The article suggests that Mt. Sinai (or the area they think is Mt. Sinai) had been a sacred site before the Exodus event. That would seem to indicate that there was a lot of religious activity prior to the creation of the Torah. I wonder what those religions were and how they influenced ancient Hebrew culture and dogma? Food for thought.

An integralist friend of mine, who seeks the true one true religion by seeking common truths at the heart of all religions, assures me that most believers are either under jewish or hindu offshoot religions, and that judaism and hinduism share some big similarities suggesting common origin. Take all of the human characters out of the old testament, and it takes a very eastern spin, especially considering that God's name is literally "I Am". She also points out shadows of the trinity in the relationship of the hindu Gods.

Adding to the Jewish family of religions (which already includes christians and muslims and all their attendant cults) you can count the now dead babylonian religion, which viewed Baal in that same light that Hebrews viewed Yaweh, and which had it's equivalents to Enoch, the flood and other events. You can't really tell who made who though, because Jewish history lies in very murky waters. The Jews may or may not be old enough to have passed their tradition to Babylon, instead of the other way around.

A common thread in ancient religion though is the belief that before the flood there was a wise man who knew secrets passed down from on high (of a scientific nature) and who was forewarned of the deluge and attempted to preserve those secrets.

At this point let me mention that the Indo-Aryan Svastika (swastika) is nearly universal. It has a prominent place in ancient civilizations from Troy in Turkey to the Navajo in North America. In my humble opinion the deluge was real, and so was the wise man (enoch, thoth, hermes, etc). Equally real were the visitors from above, be they fallen angels or ETs. (Haephaestus, Ephilim, Kuculkan (spelling?)). Men were given great things, warned of immenent danger, and spared from it by going for higher ground or taking to the sea. When the water settled, sea level was higher than previously or currently, and so much of human civilization was lost forever. Men then go their seperate ways to re-establish themselves and become disparate from there.

I am currently in the middle of a great challenge... attempting to identify the time, the myths, and the civilization actually invovled in this event. I haven't got much yet I'm afraid, just a lot of interesting theories for different time frames which need a connecting thread to run through them all.

The Vagabond, I found your post very interesting, thank you.

My consideration of all these things have given me an incredible realization about religion.

In Judaism, there is something called the Kabbalah. The Kabbalah is a form of witchcraft explaining the principles on which the universe and God function and how to apply them, and one of the greatest secrets of the Kabbalah is the actual name of God. The name of God is not written nor spoken by Jews, and is in fact lost. They substituted less personal terms- Elohim and Yaweh, and they didn't even write the vowels to these names. This is because of a tradition the Jews might have picked up in Egypt, which says to know a God's name is to have power over him.

How can it be that a name gives such power, and what could the give power like Gods? Understanding and applying 10-dimensional physics. In Hebrew, letters have numerical value. God's name was an eqaution. The theory of everything. If you didn't know, our laws of physics are just quick fixes, and they contradict eachother. We have seperate fixes for light, gravity, magnetism, etc because we don't comprehend 10-D physics. If we did, one equation would govern all physics. The nam of god could be that equation, and the Kabbalah a series of practices and tricks based on that knowledge. Chances are that men never understood what they had, which tradition say was handed down by someone higher, and thats why the mysticism of the Kabbalah was a limitation. They couldn't expand on the equation and develop all things, they could only conjure the tricks explained in Kabbalah.

I had inteded to tie this in to an integrated religious history of mankind which I am devising, and I will in fact share it if there is interest, but at this point I have only general ideas and assumptions. I do not enjoy being laughed at when I do not set out to accomplish it, so I will hold that theory until it is better developed.

I gave a glance at your link, and honestly I feel it would be a little hard to prove, but I'm not closed minded. The fact that intelligent and reasoning serpents which act as a mentor or tempter to early man figure into various mythologies, makes intelligent reptillian races something not to be dismissed out of hand.

My theory, however, builds on relatively more recent history. By incorporating the Mayan calendar, Old Testament history (liberally interpreted at points), the Vedic epics (Mahabharata and Ramayana), the enochian character, kabbalistic/mystic tradition, the deluge story, and a little sound history, I have come up with a possible outline for the origin of man as we now have him, and an interesting take on the events of modern times.

I will not go on at length, but will say that apocalytic events caused by Earth's interaction with Venus and Mars could have caused regularly scheduled destruction at the points indicated by the Mayan calendar, and at some point- likely around 8400 BC, left only one race alive, in the Himalayas, during a world wide flood. This is the unified humanity seen in the book of Genesis and in many old tales before the deluge- but it actually takes place during the deluge (which was much longer than 40 days) in the mountains. Man lived there, with the knowledge of physics (the name of god), developing culture in a place that has not yet been found. When the flood receded,'round about 3200 BC, there was a schism. Part of the race came down into the middle east and founded the history we know, per Old Testament tradition. the descendants of Seth in the bible, or the exiled tribe in the war of the Mahabharata. The Aryans remained in Tibet and Nepal up until 1500 BC, when they invaded India, thus re-igniting the struggle over this knowledge that the Aryans and Semites shared but did not understand. This is alluded to even in Revelations, when the apostle John, a mason and as such Christian heir to the Jewish Kabbalistic tradition (a guardian of the knowledge Hebrew side of the secret), foretold that Armageddon would be fought against "the armies of the east". All of the religiously motivated politics of history, especially where Christianity and Hinduism are concerned, were a continuation of the fight, which culminated in WWII, when the influential Thule cult took up the Aryan cause, in hopes of anhilating the enemy of the Aryans and entering an alliance between Nordic and Indo Aryan people, with unrivaled mastery of the universe through the occult knowledge they aggressively sought, aimied towards capturing the name of God. Note that Jews and Muslims are traditionally associated with communism (especially the pan-arabic movement of the Baath party) while Hinduism has strong militant fascist tendencies- the democracy of india has been largely lead by Brahmins, perhaps as a matter of good luck *heavy sarcasm*. In this light, the events of the early 20th century become a battle between the original two races over the power of their common God, and the aftermath arguably represents the unfolding of one sides victory, as we begin to unravel the mysteries of science at an alarming pace while abandoning major wars and moving on to clean-up operations to tie up the loose ends of the struggle.

I must beg forgiveness that I have re-written this 4 times and am very tired. There is probably much to attack here, and you're not my allies if you don't attack it and drive me towards a more perfect hypothesis. I'm anxious for input, since I think I've been just coherent enough to open a line of inquiry that our minds can follow. I really think with some heavy reworking, that a pattern of struggle over higher knowledge can be revealed underneath the complex religious politics of our history, and to a certain extent, the root of it may be traceable into ancient times to the dividing of the nations after the flood which almost undeniably was the last point of unified humanity.

The Vagabond,
Very interesting theory, you've definately piqued my interest. I've read a few books and did a little research on this subject and I have to agree with what you are saying, it does seem most religions came from a few, or one ancient religion. I would also agree with your claim that there have been multiple "deluge's" from which man was repeatedly pushed to the brink of extinction. I find it very interesting, that both the Veda's and the Central American and Native American share the common theme that there have been multiple deluges. In fact it seems almost universal that there was at one time a "higher" race of humans before the deluge that were very spiritually aware. Of course this utopian society could not survive and they became more and more materialistic and forgot their Gods, and thus the Gods brought about destruction. And the process started all over again.
I must commend you on, in my judgement, a very good foundation on which to build a sound theory.

I look forward to your insight!

Concerning the flood that "cleansed" the earth... where did all of the extra water come from? And where did it all go?

Eventually this theory is gonna have to go up against some math. How much water is needed, etc. For now i'm just going to float a few general ideas.

1. As Venus and Mars play a mild game of tug of war over Earth, they have caused the water on earth to fluxuate. Sometimes most of it is in the atmosphere and there is lots of dry land. Other times lots of it is in the ocean and there isn't much in the air.

2. The gravitational disturbances, as well as the application and rapid relief of pressure on the Earths crust (from the formation and melting of huge glaciers) has caused the earths crust to rise and fall rapidly in some areas, creating a fluctuating coast line.

3. Vast expanses of subterranean caverns may exist, and may contain whole oceans, which warmed by the core and pressed upon by the earths mass, build pressure until they are set free by the disturbances to the Earths crust named in #2. Most deluge stories include water from the Earth as well as sky.

4. Now, forgive me for going WAY out there now, but I've gotta throw every possibility out. I used to know a lot more about chemistry, but I still remember that there's no hard and fast rule saying water won't burn. Oxygen is strong enough to steal hydrogen from its bond with carbon, producing bi-products of each of those two elements mixed with oxygen. What if there were an element that steals hydrogen from oxygen, leaving biproducts of that element with hydrogen and that element with oxygen. Great, but then we should have huge deposits of those compounds right? and it doesn't explain how the hydrogen and oxygen ever get free of it to become water again for the next flood. So what about this... what if it was an altered state of the element, for example radio carbon. (not radio carbon exactly but another irradiated element). As it degraded, it would become volatile, and the H? and ?O compounds, presumably deposited in the earth together, would interact again, creating H20 and ? until whatever force again gave ? the ability to split up the water molecules.

Now how would that work? I don't know, but I've heard a theory that since planets are formed from a nebula, that a planet is actually hollow and has an inner miniature star, against the gravity of which, centrifugal force balances the the crust, leaving a planet actually hovering over a hollow core. This would be the mysterious source of radiation that makes option 4 possible perhaps.


Anyway, we really want to focus our questions on the Mayan Calendar, events that might coincide with the ends of past cycles in that calendar, and what archaeology tells us about civilzation at those points. I'm especially curious about what people were doing around 7000 BC. I have read stuff about 12000 BC and about 5000 BC, but there seems to be a dark age archaeologically speaking in between, unless i just haven't looked hard enough. I have a possible iceage/flood age figured for that time frame (not all of it, obviously.)

PS: If the entire surface of the earth was level and all water liquid, the world would be covered 2 miles deep in water. What if the ocean bottoms weren't fixed at their depths somehow?

[Edited on 18-5-2004 by The Vagabond]

Originally posted by The Vagabond
I'm especially curious about what people were doing around 7000 BC. I have read stuff about 12000 BC and about 5000 BC, but there seems to be a dark age archaeologically speaking in between, unless i just haven't looked hard enough. I have a possible iceage/flood age figured for that time frame (not all of it, obviously.)

I think that around 6000bc marked the begining if the Sumerian culture.... but that's the oldest civ I know of...

I'heard that the flood was around 9500bc... of course I don't know it for a fact but it's just what i've heard...

[Edited on 18-5-2004 by Red_Rocket]

23rd_Degree,

The article suggests that Mt. Sinai (or the area they think is Mt. Sinai) had been a sacred site before the Exodus event. That would seem to indicate that there was a lot of religious activity prior to the creation of the Torah. I wonder what those religions were and how they influenced ancient Hebrew culture and dogma? Food for thought.

Ill try not to wander, but it should be to hard to keep up with my ramble.

Yes,and for quite some time as with most holy places.
As i understand it, while wandering in the desert, moses came across a camp of bedouins, and it was them that told him that a powerful god, Yaweh, lived on the mountain.
The early hebrews prayed to many gods,and new evidence points to five.
I wish i could provide links, but i saw this on a film documentary , there is a newly discovered site in jordan that has been dated to about 2500 bce.
It is a large city with mud brick and stone walls. It is being excavated by jordanian archeologists. They have found references to the " semite tribes" in the area that worship five gods.
And there is a site in southern egypt that was border outpost. It was manned by mercinaries, as the records state, who happend to be hebrews as the archeological evidence points to.
They have also found a temple, that is not egyptian, that has five doors and each door has the name of a different god above it and one of those gods is yaweh.