A. Primordial Revolts and Wars: Sumer, Edfu, and the Genesis “Gap” Theory
As was seen in
previous chapters, there are two “primordial revolts and wars,”
that referred to in the Edfu texts from Egypt, and that referred to
in the Enuma Elish and other texts from
Mesopotamia. There is a third major tradition from that world that
must now be examined, for it moves between Mesopotamia and Egypt
throughout its history, and that is the Hebrew tradition of the Old
Testament and other writings.
But its movement
within this mytho-cultural matrix is scarcely appreciated for what
it is: a variation on the broad theme of the cosmic war. The
subject is, of course, the Fall of Lucifer. Unfortunately however,
both “believers” and “skeptics” know this only in basic “Sunday
school” version and thus only in its broad outlines, but neither of
these two polarities tends to view the angelic revolt and fall
against this broader mythological and cultural context, and some
would be positively disinclined to do so, for ill-conceived
“theological” reasons. Nonetheless, it is important to do so, since
the Fall of Lucifer provides yet a third corroboration of the idea
of a primordial revolt and war in the pantheon.
This event is usually
best examined in conjunction with another theory, the so-called
“gap” theory of creation, for in this theory, the Fall of Lucifer
is usually understood to have occurred prior to the creation of mankind.573 A hint of the
possibility of a pre-existent civilization on the earth prior to
the creation of mankind may be found in Jeremiah 4:23-26:
23 I beheld the earth, and lo, it was without form, and void; and the heavens, and they had no light.
24 I beheld the mountains, and, lo, they trembled, and all the hills moved lightly.
25 I beheld, and, lo, there was no man, and all the birds of the heavens were fled.
26 I beheld, and, lo, the fruitful place was a wilderness, and all the cities thereof were broken down at the presence of the LORD, and by his fierce anger.
The fact that this
passage uses the same phrase, “without form and void” to describe
conditions suggests that the time frame involved is that described
in Genesis 1:1. Yet, as Stephen Quayle points out, there are three
indicators that, while the time-frame of Genesis 1:1 is more or
less in mind, there is also a civilization in existence:
• Birds were present. This suggests that the previous creation had elements similar to today’s...
• The pre-Adamic land was “fruitful” and therefore had vegetation that supplied abundant food.
• There were ancient cities that pre-dated Adam, which were “broken down” by God’s wrath.574
In other words, the
Old Testament itself strongly suggests the idea of a pre-cursor,
pre-human civilization on the earth. Moreover, it strongly hints
that the reason for its collapse was some sort of war.
But what of Genesis
itself?
The usual translation
of Genesis 1:1 has always been “In the
beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” But as
many biblical scholars have not tired of pointing out, the Hebrew
language’s verb system and other peculiarities of its grammar would
also permit the translation When God began to
create the heavens and the earth,” and then the second verse
would immediately follow, “the earth was without form, and void...”
and so on. This way of translating the verse, and viewing it in
conjunction with the passage from Jeremiah quoted above, led to the
formation by some theologians and commentators of the “Gap Theory.”
This theory holds that there was an initial creation by God, that
Lucifer and his hosts subsequently fell, and corrupted this
original creation. In some versions of the theory, Lucifer and his
hosts fell almost immediately after the initial creation, a view
that would corroborate the Edfu texts’ notion of a primordial fall,
a fall and conflict that occurs just as the transmutative aether is
being fashioned by the gods into a recognizable world.
In any case, the Gap
Theory holds that after this angelic fall, the “war in heaven”
between Lucifer and his fallen angels, and Michael the Archangel
and the heavenly hosts, occurred, wreaking havoc on creation
itself. Thus, a “second creation” was brought about by God, this
time not out of nothingness, but rather to “repair” the damage, so
to speak, caused by that war. Like the Sumerian tradition, this war
even has Lucifer and his hosts falling to the earth from the
sky.
Author Stephen Quayle
interprets this theory against the twin backdrops of the planetary
anomalies on Mars and elsewhere, and against the backdrop of
catastrophism:
Exactly how the ancient Earth became “without form and void” is hard to say. But there are several events that appear to have taken place which would have done the job, and thus, might have been employed by God to wipe the face of the Earth clean. Interestingly, both of these had the capacity to throw up massive amounts of sort and ash, thereby blocking the light from the planet, as is suggested by the “darkness on the face of the earth.”
Mars and other
planets show the evidence of massive meteoric bombardments of their
surfaces.576
As has been seen,
however, a scalar weapons technology would also certainly be
capable of manipulating weather, blacking out the light of the sun,
and causing plasma- and explosion-generated craters on other
celestial bodies. In any case, as Quayle points out, “Since Mars
and other planets, as well as the planet-sized moons of Jupiter and
Saturn also exhibit this destruction, one might also speculate that
these worlds and moons might also have been inhabited by angels, or
even space-faring giants.”577
Regardless of whether
or not one accepts Quayle’s interpretation in its narrow biblical
application, it is clear that it does
fit the wider Mesopotamian and Egyptian context that we have
examined in conjunction with the Sumerian and Edfu texts, and in
that context the biblical “war in heaven” would appear to be
another version of the great cosmic war in the pantheon those texts
describe.