On Graham Hancock

Up until a couple of weeks ago, I had no idea who Graham Hancock was. There is currently a series on Netflix called "Ancient Apocalypse" and because it aligned with my interests, I watched it. If you aren't familiar, the 8-part series has been labeled a documentary, and the central character is Graham Hancock, who has spent the last 30+ years of his life traveling to ancient sites all over the world and developing a theory (which appears to be borrowed from others). The theory is that there is some kind of lost ancient civilization, pre-flood, and that certain members of that pre-flood civilization survived and passed on their advanced knowledge to the post-flood survivors throughout the rest of the World. The Ancient Apocalypse series is very well done - its a bit over-the-top in terms of production - engaging and interesting. Having said that; I was firm in my own mind, after finishing the documentary, that while I appreciate what Hancock has brought together, I can't agree with his conclusions because our worldviews very different. He is not a believer and as far as I can tell, he is firmly against the idea of a Creator God. Having said all that, the series was enough to interest me in what else Graham Hancock has put out there. He is an accomplished author as well, with several titles available for purchase, and after reviewing my options, I decided to read "Magicians of the Gods", his 2017 update to his original best-selling book, "Fingerprints of the Gods."

I had a couple of lengthy car rides over the Thanksgiving break and so I finished that book in a few days. I then listened to an episode of the Joe Rogan podcast that he did in early November (just a few weeks ago) and after taking all of that in, I decided to go and see what his opponents say. I read a lengthy critical review of his 'Magicians of the Gods' book that was particularly scathing. With that as the backdrop, I wanted to share my take on his work, from the point of view of someone with a Biblical worldview.

God's Story in the Stars - Mazzaroth (Part 1)

I have to credit Tim Miller for turning me on to this topic. I was in riding in a van with him some time ago and this topic came up in conversation and what he told me was something I had never even heard before...so that set me to exploring and researching. What follows is the result of that work, all thanks to that conversation. This all all overview of what I have learned from others. A book that I highly recommend and which I will cite several times, it entitled, "The Mystery of the Mazzaroth" by Tim Warner. I also recommend a video you can find on YouTube called "The Star of Bethlehem" (Rick Larson). There is another series of 3 videos on YouTube called "Mazzaroth - Story of Yeshua" by Russell Judd which I also highly recommend.

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"The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world." (Psalm 19:1-4, NIV)

There have been times, over the past two and half years, where I feel like God has specifically brought something to my attention and this is one of those things. Generally speaking, if I take something on, I feel the compulsion to research it exhaustively and with God knowing that about me, I believe He does this on purpose. This is one of those things and I have to say at the outset, it has been so profoundly inspiring and encouraging, I couldn't wait to share it. It started, as I mentioned in the brief introduction above, with a relatively benign conversation that I was only a hearer of. Someone who I have a lot of respect for, Tim Miller, had written a children's book several years ago entitled "The Heavens Declare" and someone else asked him a question related to that book. In his answer, Tim was talking about how the constellations tell God's story, which was an idea I had never heard before. That same night, I stayed over at a friend's house and happened to be using one of their kid's rooms (thank you again, Parks' family!) and the next morning, I was getting ready and noticed on the wall a printout of the twelve constellations of the Zodiac. I thought to myself, "what are the odds? I have this stuck in my head and now I see it, randomly, printed out." It felt like God was tapping me on my shoulder saying "Adam, I want you to look at this." And so I started looking into it, and it is more fantastic than I could have imagined. Not only is it reinforcement of God's wonderful plan for the restoration of the Kingdom, but it also reinforces just how thorough and creative and merciful our God is.

This is going to be another multi-part series of posts. I want to introduce the ideas first and then dig deeper in subsequent posts.