The Catastrophic Era
Most Christians accept the Bible story of Creation, the Fall, and Noah's Flood, though many are mystified as to how it fits in with all they were taught in school.
I’ll give you a hint: It doesn’t. In school you learned a vast and complex interlocking ‘scientific’ panorama of biological evolution and rocks and fossils and old clay pots and stone age Neanderthal cave men and dinosaurs and the geologic ages imbedded in stratified layers of sandstone involving millions and billions of years, and it is all a big “house of cards” built on multiplied guess after guess after guess.
Worse, the entire system was invented by those who were trying to find some alternative to faith in God, as they did not want to be held accountable to their Creator. “For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.” (Rom 1:21-22) “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God.’” (Ps 14:1, 53:1)
And we’re not going to change their minds, no matter how many logical holes we punch in their outrageous claims, because theirs is not a science based on facts and observations – it is a religion which starts by rejecting the only alternative, that God created. Frankly their religion takes a whole lot more faith than mine, for they’ve got to believe in the spontaneous generation of life from mud and in the gradual organization of chaos into all the beauty and structure we see today. Some have compared it to the assembly of a brand spankin’ new Boeing 747 by means of a tornado in a junkyard, but no – at least the tornado had something to work with. It is more like the assembly of a billion identical perfect super-computers by means of a billion tornados across the desert sands, and even then the analogy falls short.
The question remains, how did God create? Only the Bible answers that, as it is the only ancient record that gives reliable accounts of earth’s ‘pre-history,’ fresh from the only eyewitness, God Himself. The problem here is that God claims to have “…seen all that He had made, and behold, it was very good.” (Gen 1:31) while what we see now is not all very good. Something went wrong, very wrong. The Bible describes it in rather esoteric terms, “…sin entered the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned.” (Rom 4:12) “…cursed is the ground because of you…” (Gen 3:17) “For the creation was subjected to futility …in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption… the whole creation groans and travails…” (Rom 8:18-23, excerpts)
Now, God could have merely spoken a word or zapped everything with a magic wand to change His perfect creation into the mess we see now, but I don’t think so. The Bible insists that “…His works were finished from the foundation of the world.” (Heb 4:3) He is NOT busy messing up what He created! Of course He is still guiding everything, for He “…upholds all things by the word of His power.” (Heb 1:3), but I believe He used natural means bring about all the changes we see.
Those natural means are hinted at in the Bible, but not described very well. That is not the purpose of the Bible – to describe all the catastrophes that tortured the earth into the rugged, bruised state we see today. The Bible’s purpose is to tell us how much God loves us, and how He gets us out of this mess and restores us to Himself – that it does very well! So to tell the story of the Catastrophic Era, I’m going to have to reach into legends and myths and do some heavy-duty speculation.
The legends are jumbled and conflicting, but there are common threads. One is this: all the ancients are agreed that at one time Earth was tormented by the close passes of other planets, especially Mars, Venus, Jupiter, and Saturn. The very word ‘disaster’ comes from two words meaning ‘bad star.’ The foolish premise of astrology, that the movements of the planets affect our lives, was not so foolish in those days, when the astrologers predicted when and where the planets would pass near earth and wipe out entire cities. And the wild myths of the Greek gods had their basis in the actual interactions of the planets: Jupiter was Zeus, Saturn was Chronos, Mars was Typhon, Venus was Athena or Aphrodite, Mercury was Hermes, the moon was Phoebe or Artemis, the sun was Apollo, and so on.
Other writers have also approached this subject, with more or less satisfactory results, though no one has tried to put it all together to tell the story from the beginning of time until now. I have read their works and used their ideas and legendary research where it seemed to fit. Now for the first time, here is the entire story of the Catastrophic Era – how it began, the interactions of the planets, and how it ended. It is an important story, for it explains why the Israelites were so quick to fall away from worship of the one true God into idolatry with the Baals.
This forms a big chapter in the first volume of my book, and fits in quite a bit with the other volumes as well. But allow me to briefly summarize it for you here.
We start with two suns in Genesis 1, the greater (Sol) to rule the day, and the lesser (Nyx) to rule the night. Except for the Earth (suspended between the two suns) there are no planets, moons, asteroids, comets, space plasma, or debris. It is a perfect, clean system, and could have lasted for millions of years. This is an “Earth-centric” system – the two suns revolve around the Earth.
With the fall of Adam into sin, Satan is permitted to cause the night sun (Nyx) to go nova. It breaks up into two primary bodies, Titan and Uranus, and numerous smaller planets, asteroids, comets, and space junk. Among the smaller planets are Mars and a trinary, Venus/Mercury/Phaeton. Now it is a “Solar” system.
Mars locks into orbital resonance with Earth on a catastrophic orbit (see my primer on orbital resonance). It crosses Earth’s orbit twice every three years, passing close enough to cause earthquakes and lightning.
Uranus returns from deep space, impacting Titan and breaking up into the four “gas giants,” a smaller Uranus, Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune. All four are on catastrophic orbits, especially Jupiter (12 year orbit) and Saturn (30 year orbit).
Aster collides with Mars, knocking it out of its three-year orbit and showering it with “Asteroids.” Many Asteroids escape, to form the Asteroid Belt.
Saturn showers Earth with ice and snow, creating our first real ocean, called the Tethyan Sea. It is shallow and only fresh water. Saturn is called Chronos the Timekeeper, as its 30 year orbit times the regular catastrophes slamming Earth. Jupiter adds to the carnage with lightning bolts from its huge magnetic field.
These catastrophes crack the Earth’s crust with increasing severity. Note that the crust was “founded upon the seas” (Ps 24:2), meaning the strong, flexible crust was continuous, “floating,” drifting slowly over a world-wide subterranean ocean. Now, a section of crust sinks at what is now the Mediterranean Sea, a warning of the coming Flood. Later, a large section of crust sinks at Atlantis, wiping out the most advanced civilization in history. Earth’s inhabitants have had their warning!
Saturn collides with a smaller planetoid called Hygeia, disrupting its orbit so that it no longer threatens Earth, and adding more wild Asteroids into the mix.
Mars locks into a two year resonant orbit. It becomes exceedingly dangerous. Its three moons (Fear, Terror, and Strife) terrify mankind. Earth’s crust is fatally compromised by a close flyby of Mars. Close passes of Mars are now forming whole mountain ranges and breaking up the crust into the continental plates.
Mars captures another moon, this one an ice moon called Glacis, which came from deep space with Uranus. This ice is roughly -250° F, and very brittle.
October 24, 3450 BC is the next Mars flyby. Glacis shatters. Zillions of ice crystals shower down upon the high vapor barrier protecting Earth, which seeds it and brings it all down as 40 days and nights of rain. But the ice crystals are given a static charge by the generating effects of two magnetic bodies (Earth and Mars) passing so close together. Most of these charged ice shards follow the Van Allen Belts (magnetic lines of force around Earth) down to the poles. They form a “super cold” channel clear down to Earth, quick freezing everything at the poles, including mammoths and saber-tooth tigers. This ice builds up into 5 mile high mountains of ice at the poles. (A little of it remains today. We have found thousands of perfectly frozen animals, some still standing with fresh food in their mouths. Earth is now “warming,” in part because this super-cold “refrigerator” is nearly gone.)
At the same time, the “fountains of the deep” open up due to the breaking apart of the crustal plates. The subterranean ocean bursts out as the plates are tipped and sunk. The combination of the 40 days of icy rain, the hot subterranean ocean spurting up, and the melting mountains of super-cold ice at the poles causes the Flood. No land-dwelling creature can survive, except those Noah has inside his ark. The incredible turbulence of the waters washes everything clean down to the bedrock. The advanced civilization mankind had achieved is totally lost.
Hydrologic sorting lays out the “ages” of geologic strata in many layers of soft mud. Animals are washed together in immense graveyards. Huge coal beds and oil deposits are formed as the luxurious sub-tropical growth covering the earth is all matted together and covered by hot silt. Some of the broken continental plates grounded, making it impossible for the crust to drift freely over Earth’s core as before the flood (though it did move at the times of Joshua and Hezekiah).
The next March 21, Mars returns for its outbound flyby. While it is no closer than before, this time for the first time Earth has real “oceans,” five miles deep, covering all the mountains. The resulting tides exceed the gravitational capacity of the Earth. Mars steals about a third of Earth’s water and air, causing the “canals” on Mars and dropping the sea level by about 7000 feet. This flyby further cracks, tips, and bends the plates. We see the result as geologic strata tipped and folded, as the layered mud was still quite soft. All this happened within one year.
The water level continues to go down, as winds carry the moisture up to the poles where it freezes out on the “super cold” ice there. This grows into immense glaciers which cover 2/3 of the planet, causing the “Ice Age.” But it does drop the water level low enough for Noah’s ark to land in the mountains of Ararat.
The Venus/Mercury/Phaeton trinary passes too close to Jupiter, and picks up a lot of its noxious ocean, creating long tails and forming the Caduceus.
The Tower of Babel is destroyed by a close pass of Mars. The people scatter.
Jupiter and Saturn nearly collide. In 2715 BC Saturn again passes too close to Earth. It peels off 2/3 of the Earth’s cracked crust and takes nearly all of our (now salty) liquid water, leaving behind the Pacific Ocean basin. The crust balls up to become our moon. 90% of humanity is wiped out. However, this turns out for good, ending the Ice Age. As the far-reaching glaciers melt in the temperate zone, the melt-waters push the America’s west and Europe/Africa east, and restore our air. The fresh water flows over Central America and into the newly formed Pacific basin. During this time it is actually possible for those sailing too far west to “sail off the edge of the Earth,” as legends tell. Lakes left behind by the melting glaciers burst through surface irregularities to form deep canyons in the still soft stratified mud, as at the Grand Canyon (which forms in a year or so, not millions of years).
The orbits of Jupiter and Saturn are so changed by their encounters that they never again come near Earth. Mars continues to terrorize Earth every 6 years, and cause catastrophes every 30 years. It causes the 7 year famine at the time of Joseph in Egypt. But all the legends agree it was the Venus/Mercury/Phaeton trinary that caused the plagues at the Exodus in 1451 BC. The trinary was outside the plane of the ecliptic, but its orbit decayed to cross that of Earth. Earth drew it closer and nearly into the plane of the ecliptic around 1454 - 1452 BC. Legend tells of a famous battle in the heavens, in which Earth pulled Phaeton from the trinary and sent it on a collision course towards Earth, impacting just before the Exodus.
The Exodus sequence is rather complex. It starts with Phaeton burning up the Sahara and Arabian deserts and colliding with Earth at Bermuda at the time of the “Burning Bush.” Venus/Mercury, now a binary, flies inside Earth’s orbit for several months. It’s two tails become known as the “Rod of Asclepius,” or, in Egypt, the “Horns of Hathor.” The nearness of Venus, and Earth’s passing through its tails and its shadow, causes the ten plagues.
Mars, passing a bit later, causes the ultra-low tides of the Red Sea that allows the Israelites to cross the Gulf of Aqaba into the land of Midian on the seventh day after the Exodus. The Rod of Asclepius becomes Moses‘ bronze snake on a staff and later the symbol for the healing profession.
Many other Biblical stories also involve the close passes of the planets, such as the long day of Joshua, Sisera’s defeat, Gideon’s victory, David’s census, Elijah’s barbecue on Mt. Carmel, and Jonah’s preaching at Nineveh. These Bible stories cannot be properly understood without understanding the Catastrophic Era. The Israelites obstinate fear of the “Baals” (the planetary gods) and their heartbreaking penchant for forsaking the one true God and turning to serve the Baals can only be understood in light of the fearful passes of the planetary gods – the Baals.
OK. What ended the Catastrophic Era? Why do we now have such a benign system with all the planets (except Pluto) on nearly circular orbits?
This is the most complex interaction yet, but it is also the one for which we have the most legendary evidence, making it possible to piece together the story. It occurs at the time of King Hezekiah and the invasion of Israel by Sennacherib’s Assyrian army from Nineveh. It is clearly a close pass of Mars; Mars is described in detail in the legends. Sennacherib knows Mars will be passing overhead on March 1, 701 BC. His astrologers swear that their god will fight for them, both to terrify the Israelites and to break down the walls of Jerusalem.
Well, they’re certainly right about terrifying the Israelites. King Hezekiah is so fearful he has a massive heart attack. Isaiah confirms it is fatal, and tells him to wrap up his earthly affairs. But after his prayer, Isaiah tells him that God will give him 15 more years, to be confirmed by the shadow on his sundial going back 10°.
A lighting bolt from the magneto-head of Mars strikes the area at its point of greatest conductivity – the iron armor of the Assyrians. 185,000 die; the rest return to Nineveh in shame. Later, at the closest approach of Mars, the grounded crust breaks free and skates backward ten degrees due to the electromagnetic forces between the two planets. This has never happened before. Always before, the crust only moved backward during the October (inbound) flyby (as at Joshua’s “long day” on October 24, 1410 BC). It had always moved forward during the March (outbound) flyby. What happened to reverse it this time?
701 BC was on the 50 year Jubilee, when (ever since the Exodus in 1451 BC) the Venus/Mercury binary would pull back Mars to minimize the damage, giving cause for great celebration. But back about 752 BC Venus had begun interacting too closely with Mars, distorting both their orbits. In 701 BC the legendary battles between Mars and the binary reach a climax. Venus pulls little Mars back way too far, actually aiming it on collision course with Earth! No life can survive. But at the last moment, tiny Mercury swings around (remember it is still orbiting Venus) and pulls Mars further, causing it to pass on the wrong side of Earth, for the first time in history. Mercury is the hero! It is known to this day as the healer.
The flybys of the planets had been “resonant.” Electromagnetic, gravitational, and electrostatic forces at each close pass would work to increase the eccentricity of their orbits, recharge their magnetic and static fields, and thus preserve their catastrophic orbits. This locked the planets into orbits that would not permit any relative decay. But now the entire system unravels. When Mars passes on the wrong side, it is pulled into a more circular orbit. Within ten years it is no longer coming anywhere near Earth. Tiny Mercury is hurled off to find its own orbit around Sol. Venus is thrown closer to the sun and a bit further from the ecliptic, and soon it too is no longer coming near Earth (though it still presents the same face to us at each closest approach).
The nature of planetary orbits tends toward the ecliptic and toward greater circularity. And, in spite of the evolutionist’s faith that everything is improving, all orbits are actually decaying as well, due primarily to electromagnetic interference with Sol’s huge magnetosphere. Thank God that Sol is also decaying (getting cooler and smaller, and its magnetic field and solar wind weakening), or we would already have fried and spiraled into the sun! Since 701 BC Earth’s magnetic and electrostatic fields have also been decaying (they’re now about 100 times weaker than in 3450 BC), so that we no longer have much protection from cosmic radiation.
That much is past history, with a little speculation thrown in to tie it together. It makes a fun story. But why did I even need to tell it? God didn’t seem especially concerned, as the Bible merely hints at it. My reasoning is this, “All these things happened to them as an example, and they were written for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages has come.” (1 Cor 10:11)
What about our future? I see numerous hints in the Scriptures that God will do it again. “But immediately after the tribulation in those days [at the end of this present age] the sun will be darkened, the moon will not give its light, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.” (Matt 24:29) “And I looked when He broke the sixth seal, and there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth made of hair, the the whole moon became like blood; and the stars [planets] of the sky fell to the earth as a fig tree casts its unripe figs when shaken by a great wind; and the sky split apart like a scroll when it is rolled up; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places.” (Rev 6:12-14)
Will we be ready and rejoicing when Christ returns for His Bride? or will we be crying out to the mountains and to the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the presence of Him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb.” (vs 16) It will be one or the other, and I believe it will be very soon - maybe in my generation. The whole purpose of my book is to help prepare the Bride for that glorious day. I tell the story because we need to understand God’s ways, how He has done things in the past, so we won’t be caught by surprise when He does it again.
The last half of Volume Five lays out the story of our immediate future and the ages-to-come. It’s loosely based on the book of Revelation, but it gets pretty wild. I have a lot of fun with it. I trust you will too.
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