The Super Moon
According to Discovery News, Romantics, werewolves and other moon gazers are in for a treat this weekend as they witness the biggest full moon seen in nearly 20 years. But experts are discounting predictions of earthquakes associated with the event. The moon’s orbit is elliptical, and as it follows its path, one side of the ellipse, known as perigee, passes about 50,000 kilometers (31,000 miles) closer than the on the other side — apogee.
A perigee full moon appear around 14 percent bigger and 30 percent brighter than an apogee full moon. Geoffrey Wyatt from Sydney Observatory says this upcoming full moon, which NASA’s website says will be of “rare size and beauty,” will rise at about 08:00 pm (AEDT) on Saturday. But it becomes full on Sunday morning at 05:10 am (AEDT), one hour before lunar perigee.
And wow, here’s another fascinating story from the same issue of Discovery News (finally!): GOD’S WIFE EDITED OUT OF THE BIBLE — ALMOST
God’s wife, Asherah, was a powerful fertility goddess, according to a theologian.
THE GIST – God, also known as Yahweh, had a wife named Asherah, according to a British theologian. Amulets, figurines, inscriptions and ancient texts, including the Bible, reveal Asherah’s once prominent standing. God had a wife, Asherah, whom the Book of Kings suggests was worshiped alongside Yahweh in his temple in Israel, according to an Oxford scholar. Asherah — known across the ancient Near East by various other names, such as Astarte and Istar — was “an important deity, one who was both mighty and nurturing,” Wright continued. “Many English translations prefer to translate ‘Asherah’ as ‘Sacred Tree,'” Wright said. “This seems to be in part driven by a modern desire, clearly inspired by the Biblical narratives, to hide Asherah behind a veil once again.” “Mentions of the goddess Asherah in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) are rare and have been heavily edited by the ancient authors who gathered the texts together,” Aaron Brody, director of the Bade Museum and an associate professor of Bible and archaeology at the Pacific School of Religion, said. Asherah as a tree symbol was even said to have been “chopped down and burned outside the Temple in acts of certain rulers who were trying to ‘purify’ the cult, and focus on the worship of a single male god, Yahweh,” he added.
Beauty Mountain 
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