Comparing Habermehl's Take and Mine

Here is Anne Habermehl, from JOURNAL OF CREATION 31(2) 2017, Sodom—part 2, read it carefully, it is a fine intelectual feat, beyond most these days:

We first need to find a crossover date for Joseph and Imhotep. For that, we will calculate when construction of the Saqqara pyramid by Djoser probably began, because this project is known to have been overseen by Imhotep.55 If we allow for a few years of this pharaoh’s reign before Joseph was promoted, plus 14 years for the seven years each of plenty and famine, this would take us perhaps 20 years into the pharaoh’s reign before the beginning of construction of this pyramid. (We are making an assumption on this, because it was at the end of the famine period that the people were literally owned by the pharaoh, and were therefore available to be conscripted to work for him. However, construction could have begun earlier.) Djoser began his reign in about 2670 bc (secular time) as noted above, making the start of the Saqqara pyramid around 2650 bc. This is the date that we can use for placing Imhotep and Joseph together on the secular timeline. Joseph was made vizier by the pharaoh in 1715,56 182 years after Sodom’s destruction in 1897 (which was one year before Isaac’s birth).57 If we count 20 years to the beginning of the Saqqara pyramid, this makes a round figure of about 200 years back to Sodom’s destruction/Abraham. This would appear to land Abraham at 2850 bc (secular time). But this is in the middle of the murky period of the first and second dynasties, and like all the rest of the Egyptian timeline, there is every reason to believe that these dynasties are stretched out and contain extra time.58 This means that 200 years on the biblical timeline could represent quite a bit more time at this distant period in Egypt’s history. So how far back would Abraham go? A plausible time would be somewhere around 3000 bc, the beginning of the first dynasty. There is in fact a hint in ancient secular history to support this date.

Here are the notes 55 to 58:

• 55. Oakes and Gahlin, ref. 48, p. 46.
  
  
  • (48. For example Oakes, L. and Gahlin, L., Ancient Egypt, Hermes House, Anness Publishing Inc., New York, p. 46, 2002. Currently most scholars accept approximately this date for Djoser, although Egyptian dates are always subject to tweaking by somebody or other.)
  
  
  
• 56. Jones, ref. 1, p. 278. The Jones chronology puts the children of Israel in Egypt for 215 years, which I support. However, whether or not it was 215 years does not affect where Abraham and Joseph go on the secular timeline—it only changes the number of years between the secular and biblical timelines at that point.
  
  
• 57. Jones, ref. 1, p. 278.
  
  
  • (1. This figure is based on 215 years as the length of time that the children of Israel lived in Egypt. The apostle Paul supports a stay of 215 years in Egypt when he says in Galatians 3:17 that God’s covenant with Abraham (in Canaan) was 430 years before the giving of the law. For more information on this, see Jones, F.N., The Chronology of the Old Testament, 16th edn, Master Books, Green Forest, AR, pp. 53–55, 2007. Jones (who follows the Masoretic), shows that internal calculations of Scripture indicate 215 years in Egypt. The LXX translations of Exodus 12:40 clearly indicate 215 years in Egypt, saying that 430 years was the time of residence in the land of Egypt and the land of Canaan.)
  
  
  
• 58. Secular scholars simply do not know for sure whether all the pharaohs of these dynasties reigned in series or concurrently, and for how long, or even whether some of these were pharaohs under different names. For example, see Wilkinson, T.A.H., Early Dynastic Egypt, Routledge, London and New York, pp. 55─91, 1999.

O K .... what is Habermehl consistently leaving out?

Carbon 14 dating.

Do I believe carbon 14 dating yields correct dates? No. Not this far back, while carbon 14 ratio had not reached present level yet. Later on, yes.

Do I believe a correspondence between carbon 14 dates and real dates (Biblical timeline) can be made? Yes.

What is the exact place in above quoted passus, where such a distinction would be useful?

Joseph was made vizier by the pharaoh in 1715,56 182 years after Sodom’s destruction in 1897 (which was one year before Isaac’s birth).57 If we count 20 years to the beginning of the Saqqara pyramid, this makes a round figure of about 200 years back to Sodom’s destruction/Abraham. This would appear to land Abraham at 2850 bc (secular time)

This assumes that carbon dates have nothing to do with secular time, only inserting too many pharaos.

Now, she corrects this, slightly, but indirectly:

This means that 200 years on the biblical timeline could represent quite a bit more time at this distant period in Egypt’s history.

200 years on real timeline can represent down to 200 years on carbon timeline only after carbon 14 has reached present level. As long as carbon 14 is rising, two carbon dates taken from items left in the ground at a real distance of 200 years will seem more distant than that, since the earlier of them had lower carbon 14 content, yielding more "instant age" years.

On the other hand, if the "secular timeline" is made by one carbon date + one historic distance in time (other item 200 years after or before the carbon dated item), then the method outlined by Habermehl will work. Unless spurious history, like extra pharaos or extra years, is inserted.

Now, it is interesting that Habermehl and I agree on Joseph being Imhotep. It so happens, the point of secular timeline we are dealing with has a carbon date, namely the coffin of pharao Djoser. Unfortunately, this carbon date is somewhat obfuscated as a pure carbon date by its being presented in the form of a calibrated one. I think I read some paper saying the raw carbon date for Djoser's coffin is samples at least one of which goes back to 2800 BC. Either way, 2800 BC or 2600 BC, Joseph is prior to the carbon date 2400 BC - which is that of earliest Ebla tablets. This amply explains (Ebla tablets being very contemporary diplomacy, nothing to do with remote historiography unless relevant for the then active diplomats) why Ebla archive has no mention of Sodom or Gomorrah. Some assume "2400 BC is before Sodom was destroyed according to the Bible" - yes, indeed. But only 2400 BC on the real Biblical timeline. 2400 BC in carbon dates, which are inflated, is after Joseph. This also means, since Ebla tablets are prior to earliest tablet of Enuma Elish, all parts of Genesis, except chapter one which was revealed to Moses on Sinai and his editing, like replacing earlier theonyms with Adonai when appropriate, were already redacted, either in writing or orally (arguably chapters from 12 on would have been originally written redactions, while first 11 chapters can have been redacted for oral transmission) were already in place in Egypt, available to Moses, before we can trace Enuma Elish.

But back to business.

Sodom was destroyed 182 years before Joseph was made vizier, Isaac was born 181 years before that later date, since year after destruction of Sodom. This I accept from Habermehl's sources, notably Jones, F.N., The Chronology of the Old Testament, 16th edn, Master Books, Green Forest, AR, pp. 53–55. Now, Isaac was born 1915 BC if Abraham was born 2015 BC (or 2012 BC, two versions of the chronology involved in Roman Martyrology).

1912	1915	BC
0181	0181
1731	1734	BC

How many years did Djoser have overall? 19 or 28 according to wikipedia, meaning, sources would be differring.

If Joseph was made vizier in the beginning of Djoser's reign of 19 years, Djoser died five years after the fourteen years under Imhotep's or JOseph's supervision, if Joseph was made vizir in the fifth year, Djoser died after the 14 years.

1731	1731	1734	1734	BC
0019	0014	0019	0014
1712	1717	1715	1720	BC

If Joseph was made vizier in the beginning of Djoser's reign of 28 years, we have another option:

1731	1734	BC
0028	0028
1703	1706	BC

So, Biblical and real date for Djoser's death would be at latest 1703 BC and at earliest 1720 BC.

The problem with the following is, the carbon date is probably already calibrated:

"Dr Ramsey's team was able to determine the exact period when this king reigned Egypt - from about 2691 to roughly 2625 BC, said the scientist."

Citing : BBC : Radiocarbon dating verifies ancient Egypt's history
By Katia Moskvitch Science reporter, BBC News, 17 June 2010
https://www.bbc.com/news/10345875

But I'll take either extreme 2691 BC or 2625 BC as if it were uncalibrated carbon date. I don't think the span refers to the span of his rein, which was definitely shorter than 67 years.

2691	2691	2625	2625	BC
1703	1720	1703	1720	BC
0988	0971	0922	0905

So, the extra years are 905 to 988. This gives us the pmC levels, since "extra years" = instant age sth would have had if tested when dying or being felled back then:

988	971	922	905
88.735	88.918	89.446	89.63

Now, for Abraham in Genesis 13 or 14, I'm presuming he was 80 years old, I take 3400 (Proto-Elamitic) to 3100 (early dynastic) BC as the carbon dates.

2015	2012	BC
0080	0080
1935	1932	BC
3400	3400	3100	3100	BC
1935	1932	1935	1932	BC
1465	1468	1265	1268

1468	1465	1268	1265
83.729	83.76	85.78	85.811

So, this leaves between the carbon dated (or near so) events of Abraham in Egypt and fighting for Sodom and Djoser's death a rise in carbon level between 85.811 to 88.735 pmC and 83.729 to 89.63 pmC.

What would be the carbon date of Sodom? Well, calibrate a rise from one carbon level to the other over the Biblical and real years, and take the value for 20 years after Genesis 13/14. That pmC level will give you the number of extra years and that added to the Biblical years will give you the uncalibrated carbon date with Cambridge halflife, closer to the calibrated one than to the one called "uncalibrated" which is given in BP and uses Libby half life.

This carbon 14 calculator uses the Cambridge halflife.

Carbon 14 Dating Calculator
https://www.math.upenn.edu/~deturck/m170/c14/carbdate.html

Obviously, it is meant to be used by uniformitarians (who are right on most samples - there have been exceptional ones from exceptional circumstances like marine, iceberg or near nuke explosion - when they come from recent years, like last 2000 or 2500 years if not more), as a way to date in the present something having in the present a certain carbon 14 level, and also, for a given age, if you look for things having a certain age, predict the carbon 14 level of most relevant samples. A corpse found in the battlefields of the Marne ought to be 100 years old and therefore have a carbon 14 level of 98.798 pmC, unless it's more recently there from a serial killer, in which case it has more pmC.

Nevertheless, given the concept of a carbon buildup, the exact same mathematics serve to tie "extra years" to successive levels of carbon 14 during the Biblical timeline (for which I use that of Roman Martyrology).

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
St. Andrew
30.XI.2018

Someone Said "Popular"

The myth of ape-to-human evolution - Being popular doesn’t make an idea scientifically plausible

I'd call that the understatement of the year. Along with Cinderella it's about the most popular story. For one thing, as C. S. Lewis argued in - was the title "farewell to a great myth"? - it is the same story as Cinderella and the Ugly Duckling on a plane. For another, it gets to the plane of scientific success stories : the guys in Laetoli* are taking the place alongside Wilbur and Orville Wright, Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Alva Edison, Christopher Columbus, Dr. Livingstone (well, he is kind of being dethroned by them, since he was also kind of a Protestant missionary), Marco Polo, James Cook, etc. And, on a third plane, it has a place with the myth of Sherlock Holmes and Scooby Doo unmasking supernatural frauds like the Hound of Baskerville's of Ghosts in a Hotel someone's inheriting, since to a certain not quite unpopular mentality, Christianity is one of the spook frauds.

In fact, Protestantism started the third popular genre here alluded to over denying Catholic and post-Acts miracles.

Here is how Calvin exposes Mark 16:17 or rather a significant part of it, where he differs from Catholic (he admits, as we Catholics, that Apostles were raising dead to life and things like that in Acts):

verse

And these signs shall follow them that believe: In my name they shall cast out devils: they shall speak with new tongues. ...

from comment

... Though Christ does not expressly state whether he intends this gift to be temporary, or to remain perpetually in his Church, yet it is more probable that miracles were promised only for a time, in order to give luster to the gospel, while it was new and in a state of obscurity. It is possible, no doubt, that the world may have been deprived of this honor through the guilt of its own ingratitude; but I think that the true design for which miracles were appointed was, that nothing which was necessary for proving the doctrine of the gospel should be wanting at its commencement. And certainly we see that the use of them ceased not long afterwards, or, at least, that instances of them were so rare as to entitle us to conclude that they would not be equally common in all ages.

Yet those who came after them, that they might not allow it to be supposed that they were entirely destitute of miracles, were led by foolish avarice or ambition to forge for themselves miracles which had no reality. Thus was the door opened for the impostures of Satan, not only that delusions might be substituted for truth, but that, under the pretense of miracles, the simple might be led aside from the true faith. And certainly it was proper that men of eager curiosity, who, not satisfied with lawful proof, were every day asking new miracles, should be carried away by such impostures. This is the reason why Christ, in another passage, foretold that the reign of Antichrist would be full of lying signs, (Matthew 24:24;) and Paul makes a similar declaration, (2 Thessalonians 2:9.) ...

OK, so to his mind the rule of Antichrist started, not 3 years and 6 months (or possibly 7 years) before Doomsday, a date not yet reached arguably** but among "those who came after them" that is after the Apostles.

This has of course started a long series of literature debunking Catholic miracles, of which Sherlock Holmes and Scooby Doo are a kind of de-denominationalised popular version. Leaving Catholicism alone and concentrating on spooks. However, part of this mentality of debunking Catholic miracles lives on in the cheers Huxley got in the debate with Wilberforce, so, man coming from apes (in itself a false miracle licit and good to debunk, and one easy to do so with, in good logic)*** is hailed as debunking the "false miracle" of God creating man in His image and likeness.

Yes, man coming from apes is triply popular. Ugly Duckling, scientist misunderstood proven genius, false miracle debunked.

You know Jeff Smith? If I say BoNe? Yes, someone looking like Pogo in the end helping to beat Kingdok and the Lord of the Locusts ... that is Jeff Smith (among whose favourite comics you find Pogo and the Uncle Scrooge by Carl Barks). Now, this actual genius has so to speak taken on another topic or two. Presenting Tuki:

hiatus

TUKI: Save the Humans is on temporary hiatus while I rework the strip ...

about

2,000,000 years ago, a great ice age gripped the earth, trapping all moisture in the polar icecaps, causing drought and upheaval in the rest of the world. Vast tropical jungles gave way to dusty grasslands, and all living creatures struggled to survive, including the many species of hominids. To avoid extinction, something had to be done.

This is the story of the first human to leave Africa.

Written and Drawn by Jeff Smith
Color by Tom Gaadt

So, yes, the story is wildly popular. Now, what kind of anger are we facing when challenging that?



About the same kind of anger X was showing me as a Catholic over supporting a Catholic OP (actually by an Orthodox member of the group) ... while Protestantism is not identic to the final delusion (which may yet involve man coming from apes), it has helped to build up for it. Just after Catholicism beat Albigensians, Christians were not facing this kind of thing in our own countries.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
St. Andrew Apostle
30.XI.2018

Correction on C. S. Lewis' essay title. "The Funeral of a Great Myth" an essay in CHRISTIAN REFLECTIONS. H/T to William O'Flaherty.

*Leakey, right? ** Ireland is not flooded yet. See St. Patrick's deal with God. (Note as to "among those who came after them" Calvin is imprecise about how long after, but the corpse of St Martin repeating what the corpse of Elisha did would probably be considered as "fraud" by Calvin, since involved in relics). *** In certain connections, good logic is not as common as Scooby Doo and Sherlock Holmes stories would want you to think. In those stories, you show the mechanism of the fraud, the false supposition not proven or even disproven, and you have defeated the fraudsters ...

Hernando de Soto Polar Answered Bill Nye and Richard Dawkins

(As well as the usual spacecraft argument against Geocentrism.) It remains to be seen whether he is a decent economist or not (I tend to suspect he is not quite that), but he has shown one good grasp of scientific principle which is very relevant for the argument "science works":

It is not uncommon for us to know how to use things without understanding why they work. Sailors used magnetic compasses long before there was a satisfactory theory of magnetism. Animal breeders had a working knowledge of genetics long before Gregor Mendel explained genetic principles.

From preview of Kindle edition of his book:

The Mystery Of Capital
http://www.amazon.com/Mystery-Capital-Hernando-Soto-ebook/dp/B004FV4XTE/ref=la_B001HMNIIG_1_1/188-5970856-2060456?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1398502234&sr=1-1

The point answered is of course Bill Nye and Richard Dawkins claiming "since science works, we trust its understanding" (but generally they formulate the point with less distinction between engineering and theoretic understanding).

If a culture of the past could be wrong about why sth works and still right about how it works, the culture of the present can so too./HGL

Originalism vs Textualism

Here is Marc Ambler giving Originalism and Textualism:

Originalism is “a legal philosophy that the words in documents and especially the U.S. Constitution should be interpreted as they were understood at the time they were written”1 by those that framed and ratified the Constitution and its various amendments. Textualism is closely aligned to Originalism and holds that when applying the law, the words of the Constitution itself are to be the final authority.

Scriptural originalism
by Marc Ambler | Published: 20 November 2018
https://creation.com/originalism

Why versus? Mark Ambler considers the two closely aligned. Well, in Exegesis, the (self proclaimed) Textualists are Protestants. The Originalists are Catholics.

For instance, if Protestant textualism were taken to its conclusion, some people would very quickly lose an eye or a hand. Catholicism can however say that with Originalism, this is not so, tradition knows the original meaning of Christ's words in Matthew 5:29 and similar verses, as being a hyperbole and a metaphor for other types of very severe separations than an anatomical one.

Challoner comments on the verse:

By which we are taught to fly the immediate occasions of sin, though they be as dear to us, or as necessary as a hand or an eye.

Haydock comment on verse:

Ver. 29. Whatever is an immediate occasion of sin, however near or dear it may be, must be abandoned (M.), though it prove as dear to us, or as necessary as a hand, or an eye, and without delay or demur. A.

Most Protestants would of course agree, and I think only disagreement is from a non-Protestant, more Gnostic or Manichaean type sect, Skoptsy. But on a strictly textualist approach, why would a Protestant condemn the Skoptsy?

Here a Protestant can claim to be not strictly textualist, but originalist too. Now, there is a problem for Protestantism here.

According to the context Ambler was using as illustration, an originalist in US Constitution is applying the known original meaning of declaration of rights and of amendments. How so, "known"? Well, late 18th and all of 19th as well as 20th Century are very close to fully literate U. S. Citizens. We can know that

• "all men are created equal" to a Founding Father did not mean there could be no slavery;
• however, slavery is forbidden by an amendment after War of Secession,
• and that amendment does also not mean there can be no other types of servitude which one could broadly call "slavery" like "wage slavery" (which in Chicago has been a worse one than the slavery fought against in the war).
• but this does not change the fact that a sentence can find a new application to secure the happiness of the great number : a federal or state by state minimal wage would not be required by the Constitution, but also not go against it.

We can know this because we can know US History.

However, an Originalist in Biblical Exegesis needs to know Church History - from within, like a US Citizen knows US History.

That, Protestantism does not provide, since a Protestant Church starts at Reformation or even later at some "second" or "third" or perhaps even "fourth great awakening" and since each awakening and especially Reformation was claiming we don't have traditional access to original meaning, we are now stuck with text only.

Of course, both philosophies contrast with another approach:

Judges who are non-originalists believe that interpretation of the Constitution should evolve in line with changing cultural, moral and social mores. ...

That approach is per se neither Catholic nor Protestant. Among Protestants, those holding it go by the name "Liberal Theologian". Among Catholics, those holding it go by the name "Modernist". I have never been Modernist; I may have coincided by mistake with them or by initial ignorance for some time, but I have always detested this approach. So, while Originalism and Textualism, Catholicism and Protestantism, differ, they are closer to each other than to this outlandish approch one could call non-originalist, Modernist or Liberal Theologian. I went from Protestant to Catholic over finding out Catholicism gave a better basis for originalism.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
St. Edmund, King and Martyr
20.XI.2018

PS, spelling of Marc Ambler's first name was corrected after signature./HGL

PPS, for OT, Catholicism is "originalism +" when it comes to affirmations, and "originalism -" when it comes to rules. So many things are clearer to Christians than they were before the Incarnation./HGL

Nature of Genesis - or What's Wrong with Tradition?

However the 6 day creation account of Genesis one is not an eyewitness account, neither is the whole of Genesis. It is in fact a historical review written by Moses or some other scribe. I am happy to accept Moses as the author, although most modern Biblical scholars think Genesis was written between 500-700 BC. If we accept a Moses or post-Moses authorship, then this account would most likely be sourced from oral tradition was passed down through generations before, and there are different stories. I am sure you would be aware of the change in name from the Elohim (God male-plural) of chapter 1 to Jehovah (God male singular) of chapter 2, which is a post Moses name for God.

Robin B in an exchange with Tas Walker, general discussion being soil formation:

Soil formation and the age of the earth
Published: 13 November 2010 (feedback)
https://creation.com/soil-formation-challenge

6 days are a prophetic account God gave Moses.

Adonai is Moses' name for God and the change is not invalidating the authenticity, but adding Moses' validation of them, like reworking of blessing on fertility back to Genesis 1:28, though it must have been available in Adam's account of days six from his perspective (main part of Genesis 2, after first few verses).

And with long lives, many overlappings in the concrete and few divisions one could term minimal overlap there were not all that many items on which it could go wrong.

Concerning the transactions of these early times, parents would no doubt be careful to instruct their children, by word of mouth, before any of the Scriptures were written; and Moses might derive much information from the same source, as a very few persons formed the chain of tradition, when they lived so many hundred years. Adam would converse with Mathusalem, who knew Sem, as the latter lived in the days of Abram. Isaac, Joseph, and Amram, the father of Moses, were contemporaries: so that seven persons might keep up the memory of things which had happened 2500 years before. But to entitle these accounts to absolute authority, the inspiration of God intervenes; and thus we are convinced, that no word of sacred writers can be questioned. H.

From the Haydock comment to Genesis 3.
https://www.ecatholic2000.com/haydock/untitled-05.shtml#navPoint_6

H. means = Haydock himself, Father George Leo Haydock, a man who obviously didn't mistrust oral tradition, like "modern culture" has taken over a Protestant fetish of doing./HGL



By artist unknown - possible self-portrait - Source: a private collection, reproduced with permission., Public Domain, Link

PS, he also quoted earlier commenters. In a full Haydock Bible I think that systematically Ussher dates are given along the comments he made. This was a case in an earlier site with his comment and it fits Vulgate and Douay Rheims as well as King James. That site was taken down, here is the new one, where Novus Ordo's have taken Ussher away: HAYDOCK CATHOLIC BIBLE COMMENTARY/HGL

Science vs Science, Exegesis vs Exegesis

Yesterday, I saw Dominic Statham's article:

The truth about the Galileo affair
by Dominic Statham Published: 8 November 2018
https://creation.com/galileo-church

It was nearly all good, unlike some earlier things I had seen. This is the bad part or two of them:

It was only many years later that scientists were able to confirm that he was right. ... It wasn’t until Isaac Newton (1643–1727) that the matter could be settled. Newton’s law of gravity and his three laws of motion made clear that the planets (including the earth) had to orbit the solar system’s centre of mass. Because the sun is so massive the centre of mass can be treated as being at the sun’s centre. Kepler’s model, then, was proven to be the correct one—there was neither need for nor a physical mechanism to produce epicycles.

This is: 98 words. The whole article, skipping images and image texts, is: 4640 words. Is there a third bad part? Not yet seen except skimming what was said of Joshua.

So, for a CMI-article on Geo-Helio-issue, it is really good. It linked to Hartnett's review of a book, let's find the reference ...

Graney, C.M., Setting Aside All Authority: Giovanni Battista Riccioli and the science against Copernicus in the Age of Galileo, University of Notre Dame Press, 2015. See also review by Hartnett, J.G., J. Creation 32(1):45–47, 2018.

Now, I will quote one passage from that one too:

In 1651, the Jesuit Giovanni Battista Riccioli published his book New Almagest wherein he outlined 77 arguments against the Copernican system and 49 arguments in favour of it. Most arguments against the Copernican system could be answered, at that time, but Riccioli, using the then available telescopic ‘observations’ of the size of stars, was able to construct a powerful scientific argument that the pro-Copernican astronomers could not answer without an appeal to the greatness of God.

I suspect Graney only read what he thought most relevant and not all of New Almagest. Neither did I. I have not found the 77 vs 49 vs new star size based "by Riccioli himself" (I think it was brought up in Galileo defending his book before Bellarmine, but I could be wrong).

However, I read another part of New Almagest. A passage which answers the above appeal to Newton (which was also basically the one of my physics teacher back in 9th or 10th grade) - in a very elegant Christian way.

New blog on the kid : What Opinion did Riccioli call the Fourth and Most Common One?
http://nov9blogg9.blogspot.com/2014/08/what-opinion-did-riccioli-call-fourth.html

Celestial mechanics as per St Thomas Aquinas

God moves the primum mobile (sphere of fix stars, probably, or perhaps just outside it) westward each day. It moves diverse spheres down to sphere of moon and to some extent atmosphere (winds of passage) and seas (oceanic currents at Equator). Each sphere moves the one inside it and is moved by the one outside it except the outermost that is moving which is moved by God. This means movement depends in this ultraobvious example as well as in other ones, in the present, on a finite series of moved movers moved by the unmoved mover, God. Each celestial body within its sphere is moved Eastward by an angelic mover.

Celestial mechanics as per Riccioli

God orders angels to move Celestial bodies westward each day.

He prefers appeal to Anselmian proof over the via prima, at least in its astronomic version. Tycho had disproven solid spheres, meaning celestial bodies move in a void.

Celestial mechanics as per me

God moves the aether westward around earth each day. Celestial bodies and for that matter objects standing still on Earth and those moving at moderate speeds are moving east through the aether, and the celestial bodies are moved by angels, as both Riccioli and St Thomas agree, and more precisely eastward, as on St Thomas' view.

Aether is the medium of place (outside earth and inside Empyreic heaven moving westward), of vectors (that is why an object falling does not move westward with aether, it already had an eastward vector through it, this is also relevant for Geostationary satellites, and of light, meaning that

"no object can move faster than speed of light" is:

True

of movement in relation to aether.

False

about compound speed including that of aether.

Pluto may be moving faster than speed of light locally, but nearly has no movement on a daily basis vectorially through the aether.

I hope you can see how this is tying in with St Thomas Aquinas. Now, in response to the paragraph I quoted from Statham, Newton's two-body problem for earth and football ball if football ball is placed at earth surface = football ball lies still. Whether you mean American football, rugby or the "association football" usually called soccer in English (the usual meaning of "football" in non-English countries), the players are modifying Newton's two body problem. So are angels and God moving aether in relation to the astronomical one.

Oh, yes, one more. While St. Robert was holding up Galileo's book for somewhat adverse scrutiny, he was not moved by a science motivated limitation of freedom of speech as if there were no theological reasons. You see, back then there was no real such thing as "scientific establishment" or at least its beginnings were not as mighty as today.

Cardinals Bellarmarine and Conti, for example, had both agreed that Scripture might legitimately be interpreted differently, allowing for a moving Earth.

For St Robert, Robert Sungenis (who wrote extensively on the affair in Galileo Was Wrong, the Church Was Right) gives a quote which is more negative than just "might", it is more like irrealis modus.

Joshua's long day came up. A line of argument would have been Galileo saying Joshua 10:13 refers to how it looked from earth, while St Robert would reply, why did then the moon stop too?

Another line of argument would of course be, Joshua 10:12 makes Joshua adress sun and moon as the entities which were to miraculously change behaviour. As he spoke inspired by the Holy Ghost, he would not have adressed the miraculous command to the wrong entities.

Now, Newton was one line here, Foucault (mentioned in Hartnett) is already virtually answered by aether being medium of vectors and vector relevant movements, and here is another thing:

Of course, if the stars are so enormously distant and if their ‘measured’ sizes are spurious, then the major scientific argument the geocentricists had against the heliocentrists evaporates. By 1720 Edmund Halley argued that the star sizes were spurious, but some astronomers still maintained the argument. A century later English astronomer George Airy developed a full theoretical explanation for the spurious disk of stars. It explained both the appearance of disks and why they varied in size for different stars. This effect is known as an ‘Airy disk’ and results from diffraction effects in the objective lens of the telescope.

Apart from the fact that Airy is also known from Airy's failure ... in star distance and geocentrism I take the opposite approach.



Without heliocentrism, we cannot know parallactic distances to be true ones, we have no reason to believe α Centuari is 4 lightyears away and therefore, other methods of measuring distances, including the crucial next step of Herschel (applied backwards it is a part of stellar distance, you identify "type", you think you know real size, you measure distance by apparent size), fall with this parallaxis "measure". Hence, no Distant Starlight problem. 2001, night to St Bartholomew (24.VIII.2001), I reached this conclusion. Some of above I have elaborated since and even changed my mind (my early debate material will include attempts to deny Newtonian gravitation totally and I think portal tides are too complex when concretely occurring to be certainly tied down to gravitation, while oceanic ones would be problematic to measure, so they would not necessarily prove its reality either), but angelic movers, I already knew since a somewhat extensive reading of St Thomas under a few years of solitude 1996 to early 1998.

And, this makes Geocentrism one relevant option in exegesis of Mark 10:6. While Galileo in a famous letter to a princess is prefiguring the infamous NOMa of Gould.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
Dedicace of Our Saviour's
Basilica in Rome on Lateran
9.XI.2018