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Hi Don! This is Laura Jones responding.
I mentioned the Hancock book - one thing I found very interesting
about it is that the ancient peoples were very focussed on the heavens, we are
taught these days that astrology is superstitious, but they lived by it, I guess
everyone knows that the Sphinx and Egyptian pyramids are a certain
orientation in line with heavenly constellations. This is also true
of the Latin American structures and Nascar figures, and in fact all around the
world, now that we have computers to do these very complicated calculations the
ancient peoples did on their own some scholars have worked to discern the
relevance of these things. I really didn't need the details when I read
the book, but for instance the holy sites on Easter Island, the Egyptian
pyramids and Angor Wat in Cambodia, and I think some other place now under
water, these are all calculated a certain number of degrees around the earth,
certain numbers with special significance are used, it's tremendously
interesting, although I have misgivings about Hancock who opines that the
ancient peoples were looking for Gnosticism - or trying to pass it on to us, I
forget exactly. This doesn't cut it for me, they worshipped God, not some
philosophy, and not one of the best. However, on the west coast of South
America there is a huge figure carved in the limestone palisade that we call the
"candelabra" although it is not that but a representation of a heavenly
constellation which would have appeared in the heavens right over the carved
figure at a certain significant date in the people's tradition. And it
can't be seen from just any angle, but only from a certain approach by
sea. AmazonDotCom says the book is on its way, so when it gets here I will
copy out what might be relevant and send it to you and you can see if it fits
with your information. Maybe, Aymaras, someone in your area has taken an
interest in these Andean buildings and figures, etc. They really are quite
remarkable, and I think very important because these ancient peoples have
something to say to us today, especially because we have become so
secularized. Here is a note from the Jerusalem Bible that might be
related, it goes with a mention of these ancient people who are mentioned in a
number of places in the Bible as being giants or godlike, Dt. 2:10. I'll
let you look it up in your own Bibles rather than copy it out. Here is the
Jerusalem Bible note: "The Anakim, like the Emim, Rephaim, Zamzumin and Zusim,
were the remnants of the prehistoric inhabitants of Palestine and Transjordania,
cf. vv 20f and Gen 14:5. They were associated with the legendary Nephilim,
Nb 13:33 and Gn 6:4, and were supposed to have built the megalithic monuments,
cf. Dt 3:11." Maybe if some of those people came to America, they might
have spoken another language than Hebrew, I mean the names, although given the
Hebrew plural endings, do not sound essentially Hebrew to me. Especially
Zamzumin and Zusim, I note that Aymara does have a very distinctive sound to it,
I mean like Titicaca, anyone would know that's not from a European language, for
instance. So what about these names, do they fit with anything else?
I mean if they came and landed and built the remarkable buildings, etc,
maybe they would want to carve that "candelabra" at the place where the
constellation was on a certain date to commemorate when they made
landfall.
Can anyone make any response about those stone
walls with those huge perfectly chiseled and fit stones? And no one knows how
they got them so high when (so we are told) they did not have wheels? The
buildings are important because they were used for religious purposes.
Maybe Aymara are a little embarrassed about that because they practiced human
sacrifice, but for them it was not murder, I mean in Homer's Iliad we have
a human sacrifice, Abraham apparently did not think it was inherently
inadmissible, it was for them a way of returning to God his most precious
gifts. If we don't want to do it that way today, no problem, but we should
recognize that for those people it was an act of reverence and gratitude, and no
doubt they thought the people sacrificed would be very grateful to go to God -
actually, since they were selected for their perfection, the perception probably
was that they would not have to go through all the tests, etc., "crossing the
River Styx" as the Greeks called it, I don't know the name of the river the
Egyptians depict in the scenes from their Book of the Dead, but probably when
they chose someone to be sacrificed this was a very great honor and God would
readily receive this person. This seems to be the case with that mummy
found in the Andes, I forget the name, but she was especially beautiful and
perfect. Also those Nascar figures - they seem to have used the hot air
balloons the archaeologists finally noticed depicted on their pottery to view
them, undoubtedly this was some kind of religious ritual - not like the way we
used hot air balloons to cross the English Channel or some such! By the
way, one possibility about the stones could have to do with the height of the
Andes. The Himalayas go down into the ground several times as deep as the
are high above it which results in this mass deflecting a vertical compass from
the true. The Tibetans are able to make use of their remarkable
environment - well, this Swedish visitor, or maybe Danish I forget, became very
good friends with the monks and so they invited him one day to see how they
moved a gigantic bolder that it took 6 yak to haul into place, up to a building
they were building at the top of a vertical mountainside. When the yak got
it on the platform of whatever the monks assembled with their instruments and
all and when they sang and played their instruments, the huge bolder rose into
place. I don't think there is any reason to doubt this, because of the
fact that the tremendous mass of the Himalayas can obstruct gravity. The
Andes are the next tallest mountains in the world so no doubt this is true of
them also. All these things bespeak a superior cultural development,
whether they were achievements of people already here, or "newcomers" from the
land of Jerusalem!
I found Don's latest on critics of the book of
Mormon very interesting. I mean, Edgar Cayce saw things that happened at other
times and places, I don't see why Joseph Smith couldn't. God is certainly
at liberty to raise up prophets when and where he wants to, when he has
something to say to the people. And I don't think he is going to be
exactly all that happy with them if they refuse to listen.
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