The Biblical Cosmos by Parry Robin A.;Parry Hannah;

Author:Parry, Robin A.;Parry, Hannah; [Parry, Robin A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General, Religion
ISBN: 9781630876227
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Published: 2014-10-08T07:00:00+00:00

Excursus: Star Signs in the Book of Revelation

Bruce Malina and John Pilch, in their social-scientific commentary on Revelation, argue that the entire book of Revelation is an astral vision in which stars and constellations play leading roles. According to them, John is an astral prophet and most of his visions are based upon mystical interpretations of signs in the sky. His visions are, in effect, a prophetic voyage around the sky in which he is able to interpret the meaning of the stars. Given the relevance of this approach to our topic I wanted to take an example of just one of John’s visions to illustrate their proposal.

Revelation 4–5 offers a vision of the throne room of heaven. John is taken by the Spirit through a door in the firmament into God’s heaven (4:1). At the center of this vision is the throne of God, surrounded by twenty-four thrones of the elders (4:4). Around the throne on each side were four “living creatures” full of eyes and with wings. One was like a lion, one like an ox, one like a man, and one like an eagle (4:6–8). John then saw “the Lion of the tribe of Judah” (5:5) who “was a lamb standing as though it had been slain” (5:6).

Now the invisible events on the other side of the skydome are reflected in the stars. The vision is dominated by the throne at the center of the cosmos. The notion of a constellation associated with the cosmic throne, a throne that the other stars circled around, was ancient and widespread. The throne was jasper and carnelian, the yellowish color associated with the pole star, the central star proper to the divine throne.

Around the throne are the twenty-four thrones of the elders, dressed in white and wearing crowns. Pilch and Malina see these as significant astral beings known in the Hellenistic period as decans. The decans were powerful star gods who dominate every ten degrees of the circle of the zodiac. There were consequently thirty-six of them. Why does Revelation only have twenty-four? The astrological reasoning here is rather complex. Suffice it to say that, in fact, it was common to picture twenty-four decans representing the twelve hours of day and the twelve hours of night. They embrace the whole cosmos in the course of a day and a night, watching over everything.

From the throne came lightning and thunder and before the throne were seven torches of burning fire (4:5). In Greco-Roman religion lightning and thunder are associated with the stars/gods Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars, but here with the throne of the God of Israel at the center of the cosmos. The seven torches are the seven stars in the vicinity of the pole—namely, the constellation of Ursa Major.

The sea of glass like crystal before the throne is the solid sky dome we have encountered before. This suggests that the sky, as Ezekiel had also noted, was made of a crystal substance. God’s throne is above it.

The living creatures are modeled on the entities from Ezekiel’s vision that we encountered earlier.

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