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pour out milk for us in rich streams." T The Finnish tradition narrates that land and water were covered successively by black, red, and white milk. The first and second were the colors of the substances, ashes and "blood," that constituted the plagues (Exodus 7 and 9); the last one was the color of ambrosia that turned into nectar on land and water.
A memory of a time when "streams of milk and streams of sweet nectar flowed" is also preserved in Ovid.8
Jericho
' The earth's crust trembled and cracked again and again as its strata settled after the major displacement. Chasms opened up, springs disappeared, and new springs appeared.1 When the Israelites approached the river Jordan, a slice of one bank fell, blocking the stream long enough for the tribes to cross over. "The waters which came down from above stood and rose up upon a heap very far from the city Adam, that is beside Zaretan: and those that came down toward the sea of the plain, even the salt sea, failed, and were cut off: and the people passed over right against Jericho." 2
A similar occurrence took place on the eighth of December, 1267, when the Jordan was dammed for sixteen hours, and again following the earthquake of 1927, when a slice of one bank fell into the river not far from Adam and blocked the water for over twenty-one hours; at Damieh (Adam) the people crossed the river on its dry bed.3
The fall of the walls of Jericho at the blast of the trumpets is a well-known episode, but it is not well interpreted. The horns blown by the priests for seven days played no greater natural role than Moses' rod with which, in the legend, he opened a passage in the sea. "When the people heard the sound of the trumpet," it happened that
* "Hymn to Goddess Earth," Hymns of the Atharva-Veda (transl. Bloomfield), pp. 199 f.
» Metamorphoses (transl. F. J. Miller, 1916), i. 111-112.
i Numbers 16 : 31-35; 20 : 11; Psalms 78 : 16; 107 : 33-35.
2 Joshua 3 : 16. A correct translation requires: "very far at the city Adam."
8 J. Garstang, The Foundations of Bible History (1931), p. 137.
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"the wall fell down flat."4 The great sound of the trumpet was produced by the earth; the Israelite tribes, believing in magic, thought that the sound of the earth came in response to the blowing of the rams' horns for seven days.
-.The great walls of Jericho—they were twelve feet wide—have been excavated.5 They were found to have been destroyed by an earthquake. The archaeological evidences also prove that robin-bobin
these walls collapsed at the beginning of the Hyksos period, or shortly after the close of the Middle Kingdom.6 The earth had not yet recovered from the previous world catastrophe, and reacted with continuous tremors when the hour of a new cosmic disaster approached: the event we described at the beginning of this book only to go back to the cataclysm of the Exodus—the upheaval of the days of Joshua, when the earth stood still on the day of the battle at Beth-horon.
4 Joshua 6 : 20.
5 E. Sellin and C. Watzinger, Jericho: Die Ergebnisse der Ausgrabungen (1913).
6 J. Garstang and G. B. E. Garstang, The Story of Jericho (1940).
CHAPTER 7
Stones Suspended in the Air
THE HOT HAILSTONES which, at Moses' intercession, had remained suspended in the air when they were about to fall upon the Egyptians, were now cast down upon the Canaanites." 1
These words mean that a part of the meteorites of the cometary train of the days of Exodus remained in the celestial sphere for about fifty years, falling in the days of Joshua, in the valley of Beth-horon, on the same forenoon when the sun and the moon stood still for the length of a full day.
The language of the Talmud and Midrash suggests that the same comet returned after some fifty years. Once more it passed very close to the earth. This time it did not reverse the poles of the earth, but kept the terrestrial axis tilted for a considerable length of time. Again the world was, in the language of the rabbis, "consumed in the whirlwind," "and all the kingdoms tottered," "the earth quaked and trembled from the noise of thunder"; terrified mankind was decimated once more, and carcasses were like rubbish in this Day of Anger.2
On the day when this took place on the earth, the sky was in confusion. Stones fell from the heavens, sun and moon stopped in their paths, and a comet must also have been seen. Habakkuk describes the portent in the sky on that memorable day when, in his words, "the sun and moon stood still in their habitation": it had the form of a man on a chariot drawn by horses and was regarded as God's angel.
1 Ginzberg, Legends, IV, 10; the Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Berakhot 54b. See also Midrash of Rabbi Elieser or of 32 Midot.
2 See the Section, "The Most Incredible Story."
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In the King James version the passages read:
'His glory covered the heavens . . . and his brightness was as the light; he had horns coming out of his hand . . . burning coals went forth at his feet . . . [he] drove asunder the nations; and the everlasting mountains were scattered. . . . Was thine anger against the rivers? Was thy wrath against the sea, that thou didst ride upon thine horses and thy chariots of salvation . . . ? Thou didst cleave the earth with rivers. The mountains saw thee, and they trembled: the overflowing of the water passed by: the deep uttered his voice. . . . The sun and moon stood still in their habitation: at the light of thy arrows they went, and at the shining of thy glittering spear. Thou didst march through the land in indignation, thou didst thresh the heathen in anger. . . . Thou didst walk through the sea with thine horses, through the heap of great waters." 3
Since the texts of the Scriptures have, for some psychological reason rooted in the readers, the quality of being easily misread, misunderstood, or misinterpreted, I give also some of the passages of the third chapter of Habakkuk in another, modernized reading:
His splendour over all the sky,
his glory filling all the earth,
his radiance is a lightning blaze,
on either side flash rays. . . .
At his step the earth is shaken,
at his look nations are scattered,
robin-bobin
the ancient hills are shattered,
mountains of old sink low. . . .
Art thou wrathful at the sea,
that thou art storming on the steeds,
upon the chariots in triumph . . . ?
The hills writhe at thy sight . . .
the sun forgets to rise,
the moon to move,
before the flashes of thy darting arrows,
before the sheen of thy lightning, thy lance.
Thou trampest earth in fury,
thou art threshing the peoples in thine anger.4
3 Habakkuk 3 : 3-15.
4 The Old Testament: A New Translation (transl. James Moffatt, 1924-1925).
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With the earth disturbed in its spinning on its axis, the mechanical friction of displaced strata and magma must have set the world on fire.
The world burned. The Greek story of Phaethon will be introduced here because of the interpretation heard by Solon during his visit to Egypt.
Phaethon
The Greeks as well as the Carians and other peoples on the shores of the Aegean Sea told of a time when the sun was driven off its course and disappeared for an entire day, and the earth was burned and drowned.
The Greek legend says that the young Phaethon, who claimed parentage of the sun, on that fatal day tried to drive the chariot of the sun. Phaethon was unable to make his way "against the whirling poles," and "their swift axis" swept him away. Phaethon in Greek means "the blazing one."
Many authors have dealt with the story of Phaethon; the best known version is a creation of the Latin poet Ovid. The chariot of the sun, driven by Phaethon, moved "no longer in the same course as before." The horses "break loose from their course" and "rush aimlessly, knocking against the stars set deep in the sky and snatching the chariot along through uncharted ways."