The Ancient Tradition

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music

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Listening to the Ancient Tradition. A Wonk Media Production. Music provided by Joseph McDade. Here’s your host, Dr. Jack Logan.

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Welcome to the Ancient Tradition. I’m your host, Jack Logan. It’s great to have all of you along for today’s episode. Before I jump in, I wanna let you know that if you are interested in watching a visual representation of episode number four, Did God Reveal the Ancient Tradition in the Garden of Eden, you can now do so on our YouTube channel. We uploaded that earlier last week. Just search for the ancient tradition on YouTube and you’ll easily find it.

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or you can watch it on our companion website, thea it’s all there. Today’s episode is titled, the grand primordial singularity. And we’re gonna do something a little crazy today. We’re gonna try and tackle the greatest puzzle in cosmology in modern day astrophysics. We’re gonna attempt to answer the question, how did the universe, our universe, come into existence?

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To this day, this is the greatest unsolved mystery in astrophysics. And when we take a look, however, at what the ancients had to say thousands and thousands of years ago, we learned that they already knew how the universe came into being. So the question for us today is, does what the ancients taught mesh with modern day astrophysicists’ theories of the origin of the universe, like the theory of the Big Bang?

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Well, for the answer to that, you’re gonna have to keep listening. But I think you’ll see on today’s program, like we’ve seen before, that modern day astrophysicists are playing catch up once again with what the ancients already knew. Before we jump in, let’s start with a brief recap. As I’ve mentioned, the ancients placed an extraordinary amount of emphasis on the creation, which is why we began the podcast a year ago by starting with the creation.

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and I hope by now you’re beginning to see why understanding the creation is so important. It’s important because we can’t understand anything about the creation without a correct understanding of who God is. We have to know first and foremost that God is a God of rightness, a being who upholds rightness, and that it’s through his rightness that he has the power to establish order, to bring about order in the cosmos. In particular here, his ability to command

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the subatomic particles to order form themselves into a world. And it’s that ordering of the subatomic particles that we call creation. A whole lot of events took place before God was given the power and authority to create our universe and world. I’m not going to summarize those events here, but if you haven’t given episodes 19 to 25 a listen, you may want to do that so that you have a greater understanding of how the creation plays a

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central role in the theology revealed to the ancients in the beginning. You’ll learn in those episodes what God had to do before he could be given the power and authority to create our universe. It will give you a much greater appreciation for who God is. Up to this point in the program, you’re eyeing from the ancient texts, focusing primarily on the stubborn bits.

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we can establish a rough sequence of events that led to the creation. They are number one, prior to the creation of the universe, the cosmos was filled with a dark, lifeless, infinite expanse of disordered matter or subatomic particles, which is described by the ancients as a primordial sea. Number two, God appeared over the dark, lifeless, primordial elements and breathed.

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something of his essence into the elements, which is described by the ancients as a brooding wind. Number three, after breathing something of his essence into the elements, God by way of his voice commanded the creation to begin to take shape, which is described by the ancients as divine utterance. As a quick aside, we haven’t talked about this on the podcast too much yet.

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But there’s plenty in the ancient record to suggest that the word God used to command the elements to take shape was his royal divine name. This is one of those things to keep in your back pocket because divine names and especially God’s divine name will play a very important role in the ancient tradition as the podcast progresses. In the Bremner Rind Papyrus

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dated to 1250 BC, we see very clearly that God uses his name to command the elements to take shape. It reads, speaking of the ancient Egyptian god Ra, quote, I am the creator of what hath come into being. I came into being in primeval time. I have spread myself abroad therein.

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So that line right there might refer to imparting something of his essence into the elements. I brought my own name into my mouth as a word of power. The footnote here says I uttered my own name from my own mouth as a word of power. From this text we see a very strong connection between divine utterance, God’s name,

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and the power to bring about the creation. This passage couldn’t be clearer that God used his name and the power and authority inherent in his name to command the elements to order themselves into a world. In the ancient Near East, we know that names were chosen to reflect the actual essence of the being being named. And since we know that God perfectly embodies maat, cedic, rightness,

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We must surmise that God’s name expresses his perfect rightness. The rightness we’ve learned from the ancients that is the only way one can obtain the power and authority to impose order on disorder. Someone with a lesser name would not have had the power and authority to command the elements. And we must also surmise that all of God’s divine utterances must invoke his divine name in some way. Because…

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It’s through his name that his commands are recognized as legitimate. His power is in his name because his name is a perfect reflection of his essence, which is the embodiment of rightness. And remember, as we learned in our last two episodes, subatomic particles only respond to the ordering power of rightness. All of this brings me to today’s episode.

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According to the ancients, what happened next? What happened after God commanded the elements to take shape? Let’s jump into a couple of ancient texts and see what we can learn. Do you remember the ancient Egyptian primordial goose, Gen Genware, the great honker? Several episodes back, we learned from Richard Wilkinson that Gen Genware, which means the great honker, was the sacred celestial goose.

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And according to this ancient Egyptian creation account, Gen Gen Weir laid a large egg on the primordial waters and then rockously honked or cackled, causing the egg to crack open. And a bright light broke forth from the egg and light and life filled the expanse. This ancient Egyptian account is culled from a variety of references in the ancient texts and none of them contain the whole account.

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Here’s an example of one of the references to Gen Gen Ware in the Papyrus Leden 350, chapter 90. In this text, Gen Gen Ware is referred to as jargoner, which means to speak or speaker, which in this case, because it’s used in reference to a goose, refers to the speech or honk that’s made by a goose. And keep in mind that this creation account is highly symbolic. We’re clearly dealing here with

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avian symbolism, a goose, which we’ve learned in previous episodes was used by the ancients to represent celestial beings. In this case, the sacred goose represents the creator god Amun-Ra. Note in this passage the important emphasis placed on Amun-Ra’s shout or honk and see if you can figure out what the ancient Egyptians were referring to by the goose’s honk. The text reads, quote,

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When his form shone, the first time all beings were amazed at his prestige, he, Jargon, as a great jargoner going to the ground he had created while he was alone, he spoke words inside the silence. He was the first to shout, the land being in silence, and his roar spread without parallel. He gave birth to what is, he gave it life.

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Okay, were you able to figure out what the honk symbolized? Well, if you guessed that the honk represented the same thing we just read earlier in the Bremner Rhine Papyrus, where Ra uttered his name and brought the creation into being, you’re correct. You’re developing your symbolism literacy. The ancient Egyptians were expressing the same point here in this account as they were in the other account. The

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power of divine utterance to initiate the creation, in this case to open the cosmic egg of creation. Let’s read another reference to Gen Genware. This one is found in the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead, the Papyrus of Annie in chapter 59. This time while I’m reading, see if you can figure out what the egg symbolizes. The text reads,

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chapter of snuffing the air and having dominion over the waters.” And that’s referring to the primordial waters. In the underworld, Osiris Annie sayeth, I watch and guard the egg of Ne’ekr. Now Ne’ekr means the great cackler. It groweth, I grow. It liveth, I live. I, the Osiris Annie, in triumph.

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There’s a lot of great stuff in this passage. First, the title of this chapter lets us know that this chapter is gonna be about dominion. Dominion over the chaotic elements. Dominion here over the elements means the ability to impose order on chaos or the ability to create. So here, Annie, the triumphant one, who we learned from this epitaph, has triumphed over the dragon himself, compares himself directly to Amun-Ra.

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sacred goose who has the power and authority by his name to create. Annie is essentially telling us in this passage that he now too, now that he reigns in the afterlife as a heavenly king, has the power to crack open the egg and create a world too. It’s astounding. But back to my original question, what is this cosmic egg?

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that the sacred goose cracked open. What does this egg symbolize? For most of us, egg symbolism isn’t too difficult to grasp. When an egg starts to crack and a cute little baby chick wiggles its way out, it’s pretty easy for most of us to see that the egg represents the source from which all life emerges. Makes sense, but it’s still not a lot of information. You know, what is this source from which life emerges? This…

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source that needs to be cracked open if life is to emerge. Let’s take a look at a couple more cosmic egg accounts to see if we can’t glean some more information about what this egg is. I like so much on this program, we find the cosmic egg creation motif all over the world. We find it among the Orphic, Vedic, Taoist, Finnish, Polynesian, Japanese, Chinese, Phoenician, and African cultures and many others.

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So let’s look among the Hindu. Among the Hindu, the universe is created from a golden egg known as the Haranya Garba. The word Haranya Garba is a composite word where Haranya means golden and Garba means womb. So Haranya Garba means golden womb. And I think that’s pretty interesting. So here we see an association between the egg and a womb. And also note how this egg is

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Golden, which we established in our last episode, represents glory. So we’re also seeing a connection between the cosmic egg and glory and light here. In Sanskrit, haranya not only means gold, it also means imperishable or eternal. So keep that in

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and says this is the golden egg. And this is the Ralph T. H. Griffith translation. It reads, quote, in the beginning rose Hiranya Garba. Again, Hiranya Garba is the golden egg. So in the beginning it rose. So note the association here between the phrase in the beginning and the golden egg. The connection between the two is gonna be really important in just a minute. In the Hindu Chandogya Upanishad,

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3.19.1 and.3, it says this of the golden egg. And listen to what comes out of the golden egg. The unknown alone existed when this world was in latency in the beginning of creation. That not known became the known. That egg lay for the time of one year. After that period, it broke open. Now what was born in that egg?

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is this Aditya? When he became manifest, all beings adored him. We read in this passage that the golden egg floated around on the primordial waters for a year, then it broke open, and what was inside the egg? The passage says that Aditya was inside the egg. Aditya in its singular form refers to the Hindu sun god Surya.

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Surya is revered as the source of life and energy and is often identified with the god Vishnu in the Vedic texts. And do you remember the god Vishnu? God Vishnu is the king and preserver of order in the universe. The god who represents truth and righteousness. I can’t make this stuff up.

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Here we see the cosmic egg split open and what’s inside? God, God’s inside, a being of light whose glory the Hindu equate, just like the ancient Egyptians did with Ra, with the sun. So the cosmic egg splits open and God appears, filling the expanse with his blinding glorious light. And did you catch the connection between God here and heavenly kingship, the ability to preserve the order of the universe, and

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Ma’at or Tzedek, truth and righteousness, because it’s all there right in Hinduism. We read a similar account of God bursting forth from the cosmic egg in ancient Egyptian accounts found in the coffin texts and in the book of the dead. Dr. Alicia Maravelia, she’s a professor of Egyptology at the People’s University of Athens and she summarizes the ancient Egyptian cosmic egg

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like this. She says, quote, The first from the coffin texts denotes the concept of the solar God coming out of his egg, shining in his disk, brightening his horizon and crossing his firmament. The second from the Book of the Dead is of a quite similar context, glorifying the solar God in his egg, who brightens his disk, shines in his horizon and makes his

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to radiate like gold. We learned two important things from these accounts. First, we learned that the cosmic egg was the source of light that initiated the creation. In Coffin Text 76, when Atum has come forth from the egg, Atum says, quote, I made illumination of the darkness. Here Atum is telling us that he was the one who brought the light.

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that illuminated the dark primordial waters. In all of these creation accounts, it’s light, God’s light that bursts forth from the cosmic egg. And if you listened to our previous episode, episode number 28, who is God, a glorious being of ineffable light, then you already know that God’s light and the capabilities of God’s light are absolutely astonishing.

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Second, we learned that inside this egg is where God originally resided. So the egg must in some way represent God’s home. Dr. Mary Avella, who I just mentioned, also founded the Hellenic Institute of Egyptology in Greece. And she notes that there are significant parallels between the ancient Egyptian creation counts of the cosmic egg and Hellenistic accounts.

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In particular, the account found in the Orphic Hems. Dr. Mara Velia summarizes the account. This is what she says. Quote, according to the Orphics, whose main texts, the Orphic Hems were initially written down during the sixth century BC, time after creating ether, chaos and abysmal darkness fashioned a cosmic silver egg that was born by the night.

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The Cosmic Egg was the source of the light of creation. It contained all the germs of creation, exactly as was the case in ancient Egypt. After the Orphic Egg was hatched, the god Fonis was the personification of the primordial extremely brilliant light of creation, replenishing the cosmos with bright light.

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dissolving the mists of the abysmal darkness. Here we see the Orphic God, Fonis, come out of the cosmic egg. The name Fonis actually means, quote, the bringer of light. As I mentioned earlier, we find this cosmic egg motif all over. For example, in China, we have the legend of Pangu. In this legend, which is dated to the third century AD,

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Pongu emerges from a cosmic egg and creates heaven and earth. The earliest recorded version of the legend reads, quote, in the beginning, heaven and earth was one boundary blurred entity like an egg carrying Pongu inside itself. After 18,000 years, heaven and earth formed.

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an ethnic group who live in southern China, sing songs about Pongu. In one line of the hymn to Pongu says, quote, it’s thanks to Pongu that human beings can get brightness. So here again, we see the connection between the cosmic egg, the creation and light. This next cosmic creation account is quite intriguing and it comes to us from among the Slavs.

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who lived primarily in what is today central, eastern, and southeastern Europe. The cosmic egg is referred to in this account as a blue pebble or stone and is connected very intriguingly to a sacred tree, which of course has birds perched in the summit of the branches. The account is found in a Carpathian carol written down in the 17th century A.D. So this is very late.

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It reads, and while I’m reading this, try and test your symbolism literacy to see if you can’t decipher what the tree, the pigeons, the sea, the sand, and the blue stone or egg symbolize. Quote, it used to be at the beginning of the world. Then there was no sky or earth, no sky nor earth, but the blue sea. And in the middle of the sea on oak, two pigeons were sitting.

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Two pigeons on an oak tree, they held such a council. Happily debated and cooed, how can we create the world? We will fall to the bottom of the sea. We’ll bring out the fine sand. Fine sand, blue stone. We will sow fine sand. We will pick up the blue pebble from fine sand, black earth, icy water, green grass. From the blue stone.

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The blue sky, bright sun. I’m not gonna take time here to decipher all of the symbols. A year into the podcast now, you should be noticing how your own ability to decipher the ancient symbols is beginning to increase. So I don’t wanna rob you of that opportunity. I do however, wanna point out one very important aspect of this cosmic egg creation account.

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An aspect that provides us with a very, very important clue about what this cosmic egg is. Here, the Slavs are telling us that there’s a relationship between the cosmic egg, the blue pebble, and the sacred tree. Now, all of you longtime listeners should know what the sacred tree represents, or rather who the sacred tree represents. It represents God.

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But do you remember where the sacred tree grows? Think back to episode number four, did God reveal the ancient tradition in the Garden of Eden? Where did the Tree of Life grow in the garden? Hopefully you remember. The Tree of Life grew in the midst of the garden. The tree grew in the very middle or center of the garden. Because if you recall in episode number four,

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We learned that the Garden of Eden wasn’t just a garden. It was the earth’s first sanctuary where God could dwell on earth. If this isn’t ringing a bell, be sure and go back and listen to episode number four again or watch the YouTube version that we just uploaded. In that episode, drawing from Richard Davidson’s research, we learned that the Garden of Eden was actually a garden temple, set apart and holy where God could dwell.

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while on earth, the garden temple, which was patterned after where God dwelt in heaven, His heavenly temple. If you recall in that episode, we learned that the Mosaic Tabernacle and later Israelite temples like Solomon’s temple were all built according to the Garden of Eden temple pattern, which was itself again patterned after God’s holy sanctuary or temple in heaven.

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In that episode, we learned from Davidson that the geography given in Genesis was divided in three parts, each representing an increase in the degree of holiness. First you have the land called Eden. Second, within the land called Eden, you have the garden. And third, within the garden, in the center of the garden, you have the tree of life.

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And Davidson went on to show that the Mosaic and Solomonic temples had the same three degrees of holiness. First, you have a courtyard. Second, beyond the courtyard, you have the temple proper called the Holy Place. And then beyond the Holy Place, what do you have? The Holy of Holies, God’s throne room. The room where God, that glorious being of ineffable light, rests on his throne.

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When we put the two together, we see that the tree of life in the center of the garden equates with God sitting on his throne in the Holy of Holies of his temple. The Slavs then connect the tree of life, which we now know symbolizes God on his throne in the Holy of Holies, directly with the cosmic egg. So what the Slavs have just done for us is solve the riddle of this cosmic egg.

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The Cosmic Egg is the Holy of Holies, the supremely glorious and holy place where God resides in the heavens in the midst of all things. Which is why at the very moment that the egg splits open, the primordial waters are engulfed in a blinding glorious light. A light which we learned in our last episode radiates directly from God’s very being.

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It’s here that we should see if we can’t learn a little more about the Holy of Holies. In one of the best books that I’ve ever read, written by a scholar by the name of Margaret Barker, she’s a Cambridge-educated British scholar, titled The Great High Priest, we find a very insightful chapter on the Holy of Holies. And it’s in there that we learn a couple of very important things about the Holy of Holies and the creation of the universe. And before I read to you what she has to say,

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Let me read the first line of Genesis in the Old Testament, just to give you a quick refresher of what the Bible has to say about the creation. It reads, and this is the King James Version, quote, in the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. In reference to this, the opening verse of the Bible, Dr. Barker writes, quote,

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The opening words of the Hebrew scriptures are a description of the Holy of Holies. The beginning was the state which the Holy of Holies represented, not the point at which time began. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, describes the state whence the creation emerged. From what she just said, we learned that the phrase, in the beginning,

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synonymous with Holy of Holies. So what is translated in Genesis as in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth could just as well be translated as in the Holy of Holies God created the heaven and earth. All things begin in the Holy of Holies. All creation comes out of the Holy of Holies where God dwells. Dr. Barker notes, quote,

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This hidden center was the unity from which all creation came forth. Later tradition remembered that the secrets of the Holy of Holies were the secrets of creation. What Qumran texts described as the mystery of being. Now this is a super interesting insight because this is exactly what we saw in the book of the Holy Secrets of Enoch. If you remember

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Enoch ascends through the heavens to the Holy of Holies and he sees the Lord on his throne in fiery glory. And then what does the Lord do? He shares with Enoch the secrets of creation right there in the Holy of Holies. Dr. Barker’s research also reveals one more very, very important aspect of the Holy of Holies. She writes, quote,

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that the temple concept of time was neither linear nor cyclic, but based on the concept of a hidden eternity in the midst of time as we perceive it. Philo in his writing on the creation. If you’re wondering who Philo is, Philo was an important and really influential Jewish philosopher who was born in Alexandria, Egypt in 20 BC. And he lived about 70 years. And so he died around 50 AD.

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So Philo in his writing on the creation emphasized that in the beginning should not be taken in a chronological sense. For time there was not before there was a world. Time began either simultaneously with the world or after it. In other words, Philo is arguing here that time does not exist in the Holy of Holies where God dwells. Where he dwells is eternity.

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And grounds for Philo’s statement actually can be found in the biblical canon. We find it in the New Testament in Luke chapter 4. Christ is taken up to a high mountain, which you know by now is a symbol of God’s temple. And while Christ is there, he’s shown the entire history of the world in a single moment.

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shooed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. Dr. Barker notes, quote, the Holy of Holies was beyond time. To enter was to enter eternity. History seen in the Holy of Holies was history seen outside the limitations of space and time. In other words, time does not

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Interestingly, this idea is captured architecturally in sacred edifices all over the world. We’ll get into sacred architecture much more in the coming weeks, but let me give you an idea of what I mean. All we have to do is examine the spatial and temporal orientation of the world’s oldest sacred monuments and temples to find that the vast majority of them are oriented to the points of the compass.

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and or the solstice and equinoxes. For example, if we look into one of the most famous ancient monuments in the world, Stonehenge, it’s located in Wiltshire, England, dated by archeologists to between 3100 and 16100 BC. We learned that Stonehenge was built to align with the sun on the solstice. Now, if you’re not familiar with the solstice, the solstice are essentially a measure of time.

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They measure where we are in the year. The spring equinox marks that we are in the spring. The summer solstice marks that we’re in the summer. The fall equinox marks that we’re in the fall. And the winter solstice marks that we’re in the winter. So to align Stonehenge to the solstice is to align the sacred monument to terrestrial time. Okay. So now why would the people who constructed Stonehenge do this? Well,

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Archaeologists discovered that Stonehenge is aligned in particular to the summer solstice, which is the longest day of the year where the sun is at its peak. And this causes a nifty astronomical event to take place in the very center of the monument. In the morning of the summer solstice, the sun rises behind what is known as the heel stone, which is just outside of the main circle of Stonehenge, and the sunlight shines along a straight path.

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that is known as the Stone Avenue, until it reaches the very heart or center of the monument. In other words, Stonehengers built the monument so that the fiery light of the sun would, on the summer solstice, bathe the very center of the monument in a glorious, brilliant light. So are you catching the symbolism of what’s going on here?

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Every year thousands and thousands of new-agers and spiritual enthusiasts flock to Stonehenge during the summer solstice just so they can witness this event. But what they likely don’t understand is that what they’re witnessing is a visual representation of a very important tenant of the ancient tradition. The notion that God, a glorious being of light, resides on his royal throne in the center, the very center of all things.

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It’s a pretty simple doctrine, but it’s missed by the vast majority of people who visit Stonehenge because they’re not familiar with the doctrines revealed to human beings in the very beginning, the doctrines of the ancient tradition. Now, lest you think that I might be reading more into this than there is, consider that we find this exact same architectural feature in many of the world’s most important monuments and temples. For example,

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the ancient Egyptians oriented their temples so that the sun would shine directly into the Holy of Holies on the summer solstice. King Solomon likewise meticulously aligned the Israelite temple to ensure that on the summer solstice, the sun would cast its rays onto the temple’s gilded front doors, creating the appearance of a dazzling blaze of fire. We’ll talk more about this in coming days,

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Note that by orienting Stonehenge to the Solstice and Equinoxes, terrestrial time, Stonehengers were symbolically conveying another very important point about where God resides. If you recall in episode number four, did God reveal the ancient tradition in the Garden of Eden? We learned that the word temple is derived from the Greek word temenos, which means to cut.

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refers to where two perpendicular lines cut across each other, where they cross. It refers to the point at which the Greek kardo, the north-south line, and the decumanus, the east-west line, cross. In the very center where those lines cross is a temple. In other words, a true temple resides in the spatial center of all things, like God’s temple.

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That’s what that symbolism conveys. So to orient Stonehenge to the solstices and equinoxes is to do the same thing, but with terrestrial time. If you do a circle on a piece of paper that represented the year, kind of like a clock, then you drew a line from the summer solstice to the winter solstice, like drawing a line from 12 o’clock to six o’clock, and then drew another line from the spring equinox to the fall equinox from

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three o’clock to six o’clock, where they cut across each other, where they crossed would be the very center of the clock or back to Stonehenge, the very center or heart of the monument. What the ancients were trying to symbolize by doing this is that God resides not only in the center of all space, but that he also resides in the center of all time. In other words, God’s heavenly temple where God resides on his heavenly throne.

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resides in the center of all things, both time and space. It’s there in the center of all things in the Holy of Holies that time and space as we understand them in terrestrial terms dissolves. Dr. Barker pointed out there is no time in the Holy of Holies. It’s beyond time. Where God dwells is eternal. There is no temporal notion of time there.

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just like Jesus experienced when he was taken up to the mountain, the Holy of Holies, and was shown the past, present, and future of all things in a moment. That’s only possible outside the limitations of time. This point about God dwelling in eternity in a place where time does not exist is gonna be really super relevant to our understanding of the creation in just a minute. But before we jump into that, we need to take a second

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talk a little bit more about God’s light. In our previous episode we talked about the incredible capacity temporal light has to transport quadrillions and quadrillions of watts of energy to act as a powerful force like processing millions of operations in a single second like we see in quantum computing to transmit enormous amounts of information at nearly the speed of light.

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We suggested in that episode that God patterned physical light after his light so that we would have some understanding of how truly awesome his light is and all of the incomprehensible things that he can accomplish with his light. In that episode though, we never answered one crucial question. How did God get this light?

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The ancients uniformly attest that God is a being of glorious light, but I want to know how God got this incredibly powerful light, this light that has the astonishing capacity to do all of these amazing things, this light that actually makes God a God. Now some of you may have already figured this out, especially if you listen to episode number 27. Who is God?

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In a future episode, I’m gonna talk more about this, but it’s clear from the ancients that this light comes from adhering to or upholding Ma’at or Tzedek, the cosmic law of rightness. Now, I in no way wanna give you the impression that I understand this process more than I do because I don’t. But it’s from some of the ancient texts that we’ve read on this program.

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Like the book of Joseph and Azaneth, where we saw that Azaneth, after she had conquered the dragon, which is akin to upholding rightness, was made a heavenly queen and then took on a brilliant radiance. And it’s there that we can easily see the connection between adhering to rightness and obtaining this powerful light. In chapter 18, after having been made a heavenly queen, we’re told this about Azaneth’s transformation. The text reads, quote,

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Her face was like the sun, and her eyes like the rising morning star. Here we see that she has clearly become a glorious being of light. Or like in the Mesopotamian creation epic, the Enuma Elish, when Marduk, after conquering the sea dragon, and after having become a heavenly king, tablet four tells us, quote,

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with a terrible radiance. And we saw the same thing in the book of the Holy Secrets of Enoch, when Enoch ascended to God’s throne, the Holy of Holies, and was made a heavenly king in chapter 22. Here, Enoch, after looking around at others in God’s kingdom, looks at himself and he notes, quote, “‘I saw myself, and I saw I was like one of his glorious ones, and there was no observable difference.'” At a minimum,

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We assume that God obtained his glorious light in the same manner, from conquering the dragon, from upholding rightness. Now, the mechanism by which this works, I do not know. But it seems to me that it could be as simple as thinking of our souls like a door. When we uphold rightness, the door opens and our souls receive more and more light and power. And when we don’t uphold rightness,

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the door shuts, then no more light and power can enter. Thus, greater and greater lights can be ours the more we uphold rightness, until one day we ourselves become glorious beings, and there’s no observable difference. All of this implies that somehow ma’at or tzedek or rightness, which is translated as truth, justice and righteousness, somehow shines.

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that there is a power in rightness, a power again that has a brilliance to it, that shines. This suggests that truth shines, which is an incredible notion to contemplate. And remember it’s through this brilliant, powerful light that God has the power and authority to order the disordered subatomic particles to form themselves into a universe and world.

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So we’re back to the creation. How does all of what we’ve just learned mesh with contemporary astrophysicists and what they have to say about the creation of the universe? Right now, based off of the evidence observed in the known universe, astrophysicists theorize that the universe began from a mind-bogglingly hot and incalculably dense point where literally

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all of the matter in the entire universe was packed into a single quantum, the smallest possible discrete unit conceivable in the physical world. Then, from some mechanism, unknown by modern physics, this quantum in a single finite moment suddenly and rapidly expanded,

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the singularity or in common vernacular, the Big Bang. There’s actually quite a compelling body of observable evidence that supports this theory of how our universe came into being. For example, astronomers can use the CMBR, which is the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation of the universe. And it acts like a cosmic baby photo of the universe, taken when the universe was around 380,000 years old.

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Back in those early days, the universe was a hot, dense soup of particles. As it expanded, it cooled. And eventually, light was able to travel freely through the space. This light, which started as a glow from the hot early universe, has stretched and cooled as the universe has expanded, turning into the microwave signals that we detect today.

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omnipresent microwave background gives us a snapshot of the infant universe, providing direct evidence of its rapid expansion from a hot, dense state, exactly as predicted by the Big Bang Theory. Additional observational evidence like the red shift of galaxies, the abundance of light elements like hydrogen, helium, and lithium,

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and the large-scale distribution and evolution of galaxies and stars are consistent with what is predicted by Big Bang models. When astrophysicists extrapolate the expansion of the universe backwards in time, they find that 13.8 billion years have passed since the singularity, the initial Big Bang, which means that our universe is 13.8 billion years old.

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The Big Bang Theory though is not without its problems. See, as astrophysicists work their way backwards, closer and closer to the singularity, the physics of their models work really, really well right up to one second after the singularity. In fact, their models work really well right up to one trillionth of a second after the singularity, which in physics is known as 10 to the minus 12 seconds.

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They can even go as close as 10 to the minus 35 seconds, which is an incredibly short amount of time, and the physics is still relatively stable. But after that, there’s trouble. For an explanation of this, we need to turn to my favorite astrophysicist, Dr. Filipenko, professor of astronomy at Cal Berkeley. In this clip, he’s gonna refer to what is known as Planck time.

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Planck time is named after Max Planck, a German theoretical physicist who in 1918 won the Nobel Prize in Physics for his role as the father of quantum theory. Planck time is the smallest meaningful interval of time known in the universe, below which the laws of physics, as we currently understand them, cease to function.

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Let’s listen to what Dr. Filippenko has to say about this. The very shortest interval of time, immediately following the singularity, Planck time.

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Suppose we want to go back even further to something like t equals 10 to the minus 43 seconds, the Planck time. Can we do that? This is an almost inconceivably short time. And I would claim that at this time we don’t know much about the universe. We essentially know nothing about the universe at earlier times, but even at 10 to the minus 43 seconds, the Planck time, we need a quantum theory of gravity because, you know, at those times temperatures were 10 to the 32 degrees.

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typical masses of particles were 10 to the 19 proton masses. The space-time curvature associated with those masses was huge, and we don’t yet have a quantum theory of gravity. The typical length scales were the speed of light times 10 to the minus 43 seconds, which is roughly 10 to the minus 33 centimeters, the Planck length. Everything becomes chaotic and unpredictable. Time and space may be packaged or quantized in bundles.

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possibly even at time scales of 10 to the minus 43 seconds and length scales of 10 to the minus 33 centimeters. And some physicists postulate that there is just this space-time foam of packages of time and space flitting into and out of existence. I mean, this is…

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is a lot of hand weighting. Notice how much I’m waving my hands, all right? We really don’t know basically what happened at the Plunk time or before that. There’s no fully self-consistent theory of quantum gravity at this time. And so given the great uncertainty at the Plunk time, let’s just not discuss it any further. I mean, I think it’s an interesting topic, but I won’t discuss it any further. Dr. Filippenko cracks me up. He says,

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Speaking of this mysterious Planck time, we just won’t discuss it any further. We just don’t know what happened in the Planck time and we really don’t have any way to test what happened in the Planck time. So we’re just not gonna talk about it anymore. What he’s admitting here is that astrophysicists have no idea what initiated the Big Bang and they have no idea what happened in that, the smallest meaningful interval of time, 10 to the minus 43 seconds or Planck time.

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immediately following the Big Bang. And that’s because our physics, as currently constituted, fall apart when we examine the initial quantum from which the universe began. And that’s because that quantum, quote, yields an infinite density and temperature. An infinite density and temperature. Can you even wrap your brain around something like infinite density?

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Or how about something like infinite temperature or heat? John Hawley and Catherine Holcomb wrote Foundations of Modern Cosmology. They note that, quote, even the very concept of a particle breaks down under these conditions. And as Dr. Filippenko pointed out, there aren’t any instruments at our disposal that could test something of infinite density or temperature. So we may never know.

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This mystery may permanently remain outside of the realm of human knowledge, which I think is very interesting. Stephen Hawking and George Ellis in their book, The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time, have shown that quote, the theory of general relativity and quantum mechanics is currently realized are not applicable before the Planck Epic.

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Again, physics as we currently understand it breaks down when we get to 10 to the minus 43 seconds or Planck time after the Big Bang. Here’s the really interesting part though. Did you catch how Dr. Filippenko hinted that the notion of time itself gets really messed up under these conditions? Which makes sense if the theory of general relativity, which deals with the fabric of space-time is no longer applicable.

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Listen to this and this is drawn from the work of several astrophysicists including from Dr. Stephen Hawking’s book, The Beginning of Time. Quote, certain quantum gravity treatments such as the Wheeler-Dewitt equation imply that time itself could be an emergent property. What? What did we just read? We just read that astrophysicists are now positing that time…

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itself actually emerged from the Big Bang. The time didn’t exist before the Big Bang. And this of course implies that the singularity emerged out of a place where time did not exist. I continue, quote, as such, physics may conclude that time did not exist before the Big Bang.

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The ancients already knew this. They already knew that our universe came into being in a timeless place, in eternity, when God threw open the doors of the Holy of Holies, cracked the cosmic egg, and flooded the dark abyss with his glorious ineffable light. A light that we learned in our last episode has the infinite capacity

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to generate quadrillions upon quadrillions of watts of energy. That light that has the capacity to transmit His love and knowledge into every single atomic particle, into every single human being. That light that has the capacity to create time itself. Yes, the ancients already knew this.

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And as we see here, modern day astrophysicists are once again playing catch up with the ancients. Remember Dr. Maravelia, who studied the cosmic egg motif among the ancient Egyptians and Greeks? She too noticed a connection between cosmic egg creation accounts and contemporary theories in astrophysics. She writes, speaking of the cosmic egg, quote, we have here a description.

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virtually equivalent to the notions of modern cosmology and astrophysics. The vast egg corresponds to the primordial sphere of fire that was produced just after the Big Bang, bearing in itself the time, the matter, and the energy of creation that is all the pairs of elementary particles and antiparticles together with the cascade of light that brightened the

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universe and was indeed born in principio. And don’t forget that the ancients taught that all creation, all light and life, springs from the King of Heaven who is seated on his throne beyond time in the Holy of Holies. Praise God for throwing open the doors of the Holy of Holies.

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and initiating the glorious creation that is this universe.

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That’s it for me. I’ll leave you with the words of William Shakespeare. Knowledge is the wing wherewith we fly to heaven. I’m Jack Logan.

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You’ve been listening to the ancient tradition, a Wonk Media Production.