Babylonian Astrology
Babylon is an ancient kingdom that appeared already at the beginning of the second millennium BCE (Hammurabi). They were experts in prophecy and saw omens in the phenomena that occurred around them. The Babylonians believed in an array of forces that filled the universe—the movement of the clouds, the lightning and thunder, the direction of the wind—all these were omens, which were part of the science of prophecy, whose highest form was astrology.
The main Babylonian divine triad was Anu, Enlil, and Ea—spirits of the sky, the earth, and the waters. But beneath them there was a secondary triad connected to the heavenly bodies: Sin—the Moon, Shamash—the Sun, and Ishtar—Venus. Some say that Abraham, who came from Mesopotamia—Babylon, was the first Jewish astrologer, and that it is expressed in the Covenant Between the Parts.
Over time, the god Marduk rose to greatness, identified with Jupiter. Professor Franz Cumont, an expert in ancient religions[1], claims that astrology began in Babylon, and that already in the 8th century BCE the Babylonians had an accurate calendar that allowed them to carry out complex astrological calculations. Astrology was a science connected to mathematics, geometry, and music.
The golden age of Babylonian astrology came after the fall of Assyria in the 7th century BCE, that is, during the Babylonian Exile, and it continued into the Persian period. The heavens were divided into 12 equal parts, and each part was divided into 3 decans of 10 degrees. In the 2nd century BCE, the Babylonians already had tables that could predict the position of the various stars in the future. The Greeks, Hellenists, and Romans learned from the Babylonians and developed their own astrology in parallel, especially within the Stoic philosophical stream.
star worship that developed in Babylon and Assyria in connection with science of astronomy and sky observations was ultimately a new religion, whose triumph led to the decline of the old religion. In the rituals, purification ceremonies and singing, prayers, hymns, ritual laments, and old festivals in honor of the gods of nature, the old ideas remained, but astral doctrines gradually began to become the central force. The priests kept their control over the masses and did not change the old forms of worship, but astrology became the underlying doctrine.
Marduk, as mentioned, was identified with the most prominent star in the height of the sky—Jupiter, Ishtar with the brightest star on the double horizon—Venus, Ninurta was identified with Saturn, the god Nabu with Mercury, and the god Nergal, the god of war, with Mars. The god Sin with the Moon and the god Shamash with the Sun. These were seven main gods representing seven forces that ruled the universe. In addition, there were 12 secondary gods identified with the fixed stars.
The five planets moving in the sky, and the Sun and the Moon, were given the name “the interpreters.” The most important was the Moon, followed by the Sun. The 12 zodiac signs were called “God’s counselors.” Twenty-four prominent stars that were not part of the zodiac became the judges of the living and the dead. In addition to the stars, the Babylonians (the Chaldeans) also worshiped the earth, the ocean, the waters, the winds from the four directions of the heavens, and fire. The stars were perceived as elements that gave life to the phenomena on the face of the earth.
The Babylonian priests who engaged in astrology and claimed order in the universe were the Chaldeans. But since in later periods the monotheistic religions opposed star worship, their name was distorted and they were called “charlatans”—hence the word. To be a charlatan in ancient Babylon one had to study a great deal and master the sciences of mathematics and geometry, prophecy, and magic. Since the stars moved according to a fixed mathematical law and since star groups created geometric shapes in the sky, the Babylonians sanctified the sciences of geometry and mathematics; numbers were considered to have active power, similar to the sacred words in Egypt, and therefore were sanctified.
The mathematical laws governing the movements of the heavens testified to the laws of life in this world. This was proof of the existence of the gods and of an intelligent force that directed human life. Time became sacred because it restored things to their course. The stars were considered to possess spiritual fire—ether, the principle of life similar to the fire of the heavens. The soul received its qualities at birth, and its fate was then determined by the stars.
The Chaldean priests believed that after death the soul returned to the star from which it came. In addition to astrological observations and mathematical prediction according to the movements of the stars, they would also communicate with the stars and have heavenly visions, somewhat like Ezekiel. Their astrological perception was not mechanistic, but mythological and eschatological (leading to redemption).
When the Greeks under Alexander the Great conquered Babylon, they were exposed to the developed astrological science and the astral theology connected to it. This science was based on patient astronomical observations for many generations that revealed the secrets of the heavens, the future, and human destiny. Greek spiritual schools such as the Stoics adopted Babylonian astrology and saw in it an answer to their search for the laws and order of the universe.
Babylonian astrology influenced Judaism as well, Mesopotamia was one of the two main forces that influenced the land. If Egypt was the sun around which the Land of Israel revolved, then Babylon in this analogy was the moon. One cannot exist without the other, and in a good state they balance one another.
Influences of the Religion of Zoroaster
Zoroaster was a prophet, teacher, and enlightened man who lived about 3,000 years ago. He was one of the great teachers of the world religions. At the height of his influence, tens of millions of people believed in him. His religion was the official religion of the Sasanian Persian Empire (3rd–7th centuries CE), the important and influential religion in the Parthian Persian Empire (2nd century BCE–3rd century CE), and the most important and influential religion in the first and greatest Persian Empire—the Achaemenid (6th–4th centuries BCE).
The Persians had three empires that had great influence on the Jewish people and the Land of Israel. The first empire, established by Cyrus the Great, conquered Babylon in the 6th century BCE and allowed the Jews to return to their land. Cyrus is called in the Bible “the Lord’s anointed.” But he was not the messiah only of the Jewish God, but also of the Persian gods. Behind him stood the Magi cult. Persia was a culture that dealt in magic; it conquered Egypt, brought about the decline of Heliopolis, and transferred the spiritual energy to the new capital that they established in Susa.
The most popular religion in the Persian empire was Zoroaster. The believers in Zoroaster were called “Zoroastrians” by the Greeks, but in the ancient texts they called themselves Mazdayasnians—a word in Old Persian, Mazda-Yasna, meaning “one who sacrifices himself to Ahura Mazda.” Zoroaster claimed that the world is ruled by two forces: the force of good, represented by light and called Ahura Mazda, and the force of evil, represented by darkness and called Ahriman. The world is an arena of struggle between them, and so is every human being. His teaching appears in books called the Vedas or the Avesta.
Zoroastrianism emphasizes the ethics of good thoughts, good words, and good deeds, and the proper performance of rituals and prayers. It is not a perfect monotheistic religion because it has dualism, ruled by the Creator God, Ahura Mazda (the wise god). The dualism is ethical—of “good” and “evil,” “truth” and “falsehood,” connected to the questions of human will and free choice.
Human beings and all creation were created by Ahura Mazda as an essential instrument in the battle against the evil spirit, Ahriman, and the mission of humans in this battle is to demonstrate good thoughts, good words, and good deeds in order to weaken and destroy evil. Anyone who fulfills these three principles will reach heaven, and whoever does not will fall into hell. At the end of the world, evil will be destroyed and disappear, and after the resurrection of the dead the world will continue in an ideal state of complete purity.
Ahura Mazda is the word, the thought, that existed before time, similar to “I Am That I Am” in Judaism. It is wisdom, it is the creator. To be with Ahura Mazda means to be close to the natural word. Ahura Mazda relies on six supporting forces (Amesha Spenta), which are like divine attributes or secondary gods. He is the seventh force, the organizer, encompassing them all. The six divine forces are:
Truth (Asha)—the cosmic law.
Love and kindness (Vohu Mana)—the aspiration in the universe for all that is good.
Discipline and order (Kshatra Vairya)—law and order.
Work (Armaiti)—the working thought of God, development and correction.
Fulfillment (Haurvatat)—achievement and satisfaction.
Eternity (Ameretat)—the life of the holy person who chooses good is eternal.
According to Eliade[2], the spiritual and philosophical nature of the religion of Zoroaster is truly amazing. The assimilation of the important gods into the Amesha Spenta—the six blessed ones, members of Ahura Mazda’s retinue, and the fact that each of these entities is associated with an abstract value—order, power, devotion, and control over a cosmic element—fire, metal, and so forth—testifies to creative imagination and strict philosophical reasoning.
According to David Flusser[3], the Persian religion of Zoroaster had the greatest influence on the faith and teaching of Israel. It was probably from Persia that the belief in life after death reached Israel; this can be seen in the belief that the dead are tested by the river of fire (Dinur), the fire purifies the righteous and burns the wicked. The purifying element sacred to the Zoroastrians was holy fire. Even if the roots of the belief in resurrection are embedded in the Bible, there is no doubt that it developed, changed, and deepened under the influence of contact with Persian religion during the Second Temple period. It is known that Persian religion, through its emissaries and sages, influenced the entire Near East and far beyond.
In biblical faith there is a place for the heavenly retinue surrounding the divinity and for messengers sent to man—the angels. The heavenly retinue is a legacy from the pre-biblical period, the influence of the beliefs of the Canaanite peoples. The angels appearing in the Bible are messengers connecting man to God. In the Second Temple period, a fundamental change occurred in this matter, and the importance of angels rose. For the first time they are mentioned by names and described as heavenly beings. Each nation has a angel in heaven. According to the Dead Sea Scrolls, the heavenly angel of Israel is Michael. The author of the Book of Enoch interprets the verse in Isaiah, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts,” as “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of the spirits, and all the earth is filled with spirits.” The whole world is full of spirits—heavenly forces.
The world is full of good spirits, but also of evil spirits (Belial). There are angels of light and angels of darkness. The angels of darkness are the angels who fell—those who took for themselves wives from the daughters of men, identified with the Nephilim (from the word “nefell” – fell in Hebrew). The evil angels are those who rebelled against God. The rebellion was suppressed, but according to the request of Satan, some of the evil angels were released to serve him on earth (Book of Jubilees).
The division between good and evil angels resembles the Persian belief and probably originates in the distinction between the retinue of divine forces of Ahura Mazda and that of Ahriman. Moreover, the seven chief angels in Judaism correspond to the seven Amesha Spenta—the Persian blessed ones.
In Midrash Rabbah we find the names of the angels that the Israelites brought from Babylon. And apparently there is a historical kernel in this later description; the Israelites learned the names of the angels in Babylon, but what they learned were the names of the divine forces in the religion of Zoroaster, the religion of the Persians who ruled Babylon at the time of the Return to Zion, and afterward over the Land of Israel for 200 years.
The Book of Tobit, written probably during Persian rule, tells of the angel Raphael who helped Tobit obtain his wife who was held by the demon Ashmedai. Scholars agree that the name Ashmedai is Persian and means “the demon of wrath.” The names of the other angels also testify to Persian influence.
But it was not only angels. Today we believe in heaven and hell, in judgment after death and in personal reward. In the days of the First Temple, there was no such dual division and no belief in personal reward and redemption and existence in spiritual worlds, but in collective reward and historical redemption. This fundamental belief was added to Judaism during Persian rule, both in the exile in Babylon and in the Land of Israel.
The Scroll of Esther reveals to us the depth of Jewish involvement in the Persian royal court, and even when the Persians were conquered by the Greeks, the ideas of the battle of good and evil continued to exist and even reached their peak with the appearance of the Essenes and their dualistic conception of the world, dividing human beings into the Sons of Light and the Sons of Darkness, and the spirits into spirits of light and spirits of darkness.
The name Gehenna (Hebrew name for Hell) is connected to the name of the Valley of Hinnom in Jerusalem, the place that looks today like paradise, but once sacrifices were made there to Molech: infants were thrown from the cliffs and their heads smashed, or placed on the Tophet, a hollow bronze statue heated by fire burning beneath it. In general, in Jerusalem there are entrances to Paradise, especially at Mount Moriah, the Foundation rock, and also to Hell. On the Day of Judgment, deeds will be weighed on the scales of balance at the Temple Mount: He who sinned will be cast into Hell, and he who did good will enter Paradise.
According to Islamic belief, beneath the pavements of the Dome of the Rock there are two entrances—one to Hell and one to Paradise. According to Jewish belief, the Foundation rock is the place to which Adam and Eve were cast from Paradise, and where the angel with the flaming sword stands. Human beings can turn this earth to which they were cast into Paradise, or live in Hell—the choice is ours.
notes
[1] Cumont, F. (1912). Astrology and Religion among the Greeks and Romans (Vol. 581). GP Putnam’s sons.
[2] Eliade, History of Religious Beliefs, vol. I, p. 288
[3] Flusser, D. (2007). Judaism of the Second Temple Period: Qumran and Apocalypticism, Vol. 1 (Vol. 1). Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing.
