The Stars - Oh hum...

One reason why so much emphasis is placed on the sun and moon dominating the sky is because the temptation was so great to overplay the role stars play in governing human affairs.

Keep in mind by the time Genesis 1 was written down, there were two prominent features in pagan religious thinking related to the role stars play in human affairs. First, the stars were thought to be the domain of various false gods. The Egyptians and Mesopotamians, in particular, were known for their astral deities.

Second, and more importantly, these ancient cultures, out of which the children of Israel were called, actually depended on the stars to "govern" their lives. I chose the word "govern" for the last sentence on purpose. As I mentioned in the last post, it happens to be the word that forms the central idea of Genesis 1:14-19.

The ancient peoples believed that all life on earth, especially human life, was nothing more than a reflection of eternal patterns found in stars. In "The Gifts of the Jews", author Thomas Cahill writes: "In order to appreciate the prehistoric worldview, we must start with the limitless sky and the overwhelming impression that its recurring drama, especially in the dreamtime of darkest night made on primitive people. They wandered on an earth sparsely populated by the human species but otherwise teeming with contingent life...an earth so obviously coupled with an unattainable and limitless heaven. What their minds saw so self-evidently were correspondences: women are like the moon and both are like the earth; but women are born and die, whereas the moon lasts forever...each of the other heavenly bodies...provides us with some everlasting exemplar of corruptible earthly life... In the revolving drama of the heavens, primitive peoples saw an immortal wheel-like pattern that was predictive of mortal life."

Cahill is describing an elaborate and intense focus on the stars as controlling and guiding life on the earth. The Genesis account confronts this worldview in three ways. First, it unequivocally states that the God of Israel is the one who made the sun, moon, and stars. They are his habitation, not the habitation of the other gods so-called. Second, the account explicitly places the focus on the sun and moon as dominating the sky, not the stars. It more or less moves the stars into the background, indicating that they should not be given such prominence in regard to regulating human affairs. Finally, to this same end, Moses reports the making of the stars, almost as if they were an afterthought. In other words, it is as if Moses wrote: "And by the way, God also made the stars."

One huge lesson that comes from all of this is how wrong it is for us to look to the stars for guidance or predictions of our own futures. More about this tomorrow...