interactions between Venus, Earth and Mars, be found in the Assyrian and Babylonian records? ………………………….
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Crustal Distortion in the Holocene, by Phillip Clapham
The talk at the 2004 AGM by the geologist Han Kloosterman [1] pinpointed a catastrophe at the boundary of the Pleistocene and the Holocene periods. This boundary is a kind of shut-off as it marks a phase of mass extinction in conjunction with vast geological changes, such as mountain building episodes, volcanism and marine transgressions. Kloosterman associated it with a burnt charcoal layer – delineating vast landscape fires. It has been suggested by various authors [2] that this catastrophic scenario encompassed a shift in the geographical location of the North Pole – from somewhere in the Hudson Bay area to where it is now. Subsequrent Holocene history has itself been punctuated by a series of lesser catastrophes that may have had a cosmic dimension of ……………..
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Additional Data for the Combined Velikovsky, Glasgow and Heinsohn Scenario, by Sjef van Asten
In a number of previous issues of C&C Review the ‘low chronology’ of Israel Finkelstein was discussed [1]. …………………… he concluded that Megiddo, Hazor and Gezer must have been fortified in the time of Omri and Ahab and not, as the Old Testament tells us, in the time of Solomon [2]. The destruction of northern parts of Israel occurred ………………………………………………in about 835 BC ………………………. So, about a century or so separates the archaeological finds from the biblical chronology. Looking at these data ………………………
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Chronology & Catastrophism WORKSHOP 2005:2 Click here for cost
Old Testament Tales: Part VIII – Samuel, Saul and David, by David Salkeld
Samuel intended that Saul should be his pawn (OTT7), but Saul became a national hero after defeating the Philistines and Amalekites. Samuel then decided to anoint a rival king …………… Himself an Ephrathite (1:1), he knew his clansman Jesse (17:12) had a comely, personable, pliable son in Bethlehem, but before going there on his treasonable mission Samuel quailed: ‘if Saul hear it he will kill me’. ……………………….., as Shakespeare said: ‘Cowards die many times before their deaths’. …………………..
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Old Testament Tales, Part IX – Jonathan, by David Salkeld
A tale of Jonathan’s ‘foolhardy’ actions in I Sam. 14, admits of an unusual interpretation. Briefly, Saul, with about 600 Israelites, is advancing towards Philistine forces at Michmash. Jonathan leaves without telling his father and finds a Philistine garrison on a promontory north of Michmash who taunt him to ‘come up’. Jonathan tells his armourbearer that ‘The Lord hath delivered them into the hand of Israel’. Climbing up with hands and feet, the two slaughter about 20 Philistines in the half-acre hilltop. This military unbelievable exploit becomes credible when …………………………………….
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The anno Domini Anomalies, by Phillip Clapham
The Anglo Saxon Chronicle assigns to the year AD 538 a solar eclipse. In the year AD 540 it records another solar eclipse – and specifically states that in that year the stars were invisible. As modern calculations shown that no eclipse took place in northern Europe in those years it has become common to suppose Bede borrowed the tradition from a Byzantine source. However, a problem remains as the years between AD 536-545 are defined by a series of narrow tree rings. ……………..The most obvious reason ………….
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Chronology & Catastrophism WORKSHOP 2005:3 Click here for cost
Is Illig Right and AD Chronology Wrong?, by Emmmet Sweeney
Many SIS readers will be aware of the controversy that arose over the proposal by Dr. Heribet Illig and others that AD chronology is no more secure than BC and that it, too, needs to be considerably shortened [1]. I was initially attacted to the idea for the simple reason that the so-called ‘Dark Ages’ appeared to be too long and began habitually reading and looking into anything I could find relating to the period between c. 500 and AD 1000. Although to begin with there appeared to be many good reasons for questioning the prevailing system, against this, it seemed, Dr. Illig’s proposal had the potential to create almost as many problems as it solved and, in the face of such considerations, I felt forced to concede (not without many misgivings) that the accepted AD chronology was probably correct. However, in the course of time, more and more anomalous facts came to my attention which called Illig’s theories forcefully to mind and led, in 2002, to the writing of this paper, presenting both my own and Illig’s arguments [2]. ………. it was met with a totally dismissive 3½ page response, not meant for publication, from Peter James ………………….. readers can judge for themselves as to the possibility that AD chronology could, indeed, be overstretched by a considerable number of years. In England, from the period stretching from c. 400 to just after AD 1000 …………..
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Chronology & Catastrophism WORKSHOP 2006:1 Click here for cost
Another Late Pleistocene Signature: The Silverpit Crater, by J. B. Delair
In 1952 the existence was announced of large, oval-shaped ‘bay’-like ground features in Holland [1]. These were briefly compared with the much better known ‘Carolina Bays’ – a series of analogous surface structures in the south-eastern United States which, even in 1952, many regarded as impact craters or low-level blast scars left by a rain of relatively small cosmic objects sometime during the second half of the Pleistocene period [2]. Over 40 years later, a map (Fig. 1), compiled in 1989, was published showing how these features could be linked, at least theoretically, to similar examples in Siberia, Alaska and Bolivia, as separate signatures of a wider catastrophic event which could be dated to approximately 11,500 years go, i.e., to terminal (late) Pleistocene times [3]. …………..
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Chronology & Catastrophism WORKSHOP 2006:2 Click here for cost
A Stonehenge Contemporary: The Six Development Phases of Silbury Hill, its Function and Wider Significance, by Leonard Saunders
The received wisdom of Silbury Hill is that there are three consecutive phases and an unknowable function [1]. This paper for the first time identifies six development phases and demonstrates that these were in response to unheralded catastrophic inundations of progressive severity. Evidence is adduced for commencing speculation about the causes of these. Speculations are made about the choice of location and activities of the local populace which gave rise to the hill. …………………….
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Chronology & Catastrophism WORKSHOP 2006:3 Click here for cost
The Entrapment of Venus, by Michael G. Reade
This article is based, at least in part, on the lengthy description of the Phaethon episode presented in Book 2 of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. It appears increasingly probable ….. that Venus originated as a comet, chancing in from outer space and becoming entrapped in the solar system. Whilst it may be impossible ever to prove every detail of what actually happened in the distant past, it seems worthwhile to review the currently available evidence, especially as there is still scope both for verification (or challenge?) of the detail and for introduction of additional evidence from hitherto unexploited sources (e.g. it is probably possible to get an indication of the date of the Phaethon episode from the arrangement of the decans on the [ancient Egyptian] Senmut ceiling and the Asuyut coffins lids.) ……………………….
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Chronology & Catastrophism WORKSHOP2007:1 Click here for cost
On the Rotation of the Moon’s Orbital Plane, Laurence Dixon
My interest in finding a mechanism that would rotate the Moon’s Orbital Plane (MOP) arose while reading a paper by Len Saunders’, ‘A New Theory of Abstract Rock Art in the British Isles’ [1]. An earlier version of the paper was published as ‘Evidence from the Moon, Newgrange and Stonehenge Indicates Lunar Disturbance’ [2]. Soon after reading this, I also read David Salkeld’s article, ‘Some Implications of Saunders’ Lunar Hypothesis’ in C&C Review 2005, which is very relevant [3]. Saunders describes in detail the rock inscriptions ………………………. The ubiquitous pictures of spirals he attributes to the rotation of the MOP. A rarer set of drawings he explains as the after-effects of the two impacts with the Moon that caused the Messier and Messier A craters …………….
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Dysphasia in Genesis? (Old Testament Tale X), by David Salkeld [In the original, this ‘Tale’ was inadvertently misprinted as being ‘XI’]
When I awoke in bed on the 9th November 2004, I couldn’t say anything that made sense. My wife and I were dismayed. I could hear what … was saying to me, but I couldn’t articulate speech at all and could only reply with gibberish. ……. In the brain, memories are stored by cells called neurons. ……….. But if neurons in language memory are destroyed (as in my case) all speech and writing are lost until – as in infancy – it can be learnt again. ………….The millions of neurons in the human brain communicate with each other by electrical currents. If the neurons are overlooked, or short-circuited, it can produce a stroke or dysphasia ………. Moreover, if a group of mountaineers are caught in an electrical storm and a bolt of lightning strikes, the group could temporarily suffer a partial dysphasia. Could a huge electrical current have struck the Tower of Babel (cf. Genesis II:1-9), and builders of the tower have suffered dysphasia, so they could not understand one another’s speech? …………………………………..
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Chronology & Catastrophism WORKSHOP 2007:2 Click here for cost
Birth of the Moon, by Peter Fairlie-Clarke
The origin of the Moon has been the subject of speculation and controversy amongst astronomers and geophysicists for well over 100 years. Various different theories have been proposed, but there are problems with all of them. Any theory about the origin of the Moon must account for the following characteristics. …………… Prior to the Moon-landings, there were three theories about the orign of the Moon – the ‘capture’ theory, the ‘sibling’ theory and the ‘daughter’ theory. The ‘capture’ theory demanded that ……………
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On the Argonauts and Beyond, in a Velikovskian Scenario, by Sjef van Asten
In Velikovsky’s ‘Revised’ chronology the Argonaut journey was not mentioned. However, using the colonisation period of the Greeks in the Black Sea area, including the foundation of Colchian cities and the connection with Greek legends, it seems that the origin of the Argonaut story can be set in the 8th and 7th centuries BC. In addition, an 18th Egyptian dynasty sarcophagus lid; headdresses from the 18th and 19th dynasty with specifically similar attributes; and foundation of Abydus in Phrygia, suggests a down-dating to the same era for the el-Amarna period/Oedius story and Trojan War respectively. In general, it seems that the various Greek legends do not have their origin from the mid-9th century BC to 700 BC, using Velikovsky’s scenario, but have a better chance of having originated at the turn of the 8th and 7th centuries BC……………………………………………
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Chronology & Catastrophism WORKSHOP 2007:3 Click here for cost ick here for cost
The Extinction of the Mammoths: Is Science Still Getting it Wrong?, by J. Bernard Delair
Readers of SIS publication will have long been aware of the multi-stranded evidence that, about 11,500 years BP (in late Pleistocene times), a sudden and enormously lethal disruption of nature caused the simultaneous worldwide demise of the mammoths and vast numbers of climatically and ecologically incompatible animal and botanical contemporaries. It is of immediate importance to note the phrases ‘multi-stranded evidence’, ‘sudden … disruption’, ‘worldwide demise’, ‘ vast numbers’ and ‘climatically and ecologically incompatible’. .. These organic assemblages occur at many localities, both Arctic and non-Arctic, and are usually exemplified by highly confused and smashed remains. It is thus equally important to note that, collectively, the range of animals represented …. borders on the bizarre. Such congregations are unnatural and can only have occurred under special conditions ……………………..
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Suppiluliumas I and Tutankhamun – A Bridge Too Far?, by Barry Curnock
At the 1978 SIS Glasgow Conference, in his critique of Immanuel Velikovsky’s work, Peter James made it clear that there was a chronological bridge between Hittite and Egyptian history that linked the Egyptian 18th and 19th Dynasties. This destroyed the main thrust of Velikovsky’s book, Ramses II and His Time, namely, that the famous pharaoh reigned two hundred years after the end of the 18th Dynasty: …………….. For over a quarter of a century, James’ statement has guided those who would seek to revise ancient history………. The following arguments are from my, as yet, unpublished work and form the starting point for a complete re-dating of the whole of Hittite history. ……………..
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