'''Immanuel Velikovsky''' (1895-1979) was a [[Jewish]] [[cosmologist]], [[historian]] and [[psychologist]] who in the 1950s proposed a radical new interpretation of [[ancient history]] and the evolution of the [[solar system]] in order to reconcile [[Biblical]] accounts with observed fact. In particular, he hypothesised that the planet [[Venus]] was originally a comet ejected from [[Jupiter]] around 1450 BC, and went careering around the solar system disrupting the orbits of both [[Mars]] and [[Earth]] before settling into its present orbit. These disruptions, he believed, could account for all the apparent impossible things described in the Bible, from the parting of the [[Red Sea]] to the sun standing still. To accompany his astronomical theories he devised a totally new chronology for [[Ancient Egypt]], moving the end of the Middle Kingdom to 1450 BC and making it coincide with the [[Exodus]]. | '''Immanuel Velikovsky''' (1895-1979) was a [[Jewish]] [[cosmologist]], [[historian]] and [[psychologist]] who in the 1950s proposed a radical new interpretation of [[ancient history]] and the evolution of the [[solar system]] in order to reconcile [[Biblical]] accounts with observed fact. In particular, he hypothesised that the planet [[Venus]] was originally a comet ejected from [[Jupiter]] around 1450 BC, and went careering around the solar system disrupting the orbits of both [[Mars]] and [[Earth]] before settling into its present orbit. These disruptions, he believed, could account for all the apparent impossible things described in the Bible, from the parting of the [[Red Sea]] to the sun standing still. To accompany his astronomical theories he devised a totally new chronology for [[Ancient Egypt]], moving the end of the Middle Kingdom to 1450 BC and making it coincide with the [[Exodus]]. |