The Köfels Asteroid

31 Mar 2008 at 18:14

tastyrerun

archeology astronomy bible cuneiform sumer writer

This. Drives. Me. Nuts.

Why in the world do we need to always have everything interesting that was ever discovered in the field of archeology have to be suggested to provide evidence of some sort for stories from the Bible? Whenever there is evidence of some ancient flood somewhere somebody tries to say it is the origin of the Noah’s Flood story. When they find an ancient tomb of somebody named Jesus, they assume it’s the guy from the Gospel stories. This ridiculous obsession with connecting everything with the Bible is really really annoying, mainly because it gives believers who don’t pay any attention to the details the illusion that archeology is supporting their book.

Case in point, this article about an ancient Sumerian tablet that appears to describe an asteroid impact that took place in (of all places) Köfels, Austria on June 29th, 3123 BC. The story is fascinating. About 150 years ago the archaeologist Henry Layard discovered a tablet in an ancient Assyrian library that dated to about 700 BC. It was a copy of part of the night diary of a Sumerian astronomer. Nobody had any idea what the tablet said until recently when they discovered the fact that the tablet described in detail the positions and locations of known constellations. Using computers they determined that the day that the constellations were as described was June 29th, 3123 BC, before dawn. Wicked cool. The second half of the tablet describes some object in the sky that was “large enough for its shape to be noted even though it is still in space” and tracks its trajectory relative to the stars, which “to an error better than one degree is consistent with an impact at Köfels”. Again, wicked cool. Some guy in Sumer took notes while watching the sky, saw an asteroid that ultimately impacted in freakin’ Austria (thousands of miles away) and people thought it was interesting enough that his observation was preserved for 2400 years (perspective: longer than the time between us and Jesus) before this copy of it was even made. Wow. This story is fascinating on many levels but what does the writer of the story do? He tries to connect this asteroid with the Biblical story of Sodom and Gomorrah!

What. The. Frak. (BSG, Season 4 starts this week!!! But I digress…)

OK, let’s analyze this. First, let’s give the Bible the benefit of the doubt and say there actually was a Sodom and Gomorrah in the first place (even though this is highly unlikely for a ton of reasons I don’t have space to get into here). When did this even supposedly happen? Based on this traditional timeline of Bible chronology it supposedly happened around 1900 BC which is 1200 years after this tablet was observed. OK, so this tablet is written by a Sumerian, preserved by an Assyrian and it’s about an asteroid that landed in Austria 1200 years before some Hebrew story about two cities that may or may not have even existed in the first place and the connection to the Bible is what??? Talk about grasping at straws. This isn’t even a straw, it’s a single molecule* of hay.

Look, the Israelites made up the story of Sodom and Gomorrah to explain some unusual ruins and salt formations they observed. They wrote it down sometime around 800 BC or so, nearly 1000 years after it is supposed to have happened and over 2000 years after this asteroid. There doesn’t need to be a grain of truth in it and there most likely isn’t anymore than there needs to be a grain of truth in Monty Python’s Holy Grail. It’s a freaking fairy tale for fuck’s sake and you take some brilliant and interesting archaeological discovery and you have to tie it to this ridiculous story in order to get anybody to notice it? How sad. It’s as if the Sumerians and Assyrians weren’t even people worth paying attention to. Oh wait, that’s right, they weren’t Judeo-Christians so they are only interesting if they pertain to our beloved myth. Bullshit.

Writing this stuff is so irresponsible. I can see the flame war now:

XTian: Archaeologists found proof about Sodom and Gomorrah. There was this tablet and it said that this guy saw the asteroid that hit them and he could tell it was sulphur and everything.

(#*$&(#*$&!!!!!!

* RKS: I know there is no such thing as a hay molecule. This is just using literary license to mean: The smallest bit of hay possible that is still hay and not one of its constituent elements. Plus, it’s kinda funny.

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Team building

Look, the Israelites made up the story of Sodom and Gomorrah to explain some unusual ruins and salt formations they observed which is best to share in the blog also there are different benefit's share.
Earth4energy

Nobody had any idea what the tablet said until recently when they discovered the fact that the tablet described in detail the positions and locations of known constellations which is quite better to describe.
nile cruise

Quite interesting and unique and interesting story.Nobody had any idea what the tablet said until recently when they discovered the fact that the tablet described in detail the positions and locations of known constellations.
dog fences

This ridiculous obsession with connecting everything with the Bible is really really annoying, mainly because it gives believers who don’t pay any attention to the details the illusion that archeology is supporting their book while the many sites support other way.
villas in tuscany

Archaeologists found proof about Sodom and Gomorrah which is quite true in it sense.
Greg MELLOTT

I lean to being careful. 'Truth can be stranger than fiction.' Though I theoriously tend to hold that only God can fully express that principle and then only graspable in what ever measure an entity is able to receive.
Part of the problem may be that the clearest translations of what is being expressed is not getting across. Nature surprised scientists' expectations about every time they viewed another one of our planets, and their satelites, up close.
vessel sink

The following things never happened:

- A global deluge
- The Israelite captivity in Egypt and exodus into Canaan
- The Israelites wandering in the wilderness
- The book of Job
but i think view's of all commentator should be appreciated it's source of knowledge should be found out.Cheers
zoomfly

I agree with you, but PLEASE tell me a source, so I can share the information with others.
nursing uniforms

I agree with other commenter's
The following things never happened:

- A global deluge
- The Israelite captivity in Egypt and exodus into Canaan
- The Israelites wandering in the wilderness
- The book of Job
- The Tower of Babel.
since this topic is somewhat controversially.
mayan calendar

There is definitely more to this stuff than most people realize.
Ron

When I first read about the asteroid, I began a search for the scientific data which is how I found this website. I find your arguments of S&G NOT being coexistent with the asteroid to be compelling.
However, I am puzzled by the failure of the tablet to comment on the 'backblast' or 'debris' postulated for the destruction of S&G. Surely the observer would have mentioned it, if it occurred, whenever it was.
James

Steve--
I totally agree with you that it is far easier to tell your children that grandma is in heaven watching over them than that she is now = to roadkill.

But (and this is a big but), I gotta go with honesty. When my mom's dog died a few months ago, my wife and I weren't sure what to tell our son. Sure, we could comfort him by saying "she's in a better place now", or we could go harsh on him saying: "her body will be burned in an incinerator and then strewn onto the vet's lawn". Instead, we found a book called "The tenth good thing about Barney". It's a childrens' story in which the family cat dies & the family talks about what they know and don't about afterlife. They agree that their cat (Barney) gave them good times and good memories & that now she is serving to help grow the flowers in the back yard.

My point just is, comfort is nice, but I want to stick with honesty. I won't tell my son he's not going to heaven/nirvana/paradise/purgatory...becuase I simply don't know. But I'm also not going to pander; taking the easy way out of parenting and saying "We'll see grandma in paradise and if anyone tells you otherwise, don't talk to them, because they are apostates".
ryan

Steve,

So a journalist makes an idiotic, ill-informed, baseless claim due to his own cultural-centrism and inability to interest people in his story without misrepresentation, I get annoyed by it and vent on my blog and you (who doesn't lose any sleep over any of this) take the time to come over here and write a long response in which you don't actually address my central contentions but just to tell me to chill out?

I can't Steve. I just can't. And I shouldn't and here's why.

This particular issue is not that big a deal. Were it an isolated event, it would be no problem. It is, however, not an isolated event and the cumulative effects of the hundreds and thousands of such events over the years have been massive.

Anything that lends false credence to ancient mythologies helps perpetuate their continued existence in our culture when we long ago should have recognized them for that they are, just-so stories. As a matter of fact, the vast majority of archaeologists and Biblical scholars do believe that Sodom and Gomorrah was just a story. The masses, however, do not. They believe that this story gives them license to persecute and hate people of a different sexual orientation than themselves. I am straight, myself, but I have friends who are gay and who suffer for it. This silly story is often used as justification for their mistreatment. The last thing on earth we need as a society if we're ever going to move beyond fairy tales and into reality (where, you might be surprised to hear me say, theism and spirituality can still have a healthy role to play) is to perpetuate ancient dead myths as fact-based history.

The following things never happened:

- A global deluge
- The Israelite captivity in Egypt and exodus into Canaan
- The Israelites wandering in the wilderness
- The book of Job
- The Tower of Babel

I could go on and on. These are all stories and just stories. To pretend there is evidence behind them is to perpetuate ignorance. It is this type of ignorance that leads people to persecute gay people, to oppose stem cell research, to kill their children by praying instead of bringing them to doctors, to subvert the science educations of kids by not teaching them about evolution, and again, I could go on.

People die due to religious ignorance. Families are destroyed due to religious ignorance. Religious ignorance is probably the single most destructive force on the face of this planet and certainly has been the most destructive force in my own personal life. So, when I see somebody attempting to bolster that ignorance, promote it, expand it, or attempt to prop it up with an air of respectability I have every right to cry bullshit.

One thing I want to make sure to clarify. The researchers who carried out this work are not to blame for the journalistic stupidity. They are good, honest, respectable researchers and they have discovered something really interesting and fascinating. It's just something interesting that has nothing to do with the Bible and the journalist was an idiot to try to claim it did. I'm impressed by their work, but annoyed by the journalist.
zoomfly

Hi Ryan,
I too appreciate your commentary.
The enemy's best technique, however, ist to divide and conquer. Of course, children and adults alike are damaged through believing stories that probably never happened -- but evolution is not the answer either.
Please check out the following link
http://corbettreport.com/index.php?sortby=Episode&orderby=ASC&keyword=eugenics&i=Episodes&xsearch=1
Steve the Grouch

There is so much wrong with your diatribe, I scarcely know where to begin. Let's start with horses and carts: Religious value aside, the Bible, Torah, etc.,all represent, in part, partial records of events which may have actually happened, and hence such texts are useful for purposes of corroboration with other ancient records. Simple, huh? It is not entirely outside the realm of possibility that asteroids and comets have hit the earth and, in some cases, the events were witnessed and so impressed the ancients that the latter recorded the incidents, first by word of mouth and later wrote possibly corrupted accounts down. How can we infer if such events actually occurred? By gathering as many independent sources of history as possible, the Bible being perhaps the best known and studied example of such, in the Western world, at least.

But the event was in Austria! So what? Oral accounts get garbled and asteroids, heated up on entry to Earth's atmosphere can calve, sending chunks of debris in many different directions. Perhaps one such chunk landed somewhere in the Middle East and took out a bunch of Sumerians Gone Wild.

"Ok, let's analyze this..." This is really funny. You don't "analyze" anything, you simply offer up mere conjecture couched in technical-sounding terms. Who knows if S&G existed? I certainly don't. However, I do find the biblical *physical* description of their destruction exceedingly interesting.

"Look, the Israelites made up the story... to explain some unusual ruins and salt formations " Another knee-slapper: You have no clue as to what the Israelites made up or why they did it, but you are joining the ranks of those for whom you profess irritation: people who substitute their own ill-formed opinion for "reason."

I could go on, but why bother? Scientific religionists are almost as tedious as TV preachers and sometimes more intolerant. But why, oh why, do people want to believe all that religious stuff? Oddly enough, many folks rebel at the thought of being nothing more than soulless meat-machines whose existences carry no significance beyond that lent to them through the homeostatic illusions presented to their "minds" by their fleshy neural nets. And it's hard to tell a little kid that her beloved, dead grandpa is just a roadkill raccoon rotting along the Darwinian Superhighway to nowhere. Stories about "comfort and joy" seem to work better in such circumstances, don't you know?

Lighten up. From a philosophical perspective, if the Bible, etc. are true, you won't know until you die and perhaps you'll find that God, the gods, the Holy Whatever, et al grades on a curve or even actually gives extra credit for sarcasm and skepticism. And if the holy texts aren't real in any sense and the gods are mere phantoms, then you won't know anything when you shuffle off your mortal coil-- you simply won't exist and the Universe will putter along in its purposeless, absurd way until it gets too cold to function. In any case, I'm personally not going to lose any sleep over the archaeological Biblical correlates and I suggest you do likewise.

To paraphrase Bart Simpson, "Don't have a Holy Cow, man!"
Jeff

You are such a euhemerist!
ryan

Mark,

Thanks for dropping in and clarifying that. I would have suspected that the Biblical spin was applied by the journalist seeing what a ridiculous stretch it is. Glad to have that straight.

Susan,

Did you even write what I read? Look, according to the Bible there was a destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah in 1900 BCE. This is an asteroid that struck in Austria 1200 years earlier. Yes, while in the sky it was observed in Sumer, no it could not possibly be held responsible for some story about the destruction of a city 1200 years later. Let's play a little game of perspective. Let's say that 3800 years from now people know nothing about 9/11 except a story about the destruction of the World Trade Center by "fire from heaven" sometime 3800 years earlier. This story was written in the year 3000 by people who had no connection to the actual event. Then some future archaelogists find a Mayan inscription about a comet observed in the year 800 and some writer speculates that the Mayan comet provides evidence to support the destruction of the World Trade center. That is precisely how absurd this contention is. You can't just conflate all past events and observations into each other, but that's what people do.

Why do I care? Why get upset about it? A few reasons. As a humanist I find it extremely disrespectful towards all the non-Judeo-Christian cultures of the world to behave as if they are irrelevant unless they somehow plug into our mythology. As a person who cares about truth and reason it's frustrating to have misinformation, pseudo-science and fuzzy religious thinking defining national policy, keeping my family members in a religious cult, destroying the education system in my country and basically gumming up the works all around. There are some bits of archaeology that confirm some parts of the Bible. We just don't need more fake evidence in support of mythological stories that reasonable people need to argue against when confronted by religious people trying to drum up "evidence" for their religions.

This discovery is awesome on it's own and it's evidence that the Sumerian culture was advanced and very interesting. We don't need to pretend it has something to do with the Bible.
susan

So, let me get this straight. You are saying that because an asteroid striking The Alps and continuing forward was observed by someone in Iraq it could not possibly be related to a catastrophic event in southern Israel/Sinai?

Seems to me that the thing was huge and moving pretty freakin' fast and could, yes, have traveled right past this ancient observer before coming to rest.

And why does it bother you so much that some may or may not be trying to connect these events? If you don't believe anything, why the heck are you getting so agitated? Power down, dude.
mark hempsell

I actually agree with you. Finding a record of such an incredible event accurate to 10 minutes and 1 degree after 5000 years is (to use your words) “wicked cool” and this is what the book is about. The words “Sodom and Gomorrah” do not appear anywhere in it. But whereas you and I find this sufficiently jaw droppingly astounding in its own right, Lewis Smith who wrote the Times article clearly did not. I have posted my position on myths related to the event on the FAQ page of our Kofel website

http://www.bris.ac.uk/aerospace/research/dynamicsandsystems/kofels/
Andrew

Oh, please! You know that the important thing in any religion isn't if something happened, it's if you believe it! No need to prove anything really. And if you truely believe it, it's because it really happened, right? After all, how can something that you truely believe in couldn't happen?!?!

That's why I'm a true FSM believer!
ryan

I know there isn't a such thing as a hay molecule. I was just having fun with language. I'm sure you already realized that, but thanks for calling me a dimwit anyhow. :-)
James

Why is it that if a scientific discovery manges, in some tangential, tortured way, to verify a bible story, then Christians jump on it. However, if a scientific discovery disprived the bible, then the Christians say that science and theology are non-overlapping magesteria? If science can't be used to disprove the bible, then it shouldn't be used to prove it either. Frakin' crazy.

p.s. There's no such thing as a hay molecule, you dimwit. Hay is a heterogeneous mixture of many, many chemicals. If you'd read the Awake! you'd know these things.

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