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Show Page 291 celestial calendar might also suggest connections with the astronomical 51 activities of Abraham in Egypt, as recounted in the Pearl of Great Price. Smyth's "pyramid inch" hypothesis, along with Orson's modifications, resists any but a subjective interpretation; therefore, few competent authorities believe that the structure incorporates some kind of cabalistic formula. Nevertheless, the pyramids continue to mystify us. Clearly their construction required Immense mathematical and engineering skill; the Great Pyramid itself is aligned so closely to the four cardinal points of the compass that the variation is hardly worth mentioning. And there does seem to be an astronomical link - the apex angle reproduces exactly one-seventh of the arc of the sky, which may have had mystic significance to the Egyptians. In any case, Orson thought the four-sided monument part of a grand pattern of revelation dealing with the heavens, which had once been available to ancient dispensations and then renewed 52 through Joseph Smith. Mormon commentary has drawn a possible connection between the Great Pyramid and the facsimiles which play such an important 53 part in the Book of Abraham. Whatever the specific relationships may be, authorities on the ancient world agree that the monuments of Egypt grow out of some "sacred astronomy." One of them has said: "The pyramids...give evidence for a joining of the earth and the sky, an ontological involvement with the cosmos... the feeling today is that there was an underlying principle in Egyptian philosophy that has not yet been fully understood." 54 Orson's speculations show an increasing pre-occupation with the "winding-up scene." His Egyptian "discoveries" merely coincided with the prophetic pattern he had embraced in 1830 - "this is the later times, near the dawn of the millennium; in the morning of the seventh thousand 55 years, great events will transpire..." Knowing that his own time was nearly gone, he preached a farewell discourse to the Saints of Great |