Avebury Stone Circle

I was pleased this week to visit the largest megalithic stone circle in the world. This is found at the Wiltshire village of Avebury, and it is a place I have wanted to pay court for many a year. Much of it was built 2500-3000 years before the birth of Jesus Christ, but for reasons which are not obvious. By the time the Romans came, it had already been abandoned and its origins were as much as mystery to them as to us. Although religion and ceremony are the most obvious contenders, its builders never wrote their reasons down. Today's neo-pagan community which is pleased to tie ribbons to nearby trees and chant and intone in the stones’ shadow are no better informed than a Christian pastor from the northlands.

In a totally different context, the Lord Jesus advised those criticising His followers in Luke 19:40:

But he answered, and said unto them, I tell you, that if these should hold their peace, the stones would cry.

If only these stones could speak! They would point us to the God of the Bible, not the mumbo-jumbo of the ignorant and deluded. They would recall the Japhethitic elders who wished to record their populating these parts in accordance with God’s command after the great Flood.

Interestingly, in 1938, an archaeological team excavated the skeleton of a male from beneath 'Stone 38'. Currency from the 1300s was found close by, and it looks like the man was killed when the stone fell on him whilst he was digging a hole in which it was to be buried, during a medieval enterprise to hide the stones. A pair of scissors were found also; he has been named the local barber-surgeon ever since. We should all do well to heed the words of Proverbs 22:28:

Thou shalt not remove the ancient bounds which thy fathers have made. (Geneva Bible)

This may not just mean burying them as our medieval friend attempted, but assigning to them a shamanism and paganism to which their original builders were alien. Their principal tribal leader had survived Noah’s Flood, and knew well enough the one true God on whom his descendants must call if they were to be spared the next great wave of judgement- the Fire of His coming.