by Todd Fries
He turned and addressed two people on his right.
“I know that all of you have met Jacob Logan, our biblical scholar, but I don’t believe you’ve had the pleasure of meeting Miss Jillian Green.”
Everyone at the table turned their attention to this bright looking young lady. She was tall and thin and her jet black hair complimented her bronzed complexion. Clearly she was of Indian descent and wore the traditional Sari and wrapped garments. They were of fine silk and the colors were beautiful, flowing in pearl, aqua and topaz. Around her neck were a string of beads that shone brightly against her dark skin and she bore all the beauty of an Arabian night.
It was funny that they didn’t even notice this colorful piece of art in their presence, but they had been so fixated on the General, that they stepped back in surprise as if she had suddenly appeared within their midst. She nodded her head in greeting as the General returned to his opening statements.
“Jillian has a name that fits well with her profession. She’s a botanist.”
Everyone turned their eyes back to this magnificent young lady. The General explained.
“I brought her here to study how we might grow plants on Proxima b. We know from Nickolas’s journey, that the planet could support plant life, provided we brought artificial lighting and developed irrigation techniques to bring water to the fields. Our scientists have already grown plants in the regolith brought back from Proxima b, so we know that cultivating crops are possible. What we need now is an expert gardener to determine the best types of seeds to bring. We also need to know what has the best chance of survival in this unique environment.”
He paused for effect before proceeding, but not before being interrupted by Major Brooks.
“So are you saying you’ve made a decision?”
The General held out his hand as if to say “wait a minute” and finished his statement.
“One possible recommendation is that we send a scientific team to explore a new world with the intention of proving that we can grow and sustain crops on this far flung outpost in space. While I haven’t made my final decision, I intend to make an announcement after the wedding, so anything you hear today is in the strictest confidence. What’s said in this room, stays in this room.”
The table broke into a clamor of simultaneous conversations. Everyone had questions and nobody was listening to what the other was saying. It was simply a babel of confused expletives and comments, but the General used his coffee cup as a gavel and brought the room to a hush.
“May I have your attention? The only way you are going to get your questioned answered is to listen. I have more to say. First let me discuss how I came to my conclusions. As you all know, I’ve been consulting with Jacob on the Triune text that Hannah successfully translated on our last mission. As always, the hallmark of this group is that we need to think outside the box and Jacob is about as outside the box as we can get. Jacob was one of the researchers who submitted papers related to the report I’ve been studying. His revelations and findings are intriguing.
When I asked him to come here, it was with the intention of proving or disproving that we had a hidden message buried deep within the text discovered inside and outside of SM1, including the books found in the library. If there was a message from the builder, I needed to do everything possible to decode it.”
He pointed to Hannah.
“No offense to you Hannah. You did a great job of translating the text, but if we were to find any hidden meanings in the script, I needed the talents of someone like Jacob.”
Hannah Responded.
“No offense taken.”
The General continued.
“My decision has to be based on solid facts if my recommendations are to be accepted. So I need every piece of evidence to support my case. This cannot appear to be a biased or uninformed conclusion, so gathering the best experts was my way of dealing with the volumes and volumes of information. There were many people I brought here that you didn’t know about, but in the interests of this project, these are my final two specialists. Jacob and Jillian.
It is my feeling that after weeks of detailed and painstaking study that these two have the most to offer.”
Nickolas asked a question.
“So who’s going on this quest?”
“We’ll get to that in a moment. But first, you have to understand the basis for my meeting. Let me start with introducing Jacob Logan. He has a brief presentation. Try to keep up.”
The General moved out of the way because he was sitting right in front of the overhead projector and screen. Jacob stood and attached his laptop to the projector, displaying some text and numbers. He started his presentation.
“Good Morning. Thank you for attending this briefing. I know this is catching many of you by surprise, but the General felt it was important to leave the subject matter confidential until you were gathered together in one place. Given the sensitive nature of the information, he felt it best to leave the agenda unspoken until now.”
He cleared his throat and sipped from a glass of water before redirecting his attention to the screen.
“I’m sure that many of you have heard about secrets contained in words and letters of the Hebrew alphabet and arithmetic is one of the tools for ferreting out these hidden messages. In many cases, the Hebrew spellings reflect the deeper meaning of the verse or phrase. In addition, each letter in the alphabet also has a number assigned to it. It is this number that contains the greater meaning.
For instance, the divine name YHWH (pronounced eheyeh) is the “I Am that I Am” of Exodus 3:14 and is spelled with the letters which stand for the numbers 1, 5, 6 and 10, precisely because these numbers have tremendous mathematical import. I won’t go into detail on the math, but the number 1 is “the cause of all numbers, but isn’t itself a number. The number 10 resembles the number 1, because it is both the end of the ‘single digits’ and the beginning of the ‘tens’. More ever, 5, 6 and 10 all share the same property in common. The ‘powers’ of these three numbers will maintain in the final digit - the same final digit which they have in the first ‘power’. Does this make any sense?”
The room was silent and everyone had blank stares on their faces. Jacob took a step back and explained.
“Ok, think of it this way. The phrase, ‘Lord Jesus Christ’ in the original Greek has a value of 3168. You may recall that the Jesus was the ONE who actually did the speaking for God when the universe was created. His number, 3168 can be found all over Creation. The diameter of the solar system is 3168, with lots of zeros behind it. Put the Moon on top of the Earth and draw a circle around the two and the same 3168 comes up, 31680 miles. If you have the right map, you’ll find Bethlehem laying on latitude 31.68 degrees north, and so on and so on. Does this help?”
Everyone nodded their heads and leaned forward. Jacob took note of their body language and continued.
“Because of these factors, General Reynolds asked me to find any association with Proxima in the bible. Since Nickolas felt compelled to go there, we wanted to look for clues using the Hebrew text in conjunction with the new Triune symbols. In order to do this, I had to start with biblical stars and constellations.
For instance, the specific twelve constellations we recognize today as the zodiac are referred to as the Mazzaroth in Hebrew. We find this word used in Job 38:32, which means that Mazzaroth was used very early in history, as the book of Job was probably the earliest completed book in the bible. In Job 26:13, Job says that God formed the constellation figures. The ‘fleeing serpent’ mentioned here is Hydra, a constellation that takes seven hours to pass overhead because of its long length.
There are some indications in the Bible that there was something going on ‘up there’ in the sky that we’re no longer aware of, but that people generations ago knew about. We still have access to that knowledge today within the Word itself. So as I studied in Job 9:9, I understood that the glories of the sky mentioned in Job include a sidereal landscape vaguely de
scribed as ‘The Chambers of the South.’ This phrase according to the astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli, referred to some assemblage of stars rising 20 degrees above the southern horizon in Palestine about the year 750 B.C., which we assume to be the time of the Patriarch Job. Using the math and taking into account the changes due to precession, the stellar map of that time would have included the constellations Aquarius, Canopus, The Southern Cross and Centaur.
Please note that these constellations would have still been visible in the northern hemisphere over 2000 years ago, but aren’t now. This is because of the way the axis of the earth wobbles a bit. Here let me show you.”
He turned to his computer and projected a map of the stars.
Everyone perked up and examined the star chart in great detail. Jacob continued with his presentation.
“As you can see, the triune star system is almost in the center. Proxima cannot be seen with the naked eye, but is positioned just below Centauri a and b.” These two stars point the way to the cross.”
He moved to the other side of the projector.
Image via AstroBob
“In this instance, we are facing the cross, but seen from Christ’s perspective, the three stars would be on his right hand side. The Scripture has several words translated ‘right’ and the meaning of the term, ‘right hand’ ranges from a direction, to the opposite of wrong, what is just, or what confirms to an established standard as well as a place of honor and authority.
The word ‘Proxima’ looks like this when translated into Hebrew script.
פרוקסימה
The numbers of this word are 8, 40, 10, 600, 100, 500 and 800. 8 + 4 + 6 + 1 + 5 + 8 = 33, which is how old our Savior was when he left this Earth.”
Nickolas spoke up.
“You’re losing me here, what’s this have to do with anything?”
Jacob stopped and addressed him.
“Let’s take a step back. It is my belief that Proxima is just a rest-stop on the way to our true ‘second home.’ The planet known as Proxima b, in my opinion, is only a jumping off point to other more compatible star systems. Think of it as our ‘first-step’ into the cosmos.”
He paused for a moment and pointed directly at Nickolas.
“I know this because of a clue provided by you.”
Nickolas seemed surprised.
“Me?”
“Yes. Do you remember your excavation on the Shoulder of Hinnom?”
Nickolas remembered it very well. He was excavating several tombs on the “Shoulder of Hinnom,” on the southwestern slope of the Hinnom Valley, when he found a burial cave containing about 700 items. Inside he found pottery, jewelry, arrowheads, bone and ivory artifacts. But among the items was a rolled-up amulet bearing the Tetragrammaton, the name of God (the consonantal letters yod, he, waw, he), YHWH.
For him it was a major find. It was determined to be the oldest extra-biblical evidence for the name of God recovered in Jerusalem. Nickolas answered him.
“Absolutely, this is where I met my wife Natasha. How could I forget.”
Jacob questioned him.
“Do you understand the term Tetragammaton?”
Everyone nodded their head - ‘no’.
“The name Yahweh may be derived from the verb that means ‘to be’, or ‘to exist’, ‘to cause to become’, or ‘to come to pass’. The books of the Torah and the rest of the Hebrew Bible contain the word YHWH. But religiously observant Jews typically don’t pronounce it aloud or to themselves in silence, nor do they read aloud transliterated forms such as Yahweh, instead the word was substituted with a different term, whether used to address or to refer to the God of Israel. The fact that you found it rolled up in an amulet allowed your long dead person to keep the word of God close to him without saying or thinking about the name.”
He pulled out another slide and continued.
“This got me to thinking about the Hebrew ‘Tree of Life.’”
Hannah shared her thoughts.
“Tree of Life?”
“Yes. The Tree of Life, or Etz haChayim (עץ החיים) in Hebrew, is a classic descriptive term for the central mystical symbol used in the Kabbalah of esoteric Judaism, also known as the 10 Sephirot. It’s a diagrammatic representation, arranged in 3 columns or pillars. The tree, visually or conceptually, represents a series of divine emanations including God's creation itself, the nature of revealed divinity, the human soul, and the spiritual path of ascent by man. In this way, Kabbalists developed this symbol into a full model of reality, using the tree to depict a map of Creation. But not only creation, but as a map to the stars and man’s ascent into space.”
Jacob displayed a visual representation of the Tree of Life.
Everyone in the room was transfixed by the image in front of them. To be honest, they weren’t sure what to make of it as was so far out of their common knowledge. It seemed rather confusing and they hoped that Jacob would explain it all in layman’s terms. Jacob replaced the current image by displayed an English translated version of the “Tree of Life.” In that moment Jacob sensed their anxiety, so he pointed to the bottom of the diagram and continued to explain.
“While the “Tree of Life” is not a part of Christian beliefs or in the bible, this Jewish icon serves to illustrate some basic concepts of the Christian view of creation. Let me put it to you this way. Let’s start at the bottom of the ‘Tree of Life.”
Images courtesy of Wikipedia (public domain).
“Malkuth (shown at the bottom of the Tree of Life) means ‘Kingdom’. It relates to the physical world like planets in a solar system. It’s the starting point and the furthest from the Divine Source (Kether) at the top of the ‘Tree of Life’. God resides above creation, so the beginning of the universe is placed above the Kether (or crown) and then all of the Sephiras below it allow the Divine energy to flow down to find its expression, and for our purpose as human beings, to bring that energy around the circuit and back up to the top of the Tree. As I just stated, in their concept, God resides above the Tree and the (Kether) represents the beginning of creation, which came from a source of infinite energy and limitless light.
The Kabbalists didn’t envision time and space as pre-existing. Remember; God created the universe, which includes time and all the matter that makes up the cosmos. This is why they placed these concepts at the next three states on the ‘Tree of Life.’ First was (Kether), representing infinite energy and limitless light. It was out of this where all things were created. The next stage was (Chokmah) or Wisdom and Binah, which is Understanding. This was the point at which the infinitely hot and contracted energy expanded into space and time. It was always described as a dynamic energy, forever propelled forth at a speed faster than light. Finally (Binah) was seen as the cooling and nourishing of God’s newly created (space and time) as we know it.
As we move down the ‘Tree of Life’ we see the (Chesed and Geburah) which are typically associated the hands and are main instruments of action, just as the (Hod) and (Yesod) are described as feet, which are the only means for a person’s activity.
Remember the Hebrew character for yud ג or ‘foot’ as it resembled a person in motion? “
Hannah nodded her head and smiled. Jacob acknowledged her with a wink and continued.
“So when you look at the (Yesod) you’ll notice that it has four paths for the traveler that lead to (Geburah, Tiphereth, Natzach and Hod.) The Tiphereth is like the human heart and feeds energy to all the other parts of the body.”
As stated before. God resides above the Tree, the (Kether) is the beginning of creation. The (Binah) and (Chokhmah) deal with Wisdom and Understanding.”
He pointed back again to the top of the ‘Tree of Life.’
“God created the universe and though his Wisdom and Understanding, used his hands to create and his feet to move about creation, building everything we see around us out of nothing but his word.”
Nickolas pointed to the image.
“What is (Daath)?”
Jacob answered.
“Daath is the Sephira of creation that I just described. It is here that the tidal forces of positive and negative come together to be used for the benefit of the physical world. It is sometimes referred to as the secret Sephira.”
Major Brooks interrupted Jacob.
“This is all well and good, but how does this help us.”
Jacob answered.
“Good question. Please understand that I need to give you the background on this before you can truly understand the concepts without having to go through all the math, which would really bore you.”
Everyone laughed. Jacob continued.
“As you know, I deal with a lot of symbolism in my line of work, but much of it is based on concrete concepts that are born of language, mathematics and the written word.”
“And prayer!” General Reynolds blurted out.
Jacob looked embarrassed and then recovered.
“Yes Prayer. General Reynolds. It’s also intuition and being able to understand the context of your search. In this case, I was looking for references to Proxima as it related to Nick’s trip. I remembered reading about his detailed descriptions of the weather on Proxima b.”
He looked over at Nickolas.
“Do you remember?”
Nickolas couldn’t forget, but when Jacob read the following words from the book of Job, it took on new meaning. He listened carefully as Jacob turned to the page in the bible and cleared his throat before starting.
“Whenever this happens, my heart stops— I’m stunned, I can’t catch my breath. Listen to it! Listen to his thunder, the rolling, rumbling thunder of his voice. He lets loose his lightning’s from horizon to horizon, lighting up the earth from pole to pole. In their wake, the thunder echoes his voice, powerful and majestic. He lets out all the stops, he holds nothing back. No one can mistake that voice— His word thundering so wondrously, his mighty acts staggering our understanding. He orders the snow, ‘Blanket the earth!’ and the rain, ‘Soak the whole countryside!’ No one can escape the weather—it’s there. And no one can escape from God.”
