THE ASTRONOMY OF THE BIBLE THE ASTRONOMY OF THE BIBLE AN ELEMENTARY COMMENTARY ON THE ASTRONOMICAL REFERENCES OF HOLY SCRIPTURE E. WALTER MAUNDER, F.R.A.S. AUTHOR OF 'THE ROYAL OBSERVATORY, GREENWICH: JTS HISTORY AND WORK,' AND < ASTRONOMY WITHOUT A TELESCOPE ' WITH THIRTY-FOUR ILLUSTRATIONS LONDON T. SEALEY CLARK & Co., LTD. RACQUET COURT, FLEET STREET, E.C. RICHARU CLAY & SONS, LIMITED,. BREAD STREET HILL, E.G., AND BUNGAY, SUFFOLK. To MY WIFE My helper in this Book and in all things. M98995 PREFACE WHY should an astronomer write a commentary on the Bible ? Because commentators as a rule are not astronomers, and therefore either pass over the astronomical allusions of Scripture in silence, or else annotate them in a way which, from a scientific point of view, leaves much to be desired. Astronomical allusions in the Bible, direct and indirect, are not few in number, and, in order to bring out their full significance, need to be treated astronomically. Astronomy further gives us the power of placing ourselves to some degree in the position of the patriarchs and prophets of old. We know that the same sun and moon, stars and planets, shine upon us as shone upon Abraham and Moses, David and Isaiah. We can, if we will, see the unchanging heavens with their eyes, and understand their attitude towards them. It is worth while for us so to do. For the immense advances in science, made since the Canon of Holy Scripture was closed, and especially during the last three hundred years, may enable us to realize the significance of a most remarkable fact. Even in those early ages, vii viii PEEFACE when to all the nations surrounding Israel the heavenly bodies were objects for divination or idolatry, the attitude of the sacred writers toward them was perfect in its sanity and truth. Astronomy has a yet further part to play in Biblical study. The dating of the several books of the Bible, and the relation of certain heathen mythologies to the Scripture narratives of the world's earliest ages, have received much attention of late years. Literary analysis has thrown much light on these subjects, but hitherto any evidence that astronomy could give has been almost wholly neglected ; although, from the nature of the case, such evidence, so far as it is available, must be most decisive and exact. I have endeavoured, in the present book, to make an astronomical commentary on the Bible, in a manner that shall be both clear and interesting to the general reader, dispensing as far as possible with astronomical technicali- ties, since the principles concerned are, for the most part, quite simple. I trust, also, that I have taken the first step in a new inquiry which promises to give results of no small importance. E. WALTER MAUNDER. St, John's, London, S.E. January 1908. CONTENTS BOOK I THE HEAVENLY BODIES CHAPTER I. THE HEBREW AND ASTRONOMY Modern Astronomy Astronomy in the Classical Age The Canon of Holy Scripture closed before the Classical Age Character of the Scriptural References to the Heavenly Bodies Tradition of Solomon's Eminence in Science Attitude towards Nature of the Sacred "Writers Plan of the Book ..... 3 CHAPTER II. THE CREATION Indian Eclipse of 1898 Contrast between the Heathen and Scientific Attitudes The Law of Causality Inconsistent with Polytheism Faith in One God the Source to the Hebrews of Intellectual Freedom The First Words of Genesis the Charter of the Physical Sciences The Limitations of Science * 'Explanations " of the First Chapter of Genesis Its Real Purposes The Sabbath . 12 CHAPTER III. THE DEEP Babylonian Creation Myth Tiamat, the Dragon of Chaos ^ Overcome by Merodach Similarity to the Scandinavian . Myth No Resemblance to the Narrative in Genesis Meanings of the Hebrew Word tehom Date of the Babylonian Creation Story . . . .25 CHAPTER IV. THE FIRMAMENT Twofold Application of the Hebrew Word raqia Its Etymo- logical Meaning The Idea of Solidity introduced by the " Seventy "Not the Hebrew Idea the " Foundations " of Heaven and Earth The " Canopy " of Heaven The "Stories" of Heaven Clouds and Rain The Atmo- spheric Circulation Hebrew Appreciation even of the Terrible in Nature The "Balancings" and "Spread- ings " of the Clouds The " Windows of Heaven" Not Literal Sluice-gates The Four Winds The Four Quarters The Circle of the Earth The Waters under the Earth The the period of seven days fit precisely into month or season 24 THE ASTRONOMY OF THE BIBLE or year ; the week is marked out by no phase of the moon, by no fixed relation between the sun, the moon, or the stars. It is not a division of time that man would naturally adopt for himself; it runs across all the natural divisions of time. What are the six days of creative work, and the seventh day the Sabbath of creative rest ? They are not days of man, they are days of God ; and our days of work and rest, our week with its Sabbath, can only be the figure and shadow of that week of God ; something by which we may gain some faint apprehension of its realities, not that by which we can comprehend and measure it. Our week, therefore, is God's own direct appointment to us ; and His revelation that He fulfilled the work of creation in six acts or stages, dignifies and exalts the toil of the labouring man, with his six days of effort and one of rest, into an emblem of the creative work of God. CHAPTER III THE DEEP THE second verse of Genesis states, "And the earth was without form and void [i. e. waste and empty] and darkness was upon the face of the deep." The word tehom, here translated deep, has been used to support the theory that the Hebrews derived their Creation story from one which, when exiles in Babylon, they heard from their conquerors. If this theory were substantiated, it would have such an important bearing upon the subject of the attitude of the inspired writers towards the objects of nature, that a little space must be spared for its examination. The purpose of the first chapter of Genesis is to tell us that " In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." From it we learn that the universe and all the parts that make it up all the different forms of energy, all the different forms of matter are neither deities themselves, nor their embodiments and expressions, nor the work of conflicting deities. From it we learn that the universe 25 26 THE ASTRONOMY OF THE BIBLE is not self-existent, nor even (as the pantheist thinks of it) the expression of one vague, impersonal and unconscious, but all-pervading influence. It was not self-made ; it did not exist from all eternity. It is not God, for God made it. But the problem of its origin has exercised the minds of many nations beside the Hebrews, and an especial interest attaches to the solution arrived at by those nations who were near neighbours of the Hebrews and came of the same great Semitic stock. From the nature of the case, accounts of the origin of the world cannot proceed from experience, or be the result of scientific experiment. They cannot form items of history, or arise from tradition. There are only two possible sources for them ; one, Divine revelation ; the other, the invention of men. The account current amongst the Babylonians has been preserved to us by the Syrian writer Damascius, who gives it as follows: " But the Babylonians, like the rest of the Barbarians, pass over in silence the one principle of the Universe, and they constitute two, Tavthe and Apason, making Apason the husband of Tavthe, and denominating her " the mother of the gods." And from these proceed? an only-begotten son, Mumis, which, I conceive, is no other than the in- telligible world proceeding from the two principles. From them also another progeny is derived, Lakhe and Lakhos ; and again a third, Kissare and Assoros, from which last three others proceed, Anos and Illinos and Aos. And of Aos and Dakhe is born a son called Belos, who, they say, is the fabricator of the world." x 1 Records of the Past, vol. i. p. 124. THE DEEP 27 The actual story, thus summarized by Damascius, was discovered by Mr. George Smith, in the form of a long epic poem, on a series of tablets, brought from the royal library of Kouyunjik, or Nineveh, and he published them in 1875, in his book on The Chaldean Account of Genesis. None of the tablets were perfect ; and of some only very small portions remain. But portions of other copies of the poem have been discovered in other localities, and it has been found possible to piece together satisfactorily a considerable section, so that a fair idea of the general scope of the poem has been given to us. It opens with the introduction of a being, Tiamtu the Tavthe of the account of Damascius, who is regarded as the primeval mother of all things. "When on high the heavens were unnamed, Beneath the earth bore not a name : The primeval ocean was their producer ; Mummu Tiamtu was she who begot the whole of them. Their waters in one united themselves, and The plains were not outlined, marshes were not to be seen. When none of the gods had come forth, They bore no name, the fates (had not been determined) There were produced the gods (all of them)." 1 The genealogy of the gods follows, and after a gap in the story, Tiamat, or Tiamtu, is represented as preparing for battle, " She who created everything . . . produced giant serpents." She chose one of the gods, Kingu, to be her husband and the general of her forces, and delivered to him the tablets of fate. The second tablet shows the god Ansar, angered at the 1 The Old Testament in the Light of the Historical Records of Assyria and Babylonia, by T. G. Pinches, p. 16, 28 THE ASTRONOMY OF THE BIBLE threatening attitude of Tiamat, and sending his son Anu to speak soothingly to her and calm her rage. But first Anu and then another god turned back baffled, and finally Merodach, the son of Ea, was asked to become the champion of the gods. Merodach gladly consented, but made good terms for himself. The gods were to assist him in every possible way by entrusting all their powers to him, and were to acknowledge him as first and chief of all. The gods in their extremity were nothing loth. They feasted Merodach, and, when swollen with wine, endued him with all magical powers, and hailed him " Merodach, thou art he who is our avenger, (Over) the whole universe have we given thee the kingdom." 1 At first the sight of his terrible enemy caused even Merodach to falter, but plucking up courage he advanced to meet her, caught her in his net, and, forcing an evil wind into her open mouth " He made the evil wind enter so that she could not close her lips. The violence of the winds tortured her stomach, and her heart was prostrated and her mouth was twisted. He swung the club, he shattered her stomach ; he cut out her entrails ; he over-mastered (her) heart ; he bound her and ended her life. He tferew down her corpse ; he stood upon it." 2 The battle over and the enemy slain, Merodach con- sidered how to dispose of the corpse. "He strengthens his mind, he forms a clever plan, And he stripped her of her skin like a fish, according to his plan." 3 1 The Old Testament in the Light of the Historical Records of Assyria and Babylonia, by T. G. Pinches, p. 16. 2 Records of the Past, vol. i. p. 140. 3 Ibid. p. 142. THE DEEP 29 Of one half of the corpse of Tiamat he formed the earth, and of the other half the heavens. He then pro- ceded to furnish the heavens and the earth with their respective equipments ; the details of this work occupying apparently the fifth, sixth, and seventh tablets of the series. Under ordinary circumstances such a legend as the foregoing would not have attracted much attention. Ifc is as barbarous and unintelligent as any myth of Zulu or Fijian. Strictly speaking, it is not a Creation myth at all Tiamat and her serpent-brood and the gods are all existent before Merodach commences his work, and all that the god effects is a reconstruction of the world. The method of this reconstruction possesses no features superior to those of the Creation myths of other barbarous nations. Our own Scandinavian ancestors had a similar one, the setting of which was certainly not inferior to the grotesque battle of Merodach with Tiamat. The prose Edda tells us that the first man, Bur, was the father of Bor, who was in turn the father of Odin and his two brothers Vili and Ve. These sons of Bor slew Ymir, the old frost giant. "They dragged the body of Ymir into the middle of Ginnungagap, and of it formed the earth. From Ymir's blood they made the sea and waters ; from his flesh, the land ; from his bones, the mountains ; and his teeth and jaws, together with some bits of broken bones, served them to make the stones and pebbles." It will be seen that there is a remarkable likeness between the Babylonian and Scandinavian myths in the central and essential feature of each, viz. the way in which the world is supposed to have been built up by 30 THE ASTRONOMY OF THE BIBLE the gods from the fragments of the anatomy of a huge primaeval monster. Yet it is not urged that there is any direct genetic connection between the two; that the Babylonians either taught their legend to the Scandinavians or learnt it from them. Under ordinary circumstances it would hardly have occurred to any one to try to derive the monotheistic narrative of Gen. i. from either of these pagan myths, crowded as they are with uncouth and barbarous details. But it happened that Mr. George Smith, who brought to light the Assyrian Creation tablets, brought also to light a Babylonian account of the Flood, which had a large number of features in common with the narrative of Gen. vi.-ix. The actual resemblance between the two Deluge narratives has caused a resemblance to be imagined between the two Creation narratives. It has been well brought out in some of the later comments of Assyriologists that, so far from there being any resem- blance in the Babylonian legend to the narrative in Genesis, the two accounts differ in toto. Mr. T. G. Pinches, for example, points out that in the Babylonian account there is " No direct statement of the creation oiMhe heavens and the earth ; "No systematic division of the things created into groups and classes, such as is found in Genesis ; " No reference to the Days of Creation ; " No appearance of the Deity as the first and only cause of the existence of things." l 1 The Old Testament in the Light of the Histwical Records of Assyria and Babylonia, by T. G, Pinches, p. 49, THE DEEP 31 Indeed, in the Babylonian account, " the heavens and the earth are represented as existing, though in a chaotic form, from the first." Yet on this purely imaginary resemblance between the Biblical and Babylonian Creation narratives the legend has been founded " that the introductory chapters of the Book of Genesis present to us the Hebrew version of a mythology common to many of the Semitic peoples." Arid the legend has been yet further developed, until writers of the standing of Prof. Friedrich Delitzsch have claimed that the Genesis narrative was borrowed from the Babylonian, though " the priestly scholar who composed Genesis, chapter i. endeavoured of course to remove all possible mythological features of this Creation story." l If the Hebrew priest did borrow from the Babylonian myth, what was it that he borrowed ? Not the existence of sea and land, of sun and moon, of plants and animals, of birds and beasts and fishes. For surely the Hebrew may be credited with knowing this much of himself, without any need for a transportation to Babylon to learn it. " In writing an account of the Creation, statements as to what are the things created must of necessity be inserted," 2 whenever, wherever, and by whomsoever that account is written. What else, then, is there common to the two accounts ? Tiamat is the name given to the Babylonian mother of the universe, the dragon of the deep ; and in Genesis 1 Babel and Bible, Johns' translation, pp. 36 and 37. 2 The Old Testament in the Light of the Historical Records of Assyria and Babylonia, by T. G. Pinches, p. 48. 32 THE ASTRONOMY OF THE BIBLE it is written that " darkness was upon the face of the deep (tehom)." Here, and here only, is a point of possible connection ; but if it be evidence of a connection, what kind of a con- nection does it imply ? It implies that the Babylonian based his barbarous myth upon the Hebrew narrative. There is no other possible way of interpreting the connection, if connection there be. The Hebrew word would seem to mean, etymologically, "surges" "storm-tossed waters," "Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of Thy waterspouts." Our word " deep " is apt to give us the idea of stillness we have the proverb, " Still waters run deep," whereas in some instances tehom is used in Scripture of waters which were certainly shallow, as, for instance, those passed through by Israel at the Red Sea : " Pharaoh's chariots and his host hath He cast into the sea : his chosen captains also are drowned in the Red Sea. The depths have covered them." In other passages the words used in our Authorized Version, ".deep" or "depths," give the correct signification. But deep waters, or waters in commotion, are in either case natural objects. We get the word tehom used con- tinually in Scripture in a perfectly matter-of-fact way, where there is no possibility of personification or myth being intended. Tiamat, on the contrary, the Babylonian dragon of the waters, is a mythological personification. Now the natural object must come first. It never yet has been the case that a nation has gained its knowledge THE DEEP 33 of a perfectly common natural object by de-mytholo- gizing one of the mythological personifications of another nation. The Israelites did not learn about tekom, the surging water of the Red Sea, that rolled over the Egyptians in their sight, from any Babylonian fable of a dragon of the waters, read by their descendants hundreds of years later. Yet further, the Babylonian account of Creation is comparatively late; the Hebrew account, as certainly, comparatively early. It is not merely that the actual cuneiform tablets are of date about 700 B.C., coming as they do from the Kouyunjik mound, the ruins of the palace of Sennacherib and Assurbanipal, built about that date. The poem itself, as Prof. Sayce has pointed out, indicates, by the peculiar pre-eminence given in it to Merodach, that it is of late composition. It was late in the history of Babylon that Merodach was adopted as the supreme deity. The astronomical references in the poem are more conclusive still, for, as will be shown later- xm, they point to a development of astronomy that cannot be dated earlier than 700 B.C. On the other hand, the first chapter of Genesis was composed very early. The references to the heavenly bodies in verse 16 bear the marks of the most primitive condition possible of astronomy. The heavenly bodies are simply the greater light, the lesser light, and the stars the last being introduced quite parenthetically. It is the simplest reference to the heavenly bodies that is made in Scripture, or that, indeed, could be made. There may well have been Babylonians who held higher 34 THE ASTRONOMY OF THE BIBLE conceptions of God and nature than those given in the Tiamat myth. It is certain that very many Hebrews fell short of the teaching conveyed in the first chapter of Genesis. But the fact remains that the one nation preserved the Tiamat myth, the other the narrative of Genesis, and each counted its own Creation story sacred. We can only rightly judge the two nations by what they valued. Thus judged, the Hebrew nation stands as high above the Babylonian in intelligence, as well as in faith, as the first chapter of Genesis is above the Tiamat myth. CHAPTER IV THE FIRMAMENT THE sixth verse of the first chapter of Genesis presents a difficulty as to the precise meaning of the principal word, viz. that translated firmament. " And God said, Let there be a rdqid* in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the rdqia, and divided the waters which were under the rdqia from the waters which were above the rdqia : and it was so. And God called the rdqia Shamayim. And the evening and the morning were the second day." It is, of course, perfectly clear that by the word raqia in the preceding passage it is the atmosphere that is alluded to. But later on in the chapter the word is used in a slightly different connection. " God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of heaven." As we look upward from the earth, we look through a twofold medium. Near the earth we have our atmo- sphere; above that there is inter-stellar space, void of anything, so far as vve know, except the Ether. We are not able to detect any line of demarcation where our atmosphere ends, and the outer void begins. Both there- fore are equally spoken of as " the firmament " ; and yet 3 35 36 THE ASTRONOMY OF THE BIBLE there is a difference between the two. The lower supports the clouds ; in the upper are set the two great lights and the stars. The upper, therefore, is emphatically reqia hasshamayim, " the firmament of heaven," of the " up- lifted." It is "in the face of" that is, "before," or " under the eyes of," " beneath," this higher expanse that the fowls of the air fly to and fro. The firmament, then, is that which Tennyson sings of as "the central blue," the seeming vault of the sky, which we can consider as at any height above us that we please. The clouds are above it in one sense ; yet in another, sun, moon and stars, which are clearly far higher than the clouds, are set in it. There is no question therefore as to what is referred to by the word " firmament " ; but there is a question as to the etymological meaning of the word, and associated with that, a question as to how the Hebrews themselves conceived of the celestial vault. The word rdqia, translated " firmament," properly signi- fies "an expanse," or "extension," something stretched or beaten out. The verb from which this noun is derived is often used in Scripture, both as referring to the heavens and in other connections. Thus in Job xxxvii. 18, the question is asked, " Canst thou with Him spread out the sky, which is strong as a molten mirror ? " Eleazar, the priest, after the rebellion of Korah, Dathan and Abiram took the brazen censers of the rebels, and they were " made Iroad plates for a covering of the altar." The goldsmith described by Isaiah as making an idol, " spreadcth it over with gold"; whilst Jeremiah says, THE FIRMAMENT 37 " silver spread into plates is brought from Tarshish." Again, in Psalm cxxxvi., in the account of creation we have the same word used with reference to the earth, " To Him that stretched out the earth above the waters." In this and in many other passages the idea of extension is clearly that which the word is intended to convey. But the Seventy, in making the Greek Version of the Old Testament, were naturally influenced by the views of astronomical science then held in Alexandria, the centre of Greek astronomy. Here, and at this time, the doctrine of the crystalline spheres a misunderstanding of the mathematical researches of Eudoxus and others held currency. These spheres were supposed to be a suc- cession of perfectly transparent and invisible solid shells, in which the sun, moon, and planets were severally placed. The Seventy no doubt considered that in rendering rdqia, by stereoma, i. e. firmament, thus conveying the idea of a solid structure, they were speaking the last word of up-to-date science. There should be no reluctance in ascribing to the Hebrews an erroneous scientific conception if there is any evidence that they held it. We cannot too clearly realize that the writers of the Scriptures were not supernaturally inspired to give correct technical scientific descriptions ; and supposing they had been so inspired, we must bear in mind that we should often consider those descriptions wrong just in proportion to their correctness, for the very sufficient reason that not even our own science of to-day has yet reached finality in all things. There should be no reluctance in ascribing to the 38 THE ASTRONOMY OF THE BIBLE Hebrews an erroneous scientific conception if there is any evidence that they held it. In this case, there is no such evidence ; indeed, there is strong evidence to the contrary. The Hebrew word raqiaf, as already shown, really signifies "extension," just as the word for heaven, sha- mayim means the