One of the advantages that modern astronomy has over its predecessors is the advancement in telescopic and computing technologies. While ancient astronomers had access to primitive versions of these tools, the majority of their work was done using the naked eye and mathematics. Modern astronomers don’t have these same limitations. What ancient astronomers brought into focus, modern astronomy has been able to bring into hyper-focus, if you will.
In the previous post (Part II), we asked the question, “How would first-century believers have read the signs?” Answer: they read the movements of the celestial objects as a cosmic forecast. They looked at the sky as a source of general divine information. The stars, in their eyes, were heavenly writ.
In this installment (Part III), I’ll endeavor to provide more focused contextual evidence for that answer. But in order to do so, we’ll have to delve—if only slightly—into one of the most controversial books of the New Testament: the Revelation of John.
Hyper-focus: Revelation
As I said in the previous post, first-century believers, especially seers and prophets such as John, read the “signs of the times” as portents for what their celestial king was doing, and how they, as his ekklesia on earth, should cooperate with him. What might surprise most believers, is that by and large, the Revelation of John is a compilation of heavenly/celestial visions—in other words, “signs in the sky.”
Quite a claim, I know. In Part II, we looked briefly at the Four Horsemen described in Revelation chapter six and how they correlate with one of the sky visions of the prophet Zechariah. Let’s look at a couple of other examples.
The Seven Seals
Anyone familiar with the Revelation of John knows that there have been a wide array of interpretations for the variety of numbers, symbols, images, entities, and events it describes. Very few interpretive methods, such as figurative or literal, have been consistent in their hermeneutical approach to all of the above. To put it frankly, when most interpreters hit something that doesn’t work with their method, they cheat—or, as they put it, make an exception. The reason for this, in my opinion, has been that regardless of the method selected, the general context for what is described by John has been either unclear or unknown to the interpreter. Either way, contextual uncertainty fosters interpretative errancy.
The Seven Seals, first mentioned in Revelation chapter five, are one of the items in Revelation that has proven elusive as to its exact meaning. While many interpreters and scholars have, at least, attempted to find some ancient context that makes sense of the seals, the best have contextualized them in isolation from the book. However, Lloyd D. Graham puts the Seven Seals back in their original textual and, oddly enough, celestial setting.
In his paper “The Seven Seals of Revelation and the Seven Classical Planets”, Graham states that there is “a straightforward correspondence between the seven seals in the Book of Revelation and the seven “classical planets.” Specifically, the sequence of colors associated with the first to seventh seal in the Apocalypse (respectively: white, red, black, pale, white, black, and golden) agrees well with ancient color series for the planets of the week (consensus: white, red, blue/brown/black, beige, white, black, and yellow, for Monday to Sunday, respectively). Such a relationship is consistent with John’s focus on the sky. Moreover, Revelation is rooted in the merkabah tradition of Ezekiel, which later flourished into a Jewish mystical movement whose journeys to the throne of God required specific seals for safe passage through seven levels.”
What Graham makes evident is that John’s context for the Seven Seals is both cosmological and astronomical. As the seven classical planets, the scroll which they sealed was the sky, the place where the gods dwelled and conveyed divine information via the celestial objects regarding the past, present, and future.
The Twenty-four Elders
Another puzzling group of entities described in the Revelation of John are the twenty-four elders. First mentioned in chapter four, this heavenly body of elders, seated on thrones encircling the throne of God, have been a source of interpretive difficulty. However, when placed in the celestial context common to the first century, it’s easier to recognize who or what these beings are and what they represent. In his Social Science Commentary on the Book of Revelation, Dr. Bruce Malina does just that.
“Immediately I was in the Spirit, and behold, a throne was set in heaven, and one was seated on the throne. And the one seated was similar in appearance to jasper and carnelian stone, and a rainbow was around the throne similar in appearance to emerald. And around the throne were twenty-four thrones, and seated on the thrones were twenty-four elders dressed in white clothing, and on their heads were gold crowns.”
Revelation 4:2-4 LEB
There are few key cultural points that Malina makes regarding the identity of the elders. The first thing he points out is the centrality of the throne. Thrones are positions of power in the sky. There are a number of constellations that were viewed as the Throne among first century peoples. However, they all had similar features (a central throne with other stars or constellations around it). The best cultural fit to what John sees is the heavenly enthronement of Jupiter. Malina describes it as follows:
“Jupiter himself is often enthroned as celestial ruler in the zodiac, especially on coins (Thiele 1898:41). It was also current to depict a figure or a single star sitting on a throne formed of other stars. Hence the scenario of God’s throne on the sky, or of twenty-four elders enthroned there, was really quite well known. Surely it was not something esoteric, special knowledge available only to some privileged initiates.”
That sounds a lot like what John describes in his vision. But the connections don’t stop there. Malina has even more data. For the sake of time and space, I’ll provide a few quotations.
“Around the throne, making a circle in the sky along the horizon, were twenty-four thrones. On the astral thrones are twenty-four gold-wreathed persons clothed in garments of light, called “elders.” Such celestial beings on astral thrones marking off twenty-four segments of the horizon were called “decans.” In terms of celestial personages, these elders on their thrones of power fit the profile of those truly significant astronomic beings of antiquity, the astral deities known as decans.”
The decans were viewed as superior to all other sky beings save for the highest god or hypsistos (most high). This is indicated by their proximity to the central throne. They were viewed as “superior to planetary deities. The reason for this is that decans do not change; they know neither planetary stations nor retrograde movements. Rather, they keep above such change. For the ancients, this was significant. Furthermore, the decans are sovereign astral beings, embracing the whole cosmos in the course of one night and one day, keeping watch over everything.”
Decans were considered guardians of the whole cosmos. As constellational beings (stoicheia) they were called “cosmic regents” (kosmokratores). As astral deities, the decans exerted immense influence on the earth and its inhabitants. “These decanal thrones undoubtedly belong to the category of “thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers” over which Jesus Messiah has preeminence in Col 1:16.” What’s more, decan or dekanos is synonymous with the term presbyteros, as both mean “council member” or “elder”.
To summarize, the twenty-four elders described in Revelation four are the decans of antiquity. However, in John’s vision, they are the highest ranking members of Yahweh’s divine council (indicated by their proximity to the central throne). They have their celestial correlates in the stars and constellations located between the vault of the sky and the zodiacal circle. They govern Day and Night throughout the year. As such, they represent Yahweh’s sovereignty over Time and Space.
That was a lot. Does your brain hurt? There are other examples all over the book of Revelation that we could go into, but the two should be sufficient. Now let’s look at another celestial item that, while not mentioned explicitly by John, was nonetheless critical to how he and his contemporaries read the signs.
The Zodiac
“Astrology [Astro-theology] was seen as the power of YHWH managing the universe and caring for His people, and that the zodiac mosaics symbolized His power and concern.”
—Lester Ness Written in the Stars: Ancient Zodiac Mosaics
The zodiac is one of the most well-known aspects of the starry sky. Its significance has been attested throughout history. To the ancients, it wasn’t just the modern horoscopy template we know it as today. The information it conveyed was far more important than a description of personality traits. The signs of the zodiac, as Genesis 1:14-15 states, were created to be indicators of not only days and years, but seasons and appointed times. The New Testament refers to these appointed times and seasons frequently as “ages” of “the age” (aion: a period of time).
What the zodiac conveys clearly, apart from the various cultural myths and lore attributed to it, is that time, like the celestial signs, moves in cycles. It is not primarily linear. We can gather that much from the orbital movements of the Earth around the Sun, the Moon around the Earth, and the Sun around an unknown (or rather not visible) gravitational center. This cyclical reality is further illustrated in the celestial imagery we’ve discussed. The Four Horsemen, as comets or meteor showers, are cyclical. The Seven Seals, as planets, move in revolutions. While the cycles of these, and more, are governed by the twenty-four elders who encircle the One who sits on the Throne.
Time is cyclical, but not everyone lives through the same times and seasons on the Earth. There are a number of different cycles of time measured using the zodiac. One of the most familiar is the twelve-year Chinese animal cycle (2024 is the Year of the Dragon, if I’m not mistaken).
Another is called the Great Year. A zodiac Great Year is a period of about 25,800 years that marks a complete cycle of the equinoxes around the ecliptic (the circle on the celestial sphere representing the sun’s apparent path during the year). It’s also known as a Platonic Year. The Great Year is caused by a phenomenon called the precession of the equinoxes.
In astrology, a Great Year is also the time it takes for all twelve astrological ages to complete one cycle. Each astrological age corresponds to a zodiac sign and is thought to coincide with major changes in human history, culture, politics, and society. For example, the age of Pisces is thought to have begun around AD 1 and will end around AD 2150. (Interesting that the birth of Jesus is believed to have corresponded with the beginning of the age of Pisces.)
As the planets and other celestial objects (comets, meteors, asteroids, non-fixed stars) moved through the zodiacal signs, the information being conveyed varied. In other words, the specifics of the traveling object(s), and the specifics of the zodiacal sign through which they traveled, determined what the celestial event was portenting. In simplest terms, this was due to the fact that all celestial objects: the seals (planets), the decans (fixed stars and constellations), horses and riders (comets), etc., each held a certain amount of celestial power, or better yet, influence. [see Ness Astrology and Judaism in Late Antiquity for more on this]
As the objects moved through the sky, interacting with each other by crossing their paths, the points of intersection were thought to create a combination of the objects’ influences. For instance, if you had an overlap of a planet, zodiac sign, and a meteor shower, the combined influence had to be factored into the interpretation of the celestial event (sign). That is why the zodiac played a pivotal role in how the signs of the times were read. It was a variable that had to be factored into the celestial equation. It was part of the stellar context for understanding what the heavens were doing so humanity could act accordingly on Earth—as above, so below.
With all this in mind, we can confidently say that a first-century believer saw the sky as a reflection of the spiritual world—the unseen realm where God and the hosts of Heaven dwelt. When they looked at the starry sky, they were looking into a mirror (albeit dimly), seeing the movements of the kingdom of Heaven. They read the signs of the times as messengers, transmitting divine intelligence.
Now, I know what you’re thinking. That’s all well and good, but one question: what does all this have to do with believers today?
To that I say, really? Only one question? But also, I’m glad you asked…I’ll answer that in Part IV.
Stay tuned…