The aliens and the granary
Ben Carson recently repeated his theory that the pyramids were built by Joseph and his Egyptian friends to serve as a granary so they could prepare for the seven “lean years” of famine that Joseph expected based on his careful reading of one of the Pharaoh’s dreams. Previously, certain important people had made a lot of money betting on the numbers revealed by Joseph’s dream analysis, and so everyone had a lot of confidence in his predictions. His ability to interpret dreams came to him suddenly after he was hit in the head and carried off in the slave trade.
Not everyone accepts Carson’s theory. Certain “professors” have an entirely different story. They claim the pyramids were built over many centuries before the time of Joseph in order to house certain high-class bodies of the Egyptian kings and their retinue(s). These little burial chambers, which were very hard to find even when you were looking for them, also housed little mirrors and gold amulets and similar stuff, none of which is usually associated with storing grain. These cynical “professors” are the same guys who believe in evolution and the “big bang” and other liberal doctrines. Their views, spread around by the media, are accepted blindly by credulous scientists, at least outwardly, although Carson suspects that inwardly, in their heart of hearts, many of them believe differently.
Ben Carson has a lot of respect for scientists. He particularly admires the scientists who discovered anesthesia and the surgical table. But by no means does he accept scientific doctrine uncritically. He points out, for instance, that some scientists have said in the matter of the building of the pyramids, “Well, you know, there were alien beings that came down and have special knowledge,” and that’s how the pyramids were built, initially upside-down. He rejects this as unlikely. Joseph could have managed without them by careful planning and organization—if he was inspired.
I think it is usually healthy and sensible to have a skeptical attitude, but, perhaps, in this matter of the pyramid aliens, Carson is too skeptical. The pyramids are very big and symmetrical. This kind of structure is very hard to build, even if you had a very long ruler. The Egyptians had no knowledge of the compass. Isn’t it possible—just possible—that Joseph was aided by aliens who had all sorts of equipment which they needed to build their spaceships? They probably had calculators and knew trigonometry, which is tricky, as everyone knows. Trigonometry has a lot of formulas that you have to memorize. Maybe the aliens took over in an advisory capacity. And maybe—just maybe– despite all their advanced knowledge, the aliens miscalculated. That would explain why the Egyptians carelessly built the pyramids with solid rock and forgot to leave room for the grain. I cannot believe that Joseph, being inspired, would have made such an elementary mistake on his own if he weren’t being pushed around by aliens, who might have looked like they knew what they were talking about since they were flying around in a spaceship.
The trouble is that when you are a clear-thinker like Carson, you begin to trust too much to your first impression. You get to be smug. Carson needs to read up more about aliens before he expresses a considered opinion. (I’m not speaking about Mexicans.) (c) Fredric Neuman