Is There a Gospel in the Stars?
Confusing nature with the Bible
Another basic flaw in GIS theory is its confusion of the theological categories of special revelation with general revelation, resulting in an inappropriate attribution of moral authority to nature. This confusion is evident through the language that GIS advocates use, such as when Bullinger writes that the heavens “prophesy” God’s purposes and counsels (Ibid., p. 6), or when Seiss writes that the Magi “never could have understood as they did” how to find Jesus “if there had not been associated with the stars some definite evangelic prophecies and promises which they could read, and believed to be from God” (Seiss, p. 12). Inappropriate moral authority of nature is also exemplified when Fleming speaks of the “prophetic outline” of the twelve signs (Fleming, p. 30) and when Hickey states, “The reason God placed stars and planets in the heavens was to reveal knowledge about His Son, Jesus Christ” (Hickey p. 10).
GIS teachers, here, are making general revelation (nature) function as special revelation (God’s redemptive interventions through word and deed in history, especially in Christ and the Bible). While general revelation does impart some knowledge of the existence, attributes, and law of God and therefore does have some moral authority (Rom. 1:19-21; 2:14-15), it does not reveal anything about the Incarnation or salvation. The Bible is the source of authority for that. As has often been said, nature reveals just enough to condemn you.By locating God’s prophetic testimony in the stars, GIS detracts from the significance and necessity of special, propositional revelation – that is, the Bible.
Ironically, the first part of Psalm 19 is a favorite proof text of GIS advocates for nature providing special revelation, and yet a main purpose of the psalm is to clarify and distinguish the functions general and special revelation. The psalm is divided into two parts (vv. 1-6; vv. 7-14), with each part describing a source for acquiring a particular kind of knowledge about God. In the first part, people are said to gain tacit knowledge of God by inference from the created order. The order and design of this “natural witness” of sun, moon, and heavens points to a Creator. The first part of Psalm 19, then, implies a general revelation in which the visible things of creation “declare” (Ps. 19:1) God’s glory and handiwork. To the psalmist, this is such obviously ubiquitous “speech” that it is here personified as a “words” and “voice” that “goes out” everywhere in the world (vv.2-4).
But this is not describing a prophetic, or even a propositional, revelation through nature. It merely employs a literary device, a figure of speech – nature personified to show the force of the communication. If someone says, “Time talks, and it can speak louder than words,” no one thinks that “time” actually talks. It’s a figure of speech, but you get the message.
It is the second part of the psalm that reveals where the special revelation of God’s salvation is found: “the law of the Lord,” that is, the written Word of God. in particular. It is the law of the Lord that is “perfect” (v. 7), that “converts” (v. 7; kjv), that “makes wise” (v. 7), that “gives joy” and “light” (v. 8), and so on.
The psalm therefore teaches that from the natural world people gain a tacit knowledge of the Creator, and from the written Word they find help for their souls – ultimately the gospel. salvation, the gospel. There is no evidence anyplace in Scripture to suggest a hidden or overlooked propositional, moral revelation in the stars, or in any other objects of nature. By locating God’s prophetic testimony in the stars, GIS detracts from the significance and necessity of special, propositional revelation – that is, the Bible.
“Signs” of the times?
Another basic problem surrounds with GIS pertains to its advocates’ interpretation of the Genesis 1:14, which is another key proof text used to justify the theory. Proponents explain that the Hebrew word ‘ôwth, translated “signs” in Genesis 1:14, is an allusion, if not a direct reference, to what we today call the “‘signs’ of the zodiac.” Interpreting Genesis 1:14 in a manner typical of GIS advocates, Fleming writes: “The signs were to indicate prophetic events, and the seasons were to indicate the times pertaining to the signs. Thus the great prophetic events in the eternal plan of God were foretold. These events had to do with the great drama of redemption. . . By means of these star-signs man was to be continually reminded that what God had promised in the hearing of our first parents was certainly going to come to pass” (Fleming, pp. 17-18).
The words ‘ôwth and a kind of synonym, môph?t, are the two most frequently used words for “sign” and “signs” in the Old Testament. Yet nowhere, not even in the Genesis 1:14 usage of ‘ôwth, are these words ever used as a reference, direct or indirect, to constellations or star meanings. 1 Neither is their primary root, ‘ôt. ‘Ôwth and môph?t have many other uses, such as to describe a mark (Gen. 4:15, Cain’s; Exod. 12:13, the blood on the doorpost); a standard (Num. 2:2; a tribal ensign); confirmation of a prophetic word (1 Sam. 2:34; Isa. 37:37), a prophetic symbol enacted out (Isa. 20:3; Ezek. 4:1-3; 12:6; 24:24-27); and direct divine intervention (1 Kings 13:3-5).
The interesting feature of ‘ôwth and môph?t is that their meanings are highly dependent on their scriptural contexts, and these are quite unmistakably spelled out, such as in the previous citations, so that there should be no mistake. Another example of context-specific usage is “signs” to remind people of significant divine actions of the past and the special covenants God has established with them, such as the rainbow and circumcision (Gen. 9:12; 17:11), or eating unleavened bread (Exod. 13:7-9), or consecrating the firstborn (Exod. 13:15-16). The Sabbath, too, which clearly has nothing to do with the stars or other heavenly bodies, is even referred to in the Torah as an “‘ôt.”it is easy to imagine the Bible’s quite perfunctory attitude toward the stars here as being a kind of slap in the face to the Babylonians’ all-encompassing use of the stars
The context-significant meaning of ‘ôwth is clear in Genesis 1:14-18, and it does not link the text to constellation meanings. It refers primarily to the sun and the moon as the bodies of light that are the dividing “marks” for day and night. After all, this is the creation story, so one would expect some indication as to how such essential phenomena as day and night are regulated. “The stars” of verse 16, which GIS theory makes the principal focus, are quite junior to this primary meaning, so much so that they seem to be stuck in the background as a rather minor element, almost as an afterthought – worth a mention but not deserving the attention the text gives to the creation of light, sun, moon, water, ground, fish, birds, animals, and so on.
If one considers the Babylonian context in which the text is placed, it is easy to imagine the Bible’s quite perfunctory attitude toward the stars here as being a kind of slap in the face to the Babylonians’ all-encompassing use of the stars. It is possible the GIS proponents overlook the primary meaning because today we use the English word “signs” for “zodiac” and “constellations.” If the Hebrew in Genesis 1:14 was meant to suggest a kind of prophetic message written in the stars and its consequences, we would expect to see a word like ‘?dût, or one of its derivatives, being used (cf. in the niv, Gen. 43:3; Exod. 21:29; 1 Kings 2:42; Neh. 13:15, 21). But this never occurs.
The missing link of scholarship
A related issue is the missing link of ancient Hebrew scholarship. True, we have many writings which reveal that ancient Israel occasionally turned astrologically to the stars for guidance and divination, even though Moses had warned them not to do so (Deut. 18:9-13). But that is not under discussion here.
GIS theory would gain some credibility if the Hebrew patriarchs had been carrying on generationally from Adam a tradition that taught their version of GIS theory about a Messiah-Redeemer to come. But Dr. Edward Goldman, Professor of Rabbinics at Hebrew Union College (Cincinnati), doesn’t buy it. There is no Hebrew literature that confirms the existence of an ancient Israelite GIS theory. “Although there were, in Rabbinic literature, a few scholarly references now and then to astrological symbols,” Dr. Goldman told me, “these were probably taken over from the Hellenistic world that surrounded them, and Rabbinic Judaism pays very little account to such things as astrological symbolism. The Rabbis indicate that spending your time with such things is really a waste of time. Even in the Midrash and in the mystical traditions, one finds no understanding of the stars and constellations as you have represented it to me.” 2
Redeeming the real distortion
The nature of the distortion is also significant. Believing that astrologers and other pagan mythologists have counterfeited the original and true meaning of the stars, GIS proponents want to recover, or undistort, the true meaning. They have worked hard at trying to do that, and also to then develop and use their GIS theory as an apologetics tool. One can appreciate the vast amount of effort and sincerity that has gone into this labor. Nevertheless, the actual distortion is not the counterfeiting of original true constellation meanings. The distortion is that astrologers superimpose a mythological meaning and by implication a spiritual and moral authority upon mere natural objects (stars and planets) that they don’t have
An analogy not quite as distant from us may help illustrate this point. Take the palm of the hand – a quite natural enough object meant for quite natural uses; that is, I can use my hand to shake your hand, or lift food to my mouth, or turn the ignition key to start the car … or use tea leaves to make a hot drink. There are, then, normal or proper uses of these “things.” But what if a fortune teller says, “Let me read your future from your palm or from these tea leaves”? If I let the person that, then the proper use of these natural objects falls into a form of idolatry because they are superimposed with a meaning and an authority that God never intended.
Another common example today is the use of crystals. Years ago, crystals were naturally used in radio sets, and today they are used in chemistry, electronics, and photography. Some years ago, my wife and I discovered our own natural use. Hanging from our kitchen window are several Swarovski crystals so that we can see the colorful rainbow designs made by the morning sun as it shines through the crystals into our kitchen. So there is a natural, or proper, use of crystals. It would be another story entirely if my wife and I believed, as some people do, that these stones carry a spiritual or mystical meaning that influences (has some kind of authority over) our lives.
So, too, with the stars. There is a proper (non-idolatrous) way in which the stars can be known or used, such as for a natural revelation of the knowledge of God, or in the science of astronomy to help determine tides, eclipses, growing seasons, and so on. Further, just as people have done with palms, tea leaves, crystals, and a host of other objects of nature, astrologers have distorted the natural use of the stars by superimposing a mythological meaning and a spiritual and moral authority on them. That is the real distortion. That is how the “message,” the natural message of the stars, is falsified.
The known unknowns
History presents GIS advocates with many other problems that their theory has not been able to sufficiently resolve, such as (1) the ambiguities surrounding the origin of the constellations, (2) its advocates’ reliance largely to the Babylonian, Greek, and Roman zodiacs, and (3) who the Magi were, and what was the “sign” they followed. Further, many of the myths surrounding the stars are so lost in antiquity that it is not possible to determine with any kind of faithfulness what pagan meanings they may have once had. Yet advocates even bring up “lost” meanings (to build up their interpretive pattern) as authoritatively as they do the known pagan meanings.
And we have not even discussed the implications of their reliance on pagan authorities. For instance, as just about everyone knows, astrologers use Aries as the starting point of the zodiac and Pisces as the end. But that mythology start and end is completely wrong for supporting the course of history that GIS theory purports to advance. To get around this discrepancy between theory and history, GIS advocates begin and end their zodiac where the mythology is more supportive of their interpretation; that is, with Virgo and Leo. Why? Incredibly, appealing to pagan sources of authority, both Bullinger (pp 20-22) and Seiss (p. 27.) advocate use the Sphinx because it is a figure with the head of a woman (Virgo, the virgin) and the body of a lion (Leo)!
Ah, well. It’s the sort of mischief one eventually lands in when persisting to get round the cherubim who guards entrance to Eden with his flaming sword.
(Charles Strohmer is the author of several books, including What Your Horoscope Doesn’t Tell You, The Gospel and the New Spirituality, and America’s Fascination With Astrology, which includes a comprehensive Appendix critical of GIS theory.)
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