Moses' Comet

Troubled Times/Discovering Archaeology ^ | 8-1999 | Mike Baillie

[blam]

Moses' Comet

Moses’ Comet, by Mike Baillie
Discovering Archeology, July/August 1999

Moses called down a host of calamities upon Egypt until the pharaoh finally freed the Israelites. Perhaps he had the help of a comet impact coupled with a volcano.
A volcano destroyed the island of Santorini in the Aegean Sea (between today's Greece and Turkey) around the middle of the second millennium B.C. Researchers Val LaMarche and Kathy Hirschboeck suggest the volcano might be associated with tree-ring evidence for several years of intense cold beginning in 1627 B.C.
Could that form the basis for strange meteorological phenomena recorded in the biblical book of Exodus? In the book of Exodus, which describes events a few hundred kilometers from Santorini, we read of a pillar of cloud and fire, a lingering darkness, and the parting of the Red Sea. An enormous column of ash must have hung in the sky over the eruption (the Israelites’ “pillar of cloud by day and fire by night?”), and the volcano doubtless caused a tsunami, or tidal wave (which could have drowned a pharaoh's army).
The Exodus story is traditionally dated to either the thirteenth or fifteenth century B.C. Those dates, however, depend ultimately on identifying the “Pharaoh of the Oppression,” and historians have never proven to which ruler that infamous title referred.
Many biblical scholars will disagree, but I suggest that a seventeenth-century B.C. date is not impossible.

The argument can be bolstered. Equally catastrophic meteorological conditions are recorded in the Bible for the time of King David.
Psalm 18, in reference to David, speaks of terrifying events: “Earth shook and trembled. The foundations of the hills moved and were shaken. ... Smoke ... fire ... darkness ... dark waters ... thick clouds of the skies ... hailstones and coals of fire.” On some chronologies, David is placed 470 years after the Exodus.
The spacing between the two disastrous events recorded in Irish tree rings at 1628 and 1159 B.C. is 469 years. The Exodus story includes dust, several days of darkness, hail, dead fish, undrinkable water, cattle killed by hail, water breaking out of rocks, the earth opening, the sea parting as in a tsunami, and so on.
Someone looking at the Exodus story and knowing descriptions of other distant volcanic effects might offer the possibility that the Israelites escaped from Egypt under the cover of a major natural catastrophe.
There may be veiled references to comets in the biblical narrative, leading to the possibility that the Santorini eruption itself may have been triggered by a bolide (comet or asteroid) impact. David Levy, co-discoverer of the comet that bears his and Jean Shoemaker's names, has argued that the description of the “angel of the Lord in the sky over Jerusalem with a drawn sword” (1 Chronicles 21) could be a reference to a comet.
The Angel of the Lord was, of course, also present at the Exodus, as it was “traveling in front of Israel's army.” Further, there are indications that as the Israelites left Egypt, the night was as bright as midday.
The nights over Europe were reported to have been daytime-bright after the only known modern bolide impact, the Tunguska explosion over Siberia in 1908.

These stories raise the question of whether comets recorded by the Chinese at the start and end of the Shang Dynasty, at very near the same dates, were the same as the comets that may be recorded in the Old Testament.
I believe that we know the answer: In the last five millennia, several dynastic changes and dark ages have been the direct result of impacts and/or volcanoes. The consequences of such events must have been devastating, leading to apocalyptic imagery in religious writing and predictions of the end of the world.
Zachariah of Mitylene lived through the environmental disaster that began about 540 A.D. In the mid-550s, he wrote in his twelve-volume records of the trials the world had survived: “In addition to all the fearful things described above, the earthquakes and famines and wars, ... there has also been fulfilled against us the curse of Moses in Deuteronomy."“ The curse included pestilence, consumption, fever, fiery blasts from the skies, mildew, a rain of powder and dust, and darkness.
The curse of Moses must have seemed an appropriate description of life after the impact of a piece of a comet.

Mike Baillie is a leading dendrochronologist and Professor of Palaeoecology at Queen's University, Belfast, Northern Ireland. His book, Exodus to Arthur, describes in detail his theory of comet encounters and turning points of civilization."

[Fred Nerks]

If you read Ages in Chaos you will find the following;

ISAIAH 43:16 Thus saith the Lord, which maketh a way in the sea and a path in the mightly waters;
20...I gave waters in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert, to give drink to my people, my chosen.

In the Book of Exodus it is said that Moses was commanded:

EXODUS 4:22-23 And thou shalt say unto Pharaoh, Thus saith the Lord, Israel is my son, even my firstborn.
...and if thou refuse to let him go, behold I will slay thy son, even thy firstborn.

The 'chosen' are here called 'firstborn'. If Israel was the firstborn, revenge was to be taken against Egypt by the death of its firstborn. But if Israel was the chosen, then revenge was to be taken against Egypt by the death of its chosen.

'Israel, my chosen' is ISRAEL BECHIRI, OR BECHORI.
'Israel my firstborn,' is ISRAEL BEKHORI.

It is the first root which was supposed to determine the relation between God and his people. Therefor: 'at midnight the Lord smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt' (Exodus 12:29) must be read 'all the select of Egypt' as one would say, 'all the flower of Egypt' or 'all the strength of Egypt'.

[Verginius Rufus]

Yes, I read some of his books a long, long time ago.

[lunarbicep]

bttt

[Fred Nerks]

Desert of Wandering
The desert of the forty-year wandering was not the Sinai. Peninsula, but a much larger area. The inclination of the historians is generally to deny the ancients long itineraries; Midian being the Medina of Moslem times, actually deep in the Arabian Peninsula, all indications in the Old Testament are for a deep penetration of the Arab Peninsula by the wandering Israelites who escaped the land of Egypt destroyed by the catastrophe in the mid-fifteenth century before the present era.

There are autochthonous Arab traditions about the wandering tribes led by Mosaikaia, his brother Arnran, and his sister Zeripha. These traditions have not been borrowed from the Old Testament or rabbinical tradition. From the Bible and Midrashim, the Arabs culled much of the content of the Koran, but they did not realize that their traditions about Mosaikaia (and the catastrophe that took place in his time) are of independent origin, though referring to the same persons and events.

All together indicates that the Israelites under Moses did not spend forty years in the small triangular Sinai Peninsula, but in the western regions of Arabia.



http://www.varchive.org/ce/baalbek/deswan.htm

You may find this above snippet of interest. I am personally fascinated by the meeting of the fleeing slaves and egyptians shortly after the crossing of the jam suf (reed or red sea) with the nomad arabs coming from the opposite direction.

Volcano Information Summary
Eruptive History:

Country: Saudi Arabia
Subregion Name: Western Arabia
Volcano Number: 0301-06=
Volcano Type: Volcanic field
Volcano Status: Historical
Last Known Eruption: 650 AD ± 50 years
Summit Elevation: 2093 m 6,867 feet
Latitude: 25.00°N * 25°0'0"N
Longitude: 39.92°E 39°55'0"E
Harrat Khaybar, one of Saudi Arabia's largest volcanic fields, covers an area of more than 14,000 sq km north of Madinah (Medina). A spectacular 100-km-long N-S linear vent system contains felsic lava domes, tuff rings, the Jabal Qidr stratovolcano, as well as numerous small basaltic cones. At least seven post-neolithic (<4500 years old) and eight "historical" (<1500 years old) lava flows are present. In the latter category is the prominent 55-km-long Habir lava flow as well as Jabal Qidr stratovolcano, the only stratovolcano in the Harrats of western Saudi Arabia. An eruption was reported at Harrat Khaybar in early Mohammedan times during the 7th century AD. Lavas from Harrat Khaybar overlap older lavas of Harrat Kura to the west and merge with lavas from Harrat Ithnayn to the north.

http://www.volcano.si.edu/world/volcano.cfm?vnum=0301-06=


The Arabian Peninsula has over 85 thousand sq klms of lava fields and countless limestone caves.

http://www.saudicaves.com/gallery.html

[ApplegateRanch]

If I recall correctly, they were led thru the wilderness by the pillar of smoke by day and fire by night for 40 years.

Exodus 40:34-38 (KJV)

34 Then a cloud covered the tent of the congregation, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle.
35 And Moses was not able to enter into the tent of the congregation, because the cloud abode thereon, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle.
36 And when the cloud was taken up from over the tabernacle, the children of Israel went onward in all their journeys:
37 But if the cloud were not taken up, then they journeyed not till the day that it was taken up.
38 For the cloud of the LORD was upon the tabernacle by day, and fire was on it by night, in the sight of all the house of Israel, throughout all their journeys.

As you can see; they did not travel continuously, but only if the cloud was 'not taken up from the Tabernacle'.

That is even harder to explain via a volcano...or a comet.

[Prost1]

One must always keep in mind that the Bible uses numbers for shorthand. Forty years or Forty days or Four Hundred xxx = 4*10*x.

10 signifies divine completeness. 4 signifies god's creative works. Thus, 40 signifies the creative completeness of god's works. 40 is also the product of 5 & 8 and signifies god's grace manifest, ie, the completeness of the probationary period. 5 = grace; 8 = renewal or revival.

See E.W. Bullinger, "Number in Scripture".

[ApplegateRanch]

I have read Bullinger; I even have a copy of that book, as well as his book (tired; title escapes me) on the stars & constellations in Scripture.

I also have a Companion Bible, which has his appendices & notes.

40 is also significant of "probation".

However, the 40 years in the beginning of my post was what I referenced from the post I was answering. I posted the Biblical quotation to dispel the two common misconceptions in the post I was answering:

1) The Israelites literally "wandered" for 40 years. They didn't; they spent some extended periods encamped in various places;

and especially,

2) That the pillar of fire/cloud was "always" before them. It wasn't, as when they were encamped, 'the cloud abode upon the Tabernacle'.

[leadpenny]

"Napoleon conquered Egypt in 1798 and brought with him a bunch of French scholars who studied the antiquities of Egypt. You'd think they would have made a special search for the bones of the frogs, being French."

You'd think.

LOL, my neighbors probably heard me laugh.

[Dustbunny]

Interesting theory but still just a theory.

[Prost1]

"However, the 40 years in the beginning of my post"

I justed used it for the opportunity to point out that numerology plays a significant part in oriental literature.

[commish]

How very fortunate for Moses that a comet just happened to hit a volcano just as he was threatening egypt with all these calamities, and then the tidal wave just happened to open the red sea just exactly long enough for the isrealites to escape and then it came in at just the exact time needed to kill Pharoahs army.

One would almost suspect that maybe this wasn't just luck and that Moses had a little help from someone else.

[Renfield]

I read Exodus to Arthur. Outstanding book--highly recommended.

[blam]

"I read Exodus to Arthur. Outstanding book--highly recommended."

I agree. It's in my personal library.

I highly recommend Eden In The East, by Stepehen Oppenheimer too.

[SunkenCiv]

Catastrophes, tree-rings and climate
by Andrew Sherratt

If this seems a long time ago, then remember that in 1908 an impact equivalent to a ten-megaton explosion left a 1.2km crater in Tunguska (Siberia), and that events of this magnitude probably occur with a frequency of between once a century and once a millennium. Worth searching for in the tree-rings. Mike Baillie is a leading dendrocatastrophist who believes he had found them. There are certainly some dramatic and widespread anomalies in tree-ring thicknesses, though many may be associated with volcanic eruptions rather than impacts. Sadly, the hard evidence does not yet make a story. Undeterred, Baillie recruits an amazing mixture of historical records for various kinds of unusual phenomena and their associated mythologies, in a way which goes far beyond any credibility as serious science... but a serious idea still awaits investigation.

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Exodus to Arthur: Catastrophic Encounters With Comets by Mike Baillie paperback

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[SunkenCiv]

PLEASE NOTE -- this topic is from last year. Thanks.

[SunkenCiv]

[true_blue_texican]

bump

[SunkenCiv]

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