Atlantis: What is it all about?

[TheMeInTeam]

And what area would that be? Tsunamis are not sea level changes. Nile floods were annual. Are there any records of tsunamis or earthquakes that destroyed cities that might produce tsunamis in Plato's time?

again, from the wiki:

373 BC Helike, Greece
Earthquake An earthquake and a tsunami destroyed the prosperous Greek city of Helike, 2 km from the sea. The fate of the city, which remained permanently submerged, was often commented upon by ancient writers[16] and may have inspired the contemporary Plato to create the myth of Atlantis.

i mean, it's not a 1:1 with the story of atlantis, but i can buy this as inspiration for that story easily.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Plato's story came down through his family from Solon. The Helike story just confirms the possibility of such destruction and doesn't seem to have any connection to Atlantis.

 

[Berzerker]

The Gospel of Philip is a gnostic text that teaches that world came about as a result of a mistake, so the creator of the world is not the true God. I think that gnostic Christians more commonly believed in rather more elaborate cosmologies though, as you find in Sethian texts such as the Apocryphon of John or the Coptic Gospel of the Egyptians and On the Origin of the World. These stress that the angelic being that creates the physical world, Yaldabaoth, arrogantly or ignorantly claims to be the sole God, but as you can see they also speak of a vast number of divine or quasi-divine entities. You can find views similar to these (if rather less complex) attributed to Jesus himself in texts such as the Sophia of Jesus Christ, where Jesus speaks of Yaldabaoth as the "Almighty" but still ignorant and arrogant.

In Genesis 1:1-2:3, God creates the universe first and then fills it with plants and animals, before creating humans last, both male and female. In Genesis 2:4-25, God creates the man first, then all the plants, and then after that creates the woman.

Thanks for the links, I got some reading ahead of me. But the universe is not the subject of Genesis, water preceded creation and the Creator.

"In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness hovered over the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, 'Let there be light'; and there was light."

Darkness over an ocean covering submerged land revealed later on the 3rd day. God arrives with 'wind' and there is light (a collision) producing rotation. Heaven and Earth are made on the 2nd and 3rd days, Heaven is the hammered bracelet marking the location of the celestial battle long ago and Earth is the dry land that appeared from under the waters.

Depending on how the text is interpreted God created the lights in the sky or 'appointed' them to serve as sources of light, signs, seasons, etc. We know the Sun had to be present on the 1st day, God calls the light day. But it (and the Moon) didn't come to dominate our sky until the 4th day. That means the Earth's orbit was further from the Sun.

I've wondered why Gen 1:2 describes submerged land as a formless void. I can see why they wouldn't call it dry land since it was covered by water, but why the void? Seems like a common theme, this sense that there is a void that was once occupied.

Ginnungagap, the Yawning Void ... which faced toward the northern quarter, became filled with heaviness, and masses of ice and rime, and from within, drizzling rain and gusts; but the southern part of the Yawning Void was lighted by those sparks and glowing masses which flew out of Múspellheim[3]

In the northern part of Ginnungagap lay the intense cold of Niflheim, and in the southern part lay the equally intense heat of Muspelheim. The cosmogonic process began when the effulgence of the two met in the middle of Ginnungagap.

Thats describing our solar system's frost line. Heat and ice met in the middle to form Ymir, the primordial world carved up to create Earth.

As for the 2 creation stories:

Now no shrub had yet appeared on the earth and no plant had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no one to work the ground, but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground. Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

The text doesn't say man came before plants, it says earthly plants didn't exist until the rain. After the rain God made man and took him eastward to the Garden to work. That means people were made westward of the Garden and that is where people came from according to the science. God can plant a Garden and bring the man there to work without contradicting the creation account in the 1st chapter. The rain brought the plants and God made the man to work in his Garden, a Garden God 'had' already planted.

Here's an excerpt from Sitchin about the world in Gen 1:2

The prophet Isaiah recalled "the primeval days" when the might of the Lord "carved the Haughty One, made spin the watery monster, dried up the waters of Tehom-Raba." Calling the Lord Yahweh "my primeval king," the Psalmist rendered in a few verses the cosmogony of the epic of Creation. "By thy might, the waters thou didst disperse; the leader of the watery monsters thou didst break up." Job recalled how this celestial Lord also smote "the assistants of the Haughty One"; and with impressive astronomical sophistication exalted the Lord who: The hammered canopy stretched out in the place of Tehom, The Earth suspended in the void. ... His powers the waters did arrest, His energy the Haughty One did cleave; His Wind the Hammered Bracelet measured out; His hand the twisting dragon did extinguish.

Biblical scholars now recognize that the Hebrew Tehom ("watery deep") stems from Tiamat; that TehomRaba means "great Tiamat," and that the biblical understanding of primeval events is based upon the Sumerian cosmologic epics. It should also be clear that first and foremost among these parallels are the opening verses of the Book of Genesis, describing how the Wind of the Lord hovered over the waters of Tehom, and how the lightning of the Lord (Marduk in the Babylonian version) lit the darkness of space as it hit and split Tiamat, creating Earth and the Rakia (literally, "the hammered bracelet"). This celestial band (hitherto translated as "firmament") is called "the Heaven."

The Book of Genesis (1:8) explicitly states that it is this "hammered out bracelet" that the Lord had named "heaven" (shamaim). The Akkadian texts also called this celestial zone "the hammered bracelet" (rakkis), and describe how Marduk stretched out Tiamat's lower part until he brought it end to end, fastened into a permanent great circle. The Sumerian sources leave no doubt that the specific "heaven," as distinct from the general concept of heavens and space, was the asteroid belt.

Our Earth and the asteroid belt are the "Heaven and Earth" of both Mesopotamian and biblical references, created when Tiamat was dismembered by the celestial Lord. After Marduk's North Wind had pushed Earth to its new celestial location, Earth obtained its own orbit around the Sun (resulting in our seasons) and received its axial spin (giving us day and night).

"The Akkadian texts also called this celestial zone "the hammered bracelet" (rakkis), and describe how Marduk stretched out Tiamat's lower part until he brought it end to end, fastened into a permanent great circle."

The motif of the serpent forming a circle with its head touching or eating its tail comes to mind. A Nova documentary on "The Lost Red Paint People" showed a maritime archaic culture based in NE America dating back 7kya. One of the artifacts was a flat dark rock with a star - stick figure man - serpent forming a semicircle. Sun - Earth - Tiamat.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Depending on how the text is interpreted

Yes, and that applies to everything you post on the subject. Little actual fact and mostly cherry picked interpretation.

The Book of Genesis (1:8) explicitly states that it is this "hammered out bracelet"

Well, no. Here is Genesis 1:8 and there is no mention of any hammered bracelet. You and Sitchin just claim it so.

8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

Genesis 1:8
8 God called the vault "sky." And there was evening, and there was morning-the second day.

Other Translations of Genesis 1:8
King James Version
And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

English Standard Version
And God called the expanse Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.

The Message
he named sky the Heavens; It was evening, it was morning - Day Two.

New King James Version
And God called the firmament Heaven. So the evening and the morning were the second day.

New Living Translation
God called the space "sky." And evening passed and morning came, marking the second day.

 

[João III]

Well, no. Here is Genesis 1:8 and there is no mention of any hammered bracelet. You and Sitchin just claim it so.

The Brown-Driver-Briggs definition of רָקִ֫יעַ (raqia): "extended surface, (solid) expanse (as if beaten out);....2.) the vault of the heaven, or 'firmament,' regarded by the Hebrews as solid, and supporting 'waters' above it..."

I think I could see a case for "hammered out" but I'm not seeing bracelet

 

[Valka D'Ur]

But the universe is not the subject of Genesis, water preceded creation and the Creator.

Oxygen came along a lot later than hydrogen. Actually, oxygen didn't happen until the first-generation of supernovae created it. So nope, you're not going to have water before the creation of the universe.

 

[Zardnaar]

Up to the end of season 4 Stargate: Atlantis.

@Valka D'Ur damn Canuck sci fi(ducks).

 

[Plotinus]

God arrives with 'wind' and there is light (a collision) producing rotation.

But Earth's rotation wasn't caused by a collision. And if it had been, how would the author know?

 

[Valka D'Ur]

But Earth's rotation wasn't caused by a collision. And if it had been, how would the author know?

It's great to see you back, Plotinus!

But you've entered a topic in which logic went out the window about three threads ago. At least.

Up to the end of season 4 Stargate: Atlantis.

@Valka D'Ur damn Canuck sci fi(ducks).

The only reason I've seen any Stargate shows is that they came on after Xena: Warrior Princess. It was 4 am and I wasn't yet ready to go to bed and was too lazy to turn off the TV. So I watched some.

But I drew the line at the Atlantis one and haven't seen so much as 5 minutes of it. So however weird it got, I refuse to take any blame for it.

 

[Zardnaar]

It's great to see you back, Plotinus!

But you've entered a topic in which logic went out the window about three threads ago. At least.


The only reason I've seen any Stargate shows is that they came on after Xena: Warrior Princess. It was 4 am and I wasn't yet ready to go to bed and was too lazy to turn off the TV. So I watched some.

But I drew the line at the Atlantis one and haven't seen so much as 5 minutes of it. So however weird it got, I refuse to take any blame for it.

Canadian sci Fi was on a roll there for a bit. SG1 through to Continuum/Orphan Black/Killjoys.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Canadian sci Fi was on a roll there for a bit. SG1 through to Continuum/Orphan Black/Killjoys.

I have no idea what's on there now, other than there's a suspicious LACK of science fiction (sorry, but Rocky movies and other action stuff are not science fiction). If it wasn't for the occasional bit of Voyager and Harry Potter marathons, I'd just cancel the channel.

I've been reading a lot of Highlander novels lately. Get those shows back on (Highlander and Highlander: The Raven) and I'd be happy.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Plato's story came down through his family from Solon. The Helike story just confirms the possibility of such destruction and doesn't seem to have any connection to Atlantis.

even if we can definitely rule helike out, keep in mind that greece was impacted by two other major tsunami events in the spam of 100 years leading up to it.

"poseidon killed the persian army" etc. these are major events to witness even today, equipped with knowledge of how/why they happen and some data to mitigate loss of life. they are common enough throughout history to inspire stories like atlantis even completely ignoring helike.

it's just a guess, obviously. but we do have enough examples of cities/cultures getting wrecked by tsunamis that it's a reasonable guess imo.

 

[Plotinus]

It's great to see you back, Plotinus!

But you've entered a topic in which logic went out the window about three threads ago. At least.

Thank you! I never really go away, I just go quiet for a bit.

even if we can definitely rule helike out, keep in mind that greece was impacted by two other major tsunami events in the spam of 100 years leading up to it.

"poseidon killed the persian army" etc. these are major events to witness even today, equipped with knowledge of how/why they happen and some data to mitigate loss of life. they are common enough throughout history to inspire stories like atlantis even completely ignoring helike.

it's just a guess, obviously. but we do have enough examples of cities/cultures getting wrecked by tsunamis that it's a reasonable guess imo.

It's one thing to say "The story of Atlantis is based on real-life events" and quite another to say "The story of Atlantis is based on a particular historical event". That is, it's perfectly reasonable to suppose that (1) Plato or his source invented the story of Atlantis having been inspired by the fact that floods happen. It's quite another thing to suppose that (2) Plato or his source was describing - perhaps with great elaboration and invented detail - an actual particular historical event. Given that (1) explains the existence of the story perfectly well, I just don't see the need for (2). (Honestly I'm somewhat baffled by the idea that Plato, of all people, should be read in this way; nobody thinks that the Cave, or the Ring of Gyges, or Aristophanes' speech in the Symposium, or the story of Theuth and Thamus, are based on historical reality, do they?)

It's the same thing with the biblical Flood. People go to all these lengths to work out what actual flood inspired the story. But the story dates back to a culture that lived in a desert right next to a big river that habitually flooded. What more inspiration do you need?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

yeah, i don't argue that it's a particular historical event. wouldn't rule it out, but there are enough things to just say that a grain of history was used as inspiration and call it there.

 

[Berzerker]

Yes, and that applies to everything you post on the subject. Little actual fact and mostly cherry picked interpretation.

Well, no. Here is Genesis 1:8 and there is no mention of any hammered bracelet. You and Sitchin just claim it so.


Genesis 1:8
8 God called the vault "sky." And there was evening, and there was morning-the second day.

Other Translations of Genesis 1:8
King James Version
And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

English Standard Version
And God called the expanse Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.

The Message
he named sky the Heavens; It was evening, it was morning - Day Two.

New King James Version
And God called the firmament Heaven. So the evening and the morning were the second day.

New Living Translation
God called the space "sky." And evening passed and morning came, marking the second day.

The firmament or expanse better describe Heaven than sky but the further back we go Heaven becomes the hammered bracelet

The Brown-Driver-Briggs definition of רָקִ֫יעַ (raqia): "extended surface, (solid) expanse (as if beaten out);....2.) the vault of the heaven, or 'firmament,' regarded by the Hebrews as solid, and supporting 'waters' above it..."

I think I could see a case for "hammered out" but I'm not seeing bracelet

Bracelet was the analogy, hammered out as a bracelet, a band of metal.

Job recalled how the celestial Lord smote “the helpers of the Haughty One,” and he exalted the Lord who, having come from the outer reaches of space, cleaved Tiamat (Tehom) and changed the Solar System:

The hammered canopy He stretched out
in the place of Tehom,
The Earth suspended in the void;
He penned waters in its denseness,
without any cloud bursting. . . .
His powers the waters did arrest,
His energy the Haughty One did cleave.
His wind the Hammered Bracelet measured out,
His hand the twisting dragon did extinguish.

The Mesopotamian texts continued from here to describe how Nibiru/Marduk formed the asteroid belt out of Tiamat’s lower half:

The other half of her
he set up as a screen for the skies;
Locking them together
as watchmen he stationed them. . . .
He bent Tiamat’s tail
to form the Great Band as a bracelet.

Genesis picks up the primordial tale here and describes the forming of the asteroid belt thus:

And Elohim said:

Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters and let it divide the waters from the waters. And Elohim made the Firmament, dividing the waters which are under the Firmament from the waters which are above the Firmament. And Elohim called the Firmament “Heaven.”

Realizing that the Hebrew word Shama’im is used to speak of Heaven or the heavens in general, the editors of Genesis went into some length to use two terms for “the Heaven” created as a result of the destruction of Tiamat. What separated the “upper waters” from the “lower waters.” the Genesis text stresses, was the Raki’a; generally translated “Firmament,” it literally means “Hammered-out Bracelet.”

Then Genesis goes on to explain that Elohim then called the Raki’a, the so called Firmament, Shama’im, “the Heaven”—a name that in its first use in the Bible consists of the two words sham and ma’im, meaning literally “where the waters were.” In the creation tale of Genesis, “the Heaven” was a specific celestial location, where Tiamat and her waters had been, where the asteroid belt was hammered out.

Oxygen came along a lot later than hydrogen. Actually, oxygen didn't happen until the first-generation of supernovae created it. So nope, you're not going to have water before the creation of the universe.

The story is not about the universe and water preceded God, land and life.

But Earth's rotation wasn't caused by a collision. And if it had been, how would the author know?

God told the author. There is evidence the Earth's orbital parameters were different after the impact with Theia 4.4+bya. If that had happened we should see debris trails in our vicinity, but the asteroids we see are on elliptical orbits taking them back to the asteroid belt like bread crumbs. The Moon (Theia's remains) doesn't orbit the Earth's equatorial plane and there is evidence the disruption occurred during the late heavy bombardment about 4 bya. Collisions can make all sorts of changes to planets and their orbits, including spin rates and tilt.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

The firmament or expanse better describe Heaven than sky but the further back we go Heaven becomes the hammered bracelet

Bracelets are jewelry. They are solid and intended to fit on or around the wrist. They are not up in the sky, nor do they orbit the Sun on their own.

The story is not about the universe and water preceded God, land and life.

You're trying to have it half a dozen different ways at once, and every time someone points out basic science (biology, chemistry, physics), you keep moving the goalposts.

Genesis basically credits god with creating everything. Including water, which means it's logically impossible for water to have happened first.

Stellar evolution is a thing. The first-generation stars were made of hydrogen and helium. That's all there was, until the first supernovae created heavier elements. So if you don't have oxygen, you can't have water. That's just how it works.

 

[Plotinus]

God told the author.

But why would God tell these things in a way that they could only be understood once science had independently discovered them? Nobody would read the opening chapter of Genesis and think "It's saying that the Earth's rotation began as a result of a collision with another planet" unless they had independent reason to believe that such a collision happened. So why would God waste time dictating such a text?

This kind of thing is like the biblical prophecies industry where all sorts of events are discovered to have been "predicted" in the Bible, from the Kennedy assassination onwards. If it's only possible to recognise the prophecy after the event then it was a worthless prophecy, and it raises the question why God would ever have inspired it. Similarly here - if you're going to claim that Genesis is full of teachings that accord with modern science, then you need to explain why literally nobody ever noticed them until modern science came along, and what purpose God could have had in inspiring such a text that contains this information so obscurely that nobody can understand it unless they already know it.

There is evidence the Earth's orbital parameters were different after the impact with Theia 4.4+bya... Collisions can make all sorts of changes to planets and their orbits, including spin rates and tilt.

Yes, but that's irrelevant, because you're claiming that the Earth actually began rotating as the result of such a collision, and it didn't. All the planets originally formed in a rotating state.

I don't understand why you think "Tehom" is the name of a planet, either. It's the name of the chaos monster that many ancient near eastern gods are supposed to have battled. If the only way you can make a text mean what you want it to mean is by decreeing that its words mean something different from what they actually mean, then you're imposing an alien meaning upon it. I could claim that "Tehom" means "Apple" and therefore the opening lines of Genesis describe Steve Jobs's return to Apple in 1997, but I wouldn't be explaining its actual meaning.

 

[Kyriakos]

If the god dictating words to the authors of the bible was something like Laplace's demon, he could use one of the very many ways to insert symbolisms about scientific developments. The problem, however, is that it takes something a lot more common than a god, to see symbolisms in retrospect, due to the aforementioned multitude of fitting interpretations.

 

[Berzerker]

Bracelets are jewelry. They are solid and intended to fit on or around the wrist. They are not up in the sky, nor do they orbit the Sun on their own.

You're trying to have it half a dozen different ways at once, and every time someone points out basic science (biology, chemistry, physics), you keep moving the goalposts.

Genesis basically credits god with creating everything. Including water, which means it's logically impossible for water to have happened first.

Stellar evolution is a thing. The first-generation stars were made of hydrogen and helium. That's all there was, until the first supernovae created heavier elements. So if you don't have oxygen, you can't have water. That's just how it works.

My argument has been consistent - water preceded God. The hammered bracelet is a metaphor for Heaven, where God stretched out Tiamat's lower part to form a band - a firmament dividing the waters above from the waters below. That describes the asteroid belt. Genesis does not basically credit god with creating everything, actually very little is unambiguously attributed to god. Even the Earth was covered by water before god showed up. Genesis is not describing the origin of the universe.

But why would God tell these things in a way that they could only be understood once science had independently discovered them? Nobody would read the opening chapter of Genesis and think "It's saying that the Earth's rotation began as a result of a collision with another planet" unless they had independent reason to believe that such a collision happened. So why would God waste time dictating such a text?

I dont know what the proto-Earth was doing between Theia and the late heavy bombardment other than being covered by water. I assume it was spinning after Theia, but the 'sky' back then was different. Why would god use metaphors only science could confirm later? To mess with atheists Idk, impart esoteric knowledge, monotheism, poetic storytelling to facilitate ritual and religion. I'd think the question would be: why is science confirming creation myths?

Yes, but that's irrelevant, because you're claiming that the Earth actually began rotating as the result of such a collision, and it didn't. All the planets originally formed in a rotating state.

Poor choice of words on my part, I said the collision produced rotation and I meant produced rotation based on the nature of the collision(s), ie mass, velocity, angles etc.

I don't understand why you think "Tehom" is the name of a planet, either. It's the name of the chaos monster that many ancient near eastern gods are supposed to have battled. If the only way you can make a text mean what you want it to mean is by decreeing that its words mean something different from what they actually mean, then you're imposing an alien meaning upon it. I could claim that "Tehom" means "Apple" and therefore the opening lines of Genesis describe Steve Jobs's return to Apple in 1997, but I wouldn't be explaining its actual meaning.

Tehom is the dark water covered world in Gen 1:2 before god showed up with his wind to create Heaven and Earth. The chaos monster is a metaphor, Tiamat was not a literal dragon, just a water covered world.
N American creation stories are much more peaceful, the world was covered by water and sky father sent animals to dive below the surface to retrieve mud which sky father spread out upon the water to make the land.

Now I suppose god could have given everyone a few years of schooling in the sciences so they could understand, but god would lose prestige if people knew this was all the result of a 4 byo collision between worlds. Besides, god was ambivalent about sharing too much knowledge with us.

 

[El_Machinae]

If it's only possible to recognise the prophecy after the event then it was a worthless prophecy, and it raises the question why God would ever have inspired it.

I use predictions to show people how amazingly insightful I am, not to effect change before hand. Unless I want to double down on my showing off, and both make the prediction and then cause it to happen, against the odds. Whether people are impressed by one or the other depends on a series of factors, mostly their inebriation

That said, knowing the natural history of the solar system isn't a prophecy, it's just knowing more. Any run-of-the-mill alien can perform such a feat, the Bible is full of entities that would know such things. So, it doesn't require a god.