The Astronomy of the Bible, E. Walter Maunder [the reading strategies book TXT] 📗
- Author: E. Walter Maunder
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So long as evidence sufficient to demonstrate the Copernican hypothesis was not forthcoming, it was possible for a man to hold the Ptolemaic, without detracting from his scientific position, just as it is thought no discredit to Sir William Herschel that he held his curious idea of a cool sun under the conditions of knowledge of a hundred years ago. Even at the present day, we habitually use the Ptolemaic phraseology. Not only do we speak of "sunrise" and "sunset," but astronomers in strictly technical papers use the expression, "acceleration of the sun's motion" when "acceleration of the earth's motion" is meant.
The question as to whether the earth goes round the sun or the sun goes round the earth has been decided by the accumulation of evidence. It was a question for evidence to decide. It was an open question so long as the evidence available was not sufficient to decide it. It was perfectly possible at one time for a scientific or a religious man to hold either view. Neither view interfered with his fundamental standing or with his mental attitude towards either sun or earth. In this respect—important as the question is in itself—it might be said to be a mere detail, almost a matter of indifference.
But it is not a mere detail, a matter of indifference to either scientist or religious man, as to what the sun and earth are—whether he can treat them as things that can be weighed, measured, compared, analyzed, as, a few pages back, we have shown has been done, or whether, as one of the chief astrologers of to-day puts it, he—
"Believes that the sun is the body of the Logos of this solar system, 'in Him we live and move and have our being.' The planets are his angels, being modifications in the consciousness of the Logos,"
and that the sun
"Stands as Power, having Love and Will united."
The difference between these two points of view is fundamental, and one of root principle. The foundation, the common foundation on which both the believer and the scientist build, is threatened by this false science and false religion. The calling, the very existence of both is assailed, and they must stand or fall together. The believer in one God cannot acknowledge a Sun-god, a Solar Logos, these planetary angels; the astronomer cannot admit the intrusion of planetary influences that obey no known laws, and the supposed effects of which are in no way proportional to the supposed causes. The Law of Causality does not run within the borders of astrology.
It is the old antithesis restated of the Hebrew and the heathen. The believer in one God and the scientist alike derive their heritage from the Hebrew, whilst the modern astrologer claims that the astrology of to-day is once more a revelation of the Chaldean and Assyrian religions. But polytheism—whether in its gross form of many gods, of planetary angels, or in the more subtle form of pantheism,—is the very negation of sane religion; and astrology is the negation of sane astronomy.
"For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: because that, when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things."
FOOTNOTES:[68:1] Josephus, Antiquities, XIII. iii. 1.
CHAPTER VII THE MOONFloods all the deep-blue gloom with beams divine:
All night the splintered crags that wall the dell
With spires of silver shine."
So, in Tennyson's words, sang Jephthah's daughter, as she recalled the days of her mourning before she accomplished her self-sacrifice.
It is hard for modern dwellers in towns to realize the immense importance of the moon to the people of old. "The night cometh when no man can work" fitly describes their condition when she was absent. In sub-tropical countries like Palestine, twilight is short, and, the sun once set, deep darkness soon covers everything. Such artificial lights as men then had would now be deemed very inefficient. There was little opportunity, when once darkness had fallen, for either work or enjoyment.
But, when the moon was up, how very different was the case. Then men might say—
It looks a little paler: 'tis a day,
Such as the day is when the sun is hid."
In the long moonlit nights, travelling was easy and safe; the labours of the field and house could still be carried on; the friendly feast need not be interrupted. But of all men, the shepherd would most rejoice at this season; all his toils, all his dangers were immeasurably lightened during the nights near the full. As in the beautiful rendering which Tennyson has given us of one of the finest passages in the Iliad—
Look beautiful, when all the winds are laid,
And every height comes out, and jutting peak
And valley, and the immeasurable heavens
Break open to their highest, and all the stars
Shine, and the Shepherd gladdens in his heart."
A large proportion of the people of Israel, long after their settlement in Palestine, maintained the habits of their forefathers, and led the shepherd's life. To them, therefore, the full of the moon must have been of special importance; yet there is no single reference in Scripture to this phase as such; nor indeed to any change of the moon's apparent figure. In two cases in our Revised Version we do indeed find the expression "at the full moon," but if we compare these passages with the Authorized Version, we find them there rendered "in the time appointed," or "at the day appointed." This latter appears to be the literal meaning, though there can be no question, as is seen by a comparison with the Syriac, that the period of the full moon is referred to. No doubt it was because travelling was so much more safe and easy than in the moonless nights, that the two great spring and autumn festivals of the Jews were held at the full moon. Indeed, the latter feast, when the Israelites "camped out" for a week "in booths," was held at the time of the "harvest moon." The phenomenon of the "harvest moon" may be briefly explained as follows. At the autumnal equinox, when the sun is crossing from the north side of the equator to the south, the full moon is crossing from the south side of the equator to the north. It is thus higher in the sky, when it souths, on each succeeding night, and is therefore up for a greater length of time. This counterbalances to a considerable extent its movement eastward amongst the stars, so that, for several nights in succession, it rises almost at sundown. These nights of the Feast of Tabernacles, when all Israel was rejoicing over the ingathered fruits, each family in its tent or arbour of green boughs, were therefore the fullest of moonlight in the year.[81:1]
Modern civilization has almost shut us off from the heavens, at least in our great towns and cities. These offer many conveniences, but they remove us from not a few of the beauties which nature has to offer. And so it comes that, taking the population as a whole, there is perhaps less practically known of astronomy in England to-day than there was under the Plantagenets. A very few are astronomers, professional and amateur, and know immeasurably more than our forefathers did of the science. Then there is a large, more or less cultured, public that know something of the science at secondhand through books. But the great majority know nothing of the heavenly bodies except of the sun; they need to "look in the almanack" to "find out moonshine." But to simpler peoples the difference between the "light half" of the month, from the first quarter to the last quarter through the full of the moon, and the "dark half," from the last quarter to the first quarter, through new, is very great. Indian astronomers so divide the month to this day.
In one passage of Holy Scripture, the description which Isaiah gives of the "City of the Lord, the Zion of the Holy One of Israel," there is a reference to the dark part of the month.
"Thy sun shall no more go down; neither shall thy moon (literally "month") withdraw itself: for the Lord shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended."
The parallelism expressed in the verse lies between the darkness of night whilst the sun is below the horizon, and the special darkness of those nights when the moon, being near conjunction with the sun, is absent from the sky during the greater part or whole of the night hours, and has but a small portion of her disc illuminated. Just as half the day is dark because the sun has withdrawn itself, so half the nights of the month are dark because the moon has withdrawn itself.
The Hebrew month was a natural one, determined by actual observation of the new moon. They used three words in their references to the moon, the first of which, chodesh, derived from a root meaning "to be new," indicates the fact that the new moon, as actually observed, governed their calendar. The word therefore signifies the new moon—the day of the new moon: and thus a month; that is, a lunar month beginning at the new moon. This is the Hebrew word used in the Deluge story in the seventh chapter of Genesis; and in all references to feasts depending on a day in the month. As when the Lord spake to Moses, saying, "Also in the day of your gladness, and in your solemn days, and in the beginnings of your months, ye shall blow with your trumpets over your burnt offerings, and over the sacrifices of your peace offerings." And again in the Psalm of Asaph to the chief musician upon Gittith: "Blow up the trumpet in the new moon, in the time appointed, on our solemn feast day." This is the word also that Isaiah uses in describing the bravery of the daughters of Zion, "the tinkling ornaments about their feet, and their cauls, and their round tires like the moon, the chains, and the bracelets." "The round tires" were not discs, like the full moon, but were round like the crescent.
Generally speaking, chodesh is employed where either reference is made to the shape or newness of the crescent moon, or where "month" is used in any precise way. This is the word for "month" employed throughout by the prophet Ezekiel, who is so precise in the dating of his
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