Father Sky

The Star V March 12, 2011

Been  busy the last few weekends so I am just now getting back to this.

If you’ve followed these Star posts at all you might be wondering what exactly I am trying to prove. I’ve brought up a number of scripture passages that certainly seem to indicate the various authors were at least familiar with the workings of astrology. Does that mean I am saying they believed in and/or practiced astrology? No. The point I am trying to make is that in those early times there was much about the workings of the world that was mysterious and just couldn’t be explained by simple observation. Many of those mysteries came from the heavens. And astrology was a popular method of making sense of it all while maintaining a somewhat attractive “mystery” in itself.

So I am suggesting that astrological language and assumptions were so much a part of society in those days that they couldn’t help but include its terminology in their writings.

Perhaps not a perfect example, but think of sports in our American English today. How many times have you “tackled” a problem? Did you “strike out” asking the boss for a raise? Or “go the extra mile” for your friend? You don’t have to be a baseball or football player to use that language. Anyone can use it and everyone understands what you are saying. So when the author of Revelations says, “Morning Star”, everyone in that day knows he is talking about the planet Venus.

So the astrology language I shared in The Star III was all about how heavenly bodies can and do influence our lives, just as is suggested in astrology. In the Star IV I shared some examples of the importance of where these heavenly bodies are in the sky as well as noting the time, just as astrology does.

In this post I’ll briefly talk about symbolic names. Today when the subject of, say, Mars comes up we usually think of some Hubble image or perhaps some grade school lesson on the 9 planets. But in astrology the heavenly bodies take on a special status and suddenly Mars becomes the masculine Roman God of War.

So lets look at Genesis 37:9-10, “Behold, I have dreamed yet a dream and behold, the Sun and Moon and eleven stars bowed down unto me. And he told it to his father and to his brethren; and his father rebuked him and said unto him: What is this dream that thou has dreamed? Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren come to bow down before thee to the earth?”

This of course, is one Josephs dreams that got him into so much trouble with his brothers. But lets look closer at what it actually says. The first sentence is suppose to be a quote from Joseph about his dream. Each of the important characters are celestial bodies; the Sun, Moon and Stars. The last sentence is suppose to be a quote from his father. Here he is telling us what the dream means. The Sun is the father, the Moon is Josephs mother and the eleven stars are his brothers.

So the symbolism is obvious; Sun=Father, Moon=Mother, etc. But perhaps more significant is the use of the astrological terminology of human attributes for celestial bodies as well as the importance of dream interpretation. The author used that language because it was well understood.

I mentioned Venus as the “Morning Star” earlier. We see this reference in both the old and new testaments. Venus is certainly the brightest “star” in our sky (aside from our sun which wasn’t thought of as a star then). It’s only natural for special spiritual significance be assigned to this beautiful beacon. When the author of Revelation gives this quote to Jesus (Rev 22:16) “I am the root and the offspring of David, the bright morning star”, I don’t believe he is asking us to believe that Venus is Jesus. But he knows his audience.  He knows Venus was highly revered so why not ask his readers to think of Jesus as they gaze upon it’s brilliance? Rather than deny the astrological significance of Venus, he turned it to his advantage by attempting to redefine the star.

So when you see terminology such as the sun governs the day and the moon governs the night or for the lights in the expanse of the heavens to… be for signs and for seasons, the scriptures used language that was familiar to it’s audience and at least some of that terminology was astrological.

If nothing else, I hope these Star posts open your eyes to more than one interpretation of these old texts. We will shift gears slightly next time as I attempt to fill in some details on the Magi.