Brit-Am Research Sources (4 September, 2014, 9 Elul, 5774)
Contents:
1. William Stukeley believed in British Kinship with the Hebrews.
2. Early Phoenicians (or Israelite) Settlement in Norway. An Early Source
PREHISTORIC TIMES, AS ILLUSTRATED BY ANCIENT REMAINS, AND THE MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF MODERN SAVAGES, by SIR JOHN LUBBOCK
3. Was there ever a 360 day Year? A Collection of Sources and Links.
(a) What Did the Sages Say? by Yair Davidiy
(b) Additional Sources and Opinions
===============================
1. William Stukeley believed in British Kinship with the Hebrews.
William Stukeley was an important figure in the intellectual climate of Britain in the 1700s.
He believed in effect that there was an ancestral relationship between the Hebrew Patriarchs of Britain.
In practical terms this would have led the adherents of Stukeley to regard themselves as somehow related to the Jews and Israelites of old.
William Stukeley
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Stukeley
( 1687 - 1765) was an English antiquarian who pioneered the archaeological investigation of the prehistoric monuments of Stonehenge and Avebury, work for which he has been remembered as "probably... the most important of the early forerunners of the discipline of archaeology". Stukeley was also one of the first biographers of Isaac Newton, of whom he was a friend. He was an Anglican clergyman.
Becoming involved in the newly fashionable organisation of Freemasonry, he also began to describe himself as a "druid", and incorrectly believed that the prehistoric megalithic monuments were a part of the druidic religion. However, despite this he has been noted as being a significant figure in the early development of the modern movement known as Neo-Druidry.
http://immanuelvelikovsky.com/Pillars-IV.pdf
According to this theory, the earliest religion was that of the patriarchs before the Mosaic dispensation. This primitive [patriarchal] religion, Stukeley argued (and in this part of his scheme he was not alone), was in fact Christianity, and the Mosaic dispensation, when it came, was only a period of darkness, a 'veil intervening' between early natural Christianity and the later religion brought by Christ. Stukeley contends that the descendents of the patriarchs came to Britain, where they were called Druids, and where they carried on the practice of their early and pure Christianity in temples such as Stonehenge, uncorrupted by the Mosaic dispensation....The Druidical-doctrines were transmitted from generation to generation, eventually ending up as the doctrine of the modern Church of England. Thus for Stukeley the Druids were the means by which early Christianity was preserved from corruption and kept alive and pure in England itself.
'As Stukely saw the Druids, they were venerable, learned, and pious; they were to be admired, studied, even emulated; they were the link connecting modern England with earliest times; they were England's guarantee of spiritual primacy....
'His patriotic quest for English origins and British greatness is related [to his overall thesis]...'
===============================
===============================
2. Early Phoenicians (or Israelite) Settlement in Norway. An Early Source
PREHISTORIC TIMES, AS ILLUSTRATED BY ANCIENT REMAINS, AND THE MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF MODERN SAVAGES.
BY SIR JOHN LUBBOCK
ca. 1865?
https://archive.org/details/7edprehistorictimelubbuoft
Professor Nilsson has attempted, as already mentioned, to show that the Phoenicians had settlements far up on the northern shores of Norway. His arguments may be reduced to seven, namely, the small size of the sword-handles, bracelets, etc.; the character of the ornaments on the bronze implements ; the engravings in Bronze Age tumuli; the worship of Baal; certain peculiar methods of reaping and fishing; and the use of war-chariots.
The implements and ornaments of bronze certainly appear to have belonged to a race with smaller hands than those of the present European nations; the ornaments on them are also peculiar, and have, in Professor Nilsson's opinion, a symbolic meaning. Although the great stones in tumuli attributed to the Bronze Age are very seldom ornamented, or even hewn into shape, still there are some few exceptions; one of these being the remarkable monument near Kivik in Christianstad. From the general character of the engravings, Professor Nilsson has no hesitation in referring this tumulus to the Bronze Age, and on two of the stones are representations of human figures, which may fairly be said to have a Phoenician, or Egyptian appearance.
On another of the stones an obelisk is represented, which Professor Nilsson regards as symbolical of the Sun-God; and it is certainly remarkable that, in an ancient ruin in Malta,* characterized by other decorations of the Bronze Age types, a somewhat similar obelisk was discovered; we know also that in many countries Baal, the God of the Phoenicians, was worshipped under the form of a conical stone.
Nor is this, by any means, the only case in which Professor Nilsson finds traces of Baal-worship in Scandinavia. Indeed, the festival of Baal, or Balder, was, he tells us, celebrated on Midsummer's night in Scania, and far up into Norway, almost to the Loffoden Islands, until within the last fifty years. A wood fire was made upon a hill or mountain, and the people of the neighbourhood gathered together in order,
like Baal's prophets of old, to dance round it, shouting and singing. This Midsummer's-night fire has even retained in some parts the ancient name of Baldersbal, or Balders-fire. Leopold von Buch long ago suggested that this custom could not have originated in a country where at Midsummer the sun is never lost sight of, and where, consequently, the smoke only, not the fire, is visible. A similar custom also prevailed until lately in some parts of our islands. Baal has given his name to many Scandinavian localities, as, for instance, the Baltic, the Great and Little Belt, Belteberga, Baleshaugen, Balestranden, etc.
===============================
################################
3. Was there ever a 360 day Year? A Collection of Sources and Links.
===============================
===============================
(a) What Did the Sages Say? by Yair Davidiy
There are some opinions (see below) consistent with computation of the year having changed after the Exodus. This however is not certain. Chaim Hyman reports that he checked one of the sources (Mechilta on Exodus 12.2) quoted below and this, when read in full, actually presents a Jewish belief that the present calendar (or soemthing close to it) had always been used.
The present computation now used by the Jews along with names of the months is based on the system brought back by Ezra and co. from Babylon.
Babylon is said to have had a simple 360 day calendar up unto the 700s BCE after which it was changed. Babylon may have used leap months (as has been claimed) to make the solar and lunar years coincide but this could have been a late development. The Assyrians used a 360 day year without additional months. This is consistent with the change having occurred in the 700s BCE, in the time of King Hezekiah,
see:
Dating Dolmens. How Astronomy May Help Prove a Later Date for Megaliths
http://hebrewnations.com/articles/megaliths/chronology.html
#7. King Hezekiah and the Sun Going Backward
http://hebrewnations.com/articles/megaliths/chronology.html#a7
Nevertheless, as far as we can tell the Sages did not relate to the year having ever been 360 years.
On the contrary, they seem to have assumed that the present system is the one that has always prevailed.
King Hezekiah (Sanhedrin 12;b) for instance, is criticized for having created a leap year by adding an extras month of Nisan instead of Adar as is the practice.
This implies that the computation of the year was assumed to have been the same in the past as it was later.
If we come across sources or opinions to the contrary we shall post them out.
===============================
===============================
(b) Additional Sources and Opinions
===============================
A Once Existent Earth Year of 360 days (Part 1)
Keith M. Hunter
http://www.ancient-world-mysteries.com/360-days.html
Shows that from a mathematical point of view va year of 360 years fits geographical proportions of the earth, etc.
===============================
The 360 Day Year, the Exodus, the Mayans and Calendar Chaos
William F. Dankenbring
http://triumphpro.com/360-day-calendar-mayan.htm
Jewish authorities themselves seem to be somewhat cognizant of this fact. The Mechilta of R'Shimon bar Yochai and the Midrash HaGadol on Exodus 12:2 say, "This month is for you" .. The forefathers did not count from it.' The Melchilta of R'Yishmael says on the same verse, "This month is for you", Adam did not count from it.' Says Aish (www.aishdas.org), 'in other words, the entire concept of calculating months based on the moon and starting from Nisan did not apply before the Jews left Egypt. Similarly, R' Avraham bar Chiya HaNasi (early 12th century) writes in his Sefer Halbbur 2:5, arguably the most important book ever written on the Jewish calendar, 'Observing this commandment, that is the lunar month and the intercalation of the year, we were obligated only from the Exodus.' R'Yitzchak HaYisraeli (4th century) writes similarly in his Yesod Olam 4:2. Indeed, the Midrash Sechel Tov on Genesis 34:25 says outright that solar months were used until G-d commanded 'This month is for you""
===============================
Bible Articles and Lessons: 1-9
360-day year
http://www.christadelphianbooks.org/agora/art_less/num17.html
Ancient civilizations speak and write of a 360-day year: (1) in India, texts of the Veda period. Brahmanic literature has the moon crescent for 15 days and waning for 15 days, and the sun moving north for 180 days and then south for 180 days (measured against a fixed point, like a mountain peak). [In a later period, c 700 BC, the Hindu calendar was reformed to a 365 1/4-day year.] (2) In Assyria, the ancient year also consisted of 360 days. A decade of years consisted of exactly 3,600 days. Assyrian months were 30 days each, counting from crescent to crescent. (3) Ancient Persia also had 360 days to a year, with 12 months of 30 days. The sacred Persian books record 180 days from winter solstice to summer solstice. (4) In ancient Babylon, a 360-day year -- with 12 months of exactly 30 days each. The Babylonian numerical system was 6 and 60-based, the number we still use to divide the sky: 360 degrees in a circle. (5) Ancient Egypt, and (6) ancient Rome, likewise.
Likewise, too, the ancient (7) Mayans, (8) Mexicans, (9) Peruvians, and (10) Chinese.
===============================
360 days Ancient Calendar
A. Sokolowski
http://blog.world-mysteries.com/science/360-days-ancient-calendar/
===============================
The 360 and 364 Day Year in Ancient Mesopotamia
WAYNE HOROWITZ
Hebrew University
http://www.jtsa.edu/Documents/pagedocs/JANES/1996%2024/Horowitz24.pdf