The Astronomy of the Bible - E. Walter Maunder (first e reader .TXT) 📗
- Author: E. Walter Maunder
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The positions held by these three serpents or dragons have given rise to a significant set of astronomical terms. The Dragon marked the poles of both ecliptic and equator; the Watersnake marked the equator almost from node to node; the Serpent marked the equator at one of the nodes. The "Dragon's Head" and the "Dragon's Tail" therefore have been taken as astronomical symbols of the ascending and descending nodes of the sun's apparent path—the points where he seems to ascend above the equator in the spring, and to descend below it again in the autumn.
The moon's orbit likewise intersects the apparent path of the sun in two points, its two nodes; and the interval of time between its passage through one of these nodes and its return to that same node again is called a Draconic month, a month of the Dragon. The same symbols are applied by analogy to the moon's nodes.
Indeed the "Dragon's Head," ☊, is the general sign for the ascending node of any orbit, whether of moon, planet or comet, and the "Dragon's Tail," ☋, for the descending node. We not only use these signs in astronomical works to-day, but the latter sign frequently occurs, figured exactly as we figure it now, on Babylonian boundary stones 3000 years old.
But an eclipse either of the sun or of the moon can only take place when the latter is near one of its two nodes—is in the "Dragon's Head" or in the "Dragon's Tail." This relation might be briefly expressed by saying that the Dragon—that is of the nodes—causes the eclipse. Hence the numerous myths, found in so many nations, which relate how "a dragon devours the sun (or moon)" at the time of an eclipse.
HYDRA AND THE NEIGHBOURING CONSTELLATIONS.ToList
The dragon of eclipse finds its way into Hindoo mythology in a form which shows clearly that the myth arose from a misunderstanding of the constellations. The equatorial Water-snake, stretching from one node nearly to the other, has resting upon it, Crater, the Cup. Combining this with the expression for the two nodes, the Hindu myth has taken the following form. The gods churned the surface of the sea to make the Amrita Cup, the cup of the water of life. "And while the gods were drinking that nectar after which they had so much hankered, a Danava, named Rahu, was drinking it in the guise of a god. And when the nectar had only reached Rahu's throat, the sun and the moon discovered him, and communicated the fact to the gods." Rahu's head was at once cut off, but, as the nectar had reached thus far, it was immortal, and rose to the sky. "From that time hath arisen a long-standing quarrel between Rahu's head and the sun and moon," and the head swallows them from time to time, causing eclipses. Rahu's head marks the ascending, Ketu, the tail, the descending node.
This myth is very instructive. Before it could have arisen, not only must the constellations have been mapped out, and the equator and ecliptic both recognized, but the inclination of the moon's orbit to that of the sun must also have been recognized, together with the fact that it was only when the moon was near its node that the eclipses, either of the sun or moon, could take place. In other words, the cause of eclipses must have been at one time understood, but that knowledge must have been afterwards lost. We have seen already, in the chapter on "The Deep," that the Hebrew idea of tehōm could not possibly have been derived from the Babylonian myth of Tiamat, since the knowledge of the natural object must precede the myth founded upon it. If, therefore, Gen. i. and the Babylonian story of Creation be connected, the one as original, the other as derived from that original, it is the Babylonian story that has been borrowed from the Hebrew, and it has been degraded in the borrowing.
So in this case, the myth of the Dragon, whose head and tail cause eclipses, must have been derived from a corruption and misunderstanding of a very early astronomical achievement. The myth is evidence of knowledge lost, of science on the down-grade.
Some may object that the myth may have brought about the conception of the draconic constellations. A very little reflection will show that such a thing was impossible. If the superstition that an eclipse is caused by an invisible dragon swallowing the sun or moon had really been the origin of the constellational dragons, they would certainly have all been put in the zodiac, the only region of the sky where sun or moon can be found; not outside it, where neither can ever come, and in consequence where no eclipse can take place. Nor could such a superstition have led on to the discoveries above-mentioned: that the moon caused eclipses of the sun, the earth those of the moon; that the moon's orbit was inclined to the ecliptic, and that eclipses took place only near the nodes. The idea of an unseen spiritual agent being at work would prevent any search for a physical explanation, since polytheism is necessarily opposed to science.
There is a word used in Scripture to denote a reptilian monster, which appears in one instance at least to refer to this dragon of eclipse, and so to be used in an astronomical sense. Job, in his first outburst of grief cursed the day in which he was born, and cried—
Who are ready (margin, skilful) to rouse up Leviathan.
Let the stars of the twilight thereof be dark
Let it look for light, but have none;
Neither let it behold the eyelids of the morning."
"Leviathan" denotes an animal wreathed, gathering itself in coils: hence a serpent, or some great reptile. The description in Job xli. is evidently that of a mighty crocodile, though in Psalm civ. leviathan is said to play in "the great and wide sea," which has raised a difficulty as to its identification in the minds of some commentators. In the present passage it is supposed to mean one of the stellar dragons, and hence the mythical dragon of eclipse. Job desired that the day of his birth should have been cursed by the magicians, so that it had been a day of complete and entire eclipse, not even the stars that preceded its dawn being allowed to shine.
The astronomical use of the word leviathan here renders it possible that there may be in Isa. xxvii. an allusion—quite secondary and indirect however—to the chief stellar dragons.
"In that day the Lord with His sore and great and strong sword shall punish leviathan the piercing serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent; and He shall slay the dragon that is in the sea."
The marginal reading gives us instead of "piercing," "crossing like a bar"; a most descriptive epithet for the long-drawn-out constellation of Hydra, the Water-snake, which stretched itself for one hundred and five degrees along the primitive equator, and "crossed" the meridian "like a bar" for seven hours out of every twenty-four. "The crooked serpent" would denote the dragon coiled around the poles, whilst "the dragon which is in the sea" would naturally refer to Cetus, the Sea-monster. The prophecy would mean then, that "in that day" the Lord will destroy all the powers of evil which have, as it were, laid hold of the chief places, even in the heavens.
In one passage "the crooked serpent," here used as a synonym of leviathan, distinctly points to the dragon of the constellations. In Job's last answer to Bildad the Shuhite, he says—
And by His understanding He smiteth through the proud. (R.V. Rahab.)
By His spirit He hath garnished the heavens;
His hand hath formed the crooked serpent."
The passage gives a good example of the parallelism of Hebrew poetry; the repetition of the several terms of a statement, term by term, in a slightly modified sense; a rhyme, if the expression may be used, not of sound, but of signification.
Thus in the four verses just quoted, we have three terms in each—agent, action, object;—each appears in the first statement, each appears likewise in the second. The third statement, in like manner, has its three terms repeated in a varied form in the fourth.
Thus—
And—
There can be no doubt as to the significance of the two parallels. In the first, dividing the sea, i. e. the Red Sea, is the correlative of smiting through Rahab, "the proud one," the name often applied to Egypt, as in Isa. xxx. 7: "For Egypt helpeth in vain, and to no purpose: therefore have I called her Rahab that sitteth still." In the second, "adorning the heavens" is the correlative of "forming the crooked serpent." The great constellation of the writhing dragon, emphatically a "crooked serpent," placed at the very crown of the heavens, is set for all the constellations of the sky.
There are several references to Rahab, as "the dragon which is in the sea," all clearly referring to the kingdom of Egypt, personified as one of her own crocodiles lying-in-wait in her own river, the Nile, or transferred, by a figure of speech, to the Red Sea, which formed her eastern border. Thus in chapter li. Isaiah apostrophizes "the arm of the Lord."
That pierced the dragon?
Art Thou not It that dried up the sea,
The waters of the great deep;
That made the depths of the sea a way for the redeemed to pass over?"
And in Psalm lxxxix. we have—
When the waves thereof arise Thou stillest them.
Thou hast broken Rahab in pieces as one that is slain,
Thou hast scattered Thine enemies with Thy strong arm."
So the prophet Ezekiel is directed—
"Son of man, take up a lamentation for Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and say unto him, thou wast likened unto a young lion of the nations: yet art thou as a dragon in the seas."
In all these passages it is only in an indirect and secondary sense that we can see any constellational references in the various descriptions of "the dragon that is in the sea." It is the crocodile of Egypt that is intended; Egypt the great oppressor of Israel, and one of the great powers of evil, standing as a representative of them all. The serpent or dragon forms in the constellations also represented the powers of evil; especially the great enemy of God and man, "the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan." So there is some amount of appropriateness to the watery dragons of the sky—Hydra and Cetus—in these descriptions of Rahab, the dragon of Egypt, without there being any direct reference. Thus it is said of the Egyptian "dragon in the seas," "I have given thee for meat to the beasts of the earth, and to the fowls of the heaven;" and again, "I will cause all the fowls of the heaven to settle upon thee," just as
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