Is the Gospel in the Stars?

A critique.

Abbreviations

S = Seiss, The Gospel in the Stars
B = Bullinger, The Witness of the Stars
f = and the one following
ff= and the two following
sq= and more than two following
Numbers after S, B are page nos.

Outline

S, B, and I myself, agree that:
I. The claim of a revelation of the gospel through the constellations should be supported by Scripture
II. It should be consonant with history
III. The proposed revelation in the stars should communicate

Point I

[Ideas of S, B stated first, then my comments]
(i) S 10ff. Gen.1:14 - the stars as 'signs' must signify something beyond what is naturally deducible from them - in fact, they signify the gospel. BUT in Ezek.4 the 'sign' has a direct relation to what it signifies. The context of Gen.1:14 suggests only calendar, navigation and similar things.

(ii) S 11. Astrology is the perversion of a divine stellar science. BUT astrology, and all other methods of divination, are perversions of God's ways of guiding and communicating to us in general. Divination includes palmistry but there doesn't seem to be a divine science of the hand; similarly for other methods of divination.

(iii) S 12. The wise men were led to Jesus by astronomical signs, which needed a gospel prophecy in the stars. BUT 'his star' (Mt.2:2) must have been something other than the constellations which are always there. They did not necessarily need the "gospel in the stars" system; it would have been enough to have a statement analogous to [1] :

When Jupiter is eclipsed by the Moon, there will be want in Palestine.
When Venus is seen in Virgo, the crops of Palestine will prosper.

(iv) S 12f. Ps.19:1 - the heavens declare the glory (kbd) of God - and his full glory is Christ, so that must be meant. BUT in Prov.25:2 the glory (kbd) of God has a much narrower meaning. B 6 says Ps.19 means the heavens tell God's purposes and counsels, and B 1 says the 'invisible things' of Rom.1:20 are God's plans, purposes and counsels. BUT Ps.19:1a, b are parallel and b specifically says 'his handiwork'; Rom.1:20 specifies the 'invisible things' as his eternal power and deity. So Ps.19:1-6 is about the revelation of God in nature as creator and sustainer.

B 1. Rom.10:17f - 'words' are the teachings of the stars leading to faith. BUT as above, Paul did not take Ps.19 in the sense of gospel teachings. Rom.10:15, 16 apply Isaiah to the preaching of Paul's day, and v.18 could be doing the same, 'their voice' referring to the preachers of v.14f.

(v) S 16, 20f. Job 26:13 - God himself distinguished the constellations, and the 'fleeing serpent' is Hydra or Cetus or the Zodiac. BUT v.13a is translated differently now: 'By his wind the heavens are made fair' (RSV; NEB is similar). Also the Hebrew nchsh (serpent) brch (fleeing) is a description of Leviathan in Is.27:1, who is associated with tnn, the dragon. Ps.74:14 mentions the heads (plural) of Leviathan. These monsters also occur in Ugaritic literature: Ltn (Leviathan) is [2]

'the brch serpent, the close-coiling one of seven heads'.
'Have I not put a muzzle on tnn, ... smitten the brch serpent ... with seven heads.'
Hydra and Cetus have one head. Hence the fleeing serpent in Job is a sea monster (cf. Job 26:12), and the verse does not attribute the selection of constellation figures to God.

(vi) S 149, B 7f. Job 9:9; 38:31f mention some of the constellations claimed to be named by God (see vii below), and they are the same groupings that we know, the mazzaroth being the 12 signs. BUT at that early date the mazzaroth were probably the "lunar mansions" or some other early set of constellations; it is far too early for the 12 zodiacal constellations (see under Point II). Orion and the Pleiades seem to be acceptable translations, but 'Arcturus' (9:9) is 'Aldebaran' in NEB. Two star groups (or 3, or 4) do not amount to much.

(vii) B 7. Is.40:26; Ps.147:4 - the stars' names were given by God. BUT the Hebrew phrase is qr' b-shm, to call by name, used of Bezalel in Ex.31:2 and of Cyrus in Is.45:3f; these verses hardly mean giving the name - their force is God's appointment of these men. (The last statement in Is.45:4 is about giving Cyrus' title, cf. 44:28; 45:1). Even Is.43:1 stresses God's care.qr' primarily means to speak audibly. I take the verses in Is.40; Ps.147 to refer to God's control over the stars as their creator, but their names as of human origin.

(viii) S 151f. Gen.3:15 - Adam knew the gospel. Lk.1:69f; Acts 3:21 - there have been prophets from the beginning of the world, all of whom spoke of Christ. Jude 5 - Enoch prophesied. BUT Gen.3:15 does not say very much. Luke and Acts both use the Greek phrase ap aionos 'from an indefinitely long period' [3], hence they include several prophets but not definitely Adam. Adam is nowhere called a prophet. We do not have many O.T. prophecies of Christ. The verses need not be pressed to mean that every prophet spoke of Christ. Acts 3:21, Jude 5 refer to the end time, not the gospel in toto. I see no original gospel revelation implied.

The idea of S, B is that the first man Adam was a prophet who explained the meaning of the gospel in the stars. BUT then, his words would be a far more valuable testimony than the constellations. We are asked to believe that the whole gospel was revealed to Adam, but never again until the time of Christ, and that Adam successfully transmitted some things (Gen.3:15) but not the whole. Very difficult to accept!

(ix) B 10f. Gen.11:4 - the tower's top carried a representation of the heavens. BUT Hebrew b-shmm, 'in the heavens' occurs in Dt.1:28 of cities 'fortified up to heaven'. Hence the meaning is that the tower was to be very tall (nearer the gods?). I do not believe that the tower near Babylon, said to have had a zodiac on the top (now missing), was precisely the tower of Babel.

(x) Ps.89:37b - there is a faithful witness in the sky (AV). BUT the faithful witness seems to be the moon (cf. Jerusalem Bible). RSV, NEB translate from a conjectural amendment: 'while the skies endure'.

(xi) B 1. God did not leave himself without a gospel witness. BUT even now there is none in some places. See (iv) on Rom.1:19f.

HENCE I see no glimmer of evidence in the Bible for the "gospel in the stars". In particular, the whole gospel was not revealed to Adam; God did not give the stars and constellations their names; Ps.19:1-6 is only about general revelation of God as creator and such like; Rom.10:17f does not alter the case; Gen.1:14 does not prove any esoteric signhood of the heavenly bodies.

Point II

S & B take 12 zodiacal signs and their 36 decans as ancient and universal systems. I am afraid the historical facts are otherwise. A great deal has been discovered since the time of S & B.

(i) Egypt. B 9 puts the originals of the Dendera and Esna zodiacs at c.4000 B.C. According to O. Neugebauer & R.A. Parker [4], no Egyptian zodiac can be dated from the position of its constellations (and this was proved by 1846!); the oldest ones are Esna A: c.200 B.C.; Dendera B: late Ptolemaic before 30 B.C.; Dendera E: c. A.D.20; Esna B: A.D. 69-96.

There were two ancient systems of Egyptian decan stars, the rising decans and the transit decans. The Egyptian names of the zodiacal decans of 10 degrees were taken from among the names in both those systems [5]

(ii) Babylon. S 154, B 12 quote the Babylonian Epic of Creation and read the zodiacal signs into it (perhaps following some scholar). In fact, the 3 stars for each month (nothing zodiacal!) were in 3 belts, an equatorial one and others to the South and North of the equator. These 36 stars developed into the Chaldean decans.

The text ^mulAPIN (c.700 B.C.) has 11 of the zodiacal constellations, omitting Capricorn. Zodiacal signs of 30 degrees date only from the 5th cent. B.C. [6]

Some say the 30 degree signs are not earlier than the 4th cent. B.C. The mulAPIN list has 16 constellations, and lists of 16 constellations continued until the 5th cent B.C.

The sign Libra has also been the Claws of Scorpio. The Sumerian name for Aries is 'the hired labourer', and for Cetus is 'the plot of land'. [7]

(iii) India. The earliest constellation system in India was their system of "lunar mansions" (nakshatras), known from the 2nd millennium B.C. The names are quite different in meaning from the Arabic system used in S 142 - e.g.: Arabic Al Awa, 'the desired', Indian Hasta, 'hand'; Arabic -simak-, 'branch of the power of God', Indian Citra, 'bright'.

The zodiacal signs came into India from outside. The decan constellations used by S, B are not known in India. Instead there are symbolic figures, some partial descriptions from the 6th cent. A.D. being [8]:

Virgo decan 1: young woman with pot of flowers;
2: man holding a pen;
3: woman holding water pot & ladle.

China. There is an ancient "lunar mansion" system; and later the zodiacal signs.

HENCE I do not see any one original constellation system but many, developing in some regions to the 12 signs with their 36 decans, and developing in other regions to the "lunar mansion" systems. The 12 zodiacal constellations were no doubt an earlier system than the 12 signs of 30 degrees. The Arabic names used by S, B need not be very ancient. They depended on the Arabic etymologies of Frances Rolleston (S 6, B iii), which E.W. Maunder says were fanciful [9]. The "gospel in the stars" depends on a system of constellations which was not universal.

Point III

When points I, II are viewed as above, the theory rests solely on the claimed interpretation of the stars and star-groups. History does not help, and the biblical evidence cited by S, B could at most corroborate the theory if it were documented elsewhere. Knowing the gospel, people saw it in the stars. Merely seeing the stars, one could easily make up very different stories. There is no evidence that anyone in ancient times ever read the gospel from the stars. How could God's amazing love be imagined without special revelation? I see no evidence for such a revelation of the gospel in the stars, and it does not square with the progressive revelation we see in the Bible.

S 140 quotes Job 11:6 to justify multiplication of revelation, in the lunar mansions, Milky Way, 12 tribes, and foundations of New Jerusalem correlated with the 12 signs. BUT the verse is translated differently in modern versions. The mere fact that S can read different aspects of the gospel in all these 4 systems suggests that he could have got a gospel message out of almost any system, or rather, that he could read the gospel into it.

References

Seiss, Joseph A., The Gospel in the Stars. Kregel Publications reprint, 1972 (back to Seiss)
Bullinger, Ethelbert W., The Witness of the Stars. Kregel Publications reprint, 1974 (back to Bullinger)
[1] R.C. Thompson, Reports of the Magicians and Astrologers of Nineveh and Babylon in the British Museum, vol.II, nos. 192, 211. London, 1900 (back to [1])
[2] J.Gray, The Legacy of Canaan, 2nd edn. p.30f. Supplements to Vetus Testamentum, E.J. Brill, 1965 (back)
[3] G. Abbott-Smith, A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament. Edinburgh, 1937 (back to [2])
[4] O. Neugebauer & R.A. Parker, Egyptian Astronomical Texts, p.203f. Brown University, 1969 (back to [4])
[5]ibid., pp.168-171 (back)
[6] B.L. van der Waerden, 'Babylonian astronomy II', Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 8, 6-26, 1948 (back to [5])
[7] E. Burrows, The Oracles of Jacob and Balaam, p.4sq and under Issachar. London, 1938;
      E.O. James, Myth and Ritual in the Ancient Near East, p.225. London, 1958;
      O. Neugebauer, The Exact Sciences in Antiquity, 2nd edn. pp.102, 140. Brown University, 1957;
      B.L. van der Waerden, 'History of the zodiac', Archiv f. Orientforschung, 16, 216-230, no.2 of 1953 (back to [7])
[8] Varahamihira, Brihat Jataka, 27.16ff (back to [8])
[9] B. Ramm, The Christian View of Science and Scripture, p.97f, n.5. London, 1955. He quotes E.W. Maunder, The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, I, 300-316 (back to [9])

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Last updated: 07 January 2005