The Astronomy of the Bible / An Elementary Commentary on the Astronomical References of Holy Scripture

by E. Walter Maunder

There is a set of symbols repeated over and over again on Babylonian monuments, and always given a position of eminence;—it is the so-called "Triad of Stars," a crescent lying on its back and two stars near it. They are seen very distinctly at the top of the photograph of the boundary-stone from the Louvre, given on [p. 318], and also immediately above the head of the Sun-god in the photograph of the tablet from Sippar, on [p. 322]. Their significance is now clear. Four thousand years before the Christian era, the two Twin stars, Castor and Pollux, served as indicators of the first new moon of the year, just as Capella did two thousand years later. The "triad of stars," then, is simply a picture of what men saw, year after year, in the sunset sky at the beginning of the first month, six thousand years ago. It is the earliest record of an astronomical observation that has come down to us.

WORSHIP OF THE SUN-GOD AT SIPPARA.[ToList]

How simple and easy the observation was, and how distinctly the year was marked off by it! The month was marked off by the first sight of the new thin crescent in the evening sky. The day was marked off by the return of darkness, the evening hour in which, month by month, the new moon was first observed; so that "the evening and the morning were the first day." The year was marked off by the new moon being seen in the evening with a bright pair of stars, the stars we still know as the "Twins;" and the length of the year was shown by the evening of the month, when moon and stars came together. If on the first evening, it was a year of twelve months; if on the third, one of thirteen. There was a time when these three observations constituted the whole of primitive astronomy.

In later days the original meaning of the "Triad of Stars" would seem to have been forgotten, and they were taken as representing Sin, Samas, and Istar;—the Moon, the Sun and the planet Venus. Yet now and again a hint of the part they once played in determining the length of the year is preserved. Thus, on the tablet now in the British Museum, and shown on [p. 322], sculptured with a scene representing the worship of the Sun-god in the temple of Sippar, these three symbols are shown with the explanatory inscription:—

"The Moon-god, the Sun-god, and Istar, dwellers in the abyss,
Announce to the years what they are to expect;"

possibly an astrological formula, but it may well mean—"announce whether the years should expect twelve or thirteen months."

As already pointed out, this method had one drawback; it gave a sidereal year, not a tropical year, and this inconvenience must have been discovered, and Capella substituted for the Twin stars, long before the giving of the Law to Israel. The method employed by the priests of watching the progress of the ripening of the barley overcame this difficulty, and gave a year to Israel which, on the average, was a correct tropical one.

There is a detail in the history of the flood in Gen. vii. and viii. which has been taken by some as meant to indicate the length of the tropical year.