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Immanuel
Velikovsky
The explanation of
the plagues of Egypt and the dividing of the Sea of Passage at the
time of the Exodus of the Israelites as natural phenomena was not
accepted by Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky. He saw these events as the
first manifestation of the early states of a cosmic catastrophe which struck the whole earth and which reached its zenith 52
years later when, as Joshua was pursuing the Canaanites, "the sun
stood still in the midst of heaven and did not go down about a whole
day."
On a day some time in the
middle of the second millennium BCE, the earth either ceased to
rotate or tilted over on its axis. By the advancement of this theory
and by his explanation of the cause of the phenomena, Dr. Velikovsky
launched a formidable assault on the entrenched dogmas of astronomy
and geology. He challenged Newton’s belief in the general orthodoxy
of the universe and propounded a heresy as abhorrent to modern
scientists as were the opinions of Galileo and Copernicus to
medieval ecclesiastics. Heretics are no longer burnt at the stake;
they are either ridiculed or ignored.
Why are Velikovsky’s
theories so outrageous? If the sun stood still for a whole day, the
most fundamental beliefs of astronomy are denied, for it is assumed
that the earth has always rotated from west to east and it has
always taken 365 days, 5 hours, and 49 minutes to go around the sun.
Velikovsky claimed that the earth’s movements have been erratic,
that it once ceased to revolve and that, previously, it took only
360 days to complete its orbit.
He believed that some 3,500
years ago the earth was affected by the appearance in the sky of a
giant comet which eventually became the planet Venus. The
close proximity to the earth of this comet caused, at its first
appearance, certain phenomena and, at its second and closer
appearance, the effect of prolonged day and night in different parts
of the world. Dr. Velikovsky, a scholar and not an astronomer,
claimed to have found worldwide traditions of these unusual
catastrophes and an Egyptian eyewitness description of the
occurrences recorded in the Bible’s chapter, Exodus.
The first clue came from
biblical verses which state that great stones were cast down from
heaven. Taken in combination with Exodus, these statements implied
an unusual state of affairs which, if they were true, must
presumably have been witnessed by people other than the Israelites.
If a day was prolonged in one part of the world, a long period of
darkness must have prevailed elsewhere. Dr. Velikovsky found that
there were many traditions of prolonged darkness in the western
hemisphere, and in the eastern half of he world of a day of unusual
length, both accompanied by stories of a cosmic cataclysm.
These widespread traditions
suggested that the earth, at an undisclosed date, had been struck by
some appalling catastrophe, the confused memory of which had been
preserved in the form of myths. They seemed to recall a battle in
the sky from which Venus, hitherto unknown, emerged as a planet. It
is a question of myths versus mathematics.
Many of the ancient
traditions of the Peruvians, Mayas, and Mexicans of America were
recorded soon after the Spanish conquests. Mexican annals related
that the sun did not appear for a four-fold night and that 52 years
before another catastrophe had occurred. The Mayas believed that
some time in the past there had been a period in which the sun’s
motion had been interrupted and the waters had turned red. The
sacred book of the Mayas, the Popul Vuh, says: "It was ruin and
destruction... the sea was piled up... it was a great inundation...
people were drowned in a sticky substance raining from the sky...
the face of the earth grew dark and the gloomy rain endured days and
nights... and then there was a great din of fire above their heads."
The entire population was annihilated. Other Central American myths
contain stories of a deluge of sticky rain of bitumen from heaven;
men were seized by madness and tried to escape it by sheltering in
caverns but the caverns were suddenly closed. The cataclysm was
preceded by a collision of stars and was followed by an inundation
of the sea. The Peruvians had similar traditions. A pattern of
legends suggest that a cosmic catastrophe resulting in a long period
of darkness accompanied by tidal waves, hurricanes and by the fall
of giant stones and bloody rain from the sky, preceded the
appearance of a new planet.
Outside the western
hemisphere there were similar stories of a prolonged day. Chinese
chronologies reported that, in the time of the Emperor Yaltou: "The
sun did not set for a number of days; the forests were set on fire,
a high wave reaching the sky poured over the land." The Altai Tatars
spoke of a catastrophe in which "blood turned the whole world red."
The Voguls of Siberia said that "God sent a sea of fire upon the
earth."
Many ancient cosmological
myths referred to a battle in the sky in which the planet god slays
a sky monster, usually a dragon or a serpent. According to the
Mayas: "The sun refused to show itself and during four days the
world was deprived of light. Then a great star appeared and it was
given the name of Quetzacoatl." That means feathered serpent, a term
which may indicate a comet with a tail. In other myths, the battle
was between Bel and the Dragon, Marduk and Tiamat, Isis and Seth,
Vishnu and the Serpent, and Zeus and Typhon. In the Greek myth, the
final act of the sky battle takes place at Lake Serbon on the
borders of Palestine and Egypt.
In the Statesman, Plato
speaks of the "changing in the rising and setting of the sun and
other heavenly bodies, how in these times they used to set in the
quarter where they now rise" and "at certain periods the Universe
has its present circular motion, and at other periods it revolves in
the reverse direction." Herodotus was told by priests in Egypt that
four times since Egypt became a kingdom "the sun rose contrary to
his wont: twice he rose where he now sets and twice he sets where he
now rises." The Chinese recall that "only since a new order of
things has it come about that the stars move from east to west." The
Eskimos of Greenland believed that the world had turned over. The
Aztecs of Mexico, during the long period of darkness, wondered where
the sun would reappear from and were surprised when it rose in the
east.
Dr. Velikovsky believed
that the plagues of Egypt, the pillar of cloud by day and of fire by
night, and the division of the waters of the Sea of Passage (Bible:
Exodus) were early manifestations of the contact as the earth
brushed through the comet’s tail. Red dust and hot stones descended
upon the earth and gave rise to hurricanes and tidal waves.
Exodus and the Egyptian
Papyrus Ipuwer appear to refer to the same series of events as are
related in the traditions of other peoples. As the earth passes
through the tail of the comet (now known as Venus), red dust turns
the waters red and makes them undrinkable. The heat engendered by
its close proximity causes vermin, frogs, flies, and locusts to
propagate at a feverish rate, the crops are destroyed by a hail of
faire, darkness covers the earth, and, finally, an earthquake kills
many of those who live in houses.
Whether or not Velikovsky’s
basic theory is correct, he made several contributions to historical
knowledge. Chief among these is that he has shown the need to draw
upon the accumulated records of human experience.
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