mirrored file at http://SaturnianCosmology.Org/ For complete access to all the files of this collection see http://SaturnianCosmology.org/search.php ========================================================== Appendix II (See Part I, Chapter 4) The Two Values Of The Saros The Babylonian system of counting involved a process of multiplying by an alternate number instead of multiplying by the same number. We use the number ten. We start with one and multiply it by 10 to give us TEN, then again by 10 to give us a HUNDRED, and again by 10 to give us a THOUSAND, and so on. In the Babylonian system, they began with one and multiplied by 10 as we do. But then they multiplied this by 6. The next step they multiplied by 10 again, and then once more by 6. They did not, of course, use the word TEN or HUNDRED or THOUSAND which are English words . . . they used the words SOSSOS, NAROS and SAROS. Thus: A SOSSOS was 10 x 6, or 60. A NAROS was 60 x 10, or 600, i.e., 10 SOSSI. A SAROS was 600 x 6, or 3600, i.e., 6 NARI. They had a further term which signified a SAROS multiplied by 10, i.e., 36,000: and the next number in the series was 36,000 multiplied by 6, or 216,000. This was referred to as Shar-ges. Now according to the above system, the usual value of a Saros for ordinary purposes of mathematical calculation was 3600 and this is the value which has been given to it by scholars in interpreting the Table of Berossus in which the reigns of the Kings were listed as so many Sari. This Table was set forth as follows: TABLE IX TABLE OF BEROSSUS NAME SARI USUAL VALUE IN YEARS 1. ALORUS 10 36,000 2. ALAPAROS 3 10,800 3. AMELON 13 46,800 4. AMMENON 12 43,200 5. AMEGALAROS 18 64,800 6. DAONOS 10 36,000 7. EDORANCHOS 18 64,800 8. AMEMPSINOS 10 36,000 9. OTIARTES 8 28,800 10. XISUTHROS 18 64,800 TOTALS 120 432,000 But, as we have noted, there was the alternative value to the Saros. This shorter value was first reported by Suidas, a Greek lexicographer of whom little or nothing is known except that he must have lived before Eustathius (12th 13th century A.D.) who frequently quoted him. Under the heading ADAM, Suidas in his lexicon gives a brief chronology of the world ending with the death of the Emperor John Zimisces (975 A.D.). This would indicate that Suidas lived in the latter part of the tenth century. His lexicon is in the nature of a dictionary and encyclopedia combined, and it includes numerous quotations from ancient writers such as Aristophanes, Homer, Sophocles, and Thucydides. A prefatory note gives a list of earlier dictionaries, and although the work is somewhat uncritical it contains much information on ancient history and life. It also gives the length of reigns of the antediluvian Kings in Sari. But at this point Suidas informs us that this unit of measurement had a double value among the Babylonians. His words are: (251) Sari are, with the Chaldeans, both a measure and a number. . . . According to the calculations of the Chaldeans, the saros contains 222 lunar months which is equivalent to 18 years and 6 months. The mathematics of Suidas can be bothersome unless one realizes that he is using a year of 360 days and a month of 30 days. With these equivalents his figures of 222 months does work out at 18 years and 6 months. But the modern Saros which is given the value of 18 years, 11 days, and 8 hours does not satisfy his calculation. The point is not important unless one is a mathematical purist. From the point of view of Suidas, we simply have an alternative value of the Saros attributed to the Babylonians which makes an enormous difference to the figures in the tabulation of Berossus as will be seen from the following: TABLE X MODIFIED TABLE OF BEROSSUS NAME SARI SHORTER VALUE IN YEARS I. ALORUS 10 185 2. ALAPAROS 3 55.5 3. AMELON 13 240.5 4. AMMENON 12 222 5. AMEGALAROS 18 333 6. DAONOS 10 183 7. EDPRANCHOS 18 333 8. AMEMPSINOS 10 185 9. OTIARTES 8 148 10. XISUTHROS 18 333 TOTALS 120 2220 [using 18.5 years per saros] It should be borne in mind that the figures given by Berossus are not life spans as in Genesis but lengths of reigns. The average length of reign from the above Table will be seen to be 222 years, which is far more reasonable than the figure of 4320 years which is the average length of reign according to Berossus' list when calculated on the basis of the higher value of the Saros. If we assume that each King ascended to the "throne" upon the death of his predecessor, we can add together the ten successive reigns and take this to be the total period from Adam to the Flood. Appendix III (See Part I, Chapter 4) Criticisms Of The Shorter Value Of The Saros The Greeks adopted the Babylonian asterisms and appropriated their knowledge of the planets and their courses, and they learned to predict eclipses by means of the Saros. This cycle of 18.03 years is the time in which the moon returns very nearly to her original position with respect to both the sun and to her nodes and perigee. A. M. Clerke notes that there is no getting back to the actual beginnings of such knowledge of the heavens, but records dating from the reign of Sargon of Akkad (2350 B.C.) imply that the varying aspects of the sky had even then been long under expert observation. (252) There is reason to suppose that the star groupings with which we are now familiar had even then begun to be formulated. (253) Clerke observes that clay tablets preserved in the British Museum have supplied detailed knowledge of the methods practiced in Mesopotamia in the second century B.C. and that these show no trace of Greek influence. The Babylonian observers were not only aware that Venus returns in almost exactly eight years to a given starting point in the sky, but they had established similar periodic relations of 46, 59, 79, and 83 years for Mercury, Saturn, Mars, and Jupiter. They were accordingly able to fix in advance the approximate positions of these objects with reference to eclipitical stars which served as fiducial points for their determination. The dates and circumstances of solar and lunar eclipses were predicted. Clerke notes that F. X. Kugler made the discovery that the various periods underlying their lunar predictions were identical with those hitherto believed to have been reached independently by Hipparchus, who accordingly must be held to have borrowed from Chaldea the lengths of the synodic, sidereal, anomalistic and draconitic months. Evidently a steady flow of knowledge began from East to West in the seventh century B.C. A Babylonian sage founded a school about 640 B.C. in the Isle of Cos, and possibly may have counted Thales of Myletus (c. 639 548 B.C.) among his pupils. Clerke believes that the famous "eclipse of Thales" in 585 B.C. has not yet been authenticated by research, yet the story as told by Herodotus appears to intimate that a knowledge of the Saros, such as would have allowed such a prediction to be made, was indeed possessed by Thales. The question is, Where did he get it from? If Thales obtained it from the Babylonians either by studying their records or by having been taught it at school, then obviously the shorter value of the Saros, upon which such knowledge depends, must have long antedated the Greeks and there would be no fundamental reason why the antediluvian patriarchal ages might not actually have been recorded by the early Babylonians in Sari having this shorter value. This is a point at issue in Sarton's view. He argues that the Babylonians could not have been acute enough to extract this eighteen year cyclical period from their observations of the heavens, and he supports this conclusion from a work by a Dr. Antone Pannekoek, a Dutch astronomer, who wrote a paper entitled, "The Origin of the Saros" which appeared in the Proceedings of the Royal Academy of Amsterdam in 1918. (254) According to Sarton, "neither the Babylonians nor the Greeks had any idea before the fifth or fourth century B.C." of the shorter value of the Saros. (255) He argues that such a period would have been exceedingly difficult to discover if for no other reason than that it does not embrace a whole number of days. It involves a certain number of days, plus eight hours. In his view the discovery of the Saros was therefore "not simply difficult but impossible." (256) Any writer who holds categorically that something is impossible is asking for trouble. There are impossible things, of course. But in a case like this, the word impossible means that no document can ever be allowed to be discovered which contradicts it. And this, of course, is an impossible prohibition! Now Pannekoek, in his original paper, makes the following observation: (257) . The forecast of eclipses, which to the uneducated is such a convincing proof of the power and accuracy of astronomical science, is not the fruit of highly developed modern theory, but belongs to the oldest products of human science. Greek writers tell us that the Babylonians were already able to predict the eclipses by means of a period of eighteen years, which they called a saros, and which rested on the fact that 223 synodic lunar periods and 242 draconic revolutions are practically equal (both 6585.3 days), that after the period therefore, full and new moon return to the same position relative to the nodes. . . . . According to the theory of Hugo Winckler's school, Babylonian astronomy had reached its highest perfection as early as 2000 to 3000 B.C., and therefore the origin of the saros lay in such a far off time that there is no possibility of following the road to its discovery. Pannekoek proceeds to show that the Babylonians could not possibly have had the insight to observe this astronomical measure on the grounds that it would require someone to make a continuous compilation of events and then to notice from his own compilation the almost exact recurrence of events over a cycle of eighteen years. The argument, in effect, is that their minds were not keen enough to observe the recurrence of events over a comparatively short period, although as we now know they did observe cycles of considerably longer lengths, which would require even greater powers of observation! As a matter of fact, Pannekoek himself refers to a list of lunar eclipses arranged according to Saros periods which is now in the British Museum (Sp.ll.71) of which Strassmaeir had given a transcription in 1894. Pannekoek stresses that it could only be after such lists of eclipses had accumulated "in the course of centuries" that their periodical recurrences could be noted. He did not have a very high opinion, obviously, of the competence of these people whose mathematics is now known to have been highly advanced, as Professor T. J. Meek has shown. (258) So Pannekoek concludes, "This shows that the familiar story according to which the Greek philosopher Thales predicted a total eclipse in 585 B.C. by means of a knowledge of the saros borrowed from the Babylonians can only be regarded as a fiction. At that time the saros was still unknown. . ." But then, of course, Pannekoek (and Sarton) may be quite mistaken! Appendix IV (See Part I, Chapter 4) Weld-Blundell Prism The Weld-Blundell Prism is believed to have been written by a certain NURNINSUBUR and has been dated about 2170 B.C. This Sumerian King List is known in several variant forms, the variance being chiefly in slight differences in the spelling of the names and in the appearance of only eight names rather than ten in some editions. In Table XI we give the ten-name variant after Halley but corrected to more exact figures. (259) Halley seems to have rounded his figures to the nearest thousand years. TABLE Xl ACCORDING TO HALLEY NAME SARI LONG VALUE SHORT VALUE 1. ALULIM 8 28,800 148 2. ALALMAR 10 36,000 185 3. ENMENLUANNA 12 43,200 222 4. KICHUNNA 12 43,200 222 5. ENMENGALANNA 8 28,800 148 6. DUMUZI 10 36,000 185 7. SIBZIANNA 8 28,800 148 8. EMENDUEANNA 6 21,600 111 9. UBURRATUM 5 18,000 93 10. ZINSUDDU 18 64,800 333 TOTALS 349,200 1795 [uses a value of 18.5 years per Saros] Average reign = 180 yrs. In Table XII we give two eight-name variants, of which the first column of names is the form in which they are presented in Barton's translation based on Professor Stephen Langdon's text, (260) and the second column of names is the form in which Pritchard presents them on the basis of Thorkild Jacobsen's Sumerian King List. (261) Jacobs then attempted to reconcile all the available variant readings and to produce a kind of textus receptus or "standard version." He believed that all currently known texts went back to a single original written at the time of UTU-HEGAL, King of Uruk, around 2100 B.C. I have shown two numbers, (4) and (10), as blanks in the list merely to preserve the pattern of ten names which more or less correspond with the lists in Tables X and Xl. TABLE XII ACCORDING TO JACOBSEN ACCORDING TO BARTON SARI LENGTH OF REIGN IN YRS. ACCORDING TO PRITCHARD 1. ALULIM 8 28,800 ALULIM 2. ALALMAR 10 36,000 ALALGAR 3. ENMENLUANA 12 43,200 ENMENLUANNA 4. -- - - - 5. ENMENGALANNA 8 28,800 ENMENGALANNA 6. DUMUZI 10 36,000 DUMUZI 7. SIBZIANNA 8 28,800 ENSIPAZIANNA 8. ENMENDURANNA 6 21,000* ENMENDURANNA 9. UBERRATUM 5 18,600* UBARTUTU 10. -- - - - Total 241,000 for 8 kings Average length of reign: Long reckoning 30,150 years; Short reckoning 155 years * The two final figures appear to be somehow in error (presumably in the original) if whole Sari are the units, since 21,000 would be 5.83 Sari and 18,600 would be 5.16 Sari. Probably these figures should be 21,600 (i.e.,6 whole Sari) and 18,000 (i.e. 5 whole Sari). The 600 has somehow been transposed from the 21,000 entry to the 18,000 entry. In order to reconcile Berossus' version with Jacobsen's (i.e., Table X with Table XII), we have to deal with three points of disagreement: the first is in the number of names (10 as opposed to 8), the second is in the spelling of the names, and the third is in the lengths of the reigns. The common factor which is assumed to equate these lists in point of fact, is the concluding comment by the originator in each case to the effect that what followed next was the Deluge. In the Berossus version after number 10 we are told, "in the time of Xisuthros the great deluge occurred." In the standard version of Jacobsen, following his entry of UBARTUTU are the words, "then the flood swept over the earth." These all, therefore, refer to pre- Flood times. With respect to the divergence in numbers, nothing can be said at the present time. With respect to the difference in names, it could be argued that Berossus' List gives the names in a form which had become familiar to the Greeks. Although none of the proposed reconciliations in this respect are very satisfactory, there are some rationalizations. For example, in view of the fact that L and R are commonly interchanged, ALOR- (in Table X) could conceivably be a corruption of ALUL- (in Table XII) for entry No.1. In No.2 ALAPAR- (in Table X) could be ALAMAR- (in Table XII), in view of the fact that P and M are interchangeable. In this case, a hypothetical ALAMAR- would be a broken down form of the ALALMAR- (Table XII). S. R. Driver suggested that OTIARTES (Table X) is a corruption for a hypothetical OPARTES, which in turn might be a broken down form of UBAR-TUTU (Table XII), which means "father of UT-NAPISHTIM" who was the "Noah" of one of the Cuneiform Flood stories. OPARTES would then be equated with No.9 of Table XII. However, it is very generally agreed that this kind of bridge building has a somewhat doubtful value, and at the present moment we have to accept the fact that Berossus' King List does not match very well in this respect with the Weld-Blundell Prism which it is nevertheless probably "descended from." The question of the difference in the number of entries possibly finds its explanation in a more exciting way. First of all, it is necessary to bear in mind that these Cuneiform Lists provide us with lengths of reigns only. They are strictly "King Lists." It might be supposed, therefore, that individuals who did not become kings in the line would be omitted. By contrast, the biblical list is a straightforward genealogical table, giving us merely the names and ages of the firstborn sons from Adam to Noah. The wonderful thing about the latter list is that it also informs us, indirectly, that two of the ten died before their fathers, namely, Enoch and Lamech. Assuming that the head of the house of the leading family was "king" until his decease, then there could only have been eight such kings: though there were actually ten generations. Enoch was removed by translation 435 years before his father Jared died; and Lamech, being a man of violence, seems to have come to an end earlier than expected at the age of 777 years, just five years before his father Methuselah died. He must have been a very frustrated prince! Thus the figures in the Bible are sufficient to provide us with a possible key to the difference between the Weld-Blundell Prism of 2100 B.C. or thereabouts which was a list of "chiefs," while the Berossus account perhaps is a list of the names (as then remembered) of the full ten generations. If they are in the correct order, Enoch would be represented by EDORANCHOS in Berossus' List, a name which might be composed of two elements: EDOR and ANCHOS. Conceivably ANCHOS is a corruption of Enoch. Lamech would be represented by the name OTIARTES, which is not easy to account for. Although I do not think much weight can be attached to the argument, it is just possible that in 2 Peter 2:5 where Noah is spoken of as "the eighth," and not "the tenth" as might have been expected, the reference could be to his position as eighth chief or "king" from Adam. (262) In Jude 14 where Enoch is spoken of as the seventh from Adam, the reference would presumably be to his position merely in the line of descent. At any rate, it is an intriguing thought that we may have in the Genesis account an explanation for the apparent divergence between Berossus and his original source. Perhaps even these pagan accounts from the Cuneiform and elsewhere, in spite of their gross exaggeration of the figures (due possibly to a misreading of the units of measurement somewhere along the line) are genuine reflections of an actual phenomenon in the early history of the human race. Such a tradition, as we have seen, is remarkably widespread among the nations of antiquity, and virtually all such traditions agree among themselves at two important points: man lived for centuries before the Flood, and there were ten generations only from the creation of the first man to that event. It is true that the number ten might conceivably be artificial, chosen as a mnemonic aid on the basis of the number of fingers on both hands. By the same token, it would surely not be reasonable to account for the eight names of what is believed to be the Sumerian King List on the ground that we only have eight fingers the two thumbs being excluded! 262. 2 Peter 2:5 It is customary to say that in this passage the phrase "the eighth" ( ) is a convenient way in the Greek of implying "with seven others," as though the writer really had in mind a phrase such as "he, being the eighth of a party." G. Abbott-Smith, in his Manual Greek Lexicon, agrees, but observes that the Greek word is usually added. This has not been done in the present instance, though I find that other biblical passages of a similar construction (including 2 Maccabees 5:27) also omit the , although the meaning is clearly "with nine others." Young's Literal Translation has followed the Authorized Version, as has also the Concordant Version and that of Ferrar Fenton. It seems more likely to me that the meaning is strictly "the eighth," the definite article being used (cf. Luke 1:59). Since this is not so in 2 Peter 2:5, it is probable that the meaning is simply "with seven others." 251. Suidas: from F. A. Jones, The Dates of Genesis, London, Kingsgate Press, 1912, p.114. 252. Clerke, A. M., Encyclopedia Britannica, 1953 edition, article, Astronomy. 253. Free, Joseph P., Archaeology and Bible History, Wheaton, Illinois, Scripture Press, 1962, p 32. 254. Pannekoek, Antone, "The Origin of the Saros," Proceedings of the Royal Academy, Amsterdam, vol.20, communicated by W. de Sitter, 29 Sept.,1918, pp.943955. 255. Sarton, George, The History of Science, Harvard, 1952, p.119. 256. Sarton, George, ibid., p.120. 257. Pannekoek, Antone, op. cit., ref. #254, p.943. 258. Meek, T. J., "Magic Spades in Mesopotamia," University of Toronto Quarterly, vol.7, 1938, p.243, 244. 259. Halley, Henry H., Pocket Bible Handbook, Chicago, 1951, p.71. 260. Barton, George, Archaeology and the Bible, Philadelphia, American Sunday School Union, 1916, p.325. 261. Pritchard, James B., editor, Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, Princeton, 1969, p.265. Copyright © 1988 Evelyn White. All rights reserved