Let's look at the very first Prophecy of the regathering of Israel to the Holy Land (which I do not view as fulfilled by 1948). Deuteronomy 30 verses 3-5 (actually continuing from chapter 29 which foretells the scattering in verses 24-27).
"That then Yahuah thy God will turn thy captivity, and have compassion upon
thee, and will return and gather thee from all the nations, whither Yahuah thy
God hath scattered thee. If any of thine be driven out unto the uttermost parts of heaven, from thence will
Yahuah thy God gather thee, and from thence will he fetch thee: And Yahuah thy God will bring thee into the land which thy fathers possessed,
and thou shalt possess it; and he will do thee good, and multiply thee above thy
fathers."
This is repeated in Nehemiah 1:8-9.
Remember, I beseech thee, the word that thou commandedst thy servant Moses,
saying, "If ye transgress, I will scatter you abroad among the nations: But if ye turn unto me, and keep my commandments, and do them; though there were
of you cast out unto the uttermost part of the heaven, yet will I gather them
from thence, and will bring them unto the place that I have chosen to set my
name there."
Similar terminology is used in Matthew 24:31 and Mar 13:27. But I'd consider those less compelling because they're about The Rapture where Heaven is the destination of the Gathering.
In Obadiah when talking about Edom, God says in verse 4.
Though thou exalt thyself as the eagle, and though thou set thy nest among the stars, thence will I bring thee down, saith Yahuah.
It's interesting that when we landed on The Moon, Neal Armstrong said "The Eagle has Landed".
Then we can look at Isaiah 13 talking about the armies Yahuah will bring against Babylon. In verses 4 and 5.
The noise of a multitude in the mountains, like as of a great people; a
tumultuous noise of the kingdoms of nations gathered together: Yahuah of hosts
mustereth the host of the battle. They come from a far country, from the end of heaven, even Yahuah, and the
weapons of his indignation, to destroy the whole land.
This isn't likely to be the army from the Heaven where God dwells, that army marches in Revelation 19 after Babylon's destruction is over. Rob Skiba seems to be obsessed with saying the term "Host of Heaven" can only refer to Angels. That is false, Host is a term commonly affiliated with armies.
There are three Heavens Biblically, the Sky where the birds Fly, where the Sun, Moon and Stars are. And the Third Heaven where God is. I talked about this when
discussing the Firmament. Using the word Heaven(s) back to back tends to mean the Third Heaven where God is, like we see in Psalm 115:16, Deuteronomy 10:14 and Psalm 68:33.
I reject Dominionist theology and eschatology which says that The Church is supposed to take over the World to bring about the Second Coming. Right now the Dominion meant for Adam is usurped by Satan (The Archon of The Kosmos) until the events recorded in The Book of Revelation take place and Jesus sets up His Millennial reign.
But it's interesting to look at how Psalm 8 elaborates on the issue of Adam's Dominion over God's Creation. In verse 3 we are told the Moon and Stars are the works of Yahuah's fingers. And verse 6 says He made Adam to have dominion over all the works of his hands. Why exclude the Sun here? Maybe because it's not something we can walk or build things on?
Now it is popular in the modern Flat Earth movement to say Stars are Angels, not astronomical bodies we could potentially build things on. Stars and Angels are linked often and I believe that is more then just symbolically, I think each Star has an Angel that governs or stewards it.
Now Flat Eatherers are right that Biblcally "star" is not a synonym for "sun". Rather they refer to anything up there in the heavens, including Angels and UFOs, when they are seen up there as lights in the sky.
The Biblical concept of Stars for one thing indisputably includes the Planets, which we can now see with Telescopes are large round spherical objects, some with other large round objects orbiting them. Jude uses the specific Greek term "Planates Aster" (Wandering Star) which refereed to the five visible Planets in antiquity. Hebrew had no equivalent term specific for those. And most scholars agree that Chiun of Amos 5:26 refereed to as Remphan in Acts 7:43, was an ancient name for Saturn, which the same verse calls a Star.
And in Greek astronomy the Sun and Moon were included among the "Planates Asters".
Rob Skiba even goes so far as to use the fact that The Bible records people worshiping the Stars as evidence they are sentient beings. The Bible constantly makes a point out of how the false gods people worship are inanimate lifeless objects. Like in Daniel 5.
As far as Rob's point about Stars falling from Heaven in Bible Prophecy. Taking it as literally as he wants to is severely hurt by that it happens more then once in Revelation. They seemingly ALL fall in the Sixth Seal in chapter 2. Then two more fall during the Trumpets, while also a third of them are darkened. Then a third are cast down in Revelation 12. And everything in Revelation happens in Chronological order, that is what this Blog is mainly about.
That meteors and asteroids landing on the Earth were described as "falling stars" (asteroid comes from the Greek word for star) is a known documented part of ancient terminology. And if you're going to insist The Bible must be MORE literal then common usage was, then these modern Flat Earthers need to abandon their current position on if the Sun and Moon literally rise and set.
The idea that the star falling at the start of Revelation 9 is Satan, and that he is given the Key is easily refuted by the beginning of Revelation 20 where a different Angel has the key and locks Satan in The Pit. The Angel given the Key I think is the Angel who sounded the Fifth Trumpet, later in chapter 9 we see the Angel who sounds the Sixth Trumpet plays a role on how those events play out.
The star described as "falling" to the Earth at the start of chapter 9 in the Greek can be read as just sort of descending but not totally landing. I still like my hunch that that star is Iapetus which has a lot of fringe theory speculation. But I no longer like the idea I flirted with before that the Abyss is actually inside Iapetus, the Abyss is inside The Earth, the Great Deep.
Wormwood in clearly an asteroid or comet of some sort that will poison the Earth's Water supply. Comets especially are known to have chemicals in them, not to mention the radiation any such object might bring. In Hebrew wormwood is an idiom of bitterness.
Genesis 22:17 and Hebrew 11:2 says the stars are as innumerable as the sands of the sea shore. The enclosed Dome model allows no more stars then what we can see, the sand in the sandbox I played in in my backyard as a kid dwarfs that number of stars. That model says the stars we can see are about all there are, we can number those fairly easily.
Now this hypothesis has the potential to hurt our bias for seeing these prophecies being fulfilled in our lifetime. But I also have suspicions that many of these could apply to during or after the Millennium. My one objection to Chis White's argument for
Gog and Magog being Post-Millennial is his insistence that Technology will become primitive. I fully reject the idea that God would be against technological advancement.
I've actually argued before that the Regathering of Israel may not fully happen till near the end of or after the Millennium, in one of my first
Lost Tribes posts. Only thing there I don't stand by anymore is the Mystery Babylon maybe being Samaria part. Some of those themes I may return to in a more refined form in the coming months. As well as the issue of Edom's eschatological destiny.
Update May 15th 2016.
What is below is not needed for this theory and gets really fringe. I'm not definitively arguing for any of it but I do find these implications interesting.
Since I'm into unconventional theories about the Ancient World having more technology then we normally think (but rejecting needing "Ancient Aliens" to explain it), as well as the possible scientific theories of Stargates/Wormholes. Maybe some of this colonization already happened?
Maybe some of the Lost Tribes went to a planet in another Solar System, a planet called Arzareth, taken from the Apocryphal 2 Esdras (sometimes IV Esdras) 13:45, which is said to be previously uninhabited by Mankind (Adamkind? or Enoshkind? we don't have it in Hebrew). While my main serious Lost Tribes theories have been based on them in Asia
east of the Euphrates, (and maybe some coming to Japan and Pre-Colombian America). as an aspiring writer I've long thought of writing a SciFi/Fantasy story with this premise.
Schiller-Szinessy speculates the name Arsareth comes from a Hebrew phrase in Deuteronomy 29:28 (the Prophecy that started this study), "ereẓ aḦeret" translated in the KJV "another land". The "land" part is aHeret, a form of Erets, the Hebrew word for Earth, same one speculated to be etymologically related to the English "Earth", as well as many other Semitic and Germanic words for Earth, and from them Tolkien's Arda. Indeed the last part of Arzareth, "areth" sounds similar to Aerith, a Final Fantasy character who's name was meant to sound similar to the English "Earth".
So it could be translated "another Earth" though it does not need to mean that. Eretz is a word often used of specifically the Holy Land and other nations' homelands. But I've talked elsewhere on the Flat Earth issue that the references to the Four Corners of the Earth use Erets (and the Greek Ge) in a sense that means Eurasia+Africa. In that context the Americas can very much qualify as Another Erets, as could Australia and New Zealand, but applying that to Japan is a bit more of a stretch, Japan is the Eastern Corner I think (though Korean could also be argued to be the Eastern Corner). It is generally theories based on them going to
Japan or
the Americas that try to make the Arzareth reference a linchpin of the theory, Esdras is not Inspired Scripture anyway. I seem to be the first to get the idea that maybe it's not on Earth at all.
Apparently
Joseph Smith said the Lost Tribes were taken from The Earth and to somewhere near the Pole Star.
It used to be considered plausible to speculate the Moon could be habitable or inhabited, just as much as Mars was. Lucian, Kepler, De Bergerec, McDermot, Washington Irving,
George Tucker, Edgar Allen Poe, Alexandre Dumas, Hans Christian Anderson, H.G. Wells, C.L. Moore and C.S. Lewis all put intelligent life there, Jules Verne of all people however had it uninhabited. Now we know it's not inhabited and never was. (With Mars past in-habitation still seems possible. It is speculated Earth could become like Mars with the right disasters "
Unless those days be shortened, no flesh shall be saved".)
If I were living when it was still plausible to speculate about life on the Moon. I'd make note of how a Genesis 10 Patriarch, Yerech ben Yacktan (Jerah of the KJV), has the same name The Hebrew Bible and other Semitic language texts call The Moon. One who's historical traces seem far fainter then some other sons of Joktan. The Mormon argument for affiliating him with the
Jaredites of the Book of Mormon I find interesting, but
I've talked about what's wrong with the BoM before.
In fact this patriarch predates the Moon being called that. In Genesis 1 the Sun and Moon don't have their names yet, they're just the greater and lesser lights. Yareach as a name for the Moon first appears in Genesis 37, during the lifetime of Joseph and Jacob, then Job (I'm not sure it's as old as others think, if it's setting was during the Patriarchs' time it was late in it since the Keturites have Tribes established already), then in Exodus 2 ("three months" in the KJV), but it doesn't become common till Deuteronomy.
And the Moon has an alternate Hebrew name unlike the Sun, Chodesh/Hodesh.
When an Earthly location later becomes known by a Genesis 10 name we Young Earth Creationists see significance in that, so why am I seemingly the first to consider this with the Moon?
The name of Abraham's father Terah/Terach is also viewed as a variant. It is linked to moon worship in non Biblical texts, and in Hebrew it's spelled the same as Yerach except starting with a different letter, and there are other examples of Hebrew words beginning with Yot having equivalent words that begin with Tav, like Yeshuah and Teshuah (Salvation). Either way it seems the Moon was named for a descendant of Heber, making any hypothetical Selenites/Lunarians possibly Hebrews. It's interesting to remember that Esau/Edom was a descendant of Terah.
Maybe the Yerachites traveled to another "star" but had to pit-stop on the Moon along the way and gave it their name. Or maybe they were just the first to reach it.
And Maybe it was a Yerachite Princess who was raised by a Japanese Bamboo Cutter who named her Kaguya and was romanced by the Emperor of Japan. And also a Yerachite Princess who raped the Greek Shepherd King Endymion.
Wow, did I just got really Nerdy.
Also however the Akkadian name for the moon was Sin (sometimes spelled Suen), suggesting a possible connection to the Sinite tribe of Canaan.
Update January 6th 2017.: I can't believe I forget to mention my theory that
Enoch and Elijah were taken to another Planet.
Update January 23rd 2017: Well, I just noticed something I should have in the Song of Deborah, Judges 5, verses 20-23.
"They fought from heaven; the stars in their courses fought against Sisera. The river of Kishon swept them away, that ancient river, the river Kishon. O my
soul, thou hast trodden down strength. Then were the horsehoofs broken by the means of the prancings, the prancings of
their mighty ones. Curse ye Meroz, said the angel of Yahuah, curse ye bitterly the inhabitants
thereof; because they came not to the help of Yahuah, to the help of Yahuah
against the mighty."
The Talmud says that
Meroz is a Star in
Moed Katan 16a.
Now Rob Skiba might say this passage supports stars being Angels. But just before this it was talking about countries coming to battle (and some not) in similar terms. It's not talking about those geographical lands getting up and moving, but their people. This passage can be an argument for some Stars being inhabited.
Update October 7th 2018: Given how I've changed my mind on supporting the Edom=Rome identification. I'm now considering that maybe Edom's travel to outer-space was also in the past already.
Jeremiah doesn't describe a captivity and return for Edom in chapter 49 the way he does most other nations. But he does echo Obadiah's talk about Edom being as an Eagle. Edom proper disappears from the Historical biblical Record before the time of Hezekiah, with during Hezekiah's time being the last reference to Amalekites. I still agree with Bill Cooper then the Greco-Roman era Idumeans are the Ishmaelite tribe of Dumah not Edomites.
So if they weren't carried away into Captivity. why did they disappear?
