The Witness of the Stars. E. W. Bullinger
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Название: The Witness of the Stars
Автор: E. W. Bullinger
Издательство: Ingram
Жанр: Религия: прочее
isbn: 9781420969818
isbn:
The figures themselves are perfectly arbitrary. There is nothing in the groups of stars to even suggest the figures. This is the first thing which is noticed by every one who looks at the constellations. Take for example the sign of VIRGO, and look at the stars. There is nothing whatever to suggest a human form; still less is there anything to show whether that form is a man or a woman. And so with all the others.
The picture, therefore, is the original, and must have been drawn around or connected with certain stars, simply in order that it might be identified and associated with them; and that it might thus be remembered and handed down to posterity.
There can be no doubt, as the learned Authoress of Mazzaroth conclusively proves, that these signs were afterwards identified with the twelve sons of Jacob. Joseph sees the sun and moon and eleven stars bowing down to him, he himself being the twelfth (Gen. xxxvii. 9). The blessing of Jacob (Gen. xlix.) and the blessing of Moses (Deut. xxxiii.) both bear witness to the existence of these signs in their day. And it is more than probable that each of the Twelve Tribes bore one of them on its standard. We read in Num. ii. 2, “Every man of the children of Israel shall pitch by his own STANDARD, with the ENSIGN of their father’s house” (R.V. “with the ensigns of their fathers’ houses”). This “Standard” was the Degel (דֶגֶל) on which the “Sign” (אוֹת, Oth) was depicted. Hence it was called the “En-sign.” Ancient Jewish authorities declare that each tribe had one of the signs as its own, and it is highly probable, even from Scripture, that four of the tribes carried its “Sign”; and that these four were placed at the four sides of the camp.
If the Lion were appropriated to Judah, then the other three would be thus fixed, and would be the same four that equally divide the Zodiac at its four cardinal points. According to Num. ii. the camp was thus formed:—
If the reader compares the above with the blessings of Israel and Moses, and compares the meanings and descriptions given below with those blessings, the connection will be clearly seen. Levi, for example, had no standard, and he needed none, for he kept “the balance of the Sanctuary,” and had the charge of that brazen altar on which the atoning blood outweighed the nation’s sins.
The four great signs which thus marked the four sides of the camp, and the four quarters of the Zodiac, are the same four which form the Cherubim (the Eagle, the Scorpion’s enemy, being substituted for the Scorpion). The Cherubim thus form a compendious expression of the hope of Creation, which, from the very first, has been bound up with the Coming One, who alone should cause its groanings to cease.
But this brings us to the Signs themselves and their interpretation.
These pictures were designed to preserve, expound, and perpetuate the one first great promise and prophecy of Gen. iii. 15, that all hope for Man, all hope for Creation, was bound up in a coming Redeemer; One who should be born of a woman; who should first suffer, and afterwards gloriously triumph; One who should first be wounded by that great enemy who was the cause of all sin and sorrow and death, but who should finally crush the head of “that Old Serpent the Devil.”
These ancient star-pictures reveal this Coming One. They set forth “the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow.” Altogether there are forty-eight of them, made up of twelve SIGNS, each sign containing three CONSTELLATIONS.
These may be divided into three great books, each book containing four chapters (or Signs); and each chapter containing three sections (or Constellations).
Each book (like the four Gospels) sets forth its peculiar aspect of the Coming One; beginning with the promise of His coming, and ending with the destruction of the enemy.
But where are we to begin to read this wondrous Heavenly Scroll? A circle has proverbially neither beginning nor end. In what order then are we to consider these signs? In the heavens they form a never-ending circle. Where is the beginning and where is the end of this circle through which the sun is constantly moving? Where are we to break into this circle? and say, This is the commencement. It is clear that unless we can determine this original starting point we can never read this wondrous book aright.
As I have said, the popular beginning to-day is with ARIES, the Ram. But comparing this Revelation with that which was afterwards written “in the Volume of the Book,” VIRGO is the only point where we can intelligently begin, and LEO is the only point where we can logically conclude. Is not this what is spoken of as the unknown and insoluble mystery—“The riddle of the SPHINX”? The word “Sphinx” is from σφίγγω, to bind closely together. It was therefore designed to show where the two ends of the Zodiac were to be joined together, and where the great circle of the heavens begins and ends.
The Signs of LEO and VIRGO, from the ceiling of the Portico of the Temple of ESNEH, showing the SPHINX between, uniting the beginning and end of the Zodiac.
Signs of Leo and Virgo, from the ceiling of the Portico of the Temple of Esneh, showing the Sphinx between, uniting the beginning and end of the Zodiac.
The SPHINX is a figure with the head of a woman and the body of a lion! What is this but a never-ceasing monitor, telling us to begin with Virgo and to end with Leo! In the Zodiac in the Temple of Esnéh, in Egypt, a Sphinx is actually placed between the Signs of Virgo and Leo, as shown in the illustration on the preceding page. It is a tracing from the drawing of Signor Bossi, executed on the spot, under the direction of the late Mr. Edward J. Cooper, in 1820.
Beginning, then, with VIRGO, let us now spread out the contents of this Heavenly Volume, so that the eye can take them in at a glance. Of course we are greatly hindered in this, in having to use the modern Latin names which the Constellations bear to-day.{19} Some of these names are mistakes, others are gross perversions of the truth, as proved by the pictures themselves, which are far more ancient, and have come down to us from primitive times.
After the Revelation came to be written down in the Scriptures, there was not the same need for the preservation of the Heavenly Volume. And after the nations had lost the original meaning of the pictures, they invented a meaning out of the vain imagination of the thoughts of their hearts. The Greek Mythology is an interpretation of (only some of) the signs and constellations after their true meaning had been forgotten. It is popularly believed that Bible truth is an evolution from, or development of, the ancient religions of the world. But the fact is that they themselves are a corruption and perversion of primitive truth!
We will now give the contents of this Heavenly Volume of Divine Revelation, and afterwards proceed to develope it, explain it in detail, and compare it with the same truth which was afterwards written down in the Scriptures.
The First Book.
THE REDEEMER.
(HIS FIRST COMING.)
“The Sufferings of Christ.”
CHAPTER I.
THE PROPHECY OF THE PROMISED SEED OF THE WOMAN.
VIRGO (The Virgin. A woman bearing a branch in her right hand and an ear of corn in her left). The Promised Seed of the woman.
§ 1. COMA (The Desired. The woman and child). The Desired of all СКАЧАТЬ