The Astronomy of the Bible, E. Walter Maunder [the reading strategies book TXT] 📗
- Author: E. Walter Maunder
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The ancients counted the planets as seven, numbering the moon and the sun amongst them. The rest were Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. They recognized no satellites to any planet. We have no evidence that the ancient Semitic nations considered that the moon was more intimately connected with the earth than any of the other six.
But though the planets were sometimes regarded as "seven" in number, the ancients perfectly recognized that the sun and moon stood in a different category altogether from the other five. And though the heathen recognized them as deities, confusion resulted as to the identity of the deity of which each was a manifestation. Samas was the sun-god and Baal was the sun-god, but Samas and Baal, or Bel, were not identical, and both were something more than merely the sun personified. Again, Merodach, or Marduk, is sometimes expressly identified with Bel as sun-god, sometimes with the divinity of the planet Jupiter. Similarly Ashtoreth, or Ištar, is sometimes identified with the goddess of the moon, sometimes with the planet Venus. It would not be safe, therefore, to assume that reference is intended to any particular heavenly body, because a deity is mentioned that has been on occasions identified with that heavenly body. Still less safe would it be to assume astronomical allusions in the description of the qualities or characteristics of that deity. Though Ashtoreth, or Ištar, may have been often identified with the planet Venus, it is ridiculous to argue, as some have done, from the expression "Ashteroth-Karnaim," Ashteroth of "the horns," that the ancients had sight or instruments sufficiently powerful to enable them to observe that Venus, like the moon, had her phases, her "horns." Though Nebo has been identified with the planet Mercury, we must not see any astronomical allusion to its being the nearest planet to the sun in Isaiah's coupling the two together, where he says, "Bel boweth down, Nebo stoopeth."
Isaiah speaks of the King of Babylon—
The word here translated Lucifer, "light-bearer," is the word hēlel from the root halal, and means spreading brightness. In the Assyrio-Babylonian, the planet Venus is sometimes termed Mustēlel, from the root ēlil, and she is the most lustrous of all the "morning stars," of the stars that herald the dawn. But except that her greater brilliancy marks her as especially appropriate to the expression, Sirius or any other in its capacity of morning star would be suitable as an explanation of the term.
St. Peter uses the equivalent Greek expression Phōsphorus in his second epistle: "A light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn and the day-star" (light-bringer) "arise in your hearts."
Isaiah again says—
"Ye are they that forsake the Lord, that forget My holy mountain, that prepare a table for that Troop, and that furnish the drink offering unto that Number."
"Gad" and "Meni," here literally translated as "Troop" and "Number," are in the Revised Version rendered as "Fortune" and "Destiny." A reference to this god "Meni" has been suggested in the mysterious inscription which the King of Babylon saw written by a hand upon the wall, which Daniel interpreted as "God hath numbered thy kingdom, and brought it to an end." By some commentators Meni is understood to be the planet Venus, and Gad to be Jupiter, for these are associated in Arabian astrology with Fortune or Fate in the sense of good luck. Or, from the similarity of Meni with the Greek mēnē, moon, "that Number" might be identified with the moon, and "that Troop," by analogy, with the sun.
It is more probable, if any astrological deities are intended, that the two little star clusters—the Pleiades and the Hyades—situated on the back and head of the Bull, may have been accounted the manifestations of the divinities which are by their names so intimately associated with the idea of multitude. The number seven has been held a sacred number, and has been traditionally associated with both the little star groups.
In one instance alone does there seem to be any strong evidence that reference is intended to one of the five planets known to the ancients, when worshipped as a god; and even that is not conclusive. The prophet Amos, charging the Israelites with idolatry even in the wilderness, asks—
"Have ye offered unto Me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel? But ye have borne the tabernacle of your Moloch and Chiun your images, the star of your god, which ye made to yourselves."
But the Septuagint Version makes the accusation run thus:—
"Ye took up the tabernacle of Moloch and the star of your god Remphan, figures which ye made to worship them."
This was the version which St. Stephen quoted in his defence before the High Priest. It is quite clear that it was star worship to which he was referring, for he prefaces his quotation by saying, "God turned and gave them up to serve the host of heaven, as it is written in the book of the prophets."
The difference between the names "Chiun" and "Remphan" is explained by a probable misreading on the part of the Septuagint translators into the Greek, who seemed to have transcribed the initial of the word as "resh," where it should have been "caph"—"R" instead of "K,"—thus the real word should be transliterated "Kaivan," which was the name of the planet Saturn both amongst the ancient Arabs and Syrians, and also amongst the Assyrians, whilst "Kevan" is the name of that planet in the sacred books of the Parsees. On the other hand, there seems to be some difficulty in supposing that a deity is intended of which there is no other mention in Scripture, seeing that the reference, both by Amos and St. Stephen, would imply that the particular object of idolatry denounced was one exceedingly familiar to them. Gesenius, therefore, after having previously accepted the view that we have here a reference to the worship of Saturn, finally adopted the rendering of the Latin Vulgate, that the word "Chiun" should be translated "statue" or "image." The passage would then become—
"Ye have borne the booth of your Moloch and the image of your idols, the star of your god which ye made for yourselves."
If we accept the view that the worship of the planet Saturn is indeed referred to, it does not necessarily follow that the prophet Amos was stating that the Israelites in the wilderness actually observed and worshipped him as such. The prophet may mean no more than that the Israelites, whilst outwardly conforming to the worship of Jehovah, were in their secret desires hankering after Sabæism—the worship of the heavenly host. And it may well be that he chooses Moloch and Saturn as representing the cruellest and most debased forms of heathenism.
The planet Saturn gives its name to the seventh day of our week, "Saturn's day," the sabbath of the week of the Jews, and the coincidence of the two has called forth not a few ingenious theories. Why do the days of our week bear their present names, and what is the explanation of their order?
The late well-known astronomer, R. A. Proctor, gives the explanation as follows:—
"The twenty-four hours of each day were devoted to those planets in the order of their supposed distance from the earth,—Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury, and the Moon. The outermost planet, Saturn, which also travels in the longest period, was regarded in this arrangement as of chief dignity, as encompassing in his movement all the rest, Jupiter was of higher dignity than Mars, and so forth. Moreover to the outermost planet, partly because of Saturn's gloomy aspect, partly because among half-savage races the powers of evil are always more respected than the powers that work for good, a maleficent influence was attributed. Now, if we assign to the successive hours of a day the planets as above-named, beginning with Saturn on the day assigned to that powerful deity, it will be found that the last hour of that day will be assigned to Mars—'the lesser infortune,' as Saturn was 'the greater infortune,' of the old system of astrology—and the first hour of the next day to the next planet, the Sun; the day following Saturday would thus be Sunday. The last hour of Sunday would fall to Mercury, and the first of the next to the Moon; so Monday, the Moon's day, follows Sunday. The next day would be the day of Mars, who, in the Scandinavian theology, is represented by Tuisco; so Tuisco's day, or Tuesday (Mardi), follows Monday. Then, by following the same system, we come to Mercury's day (Mercredi), Woden's day, or Wednesday; next to Jupiter's day, Jove's day (Jeudi), Thor's day, or Thursday; to Venus's day, Vendredi (Veneris dies), Freya's day, or Friday, and so to Saturday again. That the day devoted to the most evil and most powerful of all the deities of the Sabdans (sic) should be set apart—first as one on which it was unlucky to work, and afterwards as one on which it was held to be sinful to work—was but the natural outcome of the superstitious belief that the planets were gods ruling the fates of men and nations."[136:1]
This theory appears at first sight so simple, so plausible, that many are tempted to say, "It must be true," and it has accordingly gained a wide acceptance. Yet a moment's thought shows that it makes many assumptions, some of which rest without any proof, and others are known to be false.
When were the planets discovered? Not certainly at the dawn of astronomy. The fixed stars must have become familiar, and have been recognized in their various groupings before it could have been known that there were others that were not fixed,—were "planets," i. e. wanderers. Thus, amongst the Greeks, no planet is alluded to by Hesiod, and Homer mentions no planet other than Venus, and apparently regarded her as two distinct objects, according as she was seen as a morning and as an evening star. Pythagoras is reputed to have been the first of the Greek philosophers to realize the identity of Phosphorus and Hesperus, that is Venus at her two elongations, so that the Greeks did not know this until the sixth century before our era. We are yet without certain knowledge as to when the Babylonians began to notice the different planets, but the order of discovery can hardly have been different from what it seems to have been amongst the Greeks—that is to say, first Venus as two separate objects, then Jupiter and Mars, and, probably much later, Saturn and Mercury. This last, again, would originally be considered a pair of planets, just as Venus had been. Later these planets as morning stars would be identified with their appearances as evening stars. After this obscurity had been cleared up, there was a still further advance to be made before the astrologers could have adopted their strange grouping of the sun and moon as planets equally with the other five. This certainly is no primitive conception; for the sun and moon have such appreciable dimensions and are of such great brightness that they seem to be marked off (as in the first chapter of Genesis) as of an entirely different order from all the other heavenly bodies. The point in common with the other five planets, namely their apparent periodical movements, could only have been brought out by very careful and prolonged observation. The recognition, therefore, of the planets as being "seven," two of the seven being the sun and moon, must have been quite late in the history of the world. The connection of the "seven planets" with the seven
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