Genesis 11: Part 2 Hidden Astronomy

From within Genesis 11, we can unpack the synodic planetary orbital data. The synodic orbits are what the movements of the planets look like from Earth. This is opposed to the sidereal orbit, which is how the planets actually move. See the image of the sidereal orbits below:

Here is a table showing the synodic orbits of the planets:

You can see this is different to the length of time the planets travel around the Sun. For example, Saturn takes 29.5 years to orbit the Sun, but returns to the same position in Earth’s sky every 378 days.

The number of days of the synodic orbit may slightly vary on every cycle. For example, sometimes Venus is 583 and 584 days. And sometimes Mercury may be 119 days.

Mercury

If we look at how long Nahor lives after the birth of his first son, it is 119 years. This corresponds with the synodic orbit of Mercury.

Saturn

In Hebrew, Nahor means ‘snorting or snoring’ and in other places in Scripture it is specifically relates to horses. This makes me think of two nostrils and therefore we need to add up both columns. Based on this, if we add up the numbers highlighted in the image below, we get the synodic orbit of Saturn, 378 days.

Venus

If we look at the meaning of Serug, the name means branch. So if we take the first four numbers and then add how long Reu lived after his first child, we calculate 585 days. This is the synodic period of Venus. It looks like its branching off from the four numbers below.

Mars

The synodic orbital period for Mars is 780 days. If we add all the highlighted numbers below together, we get 794. This is 14 more than the synodic orbit. However, if we look at the corresponding name, Peleg, this means split or divide. If we split the beget age in two, so we get 15, and reduce the 794 by this amount, we get 779 days.

I am not convinced by this method of splitting the beget age and I wonder if there is another way of getting to 780 days which fits better.

Jupiter

Eber means ‘cross over’. Therefore, the instruction may be that we have to ignore the 430 of Eber and cross over to 403. When we add all the numbers highlighted below we get 1197. When we divide this by 3, we get 399. This is the synodic orbit of Jupiter.

The Sun

If we add up all the highlighted numbers below, plus the highlighted numbers on the following table, we get 3657.

119+29+30+200+207+209+430+403

plus

119+29+30+200+207+209+430+403+403

The number 3657 can be split into 365 and 7. The 365 relates to the solar year and the 7 could relate to the days of the week. Alternatively, we could divide this by 10 and get roughly 365 days with 7 as a remainder. Symbolically, 10 is the number of completion and 7 is the perfect number.

The Moon

Finally, if we add up all the years highlighted below, we get 2530. The lunar year is 354 days. If we divide 2530 / 354, we get 7 with a remainder of 52. This may relate to the remainder of 7 which we found when calculating the Sun’s number. After all, 52 weeks of 7 days is the number of days in the solar calendar year, less 1.

Synodic Data in Genesis 11

This post has been heavy on the maths, but I hope you can see the synodic orbital data is present in Genesis 11. If the ancient Hebrews knew where to look, they’d be able to know how long each planet takes to go across the sky.

The next post will look at how the Hebrews may have used this data and where it is seen in Neolithic art.