We are, and always have been, one people. Divisions between families, tribes, and nations are imaginary. Human accomplishments, innovations, and inventions are universal, not particular. All knowledge comes from God. In the grand planetary cycle before ʾĀḏām (Hebrew for ruddy man, earthman, or earthling), Earth had, I believe, a worldwide pyramid-building or mound-building civilization. Among its Prophets might have been Hermés, peace be upon Him, or, as He is known in the Holy Qurʾān, Īdrīs. According to His Blessed Presence Baháʾuʾlláh, in every language, He is remembered by a particular name:
The first person who devoted himself to philosophy was Ídrís. Thus was he named. Some called him also Hermes. In every tongue he hath a special name. He it is who hath set forth in every branch of philosophy thorough and convincing statements. After him Bálinus [Apollonius of Tyana?] derived his knowledge and sciences from the Hermetic Tablets and most of the philosophers who followed him made their philosophical and scientific discoveries from his words and statements....
The human journey, under the guidance of these Prophets and Their angels, has always been a roller coaster. Perhaps as further indicators of a once global, even interplanetary or cosmic, civilization, pyramid artifacts have allegedly been found, not only throughout the Earth, but on Earth’s Moon and on the planet Mars. Indeed, for all we know, the planet Earth’s own ancestors might have been, at some time in the distant past, refugees from a Martian apocalypse. Click on the images to enlarge them:
left to right, Egyptian, Mayan, Ecuadorian (Eye of Providence), U.S. dollar (Eye of Providence), Chinese, and Inner Mongolian pyramids
An apparent pyramid-shaped hole was discovered by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter on July 18, 2012. Click on the image to enlarge it:
What created this unusual hole in Mars? The hole was discovered by chance on images of the dusty slopes of Mars’ Pavonis Mons volcano taken by the HiRISE instrument aboard the robotic Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter currently circling Mars. The hole appears to be an opening to an underground cavern, partly illuminated on the image right. Analysis of this and follow-up images revealed the opening to be about 35 meters across, while the interior shadow angle indicates that the underlying cavern is roughly 20 meters deep. Why there is a circular crater surrounding this hole remains a topic of speculation, as is the full extent of the underlying cavern. Holes such as this are of particular interest because their interior caves are relatively protected from the harsh surface of Mars, making them relatively good candidates to contain Martian life. These pits are therefore prime targets for possible future spacecraft, robots, and even human interplanetary explorers.
“Astronomy Picture of the Day: A Hole in Mars.” National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA). Official U.S. government document. July 18, 2012. Retrieved on July 22, 2012.
NASA launched a multipurpose spacecraft named Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter on Aug. 12, 2005 to advance our understanding of Mars through detailed observation, to examine potential landing sites for future surface missions and to provide a high-data-rate communications relay for those missions.
“Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.” National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Official U.S. government document. Retrieved on July 22, 2012.
Pyramid Power
Using sacred geometry, many of the pyramids appear to have been aligned with one another or with certain star constellations, such as Orion. Perhaps these pyramids and other ancient structures or resonant geometric monuments, such as obelisks, once formed, collectively, a multi-purpose interplanetary, or interstellar, an astronomically generated interplanetary, or interstellar, super-GPS (Global Positioning System) navigation complex, geomagnetic power grid, telecommunications network, observatory, step-down electrical transformer, or, even terraforming mechanism for an earlier stage in planetary development.
... having been in the Great Pyramid of Giza and spent time lying in the stone sarcophagus in the King’s Chamber I feel a strong connection to the belief that the pyramids of Giza were some sort of energy generator or giant communication devices. I’ve also seen several references on walls of the temples and tombs around Egypt that clearly indicate that the ancient Egyptians had access to a form of electrical power quite different to what we know today.
Such a technological web of structures might be a tangible sign, or relic, of the unity, the web of interconnectedness, between beings on this planet and beyond:
These [pyramidal] structures were first brought to scholarly attention in Icarus in 1974, in an article entitled “Pyramidal Structures of Mars.” The authors noted that the structures cast regular shadows—showing that their tetrahedral forms are not illusions caused by albedo variations in surface soil coloration. The fact that there was more than one image taken at different sun angles further supports the view that their shape is not illusory....
There are four tetrahedral pyramids at Elysium—a larger and a smaller pair in close proximity, facing each other across the arid plain. They seem to have been set out in a definite pattern of
alignment—a feature associated with pyramids on Earth—the two smaller pyramids seeming to mirror the alignment of the larger two....
It is permissible, sometimes, to speculate and we offer the following as no more than an amuse gueule, a harmless speculation, intended to entertain. It is a kind of artifact of our imaginations that arises every time we look anew at the image of the Face on Mars and at the geometrical structures that seem to have been arranged so purposefully around it on the Cydonian plain....
The peculiar interlinkages to Giza and to Teotihuacan don’t feel accidental.
Graham Hancock, The Mars Mystery: The Secret Connection Between Earth and the Red Planet. New York: Random House. 2010. Kindle edition.
In light of all the evidence that suggests the existence of a highly advanced society utilizing electricity in prehistory, I began to seriously consider the possibility that the pyramids were the power plants of the ancient Egyptians.
Christopher Dunn, The Giza Power Plant: Technologies of Ancient Egypt. Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions – Bear & Company. 1998. Kindle edition.
The pattern of Orion’s Belt seen on the “west” of the Milky Way matches, with uncanny precision, the pattern and alignments of the three Giza pyramids!
Robert Bauval and Adrian Gilbert, The Orion Mystery. New York: Random House. 2010. Kindle edition.
Thomas O. Mills believes that the pyramids were planetary balancing mechanisms:
Could it be that the pyramids in China, Mexico and Egypt were built to keep the Earth rotating in perfect balance?...
I would like to suggest an experiment. Let’s restore the pyramids that we have and see if they make a difference in the earth’s rotation. With modern machinery such as trucks, trains, boats, hoists, electricity, and diesel engines it should not take too long. Let’s fix the pyramids that we have just in case they do balance our planet.
Thomas O. Mills, The Book of Truth: A Perspective on the Hopi Creation Story. Raleigh, NC: Lulu Enterprises, Inc. 2009. Pages 43-44.
Nevertheless, astronomy and astrology were virtually indistinguishable in most ancient societies. Over time, the technologies of that pyramidal network had also degenerated, or been corrupted, into a system of superstitious astrological idolatry:
The pyramids were ... designed and built for a function. That function could well have been to launch the spirit of the deceased pharaoh to the stars.
Although many ancient civilizations appear to have had extensive astronomical knowledge, ʿAbduʾl-Bahá, in the quotation below, pointedly dismissed their astrological superstitions as the products of imagination. Instead, to my understanding, all the beings in the cosmos, along with the material or perhaps technological elements of the universe, spiritually and physically influence or assist one another. The common temporocentric view that modernity represents the epitome of human achievement is arrogant and pretentious. This cosmic interdependence, in an all-embracing great chain of being, is, I would suggest, an illustration of Unific Evolution.
With regard to the spiritual influence of stars, though this influence of stars in the human world may appear strange, still, if you reflect deeply upon this subject, you will not be so much surprised at it. My meaning is not, however, that the decrees which the astrologers of former times inferred from the movements of the stars corresponded to occurrences; for the decrees of those former astrologers were forms of imagination which were originated by Egyptian, Assyrian and Chaldean priests; nay, rather, they were due to the fancies of Hindus, to the myths of the Greeks, Romans and other star worshipers. But I mean that this limitless universe is like the human body, all the members of which are connected and linked with one another with the greatest strength. How much the organs, the members and the parts of the body of man are intermingled and connected for mutual aid and help, and how much they influence one another! In the same way, the parts of this infinite universe have their members and elements connected with one another, and influence one another spiritually and materially.
... all beings are connected together like a chain; and reciprocal help, assistance and interaction belonging to the properties of things are the causes of the existence, development and growth of created beings. It is confirmed through evidences and proofs that every being universally acts upon other beings, either absolutely or through association.
Allegedly, many ancient monuments were originally structured, perhaps for technological reasons, around the supposed ley lines of the earth:
The first person in the modern West to identify the existence of Ley Lines was Alfred Watkins, a British amateur antiquarian. In 1521 Pisces (1921 AD) Watkins discovered that many ancient archeological sites appeared to be arranged along a network of straight lines.
The monuments which Watkins studied included the very ancient monuments of the Megalithic peoples who built Stonehenge and New Grange and other great stone monuments as much as 5000 years ago (though they were thought to be considerably younger at the time) as well as other sites dating from as late as the Medieval period (primarily churches). Watkins and many other scholars believed and still hold that many Medieval Churches were built upon sites which had been sacred long before the later structures were built, and so Watkins felt that even these later structures actually marked more ancient Megalithic sites.
The people of that once mighty pyramid-building civilization may have utilized a single pictographic language or script. Kurt Schildmann referred to it as pre-Sanskrit:
We’ve found the same [pictographic] writing on stones in certain countries like Ecuador, Colombia, Illinois (United States); Glozel, France; Malta in the Mediterranean; Turkmenistan, Australia, and in Southern Calabria, Italy just a few years ago. Always there are stones and ceramics – terracotta – with the same writing. That means this writing existed once worldwide, and that means there must have been a global civilisation older than Sanskrit, older than 6,000 years. Professor [Kurt] Schildmann [president of the German Linguistic Association] also told me that this writing has a little similarity to the Indus writing and also to the Easter Island writing. As he said, this is older than Sanskrit. He called this writing pre-Sanskrit....
... coming back what you said about a global civilization. We found stones with the same unknown writings in Ecuador, in Colombia, in United States, in Australia, in France, in Malta, in Turkmenistan. That means, how could have been that? And, coming back to talking about the Bible, you have in the Bible written until the building of the Tower of Babel, the whole human spoke one language. Now we have stones with the same writing and it is an unknown writing.
Reportedly, some individuals began constructing the city of Bāběl in the Mesopotamian land of Šinʿār. Speculatively, it may have included, according to the account, a pyramid or tower made of burned bricks and bitumen (hydrocarbons). Hypothetically, survivors of the pre-ʾĀḏāmic universal cycle might have reestablished astrological idolatry (širk, partnership with God). If so, perhaps the tower of Bāběl, the Gate of God, was, in some sense, a product of that ancient system of magical superstition. Click to enlarge these artistic representations (paintings) of the tower of Bāběl:
Tobias Verhaecht (1561-1631)
Marten Van Valckenborch I (1535-1612)
Frans Francken II (1581-1642)
The spiritual fall of man, as an ongoing or periodic phenomenon, has both social and individual consequences. Souls can easily fall from obedience to the Will of God, as revealed by His heavenly Prophets and Messengers, into the prison of self and desire. God, to my understanding, opposed the restoration of the formerly universal culture, particularly its astrological religious practices, including pyramidology. Therefore, sometime between the ʾĀḏāmic Dispensation (after the great fall of man) and the Nōăḥide Dispensation (the diluvian age), the languages of the world may have been, according to God’s Will, confused and divided.
... I am wondering if what we’ve been taught is actually backwards.... At a certain point, when we were seeded as quite a sentient sort of race on this planet ... – part of Atlantis [or] the newest takes out there. There’s one theory which is backed by Noam Chomsky, who claims that ... when you burrow down beneath this [the three main parts of language], you have a universal human language. We all share this deep structure of language. Now, where does that come from?
The following narrative is provided within the Book of Genesis:
Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. And as they migrated from the east, they came upon a plain in the land of Shinar [Šinʿār] and settled there. And they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.” The LORD [Hebrew, יהוה, YHWH, He is becoming] came down to see the city and the tower, which mortals had built. And the LORD said, “Look, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down, and confuse their language there, so that they will not understand one another’s speech.” So the LORD scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. Therefore it was called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of all the earth; and from there the LORD scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.
Genesis 11:1-9, New Revised Standard Version.
Here is a considerably longer account given by the pseudepigraphal, or falsely ascribed, Book of Jasher:
... Abram said unto himself, Surely these are not gods that made the earth and all mankind, but these are the servants of God, and Abram remained in the house of Noah and there knew the Lord and his ways’ and he served the Lord all the days of his life, and all that generation forgot the Lord, and served other gods of wood and stone, and rebelled all their days.
And king Nimrod reigned securely, and all the earth was under his control, and all the earth was of one tongue and words of union.
And all the princes of Nimrod and his great men took counsel together; Phut, Mitzraim, Cush and Canaan with their families, and they said to each other, Come let us build ourselves a city and in it a strong tower, and its top reaching heaven, and we will make ourselves famed, so that we may reign upon the whole world, in order that the evil of our enemies may cease from us, that we may reign mightily over them, and that we may not become scattered over the earth on account of their wars.
And they all went before the king, and they told the king these words, and the king agreed with them in this affair, and he did so. And all the families assembled consisting of about six hundred thousand men, and they went to seek an extensive piece of ground to build the city and the tower, and they sought in the whole earth and they found none like one valley at the east of the land of Shinar, about two days’ walk, and they journeyed there and they dwelt there.
And they began to make bricks and burn fires to build the city and the tower that they had imagined to complete. And the building of the tower was unto them a transgression and a sin, and they began to build it, and whilst they were building against the Lord God of heaven, they imagined in their hearts to war against him and to ascend into heaven.
And all these people and all the families divided themselves in three parts; the first said We will ascend into heaven and fight against him; the second said, We will ascend to heaven and place our own gods there and serve them; and the third part said, We will ascend to heaven and smite him with bows and spears; and God knew all their works and all their evil thoughts, and he saw the city and the tower which they were building.
And when they were building they built themselves a great city and a very high and strong tower; and on account of its height the mortar and bricks did not reach the builders in their ascent to it, until those who went up had completed a full year, and after that, they reached to the builders and gave them the mortar and the bricks; thus was it done daily.
And behold these ascended and others descended the whole day; and if a brick should fall from their hands and get broken, they would all weep over it, and if a man fell and died, none of them would look at him.
And the Lord knew their thoughts, and it came to pass when they were building they cast the arrows toward the heavens, and all the arrows fell upon them filled with blood, and when they saw them they said to each other, Surely we have slain all those that are in heaven.
For this was from the Lord in order to cause them to err, and in order; to destroy them from off the face of the ground.
And they built the tower and the city, and they did this thing daily until many days and years were elapsed.
And God said to the seventy angels who stood foremost before him, to those who were near to him, saying, Come let us descend and confuse their tongues, that one man shall not understand the language of his neighbor, and they did so unto them.
And from that day following, they forgot each man his neighbor’s tongue, and they could not understand to speak in one tongue, and when the builder took from the hands of his neighbor lime or stone which he did not order, the builder would cast it away and throw it upon his neighbor, that he would die.
And they did so many days, and they killed many of them in this manner.
And the Lord smote the three divisions that were there, and he punished them according to their works and designs; those who said, We will ascend to heaven and serve our gods, became like apes and elephants; and those who said, We will smite the heaven with arrows, the Lord killed them, one man through the hand of his neighbor; and the third division of those who said, We will ascend to heaven and fight against him, the Lord scattered them throughout the earth.
And those who were left amongst them, when they knew and understood the evil which was coming upon them, they forsook the building, and they also became scattered upon the face of the whole earth.
And they ceased building the city and the tower; therefore he called that place Babel, for there the Lord confounded the Language of the whole earth; behold it was at the east of the land of Shinar.
And as to the tower which the sons of men built, the earth opened its mouth and swallowed up one third part thereof, and a fire also descended from heaven and burned another third, and the other third is left to this day, and it is of that part which was aloft, and its circumference is three days’ walk.
And many of the sons of men died in that tower, a people without number.
Evolution is cyclical, or spiral, not linear. In past cycles, humans may have annihilated ourselves, on this planet, many times. Consequently, the Earth has apparently been replenished over and over again:
And God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them: and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth....
... God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.
Through the gifts of Prophetic Revelation, divinely inspired interpretation, and the global human record, we have been provided with some wonderful hints about Earth’s past. These two quotations, when taken together, appear to highlight some fascinating dimensions of our shared planetary biohistory: first, a previous worldwide civilization, or colonial empire, in which everyone spoke a single language (before Bāběl, Hebrew for Gate of ʾĚl, the Almighty God, or possibly a stargate); second, the eternal recurrence of universal cycles throughout all the cosmic spheres; and, third, periodic planetary cataclysms.
The languages were, by God’s decree, confused at Babel. Perhaps the most stunning example is that the Semitic languages are generally read from right to left, while the Indo-European languages are usually read from left to right:
And now regarding thy question, “How is it that no records are to be found concerning the Prophets that have preceded Adam, the Father of Mankind, or of the kings that lived in the days of those Prophets?” Know thou that the absence of any reference to them is no proof that they did not actually exist. That no records concerning them are now available, should be attributed to their extreme remoteness, as well as to the vast changes which the earth hath undergone since their time.
Moreover such forms and modes of writing as are now current amongst men were unknown to the generations that were before Adam. There was even a time when men were wholly ignorant of the art of writing, and had adopted a system entirely different from the one which they now use [petroglyphs, hieroglyphs, pictographs, or cuneiform?]. For a proper exposition of this an elaborate explanation would be required.
Consider the differences that have arisen since the days of Adam. The divers and widely-known languages now spoken by the peoples of the earth were originally unknown, as were the varied rules and customs now prevailing amongst them. The people of those times spoke a language different from those now known. Diversities of language arose in a later age, in a land known as Babel. It was given the name Babel, because the term signifieth “the place where the confusion of tongues arose.”
Witness, therefore, how numerous and far-reaching have been the changes in language, speech, and writing since the days of Adam. How much greater must have been the changes before Him!
Our purpose in revealing these words is to show that the one true God hath, in His all-highest and transcendent station, ever been, and will everlastingly continue to be, exalted above the praise and conception of all else but Him. His creation hath ever existed, and the Manifestations of His Divine glory and the Day Springs of eternal holiness have been sent down from time immemorial, and been commissioned to summon mankind to the one true God. That the names of some of them are forgotten and the records of their lives lost is to be attributed to the disturbances and changes that have overtaken the world.
Mention hath been made in certain books of a deluge which caused all that existed on earth, historical records as well as other things, to be destroyed. Moreover, many cataclysms have occurred which have effaced the traces of many events. Furthermore, among existing historical records differences are to be found, and each of the various peoples of the world hath its own account of the age of the earth and of its history. Some trace their history as far back as eight thousand years, others as far as twelve thousand years. To any one that hath read the book of Jük [Yoga Vāsiṣṭha?] it is clear and evident how much the accounts given by the various books have differed.
Please God thou wilt turn thine eyes towards the Most Great Revelation, and entirely disregard these conflicting tales and traditions.
... for the whole universe, whether for the heavens or for men, there are cycles of great events, of important facts and occurrences. When a cycle is ended, a new cycle begins; and the old one, on account of the great events which take place, is completely forgotten, and not a trace or record of it will remain. As you see, we have no records of twenty thousand years ago, although we have before proved by argument that life on this earth is very ancient. It is not one hundred thousand, or two hundred thousand, or one million or two million years old; it is very ancient, and the ancient records and traces are entirely obliterated.
I have reflected upon the reasons for entirely disregarding the “conflicting tales and traditions.” Clearly, unity is preferable to division. Perhaps archaeology is also better than mere storytelling:
The ancient town known as Ekven, located almost precisely at the crossroads of Asia and America, is emerging as one of the greatest archeological meccas of the north. Some experts are already suggesting that Ekven could become an “Arctic Troy” — the remains of an ancient civilization with profound significance for our understanding of northern cultures.
Sheets of ice along the Arctic have continued to melt at alarming rates and with that melting has come a new discovery. Archaeologists at a melt site in Norway have discovered a wealth of items that include weapons and shoes among other everyday items. The find is believed to be from thousands of years ago, well before Vikings roamed the area.
As glaciers continue to melt and ice retreats in areas around the world, archaeologists continue to discover new civilizations.
Cyclically, we will gradually return to a single language:
O members of parliaments throughout the world! Select ye a single language for the use of all on earth, and adopt ye likewise a common script. God, verily, maketh plain for you that which shall profit you and enable you to be independent of others. He, of a truth, is the Most Bountiful, the All-Knowing, the All-Informed. This will be the cause of unity, could ye but comprehend it, and the greatest instrument for promoting harmony and civilization, would that ye might understand!
A world language will either be invented or chosen from among the existing languages and will be taught in the schools of all the federated nations as an auxiliary to their mother tongue. A world script, a world literature, a uniform and universal system of currency, of weights and measures, will simplify and facilitate intercourse and understanding among the nations and races of mankind.
Baháʾuʾlláh enjoins the adoption of a universal language and script. His Writings envisage two stages in this process. The first stage is to consist of the selection of an existing language or an invented one which would then be taught in all the schools of the world as an auxiliary to the mother tongues. The governments of the world through their parliaments are called upon to effect this momentous enactment. The second stage, in the distant future, would be the eventual adoption of one single language and common script for all on earth.
Furthermore, there are numerous legends of highly developed societies in Earth’s past. However, when a culture declines and falls, its technologies, now irrelevant folktales, are no longer passed down to succeeding generations. Consequently, over time, cavemen might be remnants. In later cycles, the same or similar technologies may, through divine guidance, be rediscovered. Certain civilizations are known and established, such as Ancient Egypt. Others are, at least currently, contested by the majority of academic researchers or are mythological, Atlantis (speculatively, the previous Atlantean universal cycle) and Lemuria or Mu (the Lemurian universal cycle before Atlantis).
Perhaps eclipsing the discoveries of Troy and King Tut’s tomb is the discovery of Atlantis. Now, two daring scientists, Paul Weinzweig and Pauline Zalitzki, claim they’ve found it. They discovered the submerged ruins of the ancient city off the shores of Cuba. In the distant past the region was dry land, but now only the island of Cuba remains above water. The ancient city is 600 feet below the ocean and the team of researchers led by Weinzweig and Zalitzki are convinced it is Atlantis-the city lost for more than 10,000 years.
In any event, I see no need to rediscover scientific mysteries from the ancients ones who lived in the universal cycle before the global fall of man. Universal knowledge is, to my understanding, deposited within the rational faculty, human spirit, or collective consciousness (the attributes of the essence or unity of humanity). Whenever God wills, that knowledge becomes, through His Holy Prophets and other exalted angels, available to receptive individuals:
Know thou, moreover, that the people aforetime have produced things which the contemporary men of knowledge have been unable to produce. We recall unto thee Murtús who was one of the learned. He invented an apparatus which transmitted sound over a distance of sixty miles. Others besides him have also discovered things which no one in this age hath beheld. Verily thy Lord revealeth in every epoch whatsoever He pleaseth as a token of wisdom on His part. He is in truth the supreme Ordainer, the All-Wise.
The notion that in significant parts of Eurasia the middle centuries of the first millennium BCE mark a significant transition in human cultural history, and that this period can be referred to as the Axial Age, has become widely, but not universally, accepted....
... the Axial Age ... [was] the period of the emergence of formative traditions of religious and philosophical thought, traditions that have been greatly elaborated subsequently without the original formulations being left behind ....
Robert N. Bellah and Hans Joas (introduction), The Axial Age and Its Consequences. Robert N. Bellah and Hans Joas, editors. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. 2012. Pages 1-2.
Tentatively, the Antikythera Mechanism, the Temple of Abydos, and the other artifacts below might illustrate the power of this rational faculty, shared human nature, or divine attributes in man:
possible drawing of a helicopter and other craft on the ceiling of the Temple at Abydos (from Seti I and his son, Ramses II), approximately, 2000 B.C.
alleged half-million-year-old spark plugs
carving of apparent Ancient Sumerian heliocentrism with the Sun as illustrated in the center of a ten-planet solar
system (click on the images to enlarge them)
2 shoe heels which contain a trilobite, extinct for ¼ billion years (click to enlarge)
If the major source of problems in any Age is social or sociological, not personal or psychological, the effects of disobedience to God’s Will, and the fall from grace, are felt by everyone, not just the supposed evildoers or megalomaniacs. Time passed, and the ancient, worldwide pyramid-building civilization, with its priests and rulers, eventually declined and fell. Turning from the heavenly, angelic Voice of the Prophets and Messengers, in any age, demonstrates one’s pride before the throne of God. A fall, often both individually and collectively, will, sooner or later, be the inevitable outcome.
Be thou assured in thyself that verily, he who turns away from this Beauty [Baháʾuʾlláh] hath also turned away from the Messengers of the past and showeth pride towards God from all eternity to all eternity.
Baháʾuʾlláh, “Tablet of Aḥmad. ” Baháʾí Prayers. Page 212.
Verily by “perverting” the text is not meant that which these foolish and abject souls have fancied, even as some maintain that Jewish and Christian divines have effaced from the Book such verses as extol and magnify the countenance of Muḥammad, and instead thereof have inserted the contrary. How utterly vain and false are these words! Can a man who believeth in a book, and deemeth it to be inspired by God, mutilate it? Moreover, the Pentateuch had been spread over the surface of the earth, and was not confined to Mecca and Medina, so that they could privily corrupt and pervert its text. Nay, rather, by corruption of the text is meant that in which all Muslim divines are engaged today, that is the interpretation of God’s holy Book in accordance with their idle imaginings and vain desires. And as the Jews, in the time of Muḥammad, interpreted those verses of the Pentateuch, that referred to His Manifestation, after their own fancy, and refused to be satisfied with His holy utterance, the charge of "perverting" the text was therefore pronounced against them. Likewise, it is clear, how in this day, the people of the Qurʾán have perverted the text of God’s holy Book, concerning the signs of the expected Manifestation, and interpreted it according to their inclination and desires.
For example, specifically regarding Atlantis and Lemuria:
Atlantis was a continent of the Atlantic Ocean where, according to Plato, and advanced civilization developed some 11,600 years ago. Plato affirms that, as the result of a huge volcanic cataclysm of worldwide extent, this continent sunk away underseas, disappearing forever....
Lemuria, on the other hand, is an even older version of Atlantis. Lemuria is indeed the same as the Garden of Eden and other such Paradises that in fact existed and were the actual birthplace of Mankind and Civilization, precisely as the Bible and other Holy Books affirm. From there, civilization spread to Atlantis and other parts of the world, in the dawn of times, some 20 or 30 thousand years ago, during the Ice Age....
... Atlantis is the source of all Religion, all Science and all races and civilizations.
... Atlantis is located under the South China Sea....
... the “Atlantic Ocean” ... was indeed the whole of the “earth-encircling ocean.”
Professor Arysio Nunes dos Santos, “Frequently Asked Questions.” Atlantis: The Lost Continent Finally Found. 2005. Retrieved on July 6, 2012.
His [Professor Arysio Nunes dos Santos’] idea was that Atlantis was destroyed following a cataclysmic volcanic eruption and tsunami that shook the entire world. He also feels that it might have been triggered deliberately in nuclear war by these ancient people who lived on Atlantis and he was praying this was not going to be the fate of the world again.
The academic explanation for the obvious correspondences between certain ancient cultures with their mythologies, such as accounts of creation and widespread flooding, is simple and straightforward:
No legitimate scholar in biblical studies disputes that there are similarities between the literature of Israel, Sumer, Akkad, Ugarit – and Egypt, and the Hittite civilization. The question is why the similarities exist. The answer held in great consensus today is that it is because all these civilizations shares a common cultural, linguistic, literary, and religious worldview. Because parts of the Hebrew Bible were composed or edited in Babylon during the exile, the possibility of some borrowing here and there exists, but it is done for fairly obvious reasons of theological polemic. In other words, The Hebrew Bible, as the latest literary creation among these civilizations, at times draws on each of them, not for worldview material (they already had a common pool of ideas), but to make deliberate, often antagonistic, theological statements about the beliefs of the other nations and their belief in the superiority of their God, Yahweh, compared to others.
Michael S. Heiser, Ph.D., “Genesis and Mesopotamia.” [Zecharia] Sitchin is Wrong. 2012. Retrieved on June 19, 2012.
From the resemblance between Enkidu [in the Epic of Gilgamesh or, transliterated from the Akkadian cuneiform, Gilgameš] and Adam [in the Biblical Book of Genesis] it does not, of course, follow that the latter is modelled upon the former, but only that both rest on similar traditions of the condition under which men lived in primeval days prior to the beginnings of human culture.
William Muss-Arnolt, translator, The Epic of Gilgamesh. Second Millennium B.C. Translated in 1901.
At least In the Nōăḥide narrative, people were apparently not, to my understanding, automatically saved from death or suffering because of their individual spiritual qualities:
Mention hath been made in certain books of a deluge which caused all that existed on earth, historical records as well as other things, to be destroyed. Moreover, many cataclysms have occurred which have effaced the traces of many events.
And God said to Noah, “An end of all flesh hath come before Me, for the earth hath been full of violence from their presence; and lo, I am destroying them with the earth.
There are many similar oral and written accounts throughout the world. This one, from the Kato (Cahto) First Nations people of present-day northern California, is an example:
It was evening. It rained. It rained. Every day, every night it rained.... The fog spread out close to the ground. The clouds were thick. The people then had no fire. The fire became small. All the creeks were full. There was water in the valleys. The water encircled them....
Every day it rained, every night it rained. All the people slept. The sky fell. The land was not. For a very great distance there was no land. The waters of the oceans came together. Animals of all kinds drowned. Where the water went there were no trees. There was no land.
Kato Texts. Pliny Earle Goddard, translator and editor. Berkeley, CA: The University Press. 1909. Page 186.
The ark, which spiritually protected certain people during the great deluge of Nōăḥ, was, in my opinion, the Ark of the Covenant (Hebrew, ʾĀrôn Hāḇərîṯ), the Holy
Ark (Hebrew, ʾĀrôn Kodeš), the Ancient and Eternal Covenant of God (al-ʿAhd Alast, the Covenant of am I not your
Lord?), or the divine Remembrance (al-Ḏikr al-ilāhīyah):
O MY FRIENDS! Have ye forgotten that true and radiant morn, when in those hallowed and blessed surroundings ye were all gathered in My presence beneath the shade of the tree of life, which is planted in the all-glorious paradise? Awe-struck ye listened as I gave utterance to these three most holy words: O friends! Prefer not your will to Mine, never desire that which I have not desired for you, and approach Me not with lifeless hearts, defiled with worldly desires and cravings. Would ye but sanctify your souls, ye would at this present hour recall that place and those surroundings, and the truth of My utterance should be made evident unto all of you.
O Divine Providence! Lift to Thy lovers’ lips a cup brimful of anguish. To the yearners on Thy pathway, make sweetness but a sting, and poison honey-sweet. Set Thou our heads for ornaments on the points of spears. Make Thou our hearts the targets for pitiless arrows and darts. Raise Thou this withered soul to life on the martyr’s field, make Thou his faded heart to drink the draught of tyranny, and thus grow fresh and fair once more. Make him to be drunk with the wine of Thine Eternal Covenant, make him a reveller holding high his cup. Help him to fling away his life; grant that for Thy sake, he be offered up.
Therefore, the stories of the Flood, as parables or allegories, might refer to relying upon the power of Covenantal protection during disasters, tests, and other human difficulties:
... Moses wrote down this law, and gave it to the priests, the sons of Levi, who carried the ark of the covenant of the LORD, and to all the elders of Israel.
Deuteronomy 31:9, New Revised Standard Version.
The narratives of the flood could also symbolize the survival of humans and animals, during the great meltings of the last ice age, in the Nōăḥide diluvian age, by seafaring, maritime populations:
Flood myths from all over the world characteristically and recurrently describe scenes when humans and animals flee the rising tides and take refuge on mountain tops. The fossil record confirms that this did indeed happen during the melting of the ice sheets and that the mountains were not always high enough to save the refugees from disaster....
... the myth presents Osiris as the victim of a plot. The conspirators initially dispose of him by sealing him in a box and casting him adrift on the waters of the Nile. In this respect does he not
resemble Utnapishtim [hero of the Gilgameš or Gilgamesh flood myth], and Noah and Coxcoxtli [hero of the Aztec flood myth] and all the other deluge heroes in their arks (or boxes, or chests) riding out the waters of the flood?
Graham Hancock, Fingerprints of the Gods. New York: Three Rivers Press (Crown Publishers). 1995. Page 215 and 248.
Thankfully, new spiritual seasons of spring have, as always, succeeded the wintery rejections of the divine Unity (Tawḥīd) by the priests, rulers, and multitudes in bygone eras. During a postdiluvian Age, I would speculate, Moses (Hebrew, Mōše or, using Tiberian diacritics, Mōšêh) and His followers, following years of harsh oppression under the rulership of the Pharaoh (Ancient Egyptian, pr-ʾo, great house or palace), began a fresh heavenly springtime in their great Exodus from Ancient Egypt. As the thunder, hail, and fire of God’s judgement fell upon the Earth, the Mosaic Dispensation of Sînai was victoriously initated.
In ancient times the people of America were, through their northern regions, close to Asia, that is, separated from Asia by a strait. For this reason, it hath been said that crossing had occurred. There are other signs which indicate communication.
As to places whose people were not informed of the appearance of Prophets, such people are excused. In the Qurʾán it hath been revealed: “We will not chastise them if they had not been sent a Messenger” (Q. 17:15).
Undoubtedly in those regions the Call of God must have been raised in ancient times, but it hath been forgotten now.
Then Jehovah [Hebrew, יהוה YHWH, He is becoming] said unto Moses, Go in unto Pharaoh, and tell him, Thus saith Jehovah, the God of the Hebrews, Let my people go, that they may serve me.... But the heart of Pharaoh was stubborn, and he did not let the people go.... And Moses stretched forth his rod toward heaven: and Jehovah sent thunder and hail, and fire ran down unto the earth; and Jehovah rained hail upon the land of Egypt.
... the day of the appearance of the Holy Manifestations is the spiritual springtime; it is the divine splendor; it is the heavenly bounty, the breeze of life, the rising of the Sun of Reality. Spirits are quickened; hearts are refreshed and invigorated; souls become good; existence is set in motion; human realities are gladdened, and grow and develop in good qualities and perfections. General progress is achieved and revival takes place, for it is the day of resurrection, the time of excitement and ferment, and the season of bliss, of joy and of intense rapture.
Afterward the life-giving spring ends in fruitful summer. The word of God is exalted, the Law of God is promulgated; all things reach perfection....
When the season of winter has had its effect, again the spiritual springtime returns, and a new cycle appears. Spiritual breezes blow, the luminous dawn gleams, the divine clouds give rain, the rays of the Sun of Reality shine forth, the contingent world attains unto a new life and is clad in a wonderful garment. All the signs and the gifts of the past springtime reappear, with perhaps even greater splendor in this new season.
The human spirit, the reality of man, has always existed, even before the appearances of individual humans, here on Earth.
... it cannot be said there was a time when man was not. All that we can say is that this terrestrial globe at one time did not exist, and at its beginning man did not appear upon it.... Therefore, it cannot be imagined that the worlds of existence, whether the stars or this earth, were once inhabited by the donkey, cow, mouse and cat, and that they were without man! This supposition is false and meaningless.
Dinosaurs became birds. The age of the giants was replaced by us. Earth’s creatures have become smaller, not larger. Reportedly, many of the beings from the lost pyramid-building civilization were high in stature or had elongated skulls. With the end of the last Universal Cycle, the age of giants and their dominance came to a close. So-called prehistoric societies might have managed, possibly through genetic engineering, to vastly extend the human lifespan. According to my reading of the Book of Genesis, the average life expectancy was, in the present cycle, eventually shortened to 120 years. Since then, it has further decreased.
Following the antediluvian age, the pre-ʾĀḏāmic genome (genetic pool or material) might have been unable to successfully adapt to new planetary conditions.
And it cometh to pass that mankind have begun to multiply on the face of the ground, and daughters have been born to them, and sons of God [Hebrew, hā-běnê ʾĔlōhîm] see the daughters of men that they are fair, and they take to themselves women of all whom they have chosen. And Jehovah [Hebrew, יהוה, YHWH, He is becoming] saith, “My Spirit doth not strive in man—to the age; in their erring they are flesh:” and his days have been an hundred and twenty years. The fallen ones [Hebrew,
hā-nefilîm, the fallen ones] were in the earth in those days, and even afterwards when sons of God come in unto daughters of men, and they have borne to them—they are the heroes, who, from of old, are the men of name. And Jehovah seeth that abundant is the wickedness of man in the earth, and every imagination of the thoughts of his heart only evil all the day; and Jehovah repenteth that He hath made man in the earth, and He grieveth Himself—unto His heart. And Jehovah saith, “I wipe away man whom I have prepared from off the face of the ground, from man unto beast, unto creeping thing, and unto fowl of the heavens, for I have repented that I have made them.” And Noah found grace in the eyes of Jehovah.
... the largest dinosaurs if they lived today would not be able to breathe or stand up fully, and therefore that the world seems to have been very different a long time ago (how long ago being the difference) and that the earth had higher atmospheric oxygen levels in the past, which allowed for these dinosaurs to be able to breathe and function with some normalcy. These same conditions Christians attribute to the pre-flood world that allowed for the dinosaurs to breathe, and for huge winged ones to fly, also produced things such as gigantic animals and insects, as is found in the fossil record.... As such we know that the world before the flood was conducive to gigantic animals and their health. There is every reason to conclude the earth before the flood was more conducive to the health of Nephilim-giants and human-giants as well.
As far as people’s ages goes, there is a hint in Genesis. The Flood obviously did not stop evil, but if you look at the genealogies, you will find people’s lives were cut by half both after the Flood and again after the continental division at the time of Peleg.... Genesis 7:11 states that the Flood was initiated by the simultaneous explosions of water from under the earth’s surface. This would have brought up with it man’s first exposure to radioactive materials.
At the end of every chromosome there is something called a “telomere,” which is a sort of protein storage tank.... If the ability to manufacture telomerase was destroyed by exposture to radioactivity, that might help explain the sudden drop in ages we see in Genesis.
The following extract from a paper offers one explanation for gigantism:
The gigantism we see in fossils has always puzzled people....
Because ZPE [zero point energy] strength was lower in the past, the electric and magnetic properties of the vacuum were different from now....
A lower ZPE also meant there were more light photons arriving per second at a lower amplitude. So although the overall brightness was constant, and the photon energy (color) was unchanged, photosynthesis itself was more efficient. The outcome was that flora could grow larger and more prolifically. Thus, while genetic factors may also have been involved, there is strong evidence that it was the environment itself which was primarily responsible for the gigantism we see in the fossil record.
Furthermore, as attested to within the Book of 1 Samuel (Hebrew, Šəmûʾēl) and in 1 Baruch (Hebrew, Bārûḵ):
... there came out from the camp of the Philistines a champion named Goliath, of Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span [12’
9” or 3.9 m]. He had a helmet of bronze on his head, and he was armed with a coat of mail; the weight of the coat was five thousand shekels [147 lbs or 66.68 kilos] of bronze. He had greaves of bronze on his legs and a javelin of bronze slung between his shoulders. The shaft of his spear was like a weaver’s beam, and his spear’s head weighed six hundred shekels [25 lbs or 11.34 kilos] of iron; and his shield-bearer went before him.
I Samuel, 17:4-7, New Revised Standard Version.
O Israel, how great is the house of God! And how vast the territory that he possesses! It is great and has no bounds; it is high and immeasurable. The giants were born there, who were famous of old, great in stature, expert in war. God did not choose them, nor give them the way to knowledge; so they perished because they had no wisdom, they perished through their folly.
Goliath (Hebrew, Golyāṯ, or Arabic, Ǧālūt), according to two Biblical records, had six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot:
There was again war at Gath, where there was a man of great size, who had six fingers on each hand, and six toes on each foot, twenty-four in number; he too was descended from the giants.
II Samuel, 21:20, New Revised Standard Version.
... there was war at Gath, where there was a man of great size, who had six fingers on each hand, and six toes on each foot, twenty-four in number; he also was descended from the giants.
I Chronicles, 20:6, New Revised Standard Version.
Once again, in the Book of Numbers, hā-nefilîm, the fallen ones of old, are specifically referred to as giants:
... the people that dwell in the land [the valley of ʾEškôl or Eshcol] are strong, and the cities are fortified, and very great: and moreover we saw the children of Anak there. Amalek dwelleth in the land of the South: and the Hittite, and the Jebusite, and the Amorite, dwell in the hill-country; and the Canaanite dwelleth by the sea, and along by the side of the Jordan. And Caleb stilled the people before Moses, and said, Let us go up at once, and possess it; for we are well able to overcome it. But the men that went up with him said, We are not able to go up against the people; for they are stronger than we. And they brought up an evil report of the land which they had spied out unto the children of Israel, saying, The land, through which we have gone to spy it out, is a land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof; and all the people that we saw in it are men of great stature. And there we saw the Nephilim, the sons of Anak, who come of the Nephilim
[hā-nefilîm]: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.
Bible specifically brings to our notice that there have been pre-Adamic and co-Adamic races on earth when it informs about ... Nephilim ... who even have interbred with the Adamic race.
Even more detailed are the Ethiopian Book of Enoch (Hebrew,
Sēfer Ḥānōḵ), the Book of Giants, and the Greek Apocalypse of Baruch (3 Baruch). Certain seemingly giant entities, previously under the guidance of the Kingdom of angels or watchers (Aramaic, ʿIyrin), were, speculatively, the remnants of a
“fallen” civilization. At the close of the pre-ʾĀḏāmic Universal Cycle, these beings might have “fallen” from their previous earthly dominance. In that sense, they could have been the Biblical fallen angels during a worldwide fall of
man.
In the Ancient United States, there was a civilization here that was deteriorated from a God-like stature. And then the people scattered.... We have a testimony from the Delaware Indians [the Lenape] .... And around 1,000 B.C., about 3,000 years ago, they were moving from the Western part of the United States, en masse, to the Eastern because the Great Spirit told them that their Promised Land was there in the east. So apparently there were many thousands of them. Just picture Moses and His brood of people traversing the desert – looking for the Promised Land. And they’re moving through the prairies, and they get to the woodlands, and they come to the Mississippi River, which pretty much divides the United States in half. And it’s a broad river, and so they set up a camp there. And they sent their scouts across. When the scouts came back, they said that it was a beautiful land, but it was inhabited by a race of giants. And so they said, “Well, that’s interesting. Maybe that’s the Promised Land. Maybe that’s the land of our ancestors.”
So they [the Lenape] sent messengers over to the Allegheny people. And they asked the Allegheny if they could live among them. And they Allegheny apparently already had a sort of subservient class of smaller people living among them – who they were breeding with and so forth. And they [the Allegheny] said, “No. We don’t want anymore people.” And they were very arrogant about it; and they didn’t send any emissaries across the Mississippi to check out their people. And so the Lenape [Delaware Indians] said, “We’re sorry to hear that. Can we cut through your land to lands further – if they exist.” And they said, “Yes. You may do that.”...
So the Lenape got all their people up and all their animals, and they started to wade across the Mississippi. Just imagine, Moses crossing the Red Sea. And they get over, a number of them get over; and the Allegheny look at them and they say, “My God! There’s thousands of them.” So they [the Allegheny] thought they had been deceived, and that it was a Trojan horse. So the Allegheny set upon these people, according to the story given to us by the Native people. And they [the Allegheny] kill as many as they can. Well, this greatly upset the Lenape. And they had the holy b-Jesus scared out of them, so to speak. So they ran back across the river.
And, at that time, another tribe [the Mengua] came down from the north who were friendly. And they [the Lenape] talked to them [the Mengua] about these giants [the Allegheny] who were very protective of their lands. And they [the Lenape] ask them [the Mengua], “If we [the Lenape] make war against them [the Allegheny], for taking advantage of us like that, will you back us up?” And the Mengua people, that was their name, said, “Yes.” So, according to the legend, it took them 100 years, but they used a guerilla warfare tactic, because the Allegheny people, who were once a mighty nation of Gods and highly evolved giant people, had diminished themselves to the point of being comprised of a number of city-states – like the Greeks had degenerated to. And the city-states would not help the others, similar to what the Greeks did. And, therefore, the Lenape and the Mengua were able to take advantage of this and gradually defeat, over 100 years, these Allegheny people.
But, during that time, they [the Allegheny] captured many of their [Lenape and Mengua] women, and some of their men, and inbred with them and breeded with them. And they produced a hybrid race called the Adena people. And, therefore, there have been wars in the United States. And, in fact, the Adena people later were considered to be frightening, because many of them had giants among them – the genetics of which they inherited from the Allegheny. So, ultimatey and eventually, these giants spread out to the north, to the east, to the south, and to the west. And, therefore, many of the tribal structures ... embodied, at the core of their political systems, men of gigantic stature.
Ross Hamilton, “Giants, Mound Builders & Etheric Energy.” Henrik Palmgren, interviewer. Red Ice Radio. March 17, 2013. Retrieved (transcribed) on March 19, 2013.
Although the giant pre-ʾĀḏāmites were originally spiritual or angelic, they apparently fell into superstition and sexual promiscuity. Their progeny, though mating with
post-ʾĀḏāmites or modern homo sapiens, might have been giants, as well:
... they [the angels] were, in all, two hundred and they came down on Ardis, which is the summit of Mount Hermon. And they called the mountain Hermon because on it they swore and bound one another with curses. And these are the names of their leaders: Semyaza, who was their leader, Urakiba, Ramiel, Kokabiel, Tamiel, Ramiel, Daniel, Ezeqiel, Baraqiel, Asael, Armaros, Batriel, Ananel, Zaqiel, Samsiel, Satael, Turiel, Yomiel, Araziel. These are the leaders of the two hundred Angels and of all the others with them. And they took wives for themselves and everyone chose for himself one each. And they began to go into them and were promiscuous with them. And they taught them charms and spells, and they showed them the cutting of roots and trees. And they became pregnant and bore large giants. And their height was three thousand cubits [.85 mile or 1.37 kilometer]. These devoured all the toil of men; until men were unable to sustain them. And the giants turned against them in order to devour men. And they began to sin against birds, and against animals, and against reptiles, and against fish, and they devoured one another’s flesh, and drank the blood from it....
And now, the giants who were born from body and flesh will be called Evil Spirits on the Earth, and on the Earth will be their dwelling. And evil spirits came out from their flesh, because from above they
were created, from the Holy Watchers was their origin and first foundation. Evil spirits they will be on Earth and “Spirits of the Evil Ones” they will be called.
[These fallen angels] knew the secrets of [all things]. [At this time] sin was great on the earth. The wicked angels killed many people and begot giants [with mortal women].
The wicked (former) angels [consumed] everything that the earth produced: the great fish, the birds in the sky, all the fruit of the earth, all kinds of grain, [the fruit] of the trees, [even beasts and reptiles they committed sin against] – all the creeping things of the earth: they [observed/watched all earthly things]. They performed every harsh deed with harsh utterance upon male and female creation and upon/among humanity itself.
And I Baruch said, Since also the vine has been the cause of such great evil, and is under judgment of the curse of God, and was the destruction of the first created, how is it now so useful? And the angel said, Thou askest aright. When God caused the deluge upon earth, and destroyed all flesh, and four hundred and nine thousand giants, and the water rose fifteen cubits above the highest mountains, then the water entered into paradise and destroyed every flower; but it removed wholly without the bounds the shoot of the vine and cast it outside.
Among Roman Catholic, Protestant, and Eastern Orthodox Christians, The Book of Jubilees is, like the three sources above, considered to be pseudepigraphal (literally, from the Ancient Greek, falsely named or attributed, which is to say, unauthentic). However, both Ethiopian Jews and the Ethiopian Orthodox Church regard the text as canonical. Based upon it, the giants may have been the offspring of giant pre-ʾĀḏāmites (nefilîm or fallen angels) and the shorter
post-ʾĀḏāmites. These fallen angels, the pre-ʾĀḏāmites, may have been gradually wiped out during the process symbolized as Nōăḥide flood.
And it came to pass when the children of men began to multiply on the face of the earth and daughters were born unto them, that the angels of God saw them on a certain year of this jubilee, that they were beautiful to look upon; and they took themselves wives of all whom they chose, and they bare unto them sons and they were giants. And lawlessness increased on the earth and all flesh corrupted its way, alike men and cattle and beasts and birds and everything that walks on the earth – all of them corrupted their ways and their orders, and they began to devour each other, and lawlessness increased on the earth and every imagination of the thoughts of all men (was) thus evil continually. And God looked upon the earth, and behold it was corrupt, and all flesh had corrupted its orders, and all that were upon the earth had wrought all manner of evil before His eyes. And He said that He would destroy man and all flesh upon the face of the earth which He had created. But Noah found grace before the eyes of the Lord.
Some authors have speculatively interpreted that passage from Jubilees from the book to imply that gigantism, modifications to non-human creatures, and even the mythic human-animal hybrids or chimeras were created by pre-ʾĀḏāmites or others through genetic engineering:
... the Watchers not only modified human DNA during the construction of Nephilim, but animals as well, a point the Book of Enoch supports, saying in the 7th chapter that the fallen angels “sinned” against animals as well as humans. Other books such as Jubilees add that this interspecies mingling eventually resulted in mutations among normal humans and animals whose “flesh” (genetic makeup) was “corrupted” by the activity, presumably through crossbreeding ....
Thomas Horn, Apollyon Rising 2012: The Lost Symbol Found and the Final Mystery of the Great Seal Revealed. Crane, MO: Anomalos Publishing, LLC. 2009. Kindle edition.
A chimera is an individual composed of cells with different embryonic origins. The successful isolation of five human embryonic stem cell (hESC) lines in 1998 increased scientists’ ability to create human/non-human chimeras and prompted extensive bioethics discussion, resulting in what has been dubbed “the other stem cell debate” ....
In classical Greek and Egyptian myth, chimeras are depicted as having parts with the morphological characteristics typical of different species. The chimera of Greek mythology, for example, has the head of a lion, the body of a goat, and the tail of a serpent....
The early discussion of ethical issues raised by chimeras occurred under the heading of xenotransplantation, the use of non-human animals as a source of cells, tissues, or organs for transplantation into humans ....
Robert Streiffer, “Human/Non-Human Chimeras.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Edward N. Zalta, editor. Spring, 2011, edition. Retrieved on January 12, 2013.
credit for all three pictures, Wikimedia
Similar records of giants, including their destruction in a flood, can be discovered by examining the myths and fossilized remains of other cultures:
While Zeus was establishing himself, the Earth gave birth to a new, monstrous set of gods, the Giants [titans], which were fathered by the Sky. The Giants were as tall as mountains and so strong as to be unbeatable. The Olympian gods were anthropomorphic, which means that they looked a lot like human men and women. But the Giants were frightening to look at. According to Apollodorus, their shaggy hair drooped from their heads and chins, and they had dragon scales on their feet.
The mightiest Giants were Porphyrion and Alkyoneus.
Described in the [Egyptian] myths as having “the strength of giants, and mighty hands on their mighty limbs,” these formidable men were exterminated by Zeus, king of the gods, as a punishment for the misdeeds of Prometheus, the rebellious Titan [an Ancient Greek giant] who had presented humanity with the gift of fire. The mechanism the vengeful deity used to sweep the earth clean was an overwhelming flood.
Graham Hancock, Fingerprints of the Gods. New York: Three Rivers Press (Crown Publishers). 1995. Page 192.
Giants who once lived in China would fit story-book descriptions of ogres, for their fossilized teeth are six times as big as modern man’s and twice and big as a gorilla’s. Far to the south, in Java, were other giants with jawbones much bigger than those of any known human being’s, living or extinct.
seven photos of giant skeletons (click to enlarge)
ancient giant inside a coffin in County Antrim, Ireland (click to enlarge)
Allegedly, this footprint, of a female according to paleontologists, was cast near Glen Rose, TX, at the Paluxy River. It is
14” (35.6 cm) long and 7” (17.8 cm) wide. From compression studies, the person was about 10’ (3.04 m) tall and weighed approximately 1,000 lbs (434 kilos).
Michael Tellinger standing next to a giant footprint near Mpaluzi, South Africa (allegedly between 200- and 300-million years old)
huge ancient axes allegedly found in Denmark (click to enlarge)
Here are some reported archaeological finds of giant beings:
19’ 6” human skeleton found in 1577 A.D. under an overturned oak tree in the Canton of Lucerne. A 23 foot tall skeleton found in 1456 A.D. beside a river in Valence, France.
A 25’ 6” skeleton found in 1613 A.D. near the castle of Chaumont in France. This was claimed to be a nearly complete find. A 9’ 8” skeleton was excavated from a mound near Brewersville, Indiana (Indianapolis News, Nov 10, 1975).
In 1833 soldiers digging at a pit for a powder magazine in Lompoc Rancho, California, discovered a male skeleton 12 feet tall. The skeleton was surrounded by carved shells, stone axes, and blocks of porphyry covered with unintelligible symbols. The skeleton had double rows of upper and lower teeth. These bones substantiated legends by the local Paiute Indians regarding giants which they called
Si-Te-Cahs.
In Clearwater, Minnesota, the skeletons of seven giants were found in mounds. These had receding foreheads and complete double dentition.
A mound near Toledo, Ohio, held 20 skeletons, seated and facing east with jaws and teeth “twice as large as those of present day people,” and besides each was a large bowl with “curiously wrought hieroglyphic figures.” (Chicago Record, Oct. 24, 1895; cited by Ron G. Dobbins, NEARA Journal, v13, fall 1978).
Mike Phillips, Nefilîm. Retrieved on June 5, 2012.
... the largest dinosaurs if they lived today would not be able to breathe or stand up fully, and therefore that the world seems to have been very different a long time ago (how long ago being the difference) and that the earth had higher atmospheric oxygen levels in the past, which allowed for these dinosaurs to be able to breathe and function with some normalcy. These same conditions ... [in] the pre-flood world that allowed for the dinosaurs to breathe, and for huge winged ones to fly, also produced things such as gigantic animals and insects, as is found in the fossil record. As such we know that the world before the flood was conducive to gigantic animals and their health. There is every reason to conclude the earth before the flood was more conducive to the health of Nephilim-giants and human-giants as well.
This may be how the Bible says of the Nephilim-giants, “the same became mighty men of old, men of renown.” These bodies with pituitary gigantism were able to function much better in the pre-flood world, and so were able to be “mighty men.” At the same time, they also had decreased lifespans. As such the gigantism and the shortened lifespan genes seem to not be directly tied together, but separate. All of humanity having shorter lifespans after the flood, while not being giants, shows that the two genetic issues were not exclusively tied together. The gigantism genes and the short-lifespan genes, while both coming from the Nephilim-giants, were not exclusively related. While the giants did live shorter lives than was usual in that time pre-flood, it is also clear that at first their gigantism was not a total hindrance to them, being called “mighty men.” However, after the flood and the change of atmospheric conditions, the gigantism seemed to produce even worse health problems for those with gigantism. And ultimately we can see that the shortened-lifespan genetics were not tied to gigantism genetics, as all of humanity has a shortened lifespan, but few have gigantism.
The human-giants after the flood did not have any atmospheric advantage, and there are indications they were in poor health, like those with gigantism today. For instance, one very plausible theory is that Goliath died by the stone hitting his head because of poor health and medical conditions which directly related to him having pituitary gigantism.
Using Ockham’s razor or parsimony, the sheer size and strength of the giants might tentatively resolve, at least in part, the methodology by which ancient humans lifted pyramid stones and built the pyramids. The next six photographs, from this MP4 video, show human beings manipulating the huge stones in a pyramid, statue, obelisk, and sphinx by hand. Some of these images are from the Rekhmire tomb in Egypt:
click on each of the pictures to enlarge
Others, however, have argued that these stones might have been manipulated using some form of vibrational antigravity or sound resonance technology. From this perspective, the planetary alignments of these physical structures could indicate an intentional harmony, or harmonics, of the spheres. Although I am highly
skeptical of this proposal, the following quotations offer fairly similar suggestions:
What Masʿūdī [Abu al-Ḥasan ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī al-Masʿūdī, ninth-tenth centuries A.D.] was suggesting in his curious account [the thirty-volume Ahbār az-Zamān, History of Time] is that inscribed magical papyri were inserted beneath the stone blocks used in the construction of the pyramids, before the latter were struck by an instrument of some sort, plausibly a rod or stave. Somehow this induced them both to rise into the air and travel for a distance of “a bowshot,” the equivalent of 150 cubits, with one “royal” cubit measuring 0.5773 metres. Even with the most basic knowledge of physics, it is clear that Masʿūdī was implying that, by striking the stones, the Ancient Egyptians were able to set up some kind of sustained sound vibration that enabled the building-blocks to defy gravity and move over the ground for a distance of around 86.5 metres, before they would have to be struck again to achieve the same result. After producing an initial thrust, they would have been able to take advantage of Newton’s first law of motion [inertia, objects stay at rest or in motion unless acted upon by an outside force].
Andrew Collins, Gods of Eden: Egypt’s Lost Legacy and the Genesis of Civilization. Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions – Bear & Company. Kindle edition.
Edward Leedskalnin, a Latvian eccentric, ... concocted a method of single-handedly erecting massive quarried stone resulting in the enigma that is Coral Castle [in Homestead, Florida]....
Ed disputed contempory science and believed all matter consisted of magnets which could produce measurable phenomena, and electricity. Ed would say he had “re-discovered the laws of weight, measurement, and leverage” and that these concepts “involved the relationship of the Earth to celestial alignments.” He claimed to see beads of light which he believed to be the physical presence of nature’s magnetism and life force ....
According to author B.J. Cathie, an authority on grid dynamics, “there exists an all-encompassing global grid with direct harmonic relationship to the speed of light, gravity, magnetics and earth mass. All major changes of the physical state are brought about by harmonic interactions of these manifestations. The controlled manipulation of these forces would make it possible to instantaneously move mass from one point to another in space/time.”
To the Ancient Egyptians every star possessed a sacred meaning. They called Sirius in the constellation Canis Major the Star of Isis. Other constellations like Orion might have had a certain architectural significance. The three Great Pyramids are aligned with the three constellation stars of Orion. What does this alignment mean, is it a coincidence or were the pyramids purposely engineered this way?
Still other ancient and prehistoric hominins had elongated skulls. Speculatively, as an aspect of Unific Evolution, some of these beings were genetically engineered by ancient Earthlings, transdimensionals, or transterrestrials which have resulted in higher cranial capacities. By way of imitation, the heads of some infants many have been artifically elongated, by later human parents, through cranial deformation:
Since the unusually elongated crania have been observed in statuary depictions of even the youngest children, the assumption has been made that it was genetically related. Perhaps, in light of the new acoustical data from the Great Pyramid’s chambers this assumption may be confirmed and understood to be a result of the infrasonic stimulation, the advanced art of genetic enhancement.
Were practitioners of cranial deformation desirous of looking like a race of beings that actually had elongated skulls? The best hypothesis in our opinion is that the headbinding seen worldwide was done in emulation of an ancient long-headed race (either natural or forced) that brought wisdom and knowledge to our ancestors. Some fairly direct evidence in favor of this hypothesis is that the Nambas tribe of Vanuatu, who still practice headbinding today, think it makes people more intelligent and do it in honor of Ambat, an ancient long-headed cultural hero who has come to be worshipped as a god.
David Hatcher Childress and Brien Foerster, The Enigma of Cranial Deformation: Elongated Skulls of the Ancients. Kempton, IL: Adventures Unlimited Press. 2012. Kindle edition.
The elongated skulls and flattened foreheads have created speculation of evidence of aliens .... Even this past year, the Daily Mail claimed that skulls found in Peru were potentially those of extraterrestrials. According to the article there are three anthropologists that all agree that these are not human. However, we know that this practice is not only easy to accomplish in humans, but also continues in cultures today (even our own).
When taking into account the variety of hominins who may have occupied this planet throughout its geological history, questions may be raised over the validity of evolution. On face value, giants or beings with larger cranial cavities might seem to be much further evolved than modern-day homo sapien sapiens (non-Neanderthal homo sapiens). However, evolution should, in my view, be considered from a God’s-eye viewpoint, so to speak, not necessarily a human perspective. Changes which, to many of us, might appear as devolution or regression could, from a divine perspective, represent progress or improvement.
Speculatively, might isolated, relic hominin populations, as the technologically advanced survivors of a pre-ʾĀḏāmitic pyramid civilization, inhabit the planet even now? If so, any disunity or demireality between us will, over time, hopefully be repaired. Together, we can build the World Order of Baháʾuʾlláh:
The Friendship case helps confirm the accounts of a number of American contactees and whistleblowers that human looking extraterrestrials have blended into human society and have walked among us.
[Bruno] Sammaciccia finally described a violent conflict between two factions of extraterrestrials trying to influence humanity’s development and future. While his
“Friendship” faction promoted cosmic unity and ethical development, the other faction promoted technological development at all cost. This led to periodic violent clashes between the factions. Eventually, the underground bases of Sammaciccia’s extraterrestrial friends was destroyed in 1978. Survivors had to leave the Earth but promised to return at a future time when humanity was ready for a more ethical future of humanity interacting with extraterrestrials.
The connections between those who propose ancient astronauts as fact and those who write of them as (science) fiction are myriad, and the web of influence runs in many directions. Perhaps someday the Great Race will swap minds with some of us and tell the world how aliens once ruled the past ....
A resemblance, perhaps only superficial, can be noted between the depiction, as shown below, of the Mesoamerican figure, Lord Pacal (Mayan, Pakal, shield), and modern astronauts. (Pacal, peace be upon him, may have lived in the seventh century A.D.) The artifact, which is allegedly a feature of Pacal’s sarcophagus, was discovered by archaeologist Albert Lluillier in 1952. Vertically, the photograph in the middle is a speculative diagram (not drawn by me) of the artifact. The photo at the bottom displays a carving by model-maker Paul Francis from 2011. Here are the images:
Meanwhile, Erich Von Däniken (born, 1935) was one of the originators of the ancient astronauts meme. He blended his perspectives on that subject with panspermia:
Does not this seriously pose the question whether the human race is not an act of deliberate “breeding” by unknown beings from outer space? Otherwise what can be the sense of the constantly recurring fertilisation of human beings by giants and sons of heaven, with the consequent extermination of unsuccessful specimens....
Today the possibility of breeding an intelligent human race is no longer such an absurd theory....
If our own space travellers happen to meet primitive peoples on a planet one day, they too will presumably seem like “sons of heaven” or “gods” to them.
Erich Von Däniken, Chariots of the Gods?: Was God an Astronaut. Seventh edition. New York: Bantam Books (Random House). 1972.
Although, by contemporary analogy, the angelic transterrestrials might be referred to as astronauts or cosmonauts, I do not subscribe to the ancient
astronaut model. In my opinion, this perspective, generally speaking, is too one-sided. It turns the interplanetary relationships between intelligent beings into a universal hermeneutic or system of textual interpretation. Perhaps some extraordinary events reported in the Biblical and other ancient texts might be explained by advanced otherworldly or “prehistoric” technologies, but reducing most or all of them to physics or engineering is materialistic and overly simplistic.
photographs of possible Siberian and Mayan artifacts of “astronauts”
For instance, according to various ancient astronaut proponents, the visions of Prophets can be attributed to holograms. God becomes a spaceship, or starship, captain:
Now my basic premise is that God and the Son of God ... collectively are not supernatural deities but flesh-and-blood extraterrestrials. Recall John 8: 23 “And he [Jesus Christ] said unto them, Ye are from beneath; I am from above: ye are of this world; I am not of this world” or John 18:36 – “Jesus answered: My kingdom is not of this world.” ... God the ET is the Captain of the Starship Heaven.
Although nobody knows how the [Biblical] visions were created, it is probably possible for professionals to explain them as some type of holographic projection, often followed by a voice. We know that the Anunnaki [the alleged race of extraterrestrials] had every kind of controlling and watching instruments, high tech tools and communicating equipment. To exclude such capabilities from people who had space ships that could land, load tons of gold and then lift again from earth, would be foolish.
It is common among the writings of Zecharia Sitchin, [Erich] von Daniken [Von Däniken] and others that, in the Bible, ... extraterrestrial visitors are mistaken as angels, and that the whole idea of religion is based on misinterpreting interactions with those visitors.
Zecharia Sitchin (1920-2010) interpreted The Atra-Hasis or Tablet of the Covenant, an Ancient Sumerian text. He argued that, according to these ancient accounts, humans were created by hybridizing the race of “extraterrestrials,” the Anunnaki, along with clay. Sitchin’s views have been widely criticized, especially for their mythological literalism and their pseudoscience, but I am, to be honest, not qualified to take a position one way or the other. I will note, however, that I could find no reference in the translation to the Anunnaki as “extraterrestrial
entities.”
Adding to those problems, in my view, Sitchin has taken the ideas of transterrestrial servitude or intervention and genetic engineering way out into left field. Here is just a small portion of the text followed by Sitchin’s broader comments:
Their [the Anunnakis’] work was too hard, their trouble was too much....
“You [Mami] are the womb-goddess to be the creator of mankind! Create a mortal, that he may bear the yoke! Let him bear the yoke, the work of Enlil! Let man bear the load of the gods!” ...
“Wise Mami, mother of the gods your sons, your wisdom is noted and shall be made to pass. On the first, seventh and fifteenth of the month I shall make a purification by washing. Then one Anunnaki God should be chosen for sacrifice, and the gods can be purified by immersion. Nintu shall mix clay with his flesh and blood. Then a god and a man will be mixed together in clay.” ...
“I [Mami] have carried out perfectly the work that you ordered of me. You have sacrificed a god together with his intelligence. I have relieved you of your hard work, I have imposed your load upon man, but only as a co-worker, not a slave. You would have bestowed noise and woe upon mankind, but I have undone the fetter and granted freedom!”
... the Anunnaki came to Earth some 450,000 years ago from the planet Nibiru – a member of our own solar system whose great orbit brings it to our part of the heavens once every 3,600 years. They came here in need of gold, with which to protect their dwindling atmosphere. Exhausted and in need of help in mining the gold, their chief scientist Enki suggested that they use their genetic knowledge to create the needed Primitive Workers.
What he had in mind was to upgrade genetically the existing hominids, who were already on Earth through Evolution, by adding some of the genes of the more advanced Anunnaki.
[Question to Halloran:] ... it is his [Zecharia Sitchin’s] contention that Sumerian texts verify that the human race was genetically altered to service a superior extraterrestrial race called the Annunaki.
Can you verify or refute these claims?
[Halloran’s response:] I am very familiar with the Sumerian language and culture. There is nothing extraterrestrial about it.
Among some ancient astronaut proponents, the Biblical ʾĔlōhîm (Hebrew for Mighty Ones) are identified as the Anunnaki. After genetically engineering humanity to be their gardeners of Eden (Hebrew, ʿĒden, abundant, lush, or fruitful), they supposedly declared that deeper knowledge, or gnōsis, is forbidden. The ʾĔlōhîm did not, according to the meme, want humans to be transformed into knowing
ones like themselves. Therefore, the serpent (Hebrew, hā-nahaš, the whispering snake) of Genesis becomes a symbol of gnōstic liberation (and libertarianism):
The rulers of the Annunaki [an alternate spelling of Anunnaki] call themselves “Elohim.” ...
... consider very carefully the following verse from Genesis 2:16: “And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: 17: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” ...
... Who, though, is the serpent? The “serpent” is a symbol for the DOMA [Daughters Of MA, the females from all the great families] genetic team. Throughout history, the snake symbol has become one of the best known and powerful symbols of the Goddess.
The Way. November 15, 2004. Retrieved on June 4, 2012.
And Jehovah God [Hebrew, YHWH ʾĔlōhîm, He is becoming Mighty Ones or the Almighty Being] layeth a charge on the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden eating thou dost eat; and of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou dost not eat of it, for in the day of thine eating of it—dying thou dost die.” ...
And the woman saith unto the serpent, “Of the fruit of the trees of the garden we do eat, and of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden God hath said, Ye do not eat of it, nor touch it, lest ye die.” And the serpent saith unto the woman, “Dying, ye do not die, for God doth know that in the day of your eating of it—your eyes have been opened, and ye have been as God, knowing good and evil.” And the woman seeth that the tree is good for food, and that it is pleasant to the eyes, and the tree is desirable to make one wise, and she taketh of its fruit and eateth, and giveth also to her husband with her, and he doth eat; and the eyes of them both are opened, and they know that they are naked, and they sew fig-leaves, and make to themselves girdles.... And Jehovah God saith to the woman, “What is this thou hast done?” and the woman saith, “The serpent hath caused me to forget—and I do eat.”
And Jehovah God saith unto the serpent, “Because thou hast done this, cursed art thou above all the cattle, and above every beast of the field: on thy belly dost thou go, and dust thou dost eat, all days of thy life; and enmity I put between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; he doth bruise thee—the head, and thou dost bruise him—the heel.” Unto the woman He said, “Multiplying I multiply thy sorrow and thy conception, in sorrow dost thou bear children, and toward thy husband is thy desire, and he doth rule over thee.” And to the man He said, “Because thou hast hearkened to the voice of thy wife, and dost eat of the tree concerning which I have charged thee, saying, Thou dost not eat of it, cursed is the ground on thine account; in sorrow thou dost eat of it all days of thy life....”
And Jehovah God saith, “Lo, the man was as one of Us, as to the knowledge of good and evil; and now, lest he send forth his hand, and have taken also of the tree of life, and eaten, and lived to the age,”— Jehovah God sendeth him forth from the garden of Eden to serve the ground from which he hath been taken; yea, he casteth out the man, and causeth to dwell at the east of the garden of Eden the cherubs and the flame of the sword which is turning itself round to guard the way of the tree of life.
... increasing numbers of people have adopted the name “meme” for the postulated gene analogue....
... the Oxford Dictionary now does contain the following definition: meme: “a self-replicating element of culture passed on by imitation.”
Richard Dawkins, A Devil’s Chaplain: Reflections on Hope, Lies, Science, and Love. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company. 2003. Page 120.
The similarities between ancient cultures can be explained using the highly supported theory of diffusionism:
Suggestions
The creation story in the Book of Genesis is often understood, though I would strongly suspect largely misunderstood, as panspermia:
Upon reaching Genesis 1:26 I read the following:
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth [Authorized, or King James, Version].
Why were the plural pronouns “us” and “our” used in these verses? Could it be that those ancient astronaut theorists were correct? Were we created by extraterrestrials?
Perhaps a more plausable, if still speculative, scenario, is that images of the spacecraft piloted by transterrestrials or by Earth’s prior inhabitants, as the vehicles of “angels,” were incorporated into the popular cultures and imaginations of certain societies. After all, to an individual living in a pre-industrial civilization, advanced interplanetary technology might appear to be miraculous, supernatural, or preternatural (outside of the natural realm). Thus, as ancient, medieval, and early modern humans attempted to portray the otherworldiness of God’s Prophets and other saintly beings, they occasionally resorted to aeronautical imagery.
The Annunciation by Carlo Crivelli (the Archangel Gabriel portrayed as an apparent spacecraft), 1496 A.D.
The Baptism of Jesus by Aert de Gelder, 1710 A.D.
fresco (mural) in the Visoki Decani Monastery, Metohia, Kosovo (formerly, Yugoslavia), 1350 A.D.
A parallel might be drawn to nineteenth- and twentieth-century cargo cults. They are also referred to by a variety of other names:
The basic lineaments of cargo cults became well known, so much so that a cargo cult provided the climactic scenes of the 1963 cult classic movie, Mondo Cane.... A cargo prophet receives a message that ancestors, or often the Americans or other powerful outsiders, have promised boatloads or planeloads of cargo. This cargo consists of Western manufactured goods, including tinned food, clothing, tools, vehicles and refrigerators, as well as money. Many Melanesians had enjoyed improved access to such items during the war years, but goods became scarcer when military forces pulled back from the Pacific. A variant of the cargo story is that ancestors are already shipping cargo, but that Europeans have schemed to hijack these shipments so that they fail to arrive.
The typical prophetic message holds that if people establish social harmony and consensus, setting aside disputes and disruptive practices such as sorcery, then cargo will arrive....
... use of the label “cargo cult,” within anthropology at least, has declined. While still standard fare in introductory anthropological texts, ethnographers have turned to more politic descriptive alternatives (e.g. nativistic, adjustment, protonationalist, micronationalist, local protest, developmental self-help, regional separatist or Holy Spirit movements).
Lamont Lindstrom, “Cargo Cult.” Encyclopedia of Social and Cultural Anthropology. Alan Barnard and Jonathan Spencer, editors. London: Routledge. 2009. Pages 128-130.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Arthur Charles Clarke, Profiles of the Future: An Inquiry into the Limits of the Possible. Boston, MA: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt). 1984. Page 36.
★ I am not fluent in Arabic, but I can work with it. Unless otherwise stated, all English translations are from the Arabic or Persian languages (or, in some cases, a “Persianized” Arabic). There are differences, which will be evident, between the system of transliteration, or romanization, of Arabic and Persian words contained in official Baháʾí texts and the ISO (International Organization for Standardization) system (or the Tiberian system for some Hebrew words) adopted in other parts of this work. (See this page on verb conjugation.) Diacritics (the signs used in transliteration) for various languages have sometimes been modified in quotations. Focusing on both translation and transliteration has, from my perspective, been a way to draw close, in my heart, to the individuals and ideas being discussed. Perhaps your experiences will be similar. Learning any “tongue” comes through love:
Speak in the Persian tongue, though the Arab please thee more;
A lover hath many a tongue at his command.
From Mawlānā (Our Master) Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī’s Maṯnawī (Persian, Maṯnavī), quoted by
Baháʾuʾlláh, “The Seven Valleys.” The Seven Valleys and the Four Valleys. Page 58.
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