Distant Starlight Problem Revisited

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: Sungenis is Right About Geocentrism, But Not Everything Else · Creation vs. Evolution: Distant Starlight Problem Revisited

KS wrote to CMI and got an answer by Keaton Halley:

Christian critic calls young-earth creationism “laughable and dangerous”
by Keaton Halley | Published: 21 October 2021 (GMT+10)
https://creation.com/laughable-and-dangerous

KS

If the universe was only 6,000 years old, then the billions upon billions of galaxies and stars would be compressed into 6,000 light years—and the Earth would not even exist today since it would have been engulfed in a fireball of truly astronomical proportions. It would probably not have been created in the first place since the fireball would have prevented the formation of planets, let alone life.

KH / CMI

This assumes that the only way for starlight to arrive on earth in 6,000 years would be to start with closer stars, and for the light to make its journey the same way secular astronomers assume. But creationists have proposed a whole variety of means by which starlight could have arrived quickly, even given vast distances of billions of light-years. See How can we see distant stars in a young universe? for some of these, and you can search creation.com as well as the websites of other creation organizations for other possibilities.

If you don’t like any of the creationist solutions and insist that light can only traverse the same number of light-years as the number of elapsed years, then you would have to reject the big bang theory as well, since the big bang has its own light-travel-time problem.

I certainly do reject Big Bang. Solution to distant starlight per se first: the phenomenon known as parallax is performed by angels, in a more complex total movement mis-analysed by scientists as parallax X aberration X proper movement. Meanwhile, earth stands totally still. This means, the "phenomenon known as parallax" (or part of a phenomenon known as "parallax") has nothing to say in stellar distances. This means the set up between stars' apparent sizes and their distances following on parallax "measures for distances" is also moot etc. The universe could be two light days across.

Then, the questioner or heckler mentions a presumed consequence of a small universe:

the billions upon billions of galaxies and stars would be compressed into 6,000 light years—and the Earth would not even exist today since it would have been engulfed in a fireball of truly astronomical proportions.

This presupposes basically that the actual star sizes were to be the same, even if the distances were different. But what is pretended as "known" about star sizes is in fact deduced from the set up presuming "parallax" as parallactic. If the four light years to α Centauri are not four point three light years, but one light day, you have one dimension 4.3 * 365 times smaller than presumed, and this means all of them are so. The real size of α Centauri is therefore (4 * 365)³ times smaller. This is actually not quite right, since α Centauri is three stars. Now, go to 61 Cygni ... also a binary star system, not a real single star. But its size, if one, would be (11.4 * 365)³ times smaller. Now go to Wolf 359 ... it's considered a dwarf, but take a look at the size ... 0.16 of the Solar Radius. No, it would be in fact 0.16 / (7.856 * 365) = 0.000,055,798,9 of the Solar Radius. And, as this is one of the "near stars" it would very far from being a dwarf be one of the bigger stars. Some have said, "this wouldn't work, the stars would be to small to self ignite" but since God created the stars on day IV, self ignition and a size bigger than Jupiter's is very far from a requisite : God lighted them or told his angels (to which he confided them) to do so./HGL

Philip Bell and me

We both had reasons to hate boarding school:

Around the age of ten I remember learning about evolution at school but I didn’t believe it at all, nor through my secondary school years. In fact, I endured the mocking of my peers in the dormitory of my boarding school and defended a literal Adam and Eve when I was around fifteen.*

Around the age of ten, I started dropping belief in evolution, after c. one year as a Christian trying to fit my previous belief (Evolution) with my new one, and failing, and also because I came across books somewhat advanced for my age, in which origin of language, memory by DNA and origin of DNA's ordered complexity were discussed - leaving me with a sense of disbelief, finally.

I was at a boarding school during terms from autumn 1983 to spring 1987. I had my fifteenth birthday there. And apart from there being no dormitory's in mine, the experience was similar.

Here is a difference:

However, there was a limitation: “I had no apologetic arguments to back it up.”

I had Ur Intet, a booklet by Edgar Andrews, and it later came out in English original with same choice of texts as this Swedish edition, as From Nothing to Nature.

I particularly remember being impacted by the evidence of comparative anatomy and the pentadactyl limb: the similarity of the bones of the five digits and limb in different animals. I readily swallowed the homology idea, that the human arm, dog leg, bat wing, and dolphin flipper had all sprung from a common ancestral animal. I was a theistic evolutionist of sorts by the age of eighteen.

Edgar Andrews had shown there were not ever any unspecialised animals with just four protruding and unfunctional blobs, developing from there to hind legs and wings, to legs and arms, to four arms, to four legs, to fins on a fish. And that evolution from specialised to specialised was a no no.

When I took time off from strict Young Earth Creationism ("the Catholic Church wouldn't allow evolution and deep time if it were all that bad" - I had meanwhile converted or started converting, since the one argument that did stump me was where Protestants had the Bible from if Catholicism was corrupt), it was more to a non-evolutionist very light version of deep time - basically two or three times the span of the Biblical chronology and lost civilisations along the way ... 10 000 BC must have looked like in Robert E Howard's books about Conan the Barbarian, or perhaps somewhat less cynical. Or so I thought.

Going to "evolution from amoeba to astronomer" or to accepting carbon 14 datings as final ... it didn't cross my thought. But dendro seemed fair and square for 20 000 years back ... and Hans Hörbiger's idea of eternal ice I hadn't heard of, but his idea of a succession of moons, and each provoking giantism just before falling onto earth and provoking a cataclysm, well, it came nice and handy - any memory of lost civilisations of giants could be from such pre-Biblical or post-Genesis 1:1 but pre-everything-else-Biblical times.

It ditched that complacency with even moderate deep time when reading St. Augustine's De Civitate Dei.

I was somewhat disappointed by the interview, not in so far as God not creating cancer before the fall, but rather because his experience of cancer genetics didn't put him on a trace of another - scientific - impossibility in Evolutionism. Earliest eucaryotes (on that theory) will not have had more than one chromosome pair, but we have 23 ... when a chromosome splits, you don't get two times the setup "telomere, genes, centromere, genes, telomere" but at least one of the parts must lack parts of that set up. Robertsonian fission should ring a bell to a cancer researcher, right?

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
XXIst Lord's Day after Pentecost
memory of St. Hedwig of Poland
17.X.2021

* Former cancer researcher vs creation compromise
by Jonathan Sarfati | This article is from
Creation 42(4):16–19, October 2020
https://creation.com/philip-bell-interview

Ark : empty weight and freighted weight, number of couples on the Ark.

Baraminological Note · For Sea-Farers .... · Rolling Period of Ark? · Ark : empty weight and freighted weight, number of couples on the Ark. · Small Tidbits on Ark, Especially Mathematical

For empty weight of Ark, thickness times density of the wood, times following measures in square cubits:

2*30*50 = 3,000 square cubits
2*30*300 = 18,000 sq cub
4*50*300 = 60,000 sq cub
3,000 + 18,000 + 60,000 = 81,000 sq cub

The problem is, we don't know what cubit length it is, an Egyptian of 18 inches, or a longer one of up to 24 inches.

So, let's suppose we take each of these extremes in metrics ... first multiply with relevant number of inches, then convert to metric system

30*18 = 540 in, 13.716 m
50*18 = 900 in, 22.86 m
300*18 = 5,400 in, 137.16 m

30*24 = 720 in, 18.288 m
50*24 = 1,200 in, 30.48 m
300*24 = 7,200 in, 182.88 m

2 * 13.716 * 22.86 = 627.096 2 * 13.716 * 137.16 = 3,762.573 4 * 22.86 * 137.16 = 12,541.91 627.096 + 3,762.573 + 12,541.91 = 16,931.579

2 * 18.288 * 30.48 = 1,114.836
2 * 18.288 * 182.88 = 6,689.019
4 * 30.48 * 182.88 = 22,296.73
1,114.836 + 6,689.019 + 22,296.73 = 30,100.585

Then let's suppose the thickness of timber of each wall, floor or roof is either half a cubit or an entire cubit:

16,931.579 * 0.229 = 3,870.559
16,931.579 * 0.457 = 7,741.118

30,100.585 * 0.305 = 9,174.658
30,100.585 * 0.61 = 18,349.317

Now take the density of the wood. I'll take a high density hard wood, and a low density soft wood, rose and pine.

Rosewood has up to 880 kg per m³. With pine, we are down to 352 kg/m³. 100 kg = 0.1 metric ton, so it's easy to convert into tons

Small cubit :

3,870.559 * 0.352 = 1,362.437
3,870.559 * 0.88 = 3,406.092

7,741.118 * 0.352 = 2,724.874
7,741.118 * 0.88 = 6,812.184

Big cubit :

9,174.658 * 0.352 = 3,229.48
9,174.658 * 0.88 = 8,073.699

18,349.317 * 0.352 = 6,458.959
18,349.317 * 0.88 = 16,147.399

Now let's talk about the freighted weight - that means empty weight, plus weight of whatever freight is added, both crew and passengers and whatever inert cargo, like food supplies.

We can take it that the water line was 14 or 15 cubits up. If it was 15 cubits up, the moment when water covered the highest mountains (including the one where the Ark was built) the Ark could start floating but still risk scratching the soil. Not too big a problem if it was fairly soft.

If it was 14 cubits up, the moment when water covered the highest mountains, the Ark could float freely. Perhaps a better option.

Volume displaced of water = weight of all of the ship, with any content, so, in this case, freighted weight. This equals either half the volume of the Ark (15 = 15, 2*15 = 30), or 14/30, 7/15 of the volume (14 < 16, 30 * 7/15 = 14).

And the volumes are either from 18 inch cubit or from 24 inch cubit.

13.716 * 7/15 * 22.86 * 137.16 = 20,069.565
13.716 * 1/2 * 22.86 * 137.16 = 21,503.105

18.288 * 7/15 * 30.48 * 182.88 = 47,572.302
18.288 * 1/2 * 30.48 * 182.88 = 50,970.324

So, what weight is then left for crew, passengers and food?

Small cubit:

20,069.565 - 1,362.437 = 18,707.128
20,069.565 - 3,406.092 = 16,663.473
20,069.565 - 2,724.874 = 17,344.692
20,069.565 - 6,812.184 = 13,257.381

21,503.105 - 1,362.437 = 20,140.669
21,503.105 - 3,406.092 = 18,097.013
21,503.105 - 2,724.874 = 18,778.232
21,503.105 - 6,812.184 = 14,690.922

Big cubit:

47,572.302 - 3,229.48 = 44,342.823
47,572.302 - 8,073.699 = 39,498.603
47,572.302 - 6,458.959 = 41,113.343
47,572.302 - 16,147.399 = 31,424.904

50,970.324 - 3,229.48 = 47,740.844
50,970.324 - 8,073.699 = 42,896.625
50,970.324 - 6,458.959 = 44,511.364
50,970.324 - 16,147.399 = 34,822.925

So, for men and beasts and their food and the tools not specified, we have a weight of between 13,257.381 metric tons and 47,740.844 metric tons, if my observation on the waterline holds water (ha ha).

On the other* post, I had estimated the number of couples to 2032, meaning 4064 individuals, on the average size of a sheep. Now, a sheep eats 7 kg green fodder per day, 365 days. 10,383.52 metric tons for food. How much would 4064 sheep weigh? Tame sheep weigh 45 to 160 kg for the bucks, 45 to 100 kg for the ewes. Let's add the numbers together and divide by four : (45+45+160+100)/4 = 87.5 kg. Let's multiply this by 4064. 355.6 metric tons. Living passengers with crew therefore 355.6 + 10,383.52 = 10,739.12.

So, even the smallest weight available for the animals and food and tools and the walls of the small chambers and so on has 500 tons for tools and temporary water supplies on top of needed animals and food weight. And the 2032 couples I got by reducing an evolutionist's estimate for number of species (taking mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians separately) by only 16, the number of species I thought there were of hedgehogs, but that's actually 17.

What would we get with a larger Ark (a larger cubit)?

47,740.844 / 13,257.381 = 3.601

2,032 * 3.601 = 7,317.387

So, the number of couples on the Ark would vary between 2,032 and 7,317 according to dimensions and empty weight of the Ark. With less food per individual, even more so.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
Sts Placidus and Brothers
Martyrs of Messina
5.X.2021

Messanae, in Sicilia, natalis sanctorum Martyrum Placidi Monachi, e beati Benedicti Abbatis discipulis, et ejus fratrum Eutychii et Victorini, ac sororis eorum Flaviae Virginis, itemque Donati, Firmati Diaconi, Fausti et aliorum triginta Monachorum, qui omnes a Manucha pirata, pro Christi fide, necati sunt.

* Ex-JW Took On the Flood on my English debate blog.

I forgot one objection he could have ... still on Göbekli Tepe

What About Gary Bates? · I forgot one objection he could have ... still on Göbekli Tepe

Now, suppose Gary Bates had said "never heard of GT" - I suppose he could have used that as an explanation why he refuses to look at my option. Suppose again ...

I forgot the most obvious, since I answered it so often I forget some have not heard of it.

No, if "a tower, the top of which shall reach into heaven" was a rocketry attempt, we would also not expect to find:

• a tall tower
• a toppled tall tower.

But if city still means city or any kind of even temporary conglomeration, we would expect to find a site with an abandoned city. We do find that in Göbekli Tepe.

And as for base of a tower, if you insist on excluding the rocket solution, it could be argued, the oldest three circular towers in GT were an attempt to triangulate the distance to the sky before starting the "skyscraper" proper, as the celestial body observed for testing appeared totally in parallel in all three, they gradually widened the view more and more outwards, and Nimrod would probably after another failed attempt of triangulating the distance state:

"OK, we will have to go another mile further out, but this time we will do it!"

Next morning, he did not behead anyone reluctant as he used to, he would say:

"Como dize ayer ..."*

and one would answer:

"Was sagst du?"*

and one would reply:

"Carson a tha a h-uile duine a ’bruidhinn gu neònach?"*

and then someone:

"Jeśli nie zauważyliście, wszyscy dziwnie mówią."*

As you may know, it would take about a quarter of the globe to triangulate the distance to the Moon ... God was very merciful to Nimrod's enslaved work force, they really needed the vacation. I took Spanish, German and Scots Gaelic, finally Polish, as standins for the early post-Babel languages, these were not modern languages, languages have changed naturally over time as well as artistically. English is here the standin for the presumably more or less Hebrew pre-Babel language.

But God's deed makes equal sense, if instead of getting one mile further out to finally triangulate the height of a skyscraper, Nimrod's last words to be understood by all were:

"Tomorrow, I'll send people up the Frat direction and across Atlantis for some Uranium ..."

I mean, fuelling a rocket (even one in purest ceramics or whatever) with Uranium is not very safe, and when the rocket finally was launched 4500 years later, it was replaced by 2 H₂ + O₂ = 2 H₂O. Water is a way to get rockets up, as water baptism is a way to get souls even further up.

Hence, I am not into dismissing GT for lack of any skyscraper-like structure.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
St. Francis of Assisi**
4.X.2021

* His words from Spanish : "as I said yesterday," next guy from German "what are you saying?" and third guy from Scots Gaelic "why is everyone talking strangely?" while fourth guy says in Polish (originally 2nd sg, corrected to pl) "if you didn't notice, everyone is talking strangely." Credits to Asterix and Cleopatra and a few more for the idea on how to depict a Babel conversation - as Goscinny's maternal grandfather was a rabbi, he may even had the idea from retellings in the family of the Babel story.

** To avoid another Babel, I'd like to add, I am not signing my work with two alternative names for myself, but with two alternative ways of designating today. Today is feast of St. Francis (of Assisi, not of Sales, not Borgia) and today is 4.X - fourth October. Why? Bc the feast of St. Francis of Assisi is on October 4th!

What About Gary Bates?

What About Gary Bates? · I forgot one objection he could have ... still on Göbekli Tepe

He wrote a movie review about The 7 Churches of Revelation, Times of Fire, which I have not seen. I can't comment on the review as a review.

But it has a longish intro with two passages relevant to my work ...

We often receive many inquiries about alleged archaeological sites such as Göbekli Tepe, whose assigned ‘secular’ date would actually precede the biblical date of Creation (this, of course, cannot be true!).

I agree wholeheartedly that the carbon date taken at face value cannot be correct. 9600 BC, carbon date for beginning of GT, is not a date. Neither is 8600 BC, carbon date for the end of GT.

However, I have a solution about these carbon dates. If CMI gets so many inquiries, why are they not even mentioning my solution?

A bit less than one halflife ago, the atmosphere had a bit less than 50 "percent modern Carbon" - a term that means how the concentration of C14 in C12 in samples is lower and in previous states of the atmosphere could vary. With a bit less than 50 pmC, and a bit less than a half life, you can get around 25 pmC, which is what one would expect after two halflives (a timespan that has not occurred, ever).

But the problem with this is, my calibration for C14 places GT between 350 and 401 after the Flood, between death of Noah and birth of Peleg according to the Biblical chronology of the Roman martyrology (based on a text like LXX without second Cainan). That is, I identify GT with Babel.

Now, there is a little further problem here, Gary Bates uses the term "alleged archaeological sites" - as if there were any doubt that GT were a genuine archaeological site.

It is certainly more recently discovered than Ur as excavated by Woolley.

European archaeologists did not identify Tell el-Muqayyar as the site of Ur until Henry Rawlinson successfully deciphered some bricks from that location, brought to England by William Loftus in 1849 ... The site was first excavated in 1853 and 1854, on behalf of the British Museum and with instructions from the Foreign Office, by John George Taylor [namesake, btw] ... Excavations from 1922 to 1934 were funded by the British Museum and the University of Pennsylvania and led by the archaeologist Sir Charles Leonard Woolley.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ur#Archaeology

In October 1994,[93] German archaeologist Klaus Schmidt, who had previously been working at Nevalı Çori, was looking for evidence of similar sites in the area and decided to re-examine the location described by the Chicago researchers in 1963.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6bekli_Tepe#Research_history

And after that, it was more than 15 years before I heard of it. Perhaps Gary Bates heard of it so late in his life, he had lost curiosity and decided to write it off as an unfounded rumour - I didn't. Or perhaps Gary Bates still prefers his the idea (see his book ... wait, it was Michael and Beverly Oard's ... Life in the Great Ice Age) that Babel happened before Upper Palaeolithic. Before carbon dated 40 000 BP. When Neanderthals were still around.

By contrast, Douglas Petrovich puts Babel into the very late Neolithic, in carbon dated 5000 BC.

Let's put end of Babel in 2556, 401 years after the Flood, uniformly, for comparison.

"38 000 BC" - 2556 BC = 35444 extra years. 1.374 pmC in the atmosphere.
"5000 BC" - 2556 BC = 2444 extra years. 74.405 pmC in the atmosphere.
"8600 BC" - 2556 BC = 6044 extra years. 48.136 pmC in the atmosphere.

Let's take an average of the first two. (1.374 pmC + 74.405 pmC) / 2 = 37.8895 pmC. Using Göbekli Tepe, which at the end, if Babel, would have had 48.136 pmC in the atmosphere is a fair compromise between two extremes. The levels by putting the beginning of Upper Palaeolithic earlier (at the Flood) and base at Eridu later (between Babel and Abraham) would be close to the ones given, and this discrepancy resolves as carbon 14 levels rising quicker between Flood and Babel than between Babel and Abraham.

And if we have a look at the beheadings in Göbekli Tepe, it gives a very fair view of why God stopped Babel.

Now, suppose Gary Bates had said "never heard of GT" - I suppose he could have used that as an explanation why he refuses to look at my option. Suppose again he had good arguments against GT being Babel - "not in Mesopotamia" (true of Tell Qaramel, unless Aleppo river was previously an arm of Euphrates, but not of GT), "not the right direction away from landing place" (true of anything near Classic Babylon, including Ur and Eridu, but not of GT, where "they removed from the east" is spot on), not the right geographic surrounding (true if it had said "found a land in the plains of Shinar" but it says "found a plain in the land of Shinar" so we would prefer where Mesopotamia is overall hilly but has a plain in it), "spoke a post-Babel language" (but we have no linguistic traces from GT or from Jericho which started at same time, neither grammophone records nor even writing) ... he would obviously have been free to dispute my finding as unfounded. I used to have a weak answer for one objection "this was before bricks and mortar" when recently I found that floors in Jericho used the material "terrazzo" ... and that Jericho was contemporary with GT.

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : Jericho and Babel Contemporary?
https://assortedretorts.blogspot.com/2021/09/jericho-and-babel-contemporary.html

He prefers to act like a gate-keeper, whether because he seeks an uncritic adept before doing business, or because he is afraid I'm an UFO-logist, while I have more than once said, I don't believe in "Ancient Alien Astronauts" like Graham Hancock believes, but in "Ancient Aspiring Astronauts" like Nimrod would have been one.

The other passage is:

Similarly, there are many conventional dates assigned to well-known artefacts in ancient Egypt that would predate the biblical Flood.

Well, take the Burial Ship of Djoser ... carbon dates go all the way back to 2800 BC, if Imhotep was Joseph, Djoser would have been Joseph's pharao, and we would be looking at the time of Joseph in Egypt. 2800 BC - 1728 BC = 1072 extra years or 87.838 pmC in the atmosphere.

While it is true that uniformitarians do assign whether or not use a carbon date, in the case of Djoser they preferred 2600 BC over it, the carbon date in and of itself is not assigned, it is calculated. On the assumption, which we agree is wrong, that the carbon level was close to 100 pmC. In other words, the one methodological error is (for objects from that far back) to assume the now remaining pmC in a sample equals or is close to the percentage of C14 remaining from when it is from, which is what a uniform c. 100 pmC in the atmosphere would let you expect. Use my correction, and the dates will fall into place.

Between the archaeological date of GT and that of Djoser's we have "3500 BC" as carbon date of reed mats from En-Gedi's evacuation after Chalcolithic settlement. I credit Osgood with pointing out there was such a thing, and that it matches facts from Genesis 14 - when Abraham was c. 80 (between 75 and 86) years old.

"3500 BC" - 1935 BC = 1565 extra years, a level of 82.753 pmC in the atmosphere (the reed mats would have been made of reed having breathed the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere of very closely preceding years, if not perhaps uniquely from last year.

2957 BC		2607 BC		2556 BC		1935 BC		1700 BC*
1.2788 pmC		42.8224 pmC		48.1415 pmC		82.73 pmC		87.575 pmC

This gives a fairly good - even - rise for the C14 level, and therefore explains the erroneous carbon dates while also offering a correction to them.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
St. Venceslas of Bohemia
28.IX.2021

* Creation vs. Evolution : New Tables
http://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2020/08/new-tables.html

What Am I Doing with "How Much Faster" Calculations?

HGL'S F.B. WRITINGS: Debating CMI's video with Roger M Pearlman · Creation vs. Evolution: Carbon 14 Speeds for Diverse Creationist Scenarios · Ice Age Maximum, 500 After the Flood? · Flood to Genesis 14, Roman Martyrology's Chronology, Two Scenarios (Technical) · What Am I Doing with "How Much Faster" Calculations?

I'll cite the last such one on my own theory:

2556 B. Chr.
48.1415 pmC
1935 B. Chr.
82.73 pmC

2556 - 1935 = 621
92.763 % left
7.237 pmC points replacement
92.763 * 48.1415 / 100 = 44.6575
82.73 - 44.6575 = 38.0725
38.0725 / 7.237 = 5.2608 times as fast

This is short for:

In the real year 2556 B. Chr.
the carbon level was 48.1415 percent (of) modern Carbon14 (level in relation to Carbon 12)
leading to 6050 extra years, so that the carbon date is 6050 + 2556 = "8606 BC"

In the real year 1935 B. Chr.
the carbon level was 82.73 pmC
leading to 1550 extra years, so that the carbon date is 1550 + 1935 = "3485 BC"

Between the real years 2556 - 1935 BC
you have a real time span of = 621 (real) years
after which 92.763 % is left of the original content of C14 (in sample or in atmosphere)
which would now be compensated by the 7.237 pmC points normal replacement in the time span

To check the speed of the carbon 14 production in relation to now, I do these further calculations:

What was left in 1935 BC of the C14 present in 2556?
92.763 * 48.1415 / 100 = 44.6575 pmC

What has therefore been added to get to the actual level of C14 in 1935 BC?
82.73 - 44.6575 = 38.0725 pmC points have been added.

How much faster was C14 produced during this time span?

Actual addition per addition of the now normal production:
38.0725 / 7.237

So, carbon 14 was produced ...
= 5.2608 times as fast as it is now.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
St. Matthew Apostle
21.IX.2021

Centaurs Revisited

A Ramble, Centaurs and Andromeda · Centaurs Revisited

I take it that Hercules and Iason lived before the Trojan War, which occurred around 1180 BC. This is not fool proof, since one of the more common distortions of a tradition are reworking the chronology. I think Mahabharata is pre-Flood and Ramayana early post-Flood, but to Hindoos, Ramayana takes places 1000 or 10 000 years before the Mahabharata, I forget which. The German legend of "Rabenschlacht" involves a battle of Ravenna where Theoderic faces Ermaneric, while the real Ermaneric lived c. 100 years before Theoderic. This same Theoderic the Great also introdes into the times when Attila mangled Gondicarius in the Nibelungen-Lied, since Gondicarius died in 434 but Theoderic was born in 454, after Attila died, even. But Hercules and Iason could have lived before the Trojan war, as the chronology of Greek heroic legend (sometimes called "mythology" along with Hesiod's Theogony) would have it.

Could Cheiron have been simply a rider?

If so, a somewhat exotic one, according to this article:

The Secondary Products Revolution, Horse-Riding, and Mounted Warfare
David W. Anthony & Dorcas R. Brown
Journal of World Prehistory volume 24, Article number: 131 (2011)
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10963-011-9051-9

I will cite the free preview, I don't have access to the article:

Current evidence indicates that horses were domesticated in the steppes of Kazakhstan and Russia, certainly by 3500 BC and possibly by 4500 BC. Tribal raiding on horseback could be almost that old, but organized cavalry appeared only after 1000 BC.

So, whatever Hercules and Iason saw of Cheiron, their contemporaries would likely have been ignorant it was possible to mount a horse rather than to put it before a wagon, with other horses.

Riding might initially have been more important for increasing the productivity and efficiency of sheep and cattle pastoralism in the western Eurasian steppes.

Not in Greece, though.

The earliest (so far) direct evidence for riding consists of pathologies on the teeth and jaw associated with bitting, found at Botai and Kozhai 1. Recent developments and debates in the study of bit-related pathologies are reviewed and the reliability of bit wear as a diagnostic indicator of riding and driving is defended.

Ah, riding and driving ... this doesn't mean the bit wear shows which of the two it was.

If you cite me Bellerophon riding Pegasus, that could have been a fairytale. In Homer, Pegasus is not mentioned, only the slaying of Chimaera (and the letter, "semata lugra").

Amazons are of course involved in Hercules and in Trojan War ... but earliest vase depiction of an Amazon riding would so far be 550 BC. Iliad VI.186 and III.189 do not mention them as riding. Sources about Hercules are later than Homer. However, riding on horseback is mentioned in Hesiod's Shield of Hercules - for which the Hesiodean authorship is disputed.

The whole town was filled with mirth and dance and festivity. [285] Others again were mounted on horseback and galloping before the town. And there were ploughmen breaking up the good soil, clothed in tunics girt up.

πᾶσαν δὲ πόλιν θαλίαι τε χοροί τε
ἀγλαΐαι τ᾽ εἶχον. τοὶ δ᾽ αὖ προπάροιθε πόληος
νῶθ᾽ ἵππων ἐπιβάντες ἐθύνεον. οἱ δ᾽ ἀροτῆρες
ἤρεικον χθόνα δῖαν, ἐπιστολάδην δὲ χιτῶνας
ἐστάλατ᾽.

Does this refer to riding, or to the kind of acrobatics also done on bulls in Cretan depictions?

Choirs / dance ? (θαλίαι τε χοροί τε) and mirth (ἀγλαΐαι τ᾽) were having (εἶχον) the whole town (πᾶσαν δὲ πόλιν). Others again (τοὶ δ᾽ αὖ) in front of the town (προπάροιθε πόληος) "were mounted on horseback and galloping" ("νῶθ᾽ ἵππων ἐπιβάντες ἐθύνεον"). But the ploughmen (οἱ δ᾽ ἀροτῆρες) "were breaking up the good soil," ("ἤρεικον χθόνα δῖαν,"), ??? (ἐπιστολάδην δὲ) tunics (χιτῶνας) ??? (ἐστάλατ᾽).

It remains to be verified with a better Grecist (I left off Greek studies in 1993, OK, my Greek is rusty!) whether it is the first ??? that's "clothed" and the second that's "girt up" or some other configuration. It seems ἐθύνεον means "were darting" while ἐπιβάντες means in NT Bible "boarding" (a ship) so here would mean "mounting" (a horse), etymologically it means "going on" (sth - whether the back of a horse or the boards of a ship).

It would seem, this very early description of riding on horseback could well be describing acrobatic riding. The kind of thing Hayley Ganzel does, when putting one foot on each back of each horse, not the thing riders normally do.

At the line I was expecting an Amazon's shield dance from references, I find no Amazons, no shield dance, and no horseback riding, I do find chariots more than once around there.

So, if Cheiron was a rider, two generations before the Trojan War, no one in Greece may have known what that was. Hence the mistake of considering him and his horse one creature (a mistake Hercules and Iason would not have made). But if Cheiron was not a rider, it is possible he, like the Centaur seen by St. Anthony the Great, was a spiritual manifestation.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
XVIIth Sunday after Pentecost
19.IX.2021

Did riding exist in the time of King David? According to above, it shouldn't have. So, I looked for the Latin case forms of "equus" in the psalms:

These, first of all, have no relation unambiguously to riding:

Nolite fieri sicut equus et mulus, quibus non est intellectus. In camo et freno maxillas eorum constringe, qui non approximant ad te.
[Psalms 31:9]

Fallax equus ad salutem; in abundantia autem virtutis suae non salvabitur.
[Psalms 32:17]

Non in fortitudine equi voluntatem habebit, nec in tibiis viri beneplacitum erit ei.
[Psalms 146:10]

Hi in curribus, et hi in equis; nos autem in nomine Domini Dei nostri invocabimus.
[Psalms 19:8]

This one, of course, does:

Ab increpatione tua, Deus Jacob, dormitaverunt qui ascenderunt equos.
[Psalms 75:7]

But : In finem, in laudibus. Psalmus Asaph, canticum ad Assyrios. It's not a psalm of David, but one of Asaph.

But didn't Absalom ride when his hair got stuck in a tree?

And it happened that Absalom met the servants of David, riding on a mule: and as the mule went under a thick and large oak, his head stuck in the oak: and while he hung between the heaven and the earth, the mule on which he rode passed on.
[II Kings 18:9]

He rode a mule, not a horse. Mule riding and donkey riding is older and it is not used in battle./HGL