Immanuel velikovsky biography of rory

Jewish-American historian Date of Birth: Country: Belarus

Content:

1. A Life of Revolution: Immanuel Velikovsky
2. Medical and Psychoanalytic Career
3. The Exodus and Cosmic Catastrophism
4. Venus and the Solar System
5. The Exodus and Chronology
6. The Velikovsky Chronology
7. Reception and Legacy
8. Venus and Space Exploration
9. Continuing Controversies

A Life of Revolution: Immanuel Velikovsky

Early Life and Education

Immanuel Velikovsky was born on June 10, , in Vitebsk, Belarus, to a prominent Hebraist.

He studied law and ancient history at the Moscow Free University, as well as medicine at the Kharkov and Moscow Universities. After obtaining his medical degree in , Velikovsky emigrated to Germany.

Medical and Psychoanalytic Career

In Berlin, Velikovsky founded "Scripta Universitatis," a multi-volume series of scholarly works edited by Jewish scholars (including Albert Einstein) to prepare for the establishment of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

Moving to Palestine in , he practiced medicine and psychotherapy.

In , Velikovsky published a scientific paper that first demonstrated the electrical abnormality in the brain as a sign of epilepsy.

Immanuel velikovsky biography of rory anderson January 8, These and other striking parallels between the biblical and Egyptian texts led Velikovsky to the hypothesis that the Exodus story was not a myth or legend but a historical account of a genuine catastrophe that had been similarly recorded by both Egyptians and Israelites. The first of these is his proclivity to treat all myths as having independent value; the second is the tendency to treat only such material as is consistent with his thesis; and the third is his very unsystematic method. By its contents, as well as by the scandalous reaction of the representatives of the scientific establishment, this book initiated such a far-reaching and revolutionary development in many areas of science and society that until today its actuality and importance have even increased.

He studied psychoanalysis with Wilhelm Stekel in Vienna and became Palestine's first professional psychoanalyst.

The Exodus and Cosmic Catastrophism

In , Velikovsky relocated his family to New York, hoping to complete his book on Freud's dream life, "Dreams Freud Dreamed." In the course of his research, Velikovsky stumbled upon a translation of the "Admonitions of Ipuwer," an ancient Egyptian text.

The Egyptian papyrus, dated by its translator Alan Gardiner to the end of the Middle Kingdom era, described a series of events nearly identical to the "plagues of Egypt" mentioned in the book of Exodus ().

These calamities included rivers of blood, fiery and rocky downpours, the pollution of the Nile, cattle deaths, crop failure, darkness accompanied by thunder and whirlwinds, the flight of slaves seizing the wealth of Egyptians, and a culminating devastating earthquake.

These and other striking parallels between the biblical and Egyptian texts led Velikovsky to the hypothesis that the Exodus story was not a myth or legend but a historical account of a genuine catastrophe that had been similarly recorded by both Egyptians and Israelites.

The Egyptian and Hebrew texts described a worldwide cataclysmic event, and remarkably similar accounts were soon found in the traditions of other nations across Europe, Asia, Oceania, Africa, and the New World.

Venus and the Solar System

All these accounts of the catastrophe, while varying in detail and mythological embellishment, shared two key elements: a dramatic shift in the Earth's position in space, with "east" and "west" reversed; and the cause of the catastrophe being a celestial "god."

That these catastrophic "gods" were literally planets was explicitly stated by multiple ancient authors, beginning with Plato (Timaeus, 22 C-D).

As to the specific planet in question, there was also near-unanimity: Venus had appeared in the sky.

Initially, it had been a huge "comet," traditionally believed to have been born from Jupiter. It inspired terror, and even centuries later people (particularly in the Americas) sought to appease it with human sacrifices. Eventually, Venus lost its cometary features and settled into a stable orbit.

However, Velikovsky, drawing on biblical, historical, geological, and mythological sources of the first millennium BCE, concluded that before Venus stabilized in its current orbit, it had made a close approach to Mars.

This dislodged Mars from its orbit, causing a series of catastrophic near-encounters with Earth between and BCE that nearly resulted in a collision.

The Exodus and Chronology

Velikovsky's thesis that the "Exodus" occurred within the timeframe stated in the Bible (c. BCE) and coincided with the Hyksos conquest of Egypt led to a radical revision of the entire chronology of the ancient world.

When the Bible was compared to traditional Egyptian history, it became evident that the Egyptian chronicles covering Palestine did not overlap with the biblical texts at any point, while the biblical descriptions of Egypt had no counterpart in Egyptian chronicles (a similar paradox occurred when Greek and Egyptian chronicles were compared for the 7th to 4th centuries BCE).

Furthermore, attempts by archaeologists to synchronize Egyptian and local chronologies in Europe and the Near East resulted in the emergence of widespread "Dark Ages" – centuries-long periods with no written or material remains, and no evidence of cultural or linguistic exchange between neighboring cultures before and after this "gap in history."

The Velikovsky Chronology

Velikovsky's proposed chronology for the ancient world provided a potential solution to this paradox by significantly redating the Egyptian 18th Dynasty (from – to – BCE), 19th Dynasty (from – to – BCE), and 20th Dynasty (from – to – BCE).

The 19th and 20th Dynasties, known only from Egyptian chronicles, were thus identified with the 26th and 30th Dynasties, known only from non-Egyptian sources.

Immanuel velikovsky biography of rory mcilroy These and other striking parallels between the biblical and Egyptian texts led Velikovsky to the hypothesis that the Exodus story was not a myth or legend but a historical account of a genuine catastrophe that had been similarly recorded by both Egyptians and Israelites. Likewise, we should not be surprised if a few elements of a few legends are coincidentally identical. ISSN This failure to recognize the power of comets and asteroids means that it is reasonable to go back to Velikovsky and delete all the physically impossible text about Venus and Mars passing close to the earth

This chronological revision filled in the "Dark Ages" and synchronized numerous historical events. For example, the Egyptian Queen Hatshepsut's voyage to Punt was found to coincide with the biblical account of the Queen of Sheba's visit to King Solomon, and Ramses II's defeat at Kadesh matched Nebuchadnezzar's defeat of Necho II at Carchemish.

Reception and Legacy

These revolutionary hypotheses were presented in four extensively documented studies: Worlds in Collision (), Ages in Chaos (Vols.

, ), Earth in Upheaval (), and Oedipus and Akhnaton (). While Velikovsky's ideas sparked great interest in the scholarly community, and his book Worlds in Collision remained on bestseller lists for a long time, his theories were rejected by nearly all mainstream astronomers and Egyptologists.

Attempts to ban "Worlds in Collision" were unsuccessful, but constant attacks labeling Velikovsky as a "crank," "charlatan," "lunatic," and "pseudoscience" proved effective.

Immanuel velikovsky biography of rory end He returned to Russia before the outbreak of World War I, enrolled in the University of Moscow , and received a medical degree in Baltazar Adam Krcelic. He argued that these eliminate phantom "Dark Ages", and vindicate the biblical accounts of history and those recorded by Herodotus. Since conventional Egyptology dated the Ipuwer Papyrus much earlier than either the Biblical date for the Exodus c.

Despite four decades of controversy and over a decade since Velikovsky's death on November 17, , in Princeton, New Jersey, only a small number of scholars have openly supported his theories.

Venus and Space Exploration

Nonetheless, the findings of space exploration in recent decades have largely confirmed Velikovsky's central thesis that Venus is a relatively new planet, refuting the prevailing view that Venus has been orbiting the Sun in its current position for billions of years.

In , no one but Velikovsky argued that Venus's surface had an abnormally high temperature (it is in fact around °F or °K); that its rotation exhibited evidence of recent catastrophic events (it is the only planet with a retrograde rotation, its day being longer than its year, and its tides are driven by the Earth's gravity, not the Sun's, even though the Sun's tidal pull is many times stronger than Earth's); and that its atmosphere should be rich in hydrocarbons (the American "Pioneer-Venus" probe found a substantial amount of "primordial" methane in ).

Even more compelling evidence for Venus's youth came from the radar mapping of its surface by the "Magellan" spacecraft in , which revealed hundreds of enormous craters that were too "fresh" for an old planet.

Continuing Controversies

By the early s, astronomers' opposition to Velikovsky's theories rested primarily on his failure to provide a mathematical model for his proposed scenario involving Venus, Earth, the Moon, and Mars, while historians' objection was that his proposed chronology of ancient history left several archaeological anomalies unexplained.

However, Velikovsky's supporters argue that only his hypotheses are compatible with the latest space exploration data regarding Venus (and indeed predicted it), and that the coincidences resulting from his chronology are mathematically improbable within the traditional chronology of the ancient world.