Читать книгу 2038 The Great Pyramid Timeline Prophecy - John Van Auken - Страница 10

For many years much attention has been and continues to be given to the Mayan prophecy of 2012—how the Mayan Long Count Calendar ended a 13-Baktun cycle on the Winter Solstice, December 21-23, 2012 and how Mayan astronomical observations identified a rare alignment of our sun in the exact center of the Milky Way Galaxy when viewed from Earth in our present time—a celestial event that occurs only every 25,826.54 years. But little attention has been given to the ancient Egyptian prophecy found in the Great Pyramid in Giza, Egypt. Like the Mayan prophecy, the Great Pyramid prophecy also points to these present times. Surprisingly, in the 1800s and early 1900s much of this timeline inside the Great Pyramid was well known and much was written about it. Some of the most important scientists and researchers of that time had detailed knowledge of this timeline and how it correlated with content in the Egyptian Book of the Dead. Eventually, points along the timeline were associated with world events, taking it to the level of a prophecy about humankind’s journey through material incarnations.

How was this timeline and its prophecy discovered? There were two ways. The first factor dealt with the design of the interior of the Great Pyramid which was unlike anything ever found around the globe in antiquity and would be nearly impossible to recreate today. Therefore, the minds that studied the pyramid’s unusual features and amazing craftsmanship knew it had to be more than simply a tomb.

Researcher W. Marsham Adams wrote: “That its various features are meaningless, or the mere result of caprice, is a suggestion to which the forethought and lavishness of the calculation displayed in every detail unmistakably gives the lie. Nor again can we maintain that they are necessary for the purposes of an ordinary tomb. For, they are not to be found in other pyramids which were used for that purpose.” (1, p. 34)

Adams’ last statement that they were not ordinary tombs is correct, because none of the major pyramids in Egypt contained a mummy— none. The Great Pyramid and perhaps all of the major Egyptian pyramids, as well as their intricate passageways and chambers were more likely used for active services and ceremonies. Given their apparent association with death, the pyramids may well have been used for death-like initiations or for preparing select individuals for dying and death and subsequent activity after death.

W. Marsham Adams knew this because in his publication, The Book of the Master, quoting from a letter by Sir Gaston Maspero, Adams identifies “the prevalence of a tradition among the priests of Memphis” that “the Secret House [Great Pyramid] was the scene where the neophyte was initiated into the mysteries.” (1, p. 179)

Archaeologists concede that no mummy was ever found in any of the major pyramids in Egypt and the sarcophagus in the Great Pyramid never had a lid.

The second factor that contributed to finding the timeline inside the Great Pyramid was the discovery of a measurement associated with the construction of this pyramid. In 1646, John Greaves, professor of astronomy at Oxford, published his Pyramidographia in which he first theorized that the Great Pyramid at Giza was constructed by a geometric cubit, which he called the “Memphis cubit.” In 1737, the antiquarian Thomas Birch published research papers based on Greaves’ hypothetical cubit. Even Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) used Greaves’ measurements of the Great Pyramid and published them in a paper entitled “A Dissertation upon the Sacred Cubit.” In this paper Newton correlated the “Memphis cubit” to the cubit in the Bible. This measurement and its association with the Bible fired up religiously oriented researchers, particularly Christian researchers, who found many correlates between Egyptian theology and Judeo-Christian concepts and stories (i.e., such as an immaculate conception of the Messiah, Isis conceiving Horus without copulation, and then Horus overcoming Satan, who was Set in Egyptian lore). These researchers began investigating with a more religious view. They were also aided by the translation of the Rosetta Stone (1822), making the Egyptian Book of the Dead of readable. It wasn’t long before the measurement and the esoteric elements of the Egyptian Book of the Dead were united. Sir Gaston Maspero (1846-1919), the famous French Egyptologist, professor of archaeology, and developer of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, explained, “The [Great] pyramid and The Egyptian Book of the Dead reproduce the same original, the one in words, the other in stone.” (12, p. 88)

This theory, along with other ideas, became known as Pyramidology. Two essential elements of pyramidology were: (1) that the ancient Egyptian theology and cosmology, both highly moral and spiritual, asserted that human beings were “godlings” formed by the Creator of the entire universe and were destined to return to that condition; and (2) that the amazing construction of the Great Pyramid was done intentionally to preserve a hidden prophecy about these godlings, their journey through evolution, and their ultimate destiny among the stars of the heavens. Judeo-Christian theology—of which most of these early researchers were adherents—considered humans to have been originally created in the image of God (Genesis 1:26-27), and Christians believed that Jesus Christ affirmed human godliness in his statement in the Gospel of John 10:34: “Is it not written in your law, ‘I said, you are gods?’” The law he is referring to is found in Psalm 82:6: “You are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you . . . .” Additionally, Egypt had a major role in the Bible stories that most of these researchers accepted as truth. There was even a verse in the Bible that pyramidologists believed was referring to the Great Pyramid of Giza, Egypt. (More on this later.)

The Judeo-Christian influence came early on via the Coptic Christians, who were the descendants of the ancient Egyptians. Islam did not arrive in Egypt until six hundred years after Christ. Researcher and author David Davidson believed that from the Egyptian Book of the Dead the Coptic Christians drew the mystical and allegorical elements that were introduced into early Christian Gnosticism. Christian Gnosticism contains pyramidal figures and astronomical concepts. David Davidson attributes the survival of the ancient Egyptian calendar, the names of the months, the dialect, and the assistance in elucidating the translation of ancient hieroglyphic texts to the Coptic knowledge of ancient Egypt. Davidson quotes Dr. Alois (Aloys) Sprenger (1813-1896, a prominent scholar of Oriental studies), who is quoted in Howard Vyse’s Appendix to Operations Carried on at the Pyramids of Gizeh in 1837, Volume II, “the traditions of the ancient Egyptians were preserved by their descendants, the Copts, who were held in great esteem by the Arabs [initially, not so much lately] . . . It may be remarked that the Arabian authors have given the same accounts of the Pyramids [sic], with little or no variation, for above a thousand years; and that they appear to have repeated the traditions of the ancient Egyptians, mixed up with fabulous stories and incidents, certainly not of Mahometan [Mohammedan] invention.” (40, p. 387) One of these Arabian accounts is by Masoudi, whose manuscript is in the archives of Oxford University, and goes like this: “He [Pharaoh Surid, believed by the Coptics and Arabs to have built the two major pyramids on the Giza Plateau] also order the priests to deposit within them [the pyramids] written accounts of their [Egyptian] wisdom and acquirements in the different arts and sciences . . . with the writings of the priests containing all manner of wisdom, the names and properties of medical plants, and the sciences of arithmetic and geometry, that they might remain as records for the benefit of those who could afterwards comprehend them . . . In the Eastern Pyramid [which is the Great Pyramid] were inscribed the heavenly spheres and figures representing the stars and planets . . . The king also deposited . . . the positions of the stars and their cycles; together with the history and chronicle of time past, of that which is to come, and every future event which would take place in Egypt.” (40, p. 321)

Egyptian historian al-Maqrizi, also known as Makrizi (1364–1442), wrote from Coptic sources that “the first pyramid [the Great] was especially dedicated to history and astronomy; the second [pyramid] to medical knowledge.” (40, p. 354)

Researchers and authors David Davidson and H. Aldersmith published in 1924 a large book titled The Great Pyramid: Its Divine Message. In this book the prophecy timeline was meticulously detailed and correlated to known world events and supposed future events. Davidson first got the idea of a timeline from W. Marsham Adams, author of The House of the Hidden Places: A Clue to the Creed of the Egyptians (1895) and The Book of the Master (1898). Adams wrote that “the unique system of passages and chambers in the Great Pyramid have little meaning as a tomb but have an allegorical significance only explained by referring to the Egyptian Book of the Dead.” (12, p. iii) When we think about this, if the Great Pyramid were only a tomb for the pharaoh, it would not need so many passageways, chambers, and unusual features; such as the Great Step, the granite “veil” stone in the antechamber to the King’s Chamber, and the distinctive elements of the pyramid’s subterranean portion. Adams wrote that select chapters in the Egyptian Book of the Dead refer to an “ideal structure and to the passages and chambers therein, and that these passages and chambers followed precisely the order and description of those of the Great Pyramid.” (12, p. 88)

The exact translation of the original title of the Egyptian Book of the Dead is The Book of Coming Forth into the Light (often translated Coming Forth by Day). And since the Great Pyramid was called Ta Khut, meaning “The Light,” you can see how some portions of the papyrus texts might relate to the Great Pyramid, especially since the Egyptian Book of the Dead describes passages, halls, chambers, transitions, tests, dangerous or even wrong turns, and various gates through which the dead must make their way—or through which initiates receive training about life beyond death.

Likely influenced by the popular Tibetan Book of the Dead, the German Egyptologist Karl Richards Lepsius, the first translator of the papyrus texts, labeled the whole collection Egyptian Book of the Dead. Curiously, the Tibetan Book of the Dead is actually titled Bardo Thodol, which in Tibetan means liminality liberation, akin to “threshold of liberation.” Its title is often transliterated as Liberation through Hearing during the Intermediate State. Both of these books are about consciousness and activity in the Netherworld or the realm of the dead. However, both appear to also have much information for the incarnate to use in becoming aware of the nonphysical realms of life beyond this physical reality and may therefore also be useful for experiencing the realms beyond the physical while in physicality. The fact that ancient people were so interested in the life after death of the physical body has added to this theory that the Great Pyramid with its many passageways, chambers, and unusual features may have been used to initiate incarnate souls into the other dimensions of life.

W. Marsham Adams likely got some of his ideas from Professor Charles Piazzi Smyth, Astronomer Royal of Scotland from 1846 to 1888. (Piazzi Smyth was the pioneer of the modern practice of placing telescopes at high altitudes to enjoy the best observing conditions.) Professor Smyth and his wife Jessie (who accompanied him on all of his travels) camped next to the Great Pyramid to measure the exterior and interior of the amazing edifice. Professor Smyth published his book Our Inheritance in the Great Pyramid in 1864 and expanded it over the years. This book is also titled in some editions, The Great Pyramid: Its Secrets and Mysteries Revealed. Smyth claimed that the measurements he obtained from the Great Pyramid revealed the “pyramid inch,” equivalent to 1.001 British inch. He believed it was the standard of measurement used by the architects of the ancient structure. Smyth also believed that the pyramid inch was a divinely inspired measurement handed down from the time of Shem, one of Noah’s three sons who are Shem, Ham, and Japheth and whose descendants eventually became seventy nations (Genesis 10). Shem’s descendants became the Semitic populations which include most all Middle Eastern peoples; this would also contain the Jews and Arabs, as well as many others in antiquity. While measuring the pyramid, Smyth wrote that he found the number of inches in the perimeter of the base equal to one thousand times the number of days in a year, and he found a numeric relationship between the height of the pyramid in inches to the distance between Earth and the Sun in miles. He also wrote that “proceeding around the globe due north and due south of the Great Pyramid . . . there is more earth and less sea in that meridian than in any other meridian all the equator round.” He also wrote that “taking the distribution of land and sea in parallels of latitude, there is more land-surface in the Great Pyramid’s general parallel of 30° than in any other.” (33, p. 89) And he made attractive and often reprinted maps to support his statements. Unfortunately, when carefully measured, neither of these statements appears to be correct. And there were other pronouncements from various pyramidologists that proved to be incorrect, such as the authoritative statement that the sarcophagus in the King’s Chamber and the Ark of the Covenant in the Bible have the same volume—adding a biblical and godly connection between the pyramid and the Bible. Here are the dimensions and volumes of the two famous artifacts. As we can see, the Ark has much less volume than the sarcophagus.

Sarcophagus (interior)	Ark of the Covenant (exterior)
Length = 6.51 feet	Length = 3.75 feet
Width = 2.23 feet	Width = 2.25 feet
Depth = 2.87 feet	Height = 2.25 feet
Volume = 41.67 cubic feet	Volume = 18.98 cubic feet

Thus, the theory that the Great Pyramid contained a prophecy that could be revealed by detailed measurements and correlated with verses in the Egyptian Book of the Dead was thrown into doubt as a result of these inaccurate statements by many of the original pyramidologists. Unfortunately, many, many people have repeated these mistaken claims for years, even today.

Nevertheless, before throwing the whole of pyramidology out the window, let’s continue with our exploration into the timeline prophecy.

In 1910 while calculating and measuring the prophecy inside the Great Pyramid, David Davidson and H. Aldersmith used a measurement now known as the “pyramid inch,” which was derived from John Greaves’ original work with the sacred cubit. Subsequent pyramidologists and even anti-pyramidologists, such as Petrie, affirmed that the 25-inch sacred cubit was clearly used in the construction of the Great Pyramid.

For David Davidson this use of the sacred cubit in the construction of the edifice was clear evidence that the measuring units did not originate in Egypt and that another more ancient culture using an oral tradition and meeting a cataclysmic end brought the wisdom to Egypt. Here’s Davidson: “The fact that these systems were derived from the scale of the Sacred Cubit of 25 P. inches again confirms that the Egyptian units of measure were not formulated in Egypt. The sacred system and its derived Egyptian Units all clearly belong to the period of the former civilization . . . ” (12, p. 70) To support his position Davidson points that the major ancient cultures all have a legend of a prior culture which met its end in a manner that was devastating. He writes: “In ancient Egypt, the tradition exists as ‘The Destruction of Mankind,’ in ancient Mexico and Peru as ‘The Destruction of the World,’ and in Babylonia and Assyria, and in China, as ‘The Deluge.’ These traditional accounts, when compared, indicate they are various versions of the Noachian [Noah] Deluge narrative in the Hebrew Book of Genesis.” (12, p. 39) Davidson clarifies his comments in a footnote stating, “It must always be remembered, however, that in all stages and periods of civilization the highest forms exist alongside the primitive and barbarous. Even the best authorities permit themselves to forget this.” (12, p. 39)

The length of a pyramid inch is not only a portion of the sacred cubit but is also the space on the underside of a stone relief in the antechamber to the King’s Chamber, known as the “boss mark” (see illustration 5). The boss mark is in the shape of a solar disk setting on the horizon; therefore the bottom portion of its circle is under the horizon, and the flat bottom of this solar disk is a depth of one “pyramid inch”—the flat space between the base of the slab upon which the boss mark appears and the outer surface of this projected solar disk.

There are critics of this measurement, such as the famous Sir William Flinders Petrie (best known as Flinders Petrie), who wrote in 1883, “This boss on the leaf is very ill-defined, being anything between 4.7 and 5.2 [inches] wide, and between 3.3 and 3.5 high on its outer face.” Petrie felt that “this boss, of which so much has been made by theorists, is merely a rough projection, like innumerable others that may be seen; left originally for the purpose of lifting the blocks.” (30, p. 78) Despite Petrie’s opinion, the slab and the boss relief are more than a lifting mechanism. The slab is in one of three specialized grooves in the antechamber to the King’s Chamber and appears to be the only surviving remnant of what were once three slabs. And the rising solar disk is not likely a lifting device since, as reported by John and Morton Edgar in their expedition from 1904-1909 in Great Pyramid Passages: Part II, Letters from Egypt and Palestine, “The granite leaf appears to be an inch narrower than its corresponding grooves in the wainscots . . . Close examination shows that this difference is made up by narrow one-inch projections or rebates on the north face of the leaf, which make it fit tightly into its grooves. With the exception of these rebates (which are evidence of special design), the whole of the north face of the leaf has been dressed or planed down one inch, in order that one little part in the middle might appear in relief.” (13, p. 302) It is an intentional relief, a glyph containing a precise measurement for discovering the architects’ fundamental measuring unit, as well as the prophecy hidden in the pyramid.

One should also keep in mind that Flinders Petrie’s father William (1821–1908, the son of Captain Matthews Flinders, the explorer and cartographer of Australia—its runs in the family) was a pyramidologist! This possibly motivated Flinders to show his father how science and evolution were the better truth and that pyramidology, with its religious and messianic undertones, was a delusion of the religiously inclined. Curiously, many of Flinders’ exactingly accurate measurements served to support the themes of pyramidology (using steel tapes and special chains 1200 inches long, Flinders Petrie measured the pyramid with amazing accuracy).

David Davidson believed the pyramid inch measurement (which he also called the “primitive inch”) was supported by many more features in, on, and above the Great Pyramid than the boss mark, stating that the obvious connection between a unit of measurement and a chronograph is the astronomical cycles associated with the Great Pyramid’s exterior. He writes, “There is the cycle of the Precessions of the Equinoxes, associated in the pyramid’s geometry with a standard period of reference of 25,826.54 Solar years. And there is the cycle of the revolution of the Autumnal Equinox from perihelion to perihelion. There is also the cycle defining the variations in the eccentricity of the Earth’s orbit.” (12, p. 140) He goes on with many more examples of how the pyramid is associated with time and the passage of time.

From passages in the Egyptian Book of the Dead, pyramidologists concluded that the pyramid inch not only correlates to a measure of space in the stone structure but also to a measure of prophetic time. The measurement equals one year in time, from the original entrance to the Great Pyramid, through the descending and ascending passageways until reaching the “Great Step” at the top of the Grand Gallery. From that point on, the inch equals one month in time rather than one year. Time speeds up—the same amount of activities happen in one-twelfth of the time they used to take.

According to this model and its biblical connections, the pyramid timeline covers a period beginning with the descent of human souls as “the morning stars” spoken of in the biblical book of Job 38:7 (“When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?”) to a resurrection period when all the souls ascend to the heavens from whence they came (“And no one has ascended into heaven, but he that descended out of heaven, even the Son of man, who is in heaven.” John 3:13) passing through metaphysical gates, passageways, and chambers of tests and developmental activities. Like this biblical passage of “morning stars,” the ancient Egyptians believe that each human had a Star-body and a Star-being deep within him. (More on this in chapter 4.)

The last date in the pyramid timeline is 2038, indicating the end of the prophecy as it is recorded in the Great Pyramid.

But all of this information—the correlation between the Egyptian Book of Dead and features inside the Great Pyramid, the boss mark measuring device, and the prophetic timeline—became entangled with the collection of religious and biblical associations under the banner of Pyramidology. Eventually, degreed archaeologists as well as serious researchers divided themselves into two main groups: (1) the scientific group that saw nothing more than ancient remnants of a culture obsessed with surviving death, and in the context the theory of evolution, these ancient ones had primitive superstitions and mythological tales; and (2) a mystical group of modern researchers who believed that God had a hand in building the Great Pyramid, that the Bible spoke of the Great Pyramid, that the Egyptian Book of the Dead was an allegorical record related to places inside the Great Pyramid, and that the timeline draws a parallel to events in world history now and in the future.

They quickly broke into two hard-and-fast positions wherein the scientific group gained the upper hand and the accepted view of ancient Egypt.

Before we leave this, let’s review a little more about the development of pyramidology.

We know that Professor Smyth’s correspondence with John Taylor (1781-1864) influenced his research significantly. John Taylor was a partner in a London publishing firm, and in 1859 he published his own book, The Great Pyramid: Why Was It Built? And Who Built It? Taylor never visited the pyramid, but the more he studied its structure, the more he became convinced that its architect was an Israelite acting under God’s guidance, not an Egyptian. John Taylor was an influential man, and two biographies were written about him. He was also the publisher of the works of the famous English romantic poet John Keats.

Taylor claimed that the measurements in and around the Great Pyramid indicated that the ancients had used a unit of measure about 1/1000 greater than a modern British inch. This was the origin of the “pyramid inch.” Taylor regarded the pyramid inch to be 1/25 of the sacred cubit whose existence had earlier been postulated by Sir Isaac Newton. The principal argument was that the total length of the four sides of the pyramid would be 36,524 (100 times the number of days in a year) if measured in pyramid inches.

The same year that Taylor’s book was published (1859), Darwin’s book On the Origin of the Species was published. And it was truly a time of pointcounterpoint on the issue of evolution and its “up-from-the-apes” views versus the spiritual nobility of humanity and divine creation.

Taylor proposed that the Hyksos, literally foreign rulers, had built the Great Pyramid under the leadership of the High Priest Melchizedek. Hyksos was a term which he and others often incorrectly translated as “shepherd kings” and had incorrectly assumed that they were the Israelites (Genesis 14:18). But there is much evidence indicating that the Hyksos were Syrian-Palestinian migrants and soldiers who only seized the northeastern portion of the Nile River Delta, never governing enough of Egypt to build the pyramids on the west bank of the Nile at Giza.

Additionally, Professor Smyth and others believed that the people of Great Britain are the descendants of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. Of the original Twelve Tribes, ten “disappeared” from historical accounts after the invasion of Israel by the Assyrians in 732 BC and again in 720 BC, completely destroying the northern kingdom of Israel. This did not affect the southern kingdom of Judah and Jerusalem and the Temple. That destruction came later when Babylon invaded in 586 BC. Interestingly, in the south, the city of Jerusalem actually grew during the Assyrian invasions and occupations of the north, and many members of the northern tribes migrated to Jerusalem to avoid Assyrian capture and deportation. Given the information available, it is difficult to identify exactly which of the twelve tribes were “lost,” but the seven northern tribes (Reuben, Issachar, Zebulun, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, and Asher) are all considered to be among the “lost” tribes. Since the tribe of Joseph, which had divided into the two sub-tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, lived directly in the path of the Assyrian invading forces, much of it was “lost”; actually they came under Assyrian rule. That would leave the four tribes of Judah, Simeon, Benjamin, and Levi; and it is known that all these southern tribes were not affected by the invasion. However, the tribe of Simeon “disappeared” by being integrated into the tribe of Judah, so one could think of it as being among the lost tribes. Actually only nine tribes were “lost”: Reuben, Issachar, Zebulun, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Ephraim, and Manasseh. However, Assyrian and biblical records indicate that in the 732 BC invasion Reuben, Gad, and western Manasseh were captured and resettled in Assyria, not Britain. A portion of Ephraim, including the city of Janoah, was captured and ruled by an Assyrian governor; few were resettled. In the 720 BC reinvasion, massive deportation of the people of Israel did occur and was documented. It was because these tribes kept appointing their own kings despite Assyrian authority! But, here again, records indicate that many were sent to Assyria (the lands of modern-day Iraq). Even so, there is also evidence that the seafaring Phoenicians, Cypriots, and even Philistines helped many Israelites of the northern tribes escape by sea, sending them to lands in Western Europe, Britain, and Scandinavia. This gave the pyramidologists in Egypt (particularly the British ones) a sense of their personal, historical involvement in biblical Egypt.

The Scripture that was pointed to most often by pyramidologists was Isaiah 19: 19-20: “In that day there will be an altar to the Lord in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar to the Lord at its border. It will be a sign and a witness to the Lord of hosts in the land of Egypt . . . ” Pyramidologists believe that this passage is speaking of the Great Pyramid when it refers to “an altar to the Lord” and “a pillar to the Lord,” but a pyramid is hardly an “altar” or “pillar” and it is not on the border. In his book A Study in Pyramidology, Raymond Capt states that the Hebrew word translated as “pillar,” matstsebah, is “correctly translated monument.” However, I could find no Hebrew Lexicon that translated matstsebah as anything other than a pillar or tree stump. However, matstsebah can be a pillar that is a “monument” to someone or some event, but it is in no way a massive pyramidal structure. Now some correlate this Hebrew word with the Arab word mastaba, which is a low, rectangular structure with an underground tomb. But the primitive root word from which matstsebah comes is natsab, which is associated with “standing,” like a stanchion or pillar, or to “take a stand” or “take an upright position.” This is an example of how pyramidologists too often stretched some facts to better fit their theories and to connect their theories with sacred Scripture—when it was unnecessary because what they had was sufficiently profound and meaningful.

When we read this often quoted passage from Isaiah in context with the whole of the chapter, it does not appear to be speaking about the Great Pyramid but rather an offering altar to Yahweh and the pillar of a spiritual person or persons who will lead the people closer to God. Here is chapter 19 of Isaiah (Revised Standard Version, RSV):

An oracle concerning Egypt: Behold, the Lord is riding on a swift cloud and comes to Egypt; and the idols of Egypt will tremble at his presence, and the heart of the Egyptians will melt within them. And I will stir up Egyptians against Egyptians, and they will fight, every man against his brother and every man against his neighbor, city against city, kingdom against kingdom; and the spirit of the Egyptians within them will be emptied out, and I will confound their plans; and they will consult the idols and the sorcerers, and the mediums and the wizards; and I will give over the Egyptians into the hand of a hard master; and a fierce king will rule over them, says the Lord, the Lord of hosts. And the waters of the Nile will be dried up, and the river will be parched and dry; and its canals will become foul, and the branches of Egypt’s Nile will diminish and dry up, reeds and rushes will rot away. There will be bare places by the Nile, on the brink of the Nile, and all that is sown by the Nile will dry up, be driven away, and be no more. The fishermen will mourn and lament, all who cast hook in the Nile; and they will languish who spread nets upon the water. The workers in combed flax will be in despair, and the weavers of white cotton. Those who are the pillars of the land will be crushed, and all who work for hire will be grieved. The princes of Zo’an [area in the Nile Delta] are utterly foolish; the wise counselors of Pharaoh give stupid counsel. How can you say to Pharaoh, ‘I am a son of the wise, a son of ancient kings’? Where then are your wise men? Let them tell you and make known what the Lord of hosts has purposed against Egypt. The princes of Zo’an have become fools, and the princes of Memphis [area just before the Delta, near Saqqara] are deluded; those who are the cornerstones of her tribes have led Egypt astray. The Lord has mingled within her a spirit of confusion; and they have made Egypt stagger in all her doings as a drunken man staggers in his vomit. And there will be nothing for Egypt which head or tail, palm branch or reed, may do. In that day the Egyptians will be like women, and tremble with fear before the hand which the Lord of hosts shakes over them. And the land of Judah will become a terror to the Egyptians [this would indicate a time long after the Great Pyramid was constructed]; everyone to whom it is mentioned will fear because of the purpose which the Lord of hosts has purposed against them. In that day there will be five cities in the land of Egypt that speak the language of Canaan and swear allegiance to the Lord of hosts [Genesis 14:2 tells us their names: Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboiim, and Zoar (or Bela)]. One of these will be called the City of the Destruction. [One of the Dead Sea Scrolls changes “City of Destruction” to “City of Sun,” and most modern Bibles use this more positive term. In Hebrew, heres is “sun” and hheres is “destruction.” Since Zoar is the only city that is spared in the Bible story (Genesis 15:16), it is believed to be the City of Sun. But the City of the Sun may also be the Egyptian Heliopolis; literally, “city of the sun.”] In that day there will be an altar to the Lord in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar to the Lord at its border [to the Promised Land]. It will be a sign and a witness to the Lord of hosts in the land of Egypt; when they cry to the Lord because of oppressors he will send them a savior, and will defend and deliver them. And the Lord will make himself known to the Egyptians; and the Egyptians will know the Lord in that day and worship with sacrifice and burnt offering [the altar?], and they will make vows to the Lord and perform them. And the Lord will smite Egypt, smiting and healing, and they will return to the Lord, and he will heed their supplications and heal them. In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrian will come into Egypt, and the Egyptian into Assyria, and the Egyptians will worship with the Assyrians. In that day Israel will be the third with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth, whom the Lord of hosts has blessed, saying, “Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel my heritage.” (Isaiah 19)

It is difficult to see how the Great Pyramid is spoken of in this chapter.

Extremists on either side of this debate took their points to such a degree that there was no room for reasonable elements of the other side’s theories. In the case of the pyramidology, the biblical side of this debate often espoused positions that were simply not supportable by any existing evidence. In this case, even good evidence of a prophetic timeline inside the Great Pyramid and a correlation with chapters in the Egyptian Book of the Dead were dismissed along with the rest of the pyramidological theories. Gradually, even reasonable researchers had to leave any part of pyramidology alone, casting it into pseudoscience, or worse, sheer fiction. It became taboo. Today, no archaeologists in their right minds would present a paper on the correlation of the Great Pyramid with the Egyptian Book of the Dead—not if they wanted to keep their position at a university or on an authorized expedition team approved by Islamic Egyptian authorities.

Yet, our story requires that we sift through the muck and mire of pyramidology for the gold nuggets, and so we continue.