Summer holidays 5: Christian beliefs and Tycho Brahe
Wednesday, 28 Aug 2024, 14:34
Visible to anyone in the world
Edited by Kate Blackham, Wednesday, 28 Aug 2024, 14:38
I thought I'd give a brief overview of my findings from the research project I ran in late spring this year. I said I might put my findings on Academia.edu. I've now decided against that, so am going to summarize them here. I had very small numbers of respondents, certainly not enough to generalise about the wider population but I did, interestingly enough, manage to encounter believers who identified with every single one of the 5 theories of creation I proposed (no one in my small sample propsed a different cosmology, so no one mentioned flat-Earth for example). Meaning I had both youth-Earth creationist and 'Genesis is literary and cannot be "read into" in any literal way at all' believers. I also had a significant proportion of believers who said variations on the theme of 'this is a secondary issue and not important to one's salvation and causes division' and refused to be drawn on any of the creation theories or suggestions for the nature of the Star of Bethlehem.
One of the other interesting (to me at least) findings, was that the Christians sampled believed the Star of Bethlehem to be a scientific/astrological phenomenon. I offered the opportunity to say it was supernatural (giving the example of an angel) but few respondents said they believed that.
I have to say, personally myself, since it's all done and over now that, I myself believe that it was astrological. The Magi were Babylonian astrologers and when they come to Jerusalem to worship the new-born king, Herod's palace have no idea what they're talking about - which to me at least means that it couldn't have been a comet - every ancient culture around the world feared comets as portents of doom - interestingly every culture around the world fears 'the sky falling'. I will concede that after the visit to the palace the account sounds more supernatural, with the 'star' leading the way.
This is what has led me to become interested in ancient astrology - I wanted to know what the Babylonian Magi saw that set them on their journey and I don't think it's possible to identify that without seriously understanding their astrological beliefs. Well it turns out it used to be known to Christians, a Roman writer Julius Firmicus Maternus in circa 330 was writing not only a Christian apologetics book on the error of pagan religions but a textbook on astrology in which he gives the birth chart of a divine man - Christians believe that Jesus' nature is fully God and fully man. It also turns out that while divinatory astrology has long been rejected, for example by Thomas Aquinas, it wasn't wholesale rejected until much more recently. Martin Luther's right-hand man Philip Melancthon was a practicing astrologer and Luther wrote that while he didn't agree with Philip about its usefulness, didn't see anything wrong with the way he was doing it.
Astrology was far, far more acceptable in medieval times and earlier. Which is why I'm keen to read and translate Tycho Brahe's letters regarding astrology, as he too, like every astronomer of the day was both an astronomer and an astrologer.
Summer holidays 5: Christian beliefs and Tycho Brahe
I thought I'd give a brief overview of my findings from the research project I ran in late spring this year. I said I might put my findings on Academia.edu. I've now decided against that, so am going to summarize them here. I had very small numbers of respondents, certainly not enough to generalise about the wider population but I did, interestingly enough, manage to encounter believers who identified with every single one of the 5 theories of creation I proposed (no one in my small sample propsed a different cosmology, so no one mentioned flat-Earth for example). Meaning I had both youth-Earth creationist and 'Genesis is literary and cannot be "read into" in any literal way at all' believers. I also had a significant proportion of believers who said variations on the theme of 'this is a secondary issue and not important to one's salvation and causes division' and refused to be drawn on any of the creation theories or suggestions for the nature of the Star of Bethlehem.
One of the other interesting (to me at least) findings, was that the Christians sampled believed the Star of Bethlehem to be a scientific/astrological phenomenon. I offered the opportunity to say it was supernatural (giving the example of an angel) but few respondents said they believed that.
I have to say, personally myself, since it's all done and over now that, I myself believe that it was astrological. The Magi were Babylonian astrologers and when they come to Jerusalem to worship the new-born king, Herod's palace have no idea what they're talking about - which to me at least means that it couldn't have been a comet - every ancient culture around the world feared comets as portents of doom - interestingly every culture around the world fears 'the sky falling'. I will concede that after the visit to the palace the account sounds more supernatural, with the 'star' leading the way.
This is what has led me to become interested in ancient astrology - I wanted to know what the Babylonian Magi saw that set them on their journey and I don't think it's possible to identify that without seriously understanding their astrological beliefs. Well it turns out it used to be known to Christians, a Roman writer Julius Firmicus Maternus in circa 330 was writing not only a Christian apologetics book on the error of pagan religions but a textbook on astrology in which he gives the birth chart of a divine man - Christians believe that Jesus' nature is fully God and fully man. It also turns out that while divinatory astrology has long been rejected, for example by Thomas Aquinas, it wasn't wholesale rejected until much more recently. Martin Luther's right-hand man Philip Melancthon was a practicing astrologer and Luther wrote that while he didn't agree with Philip about its usefulness, didn't see anything wrong with the way he was doing it.
Astrology was far, far more acceptable in medieval times and earlier. Which is why I'm keen to read and translate Tycho Brahe's letters regarding astrology, as he too, like every astronomer of the day was both an astronomer and an astrologer.