Latest News
NEWS October 2024
OCTOBER 2024 The recent cyber attack on the Internet Archive is deplorable and can be reasonably compared with the repeated burning of the Great Library of Alexandria. I have used the Wayback Machine extensively, but, until the full extent of the permanent damage is clear, I am unable to assess its effect on Atlantipedia. At […]Read More »
Joining The Dots
I have now published my new book, Joining The Dots, which offers a fresh look at the Atlantis mystery. I have addressed the critical questions of when, where and who, using Plato’s own words, tempered with some critical thinking and a modicum of common sense.Read More »
Serranus
Serres, Jean de
Jean De Serres (1539-1598) was a French historian, who was also known as Serranus. He was a Protestant pastor of Nismes, but his learning has been described as “very inaccurate”. He produced a Latin translation of Plato’s Dialogues in the style of Ficino.
In 1578 Serranus was probably the first to suggest that Atlantis was located in what was referred to as the Holy Land, later Palestine and that the Flood of Noah had destroyed it.[1652]
>There is some dispute regarding whether Serranus had specified a location for Atlantis that he favoured. Thorwald C. Franke has suggested that Pierre Vidal-Naquet had erroneously implied that Serranus had opted for America or the Holy Land as Atlantis. Nevertheless, what Franke makes much clearer is that Serranus was in no doubt about the reality of Atlantis when he wrote;
“So the narration of this entire dialogue is completely historical … … … not as a mythical commentary, but as a bare and simple historiography … … … Plato rightly denies that it is a myth , and on the other hand confirms that it is true logos …” (a)<
(a) Jean de Serres (Serranus) – Atlantisforschung.de (atlantisforschung-de.translate.goog) *
Holy Land
The Holy Land is a term used to refer to that part of the eastern Mediterranean that the Old Testament records as having been given to the Israelites by God. It is now comprised of Israel, Palestinian territory, along with parts of Jordan and Lebanon.
The Holy Land was suggested by Serranus (Jean de Serres) in 1570 as the location of Atlantis. This idea was later echoed by Gerardus Johannis Vossius and Carl Fredrich Baër who was Swedish but lived in France during the 18th century. Another Swede, Johannes Eurenius also placed Atlantis in Holy Land in his 1751 book.>Peter Van Eys, a Dutchman, also favoured the idea in a 1715 dissertation [1222]. Further support came from the German scholar Johann Albert Fabricius (1668-1736).<Another 18th-century scholar, Jacques Julien Bonnaud was of the opinion[0967] that when Plato wrote about Atlantis, he was imperfectly describing the Holy Land! His book, Hérodote historien du peuple hébreu sans le savoir is available as a free ebook(a).
>Atlantisforschung, commenting on Van Eys, concluded(c) that “it should be noted that the heyday of the ‘Atlantis in the Holy Land’ thesis’ was already over in his day. It is true that in 1826 – a year before the publication of his doctoral thesis – the ‘dissertation sur le Critias de Platon’ by the French scholar Claude-Mathieu Olivier appeared, who took the view that Plato’s Atlantis report was basically represents a description of events from the early days of the Jewish people. However, these and similar writings of the 18th century only represented the short-lived renaissance of an already outdated ‘Bible-true view of Atlantis’.”<
In recent times a more radical view has been proposed by Professor Jaime Manuschevich who has identified modern Israel together with the Sinai Peninsula as the true site of Atlantis.
Ryan Pitterson, the author of Judgement of the Nephilim [1620], contends that Atlantis was situated on the Golan Heights, overlooking the Sea of Galilee and currently occupied by Israel. The region is home to Gilgal Refaim, an archaeological site consisting of several concentric stone walls with demonstrable astronomical alignments. In a US promotional radio interview the subject of Atlantis was touched on and was later highlighted by the UK’s Express newspaper with the hackneyed ‘Atlantis Found?’ headline(b).
(a) https://books.google.ie/books?id=QQooAAAAYAAJ&oe=UTF-8&redir_esc=y (French)
(c) Peter van Eys – Atlantisforschung.de (atlantisforschung-de.translate.goog) *