The Forbidden Theory of Ancient Greek Art



Taken from: http://solvinglight.com/blog/2008/08/chapter-9-the-forbidden-theory-of-ancient-greek-art/


....

Chapter 9: The Forbidden Theory of Ancient Greek Art

The cover of the February, 2008 issue of the Smithsonian featured a photograph of the Parthenon with the words “Secrets of the ancient temple.” The nine-page article focused on the precision of construction. This has never been a secret, but rather something known since the time it was built on the Acropolis of Athens in the 5th century BC.

The structure, with all its precision, had three purposes that the Smithsonian barely touched upon: first, to make a covered space for the 40-foot-tall gold and ivory idol-image of Athena; second, to elevate the seven sculptural themes; and third, to make sure their messages to posterity as expressed in the sculptures survived as long as possible.

The evo-atheist editors at the Smithsonian accept academia’s lame explanation that the sculptures depict “mythical themes,” so they do not even question their real meaning or their relevance to us today. Is that what the Jefferson and Lincoln Memorials in our nation’s capital depict, mythical themes? No, these monuments, these modern temples, say to the visitor, “Look at the historical foundations of our society. Look at the ideals we value and live by.” The ancient Greeks, who created the living basis of our Western culture, expressed the same kind of sentiment to their own citizens and to posterity with their magnificent temples. But the art historians, the archaeologists, and the anthropologists who examine the Parthenon today cannot see it. The reason: evo-atheism rules those fields of study, and even when presented with the most obvious artistic depictions of Genesis events on the Parthenon, or in any other part of Greek art, they must be summarily denied and dismissed. The Genesis interpretation of Greek art is forbidden.

As we look at my forbidden theory of ancient Greek art in this chapter, we’ll see specifically how the NAS’s taboo against postulating a Creator works against the progress of understanding in the historical sciences, and against true scientific understanding in general.

Figs. 1, 2, and 3. Greek artists made certain there was no mistaking Athena’s association with the serpent and its wisdom. Above left, from her pre-Parthenon temple, she wears a crown of serpents. In the vase-depiction below left, she wears the Gorgon Medusa, the head of serpents on her aegis, or goatskin. And as a part of her reconstructed idol-image in the Parthenon in Nashville, the ancient serpent rises up next to her as a friend. She holds Nike in her right hand: her friendship with the serpent has led her to Victory.

THE ORIGIN OF THE FORBIDDEN THEORY

I started thinking about ancient Greek art when I was a cadet at West Point. The helmet of Athena, goddess of war and wisdom, is the centerpiece of the academy crest which we wore for four years on our caps and shirt collars. Beginning with senior year, we carried the academy crest, with Athena’s helmet, on our class rings. When I first saw a replica of Athena’s Parthenon idol-image in the officers’ club, I was most struck by the huge, friendly serpent rising up next to her. As a rule, women don’t like serpents and men aren’t crazy about them either. I remember thinking, “The Genesis serpent befriended Eve. Could this be the Genesis serpent?” Such was my speculation, based on something tangible and real in humanity’s past. Scientific study begins with a question about something we observe, but don’t yet understand.

Most mythology books refer to Athena as the goddess of wisdom, but as I looked deeper into her ancient idol-image and other depictions of her, I learned that the ancient artists made a point to associate her irrevocably with the serpent. On one sculpture, she wore a crown of serpents (fig. 1). This suggests that the serpent ruled her thinking. She was often depicted wearing a serpent-fringed aegis, or goat skin, as a symbol of her authority. On that aegis, she wore the Gorgon Medusa—the head of serpents (fig. 2). Was she, in truth, the goddess of the serpent’s wisdom? The wisdom of the ancient serpent from Genesis?

From that point, I developed this working hypothesis: “Greek art depicts the early events described in Genesis, but from the standpoint that the serpent enlightened, rather than deluded, mankind.” I called it the Genesis hypothesis. For my hypothesis to progress, I needed more factual connections. Did the Greeks speak of a first couple in an ancient paradise? Yes. You can examine the plentiful evidence for this, and for other connections between Genesis events and ancient Greek art in detail in my publications and at solvinglight.com. Let me here present a brief outline of what I have uncovered.

THE FIRST COUPLE

There is no Creator-God in the Greek religious system. Ancient Greek religion is about getting away from the God of Genesis, and exalting man as the measure of all things. You may think to yourself that the Greeks are exalting gods, not man; but haven’t you ever wondered why the Greek gods looked exactly like humans? The answer is the obvious one: for the most part, the gods represented the Greeks’ (and our) human ancestors. Greek religion was thus a sophisticated form of ancestor worship. In Plato’s Euthydemus, Sokrates referred to Zeus, Athena, and Apollo as his “gods” and as his “lords and ancestors.”₁ Greek stories about their origins are varied and sometimes contradictory until their poets and artists present Zeus and Hera as the couple from whom the other Olympian gods and mortal men are descended.

This brother/sister and husband/wife pair, the king and queen of the gods, are a match for the Adam and Eve of Genesis. This couple is the beginning of the family of man, and the origin of the family of the Greek gods, Zeus and Hera. With no Creator-God in the Greek religious system, the first couple advances to the forefront.

ZEUS AND HERA ARE THE FIRST COUPLE DESCRIBED IN GENESIS

According to the Book of Genesis, Eve is the mother of all humans, and the wife of Adam. Since God is the Father of both Adam and Eve, some consider them to be brother and sister as well. After they had both eaten the fruit, Adam named his wife Eve (“Living” in Hebrew) and Genesis 3:20 explains why: “… for she becomes the mother of all the living.” In a hymn of invocation, the 6th-century BC lyric poet, Alcaeus, refers to Hera as “mother of all.”₂ As the first wife, the Greeks worshipped Hera as the goddess of marriage; as the first mother, the Greeks worshipped her as the goddess of childbirth.

We are told in Chapter 2 of Genesis that Eve was created full-grown out of Adam. Before she was known as Hera, the wife of Zeus had the name Dione. The name relates to the creation of Eve out of Adam, for Dione is the feminine form of Dios or Zeus. This suggests that the two, like Adam and Eve, were once a single entity.

From the Judeo-Christian standpoint, the taking of the fruit by Eve and Adam at the serpent’s behest was shameful, a transgression of God’s commandment. From the Greek standpoint, however, the taking of the fruit was a triumphant and liberating act which brought to mankind the serpent’s enlightenment. To the Greeks, the serpent was a friend of mankind who freed us from bondage to an oppressive God, and was therefore a savior and illuminator of our race.

In his Works and Days, the poet Hesiod wrote of “how the gods and mortal men sprang from one source.”₃ The first couple, Zeus and Hera, were that source. Hera is the single mother of all humanity, and Zeus is, according to Hesiod, “the father of men and gods.”₄ The term “father Zeus” is a description of the king of the gods which appears over 100 times in the ancient writings of Homer.₅ As the source of their history, Zeus and Hera became the gods of their history. Those without a belief in the Creator have only nature, themselves, and their progenitors to exalt.

The Greek tradition insists that Zeus and Hera were the first couple; the Judeo-Christian tradition insists Adam and Eve were the first couple. Two opposite spiritual standpoints share the same factual basis.

THE GREEK VERSION OF EDEN

If the above is true, then the Greeks ought to have directly connected Zeus and Hera to an ancient paradise, a serpent, and a fruit tree. They did, indeed, make such a direct connection.

The Greeks remembered the original paradise. They called it the Garden of the Hesperides, and they associated Zeus and Hera with its enticing ease, and with a serpent-entwined apple tree.

Some mythologists have mistaken the Hesperides for guardians of the tree, but they certainly are not. Their body language, their easy actions and their very names serve the purpose of establishing what kind of a garden this is: a wonderful, carefree place. In figure 4 (next page), we see the Garden of the Hesperides depicted on a water pot from about 410 BC. The serpent entwines the apple tree with its golden fruit. The names of the figures are written on the vase. Two of the Hesperides, Chrysothemis (Golden Order) and Asterope (Star Face) stand to the immediate left of the tree. Chrysothemis moves toward the tree to pluck an apple. Asterope leans pleasantly against her with both arms. To the left of them, Hygeia (Health) sits on a hillock and holds a long scepter, a symbol of rule, as she looks back towards the tree. To the right of the apple tree, Lipara (Shining Skin) holds apples in the fold of her garment, and raises her veil off her shoulder.

The names of the Hesperides describe what the garden is like. It is a land of gold for the taking, soft starlight, perfect health, and wondrous beauty. The Hebrew word for Eden means “to be soft or pleasant,” figuratively “to delight oneself.” The Garden of the Hesperides is the Greek version of the Garden of Eden.

Figure 4: Vase-depiction of the Garden of the Hesperides, the Greek version of Eden

ZEUS AND HERA IN THE ANCIENT PARADISE

If Adam and Eve, in the Greek religious system, have become Zeus and Hera, there should be literary evidence for their presence in this garden, and there is. Apollodorus wrote that the apples of the Hesperides “were presented by Gaia [Earth] to Zeus after his marriage with Hera.”₆ This matches the Genesis account: Eve became Adam’s wife right after she was taken out of Adam (Genesis 2:21–25), and the next recorded event is the taking of the fruit by the first couple. Connecting Zeus and Hera with the Hesperides connects them with the serpent and the fruit tree with which the Hesperides are always represented.

The chorus in Euripides’ play Hippolytus speaks of “the apple-bearing shore of the Hesperides” where immortal fountains flow “by the place where Zeus lay, and holy Earth with her gifts of blessedness makes the gods’ prosperity wax great.”₇ Thus Euripides put Zeus in the garden, and his language affirms that this is where Zeus came from.

You have probably heard one time or another about Eve eating the apple. The Hebrew word for fruit in Chapter 3 of Genesis is a general term. The idea that Adam and Eve took a bite of an apple comes to us as part of the Greek tradition.

Up to this point, we have developed a sound working hypothesis. The evidence is compelling. But we must remember, the ruling evo-atheist paradigm is not about evidence, but rather, about validating their evo-atheist standpoint, and that’s all. My line of thinking challenges their evo-atheist standpoint; therefore, it is forbidden. Evo-atheist writer Joseph Campbell, articulates the operative taboo as it applies to the fields of art history, Classical studies, archaeology, and anthropology today:

No one of adult mind today would turn to the Book of Genesis to learn of the origins of the earth, the plants, the beasts, and man. There was no flood, no tower of Babel, no first couple in paradise, and between the first known appearance of men on earth and the first building of cities, not one generation (Adam to Cain) but a good two million must have come into this world and passed along. Today we turn to science for our imagery of the past and of the structure of the world, and what the spinning demons of the atom and the galaxies of the telescope’s eye reveal is a wonder that makes the babel of the Bible seem a toyland dream of the dear childhood of our brain.₈

The Scriptures are false. Science is truth. Evolution is science. Evolution is truth. We’ve heard all of these atheistic assumptions before from the NAS. But where is the evidence that the Genesis events did not occur? And where is the evidence that evolution did occur? Campbell does not produce a shred of evidence to back up his speculation. Campbell’s writings express the same profane prattlings, and the same philosophy and empty seduction we find in the NAS book. Genesis events must be explained away as fairy tales, and never examined as history; Greek art must be explained away as myth, and never examined as history—even though Genesis and Greek art corroborate each other. The truth is that Genesis describes the key events in early human history, while ancient Greek art depicts those same events, albeit from an opposite perspective. Let’s see what else in ancient Greek art stares the evo-atheists in the face, but which they are forced to ignore and dismiss because of the narrow and limiting scope of their atheistic religious philosophy.

THE TWO ANTAGONISTIC SONS OF THE FIRST FAMILY

Now if Zeus and Hera are pictures of Adam and Eve, we would expect them to have two male children with antagonistic lines of descent just as the Genesis couple did. Zeus and Hera did have two male children: Hephaistos, the elder, and Ares; and they were as averse to each other as Kain (Cain) and Seth.

Adam and Eve actually had three sons: Kain, Abel and Seth, but Kain killed Abel before the latter had offspring. Greek artists knew all about that first murder. They depicted that event in a series of four metopes (square sculpted scenes) on the south side of the Parthenon (see Chapter 6 of The Parthenon Code). An explosion in 1687 destroyed the metopes, but fortunately, French artist, Jacques Carrey, had drawn them in 1674. You can see them at solvinglight.com. Classical scholars have no other cogent explanation for the four related scenes.

Since Seth replaced Abel, we look at Adam and Eve as having two sons, each of whom, in turn, had offspring. In the Scriptures, the line of Seth is the line of Christ. The Book of Matthew traces the lineage of Christ through David to Abraham; and the Book of Luke further traces the lineage of Abraham to Adam through his son Seth. This is often referred to as the line of belief in the Creator-God or the line of faith. On the other hand, the Scriptures define the line of Kain as one of unbelief in the Creator-God. According to I John 3:12, “Kain was of the wicked one,” a reference to “the ancient serpent called Adversary and Satan, who is deceiving the whole inhabited earth” (Revelation 12:9).

The Greeks deified Kain as Hephaistos, god of the forge. They deified his younger brother, Seth, as Ares, the troublesome god of conflict and war. In the Judeo-Christian tradition, Kain is the evil one whose way is to be shunned. In the Greek religious system, Ares, the Seth of Genesis, is the traitor and the one who causes ruin and woe.

HEPHAISTOS/KAIN

By his Roman name, Vulcan, we associate Hephaistos, the deified Kain, immediately with the forge and the foundry. According to Genesis 4:22, the members of Kain’s family were the first to become forgers “of every tool of copper and iron.” These surely included the hammer, the axe, and the tongs—the tools most often associated with Hephaistos in Greek art.

Hephaistos’ banishment from, and return to, Olympus (a place where the Creator is excluded from the pantheon) is a “myth” which constituted an essential element of Greek religion. It appeared painted, sculpted and bronzed throughout the Archaic and Classical periods. In the Greek religious system, the banishment and return of Hephaistos to Olympus corresponds, in Genesis, to Kain’s being commanded to wander the earth by God, and his defiant return to establish the first city (Genesis 4:9-17).

ARES/SETH

Zeus loved his son Hephaistos, who performed an indispensable and appreciated function as armorer of the gods. On the other hand, Zeus considered his youngest son, Ares, to be worthless, calling him “hateful” and “pestilent” and a “renegade.”₉ The ancient poet, Homer, referred to Ares as “the bane of mortals.”₁₀ The only reason Ares has a place in the Greek pantheon is that he is the son of Zeus; that is, he is one of the two actual sons of the first couple, Adam and Eve, of whom Zeus and Hera are deifications. Zeus hates Ares, but accepts responsibility for siring him: “[F]or thou art mine offspring, and it was to me that thy mother bare thee,” and then rails at this son of his, telling him that if he were born of any other god, he would have been “lower than the sons of heaven” long ago.₁₁ Some scholars say Greek religion is anthropomorphic; that is, gods take human form. That’s not quite right. What happens is that real human ancestors retain their original identities and take on godlike qualities. Ares, as a deification of Seth, is trapped by the historical framework. His father, Zeus, had to hate him, and the Greek hero, Herakles, was expected to kill Ares’ children.

While the scriptural viewpoint defines Seth/Ares as the God-believing, or spiritual son, Greek religion defines him as hated by, and antagonistic to, the ruling gods who are part of the serpent’s system. Likewise, while Zeus-religion looks on Hephaistos/Kain as the true and devoted son, the scriptural viewpoint defines him as part of the wicked one’s system. Jews and Christians dislike and shun the line of Kain, but they can’t get rid of him or his line without altering their spiritual standpoint and history itself. Kain is part of the Scriptures, and he is there to stay. Zeus-religion has the same kind of situation. It hates the line of Ares, but it cannot eliminate the line from its history because the basic achievement of Zeus-religion, its grand celebration even, is the triumph of the way of Kain over the way of Seth. Ares is part of Greek sacred literature and art, and he is there to stay.

THE GREEK DEPICTION OF THE FLOOD

According to Genesis, the Flood temporarily wiped out the way of Kain. Noah, in the line of Seth, “a just man” (Genesis 6:9), survived with his wife, three sons, and their wives in the ark. All but these eight people disappeared into the earth. The Greeks pictured this cataclysmic event as half-men/half-horses known as Kentaurs (Centaurs) pounding a man named Kaineus into the ground (fig.5). Kaineus means “pertaining to Kain,” or more directly, “the line of Kain.”

Who were the Kentaurs? The original Greek word for Kentaur, Kentauros, means hundred (where we get century and cent) and most likely relates to the fact that Noah, the chief of the line of Seth, warned of the Flood for one hundred years.₁₂ In most vase paintings of them, the Kentaurs carried symmetrical branches, a sign that they belonged to a certain branch of humanity. The Greeks, who embraced the way of Kain, did not acknowledge the Creator God, and so they couldn’t blame Him for the Flood. They blamed the survivors of it, that strange branch of humanity they didn’t really understand—the line of Seth.

The evo-atheists have no explanation for the connection between Kain and Hephaistos and Seth and Ares, nor do they have an explanation for Kaineus and the Kentaurs. Because ignorant atheists say so, entire fields of scientific enquiry must arbitrarily dismiss the only real evidence we have for the origin of mankind.

Let’s see what else the evo-atheists scholars and their spell-bound students are forced to ignore in the ancient Greek record.

Figs. 5 and 6. Left, Kaineus (the line of Kain) disappears into the earth during the Flood at the hands of the Seth-men (Kentaurs). Right, after the Flood, Athena welcomes the reborn line of Kain (the child is the seed of Hephaistos/Kain) from the earth in Athens.

THE RESURGENCE OF THE WAY OF KAIN AFTER THE FLOOD

For a number of years after the Flood, God’s awesome and decisive intervention in human affairs remained fresh in the minds of Noah’s descendants, and the way of Kain remained dormant. Then, gradually, a yearning for a return to the serpent’s wisdom began to take hold.

The evidence I present in my books and in my 950-slide PowerPoint presentation shows irrefutably that Greek religious art celebrated the resurgence and victory of the way of Kain after the Flood. The question is, how did the way of Kain come through the Flood? The answer is, through a woman. The evidence for this is found in an extremely well-researched 782-page book by Anne Baring and Jules Cashford called The Myth of the Goddess. The authors trace the goddesses of the ancient Near-eastern and Mediterranean world to a single original goddess named Nammu.

“The earliest Sumerian creation myth,” they write, “tells the story of Nammu, Goddess of the Primordial Waters, who brought forth the cosmic mountain, An-Ki, Heaven and Earth.”₁₃ The Primordial Waters are the Flood waters; the cosmic mountain, where the ark landed. The peaks of the mountains of Ararat often disappeared into the clouds, so it seemed Nammu had come from above, from heaven to earth.

Most of the significant ancient goddesses were linked to the Flood in some way, beginning with the one whom they represented, Nammu. Baring and Cashford: “The images of water and sea, the unfathomable abyss of the Deep, return us to Nammu, the Sumerian goddess whose ideogram was the sea . . .”₁₄ Baring and Cashford again: “Asherah [a Caananite goddess] was called ‘the Lady of the Sea,’ which links her to the Sumerian Nammu, and to the Egyptian Isis, ‘born in all wetness.’”₁₅ Those descriptions of the goddess evoke the memory of the Flood. But where did Nammu come from? Baring and Cashford do not know.

Operating in the academic world under the evo-atheist paradigm, the authors cannot make the obvious Genesis connection. Genesis 4:17-22 records the descendents of Kain beginning with his son, Enoch, going down to his great-great-great-great grandson, Tubal-kain. The writer of Genesis pens one more sentence at the end of the male line of Kain: “And the sister of Tubal-kain is Naamah” (Genesis 4:22). The line of Seth (Genesis 5:6-32) mentions no women. Why is Naamah mentioned in the line of Kain?

My answer, as expressed in Section I of Noah in Ancient Greek Art, is that Noah’s son, Ham, married her, and brought her with him on the ark through the Flood. After the Flood, Naamah/Nammu reverted to the way of Kain, and instigated the rebellion which the Greeks, as well as other nations, celebrated.

The Greeks recognized Ham as the friendly Kentaur, Chiron. Other Kentaurs of the line of Seth were enemies of the resurgent line of Kain, but not Chiron. Although he was a son of Noah, Ham connected with the line of Kain through his marriage to the Kain-woman, Naamah/Nammu. Greek artists honored him for bringing her through the Flood, and depicted him in a radically different way from all the other Kentaurs. He is not pictured as a crude enemy, but as a civilized friend. His front legs are not equine, but human. If you stood directly in front of him, you wouldn’t even know that he was a Kentaur. They called him Chiron because it means “hand” in Greek, and suggests that he gave an early helping hand to the development of Zeus-religion.

On the following page, we see how the Greeks depicted and named Noah, his son Ham, his grandson, Cush, and his great-grandson, Nimrod. In The Parthenon Code and Noah in Ancient Greek Art, I present detailed evidence which connects these ancient historical figures.

Over several generations, Naamah, with the help of her son and grandson, Cush and Nimrod, won the adoration of the majority of humanity, taking credit for bringing civilization through the Flood. As the tribes and nations began to form, they worshipped different aspects of Naamah using different names.

Figure 7. An ancient depiction shows Herakles shoving Nereus aside. Nereus means the “Wet One.” The Greeks also referred to him as the “Salt Sea Old Man.” He is the Greek version of Noah. Herakles is the Nimrod of Genesis, the grandson of Naamah. He led mankind’s rebellion after the Flood with her as his guide.

I would change the title of Baring’s and Cashford’s book from The Myth of the Goddess to The Memory of the Adored Woman, because that’s what it is really all about. The authors cannot see this simple truth, and so remain puzzled as to why ancient goddesses so dominated ancient Mediterranean cultures: Ishtar, Inanna, Asherah, Isis, Demeter, Artemis, Athena—all, in their own scholarly judgment, derived from Nammu. Baring and Cashford confess that they do not know how the goddess image first arose, “whether from dreaming sleep or from waking vision.” But it was not a dream or a vision that led to the veneration of the goddess throughout the ancient world, but rather a real woman named Naamah, the last person mentioned in the line of Kain before the Flood. The majority of humanity adored her because she brought the way of Kain through the Flood, and through her offspring, Cush/Hermes and Nimrod/Herakles, reestablished its dominance.

NEREUS/NOAH

A prophet of God in the line of Seth who brought mankind through the Flood.

CHIRON/HAM

The “good” Kentaur (Seth-man) because he brought his wife, Naamah, of the line of Kain, through the Flood.

HERMES/CUSH

Born on his mother’s side from the line of Kain, turned from Noah and God, embraced and spread Zeus-religion.

HERAKLES/NIMROD

As Naamah’s grandson, led the armed rebellion against Noah and his God-fearing children.

Figure 8. Here is how the renunciation of Noah and his God proceeded from his son, Ham (who brought Naamah through the Flood as his wife) through his son, Cush, to his son, Nimrod. Or as the Greeks remembered them, from Chiron through Hermes to Herakles. The most influential person in this great spiritual transformation, Ham’s wife Naamah/Athena, is not shown here.

If, in the Greek religious system, Demeter, Artemis, and Athena are all personas or aspects of the real woman, Naamah/Nammu, why is Athena the dominant one? Why is she the favored daughter of Zeus? It is because Athena represents the most essential aspect of Naamah—dedication and submission to the ancient serpent and its wisdom. That is the heart and soul of Zeus-religion and the way of Kain. As Naamah/Demeter, the goddess of vegetation, she brought the seeds through the Flood; as Naamah/Artemis, the mistress of wild beasts, she brought the animals through the Flood. Both were very important, but it is the exaltation of the serpent’s wisdom that is the distinguishing, defining, and crucial achievement of Naamah/Athena. Only two ancestors are ever depicted in Greek art holding Nike, or Victory, in their hand. One is Adam/Zeus, the original purveyor to humanity of the serpent’s wisdom before the Flood. The other is Naamah/Athena, the woman who brought back the serpent’s enlightenment to mankind after the Flood. That is why Greek artists almost always depicted Athena with a serpent or serpents. That is why Athena’s temple stood in all its glory above the city of Athens. That is the secret of the Parthenon.

Naamah/Athena’s grandson, Nimrod/Herakles became the great hero who supplied the muscle to overthrow Noah/Nereus and his God-fearing offspring. At solvinglight.com, I present 37 images of Noah from ancient Greek art. In almost all the scenes, the patriarch’s authority is being usurped by the rebel, Nimrod/Herakles, or he is being forced by the artists to witness key events leading to the triumph of Zeus-religion. Noah/Nereus is a benchmark figure. Artists placed him in scenes as the known character, the constant against which they could portray the great spiritual/religious change taking place after the Flood.

Also at solvinglight.com, we restore the 12 labors of Herakles in color, as they originally appeared on the temple of Zeus at Olympia. Once you examine the images of Noah, the labors of Herakles, and the restoration of the east pediment of the Parthenon, with their respective explanations on the Web site, I think you will agree that the Genesis hypothesis of Greek art has become an authentic theory. I go so far as to consider it fact, but I leave that determination up to you.

Figs. 9 and 10. From opposite sides of the same vase, Cush/Hermes, with Nimrod/Herakles in his arms, runs away from his father, a bewildered, Ham/Chiron. Hermes has sided with his mother, Naamah/Athena of the line of Kain. Naamah/Athena inspired and led her grandson, Nimrod/Herakles, in his labors and other exploits.

Figs. 11 and 12. The sculpted scenes above the east entrance of the temple of Zeus at Olympia, restored by Holmes Bryant. Left, Herakles kills the three-bodied Geryon, symbolizing the authority of the three sons of Noah. Right, with Noah’s sons overcome, and with Athena’s help, Herakles pushes away the heavens, and with them, the God of the heavens, enabling the strong man to retrieve from Atlas the golden apples from the ancient serpent’s tree.

Herakles’ labors chronicle and celebrate mankind’s successful rebellion against Noah and his God after the Flood. The Greek hero’s labors and battles were directed toward one goal: getting back to the serpent’s enlightenment in the ancient garden, as symbolized by possession of the apples from its tree (figs. 11 and 12). Of course, Herakles did not really get back to the ancient garden; it is a figurative artistic statement: the Greeks will not live under Noah and his God any longer, but will re-embrace the “enlightenment” of the ancient serpent, and live by the fruit of its tree. Zeus-religion celebrates the great change in the post-Flood religious paradigm. Noah and his God are out. The serpent and its enlightenment are back in. Humanity has decided this: mankind is now the measure of all things.

This is exactly what the evo-atheists believe. This is the sentiment Zimmerman and Mr. X express in their Clergy Project Letter. The members of the hierarchy of the NAS go a step further than exalting mankind as the measure of all things. They exalt themselves as the measure of all things. They redefine science to accord with their atheism. They decide what our children will be taught about their origins. They determine which thoughts are mandatory in the science classroom, and which are impermissible. They insist that their atheistic philosophy and religion be honored as supreme.

Do the evo-atheists understand the meaning of Greek art in general or the Parthenon sculptures in particular? No. This is one of the great ironies of our time. The evo-atheists at the NAS, the editors at the Smithsonian, the thousands of other evo-atheist media chieftains, and the evo-atheists throughout academia do not recognize their own humanistic belief system as it appears glorified in ancient Greek sculpture and vase-painting. They are blind to it. In their enchanted state of cognitive obliviousness, it doesn’t matter to them.

In all my research, I have never encountered a sound theory of Greek art, other than the one presented here. That is because nothing but the Genesis theory fits the facts. After the Flood, the Greeks rebelled against Noah and his God, preferring to idolize their human forebears in the way of Kain who had reestablished and systematized their man-centered religious outlook. It is as simple and as obvious as that.

Modern academia has yet to learn the simple lesson that, without reference to the early events described in the Book of Genesis, it is not possible to make any real sense of ancient Greek art and religion. In fact, the entire formidable religious framework of ancient Greek society means virtually nothing without reference to those events. The problem for these academics is that they cannot entertain the Genesis theory of Greek art without abandoning, or at least seriously questioning, their own evo-atheism. The evo-atheist taboo forbids them to explore a rich world of deep intellectual (in the best sense of the term) stimulation and understanding. They are called teachers and professors, yet they fail to comprehend the meaning of the symbolic art that our ancient ancestors have left for us, just as they fail to recognize the handiwork of our Creator throughout the earth, and within all the life upon it.

Atheism leads nowhere. It is nothing more than an outright denial of what is intuitively apparent. Atheists have taken over the National Academy of Sciences. With God pushed out of the picture, they need to concoct an alternative explanation for our existence. That’s all molecules-to-man evolution is—a concocted rationale for atheism.

Today, those working in the historical sciences who want their careers to progress must rigidly follow the evo-atheist paradigm of the NAS. Mainstream archaeologists hardly think about Genesis. The NAS insists that mainstream anthropologists study chimpanzees, while ridiculing those who dare to examine with open minds the true record of our origins found in ancient art and literature.

Look what the NAS atheists have done to science in order to justify their own unbelief in God. To them, science is not an open-ended search for truth. Beginning with their denial of the obvious, they have made science into the manipulation of language, the philosophical contamination of nature, and the fabrication of evidence to validate the atheism of the NAS hierarchy.

Their illogic and their seductions cannot bear the salutary tonics of open debate and free inquiry. The NAS atheists detest the valid God hypothesis and the proven (in my opinion) theory of the meaning of ancient Greek art. They cannot disprove these ideas, so they must intimidate those who are inclined to consider them. Brandishing a club as dangerous as the one wielded by Herakles, the NAS hierarchy threatens us, spiritually attacking our children and our way of life in a most serious and sinister way. It is time to call them to account for the evil they have done, and are doing, in the name of “science.”

NOTES

CHAPTER 1

1. Julian Huxley, Essays of a Humanist (New York: Harper and Row, 1964), p.125.

2. Provine, Will, “No Free Will,” in Catching Up with the Vision, ed. by Margaret W. Rossister (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), p. S123. Thanks for citations 1 and 2 to Henry M. Morris in ‘The Scientific Case Against Evolution,” icr.org.

3. Richard Dawkins, “Put Your Money on Evolution,” The New York Times (April 9, 1989), section VII, p. 35.

4. Law, Stephen, “Is Creationism Scientific,” in Darwin Day Collection One, ed. by Amanda Chesworth, et. al (Albuquerque: Tangled Ban Press, 2002), p. 291.

CHAPTER 2

1. Unlocking the Mystery of Life: The Scientific Case for Intelligent Design, DVD/VHS, Illustra Media, 2002.

CHAPTER 3

1. Peter Hastie, Creation Magazine, Sep.-Nov. 1995, Vol. 17, No. 4, pp. 14-16. Creation Ministries International.

2. Niles Eldredge, as quoted in: Luther D. Sunderland, Darwin’s Enigma: Fossils and Other Problems, fourth edition (revised and expanded), Master Book Publishers, Santee (California),1988, p. 78.

3. Scienceagainstevolution.org/v7i1n.htm

4. Feduccia, A.; in: V. Morell, “Archaeopteryx: Early Bird Catches a Can of Worms,” Science 259(5096):764–65, 5 February 1993.

CHAPTER 4

1. Henry M. Morris, “The Scientific Case Against Evolution,” Institute for Creation Research, icr.org, p.4

CHAPTER 6

1. Ruse M., Darwinism Defended: A Guide to the Evolution Controversies Addison-Wesley: Reading MA, 1983, Third Printing, p. 280.

2. Kofman, Sarah, Socrates: Fictions of a Philosopher, Cornell University Press, 1998, p. 203.

CHAPTER 7

1. Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan, Acquiring Genomes: A Theory of the Origins of the Species, (Basic Books, 2003), p. 29.

CHAPTER 9

1. Plato, Euthydemus, from: The Dialogues of Plato, Jowett, B. (Translator), Third Edition, Vol. I, Oxford at the Clarendon Press: Oxford University Press, Humphrey Milford Publisher, 1892, 302d.

2. Hornblower, S. and Spawforth, A. (Eds.), The Oxford Companion to Classical Civilization, Oxford University Press, Oxford and New York, 1998, p. 332.

3. Hesiod, Works and Days, Evelyn-White, H.G. (Translator), William Heinemann Ltd and Harvard University Press, London, 1914, 105.

4. Hesiod, Ref. 3, 59.

5. Homer, The Iliad, Lattimore, R. (Translator), University of Chicago Press, Lattimore, R. (Translator), University of Chicago Press, Iliad Chicago and London, 1961, 503 and frequently.

6. Apollodorus, Apollodorus, The Library, with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, 2 Volumes, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1921, 2.5.11.

7. Euripides, Hippolytus, Kovacs, D. (Translator), Harvard University Press, Cambridge,1996 , 744–750.

8. Campbell, Joseph, The Masks of God: Occidental Mythology. The Viking Press, Inc., New York, 1964, p. 520.

9. Homer, Ref. 5, 885–889.

10. Homer, Ref. 5, 846.

11. Homer, Ref. 5, 895.

12. See 2 Peter 2:5; Genesis 5:32 and 7:6.

13. Baring, Anne and Cashford, Jules, The Myth of the Goddess, Arkana Penguin Books, London, 1993, p. 152.

14. Ibid., p.473.

15. Ibid., p.454.

Solving Light

A Blog by Robert Bowie Johnson