Isaiah 4 – Blessings Under the Messiah & Stonehenge

ThinkingSo what happened to all of the people?

1 And in that day seven women shall take hold of one man, saying, We will eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel: only let us be called by thy name, to take away our reproach.

1 Glastonbury Abbey
Glastonbury Abbey was a monastery in Glastonbury, Somerset, England.
The ruins are now a grade I listed building, and a Scheduled Ancient Monument and are open as a visitor attraction. The abbey was founded in the 7th century and enlarged in the 10th, before a major fire in 1184 destroyed the buildings.

It was rebuilt and by the 14th century was one of the richest and most powerful monasteries in England. The abbey also controlled large tracts of surrounding land and was instrumental in major drainage projects on the Somerset Levels. The abbey was suppressed during the Dissolution of the Monasteries under King Henry VIII of England.

The last abbot, Richard Whiting (Whyting), was hanged, drawn and quartered as a traitor on Glastonbury Tor in 1539. From at least the 12th century the Glastonbury area was frequently associated with the legend of King Arthur, a connection promoted by medieval monks who asserted that Glastonbury was Avalon. Christian legends have also claimed that the abbey was founded by Joseph of Arimathea in the 1st century.

2 In that day shall the branch of the LORD be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the earth shall be excellent and comely for them that are escaped of Israel.

3 And it shall come to pass, that he that is left in Zion, and he that remaineth in Jerusalem, shall be called holy, even every one that is written among the living in Jerusalem:

4 When the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and shall have purged the blood of Jerusalem from the midst thereof by the spirit of Judgment, and by the spirit of burning.

5 And the LORD will create upon every dwelling place of mount Zion, and upon her assemblies, a cloud and smoke by day, and the shining of a flaming fire by night: for upon all the glory shall be a defence.

6 And there shall be a tabernacle for a shadow in the daytime from the heat, and for a place of refuge, and for a covert from storm and from rain.

Stonehenge

2 Stonehenge
Designed to lie along the axis of the sun, the Stonehenge temple catches the sun right at its heart during the midsummer sunrise. The temple is composed of 75 massive sarsen stones erected between three and a half and five thousand years ago.

For a set of craggy rocks in an English field, Stonehenge’s ability to capture the imagination is impressive. The ancient monument — composed of massive stones arranged into concentric circles by unknown builders — is referenced almost as far back the Norman Conquest, when an English historian remarked in 1130 A.D. that “no one can conceive how such great stones have been so raised aloft, or why they were built here.

That certainly hasn’t kept many from trying. It seems like everyone has a theory for why the ruins were constructed. Some are more plausible than others.

With March 20 marking the vernal equinox (one of two days during the year where day and night are the same length) attention turns to one of the more persistent theories for Stonehenge’s origin.

In a 1965 book, “Stonehenge Decoded,” astronomer Gerald Hawkins offered the then-most comprehensive hypothesis to date of Stonehenge’s purpose. Hawkins saw the cluster of stones, constructed in phases from around 3100 B.C. through 1600 B.C., as an ancient astronomical calendar. (See pictures of the seven wonders of the world.)

In his analysis, he identified 165 separate points on the monument, and linked them to astrological phenomenon like the two solstices and equinoxes and lunar and solar eclipses.

3 The Slaughter Stone
The Slaughter Stone – Lying within the entrance is an un-worked and now recumbent stone, stained a rusty red caused by rainwater acting on iron, and known as the Slaughter Stone.

This stone is about 21-ft long, and although it was originally upright, it is now fallen and has now sunk so deep that only its upper end shows.

Hawkins makes note that while all the other stones were either bluestone or sarsen, the so called slaughter-stone is of fine-grained pale green sandstone, containing so many flakes of mica that its surface, wherever freshly exposed, shows the typical mica glitter.

It’s a difficult theory to disprove completely and some evidence is persuasive — at dawn on the summer solstice, for example, the center of the Stonehenge ring, two nearby stones (The Slaughter and Heel Stones) and the sun all seem to align.

Still, critics of Hawkins’ theory say he gives the ancient builders too much credit, arguing they wouldn’t have had the sophistication or precision necessary to predict all the astrological events Hawkins’ ascribes to his Stonehenge calendar. And plus this is England after all — wet, overcast England. The climate may have prevented the ancient people of Stonehenge from even seeing the sky with regularity.

But then again, we must remember that Ancient Man could do things we cannot do, such as the pyramids so they may not be as unintelligent as these critics think.  Also, just because England is usually overcast now doesn’t mean it was 3,000 years ago.

Still, Hawkins’ theory is one of the more legitimate attempts at a Stonehenge explanation.

In the 12th Century, the legend of King Arthur wasn’t completely regarded as fiction. In his account of Stonehenge, historian Geoffrey of Monmouth wrote that troops tried to move the stones from Ireland to England in order to provide a monument for their war dead.

4 preseli mountains
Preseli Mountains
The fact that Stonehenge was not built overnight does not in any way diminish the scale of the undertaking.

But how could this have been achieved by a Neolithic society?

Given the sheer size and weight of the stones, what ingenious devices were employed?

And what of the stones?

They are not typical of the local geology- indeed, the source of the blue-stones, the first stones erected, has now been traced to the Preseli Mountains of south-west Wales.

Somehow these enormous stones were transported to the Salisbury Plains.

The stones were surely too heavy for timber rollers.

When they couldn’t, they enlisted the help of the wizard Merlin to transport the massive stones — some weighing as much as 50 tons — back to Britain before arranging them in the current configuration.

In a modern twist on Geoffrey’s account, some argue that space aliens, rather than Merlin, constructed Stonehenge. These theories feed off the fact that no one’s exactly sure how the rocks got to their present location — the origin of some were traced as far as a Welsh mountain range 137 miles away from the Stonehenge.

Although modern tests employing only technology from the era have moved similar stones, there’s still no full explanation for how ancient people managed such a feat. Hence, aliens.

I believe there are other people on other planets, but I’m not sure if they visit earth.

But I believe there are demons that people call aliens.

Some theories are even more inventive.

In the 1920s, a Brit named Alfred Watkins attempted to connect Stonehenge with other sites in England, arguing that when taken together, they served as landmarks to navigate through the island once dense, now vanished, ancient forest.

He called these routes “ley lines” and the theory developed a sizable following, though trained archaeologists were dubious about this amateur’s theory.

Another hypothesis is that the configuration is meant to resemble a giant vulva, as a means of tribute to an ancient fertility god. Others argue that Stonehenge was a place of ancient healing, and archaeologists have discovered skeletons at the site riddled with crude wounds, perhaps indications of rudimentary surgery.

The current consensus (if such a thing even exists) is that Stonehenge was used as a burial site. Archaeologists have found skeletal remains at the site dated to a 500-year period beginning in 3000 B.C. One dubbed the site a “domain of the dead” and say the bodies found likely belong to a select group of elite ancient people. It’s the most solid evidence yet, but it doesn’t preclude Stonehenge having a dual purpose as an astrological calendar or as a religious site. The only thing certain is that as the sun rises and sets to mark another equinox, another day will pass with the complete answer of the site’s origins still firmly lodged in the past. Perhaps that’s how it’s meant to be.

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