A wise man once said, “Believe nothing, merely because you have been told it . . . or because it is traditional, or because you yourselves have imagined it. Do not believe what your teacher tells you merely out of respect for the teacher. But whatsoever, after due examination and analysis, you find to be conducive to the good, the benefit, the welfare of all beings--that doctrine believe and cling to, and take it as your guide.
History
In analyzing the conflict between science and religion, one must look at the disparity that exists relative to the age of the earth espoused by both venues. One says that the earth is roughly 6000 years old. The other claims that the earth is 4.5 Billion years old; a tremendous difference.
Science takes the natural route, religion takes the spiritual route. There exists a point when the two converge. That is what we will explore in this series.
Most people are familiar with the Hebrew creation story. In this series I will explore a possible variant view of this story and in doing so explain how there is a possibility that both religion and science are partially true.
The Beginning
And the earth became formless and void." The Hebrew word translated "was formless" in English versions of the Bible is "toh-ho" or "tohu-va-boho" a verb which means, "To lay waste, or totally destroy". (Genesis 1:2)
The accurate translation of this Hebrew phrase would imply that some event occurred that caused the earth to be formless and void and after the occurrence of this event the Creator came in and through a series actions brought the earth back to a habitable state. In exploring the viability of this statement, we will look at some of the oldest writings that exist on the earth. Many older than the Bible, and see if we can develop a common sense understanding of what could have actually happened.
Sumeria, the cradle of civilization
There exists a group of ancient writings that are over 2000 years older than the ancient Hebrew writings. These are cuneiform writings, written in stone from the ancient Sumerians. They describe a group of individuals that existed in theMiddle East and it describes in detail their lives and doings on the planet earth. The interesting thing about theses individuals is that the names given correspond to the names in the Hebrew scroll of Bereshith, which became the Book of Genesis in the Bible. For example; Enkime in the Sumerian narrative would correspond to Enoch in the Hebrew scrolls and his son Matushal would correspond to Methuselah the son of Enoch in the Hebrew scrolls. Every individual in the Hebrew narrative from Adama to Noach are described by their corresponding Sumerian names in the cuneiform narrative which is a part of the ancient historical record of the planet earth written in stone. Ironically, much of what is written corresponds to what is written in the Hebrew scroll Sefer Ha’ Yasher, which most Christians are unfamiliar with. ("Is not this written in the Book of Jasher?" Joshua, 10:13. "Behold it is written in the Book of Jasher." II Samuel, 1:18” By making these statements the writer of the Hebrew narrative is acknowledging that he was not an eyewitness to the described events but was simply writing down what had been passed down by word of mouth and recorded in writing previously in Sefer Ha’ Yasher. A book which was not included in the Bible but considered by the writer of Joshua and II Samuel to be scripture.)
In the Sumerian writings, the timeframes described do not correspond to what is commonly believed by most Christians because the Sumerian narrative places the lives of these individuals some 300,000 years before the times described in the Hebrew narrative which has been projected to go back some 6000 years. In the Sumerian writings a time period described as a “SHAR” is introduced. A shar would equal 3,600 years and 93 shars are described as passing since the beginning of the genealogical line described in the Sumerian writings. If you add to that the almost 15,000 years since the writing of the cuneiform text that would give a time of almost 400,000 years of civilization.
This information corresponds to the collection of ancient writings that describe numerous civilizations that have existed for hundreds of thousands of years with each civilization existing for between 5000 to 30,000 years before its destruction. These writings describe civilizations all the way back to Pangaea, when all of the continents were combined into one enormous continent; which would correspond to the time of Peleg in the Hebrew scripture which describes the earth as being divided in his time. In each time frame of existence, the civilizations flourished for thousands of years until some technological event, or natural catastrophe resulted in the destruction of that civilization. Leaving a few humans alive to continue and rebuild with the existence of the prior civilization being passed down by word of mouth to their descendants. This is why most civilizations have an end time scenario burned into their collective consciousness. Possibly it has happened over and over again.
Nuclear blast 8000 years ago
A good example of this possibility lies in the ancient Hindu writings. As was discussed before in the series entitled “MOVEMENT” , the ancient writings describe enormous civilizations with advance technological abilities. This was a civilization that ceased to exist because of a technological catastrophe.
In 1992 archaeologists discovered an ancient city on the border of
According to the World Island Review reported in January of 1992, a construction team discovered the site in
A thick layer of radioactive ash was found in a three-mile-square area which concealed "an ancient city with evidence showing an atomic blast dating back thousands of years, from 8,000 to 12,000 years, which destroyed most of the buildings and probably a half-million people. One researcher estimates that the nuclear bomb used was about the size of the ones dropped on
The newspaper also reported that after its discovery, the ancient city became suspect as the cause of a high rate of birth defects and cancer in the region. "The levels of radiation there at the city site, have registered so high on investigators' gauges that the Indian government has now cordoned off the region,"
The Mahabharata, the Hindu Bible, appears to have recorded the extraordinary occurrence. "A single projectile charged with all the power in the Universe...An incandescent column of smoke and flame as bright as 10,000 suns, rose in all its splendor...it was an unknown weapon, an iron thunderbolt, a gigantic messenger of death which reduced to ashes an entire race," says the sacred text.
Archeologist Francis Taylor told the paper that etchings in some nearby temples he has managed to translate suggest that they prayed to be spared from the great light that was coming to lay ruin to the city. "It's so mind boggling to imagine that some civilization had nuclear technology before we did. The radioactive ash adds credibility to the ancient Indian records that describe atomic warfare."
TO BE CONTINUED….
