The planets and the reckoning of time

[The Nehor]

On 10/27/2018 at 5:17 PM, JLHPROF said:

The idea that God's time equates that closely to the speed that light travels is intriguing.

All speeds in which time dilation has an appreciable effect are very close to light speed (just add and subtract digits behind the decimal point for various time differentials) so it is probably unwise to read too much into it.

[SettingDogStar]

9 hours ago, Kevin Christensen said:

This bit in one of Nibley's essays on the Facsimiles, which in turn sent me off to read de Santilana's Hamlet's Mill.

http://www.boap.org/LDS/Hugh-Nibley/TrFac.html

The important bits are that Canopus (aka Qalb and not at all a stretch for Kolob) was, of all the stars, taken as exempt from the Precession of the Equinoxes (the 26,000 year wobble that Clark mentions, and that Joseph Campbell discusses as encoded in the ages of the Patriarchs in Genesis), and therefore, from the perspective of an observer on earth, everything else rotates around it.  The main point of the Astronomy discourse to help explain the difference between God's intelligence, and our own.   The image of the Precession with the stars rotating around static Kolob is like a large scale metaphor for Lehi's vision of numberless concourses of angels (the angels, of course, being associated with stars, something Margaret Barker discusses in various places).  I did a PowerPoint on this stuff about ten years or so ago, for a Single Adult Fireside.

It's interesting that Canopus is located in the rudder of the Argo, and because of it's stability and brightness is still used for satellites to take their bearings.

FWIW

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

I’d be really excited to see those slides 😂

[Kevin Christensen]

17 hours ago, SettingDogStar said:

I’d be really excited to see those slides 😂

Email me.  It's located at the Interpreter Website in the Authors listed under C.

Best,

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

[clarkgoble]

On 10/24/2018 at 4:35 PM, theplains said:

I had a question on these verses.

Abraham 3:4 - "And the Lord said unto me, by the Urim and Thummim, that Kolob was after the 
manner of the Lord, according to its times and seasons in the revolutions thereof; that one 
revolution was a day unto the Lord, after his manner of reckoning, it being one thousand years 
according to the time appointed unto that whereon thou standest. This is the reckoning of the 
Lord’s time, according to the reckoning of Kolob."

Abraham 3:5 - "And the Lord said unto me: The planet which is the lesser light, lesser than that 
which is to rule the day, even the night, is above or greater than that upon which thou standest 
in point of reckoning, for it moveth in order more slow; this is in order because it standeth 
above the earth upon which thou standest, therefore the reckoning of its time is not so many as 
to its number of days, and of months, and of years."

What is the context and meaning?

I'd say it relates to a geocentric astronomy where the heavenly sphere each rotate at different speeds. It's possibly a reference to not just the distinction between the planets and the sphere of the stars, which appear to be stationary relative to each other. Rather I suspect it's a reference to the fact the ancients recognize the starts moved around a central point. Today that's close to the northern star. In ancient times due to precession of the equinox other stars were the polar center. In 3000 BC it was Thuban that was the polar star. In 1000 BC it was Beta Ursae Minoris ("Kochab") that was close but it wasn't exactly where the center was. In the Roman era (the time of the papyri Joseph had) the pole was between Polaris (the current northern star) and Kochab. At the time the center was equidistance between Kochab and a faint star named Pherkad.

While perhaps just a coincidence I've often noticed that Joseph treats the center of the hypocephalus as Kolob. Figures 22 & 23 are "is planet receives its power through the medium of Kli-flos-is-es, or Hah-ko-kau-beam, the stars represented by numbers 22 and 23, receiving light from the revolutions of Kolob." In this view (again ridiculously speculative) Kolob is the invisible center of all rotations and the two planets are Kochab and Polaris or else Pherkad. 

The other interesting alternative is pythagorean astronomy. It actually had two suns - a central fire and then the sun as we know it. It's a weird hybrid between geocentric and the later heliocentric astronomy. So Philolaus around 400 BC had all the planets, including earth, orbiting a hidden central fire. The farther out you went in orbits the slower things went. So the sun had a year orbit and the earth a day orbit. "The highest part of the surrounding, where the elements are found in their purity, he calls Olympus; the regions beneath the orbit of Olympus, where are the five planets with the sun and the moon, he calls the world; the part under them, being beneath the moon and around the earth, in which are found generation and change, he calls the sky." (Stobaeus 1.22 1d)

Some scholars speculate that in pythagoreanism and certain types of neoplatonism that the sun is a mirror reflecting the light of the central fire.

Anyway, while people dispute whether one should take the Abraham passage as geocentric or heliocentric it appears that there's different speeds depending upon what level of an ascent. These heavenly objects appear either symbolic or identical (as in neoplatonism) with the souls of angels. I'd say that it likely refers to a conception of the levels as each representing a world as a kind of heaven. One ascends through slower and slower orbits until one reaches Kolob. Whether that is the fixed sphere of stars, as was commonly thought in the ancient world (the seventh heaven) or whether it was more complex dealing with the polar star isn't clear. 

Today we don't take it seriously as astronomy. It's main point is as an allegory about degree of intelligence and presumably glory. Whether we should understand Abraham as something related to Abraham's time or the time of the papyri in the Roman era isn't clear. 

On 11/29/2018 at 8:45 AM, Kevin Christensen said:

The important bits are that Canopus (aka Qalb and not at all a stretch for Kolob) was, of all the stars, taken as exempt from the Precession of the Equinoxes (the 26,000 year wobble that Clark mentions, and that Joseph Campbell discusses as encoded in the ages of the Patriarchs in Genesis), and therefore, from the perspective of an observer on earth, everything else rotates around it. 

Heh. I didn't realize this was an old thread when I wrote the above. I guess I repeated stuff I'd already said. I'll leave it in though.

The problem with Canopus is that while it's bright (beat only by Sirius) it is affected by the precession. I've not read your link yet, but I suspect it's conflating Canopus with Kochab. But even Kochab wasn't quite at the center. Of course being slow in orbit and not non-existent fits the Kolob description in our Abraham better. That would also fit Roman times but not Abrahamic times.

For those without a star guide on their phones, here's a picture of their locations in the little dipper.

The significance all depends upon the era one is talking about. As I said today, the polar star is Polaris. If Abraham 3 should be read in terms of today's astronomy and not Roman or Abraham's then Kolob is Polaris.

Of course Sirius has been argued as Kolob for various reasons. Gee argues for it because he thinks KLB means dog and thus dog star and because it's bright. The problem with Sirius is of course it makes no sense orbitally. Rhodes argues for QLB as center. In Arabic it's tied to the bright stars Antares, Regulus and Conopus. (Not sure if that's where your link got Conopus)

Edited November 30, 2018 by clarkgoble

[clarkgoble]

OK, I'm obviously wasting time with glee rather than cleaning like I'm supposed to be. I read the link.

Nibley picks Canopus because it's the heart star for the Egyptians and was like the bob on a plumb line device. He then quotes an Arabic figure who says it was exempt from the precession. But that's problematic. It was the southern pole star for those in the north yet far enough south to see it. It was, however, reasonably far away from the pole still and most definitely still affected by precession. Interestingly Sirius was also in a similar place and eventually will be the southern pole star in about 60 thousand years or so.

Obviously I'm biased because I live in the north. The closer  you are to the equator the more you'll be able to see the southern polar stars. At the beginning of Roman times the star Beta Hydri was closest to the southern pole. In 2800 BC Achernar was extremely close to the pole. In 14,000 years Canopus will be only 8° from the pole which is pretty close. Although not as close as Sirius gets which is 1.6°. But again, in more than 60,000 years.

I don't think the southern poles work as well, but I will admit that there's some possibility. Canopus though I confess doesn't make much sense to me. If I had to really pick a star, I suspect Kochab makes more sense. Admittedly its name is unimaginative. It came from Arabic/Hebrew in the Renaissance and just means star. However it was used for navigation during the bronze age. Quoting from wikipedia.

• From around 2500 BCE, as Thuban became less and less aligned with the celestial north, Kochab became one pillar of the circumpolar stars first with Mizar, a star in the middle of the handle of the Big Dipper (Ursa Major), and later with Pherkad (in Ursa Minor). In fact, circa the year 2467 BCE, the true north was best observed by drawing a plumb line between Mizar and Kochab, a fact with which the ancient Egyptians were well acquainted as they aligned the great Pyramid of Giza with it. This cycle of the succession of pole stars occurs due to the precession of the equinoxes. Kochab and Mizar were referred to by Ancient Egyptian astronomers as "The Indestructibles" lighting the North.

So perhaps the two stars of Fac. 2 might fit Kochab and Mizar with Kolob being the hidden center of the pole. to the Egyptians they were "the indestructibles" and pointed the way to the north pole which was the entrance to heaven for Pharoah. The goal was in the afterlife to join these two stars. Again just going by wikipedia - not always a terribly good source. The pyramid of Giza was reportedly built between 2485 and 2475 because that's when the pyramid lines up properly with Kochab and Mizar.

 

Edited November 30, 2018 by clarkgoble

[The Refiner's Fire]

I do not think there is just a quantitative difference between our time and God's time, like an actual 1000 years in a day or conmecting God with the speed of light in some way.

It is also a qualitative difference, like repentance is a change of mind, a change of heart, a totally different perspective. Imagine what exaltation would be like… The way time would be perceived would be totally different. I like to think that we will overcome linear time altogether, immersing in eternal progression, pure living duration: Eternal Life.

[Kevin Christensen]

I was pondering a figure of "the Hebrew Cosmos" in a Dialogue essay around 30 years ago, the point of which was to establish that the ancient Hebrews has a primitive conception compared to modern science (and was therefore, useless nonsense), when I had a thought, "Where have I seen something like that before?"  And I remembered and found a passage in Hamlet's Mill (on ancient astronomy a book Nibley refers to now and then) that included these observations:

• In ancient astronomy “ the earth was the ideal plane laid through the ecliptic.
• Half the zodiac (northern band, reaching from vernal to autumn equinox) as “dry land.”
• Half the zodiac (southern arc) as “waters below.”
• “Flat earth applies to the band of the zodiac through which the planets move.”
• The equinoxes and the solstices make up the four pillars or corners of the earth.

Figure 6 in Facsimile Number 2, the four canopic figures, represent we are told represents "this earth in its four quarters".   Nibley shows that the same four figures appear in the Apocalypse of Abraham 18,  where Abraham sees “beneath the throne, four fiery living beings, one like a lion, one like a man, one like an ox, and one like an eagle.”  I notice the interesting title "Canopic" in comparison with Canopus, the "heart of the south".

Figure 5 has the Cow with the Goddess Hathor holding a lotus over its womb (fertility, as Nibley explains).   And comparison with the whole discussion on page 73-4 of Hamlet's Mill shows that a line from the Egyptian temple at Dendara associates Hathor with the heart symbol or plum bob on the astronomical surveying device, the merket, and that Hathor is associated with Canopus and rules the revolution of all Celestial bodies

In facsimile 2, Nibley explained in 1980 that "In the Egyptian rites and the Old Testament, as also on our Hypcephalus, we find the strange conjunction of the Bull and the Ram, both of which are the supreme symbol of reproductive power."  G. Santilliana [Hamlet’s Mill] would find the declension of Bull to Ram in the precession of the equinoxes, which in the days of Abraham, move the sun from the constellation of Taurus into that of Aries to remain there for the next 2000 years.   

That means that the creator of Facsimile 2 was definitely thinking within Precession based astronomy.

26,000 years

This number shows up in many places and forms  in myths around the world.  According to Joseph Campbell (The Inner Reaches of Outer Space), it is encoded in the ages of the patriarchs from Adam to Noah.

In terms of visible astronomy, the Sun rules the day, the Moon and stars rule the night, and the stars have their own hierarchy and set times, which times and starts all have an interlocking hierarchy of greater and lesser “set times,” Kolob’s time being the greatest of all the stars Abraham sees.  Kolob governs the others.

The discussion of astronomy in Abraham leads a discussion of comparative hierarchies of time and scale which leads to a subsequent  discussion of intelligences, and the grand council. 

So the possibilities are interconnected, very ancient, and fascinating in comparison with the content of the Book of Abraham, Ancient Abraham literature, and the facsimilies.   This led to my Dialogue essay, which became my first contribution to LDS letters.

FWIW

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

 

Edited December 2, 2018 by Kevin Christensen

[clarkgoble]

Kevin, I'm more than a bit skeptical of Campbell let alone Hamlet's Mill. I confess relative to Fac. 2 I'd want to find something a bit less ambiguous than Hathor is often Canopus although the plumb line may also relate to the equidistance between the planets I mentioned. But I certainly am open to it being tied to precession, indeed that's my default assumption. Establishing it and establishing what astronomy the Book of Abraham uses seems trickier. While I favor a geocentric like model (possibly tied to the pythagorean conception) I'd be the first to admit things are pretty ambiguous.

"Refiner's Fire" I don't think the reference is meant to imply a subjective experience of time, although one can certainly imagine that God can think faster than our bodies are able. The main use seems to be the mysterious sense in 1 Peter and then the astronomical allegory where slowness implies a higher heaven or degree of glory. Why that use is used isn't clear although I vaguely recall some neoplatonic/hermetic parallels from around the 4th century. (Can't find them now unfortunately)