Attos' Magazine

Volume #113, April / 2010

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Immanuel Velikovsky

Worlds In Collision

By Immanuel Velikovsky

Zeus and Athene

If there was a problem in this research which caused prolonged deliberation on the part of the author, it was the question: Was it the planet Jupiter or Venus that caused the catastrophe of the time of Exodus? Some ancient mythological sources point to Venus, other sources point to Jupiter. In one group of legends Jupiter (Zeus) is the protagonist of the drama: he leaves his place in the sky, rushes to battle Typhon, and strikes him with thunderbolts. But other legends and historical sources, too, which I have quoted on previous pages indicate that it was the planet Venus, or Pallas Athene of the Greeks. Athene killed her father, Typhon-Pallas, the celestial monster, and the description of this battle is not different from that of the battle in which Zeus killed Typhon.

Under the weight of many arguments, I came to the conclusion -about which I no longer have any doubt- that it was the planet Venus, at the time still a comet, that caused the catastrophe of the days of Exodus. Then why do a part of the legends tie up this event with Jupiter?

The cause of this duality in the mythological handling of an historical event lies in the fact that the ancients themselves did not know for certain which of the planets had caused the destruction. Some saw the pillar of cloud -Typhon defeated by Jupiter, the ball of fire that emerged from the pillar and battled with it. Others interpreted the globe as a body different from Jupiter.

The Greek authors described the birth of Athene (planet Venus), saying she sprang from the head of Jupiter. “And mighty Olympus trembled fearfully . . . and the earth around shrieked fearfully, and the sea was stirred, troubled with its purple waves.” One or two authors thought that Athene was born of Cronus. But the consensus of ancient authors makes Athene-Venus the offspring of Jupiter: she sprang from his head, and this birth was accompanied by great disturbances in the celestial and terrestrial spheres. The comet rushed toward the earth, and it could not be very well distinguished whether the planet Jupiter or its offspring was approaching. I may divulge here something that belongs to the second book of this work; namely, that at an earlier time, Jupiter had already caused havoc in the planetary family, the earth included, and it was therefore only natural to see in the approaching body the phanet Jupiter.

I referred in the introductory part of this work to the modern theory which ascribes the birth of the terrestrial phanets to the process of expulsion by larger ones. This appears to be true in the case of Venus. The other modern theory, which ascribes the origin of comets of short period to expulsion by large planets, is also correct: Venus was expelled as a comet and then changed to a planet after contact with a number of members of the solar system.

Venus, being an offspring of Jupiter, bore all the characteristics known to men from early cataclysmic encounters. When a ball of fire tore the pillar of cloud and pelted the pillar with thunderbolts, the imagination of the people saw in this the planet-god Jupiter-Marduk rushing to save the earth by killing the serpent-monster Typhon-Tiamat.

It is not strange, therefore, that, in places as remote from Greece as the islands of Polynesia, it is related that “the planet Jupiter suppressed the tail of the great storm.” But we are told that in the same places, notably on the Harvey Islands, “Jupiter was often mistaken for the Morning Star.” On other islands of Polynesia, “the planets Venus and Jupiter seem to have been confused with each other.” Explorers found “that the name Fauma or Paupiti was given to Venus . . . and that the same names were given to Jupiter.”

Early astronomy shared Ptolemy’s opinion that “Venus has the ‘ same powers” and also the nature of Jupiter, an opinion reflected also in the astrological belief that “Venus, when she becomes sole ruler of the event, in general brings about results similar to those of Jupiter.”

In one local cult in Egypt the name of Isis, as I shall show in the next volume, originally belonged to Jupiter, Osiris being Saturn. In another local cult Amon was the name for Jupiter. Horus originally was also Jupiter. But when a new planet was born of Jupiter and became supreme in the sky, the onlookers could not readily recognize the exact nature of this change. They gave the name of Isis to the planet Venus, and sometimes the name of Horus. This must have caused confusion. “One is confused by the various relations which exist between mother and son (Isis and Horus). Now he is her consort, now her brother; now a youth . . . now an infant fed at her breast.” “A noteworthy representation shows her [Isis] in association with Horus as the Morning Star, and thus in a strange relation . . . which we cannot yet explain from the texts.”

Also Ishtar of Assyria-Babylonia was in early times the name of the planet Jupiter; later it was transferred to Venus, Jupiter retaining the name of Marduk.

Baal, still another name for Jupiter, was an earlier name for Saturn, and later on became the name of Venus, sometimes the feminine form Baalath or Belith being used. Ishtar, also, was at first a male planet, subsequently becoming a female planet.”

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