Stars
One of the odder entrants in the Watchtower pantheon are
'stars,' reputed by some amongst the Gentiles to be gods: "And beware, lest you
lift up your eyes to heaven and see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the
host of heaven, and be drawn away and worship them and serve them, those which
the LORD your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole heaven." (Deuteronomy 4:19).
The proof-text for 'star-gods' is this: "The stars fought
from heaven, from their courses they fought against Sisera..." (Judges 5:20).
One wonders whether the brook 'Kishon' must be a god as well, as it bravely did
its bit in the battle, too: "The torrent of Kishon swept them away, the ancient
torrent, the torrent Kishon." (Judges 5:21).
All of nature is in God's hands, the sun, moon, stars, rolling
tide, even the sparrow that falls from heaven. He may deploy these, His
creatures, as He chooses to work His will. If He had wished to annihilate Sisera's
armies with a Tunguska-magnitude asteroid crash from the heavens, who could stand in
His way? (For purposes of ancient astronomy, 'stars' include 'wandering
stars', our planets, 'fixed stars', who now lay exclusive claim to the title
'star', plus meteorites, etc. The title 'fixed', in the Ptolemaic system, means
those stars whose positions relative one to another is constant, which is not true
of the 'wandering' planets.) In Egypt in 1911 a falling meteorite killed a dog.
It seems doubtful that magnitude happened on the
battle-field, because if it had, people would not have come away telling stories
about somebody bashing somebody's brains out with a tent-peg. The military victory
was won, by the LORD, in the usual fashion, by the "edge of the sword": "And
the LORD discomfited Sisera, and all his chariots, and all his host, with the edge
of the sword before Barak; so that Sisera lighted down off his chariot, and fled
away on his feet." (Judges 4:15). So however the stars did their bit, it was in
a quieter, less obtrusive fashion, perhaps by alarming the enemy hosts with a 'nova,'
a new thing in the heavens.
As to how they fought, the text does not say, because
there is no blow-by-blow account of the battle. One can only speculate that it was
something along the lines of a meteor shower, comet, or nova. They fought from
their courses — no 'sky-gods' descended. The sun and moon have also done their bit
for Israel's military success: "O sun, stand still at Gibeon, and O moon in the
valley of Aijalon." (Joshua 10:12).
Ancient armies were easily spooked by portents. Here a brave
soldier counsels retreat...because an bird suffered a mishap struggling with its
prey: "While they were busy stripping the armour from these heroes, the youths who
were led on by Polydamas and Hector (and these were the greater part and the most
valiant of those that were trying to break through the wall and fire the ships) were
still standing by the trench, uncertain what they should do; for they had seen a
sign from heaven when they had essayed to cross it — a soaring eagle that flew
skirting the left wing of their host, with a monstrous blood-red snake in its talons
still alive and struggling to escape. The snake was still bent on revenge, wriggling
and twisting itself backwards till it struck the bird that held it, on the neck
and breast; whereon the bird being in pain, let it fall, dropping it into the
middle of the host, and then flew down the wind with a sharp cry. The Trojans were
struck with terror when they saw the snake, portent of aegis-bearing Jove,
writhing in the midst of them, and Polydamas went up to Hector and said,
'Hector, at our councils of war you are ever given to rebuke me, even when I speak
wisely, as though it were not well, forsooth, that one of the people should
cross your will either in the field or at the council board; you would have them
support you always: nevertheless I will say what I think will be best; let us not
now go on to fight the Danaans at their ships, for I know what will happen if this
soaring eagle which skirted the left wing of our with a monstrous blood-red snake in
its talons (the snake being still alive) was really sent as an omen to the Trojans
on their essaying to cross the trench. The eagle let go her hold; she did not succeed
in taking it home to her little ones, and so will it be - with ourselves; even
though by a mighty effort we break through the gates and wall of the Achaeans, and
they give way before us, still we shall not return in good order by the way we
came, but shall leave many a man behind us whom the Achaeans will do to death in
defense of their ships. Thus would any seer who was expert in these matters, and
was trusted by the people, read the portent.'" (Homer, Iliad, Book XII).
By contrast to pagan armies, those who put their trust in
the LORD were not easiliy spooked. Josephus retells the story of a pagan army
standing around waiting...for a bird to tell them which way to go: "As I was
myself going to the Red Sea, there followed us a man, whose name was
Mosollam; he was one of the Jewish horsemen who conducted us; he was a person
of great courage, of a strong body, and by all allowed to be the most skillful archer
that was either among the Greeks or barbarians. Now this man, as people were
in great numbers passing along the road, and a certain augur was observing an
augury by a bird, and requiring them all to stand still, inquired what they staid
for. Hereupon the augur showed him the bird from whence he took his augury, and
told him that if the bird staid where he was, they ought all to stand still; but
that if he got up, and flew onward, they must go forward; but that if he flew
backward, they must retire again. Mosollam made no reply, but drew his bow, and shot
at the bird, and hit him, and killed him; and as the augur and some others were very
angry, and wished imprecations upon him, he answered them thus: Why are you so mad
as to take this most unhappy bird into your hands? for how can this bird give us
any true information concerning our march, who could not foresee how to save himself?
for had he been able to foreknow what was future, he would not have come to this
place, but would have been afraid lest Mosollam the Jew should shoot at him, and
kill him.'" (Flavius Josephus, Against Apion, Book 1).
So the Jew Mosollam was unimpressed with the bird's
hesitation. And doesn't it make more sense for the army to advance or retreat based
on its military interest, rather than to rely on the generalship of a bird.
Deborah's army was perhaps also unimpressed with the portent in the
heavens, but the pagan army facing was scared witless, because the pagans took
such things as portents of doom. So the stars did their bit in the battle; the
military advantage went to Israel.
The stars' contribution is paired with the brook
Kishon's activity, which was no doubt not poetical but prosaic, perhaps the torrent
over-flowing its normal course, impeding the movements of the enemy army. In
parallel, I would not expect the stars fighting in their courses was 'poetic
language' but something that actually happened. However, there is such language
in the Bible; atheists who wish to discredit the Bible seize upon expressions
like, "Let the rivers clap their hands; let the mountains sing together for
joy..." (Psalm 98:8).
Skeptics trumpet, 'Rivers don't have hands to clap!' But
English poets say the same kind of thing. It carries the dreadful name of the
'pathetic fallacy.' Things that wouldn't ordinariliy be expected to express
feelings and emotions do so, like "The moping owl does to the moon complain Of
such as, wandering near her secret bower, Molest her ancient solitary reign."
(Thomas Gray, Elegy Written in a Country Church-Yard). The owl isn't actually
complaining, nor does the moon care a whole lot whether people on earth are out
and about at night. The feelings are the poets'; they do it because it 'works.' Or,
"Dim moon-eyes fishes near Gaze at the gilded gear And query: 'What does this
vaingloriousness down here?'" (The Convergence of the Twain, Lines on the
loss of the 'Titanic', Thomas Hardy). Fish are not noted for their inquisitiveness,
nor for moralizing about "vaingloriousness." It's the poet who is
struck by the incongruity of the glittery apparition from another world that has
settled down in the fishes' mud. One of the services humankind can perform for our
less vocal fellow creatures is to give them a voice. Like I said, I doubt this is
a case in point, but one thing of which I am sure: no 'star-gods' put in an
appearance on the battle-field...because there ain't any.
Stars are creatures: "Praise ye him, sun and moon:
praise him, all ye stars of light. Praise him, ye heavens of heavens, and ye waters
that be above the heavens. Let them praise the name of the LORD: for he commanded,
and they were created." (Psalm 148:3-5). No creature is God; the true and living
God is the Creator: "And saying, Sirs, why do ye these things? We also are men of
like passions with you, and preach unto you that ye should turn from these
vanities unto the living God, which made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all
things that are therein:..." (Acts 14:15). Ergo, stars are not gods.
The pagans did not worship unknown mythological 'star-gods'
who have mysteriously disappeared for the past three millenia. They worshipped the
very stars themselves, the same ones that we see in the sky (the planets only
visible by telescope, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto, they did not know). How they
arrived at the conclusion the stars were gods controlling the world is by bad
theology chasing bad science. First comes good science: ancient peoples noticed that
the changing face of the night-time sky correlates with seasonal changes.
Different constellations rise above the horizon at different times of year, as the
earth with tilted axis orbits the sun. In the absence of a reliable written
calendar, these risings and settings precisely time important events of the
agricultural year, like planting and harvest. This is just as God ordained:
"And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day
from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and
years:..." (Genesis 1:14).
Here is good science: "Pleiades rising in the dawning
sky, Harvest is nigh. Pleiades setting in the waning night, Plowing is right. Forty
days and nights in the turning year They disappear. When they shine again in the
morning shade, Sharpen your blade." (Hesiod, Works and Days, 430-436). So long
as the farmer is timing his activities by the rising and setting of the Pleiades
he's doing right, in that latitude. If the farmer should start saying, 'the Pleiades
by their occult virtue ripen the crops,' then he's advanced to doing bad science,
reasoning 'post hoc, ergo propter hoc.' If he then goes on to bow himself down before
the Pleiades, hymning them, 'O gracious Pleiades, thank you for the bountiful
harvest,' he's advanced to doing bad theology, and false, idolatrous worship.
The pagan Greeks did bad meteorology, believing that
Sirius, the Dog-Star, prominent in the night sky during the hottest days of
summer, actually caused the 'Dog-Days' of summer by exercising some
baleful influence upon the earth. This is not accurate; while there is an invariant
association between (a) and (b) — Sirius, the Dog-Star, is invariably sighted in
that position during the hottest days of summer in that latitude — there is no
causal nexus, rather both (a) Sirius, and (b), the arrival of hot weather, are
caused by (c), the earth's travels about the sun with tilted axis.
The ancient Babylonians took this logic all the way to
full-fledged bad religion, basing their entire theological system on the premise
that the stars, by their various conjunctions, determined every event upon
the earth. Thus the stars were the high gods who determined the fates. And
their stars were our stars, not hitherto unknown mythological beings;
the Babylonians left exquisitely detailed records of their star-sightings: "The
archives of the great cities of Mesopotamia were kept on baked clay
tablets which have preserved legibly to this day a mass of records whose very
existence had been quite unsuspected...one group of tablets turned up written in long
columns, and headed with the names of Gods — which were also names of heavenly
bodies. Deciphering these tablets has called for extreme ingenuity, but it has
eventually become clear that they correspond very closely to the records of
our own Nautical Almanac Office...These tablets comprise planetary observations,
tables predicting the motions and eclipses of the Moon, 'procedure-texts' setting out
the arithmetical steps to be taken when calculating 'ephemerides' (daily positions
of the planets), and a mass of similar material." (The Fabric of the Heavens,
Toulmin and Goodfield, pp. 24-25). These were the gods of the Babylonians — the planets.
There are still people to this very day who believe the
stars control human destiny, like Nancy Reagan. But rational folks should realize
the Bible authors were right after all: these created beings, battalions in the
heavenly armies, do not by their conjunctions force the living God's hand,
nor do they even control human destiny. So how is it possible that our modern-day
polytheists want to make the stars into gods, reversing two thousand years of
science which has fully confirmed the Bible's teaching that they are not gods?
Prince of Tyre
When men of the present day wish to deify themselves, they
say 'I am God.' No other word is needed, no other word will do. Some time ago Dr.
Elissa Ely published a column in the Boston Globe reporting on a hospital
patient whose presenting complaint was 'I am God.' Here is another:
'Yahweh ben Yahweh is the Grand Master of the Celestial Lodge, Architect
of the Universe, and the Blessed and only Potentate. He is here to set
the captives free and to cause them that are bound to stand perpendicular
on the square of righteousness. For behold, one greater than Solomon is here!
(quoted from web-site, http://yahwehbenyahweh.com/index02.htm)
Maybe it's a comfort to Mr. Yahweh, formerly known as
Hulon Mitchell, Jr., to reflect, in jail, on his exalted status as the Blessed and
only Potentate, I don't know. But self-deification is not a pecularity of
ancient times, there are still men who claim to be God.
It's not the lexicographer's task to make all
statements true by fiddling with definitions; some statements are blatantly
and irremediably false, such as the late Wallace D. Fard's claim to deity: "On
Wednesday morning, November 23, Fard was apprehended while leaving his hotel room
at 1 West Jefferson Street. He had probably guessed that the arrest would
come and did not resist the police officers who seized him. [...] According
to police and press transcripts, Fard identified himself as the 'supreme being
on earth' and claimed responsibility for starting the Nation of Islam, assisted by
Ugan Ali, who was also arrested." ('An Original Man: The Life and Times of Elijah
Muhammad', Claude A. Clegg, III, Part One, Chapter 2, p. 31). Wallace D. Fard's
principal devotee, Elijah Muhammad, was sold on his divinity: "In one meeting, he
proclaimed, 'Fard is Allah, who came to save the dark people.' To shore up
support, the teacher himself made appearances before Chicago converts to
show them what God looked like in person." (op. cit., p. 25). Elijah Muhammad used to
like to boast that, unlike the unseen 'spook God' of the Christians, his God was
one you could go up to and shake hands with: Wallace D. Fard. |
