FORUM

                                    Letters
                                       
  Venus: Whose Baby?
  
   I was particularly interested in the articles on Aphrodite by PETER
   JAMES. I have some comments which may be of interest - all of them,
   unfortunately, muddying the situation rather than clearing it.

   First of all, both Aphrodite and Athene are very ancient goddesses -
   both much older than the Greeks, and older than the time (ca. 1500 BC
   ) when Velikovsky says that Venus first appeared. Rose (Handbook of
   Greek Mythology, p. 122) states that Aphrodite was very ancient and
   her cult was not Greek. Athene is also pre-Greek according to W. K. C.
   Guthrie (The Greeks and their Gods, p.107).

   Another fascinating, but little-known datum is that Athena may have
   originated from the water, just as Aphrodite did. In several places
   Athene is referred to as a child of the water (G. W. Cox: Mythology of
   the Aryan Nations, p. 257), a sea goddess (Robert Graves: The White
   Goddess, p. 386), and born from the waterside (Cox, p.253). Her cult
   was commonly found connected with a stream or body of water (Rose, p.
   108).

   According to the older legends, Athene was not the offspring of Zeus,
   but was the daughter of Poseidon (Graves- The Greek Myths, p.45) or
   Triton/Tritos (Cox, p. 249), both of which were closely associated
   with water. Cox ( p.249) states that the god Tritos was so old that he
   disappeared from the memory of the Greeks. The Greeks at first
   attempted to connect him with places having a similar name.

   Finally, an attempt was made to resolve the myth by connecting the
   name Triton with an alleged Aeolic word for a head, to assimilate it
   into the story of Athene's birth, from the head of Zeus.

   The above statement is partially supported by E. G. Suhr (Before
   Olympus, p.178), who comments that Athene's birth from Poseidon was
   much earlier than her birth from Zeus; and Rose (p. 53), in which
   Athene is a great independent goddess, originally unconnected with the
   Hellenic Zeus.

   I consider the last few data to be important, since they reflect on
   the validity of the Zeus/Athene myth supporting the emergence of the
   planet Venus from the planet Jupiter.

   At this point, we could roam further afield by taking a hard look at
   Zeus as representing the planet Jupiter. Not only is there a weak link
   between Zeus and the planet Jupiter, but Cook in a very scholarly tome
   (A Study in Ancient Religions), gives him all the attributes that
   Velikovsky associates with Venus.

   The last comment is that I have personally found little or no
   reference to connect either Aphrodite or Athens with the planet Venus.
   There would certainly be a strong association by the Greeks, if the
   catastrophes had occured as Velikovsky has stated. As a matter of
   fact, Aphrodite is never associated with Venus, according to LANGDON
   (Mythologies of All Races, Vol. 5: "Semitic", p.15).

   MOE MANDELKEHR

   Cinnaminson, N.J.
                             _________________

   PETER JAMES comments:-

   I find the claim that two Greek goddesses were "older" than the Greeks
   rather paradoxical - I take it that Mr Mandelkehr is arguing that
   similar goddesses were already worshipped in the Near East before the
   Greeks appeared on the scene, and I agree with him that the cult of
   Aphrodite was largely borrowed, perhaps from that of the Phoenician
   Astarte. It is on this basis that H. J. Rose and others have suggested
   that Aphrodite is "older" than the Greeks: that is, closely similar
   deities such as Astarte, Ishtar and Inanna were worshipped long before
   we hear of the Greeks. Inanna, the Sumerian Aphrodite, was certainly
   worshipped (as the planet Venus) as early as the third millennium BC.
   [This does not invalidate the identification of Venus as agent for the
   second-millennium catastrophes: see note below on the date for Venus'
   "birth".]

   The suggestion that Athena's birth may be linked with water may
   provide further confirmation of her links with Aphrodite, although I
   personally doubt this. Surely, the allusions to her as a "child of the
   waters" refer to the story of how she first appeared by the shores of
   Lake Triton in North Africa and was fostered by the deity of that
   lake, rather than to her parentage? (See Apollodorus, The Library I,
   iii, 6 and III, xii, 3.)

   At this point I must add a note of caution about basing any ideas on
   the conclusions of modern mythologists. The ideas of Robert Graves in
   particular can be very misleading (see SISR I:3, p.14). For example,
   Graves' claim in The White Goddess that Athena was a sea-goddess is
   based on a learned conversation from 43 AD, overheard by him in an
   analeptic trance, and can't be treated seriously without proper
   evidence; and while it's certainly worth citing the opinions of
   Graves, Cox, Rose and others, every single statement that they make
   needs thorough checking with the sources.

   Mandelkehr follows Graves again in saying that, "according to the
   older legends", Athena was not the daughter of Zeus. Without implying
   that the usual version of her birth from Zeus is necessarily the
   "correct" one, I must question the value of the words "older legends".
   As far as the renditions available to us are concerned, the oldest
   myths we have are those sung by Homer and Hesiod, dating from the
   seventh century or thereabouts, and they both call Athena the daughter
   of Zeus. It can be argued - as Graves often does (see The Greek Myths
   I, p. 13) - that later writers followed "obviously earlier" versions
   of myths than our earliest Greek sources, but Graves' criteria for
   obviousness are highly suspect. On the birth of Athena he cites
   (T.G.M., I, 45) Herodotus' statement that the Libyans near Triton
   believed that "Athene is the daughter of Poseidon and the lake, but
   that having some quarrel with her father she put herself at the
   disposal of Zeus, who made her his own daughter" (IV, 180, trans. A.
   de Selincourt). This Libyan, not Greek, story, reported by Herodotus
   over two centuries after Homer and Hesiod, fitted neatly with one of
   Graves hobby-horses: that the myth of the sons of Kronos - Hades,
   Poseidon and Zeus - reflected the successive invasions of Greece by
   the Ionians, Aeolians and Achaeans (see T.G.M. I, 43). This idea,
   quite popular among mythologists earlier this century but now
   abandoned, held that Hades and Poseidon were earlier skygods ousted by
   Zeus' Achaeans and reading Graves' book, one would indeed receive the
   impression that the version which ascribes Athena's parentage to
   Poseidon was "earlier", although this is not explicitly stated. The
   quotation from Cox to the effect that a god called Tritos was "so old
   that he disappeared from the memory of the Greeks" is also suspect:
   Triton appears in many myths as the son of Poseidon, father of Scylla
   and fosterparent of Athena; he plays a part, for instance, in the
   story of the Argo. The Greeks must have had an exceedingly bad memory
   if they managed to forget that Tritos was Triton.

   At the same time, I am glad that Mandelkehr has cited the other
   possibilities to the Zeus-Athena version, which has been accepted
   rather dogmatically by some of Velikovsky's followers, and I fully
   agree that further investigation is needed here, particularly since
   the Zeus-Athena myth is one of the major sources for Velikovsky's
   claim that Venus was born from the planet Jupiter. I agree with
   Mandelkehr that a "hard look " is needed at the identification of Zeus
   with Jupiter; I pointed out in my answer to Alfred de Grazia (SISR
   I:3, p. 13 and n. 16) that many of the motifs associated with Zeus are
   just those which Velikovsky attributed to Venus.

   As for Langdon's statement in Semitic Mythology, I am afraid that the
   great Assyriologist was simply wrong on this occasion. I cited several
   sources in my original article in SISR I:1 that should leave no doubt
   that the name Aphrodite was commonly applied to the planet Venus. (A
   glance at any of these sources in a parallel-text version such as Loeb
   will demonstrate this.)

   Athene/Athena is never associated with Venus in extant Greek
   literature, as I pointed out on the opening page of my earlier
   article; but the comparative evidence is very strong. Athena and
   Aphrodite together match exactly the double goddess Ishtar or Inanna.
   These Near Eastern parallels add firm support to Velikovsky's case
   that Athena is Venus, since there is no doubt at all that
   Ishtar/Inanna represented that body. Remember that it is this
   comparison of Aphrodite and Athena with similar Near Eastem deities
   that lies behind the suggestion that they are "older" than the Greeks:
   if this identification is invoked to demonstrate this, then I think it
   is unwise to ignore it when we turn to the planetary identification of
   these goddesses.
                             _________________

   EDITOR'S NOTE:

   One point requires particular comment: it is a common mistake made by
   even the most avid readers of Velikovsky's works, to date the
   appearance of Venus at the time of the Venus catastrophes, ca. 1500
   BC. In W in C, however, Velikovsky writes: "Venus was born in the
   first half of the second millennium" - i.e. between 2000 and 1500 BC
   (I, vii: "The Four-Planet System") and "Venus experienced in quick
   succession its birth. . .; an existence as a comet . . .; a number of
   contacts . . . this all happened between the third and first millennia
   before the present era" (II, ix: "The Thermal Balance of Venus"). In
   the extended interview in Science and Mechanics (July 1968),
   Velikovsky is also quoted as saying: "About 3500 years ago, the
   protoplanet Venus came close to the earth. But this didn't happen
   immediately after Venus escaped from Jupiter. It had been orbiting the
   sun for hundreds of thousands - if not millions - of years" (p. 103;
   publisher's emphasis). We may question whether Velikovsky is correctly
   reported here, as this would put the date of Venus' birth prior to the
   emergence of Man, raising severe difficulties in explaining the many
   myths dealing with the subject. (Or should we take it as a hint that
   the maths of the "birth" do not deal with the original fission, but
   with some later Venus/Jupiter contact?) Perhaps the most reliable
   recent statement is that by William Mullen in Pensee III, pp. 13-14:
   "By a process of fissioning Jupiter generated the protoplanet Venus -
   in Greek myth Athene, and in the Egyptian Hathor . . . the goddess who
   over a millennium later destroyed mankind, as narrated in the
   principal Egyptian myth dealing with the events of -1500. " The space
   of "over a millennium" implies a date for Venus' birth rather earlier
   than 2500 BC.

   -R.M.L.
            ____________________________________________________

  A Further Answer to John Day
  
   In the introduction to his letter dealing with the revised chronology
   (Newsletter 2, pp. 9 ff.), John Day, a research student in Hebrew and
   Old Testament Studies at Cambridge, stresses the fact that "when I
   came to study the sources at first hand which Velikovsky cites in
   support of his thesis . . . I found myself forced to conclude that his
   reconstruction is to be completely rejected."

   I beg to differ.

   Of the nine examples given by Day to support his rejection, I
   investigated three, with the opposite result: The Exodus (his No. 4),
   The Queen of Sheba (his No. 6), and The Temple in Jerusalem (his No.
   7).

   I. The Exodus. John Day writes: "Conventional chronology associates
   the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt with the reign of Rameses II
   (13th century BC). This is supported by the fact that Exodus 1:11
   states that the Israelites helped build the city of Raamses for
   Pharaoh. Raamses is the city in the Delta called Pi-Rameses ... and we
   know that it was built during the reign of Rameses II - indeed, it was
   named after him."

   How do we know that the city was was built during the reign of Rameses
   II and that it was named after him? Day doesn't give the source. I
   don't know of any. The fact that a city, supposed to have been the
   Rameses of the Old Testament (there is no proof) and excavated,
   existed in the 13th century BC has been used to support a preconceived
   theory - but not the other way round.

   The statement that "Exodus 1:11 states that the Israelites helped
   build the city of Raamses for Pharaoh" is literally correct. The
   Hebrew idiom, however, does not mean that they built a new city.
   Proof: I Kings 12:25 and II Chronicles 11:5-10, which enumerate the
   "cities built by" Jeroboam and Rehoboam after the death of Solomon and
   the split of the United Monarchy into two Kingdoms, in the 10th
   century BC. Of Jeroboam it is told that he "built Shechem in Mount
   Ephraim" and that "he built Pnu-el"; of Rehoboam, that he built
   fifteen fortified cities, among them Beth Lehem, Adullam, Hebron, etc.
   It does not need an expert on Bible history to realise that the
   expression "he built the city . . ." does not mean that a new city was
   founded. Shechem and Hebron existed already when Abraham first entered
   the Promised Land. In the case of Jeroboam, the answer is found in
   Josephus, who relates that Jeroboam built a Royal Palace at Shechem,
   and another palace at Pnu-el in the Jordan valley - while Rehoboam,
   who suddenly found himself confined to a small kingdom surrounded by
   enemies on all sides, built fortifications in the existing border
   cities and provided them with victuals, put garrisons into them and
   did everything to enable them to withstand an onslaught by an invader
   and a prolonged siege.

   The name of Rameses appears first in the book of Genesis. According to
   Genesis 47:11: "Joseph placed his father and his brethren, and gave
   them a possession in the land of Egypt, in the the best of the land,
   in the land of Rameses, as Pharaoh had commanded." Rameses was a
   border district in the eastern Delta, called after and holy to the Sun
   -god Re' or Ra'. Its religious centre was the city of On - Heliopolis
   in Greek. This city is mentioned in Genesis 41:45: Joseph's wife was
   the daughter of the High Priest of On. Now, it is interesting that On,
   too, is mentioned among the cities "built" by the Children of Israel
   in Exodus 1 :11 of the Greek translation, the so-called Septuagint.
   This translation is about 300 years older than the Masoretic (Hebrew)
   text; according to the sources it was done in Alexandria, Egypt, by
   very learned Jewish scholars, who certainly were aware that On =
   Heliopolis existed hundreds of years before the Exodus. In short,
   there is no reason to believe that the city of Rameses was founded at
   the time of the Exodus and built by the Children of Israel, though
   they may have enlarged it, adding storehouses, etc.

   Neither is there mentioned anywhere in the Bible a Pharaoh of the name
   of Rameses. The Dynasty of the Pharaohs who bore this name certainly
   was a Dynasty hailing from the Delta region, the land of Ra', who
   called itself after the country of its birth. There is a parallel to
   this, too, from the book of Genesis. In Genesis 34 the story is told
   of the crown prince of the city of Shechem who wooed the daughter of
   Jacob. The prince bore the name of the city where he was born:
   Shechem.

   To summarise: The statement in Exodus 1:11 does not justify the
   interpretation given to it by John Day (and others), and cannot be
   used to discredit the "revised chronology" of Dr Velikovsky.

   II. The Queen of Sheba. This problem has been dealt with at length by
   me in a paper published in Kronos 1:3 and 1:4, to which the interested
   reader is referred. (The Identification of the Biblical "Queen of
   Sheba" with Hatshepsut, "Queen of Egypt and Ethiopia" - as proclaimed
   by Immanual Velikovsky - in the Light of New Archaeological
   Discoveries).

   Here, applying the "revised chronology" of Dr Velikovsky opened
   totally new vistas and seemed fully justified.

   III. The Temple in Jerusalem. The same result has been obtained in a
   paper on Thutmose III, to be published in one of the future numbers of
   the SIS Review. (Did Thutmose III Despoil the Temple in Jerusalem? A
   Critical Commentary to Immanuel Velikovsky: Ages in Chaos I, Chapter
   IV).

   DR EVA DANELIUS

   Nof Yam, Israel
            ____________________________________________________

  Memazzer-Love
  
   I was most interested to read Martin Sieff's provocative article on
   "The Cosmology of Job" in the last issue of the S.I.S. Review - he has
   made some potentially very valuable observations on what must be one
   of the most intriguing books of the Bible.

   I noted in particular his tentative identification of the body
   referred to in Job as "Mazzaroth" with the planet Venus as Evening
   Star. Elsewhere in the same issue (p.22), Mr Sieff discussed the
   importance of this aspect of Venus in the harvest festivals of ancient
   peoples:- "The milder Evening Star contacts were at the autumn
   solstice and associated with the harvest and fertility cults of love/
   fertility goddesses such as Ishtar of Erech in Babylon and Isis in
   Egypt." With regard to this I would like to quote in a passage in the
   Midrash Rabbash X.6:- "R. Tanhum b.R. Hiyya and R. Simon said:-
   '[Mazzaroth connotes] the constellation which ripens (memazzer) the
   fruits.' "

   Mr Sieff has already argued that the name "Mazzaroth" derives from
   mazal, meaning "fate", which would conflict with the opinion of Rabbis
   Tanhum and Simon, so perhaps memazzer was derived from "Mazzaroth",
   and not the other way round. In any case, it is tempting to see a
   semantic relationship between the two words, which would offer
   substantial support to Mr Sieff's case that Mazzaroth was the Evening
   Star.

   E. MADER

   Islington
            ____________________________________________________

  Out of Orbit
  
   In your Volume I, Number 4 issue there are references by Michael Reade
   (in Forum) to "orbits calculated for Venus by Professor Lynn Rose (and
   others)" and also to "Rose's models".

   I wish to point out that all of the orbital parameters concerned are
   the joint work of Raymond C. Vaughan and myself. Thus both of our
   names should be mentioned when such attributions are being made, not
   just mine.

   The first models that Vaughan and I proposed for "The Orbits of Mars,
   Earth and Venus" were published in Pensée IVR I. These are the very
   same orbits that were later presented in diagram form, but with our
   original parameters unchanged, by Ransom and Hoffee in Pensée IVR III.
   Vaughan and I then published several much more detailed models in our
   discussion of "Velikovsky and the Sequence of Planetary Orbits" in
   Pensée IVR VIII. These papers also appear in Velikovsky Reconsidered.

   I am writing to request that you encourage future contributors to your
   Review to give equal credit (or blame!) to Vaughan when they are
   citing our Joint work.

   Thank you very much.

   (PROF.) LYNN E. ROSE

   SUNY, Buffalo, N. Y.
     _________________________________________________________________

   \cdrom\pubs\journals\review\v0105\23forum.htm