- Astrotheology: "Theology founded on observation or knowledge of the celestial bodies" ... such as the sun, moon, planets, stars, constellations and milky way etc. created by William Derham in 1714.
Astrotheology: "Theology founded on observation or knowledge of the celestial bodies, such as the sun, moon, planets, stars, constellations, earth, etc." --Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998
"astrotheology: theology or religious systems based on the observation of stars..." --"The Aldrich Dictionary of Phobias and Other Word Families," p. 93.
"astrotheology, theology founded on the stars" --"Hartrampf's Vocabulary Builder," p. 156.
"Archaeologists are generally agreed that the dominant ideas embodied in the Roman funerary ritual came from the astrotheology of Babylonia and Syria..." --Francis Hobart Herrick, "The American Eagle: A Study in Natural and Civil History," p. 200.
These definitions of the term "astrotheology" have it as a "theology founded on observation or knowledge of the celestial bodies" ... such as the sun, moon, planets, stars, constellations and milky way etc.". This definition seems to be more or less the same as it was in the 18th century.
Star Worship of the Ancient Israelites
http://astrotheology.net/star-worship-o ... sraelites/
- In my book Did Moses Exist? The Myth of the Israelite Lawgiver, I go into great detail about the astrotheological nature of Semitic worship, including that of the Israelites, who emerged from the hill country during the 12th century BCE. The Israelites were composed significantly of Canaanites, especially the Amoritish tribes that had migrated into Mesopotamia and established Babylon, as well as wandering bedouin tribes such as the Shasu and Hapiru.
All of these peoples engaged in the typical nature worship that humanity has revered since time immemorial. This nature worship is expressed in myriad forms, including and especially reverence for the sun, moon, planets, stars and constellations, a perspective called “astral religion,” “astrolatry,” “astral mythology,” “astromythology” or “astrotheology.”
Star Worship Among the Ancient Israelites
In this same regard, there is an interesting entry in the Jewish Encyclopedia under “Star Worship” (11:257).
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/artic ... ar-worship
- This is perhaps the oldest form of idolatry practised by the ancients. According to Wisdom xiii. 2, the observation of the stars in the East very early led the people to regard the planets and the fixed stars as gods. The religion of the ancient Egyptians is known to have consisted preeminently of sun-worship. Moses sternly warned the Israelites against worshiping the sun, moon, stars, and all the host of heaven (Deut. iv. 19, xvii. 3); it may be said that the prohibition of making and worshiping any image of that which is in heaven above (Ex. xx. 4; Deut. v. 8) implies also the stars and the other celestial bodies. The Israelites fell into this kind of idolatry, and as early as the time of Amos they had the images of Siccuth and Chiun, "the stars of their god" (Amos v. 26, R. V.); the latter name is generally supposed to denote the planet Saturn. That the kingdom of Israel fell earlier than that of Judah is stated (II Kings xvii. 16) to have been due, among other causes, to its worshiping the host of heaven. But the kingdom of Judah in its later period seems to have out-done the Northern Kingdom in star-worship. Of Manasseh it is related that he built altars to all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of Yhwh, and it seems that it was the practise of even kings before him to appoint priests who offered sacrifices to the sun, the moon, the planets, and all the host of heaven.
Altars for star-worship were built on the roofs of the houses, and horses and chariots were dedicated to the worship of the sun (ib. xxi. 5; xxiii. 4-5, 11-12). Star-worship continued in Judah until the eighteenth year of Josiah's reign (621 B.C.), when the king took measures to abolish all kinds of idolatry (ib.). But although star-worship was then abolished as a public cult, it was practised privately by individuals, who worshiped the heavenly bodies, and poured out libations to them on the roofs of their houses (Zeph. i. 5; Jer. viii. 2, xix. 13). Jeremiah (vii. 18) describes the worship of the queen of heaven to have been more particularly common among the women. Ezekiel, who prophesied in the sixth year of the captivity of Jehoiachin (591 B.C.), describes the worship of the sun as practised in thecourt of the Temple (Ezek. viii. 16 et seq.), and from Jer. xliv. 17 et seq. it may be seen that even after the destruction of the Temple the women insisted on continuing to worship the queen of heaven. In Job (xxxi. 26 et seq.) there is an allusion to the kissing of the hand in the adoration of the moon (see Moon, Biblical Data). According to Robertson Smith ("The Religion of the Semites," p. 127, note 3, Edinburgh, 1889), star-worship is not of great antiquity among the Semites in general, nor among the Hebrews in particular, for the latter adopted this form of idolatry only under the influence of the Assyrians. But Fritz Hommel ("Der Gestirndienst der Alten Araber," Munich, 1901) expresses the opposite opinion. He points to the fact that the Hebrew root which denotes the verb "to swear" is the same as that which denotes "seven," and claims that this fact establishes a connection between swearing and the seven planets; and he furthermore declares that there are many Biblical evidences of star-worship among the ancient Hebrews. Thus, the fact that Terah, Abraham's father, had lived first at Ur of the Chaldees, and that later he settled at Haran (Gen. xi. 31), two cities known from Assyrian inscriptions as places of moon-worship, shows that Abraham's parents were addicted to that form of idolatry. According to legend, Abraham himself worshiped the sun, moon, and the stars before he recognized the true God in Yhwh (see Abraham in Apocryphal and Rabbinical Literature). The golden calf, Hommel declares, was nothing more than an emblem of the moon-god, which, in the Assyrian inscription, is styled "the youthful and mighty bull" and the lord of the heavenly hosts (comp. "Yhwh Ẓeba'ot," which term is intentionally omitted from the Pentateuch). He assigns the same character to the two calves made by Jeroboam several centuries later (I Kings xii. 28).
The ancient Hebrews, being nomads, like the Arabs favored the moon, while the Babylonians, who were an agricultural nation, preferred the sun. But, as appears from Ezek. xx. 7-8, the moon-worship of the Israelites, even while they were still in Egypt, was combined with sun-worship. The close similarity between the ancient Hebrews and the southern Arabs has led Hommel furthermore to find allusion to moon-worship in such Hebrew names as begin with "ab" (= "father"), as in "Abimelech" and "Absalom," or with "'am" (= "uncle"), as in "Amminadab" and "Jeroboam," because these particles, when they appear in the names of southern Arabs, refer to the moon.
The term "star-worship" ("'abodat kokabim u-mazzalot") in the Talmud and in post-Talmudic literature is chiefly a censor's emendation for "'abodah zarah." In connection with star-worship, it is related in the Mishnah ('Ab. Zarah iv. 7) that the Rabbis ("zeḳenim") were asked if God dislikes idolatry why He did not destroy the idols. The Rabbis answered: "If the heathen worshiped only idols perhaps God would have destroyed the objects of their adoration, but they worship also the sun, the moon, the stars, and all the host of heaven, and God can not destroy the world on account of the heathen."
OK. So we have astrotheology as
"the worship also the sun, the moon, the stars, and all the host of heaven".
Again - a start - but not too much progress in formulating a far more specific statement of the term.
I am still not finding any great involvement with the 4 major astronomical events of the year (see OP) celebrated by all people and their governments.
Despite the fact that this important and fascinating information is not widely known – and even denied in some quarters – this older, mainstream publication from 1906 contains accurate data about this astrotheology of the ancients.
The beauty of this fairly brief article is its thoroughness and pithiness, presenting the various proofs in a direct and forthright manner. Although its entry could be construed as an admission against interest, the Jewish Encyclopedia is not purposely omitting or denying this aspect of Hebrew worship. This secret worship I consider to be part of the mysteries, which is one reason the astral myths lost their meaning among the masses.
Once we have discerned the astrotheological nature of much ancient religion, including and especially sun worship or solar religion, and we have noted the similar themes that revolve around celestial and other natural entities and forces, it becomes a matter of science, reason and logic to contend that various biblical figures possessing these same or similar attributes are likewise astrotheological in nature, including Jesus Christ as a Jewish remake of the ancient solar hero or sun god. Once this astrolatry/astrotheology is accepted as a genuinely ancient form of worship, that door of logical association and identification is blown wide open; this fact explains significantly why certain individuals are “hellbent” on denying this information and preventing it from being widespread.[/list]
Here we direct reference to "sun worship". That's getting closer.
The sun is obviously (minimally) venerated each year at midwinter, midsummer and the equinoxes.
- Introduction
The further one regresses in time, the more obvious it becomes that the principal and Sunrise shows the beauty of nature singular religious worship found around the globe has revolved around nature. This nature worship has included reverence not only for the earth, its creatures and their fecundity, but also for the sun, moon, planets and stars. For many thousands of years, man has looked to the skies and become awestruck by what he has observed. This awe has led to the reverence and worship both of the night and day skies, an adoration called "astrotheology." While fertility worship has constituted an important and prevalent part of the human religion, little has astonished humankind more than the sky, with its enormous, blazing, white day orb in the azure expanse, and with its infinite, twinkling, black night dome. So fascinated by the sky, or heavens, has been man that he has created entire religions, with organized priesthoods, complex rituals and massive edifices, in order to tell its story.
The story begins, as far back as the current evidence reveals, with the night sky as the primary focus of pre-agricultural, nomadic peoples. The night sky held Night Sky imageparticular importance in the lives of desert nomads, because the fiery sun was a hindrance to them, while the cool night allowed them to travel. In traveling by night, these desert nomads became keenly aware of the night sky's various landmarks, including the stars, planets and moon. The nomads noticed regularity and began to chart the skies, hoping to divine omens, portents and signs. Others who developed this astronomical science included ancient mariners who journeyed thousands of miles through the open seas, such as the Polynesians, whose long, Pacific voyages have been estimated to have begun at least 30,000 years ago.
The astronomical science allowed the ancients to predict weather patterns, the turn of seasons and attendant climate changes, as well as comets, asteroids and meteors menacing the earth. This archaeoastronomy was an accurate prognosticator for daily, weekly, monthly and yearly events. Indeed, it was an augur for the changes of entire ages, some of which, as in the chronologies of the Maya, Babylonians and Hindus, extend back hundreds of thousands or millions of years.
Here we finally meet what I perceive to be the most fundamental element of astrotheology - the turn of the seasons - the four annual quadrants and their demarcations.
DEFINITION OF THE TERM ASTROTHEOLOGY
In the above a number of other articles provide various elements in the definition of term. Finally we have Acharya S furnishing mention of a definition which includes the turn of the wheel of the four seasons and the four major astronomical events. The calculation of these four events was high technology and Big Business in antiquity, and the computations were performed by experts in astronomical knowledge (and in astrological knowledge since the two fields were not separated then).
Lack of a clear and comprehensive definition of the term is not a good thing and is attendant with all sorts of problems. I would like so see a better definition of the term identified through discussions. For example, is the term astrotheology an 18th century invention? Or does the term exist in ancient writings in another form, perhaps another term, or a combination of terms?
In the OP I have demonstrated that the Emperor Augustus also perceived this fundamental element and literally constructed monuments by which the process could be made openly visible to the common man, rather than being something only understood (with precision) by the astronomers.
To what extent did the emperor Augustus subscribe to an astrotheology of some kind, and if so, what did it look like?
I will try and make a start. Everything here in the OP relates to the specific observances of the "four seasons of the sun" and as such is confined to sun worship. Certainly there was also worship of the moon, the planets, the background stars, solar and lunar eclipses and many other astronomical events. And sub definitions of astrotheology as it may be applied to the worship of these other things and events associated with them can be established.
But I think one must start first with the worship of the sun and its seasons. It has a central place for good reason. Augustus found Rome a city of bricks and left it a city of marble. A brand new Roman Empire had been born in marble, and one of the chief monuments (see OP) was a massive sundial.
Background Thread: Ancient Cosmology: Many Heavens, Gods and the One [God] ......
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=749
Solar astrotheology seems to have been central to the seasons of life in antiquity.
LC