Sacred Scrolls

A portion of the Sacred Scrolls, specifically, a portion of the Book of Pythia.

The Sacred Scrolls are a set of writings the form the basis of Colonial religion, a polytheistic faith resembling the legends of ancient Greece. The scrolls record much of the alleged history of humanity, including life on Kobol before the great exodus, and the legend of Earth. Portions of the scrolls are used in religious ceremonies, such as the Service of the Dead (Miniseries, Act of Contrition).

Most notable among the Sacred Scrolls is the Book of Pythia, also referred to as the Pythian Prophecy. Written 3,600 years ago by the oracle Pythia, they are believed by some to foretell the current exodus from the Twelve Colonies.

Contents

The contents of the Sacred Scrolls have only been revealed to us in glimpses, through brief quotes, paraphrases and explanations throughout the series. This section serves to catalog those snippets, and is followed by more detailed analysis.

The Book of Pythia

Roslin: Who is Pythia?
Elosha: One of the oracles in the Sacred Scrolls. 3,600 years ago. Pythia wrote about the exile and rebirth of the human race. (The Hand of God)

The Cycle of Time

Leoben: "All this has happened before, and all of it will happen again." (Flesh and Bone)

Six: "All this has happened before, and all this will happen again." (The Hand of God)

Roslin: If you believe in the gods, then you believe in the cycle of time that we are all playing our parts in a story that is told again, and again, and again throughout eternity. (Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part I)

The Dying Leader

Elosha: "And the lords anointed a leader to guide the Caravan of the Heavens to their new homeland." (The Hand of God)

Elosha: She also wrote that the new leader suffered a wasting disease and would not live to enter the new land. (The Hand of God)

Roslin: The scriptures tell us a dying leader lead humanity to the promised land. (Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part I)

A Vision of Serpents

Elosha: "And unto the leader they gave a vision of serpents numbering two and ten, as a sign of things to come." (The Hand of God)

The Serpents Lead the People Into Battle?

Six: "Led by serpents numbering two and ten..." (fragment) (The Hand of God)

A Confrontation at the Home of the Gods

Six: "Though the outcome favored the few, it led to a confrontation at the home of the gods." (The Hand of God)

The Lower Demon

Elosha: The scrolls of Pythia do speak of a lower demon, who helped the people in a time of crisis. (Home, Part I)

The Blaze and the High Road

Elosha: "And the blaze pursued them, and the people of Kobol had a choice. To board the great ship, or take the high road through the rocky ridge."

Valerii (continuing): "And the body of each tribe's leader was offered to the gods in the tomb of Athena." And the great ship was the galleon that departed from here, where we're standing. And it took the founders of the thirteen colonies to their destiny. And those that didn't board the galleon took the high road, a rocky ridge that lead to the tomb. (Home, Part I)

Elosha: The path is supposed to be marked by gravestones. (Home, Part I)

The Gates of Hera

Valerii: That's the spot where your god supposedly stood and watched Athena throw herself down onto the rocks below, out of despair over the Exodus of the thirteen tribes. Athena's tomb, whoever or whatever she really was, is probably up there. (Home, Part II)

The Arrow of Apollo

Roslin: "And the Arrow of Apollo will open the Tomb of Athena." (Home, Part II)

Elosha: The scriptures tell us that Kobol points the way to Earth. (Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part I)

Roslin: According to the scriptures, if we had the arrow of Apollo we could take it down to Kobol and we could use it to open the tomb of Athena and find our way to Earth. (Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part I)

Kobol and the Blood Price

Adama: "And Zeus warned the leaders of the twelve tribes that any return to Kobol would exact a price in blood." (Home, Part II)

History

Pre-Exodus

Elosha: This place is Kobol... birthplace of mankind, where the gods and men lived in paradise until the exodus of the thirteen tribes. (Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part I)

The Exodus

Elosha: How old are the ruins?
Billy Keikeya: Well, we won't know for sure until we send a ground team, but the initial estimates have it on the order of approximately 2,000 years.
Elosha: That's around the time the thirteen tribes first left Kobol. (Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part I)

The Thirteenth Tribe on Earth

Starbuck: The scriptures say that when the thirteenth tribe landed on Earth, they looked up into the heavens and they saw their twelve brothers. (Home, Part II)

Other verses from the Sacred Scrolls

• Adama: "Life here began out there." These are the first words of the Sacred Scrolls… (Miniseries)
• During a Salt Line Ceremony on Galactica: "Their enemies will divide them. Their colonies broken in the fiery chasm of space. Their shining days renounced by a multitude of dark sacrifices. Yet still they will remain always together" (Exodus, Part I).

Sayings

Commander Adama: "The gods shall lift those who lift each other." (Home, Part II)

Cavil: "The gods lift up those who lift each other." (Lay Down Your Burdens, Part I)

Duck: "The gods help those who help themselves." (The Resistance)

These sayings are similar to the Algernon Sydney quote "God helps those who help themselves".

Notes

• The Cycle of Time is apparently a key component of Colonial theology. The notion of a circular progression of time (also known as eternal return or eternal recurrence) is foreign to the ancient Greek religion of which Colonial religion are largely based, but it is a common theme in other religions. Some Hindus believe in an endless cycle of ages called Yugas. The ancient Maya people, as well as the Incas and Aztecs also believed in the circular nature of time. In philosophy, the Stoics, a movement originating in ancient Greece, held the doctrine. In the nineteenth century, the doctrine appears in the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche as a method of life-affirmation.

• The book of Pythia, which contains or is identical to the Pythian Prophecy, was written 1,600 years before the exodus of the thirteen tribes from Kobol, and yet it apparently contains a detailed narrative of the events of the Exodus, and continues to be interpreted as a source of prophecy 2,000 years after its prophecies have (apparently) already been fulfilled. We may thus interpret the entire text as a prophecy, since the events it describes can be firmly dated to a point well after its text was written.

Analysis

Correspondences

Assuming the events following the Fall of the Twelve Colonies are a repetition of the events predicted by Pythia, and which came to pass centuries later, we can make use of the prophecy by first constructing a coherent historical narrative from them and then looking for correspondences with the events of the series.

• The Lower Demon is the Caprica copy of Sharon Valerii
• The Dying Leader is President Laura Roslin
• The "serpents numbering two and ten" are the Vipers of Strike Force Two in the Battle for the Tylium Asteroid.
• The fleet defended by Galactica is the "Caravan of the Heavens".
• The "price in blood" has been paid by various people including Crashdown and Elosha.

The "One Exodus" Interpretation

This interpretation assumes that the timeline is recurring on a scale of 1,600 to 2,000 years, and the exodus from Kobol is a direct parallel to the exodus from the Twelve Colonies. It also makes some correspondences in addition to those above:

• The "Blaze" identified by Sharon Valerii is an earlier parallel to the Cylon attack. The hostile force is the "jealous God", the Lord of Kobol that tried to elevate himself over the others.
• The Home of the Gods is Kobol, and the people of Kobol are the Twelve Colonies, in a somewhat metaphorical sense.

The timeline would proceed thus:

1. The people of Kobol lived in divine utopia with their gods.
2. A hostile force - of which "the blaze" and the "lower demon" were parts - moves against the people of Kobol.
3. The gods appoint a leader afflicted with a wasting disease to lead a "caravan of the heavens".
4. The leader, with the aid of twelve "serpents", wins a perilous battle.
5. The people make their way to the "home of the gods".
6. Athena despairs and commits suicide.
7. The leaders of the people are taken to the Tomb of Athena to be sacrificed to the remaining gods.
8. The body of the people depart in a "galleon" for the colonies.
9. Instructions are left to open the Tomb of Athena.
10. Zeus warns against a return to Kobol.
11. The twelve tribes settle on the Twelve Colonies. The thirteenth tribe settles on Earth.

However, at least three exodus events are documented. Pythia writes of "the exile and rebirth of the human race" (The Hand of God (RDM)) 1,600 years before the exodus of the tribes from Kobol. The third exodus (from the colonies) is underway.

The Origin of Mankind

There are two main theories as to the origin of mankind:

Kobol as the birthplace of mankind

This theory interprets the Sacred Scrolls as literal truth. Humans evolved on Kobol and left the planet in two groups. One group (perhaps the larger) settled on the planets and developed the civilization of the Twelve Colonies; the other left for Earth.

According to some, the Thirteenth Tribe would then arrive on Earth some time in our relative past and influence cultures such as the ancient Greeks and Romans. This would completely contradict modern genetics and cladistics and thus not mesh well with naturalistic science fiction. Another possibility is that the show might take place in a completely alternate reality, in which humans did not evolve on Earth.

Earth as the true origin of the human species

This theory states, that the Sacred Scrolls can't be be taken literally, and are in fact wrong or deliberately misleading in places. Mankind originated on Earth, and at some point in our future leaves it to settle on Kobol. The Thirteenth tribe might have known or suspected that they were originally from Earth and returned there, or there may never have been any trip from Kobol back to Earth or distinct Thirteenth (or more correctly, First) tribe, in spite of what the scrolls report. The other tribes leave for what will later be the Twelve Colonies. Either at that time or even sooner, mankind's true origins are forgotten and people believe that they developed on Kobol; Earth becoming a myth.

With this interpretation, there would be three exoduses, each of which might have been caused by a global catastrophe, with the final one bringing humanity full circle, back to its roots. It could also begin to explain the many parallels in culture and technology between the Colonials and today's Earth.

See Also

History of the Twelve Colonies

The Form of the Scrolls

The Sacred Scrolls have been seen as an actual, ornate scroll (similar to a torah, as shown in the Miniseries), as well as a book (Both Adama and Roslin read what appear to be identically-created books in "Home, Part II").

The total volume of the Scrolls has not been revealed, so it is possible (albeit improbable) that the scroll that Elosha holds in the Miniseries as she swears in President Roslin and holds during the service for the dead may make up only a portion of the total texts, or key readings from the works. A shortened volume may not be different from the Roman Catholic Church's use of missals: A specialized volume containing prayers and readings specific to a celebrant's use during temple ceremonies, Services for the Dead, weddings, dedication ceremonies and the like.

Much of the Scrolls appear to be handwritten. While the technology of the Twelve Colonies obviously support electronic printing and reproduction, it may be that the most authentic copies of the sacred texts are either authentic reproductions from a handwritten copy, or genuine handwritten copies. This practice may be for reasons of authenticity, custom, or aesthetics. The practice is similar to the work and purposes of the scribes before the invention of the printing press in real-Earth history. For comparison, an extreme example of the tradition of handwritten sacred texts in real-Earth history are the sefer Torahs.

Because Sagittarons are traditionally pacifists and do not believe in modern medicine for religious reasons, while the Gemenese traditionally interpret the Sacred Scrolls literally but do not share these practices, it is likely that the Gemenese and Sagittarons have different versions of the Sacred Scrolls, or that the Sagittarons have some supplemental religious document or oral tradition in addition to the Scrolls.

The Service of the Dead

The final rites to the dead offered by Elosha at the end of the of the Miniseries are Sanskrit verses from the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad. Roughly translated, the verse says, "Lead us from Falsehood to Truth, from Darkness to Light, from Death to Immortality."

General Questions

• Who were the Lords of Kobol? Caprica-Valerii does not deny their existence, and the Tomb of Athena strongly attests to her life and death, but she does not believe they were gods. Could they be human leaders that were raised to a divine status later?
• Which god was the "jealous god" that sought to be raised above the others? Is he the same person as the Cylons' one true god?
• What was the nature of the "Galleon?" Was it a large sublight colony ship? Did it have an FTL drive?
• If Roslin is now cured of cancer, can she still be the leader of the Pythian prophecy?
  • Official sources suggested that Roslin's cancer cure in "Epiphanies" may not necessarily be a permanent matter, so the prophecy may still hold true.
• Is it possible that the dying leader may be referring to someone besides Roslin? It could be Admiral Adama as at the beginning of the Miniseries, he was a man who was "wasting away" before the Cylons attacked. He could be possibly another route for the writers to go through as having Adama not being able to enter the land that he and Roslin are leading the fleet to.
• In "The Eye of Jupiter", the Hybrid is looking directly at Baltar while repeating the words "sins revealed... only to the chosen one", referring to. Plus, he did much of the work mapping out the location of the Lion's Head Nebula. Could this indicate that Baltar may be actually responsible for showing the path to Earth, thus fulfilling the role of "the leader"? Given his situation of being distrusted and hated by both Cylon and human, it would appear unlikely that he would survive to reach earth.
• Since the entire Number Three line has been boxed, could one or all of the Threes be considered "dying leaders"? Is it possible that they, and not Roslin, will be instrumental in leading the humans as well as the Cylons to Earth?