The Golden Age

[Minimalist]

Has anyone added up all their ages up to the flood?

Bishop Ussher.

Thanks Min. Do you know what number Bishop Ussher came up with?

1,656.


Ussher dated "creation" to 4004 BC and the flood to 2,348 BC. Which would have been news to the Egyptians busily building pyramids!

[Ishtar]

Newton's 4,000 looks interesting:

Ussher's proposed date of 4004 BC differed little from other Biblically-based estimates, such as those of Bede (3952 BC), Ussher's near-contemporary, Scaliger (3949 BC), Johannes Kepler (3992 BC) or Sir Isaac Newton (c. 4000 BC).

432,000 divided by 4,000 = 108. 108 is a mucho mucho cosmic number in Vedic and Sumerian mythology.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/108_%28number%29

Sacred within Hinduism, Buddhism and connected yoga and dharma based practices.

Hindu Kshatriya Dhangars have 108 clans. The lineage of these clans is from solar and lunar dynasties. It should be noted that the diameter of the Sun is 108 times the diameter of the Earth. The distance from the Sun to the Earth is 108 times the diameter of the Sun. The average distance of the Moon from the Earth is 108 times the diameter of the Moon.

A mala usually has beads for 108 repetitions of a mantra.

Hindu deities have 108 names. Recital of these names, often accompanied by counting of 108-beaded Mala, is considered sacred and often done during religious ceremonies. The recital is called namajapa.

It is described in the Srimad Bhagavatam that Krishna dances with 108 'Gopis' (cow-herd girls) in His Vrindavan pastimes, and later marries 16,108 wives in His city of Dwarka. Hare Krishna devotees thus hold 108 as a number of great significance.

Siva Nataraja dances his cosmic dance in 108 poses.

The total of all digits of 108 (1+0+8) is 9, which in Hinduism is said to represent the 9 tattvas[citation needed]. If you divide 108 by 2 or multiply by 2 the total of all digits again equals 9.
2^2 * 3^3 = 108 ( (2 * 2) * (3 * 3 * 3) )

The number of sins in Tibetan Buddhism.

In the temple Angkor Wat area there are numerous references to the number 108, which plays a significant role in the symbolism of the structure.

Ananda Coomaraswamy holds that the numerology of the decimal numeric system was key to its inception. 108 is therefore founded in Dharmic metaphysical numerology. One for bindu; zero for shunyata and eight for ananta.

In Japan, at the end of the year, a bell is chimed 108 times to finish the old year and welcome the new one. Each ring represents one of 108 earthly temptations a person must overcome to achieve nirvana.

Zen priests wear juzu (a ring of prayer beads) around their wrists, which consists of 108 beads.[1]

Many Buddhist temples have 108 steps.[1]

The Eklingji temple complex includes 108 temples within its walls.

There are 108 holy temples of Vishnu.

The Lankavatara Sutra repeatedly refers to the 108 steps.[2]

[MichelleH]

An Ussher follow up....

Ussher chronology
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ussher_chronology

Ussher's chronology provides the following dates for key events in the Biblical history of the world[4]:

* 4004 BC - Creation
* 2348 BC - Noah's Flood
* 1921 BC - God's call to Abraham
* 1491 BC - The Exodus from Egypt
* 1012 BC - The founding of the Temple in Jerusalem
* 586 BC - The destruction of Jerusalem by Babylon and the beginning of the Babylonian Captivity
* 4 BC - The birth of Jesus

[Minimalist]

An Ussher follow up....

Ussher would be as pissed at Al Goodyear as the Club is.

[MichelleH]

An Ussher follow up....

Ussher would be as pissed at Al Goodyear as the Club is.

Amen ( ) to that!

[Forum Monk]

An Ussher follow up....

Ussher chronology
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ussher_chronology

Ussher's chronology provides the following dates for key events in the Biblical history of the world[4]:

* 4004 BC - Creation
* 2348 BC - Noah's Flood
* 1921 BC - God's call to Abraham
* 1491 BC - The Exodus from Egypt
* 1012 BC - The founding of the Temple in Jerusalem
* 586 BC - The destruction of Jerusalem by Babylon and the beginning of the Babylonian Captivity
* 4 BC - The birth of Jesus

Ussher probably only got one date correct: 586 BC - fall of Jerusalem. Even most fundamentalists today, will quote other dates. For example, most will now say the earth is older that 6000 years.

They've bumped it up to 10000 years. The Ussher chronology is dead.

[Minimalist]

They've bumped it up to 10000 years.

Arch is one of those +/- a couple of millenia....although his explanation for it is a bit "murky."

[MichelleH]

The Ussher chronology is dead.

Agreed.

[Ishtar]

So as we know that these dates are not correct in a historical sense, we have to ask ourselves, what are they good for?

Did the OT writers just pluck these figures out the air at a whim?

Or did they have another meaning in mind?

Given that most mythologies are metaphorical - in other words, the stories have hidden meanings - why not the Bible stories too?

The Bible stories were influenced by the Babylonians, who knew a thing or two about astronomy. However, they turned numbers into pictures by using a picture language - metaphor - to record what they knew. They did this for two reasons:

1. That way, the underlying knowledge could be hidden from the masses and only revealed to a select few in the priesthood.

2. In an age of oral, rather than written, transmission of knowledge, the stories would act as mnemonics, or memory devices. Even now, we use mnemonics to help us:

"My very elegant mother just served up nine pizzas" is one way to remember the planets of the solar system.

It's much easier to remember stories than numbers or list of things.

[Ishtar]

Another way the ancients recorded and transmitted astronomical information is by what's known as sacred geometry. Their religious buildings were built according to certain formats that used cosmological formulas for their layouts.

But this wasn't just done to hide the knowledge, or to provide mnenomics. It was also done to honour the heavens as the ancients had a saying, "as above, so below".

Both 432,000 and 108 crop up a lot in these buildings, like at Angkor Wat in Cambodia. In India, Vedic fire altars had to be built with 108 bricks, and it was in the building of these altars that geometry was born in India.

The earliest recorded beginnings of geometry can be traced to ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the Indus Valley from around 3000 BC. Early geometry was a collection of empirically discovered principles concerning lengths, angles, areas, and volumes, which were developed to meet some practical need in surveying, construction, astronomy, and various crafts. The earliest known texts on geometry are the Egyptian Rhind Papyrus and Moscow Papyrus, the Babylonian clay tablets, and the Indian Shulba Sutras, while the Chinese had the work of Mozi, Zhang Heng, and the Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art, edited by Liu Hui.

In the case of 108, this number was used because the diameter of the sun is 108 times the diameter of the Earth. The distance from the sun to the Earth is 108 times the diameter of the sun. And the average distance of the moon from the Earth is 108 times the diameter of the moon.

So 108 (or factors or multiples of it) crops up a lot in Vedic and Sumerian/Babylonian mythology.

[Minimalist]

Did the OT writers just pluck these figures out the air at a whim?

That's my guess.

[Ishtar]

Did the OT writers just pluck these figures out the air at a whim?

That's my guess.

Hmm, possibly. But we do know the Chaldean astrologers/astronomers worked with the Hebrew priesthood.

[Ishtar]

We know that the Kabbala is later than the OT. But in his book, Kabbalistic Astrology: The Sacred Tradition of the Hebrew Sages, Rabbi Joel C Dobin makes the case for the ancient rabbis not only understanding cosmological metaphor, but also using it in the Bible, the Midrash and the Talmud.

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=5ksb ... =PA55&lpg=
PA57&ots=Hm6nPXsADY&dq=Hebrew+astrologers&sig=OlfDXW_E46vnprqqLSdVsoAH400#PPA27,M1

He goes into the 12 symbolism, which crops up again and again (12 tribes of Israel, 12 disciples of Jesus etc) which he says are symbolic of the astrological signs. But he also points out other numbers that we perhaps should be looking at when working out whether the OT kings’ ages are metaphors for astrology and astronomy.

Dobin says that the number 12 is also important because it relates to the Great Year of 25,920. That figure, 25,920 divided by 12 = 2,160, which is the length in years of what the Hebrews called the Prophetic Age, but which we know as an astrological age, e.g. the number of years before the age of Pisces and the age of Aquarius.

Another important Biblical number is 40: Jesus is shown spending 40 days and nights in the wilderness, and the Children of Israel are said to have spent 40 years there.

He adds that another cosmological number that was important to the ancient Hebrews was 20. This is because of the importance they placed on the Jupiter/Saturn conjunction, which happens every 20 years. We see this number used in the story about Solomon’s temple, the dimensions of which are described as a 20 x 20 x 20 cube = three cycles of Jupiter/Saturn conjunction.

A freemason, Kevin L Gest, has written about the symbolism of the dimensions of Solomon’s Temple in his book: The Secrets of Solomon’s Temple. Here’s an extract from an interview with him:

http://www.freemasons-freemasonry.com/s ... emple.html

BG: Why is it called 'Solomon's Temple'?

KG: I suggest that because of its special features the temple became known as the 'Temple of Sol and Amon'. Sol meaning Sun, and Amon meaning Moon. After his death, Jedidiah was referred to as the man who built the Sol and Amon Temple, which became corrupted over time to Sol-amon and then to Solomon.

The pillar heights were the same but interpreted differently to reflect celestial information. For example, when the shaft is given the dimension of 18 cubits it reflects solar information, whilst when it is referred to as 17.5 cubits it makes allowance for 0.5 cubit to be covered over as a seating boss for the capitals and the resultant dimension reflects information relative to the Moon.

It may even have been that the two pillars were different sizes, reflecting that 0.5 cubit difference and that Jachin to the South contained information about the Sun and Boaz to the north contained information about the Moon. In various parts of the United Kingdom, one can find displays of very old Masonic regalia. Thus it was that I noted a freemason's apron from the era 1751. In particular it shows the two pillars with an image of the Sun and Moon over each. It is as if this knowledge was well known in Freemasonry at some time in the not too distant past.

BG: Do you think Solomon’s Temple was actually built in Jerusalem?
KG: There is no conclusive archaeological evidence to prove that it was, or wasn’t. There have been three Jewish/Hebrew temples on the same site, so it is not impossible that evidence has been covered or destroyed in building the second two temples.

I think it’s interesting that it brings us back to the sun and moon motif, as discussed in the Palaeo shamans thread.
http://archaeologica.boardbot.com/viewt ... c&start=90

[kbs2244]

In Ushers defense, he went back to Adam, not creation. Although even he made that mistake and called it “creation.”
The ultra-Fundies concept that it took six 24 hour days for creation do not need to be discussed here, I believe.
There are a lot of followers of Usher‘s basic “history of Man” however.
My problem is the he took the phrase “son of” to mean the direct, next generation, son.
I think that may be a fatal flaw to his history.
It was common to refer to someone as the “son of” who ever when there were generations separating them.
In Jesus day, the Jews called themselves “Sons of Abraham” when they were 2000 years apart.
The Genesis geologies may be a case of only “hitting the high points” in human history. This would push back the creation of the first human quite a ways.

[Forum Monk]

In Ushers defense, he went back to Adam, not creation. Although even he made that mistake and called it “creation.”
The ultra-Fundies concept that it took six 24 hour days for creation do not need to be discussed here, I believe.
There are a lot of followers of Usher‘s basic “history of Man” however.
My problem is the he took the phrase “son of” to mean the direct, next generation, son.
I think that may be a fatal flaw to his history.
It was common to refer to someone as the “son of” who ever when there were generations separating them.
In Jesus day, the Jews called themselves “Sons of Abraham” when they were 2000 years apart.
The Genesis geologies may be a case of only “hitting the high points” in human history. This would push back the creation of the first human quite a ways.

Its a good point KB, except it falls apart with Noah. The generations of Noah were very specific about individuals (Noah and his four sons) who lived a very long time, not a family dynasty.