Atlantis and the Bible (2 parts)

This is a subject I've put a LOT of research into, especially recently.

Firstly, let me say that this won't be your typical post on Atlantis. I have my own personal belief about *where* Atlantis was, but for the purposes of this post, its original location doesn't matter.

From many different sources (Graham Hancock, Rob ert Bauval, Andrew Collins, etc.) it's pretty clear that a major disaster occurred around 11,600 years ago, precipitating massive extinctions and numerous human migrations. From Plato, we learn at least a little bit about what Atlantis was like (and let's assume, for sake of argument, that he was describing a real place rather than a utopian ideal for his dialogue), and from the various megalithic constructions that suddenly appeared we can make a decent attempt at tracing the cultural legacy of Atlantis.

From megalithic sites like Gobekli Tepe, Tiahuanaco, or Mount Shoria in southern Siberia, we see a focus on highly advanced engineering, coupled with advanced astronomical knowledge. Pictographs found at Gobekli Tepe, according to Hancock in "Magicians of the Gods," are indicative of religious iconography that pops up again in such disparate places and cultures as that of ancient Egypt, Sumer, and Mesoamerica. It indicates a civilizing influence that spread out to different parts of the world, bringing with it this advanced knowledge along with specific cultural changes.

Here are some examples of these cultural developments:

* The concept of reflecting the perfection of heaven on earth
* The identification of specific constellations with geographical locations on earth (e.g., Orion as Egypt, the Pleiades as Sumer/Babylon)
* The dualistic concept of matter vs. spirit
* The concept of heaven representing the afterlife (e.g. the Milky Way = the duat through which the soul travels after death)
* Mind-altering drugs (e.g. Peyote, coc aine) as a means for accessing spirit
* Ritual temple prostitution
* The practice of burying wife and servants alive, together with a deceased leader (pharaoh, etc.)
* Infant, child or human sacrifice

A lot of these cultural developments are inferred, and may not all have been present in Atlantis. However, they do seem to be generally present in several of the cultures that have been influenced by Atlantis, either by the survivors of Atlantis or the colonies of Atlantis that were settled even prior to its destruction.

What I'm getting at, here, is that the cultural legacy of Atlantis appears to be a mixture of good and evil.

It's commonly believed by many fundamentalist Christians that Genesis 1-3 represents a literal account of creation. However, ancient creation literature was never intended to be understood literally. Doing a comparative literary analysis of ancient creation literature, we find the following:

* It often had literal elements, even though the text as a whole wasn't intended to be understood literally. For instance, the Epic of Gilgamesh recorded the fictional exploits of a real person.
* When referring to "the place where creation occurred," it always referred to a real place, someplace that was culturally and geographically relevant to whoever wrote it. For instance, creation was understood to have occurred in Eridu in Sumer, or in Heliopolis in Egypt.
* It was intended to explain something culturally relevant to the people who wrote it. For instance, the Babylonian creation story had mankind being created as an afterthought, to serve the whims of the gods. Population centers in Sumer were organized in such a way that outlying areas, where farming took place, were required to pay a percentage of their harvest to the temple of the patron god of their city.

What if we interpret the biblical creation story the same way?

Before we do that, though, I want to point out something unusual about the textual structure of Genesis 1-3. There are many biblical scholars who will point out that Gen 1:1-2:4a and 2:4ff-3:24 were written by different authors. That's true. However, the common interpretation of this was that these two sections were later edited together by a third party. That's incorrect. Instead, these two sections were intended to be understood as a single unit.

A common textual structure in the bible is a "chiasmus" (pl. chiasm). A good example of this structure is found in Gen. 6:22:

A - Thus did Noah
B - According to all that God commanded him
A' = So he did.

As you can see, the central topic is in the middle (B) with A and A' being variations of the same idea or thought. This is an inverted chiasmus.

Other chiastic structures you'll see in the biblical text are A - B - B' - A', A - B - A' - B', etc.

Genesis 1-3 is simply a highly complex inverted chiasmus, with dwelling with God on the Sabbath day (Gen. 2:3-4) being the central focus. See this link for more details.

What can we learn from this? Mainly that the infamous serpent of Gen. 3 actually has a chiastic parallel. The "tannin" or "great sea creatures" of Gen. 1:21.

In the bible, animals are often used to represent people or nations. For example, Pharaoh of Egypt is described in Ezekiel 32:2 thusly: "You are like a young lion of the nations; you are like a dragon [Heb. "tannin"!] of the waters."

So what's going on here, in the Genesis account? Could these animals actually represent other people or nations?

I submit that that's exactly what this means. Also compare Gen. 2:18-20 where different animals are brought to Adam because God wanted to find a suitable mate for him. These aren't animals, they're simply people of other nations!

The infamous serpent is Sumer. The "tannin" or "great whales" or "great sea creatures" is Egypt. (Tannin should be more properly translated as "crocodiles.") The Garden of Eden was actually a real place and Adam and Eve were real people. It was simply a rest stop on a major trade route between Sumer and Egypt. That's why God is described as bringing all manner of animals to Adam -- because it was a trade route.

Now, what does any of this have to do with Atlantis?

(continued in part 2)

Some of you may have heard that biblical scholars identify Genesis 1-3 as a polemic, a rebuttal of common religious beliefs already in existence at that time. It drew from common symbolism (ex. the "deep" or Tehom of Gen. 1:2). That's exactly what it was...but it was much more than that.

The "days" of creation of Genesis 1 tie it DIRECTLY to the destruction of Atlantis.

You've probably heard the biblical quote that "a day is as a thousand years" with God. (Ps. 90:4; 2 Pet. 3:8) What if we equate the biblical days of creation as thousand-year periods? What do we get?

Day 7: 4000-3000 BCE/6000 years ago (the time period of Adam, Eve, and the beginning of Egyptian and Sumerian civilization)
Day 6: 5000-4000 BCE/7000 years ago
Day 5: 6000-5000 BCE/8000 years ago
Day 4: 7000-6000 BCE/9000 years ago
Day 3: 8000-7000 BCE/10,000 years ago
Day 2: 9000-8000 BCE/11,000 years ago
Day 1: 10,000-9000 BCE/12,000 years ago

Does that last figure look familar? It should, because it's roughly when we've identified as the destruction of Atlantis! (circa 11,600 years ago).

So...what's the point of this? What is Genesis 1-3 trying to say?

Simply that out of the destruction of Atlantis came a wisdom tradition that still existed roughly 6,000 years later. That wisdom tradition is metaphorically described as "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil."

Was there such a place? Yes, there was, but there was likely never an "exile" from the garden. Basically, Genesis 1-3 was repeating the by then highly mythologized destruction of Atlantis and repeating the reason of moral degeneracy as the reason for leaving "the place where creation occurred." It was setting this wisdom tradition in opposition to "the way that leads to life" as explained later in the bible.

It's not that the wisdom tradition is wholly bad or wrong, or else the culture of the Hebrews would never have been as influenced by it as it was (for instance, the Ark of the Covenant had Egyptian prototypes and antecedents, and the Temple itself was modeled after Egyptian temples). But because that same wisdom tradition contained morally abhorrent elements (e.g. ritual temple prostitution), the creation story painted it as "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil."

According to David Rohl's "The Lords of Avaris" it was the ancient Pelasgians who are to be identified as the Phoenicians, the biblical Canaanites. The Pelasgians were one of the inheritors of the Atlantean wisdom traditions. Not only were they reknowned shipbuilders, mariners and navigators, they were also builders of cyclopean megalithic architecture. It was Hiram of Tyre, a Pelasgian, who was said to have helped to build the Temple.

These same Canaanites, in the bible, are recorded as sacrificing infants and children though the fire of Moloch. Yeah, that.

So, why was the destruction of Atlantis so important, in the time of the Garden of Eden, to base a mythical creation account on it? Why is there that kind of connection in the first place?

Because other ancient cultures thought it was important, as well. In fact, the creation literature on the temple of Edfu is simply a mythologized liturgy that tells the story of the destruction of Atlantis and the origins of Egyptian civilization. The Egyptian priests knew the actual history of Atlantis, but the liturgy contained the secrets of that knowledge in veiled form.

The whole point of Genesis 1-3 was to tell those same veiled secrets, but by turning the symbolism on its head and using it to champion "the way that leads to life" rather than Gnosis or secret knowledge.

Damon

Interesting thread.

My Grandfather was born at Mount Ararat in Turkey in 1900

a reply to: damonjc

Interesting ideas, to be sure, though one could draw far different conclusions.

First, you have to assume that the days in Genesis 1 were not actually days, and that's debatable. In each case, it is stated plainly that "the evening and the morning" were that day. That's not indicative of a thousand year period. I don't agree with the idea there, that because we are told time doesn't matter to God, that it isn't supposed to be taken literally, when written for us. I personally believe that the days stated were real days.

That said, some of your points are quite good. That this "Atlantis" society was one that practiced many evil things is quite intriguing. I hadn't read that before. Tie that in to how their society was lost, and you have a nice parallel to Flood legends. That there was some sort of flood is highly supported, by the work Hancock and others have done. I have one of his books, though I haven't finished it. Really need to do that! Fascinating stuff.

For Atlantis, I lean more toward a Mediterranean location, as there was a people there who moved well inland, and who refused to live near the coast. I can't recall the details right now, but can share later. History buff hubby's theory, and it's a good one. If I don't post it soon, please remind me!

Interesting Tread, here are my 2 cents,
First of all I'm not a christian and it's not my intension to attack your believe in anyway.

It's my opinion that the bible is not a very good book to reconstruct history. this is not that the original bible isn't a good book which we should follow but because the bible has been translated rewritten and interpreted by so many people/the church/the vatican . I a way I like to think the bible is the word of God but my own research hasn't confirmed that. Good work carry on !!

a reply to: LadyGreenEyes

For Atlantis, I lean more toward a Mediterranean location, as there was a people

Maybe Altantis was the whole earth.

a reply to: damonjc

How does Plato fit into all this?

12000 years ago is a long time before him..

a reply to: frenchfries

Maybe, but I suspect an island location. Have to ask the hubby when he's not working or sleeping, about his theory. My brain isn't giving up the data right now.

a reply to: LadyGreenEyes

Well an island that isn't very logical ?

Atlantis was very advanced.Think about it advanced civilizations always want to expand. combine that with the plethora of megaliths that exist on our planet Almost all of them made in the same style and I think it's save to say that Atlantis wasn't a island at all but the name of the former worldwide civilication.

Saw a documentary recently that said Antarctica could have been atlantis it would have been much further north of its current location which would have been in the southern indian ocean area but it is now in its current position due to crustal displacement which would have happened very quickly and caused large scale floods worldwide.

Another intriguing theory on this subject. I also like the what an earlier poster said I see atlantis as the worldwide civilisation that was here before the floods. I feel that if we ever witness the ice melt and reveal the landmass of Antarctica we are in for a real treat

a reply to: coldlikecustard

I feel that if we ever witness the ice melt and reveal the landmass of Antarctica we are in for a real treat

even if antarctica turns out not to be the related with atlantis I wonder what's in lake vostok which lies under 2 miles of ice.

www.livescience.com...

a reply to: frenchfries Indeed it seems to have all gone quiet regarding vostok which makes me think whatever they found will o already has been classified information

originally posted by: frenchfries
Interesting Tread, here are my 2 cents,
First of all I'm not a christian and it's not my intension to attack your believe in anyway.

It's my opinion that the bible is not a very good book to reconstruct history. this is not that the original bible isn't a good book which we should follow but because the bible has been translated rewritten and interpreted by so many people/the church/the vatican . I a way I like to think the bible is the word of God but my own research hasn't confirmed that. Good work carry on !!

Please research the texts from which the Wycliffe and King James bibles were translated. The Textus Receptus and the Alexandrian texts are very very old. The Receptus is the most accurate, and yet we can trace its scholarship.

The original Bible texts have not been mutilated and anyone who has researched it, believing in God or not, can prove that to themselves, friend. The question is only if someone chooses to believe what is written, not if it was written as we know it.

Regarding Atlantis, your research is pretty good OP, except that those were actually animals and actually days. Rightly dividing the text proves what the author intended.

More accurately, all civilizations after Atlantis are a mixture of God's vision for the world and Atlantis' vision of the world. Atlantis was destroyed because it was naughty, naughty, naughty. Much like we are today.

It was made great and people worshiped the place instead of God and glorified their own works instead of giving credit where it is due.

Like we do today.

Noah's sons remembered the glory and sought to recreate it. Since civilization came through 3 this time around, you find 3 great civilizations recreating Atlantis in their way, and progressing and multiplying from there.

If you lived for hundreds of years without contraception, you'd produce an entire country, too.

Just see how a 90 year old woman can have 150 descendants today as she yet lives, and these all from the few she had when she was young for a short time.

a reply to: TarzanBeta

More accurately, all civilizations after Atlantis are a mixture of God's vision for the world and Atlantis' vision of the world. Atlantis was destroyed because it was naughty, naughty, naughty. Much like we are today.

Find this kind a wierd we don't know where Atlantis was or which people lived in it. But one thing is sure it was 'naughty'. isn't that xenophobia ? Instead of looking for the positive just condemn another former human civilization.

And than the Magic Man in the sky comes with his hammer and destroys a whole civilization. There were children in that civilization too. Is that a God of love ? Look that's why I can't believe in God or the bible. That's why I rather follow (arti)facts and (arti)facts prove that there was indeed an advanced human civilization many thousands of years ago. for me Atlantis was beautifull and good , the peak of the human civilization.

The "days" of creation of Genesis 1 tie it DIRECTLY to the destruction of Atlantis.

You've probably heard the biblical quote that "a day is as a thousand years" with God. (Ps. 90:4; 2 Pet. 3:8) What if we equate the biblical days of creation as thousand-year periods? What do we get?

Day 7: 4000-3000 BCE/6000 years ago (the time period of Adam, Eve, and the beginning of Egyptian and Sumerian civilization)
Day 6: 5000-4000 BCE/7000 years ago
Day 5: 6000-5000 BCE/8000 years ago
Day 4: 7000-6000 BCE/9000 years ago
Day 3: 8000-7000 BCE/10,000 years ago
Day 2: 9000-8000 BCE/11,000 years ago
Day 1: 10,000-9000 BCE/12,000 years ago

Does that last figure look familar? It should, because it's roughly when we've identified as the destruction of Atlantis! (circa 11,600 years ago).

So...what's the point of this? What is Genesis 1-3 trying to say?

Simply that out of the destruction of Atlantis came a wisdom tradition that still existed roughly 6,000 years later. That wisdom tradition is metaphorically described as "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil."

Was there such a place? Yes, there was, but there was likely never an "exile" from the garden. Basically, Genesis 1-3 was repeating the by then highly mythologized destruction of Atlantis and repeating the reason of moral degeneracy as the reason for leaving "the place where creation occurred." It was setting this wisdom tradition in opposition to "the way that leads to life" as explained later in the bible.
**********************************************************************************************************************************************

Inter-dispersed in your OP are grains of truth, but my opinion is that they are not truly representative of the factual history. One could form a story with these remanents of history to build a suitable history, though it would in no way be accurate but instead perhaps plausible or possibly logical. Never the less inaccurate.

I do however salute the OP on a well done presentation and much effort.

I would like to point out Genisis in it's entirety and the time references with respect to the emergence of life forms. It should demonstrate a great difficulty in alligning events of the OP with events in Genisis. The premise is formulated on Genisis after all.

www.biblegateway.com...

In my opinion, the time frame accounts of the OP and the Biblical account are blatantly in conflict.

a reply to: frenchfries

12000 years back wasn't that the time an ice age was ending and a stable living climate begon?

the world before that ice age, if I remember correctly, didn't have any ice on the poles.
wouldn't all that water cover most of the earth ?

I can imagine that there was limited dry land and quite a lot of island's scattered on the world.
ain't to hard to imagine a continent where a civ flourished back than.
ice age started and they had time to prepare for the worst, as the waters dissapeared explorers could easely "go with the flow" to find the best spots on earth to survive, leaving all kinds of land marks.

when the waters came back they would know where to go, and used the landmarks to pinpoint the rate of water rise and see that it was stabilizing .
at around 12000 years back they knew it was time to map out the new world and help any survivors build up again.

I'd say there wasn't one Atlantis, but several of em, with one "capital" and that the meaning of Atlantis is just a collection of these surviving places.
puma punku could be one of some long lasting capitols .
I think they learned not to put much work into building the last few capitols, because its location had to move with the falling and rising waters.
the Sphinx and 3 pyramids could have been one of the last places they settled for a long time, and marked that place by building it, leaving no writing in them, to prevent misinterpretation of its actual meaning.
that's why we can't find Atlantis anywhere.

writing on rock would be a bad way to keep a moving library, and teaching the survived people to read would take way to much time.
a simplified "fairytale" with symbolism would be best to teach the history and teach them basic know how of star navigation constellations, farming math etc etc etc.

I think the Vedas was one of the first to write down ,,after the thousands of years,, some of the totally changed story's.


I think the olmenacs became the pharaohs and they had kept most of the story as told to them, which they depicted in the earliest Egyptian writing style, (and most if not all got destroyed by following pharaohs, which was normal practice)


just some thoughts I came up with after reading OP

and with that I think you're on to somthing!
maybe genesis has its origin in a group of people that where studying the tales and tryed to write it down in a way that it has meaning for the "simple minded farmers" to the most knowledgeable "priests" in an effort to preserve whatever that was left of the original "myts"
.

originally posted by: damonjc
From many different sources (Graham Hancock, Rob ert Bauval, Andrew Collins, etc.)

Laughable, your sources are all well known liars who fabricate evidence and have no academic support.

Care to try doing some real research before wasting all our time with this..

a reply to: Marduk

tssk tssk.

you do know that academics get cought fabricating or interpreted "facts" to support their research quite often?

you do know that free thinkers are needed to explore every angle of any assumption and facts?

like always , burn em, ridicule em, ignore and stomp on em, laugh at em, etc.
until enough time passes and its incorporated in academics......

originally posted by: LadyGreenEyes
a reply to: damonjc

Interesting ideas, to be sure, though one could draw far different conclusions.

First, you have to assume that the days in Genesis 1 were not actually days, and that's debatable. In each case, it is stated plainly that "the evening and the morning" were that day. That's not indicative of a thousand year period. I don't agree with the idea there, that because we are told time doesn't matter to God, that it isn't supposed to be taken literally, when written for us. I personally believe that the days stated were real days.

Out of curiosity, have you read the Epic of Gilgamesh, which is what I was comparing this analysis to? What do you think of the literary elements mentioned in that story? What do you think is literal and what do you think is figurative, and why?

That said, some of your points are quite good. That this "Atlantis" society was one that practiced many evil things is quite intriguing. I hadn't read that before. Tie that in to how their society was lost, and you have a nice parallel to Flood legends. That there was some sort of flood is highly supported, by the work Hancock and others have done. I have one of his books, though I haven't finished it. Really need to do that! Fascinating stuff.

May I suggest that you read David Rohl's "Pharaohs and Kings: A Biblical Quest" and also his book, "Legend". The first posits that, because of problems with the dating of the Third Intermediate Period of ancient Egypt, it was artificially inflated, leading to misdating archaeological artifacts prior to that period. For instance, a 21st dynasty tomb was actually built around a previously existing 22nd dynasty tomb. Thus, the 21st and 22nd dynasties of Egypt actually overlap (at least partially) rather than falling one after the other as conventional Egyptian chronology has it. David Rohl's book "The Lords of Avaris" explores the ramifications of this misdating of the Third Intermediate Period for the Greek "age of heroes" and posits that the 400 year Greek "dark ages" actually doesn't exist. Rather than Troy falling in 1250 BCE, it actually fell in 850 BCE.

Interestingly, a recen t article mentioned the discovery of Odysseus palace...dating to the 8th century BCE. As you may recall, Odysseus went on his legendary journey immediately after the fall of Troy.

"Pharaohs and Kings" then explores the ramifications of this chronological fix, showing that biblical synchronisms suddenly appear where there were none before. It shows the synchronisms for Saul, David and Solomon, the "golden age" of Israel's kings, then takes it back even further, showing evidence for the sojourn in Egypt and the Exodus itself. Fascinating stuff.

Taking this chronological fix and propagating it back even further, "Legend" explores the admittedly meager evidence for even earlier biblical texts, including the Flood.

Apparently, Leonard Wooley's 15-foot flood layer, found when he was excavating Ur, actually DOES date to about 2400 BCE. It WAS the biblical Flood, but of course it wasn't a global flood.

My understanding of the biblical Flood story is that it took flood symbolism from the destruction of Atlantis and re-applied that same symbolism to the biblical Flood. Basically, it did the same thing to the Flood story as I posited for the Creation account.

For Atlantis, I lean more toward a Mediterranean location, as there was a people there who moved well inland, and who refused to live near the coast. I can't recall the details right now, but can share later. History buff hubby's theory, and it's a good one. If I don't post it soon, please remind me!

I went off like a fire hydrant in my double post there, so I didn't want to get into debates about location just yet.

Maybe later I can talk about how the biblical descriptions of Tyre don't fit what was historically known about it, and how that relates to Atlantis. And what that says about where Atlantis might have been.

Damon

originally posted by: TheBwaap
a reply to: Marduk

tssk tssk.

you do know that academics get cought fabricating or interpreted "facts" to support their research quite often?

Nope, try again, shifting the burden of proof is getting you nowhere

originally posted by: TheBwaapyou do know that free thinkers are needed to explore every angle of any assumption and facts?

You are not a free thinker, you are using pseudo historians as your research, that's about as dumb as a box of rocks, are you incapable of doing any real research ?

originally posted by: TheBwaaplike always , burn em, ridicule em, ignore and stomp on em, laugh at em, etc.
until enough time passes and its incorporated in academics......

Nothing from the "research sources" you labelled has ever been accepted by mainstream academia...
Want to try for double jeopardy,


Your main premise, is that you are looking for links to a land that didn't exist, from a book full of fabricated history, for this to have any validity at all you need to prove first that the bible is genuinely real history. You are incapable of doing that, even Christians are incapable of doing that and they believe it...
You even debunked the bible in your last post. where you said that the flood wasn't global
So your premise is fatally flawed, because you are deciding what to accept and what to ignore. Which makes your whole point completely fallacious...

you are wasting yours and everyones time with this