From: zoe_lithoi <zoe_lithoi@...>
Subject: [LexiLine] Ancient Clay Planisphere from a Biblical Perspective.
To: LexiLine@yahoogroups.com
Received: Friday, June 26, 2009, 4:59 PM

Greetings,

My name is Toby, and I am a new member here.

I have been reading a relatively new book ('A Sumerian observation of the Kofels Impact Event' by Bond and Hempsell) about an ancient Sumerian clay planisphere, tablet K8538. Their analysis says that the event on the planisphere has 5 good/ok possible dates one of which was 2361bc. Bond/Hempsell frequently refer to the clay tablets known as the 'MUL APIN', and there seems to be a match with a statement on one of the lexiline webpages, namely:

"The MUL.APIN series of astronomical tablets
- now found in the British Museum -
describe a UNIQUE heaven which occurred
at ca. 2340 BC, plus or minus 20 years."
--- http://www.lexiline .com/lexiline/ lexi42.htm

Are there more details anywhere to support that statement?

Besides the Bond/Hempsell book, there have been 2 other recent books about theK8538 plansispher, that I am aware of.
"The 12th planet" by Zacharia Sitchen
"Egypt: Image of Heaven" by William Zitman called:

I really liked the scholarship of Zitman and Bond/Hempsell. It was superb; however, from what I can tell, none of these authors tried to connect the planisphere to the Bible, except perhaps in a sideways manner.

For example, Alexander Sitchin believes ancient mankind is a product of evolution, but modern man, i.e. 300,000 years ago, was a product of genetic engineering, and the flood was 13,000 years ago. None of this is a Biblical view or at least one that is widely recognized in biblical circles.

So, this posting would like to discuss this K8538 planisphere from a Biblical perspective.

The clay planisphere is incredible.

It was found in the Royal Library of Ninevah as it was unburied by the famous British Archeologist Sir Henry Layard. Ninevah was built by Asshur: "Out of that land went forth Asshur, and builded Nineveh" (Gen 10:11)

The word Assur is found (in cuniform writting) on the planisphere clay tablet.

Why would Asshur be knowledgable on the flood?

Well, both his dad (Shem) and grand-dad (Noah) built the ark!!!

Is it possible that Asshur was a child on Noah's ark, and being a child, the Bible does not acknowledge him as being on the ark?

Before you let your pre-conceived idea's get in the way, please consider a couple Bible Verses.

"The children of Shem; Elam, and Asshur, and Arphaxad, and Lud, and Aram." (Gen 10:22).

Note that Asshur was the 2nd listed son of Shem while Arphaxad is the third. The same thing is said in I Chron 1:17. Now, notice that Arphaxad was born 2 years after the flood.

"These [are] the generations of Shem: Shem [was] an hundred years old, and begat Arphaxad two years after the flood:" (Gen 11:10).

If indeed Arphaxad, was Shem's 3rd oldest son, and he was born only 2 years after the flood, I sure suspect it is possible that his two older brothers (Elam and Asshur) could have been born prior to the flood, but were kids and hence scripture doesn't refer to them.

The clay planisphere describes the path of a "huge white stone" as it travelled through the constellations, Orion, Eridanus, Pisces, and Aquila. It also describes the portion of the world it passes over.... an earth to sky map. This earth/sky map was the main focus in Zitman's book, namely, that the cities were laid out to mimic the skies. This earth/sky map seems to indicate that the meteor may have struck somewhere in Iraq not too far away from where the famous city of UR is located (sort of near Babylon). The city of UR is famous, as you may recall, in that Abraham left Ur of the Chaldees and moved to Harran, his brother's city, with his dad, Terah. In about 2001ad, a 2 mile wide crator in IRAQ was discovered by looking at satelite photo's. You can see it at:

http://www.rense. com/general16/ meteorcluetoend. htm

It says: "Today's crater lies on what would have been shallow sea 4,000 years ago, and any impact would have caused devastating fires and flooding."

The clay planisphere describes the meteor's (which it calls huge white stone) descent from the sky at a 15 degree angle. It went from water to cloud, and then from cloud to sea. Notice, that above article says that the crator lies on what "would have been a shallow sea"

But before it went from the cloud to the sea, it went from the water to the cloud. I suggest, the liquid water (not clouds (as Henry Morris believes) and not ice (as (Ken Hovind believes)) is what scripture called the firmament, i.e. canopy, which orbitted around the earth in a ring in a low earth orbit.

The book I'm reading, by Bond and Hempsell, "A Sumerian observation of the Kofel's Impact Event" dedicates several pages on describing that the planisphere says that the nite of the meteor lasted 9 hours and 29 minutes (about 9.5 hours). Well, using planetarium software, I determined that the nite lasted about 7.5 hours. This is a two hour time descrepancy. What gives? Well, David Fasold, in his book 'The ark of Noah' makes a case for a solar year lasting 300 days before the flood. But how many hours did a preflood day last?

What if it takes the same amount of time for the earth to go around the sun now, as before the flood? ....yet before the flood, a year was only 300 days long. Well, this would mean, that a pre-flood day would have to last longer than now. So how many total hours in a year? Well, a year 'now' is 365 days and a day is 24 hours so, one year has 365*24 hours in it. This means that the number of hours in a preflood year would be:

(# of hours in a day) * 300 days = 365 days *24 hours

So solving:
(# of hours in a day) = 365 days *24 hours/300 days
= 30 hours in a preflood day

So, the clay tablet says that a preflood nite lasted 9.5 hours. How long would the planetarium software say it would have lasted?

9.5 hours in a preflood nite/30 hours in a preflood day
= (# of hours in a postflood nite)/24 hours in a postflood day

Solving:

(# of hours in a postflood nite)
= 24 hours in a postflood day * 9.5 hours in a preflood nite/30 hours in a preflood day
= 7.6 hours in a postflood nite. = 7 hours and 36 minutes long

Why is this important?

Because if you were in the location of modern day Ninevah on the day the meteor crashed into the earth, the preflood nite would have been about 9.5 hours (which matches what the planisphere says), however, since planetary software is not programed for 30 hour days (but rather for 24 hour days), the nitetime would have lasted for only 7 hours and 36 minutes long... that is if you were in Ninevah. But if you were in UR, for example, the nite would have been about only 7 hours and 15 minutes long. So, you can see, that the location of the meteor observer would have been
--- close to Ninevah,
---- or close to Asshur,
---- close to the place there the clay tablet was found
---- close to the place where Asshur, son of Shem, grandson of Noah, built the city.

And one last highlight, the clay planisphere contains the locations of several planets and the constellations they are in. With this information, as well as the location of the 'path of the sun' and 'planetary path' (which is also on the clay tablet), Bond and Hempsell have come up with 5 good possible dates for the date of this meteor impact, one of which is:

- the date of the flood 2361bc

This is within 20 years of Usher's famous bible-based chronology,
and within 0.1years of Toby's infamous bible-based and astronomical- based chronology :-).

a zoe lithoi,
Toby