Kolob As Sirius

[Olavarria]

Awhile ago I started this thread, stating my reasons for why Kolob is Sirius. Viewing Kolob was Sirius would explain why the Egyptians would be so interested in what Abraham had to say about it.

1)Kolob might be a derivative of the word "dog"

Proto-Semitic : *kalb

Arabic : kalb كَلْب

Hebrew : keleb כֶּלֶב

Ugaritic : klb

Ge'ez : kalb

2)Sirius has consistently been called the "dog star" since the begining of Mesopotamian civilization. The Assyrians called it Kalbu Shamash, "dog of the sun".

3)Figure 1 of Facsimile 2 is a depiction of "the birth of the sun, whose four heads represent the first four generations of creation". If we are using the hypocephalus as a visual aid for Abraham's astronomy, then Kolob is identified with the rising sun.

4)Sirius was known as Sothis to the ancient Egyptians. They were aware that it made its first heliacal rising (i.e., rose just before sunrise) of the year at about the time the annual floods were beginning in the Nile River delta. They long believed that Sothis caused the Nile floods, and they discovered that the heliacal rising of the star occurred at intervals of 365.25 days rather than the 365 days of the solar year.

Edited July 6, 2011 by Pedro A. Olavarria

[Stargazer]

Well, I don't see it. Sirius is a big, respectable star, and all, but why on earth would God put his headquarters near a common garden variety Type A star? One would think (or I, at least, would think) that something really unique would be the marker for near unto God. Sirius just doesn't cut it.

Let's try something like Sagittarius A*, the supermassisve black hole at the center of our galaxy! Sirius is a pipsqueak -- no, less than a pipsqueak -- in comparison.

Edited to add: As far as someone thinking Sirius was meant, yeah, sure, maybe. But actually? Fat chance. IMHO.

Edited July 6, 2011 by Stargazer

[Log]

4)Sirius was known as Sothis to the ancient Egyptians.

Darn it. If only Sirius was known as KLB to the ancient Egyptians. Sounded good up to there.

[Olavarria]

Well, I don't see it. Sirius is a big, respectable star, and all, but why on earth would God put his headquarters near a common garden variety Type A star? One would think (or I, at least, would think) that something really unique would be the marker for near unto God. Sirius just doesn't cut it.

Let's try something like Sagittarius A*, the supermassisve black hole at the center of our galaxy! Sirius is a pipsqueak -- no, less than a pipsqueak -- in comparison.

Edited to add: As far as someone thinking Sirius was meant, yeah, sure, maybe. But actually? Fat chance. IMHO.

I don't believe that God's Home orbit's Sirius either.

[Olavarria]

Darn it. If only Sirius was known as KLB to the ancient Egyptians. Sounded good up to there.

Abraham wasn't an Egyptian.

Edited July 6, 2011 by Pedro A. Olavarria

[Log]

Abraham wasn't an Egyptian.

And the language he was using to speak to them?

[Olavarria]

And the language he was using to speak to them?

I don't know.

[Log]

I don't know.

Might it have been... Egyptian?

[Jeff K.]

Awhile ago I started this thread, stating my reasons for why Kolob is Sirius. Viewing Kolob was Sirius would explain why the Egyptians would be so interested in what Abraham had to say about it.

1)Kolob might be a derivative of the word "dog"

Proto-Semitic : *kalb

Arabic : kalb كَلْب

Hebrew : keleb כֶּלֶב

Ugaritic : klb

Ge'ez : kalb

2)Sirius has consistently been called the "dog star" since the begining of Mesopotamian civilization. The Assyrians called it Kalbu Shamash, "dog of the sun".

3)Figure 1 of Facsimile 2 is a depiction of "the birth of the sun, whose four heads represent the first four generations of creation". If we are using the hypocephalus as a visual aid for Abraham's astronomy, then Kolob is identified with the rising sun.

4)Sirius was known as Sothis to the ancient Egyptians. They were aware that it made its first heliacal rising (i.e., rose just before sunrise) of the year at about the time the annual floods were beginning in the Nile River delta. They long believed that Sothis caused the Nile floods, and they discovered that the heliacal rising of the star occurred at intervals of 365.25 days rather than the 365 days of the solar year.

Seems like a sirius endeavor.

[awh204]

Awhile ago I started this thread, stating my reasons for why Kolob is Sirius. Viewing Kolob was Sirius would explain why the Egyptians would be so interested in what Abraham had to say about it.

1)Kolob might be a derivative of the word "dog"

Proto-Semitic : *kalb

Arabic : kalb كَلْب

Hebrew : keleb כֶּלֶב

Ugaritic : klb

Ge'ez : kalb

2)Sirius has consistently been called the "dog star" since the begining of Mesopotamian civilization. The Assyrians called it Kalbu Shamash, "dog of the sun".

3)Figure 1 of Facsimile 2 is a depiction of "the birth of the sun, whose four heads represent the first four generations of creation". If we are using the hypocephalus as a visual aid for Abraham's astronomy, then Kolob is identified with the rising sun.

4)Sirius was known as Sothis to the ancient Egyptians. They were aware that it made its first heliacal rising (i.e., rose just before sunrise) of the year at about the time the annual floods were beginning in the Nile River delta. They long believed that Sothis caused the Nile floods, and they discovered that the heliacal rising of the star occurred at intervals of 365.25 days rather than the 365 days of the solar year.

This is certainly an interesting idea, and given the importance of Sirius in various ancient Near Eastern cosmologies. However, I had always viewed the name Kolob as relating to the root qlb, found in Arabic as قلب ("heart"), and perhaps related to the Hebrew לב (lb, "heart") and Akkadian libbu ("heart", "centre"). The word קרב (qrb, "midst") may derive from qlb. In other words, I always thought it meant "centre", which would, in my opinion, be an apt description of God's residence.

[BCSpace]

I don't believe that God's Home orbit's Sirius either.

Doesn't seem likely as we can observe that system fairly well; it being only 8 light years away. I was going to ask, for anyone who believes Kolob to be a local star within our galaxy and even visible from earth (Polaris at only 400+ light years away, has been mentioned as another candidate iirc), what would be the rammifications of such a star being Kolob?

If so, by the near future, we could have well observed it. In the far or not so far future, we could potentially visit it with a unmanned probe.

Would Kolob being so near to us say anything about our status in the universe? Does it say anything about the Creation as in perhaps our God merely created our solar system and not the whole galaxy or the entire visible universe? Would Kolob be the place where God dwells in the same sense that temples on the earth are the house of the Lord (Kolob in that case being some sort of gateway entry point for God and/or God's senses)?

Edited July 6, 2011 by BCSpace

[awh204]

Doesn't seem likely as we can observe that system fairly well; it being only 8 light years away.

Brigham Young once said that a veil covers Kolob and the inhabitants of distant star systems so that we cannot see them: "Why cannot we behold the inhabitants in Kolob, or the inhabitants in any of those distant planets? [...] because there is a curtain dropped that interrupts our vision. So it is, some thing intervenes between us and them, which we cannot penetrate. We are short sighted, and deprived of the knowledge which we might have" (JoD 1:350-1). If Kolob is near to us physically, it seems Young was of the opinion that it would be cloaked. Maybe it can only be beheld with eyes of spirit?

[fatherofone]

Brigham Young once said that a veil covers Kolob and the inhabitants of distant star systems so that we cannot see them: "Why cannot we behold the inhabitants in Kolob, or the inhabitants in any of those distant planets? [...] because there is a curtain dropped that interrupts our vision. So it is, some thing intervenes between us and them, which we cannot penetrate. We are short sighted, and deprived of the knowledge which we might have" (JoD 1:350-1). If Kolob is near to us physically, it seems Young was of the opinion that it would be cloaked. Maybe it can only be beheld with eyes of spirit?

everything can be beheld with the eyes of the spirit..............seems convienient

[Nofear]

Doesn't seem likely as we can observe that system fairly well; it being only 8 light years away. I was going to ask, for anyone who believes Kolob to be a local star within our galaxy and even visible from earth (Polaris at only 400+ light years away, has been mentioned as another candidate iirc), what would be the rammifications of such a star being Kolob?

Polaris doesn't have much going for it. During Abraham's day, Kappa draconis would have been the closer star to the North Celestial Pole Thuban.

If so, by the near future, we could have well observed it. In the far or not so far future, we could potentially visit it with a unmanned probe.

Unless mortals acquire superluminal travel, this is not something that is foreseeable anytime in the next millennia at the least.

Would Kolob being so near to us say anything about our status in the universe? Does it say anything about the Creation as in perhaps our God merely created our solar system and not the whole galaxy or the entire visible universe? Would Kolob be the place where God dwells in the same sense that temples on the earth are the house of the Lord (Kolob in that case being some sort of gateway entry point for God and/or God's senses)?

I am personally quite content with Heavenly Father's domain being this galaxy or even just a portion of this galaxy -- our galaxy is quite big enough for that. Even setting that aside, I think it a quite erroneous and very inappropriate reading of the Creation accounts (such as Genesis) as being anything other than a description of the organization of our solar system and earth.

[Olavarria]

The way I see it, Abraham was an ancient man and so God explained "astronomy" to him in ancient terms. So, I see Abraham's astronomy as being compatible with the following model:

Edited July 6, 2011 by Pedro A. Olavarria

[LeSellers]

The way I see it, Abraham was an ancient man and so God explained "astronomy" to him in ancient terms. So, I see Abraham's astronomy as being compatible with the following model:

I believe you misunderstand.

God explained it to Abraham as the universe actually is, but Abraham was tethered to his times and he had to use the tools available to him and his audience. It was Abraham who adapted his new-found knowledge to his time, not Father, at least not to the extent your model implies.

Lehi

[Olavarria]

I believe you misunderstand.

God explained it to Abraham as the universe actually is, but Abraham was tethered to his times and he had to use the tools available to him and his audience. It was Abraham who adapted his new-found knowledge to his time, not Father, at least not to the extent your model implies.

Lehi

That works too.

[Nofear]

The way I see it, Abraham was an ancient man and so God explained "astronomy" to him in ancient terms. So, I see Abraham's astronomy as being compatible with the following model:

An article by Hamblin, Gee, and Peterson propose an alternate view:

Although there is no explicit evidence to indicate that the Egyptians conceived of a universe of concentric spheres as did Ptolemy, they nonetheless clearly held one of the other geocentric views of the universe.²¹ And while no ancient Egyptian text provides a complete discussion of their views of the cosmos,²² numerous references make it clear that their worldview was fundamentally geocentric.²³ For example, Queen Hatshepsut says that the god Amun "has given to her [Hatshepsut] what the Sun-disk encircles (šnn.wt itn), that which Geb and Nut enclose."²⁴ The phrase "what the Sun-disk encircles" strongly implies that the earth was seen as the center of the universe. This idea goes back at least as far as the Middle Kingdom (and thus to the approximate time of Abraham), when a similar idea is manifest by Sinuhe, who says of the Pharaoh, "Fear of you resounds in the lowlands and the highlands, since you have seized that which the Sun-disk encircles (šnn.t itn)."²⁵ And I Saw the Stars -- The Book of Abraham and Ancient Geocentric Astronomy)

Given my prejudice that the ancients were not ignorant beings and the several very accessible observations that suggest a round earth, I am inclined to agree with the article. Perhaps the dome models are more a manifestation of artistic limitations than a representation of their literal conception.

Another author who similarly adopts a geocentric model as being an educational tool for the Egyptions: Encircling Astronomy and the Egyptians: An Approach to Abraham 3

[BCSpace]

If so, by the near future, we could have well observed it. In the far or not so far future, we could potentially visit it with a unmanned probe.

Unless mortals acquire superluminal travel, this is not something that is foreseeable anytime in the next millennia at the least.

A velocity of .1c is ready available to us now if we wish. Acceleration to a range of .1c to .9c is available within a few decades to any of the top 5 or 6 industrially advanced nations which decides to put forth the effort. The nearby stars are only a few decades away and we have space probes now that have lasted at least that long. But you're right, a star like Polaris is still millenia away with the conventional techniques we have and traveling at significant fractions of light speed presents some significant engineering challenges beyond that of merely achieving such velocites. If superluminal travel is possible, I believe achieving it is within a matter of one or two centuries.

Of course that brings up the question of why go to all that effort initially to send out sublight probes when they will just get passed up on their way later on by newer technology? My answer is do what you can now because one cannot predict the future.

Edited July 6, 2011 by BCSpace

[volgadon]

I think it is actually qarob, near, with a dagesh in the qof and an unstressed 'r', I.E., one that isn't rolled.

[David T]

I think it is actually qarob, near, with a dagesh in the qof and an unstressed 'r', I.E., one that isn't rolled.

I'm curious - would this have been a way he would have read or transliterated the word from his Seixas grammar/instruction? I understand Joseph worked with some 'interesting' transliteration methods. I'm not familiar enough with the Seixas grammar or other sources Joseph would have studied that could have given him that idea.

[volgadon]

I'm curious - would this have been a way he would have read or transliterated the word from his Seixas grammar/instruction? I understand Joseph worked with some 'interesting' transliteration methods. I'm not familiar enough with the Seixas grammar or other sources Joseph would have studied that could have given him that idea.

I've been intending to read the Seixas grammar, I probably should have done so already. At any rate, the spelling of Hebrew words in the BoA proper suggest to me an auditory experience. They don't make a great deal of sense otherwise.