Problematical Thera Dating



 

 

Part One: Introductory

by

 Damien F. Mackey

 

 

 

“The problem is that the most recent pottery style found at Akrotiri was Late Minoan 1A, dated to around 1500BCE. This led most scholars to conclude that the [Thera] eruption occurred around this date and was not responsible for the Minoan collapse which occurred later, around 1450 [BC]”.

 Robyn Antanovskii

 

 

As with King Hammurabi of Babylon, the dating of the Thera (Santorini) eruption - which far exceeded in strength the notorious Krakatoa eruption in 1883 - has been most difficult to pinpoint. One might have thought that an event of such a cataclysmic magnitude would have left its very clear traces on civilisations throughout the contemporary Mediterranean world, thereby making it quite apparent to archaeologists precisely when the Thera eruption had occurred.  

 

King Hammurabi of Babylon, for his part, had had to be dragged right out of the approximately mid - third millennium BC, to where scholars had initially assigned him, and re-located to the early C18th BC. But even so early a placement as the latter was not going to sit well with revisionist historians. Dr. D. Courville (The Exodus Problem and its Ramifications, 1971) - and others who have followed him - unhappy with the way poor Hammurabi seemed to be (as Courville described it) ‘floating about in a liquid chronology of Chaldea’ - re-assigned him to the C15th BC, about a millennium later than the earliest estimates.

This location for King Hammurabi is, though, I believe, based on rather flimsy evidence. See my:

 

Two Kings, “Jabin”, are better than one

 

https://www.academia.edu/29403887/Two_Kings_Jabin_are_better_than_one

 

Finally, Dean Hickman came to the rescue, to put us all out of our misery, and chronologically nailed King Hammurabi to the time of the biblical kings David and Solomon. See my:

 

Hammurabi and Zimri-Lim as Contemporaries of Solomon

 

https://www.academia.edu/18306131/Hammurabi_and_Zimri-Lim_as_Contemporaries_of_Solomon

and:

 

Hammurabi and Zimri-Lim as Contemporaries of Solomon. Part Two: Zimri-lim's Mari Palace and King Solomon

 

https://www.academia.edu/30882833/Hammurabi_and_Zimri-Lim_as_Contemporaries_of_Solomon._Part_Two_Zimri-lims_Mari_Palace_and_King_Solomon

 

Dean Hickman’s biblico-historical correspondences, such as his identification of King David’s Syrian foe, Hadadezer of Syria, with the historical Shamsi-Adad I (older contemporary of Hammurabi), and of the latter’s father:

 

Ilu-Kabkabu as Biblical Rehob

 

https://www.academia.edu/25937057/Ilu-Kabkabu_as_Biblical_Rehob

 

has borne rich fruit, yielding further major biblico-historical synchronisms, see e.g. my:

 

Iahdulim as Biblical Eliada

 

https://www.academia.edu/25937867/Iahdulim_as_Biblical_Eliada

 

Naturally, too, in the case of Thera, revisionist historians were going to try their hand at attempting a solution. Dr. Courville again, for instance, had waxed so bold as to identify the Thera eruption with a very late biblical event: the “earthquake” at the time of King Uzziah of Judah. Dr. Courville dated this earthquake to 751-750 BC. Good try – but that is beyond any reasonable estimation. Looking for a biblical correlation? Many today follow the fascinating view of Dr. Hans Goedicke, who in 1981 announced that the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt coincided with the volcanic eruption (Thera) on the Mediterranean island of Santorini.

Part Two:

Recently Revised Backwards

 

“Tell el-Dab‘a supposedly had a secure archaeologically based chronology linked to Egypt which showed that the relevant cultural horizon in the Aegean was late 16^th century BC at the earliest, if not later. This certainty has proved to be rather insecure. A detailed radiocarbon dating programme at the site found a chronology on average around 100 years older than the one claimed by Bietak (Kutschera et al. 2012)”.

 

Evidences for the biblical Plagues of Egypt, and the Exodus of the people of Israel out of Egypt, led by Moses - entirely absent from the conventional presentation of history and archaeology - have proven difficult to identify even in the chronologically more realistic revisionist systems.

Fortunately we are now able, at least, positively to identify the wandering Israelites archaologically:

 

The Bible Illuminates History & Philosophy. Part Seven: Middle Bronze I Israelites

 

https://www.academia.edu/33877212/The_Bible_Illuminates_History_and_Philosophy._Part_Seven_Middle_Bronze_I_Israelites

 

But identifying captive Israel, and the person of Moses, within an ancient Egyptian historical context has been extremely difficult to achieve. One of the snags is that there must be chariots – these being apparently as scarce as hen’s teeth in early Egypt.

My tentative view that the Pharaoh of the Exodus, St. Paul’s “Mambres” (2 Timothy 3:8), was the (supposedly 14^th dynasty) pharaoh, Sheshi Maibre, conventionally dated to the late C17th BC (see e.g. Phouka): http://www.phouka.com/pharaoh/pharaoh/dynasties/dyn15/02bnon.html

 

1646 -- 1635 BCE proposed
manetho	reigned 44 years
redford	1664-1662
franke	1615-1602
ryholt	1745-1705

 

now coincides closely with the revised dating for the Thera eruption, as proposed by Sturt Manning (see below). If so, then such a biblico-historical and geophysical coincidence would be a massive ‘fingerprint’ for identifying those dramatic events as described in the Book of Exodus.

 

Here follows an excellent review of Sturt Manning’s detailed research on the subject:

http://blogs.cornell.edu/sturtmanning/2014/07/07/therasantorini-date-debate-whats-new-and-why-is-it-important/comment-page-1/

Thera/Santorini date debate: what’s new, and why is it important?

 

The Thera (or Santorini) volcanic eruption in the southern Aegean is the largest known of the past 12,000 years (Johnston et al. 2014) and sent ash (tephra) and tsunami over a large area of the east Mediterranean (the latter reached the Levant: Goodman-Tchernov et al. 2009). The eruption buried, Pompeii-like, a large Bronze Age town at Akrotiri on Thera (Santorini) – disrupting long-established trade and communications networks in the region (Knappett et al. 2011). This great mid 2^nd millennium BC volcanic eruption appears self-evidently an event of historical importance. When precisely did it occur?

A correct answer has proved a long, difficult, and controversial topic over the past several decades, pitting an established archaeological synthesis based around linkages of material culture and stylistic traits across the Aegean and east Mediterranean to proto-historical Egypt, against science-based dating techniques. The story up to 1999 was surveyed in Manning (1999), but this volume has now been out of print for a number of years. A new book (Manning 2014) – http://www.oxbowbooks.com/oxbow/test-of-time.html – provides a reprint both of the original text, as well as a 200-page update and revisit of the topic of the date, critically presenting and analyzing evidence available through 2013.

Why now? Despite the decades of often trenchant debate, and the strong rejections of the scientific evidence and an insistence by some scholars that the standard archaeological scenario cannot be radically revised, a considerable range of new information and reassessment have become available very recently which seem at last to point to a resolution of the Thera date question. Hence the new book (and hence of course this blog).

It has been clear since the mid-1970s that radiocarbon indicated an earlier date than the previously orthodox archaeological estimate of ca. 1500 BC, and more recent radiocarbon dating on materials from both Thera and the region, allied with sophisticated forms of modeling, have firmly pointed to a date in the later-late 17^th century BC (Manning et al. 2006; Manning and Kromer 2012). Possible concerns that volcanic carbon dioxide could have affected the samples from Thera itself were shown to be irrelevant, since similar ages were determined from contemporary archaeological contexts elsewhere in the Aegean. Nonetheless, it was argued by critics for many years that radiocarbon did not work for some reason, and, in particular, it was believed that radiocarbon gave different results versus Egyptian history and so could be questioned – but a key large-scale study by Bronk Ramsey et al. (2010) demonstrated that radiocarbon analyses could indeed give accurate and precise dates for Egypt and Egyptian history in the second millennium BC. Thus, if radiocarbon worked in mid second millennium BC Egypt, then it should work also in the Aegean. Manning (2014) offers detailed discussion and analysis of the radiocarbon evidence from the Aegean (and also Egypt), and finds that the radiocarbon evidence clearly indicates a date for the Thera eruption in the late 17^th century BC (and not a date after ca. 1530 BC as required by the conventional archaeological chronology). Claims and arguments to the contrary are reviewed, and it is explained why these are unlikely, implausible, or incorrect.

Olive branch? An olive branch was found buried in the Minoan eruption pumice on Thera (Friedrich et al. 2006). The outer preserved part should give a date for, or close terminus post quem for, the eruption. A sequence (from inner to outer parts of the sample) of radiocarbon dates on the sample gave a date shortly before 1600BC in agreement with (but more closely defined than) radiocarbon studies based on short-lived plant materials buried by the eruption at Akrotiri, or finds elsewhere associated with the eruption. All seemed clear. But, because the group publishing the olive branch claimed they could approximately recognize annual growth increments (tree-rings) – whereas most agree this is problematic to impossible in olives beyond the juvenile stage – much debate ensued. The tree ring issue unfortunately has come to hide the obvious: whether or not any growth rings are evident the simple inner to outer (oldest to most recent) time series of radiocarbon ages from the branch (and no supposed tree-ring information) still leads to almost the same conclusion: a late 17^th century BC date, as stated by Friedrich et al. (2014) responding to claims by Cherubini et al. (2014) that a lack of clear tree rings somehow undermined everything. The other tactic is to argue that maybe the olive branch was long-dead by the time of the eruption. While possible in isolation, unfortunately for the rejectionist case, a second olive branch has been found, and there was clear evidence in both cases that there were leaves associated, which rather undermines claims that the branches were not living when buried by the eruption (I thank Jan Heinemeier for highlighting this to me while I was visiting Aarhus recently, and saw his fabulous new AMS radiocarbon laboratory).

Other scientific work (as, or even after, Manning 2014 went to press) has recently added further evidence either in favour of a late 17^th century BC date for the Thera volcanic eruption, or against the low archaeological chronologies as especially promulgated by Manfred Bietak for the Levant, and from there for the east Mediterranean:

 

(i)               There is now a reasonably strong circumstantial case for identifying the major volcanic eruption detected in the Sofular speleothem in NW Turkey as Thera, and this eruption is dated by the independent timescale established for the Speleothem to the late 17^th century BC (Badertscher et al. 2014); and

(ii)             A detailed radiocarbon analysis and chronological framework for Tell Megiddo, Israel, while yet to reach the Middle Bronze Age, already indicates that the ultra-low chronological model for the Middle Bronze Age to Late Bronze Age transition in the southern Levant, which places this transition as not occurring until during the earlier 15^th century BC (e.g. Bietak 2013: Fig.8.1), is unlikely (Toffolo et al. 2014: 241), as does further analysis of the dates from the Middle Bronze Age destruction at Jericho which supports a date range no later than during the 16^th century BC (Dee and Bronk Ramsey 2014: Fig.5).

 

Tell el-Dab‘a (ancient Avaris)? This great site – a super-city of the world in the earlier to mid second millennium BC – was long held to prove that Thera could not have erupted around 1600 BC – a position restated time and again by the long-time excavator of the site, Manfred Bietak (most recently in Antiquity arguing against the olive branch date’s relevance). Tell el-Dab‘a supposedly had a secure archaeologically based chronology linked to Egypt which showed that the relevant cultural horizon in the Aegean was late 16^th century BC at the earliest, if not later. This certainty has proved to be rather insecure. A detailed radiocarbon dating programme at the site found a chronology on average around 100 years older than the one claimed by Bietak (Kutschera et al. 2012). Since radiocarbon dating – and by the same laboratories – found a good correlation with Egyptian history from other material from other sites, then it starts to suggest that there is something seriously wrong with the supposed archaeological chronology at Tell el-Dab‘a when this site alone yields such discordant dates. It is in fact notable on critical examination that there is very little sound basis to the Bietak archaeological chronology. For example, nothing actually ties the supposed Tuthmosid palace platforms to any of the evidence of named New Kingdom kings (scarabs) (carefully read Bietak et al. 2007: 27) – and hence these platforms were originally dated (in the early 1990s) by Bietak and his team as pre-New Kingdom before being later re-dated as 18th Dynasty – a first assessment which now seems likely to have been correct all along according to the radiocarbon evidence, and as suggested in Manning 1999: 93-94).

New archaeological finds meanwhile also dramatically undermine convention. At Tell Edfu in Egypt, finds of sealings place the well-known Hyksos king Khayan around a century earlier than usually assumed (Moeller and Marouard 2011). Bietak placed Khayan about 1600-1580 BC, and linked him with a palace at Tell el-Dab‘a, but now Khayan and this palace would match the much older radiocarbon chronology for the site, and seem to confirm the need radically to revise all existing arguments based around the evidence at Tell el-Dab‘a – such as when Cypriot ceramic types appear (which were again held previously, based on links from the Aegean to Cyprus and the reverse, to disprove the radiocarbon-based date for the Thera eruption, and so on). The lid with the inscribed name of Khayan found by Sir Arthur Evans at Knossos was also held for many decades to stop a raising of Aegean chronology, as otherwise indicated by the radiocarbon evidence – this too may go by the wayside now, and, indeed, it may instead be held as evidence indicating that an earlier date is necessary.

Of course, it will take time for such new realities to seep, drift, or sweep over the academic field of Aegean and east Mediterranean archaeology. A Canute-like tendency seems something of an archaeological trait in the east Mediterranean field. The text of A Test of Time Revisited in Manning (2014) reviews and analyses much of the evidence regarding the dating of the Thera volcanic eruption, including numerous figures to illustrate especially the radiocarbon dates and analyses. It also provides discussion and critique of scholarship which has sought to undermine or reject the radiocarbon-based evidence and date range.

Is the Thera date question important? Yes: the new evidence provides an important context and time-frame to reassess the history of the mid-second millennium BC east Mediterranean. In his The Making of the Middle Sea, Broodbank (2013: 383-386) states that the Hyksos capital, Avaris (Tell el-Dab‘a), went “supernova after 1650 BC”, and Broodbank rightly notes the enormous scale and potential importance of the Hyksos world, and wonders what would have happened if the Theban polity of Upper Egypt had not militarily defeated and erased this brilliant civilization. But, with the new timeline indicated by archaeology and science for Thera, Tell el-Dab‘a, and Khayan, we have a new quantum. Rather than being squeezed into the years before the rise of the 18^th Dynasty of Egypt, Avaris and its world can now rise in the late 18^th century BC, with its great king Khayan – attested from finds bearing his name from Crete to Iraq to the Levant – around or shortly after 1700 BC, and then there are nearly another 150 years until the conquest of Avaris by Ahmose from Thebes. The Hyksos world, of trade and culture, is thus very clearly the critical milieu in which the transformational processes of Middle Cypriot III/Late Cypriot I Cyprus (first polities), latest Middle Helladic through Late Helladic I southern Greece (the Shaft Graves and emergence of Mycenaean polities), and Middle Minoan III through Late Minoan IA Crete (the floruit of the Neopalatial period) should be placed and viewed – and not the New Kingdom of Egypt. It is time for the Hyksos finally to get a better press. Re-dated, their world, driven out of the huge port city at Avaris in the Nile Delta, may become seen as a central force in the development of the wider east Mediterranean and Aegean, and the creation of a trading world and elite culture koine (observed notably in one aspect via its ‘Aegean’-style wall-paintings as best known at Akrotiri on Thera but also found from mainland Greece, Crete, western Anatolia, Rhodes, the Levant, and at what might be re-dated as late Hyksos palatial buildings at Tell el-Dab‘a). Several issues in early Aegean/Greek culture and history, from language to mythology, can find a better context with this new time-frame and milieu. The key is the correct chronology: read the book! To find out more, go to: http://www.oxbowbooks.com/oxbow/test-of-time.html.

 

References

 

Badertscher, S., Borsato, A., Frisia, S., Cheng, H., Edwards, R.L., Tüysüz, O. and Fleitmann, D. 2014. Speleothems as sensitive recorders of volcanic eruptions – the Bronze Age Minoan eruption recorded in a stalagmite from Turkey. Earth and Planetary Science Letters 392: 58-66.

Bietak, M. 2013. Antagonisms in historical and radiocarbon chronology. In A.J. Shortland and C. Bronk Ramsey (eds.) Radiocarbon and the Chronologies of Ancient Egypt: 76-109. Oxford: Oxbow Books.

Bietak, M., Marinatos, N. and Palyvou, C. 2007. Taureador scenes in Tell el-Dab‘a (Avaris) and Knossos. Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften.

Broodbank, C. 2013. The Making of the Middle Sea: A History of the Mediterranean from the Beginning to the Emergence of the Classical World. London: Thames & Hudson.

Cherubini, P., Humbel, T., Beeckman, H., Gärtner, H., Mannes, D., Pearson, C., Schoch, W., Roberto Tognetti, R. and Lev-Yadun, S. 2014. The olive-branch dating of the Santorini eruption, Antiquity 88: 267-73.

Dee, M.W. and Bronk Ramsey, C. 2014. 2014. High-precision Bayesian modeling of samples susceptible to inbuilt age. Radiocarbon 56: 83-94.

Friedrich, W., Kromer, B., Friedrich, M., Heinemeier, J., Pfeiffer, T. and Talamo, S. 2006. Santorini Eruption Radiocarbon Dated to 1627-1600 BC. Science 312: 548.

Friedrich, W.L., Kromer, B., Friedrich, M., Heinemeier, J., Pfeiffer, T. and Talamo, S. 2014. The olive branch chronology stands irrespective of tree-ring counting, Antiquity 88: 274-277.

Goodman-Tchernov, B.N., Dey, H.W., Reinhardt, E.G., McCoy, F. and Mart, Y., 2009. Tsunami waves generated by the Santorini eruption reached Eastern Mediterranean shores, Geology 37: 943-946.

Johnston, E.N., Sparks, R.S.J., Phillips, J.C. and Carey, S. 2014. Revised estimates for the volume of the Late Bronze Age Minoan eruption, Santorini, Greece. Journal of the Geological Society, London, 171: 583-590.

Knappett, C., Evans, T. and Rivers, R. 2011. The Theran eruption and Minoan palatial collapse: new interpretations gained from modelling the maritime network. Antiquity 85: 1008-1023.

Kutschera, W., Bietak, M., Wild, E.M., Bronk Ramsey, C., Dee, M., Golser, R., Kopetzky, K., Stadler, P., Steier, P., Thanheiser, U. and Weninger, F. 2012.The chronology of Tell el-Daba: a crucial meeting point of ¹⁴C dating, archaeology, and Egyptology in the 2nd millennium BC. Radiocarbon 54: 407-422.

Manning, S.W. 1999. A Test of Time: the volcano of Thera and the chronology and history of the Aegean and east Mediterranean in the mid-second millennium BC. Oxford: Oxbow Books.

Manning, S.W. 2014. A Test of Time and A Test of Time Revisited. The volcano of Thera and the chronology and history of the Aegean and east Mediterranean in the mid-second millennium BC. Oxford: Oxbow Books.

Manning, S.W., Bronk Ramsey, C., Kutschera, W., Higham, T., Kromer, B., Steier, P. and Wild, E. 2006. Chronology for the Aegean Late Bronze Age. Science 312: 565-569.

Manning, S.W. and Kromer, B. 2012. Considerations of the scale of radiocarbon offsets in the east Mediterranean, and considering a case for the latest (most recent) likely date for the Santorini eruption, Radiocarbon 54: 449-474.

Moeller, N. and Marouard, G. (with a contribution by Ayers, N.) 2011. Discussion of late Middle Kingdom and early Second Intermediate Period history and chronology in relation to the Khayan Sealings from Tell Edfu, Ägypten und Levante 21: 87-121.

Toffolo, M.B., Arie, E., Martin, M.A.S., Boaretto, E. and Finkelstein, I. 2014. Absolute chronology of Megiddo, Israel, in the Late Bronze and Iron Ages: high-resolution radiocarbon dating. Radiocarbon 56: 221-244.

Part Three:

Hans Goedicke’s Miscalculation

 

“In the Exodus, there is a quotation which goes like this: By day in a pillar of cloud, to lead them the way; and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light (Exodus 13:21). This state of biblical affairs can easily be related to the volcanic eruption”.

 
 

Just as we can quickly dismiss Dr. Donovan’s hopeful attempt to find effects of the Thera incident in the biblical “earthquake” at the time (mid-C8th BC) of King Uzziah of Judah, so, too, can we fairly confidently say - especially in light of the more recent research on Thera (e.g. Sturt Manning) - that the cataclysm did not occur during the peaceful reign of Hatshepsut.

“The most recent theory is that advanced by Hans Goedicke which places the Exodus in 1477 B.C.
during the reign of Queen Hatshepsut (Hershel Shanks, “The Exodus and the Crossing of the Red Sea. According to Hans Goedicke,” Biblical Archaeology Review 7 [September-October 1981]: 42-50)”. https://faculty.gordon.edu/hu/bi/ted.../02-exodus/text/.../dyer-dateexodus-bsac.doc

 

https://www.baslibrary.org/biblical-archaeology-review/7/5/4

“The crossing of the Red Sea in which the Egyptians drowned was an actual historical event that occurred in 1477 B.C. The miraculous episode took place in the coastal plain south of Lake Menzaleh, west of what is now the Suez Canal. The drowning of the Egyptians was caused by a giant tidal-like wave known as a tsunami which swept across the Nile delta, over Lake Menzaleh, inundating the plain south of the lake. The tidal-like wave was transmitted by a volcanic eruption in the Mediterranean Sea”.

 

The Internet is now full of articles such as the following, which I think may have something going for them: https://www.greeka.com/cyclades/santorini/santorini-volcano/biblical.htm 

Santorini Biblical Connection

The Biblical connection with the volcanic eruption of Santorini Greece: The Exodus section of the Old Testament is a much-revered text and is held in very high esteem not only by Christians but also Islam and Judaism. There is contradiction in the way people have interpreted the Exodus. Some regard it as legends and myths while others regard it as the word of God. Exodus reveals the story of the birth and life of Moses who was a diehard Hebrew credited with the emancipation of the Jews from the clutches of Egyptian slavery.

The Exodus depicts the great escape of the Jews from Egypt. Moses ultimately divided the Red Sea and permitted the Jews to traverse to Sinai while the Egyptians were drowned in the surging waves. In recent times the Exodus has been in great demand in the scientific community and has been studied extensively. They are of the opinion that the story line in Exodus is primarily based on seismic movements.

Geologists are of the opinion that the eruption of the Santorini volcano is the basis of the twelve [sic] plagues depicted in the Exodus. Post eruption, a vast neighborhood might have endured sufferings and tribulations like deluge, drought and firestorm etc. Not even cities located on higher platforms could escape the wrath of the devastating earthquakes. Molten magma ash in all likelihood would have completely blackened the atmosphere.

Scientists believe that most of the twelve plagues occurred as a consequence of the volcanic activity. The mention of darkness in the Bible may be without doubt ascribed to the molten ash and pumice on the surface. Even the stormy winds were blowing to the southeasterly direction where Egypt was located.

Furthermore, according to renowned archaeologist Charles Pellegrino, high velocity dust storms were supposed to have rained down in Egypt from the dust clouds, thereby turning days into nights.The Exodus story also mentions about plague and devastating fire upon Egypt. Charles Pellegrino compares the Santorini eruptions with that of Mount St. Hellen in Oregon as a burning example of what the Santorini eruption might have been like.

The plagues occurred due to the volcanic eruption and attracted hordes of locusts and there were evidence of erratic animal activity due largely to the alteration of air pressure and weather conditions. After the complete devastation of Egypt the Jews were able to get away in spite of the Pharaoh’s soldiers in hot pursuit. In the Exodus, there is a quotation which goes like this: By day in a pillar of cloud, to lead them the way; and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light (Exodus 13:21). This state of biblical affairs can easily be related to the volcanic eruption.

Significantly, the awesome Plinian column created by the Santorini eruption might have afforded cloud cover by day and would have become visible like fire in the night. One must also take into consideration the division of the Red Sea which might have drawn waters thereby shaping the caldera. ….

God, the Creator of all, can indeed use natural phenomena for his own wondrous purposes.

According to Dianne Bergant, when discussing King Solomon’s account of the Plagues of Egypt: https://www.americamagazine.org/content/good-word/creation-wisdom-solomon

 

….

The Book of Wisdom makes a unique contribution to biblical creation theology. Instead of moving from salvation to creation, as traditional Old Testament theologians claim is the fundamental focus of the Bible, it begins with creation and moves to salvation. In fact, the book itself begins and ends with affirmations of God’s creative purpose: "[God] created all things so that they might exist" (1:14); "The whole creation in its nature was fashioned anew . . . so that your children might be kept unharmed" (19:6). The statements about the renewal of creation suggest that [Solomon] believed that there was an inherent balance between and among the various spheres of the natural world, a balance that requires that any state of serious disequilibrium must be corrected. In other words, moral failure affected cosmic balance. He believed that nature itself, complying with the laws established by God, seeks to rectify any imbalance. This would mean that balance is not only a characteristic of the natural world, but is also an active principle by which the world organizes and reorganizes itself. Without forcing the biblical material to fit into contemporary scientific categories, one can say that the universe, the earth and all its components are part of a dynamic cosmic design within which each has a place in the overall goal of that design. [Solomon’s] reinterpretation of the plagues reveals several important points. First, It underscores his faith in the creative ingenuity of God, his respect for the intrinsic value of creation, and his understanding of the interconnectedness of all of its components. These were ideas that he inherited from his Jewish religious tradition. Second, it shows how he used the new insights of his day to reinterpret traditions of the past. ….

 

Part Four: Thera and “Atlantis”

 

The “Atlantis” of ancient legend is probably a composite of various major catastrophes, such as, for instance, the Noachic Flood; the Thera (Santorini) eruption; and the fall of Tyre (Ezekiel).

 

John R. Salverda believes that it was all about the disappearance of the world that was erased by the great Flood: http://genesisflood-amaic.blogspot.com.au/2014/02/re-our-post-prophet-elijah-as-greek.html

 

Plato’s Atlantis was the Antediluvian World: John R. Salverda

 ….

Then there was the story of that previous civilization on the Earth, from which our modern culture sprang, which was destroyed, engulfed, in a great aqueous catastrophe. This previous civilization, called, “Atlantis,” was named after Atlas, he was said to be their first king, and the flood which engulfed the place, is still known as the “Atlantic” Ocean. We learn the story of Atlantis from the Greek Plato, who explains why these ancient People were drowned away back then. He says that at first, their race was pure, but they earned their destruction because they had a racial fall, and had degenerated through mortal admixture. And that was that for Plato’s Atlantean civilization. So it was much like the Bible’s antediluvian civilization, where Adam’s daughters, bred with the giants, and this caused racial impurities, (His Spirit could not “strive with men indefinitely,”) precursing the intolerable state which lead to Yahweh’s flood.

Atlas was cursed, just as Adam, to expect a certain “son” who could be described as nothing less than “messianic.” Here’s Ovid on the subject; “There dwelt huge Atlas, vaster than the race of man: son of Iapetus, his lordly sway extended over those extreme domains, … Aglint with gold bright leaves adorn the trees,—boughs golden-wrought bear apples of pure gold. … But Atlas, mindful of an oracle since by Themis, the Parnassian, told, recalled these words, “O Atlas! mark the day a son of Jupiter shall come to spoil; for when thy trees been stripped of golden fruit, the glory shall be his.” Fearful of this, Atlas had built solid walls around his orchard, and secured a dragon, huge, that kept perpetual guard, and thence expelled all strangers from his land.” (Ovid, “Metamorphoses” Book 4. 8. 631-661 ff.). A “son of god” (Herakles) did come and in order to pluck from the tree he had to destroy the serpent.

The wife of Atlas “Hesperus” was named after the sun setting, the “Evening,” or as we know it better by its common clipped form the “Eve” (The origin for this English term in defining the sun setting is lost to dim antiquity and I personally do not think that it is a mere coincidence.). Actually, according to Diodorus, the land was named after his wife, not the daughters; “Now Hesperos (Evening) begat a daughter named Hesperis (Evening), who he gave in marriage to his brother (Atlas) and after whom the land was given the name Hesperitis; and Atlas begat by her seven daughters, who were named after their father Atlantides, and after their mother Hesperides.” (Diodorus Siculus, “Library of History” 4. 26. 2). Why were the daughters of Hesperus often the ones who were blamed for picking the fruit? I’m not sure, but perhaps it was a way to show the generational consequences for the act of committing the Original Sin. The term “Hesperides” may have carried an original meaning that was equivalent to the term “Daughters of Eve” indicating womankind in general. ….

 

For Gavin Menzies, on the other hand, “Atlantis” was the Theran incident:

 

KIRKUS REVIEW

 

The author of 1434 (2008) and 1421 (2003) argues that the destruction of Atlantis was not fiction but a tale of an actual volcano and consequent tsunami that devastated the heart of the vast Minoan empire on Crete and Santorini (then called Thera).

 

Employing the research of many scholars, the self-confidence of a rock star, the zeal of a True Believer and a travel budget sufficient to make Marco Polo and Henry Stanley glow an envious green, Menzies, who served in the Royal Navy, begins his tale on Crete, where he and his wife went for a brief vacation. When he saw the ruins of the palace of Phaestos, his curiosity about the Minoans was piqued, and off he went, chasing down Minoan artifacts, viewing ruins, interviewing scholars and visiting sites of significance, from Crete to England (did you know that Stonehenge was Minoan?) to Lake Superior to the Mississippi River (which the Minoans used to access their American mines) to, well, just about everywhere.

 

Menzies claims that 2,000 years before Christ, the Minoans ruled a vast Bronze Age empire with myriad outposts. They were master shipbuilders, sailors, mathematicians, astronomers and navigators, and they gathered tin from England and copper from mines around Lake Superior, from which they crafted the bronze tools found later in many relevant sites. If Menzies is right—a massive IF that scholars will surely address—then the tsunami of 1500 BCE might have been the wave that drowned a culture, occasioned Plato’s story and spawned a giant Atlantis-related industry. The author’s style is breathless and excessively spiced with rhetorical questions, but—thank Zeus—he invokes no ancient astronauts.

Animated by a contagious enthusiasm that will propel eager, like-minded readers into a truly Lost World.

 

Whilst I am far from agreeing with everything that Gavin Menzies writes, including in this book, The Lost Empire of Atlantis, some of it I would consider to be well worthy of further consideration – though I think that Menzies may sometimes be attributing to the Minoan seafarers what may actually have pertained to the skilful Phoenicians.  

Finally, there are those comparisons between “Atlantis” and the city of Tyre.

For example: https://steemit.com/steemit/@ejaredallen/conspiracy-corner-the-island-of-mystery-revealed-2016107t182021957z

 

….The dawn of a legend. In 360 B.C. A Greek philosopher named Plato invented a legend about a hyper intelligent people who mingled with the gods and lived on an island known as Atlantis. These people, according to the Greeks, were empowered by their god-man abilities to create and invent technology far beyond mere mortals. No force of men could defeat them by strength of arms or numbers.

 

Their demise eventually came by a civilization known as the Athenian Empire. These Athenian men, or men of Athens, the Grecian Empire, overthrew the power of Atlantis. Though it was not by their numbers, for no force of men no matter how great could defeat the Atlanteans, and it was not by the superiority of their weapons, for no civilization was as advanced as the Atlanteans; the Greeks defeated the power of Atlantis by the strength of their will and so ended the civilization. If this story seems a bit familiar, this legend of Plato is where the idea for Star Wars came from.

Plato, being a student of the world, studied the histories of many peoples; in particular, he studied the Jewish people, intrigued by their prophesies and fore-tellings of the future. The Jewish prophets were uncanny in their abilities to predict future events, even down to names and places that were not in existance when they prophesied. The concept was bizzare, yet it sparked something in the philosopher's mind and he decided to write a prophesy of his own. It is today referred to as, "The Legend of Atlantis".

 

In part one of this post, I told you of the ancient [Phoenician] city of Tyre. In this, part two of said post, I will lay before you my theory that Tyre is the lost Island of Atlantis.

 

Crazy, right? That's what I thought when I first read [Ezekiel] 26 and made the comparison between Tyre and Atlantis. Before I get too far into how I formed this theory, I'd like to point out what I found in the Scriptures, that sparked the idea to begin with.

 

Here are a few similarities between Atlantis and Tyre:

 

·  They were both islands.

·  They were both recognized as the center of the world for economics, inventions, sea travel, and military strength.

·  They both existed around the same time era. (The legend was around at the same time that Tyre was.)

·  They both were eventually destroyed by sinking into the sea.

 

….

Now, you might be thinking, "Hold on, Tyre never sank into the sea." But that's not what Ezekiel says, and this is what first caught my attention.

 

For thus saith the Lord GOD; When I shall make thee a desolate city, like the cities that are not inhabited; when I shall bring up the deep upon thee, and great waters shall cover thee; when I shall bring thee down with them that descend into the pit, with the people of old time, and shall set thee in the low parts of the earth, in places desolate of old, with them that go down to the pit, that thou be not inhabited; and I shall set glory in the land of the living; I will make thee a terror, and thou shalt be no more: though thou be sought for, yet shalt thou never be found again, saith the Lord GOD.

Ezekiel 26:19-21

These verses come after 18 others prophesying the previous two destructions of Tyre at the hands of Nebuchadnezzar and Alexander the Great. This is the final destruction of Tyre, God's destruction. You see, God hated Tyre; to borrow the colloquial, He hated its guts. His hatred was such that He mentioned Tyre, or its [pseudonym] Tyrus, in 18 of his 66 books in the Bible. By five of His prophets, God spoke destruction and damnation upon Tyre and her inhabitants. And what did they do to deserve such hatred?

 

The Tyrians, despite being sinful and prideful, arrogant against the nations and God himself, were also enemies of Israel. Ever since King Ahab married the daughter of the enemies of the Phoenicians, the bond between Israel and Tyre was cut asunder. Tyre laughed and mocked when Israel was destroyed and her wall broken down; they sold Jewish refugees to other countries. God hated them because they hated His people.

But, back to Ezekiel. Why do these verses make me think that Tyre is Atlantis? Notice the last statement that God makes toward Tyre: though thou be sought for, yet shalt thou never be found again, saith The Lord.

 

People will seek for Tyre, but how is that possible if the city is still around. Why would anyone seek for something if it already was on a map? The answer is, they wouldn't, and haven't. How many expeditions have set out to find the lost island of Tyre? Not very many, if any at all. So why would God specifically say: though thou be sought for?

 

I contend that it is because Plato wrote his legend of Atlantis about a city that he knew would be destroyed--and even the specific kind of destruction-- to take the credit for the prophesy himself. God may have used Plato to create a legend out of his foretelling of destruction, to mask the identity of Tyre so that her, and her wicked inhabitants would be forever forgotten.

Atlantis still lives in infamy as, "The Lost City", and if it truly is Tyre, that name is more fitting than any other. ….