47:7-15 Let us beware of acting and speaking as Babylon did; of trusting in tyranny and oppression; of boasting as to our abilities, relying on ourselves, and ascribing success to our own prudence and wisdom; lest we partake of her plagues. Those in the height of prosperity, are apt to fancy themselves out of the reach of adversity. It is also common for sinners to think they shall be safe, because they think to be secret in wicked ways. But their security shall be their ruin. Let us draw from such passages as the foregoing, those lessons of humility and trust in God which they convey. If we believe the word of God, we may know how it will be with the righteous and the wicked to all eternity. We may learn how to escape the wrath to come, to glorify God, to have peace through life, hope in death, and everlasting happiness. Let us then stand aloof from all delusions

"d??? noun - dative singular feminine
doxa dox'-ah: glory (as very apparent), in a wide application (literal or figurative, objective or subjective) -- dignity, glory(-ious), honour, praise, worship.

I sure have known of a lot of Christians visiting astrologers to get readings and advice and then they condemn it out of the other side of their mouth or while in mixed company quite often.

Its almost laughable.

The bible is very unclear on whether it wants to forbid the reading of the cosmos or not. In an apparent endorsement of astrology, god says "let them be for signs." in Genesis 1.

1:14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:

God placed the sun, moon, and stars in the firmament so that they can be used "for signs". This, of course, is exactly what astrologers do. They read "the signs" in the Zodiac to predict what will happen on Earth.

Its simply another one of those contradictory aspects of the bible. There are just a FEW of those!

Condemnation out of Context
There are only two specific discussions of the word "astrologers" in the Bible, and it is in the following passage from Isaiah 47:13 which is often cited as a biblical "condemnation" of Astrology. I have to admit that when someone showed this passage to me for the first time, it looked like it was saying that all astrologers would burn in hell!
13 Thou art wearied in the multitude of thy counsels. Let now the astrologers, the stargazers, the monthly prognosticators, stand up, and save thee from these things that shall come upon thee.
14 Behold, they shall be as stubble; the fire shall burn them; they shall not deliver themselves from the power of the flame: there shall not be a coal to warm at, nor fire to sit before it.
But I forgot to ask myself, "Who is the 'thou' and 'thee' Isaiah is talking to?"

On first reading of this out-of-context quotation from the Bible, it appeared even to me that it was saying that astrologers would be burned, presumably for practising Astrology. Naturally, I was concerned, and resolved to check it out for myself. After a thorough reading of the verses "in context", it appeared to be saying nothing more than that the God of the Israelites was going to punish the King of the Babylonians and his people, and that nothing - not even the Babylonian King's astrologers and other wise counselors - could do anything to save the Babylonians from the wrath of God. (Babylon was located in the region of Mesopotamia now known as Iraq, and it is interesting that there is now another evil "king" in charge there, who has attacked the nation of Israel with modern missiles.)

Remember that the Babylonians had taken the Israelites (God's "chosen people") into "captivity", which really means into "slavery". And Isaiah was an Israelite. To the children of Israel, the Babylonians were evil oppressors and enemies of the Hebrew people. They hoped their God would smite the Babylonians and free them from captivity and slavery.

Here are the verses immediately before AND after the cited passage, in which "thee" refers to the nation of "Babylon", not to "astrologers":

11 Therefore shall evil come upon thee; thou shalt not know from whence it riseth: and mischief shall fall upon thee; thou shalt not be able to put it off: and desolation shall come upon thee suddenly, which thou shalt not know.

15 Thus shall they be unto thee with whom thou hast laboured, even thy merchants, from thy youth: they shall wander every one to his quarter; none shall save thee.
This, then, is not a condemnation of astrologers, nor of the practice of Astrology - but a condemnation of the King of Babylon and his people, who were enemies of the Israelites. Isaiah is saying that no one can save them, and mentions "astrologers" and "stargazers" among other kinds of counselors and even the merchants of Babylon, as being powerless against the will of God.

To assume that this passage condemns the practice of Astrology itself is a misinterpretation of the true meaning of this biblical prophesy. If this is taken to "condemn" Astrology then, by the same misguided logic, one would have to say that it also condemns "merchants". But it does not condemn them, it only says that they cannot save the King from the God of Israel. No human could save the King from God's plan; and later events proved this to be true, according to the account in the Bible.

"Astrology" in the Bible
There are no other passages in the Bible which mention "Astrology", unless you consider it to be included with proscribed pagan practices like looking for signs in the entrails of sheep and fowl. Only the books of Isaiah and Daniel mention "astrologers". In Daniel there are several mentions of "astrologers", but all are in connection with the same issue, the interpretation of a dream of the King. Yet we know that Astrology does not claim to be about the interpretation of dreams.

The "wise men" consulted by the King would also be expected to interpret his dreams, but this would not have been done by using Astrology. Dream interpretation is something practised by modern psychiatrists (who also happen to be licenced medical doctors). When I see these passages being used to condemn Astrology, I wonder why the person is not also condemning dream interpretation and Psychiatry?

Deuteronomy 4:19 condemns the worship of the Sun or Moon or stars. The practice of Astrology does not imply the "worship" of heavenly bodies. Astrology is, in fact, "neutral" when it comes to believing in any particular religious philosophy, or not. You can practice Astrology and be a Christian or Jew or Muslim or Hindu - or an agnostic or an atheist.

However, when one becomes convinced of the actual correspondence (called synchronicity by Dr. Carl G. Jung) between the "signs" in the heavens and the experiences of human beings on Earth, one has to wonder if this is "the hand of God" at work.

There is no such line, of course- people have been using the biblical mandate against "sorcery" to persecute other people for centuries. We in the States have the Salem trials, but Europe has even more fevered hysteria. And in case anyone believes humans are "more enlightened" now, google search Witch Trials in Africa.

A warning- your faith in humanity will get knocked down a couple pegs.

"And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:"
- Genesis 1:14 in King James Version of The Bible


Sometimes I wonder if the people who quote the Bible to condemn Astrology have ever read what is on the very first page? It says God made these heavenly bodies to show us "signs" of His intentions, and those signs are there for anyone to read, if they would only learn how to interpret them.

That is what Astrology is all about - interpreting the signs in the motions of the sun, moon, and "wandering" stars. And that is why Kings and Popes have consulted Astrologers throughout the entire recorded history of mankind. In ancient times these wise counselors were called Magi (wise men) or Chaldeans, since many of the wise men who knew the principles of Astrology were from the land of known as Chaldea.

Here's another passage from the Bible, this time from the New Testament (quoted from the King James Version)...


25 And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring;
26 Men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken.
27 And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.
- Luke 21:25-27 in the King James Version of The Bible


Here we have Christ making a prophecy, and saying that there will be "signs" in the heavens of His coming, specifically in the sun and moon and stars (i.e. planets). This is clearly about the use of Astrology, and it is given in the words of Christ Himself.

I wonder why He would tell us there would be "signs" in the heavens, unless He meant for us to look for them and know how to interpret them? Wouldn't a person who professes to be "a Christian" give more credence to these unambiguous words of Christ than to the ambiguous admonitions of an ancient Hebrew prophet in the Old Testament? Wouldn't it make sense for Christians to actually study Astrology so they could be aware of those "signs in the heavens" Christ said would appear at His coming?

Definition: [Astrological Ages] The psychoanalyst Carl Gustav Jung [1875 - 1961 AD] was the main populariser of the concept of the Age of Aquarius. [He was not however the originator of the concept. See Paul Le Cour for more on this topic.]

Jung was already thinking about this subject in 1940, when the first reference to the concept appears in his published work. The concept appears fully formed, in one throw-away line, in a letter to H. G. Baynes, dated 12th August 1940, in a passage concerning the destruction of the temple of Karnak by an earthquake in 26 BC.

Jung writes: "1940 is the year when we approach the meridian of the first star in Aquarius. It is the premonitory earthquake of the New Age." [C G Jung Letters, Volume I, 1906-1950, p 285]*.

*[This brief comment indicates his indebtedness to prior work, notably on the question of when the Age of Aquarius would begin. However, whilst this was Jung's stance on the start date of the Age of Aquarius in 1940, by 1951 he had realised that he had been mislead - see footnote 84 below. See also the work of Edward Carpenter for a possible reason for this date.]

Below are excepts of what Jung wrote of the Age of Aquarius. The footnotes are his.

C G Jung 1951 AD [for the German-language Version], Aion [published in the Collected Works 9, Part II] Chapter IV, The Sign of the Fishes:

[In a private conversation with Margaret Ostrowski-Sachs concerning Aion, published in Conversations with C.G.Jung, Jung told her: "Before my illness I had often asked myself if I were permitted to publish or even speak of my secret knowledge. I later set it all down in Aion. I realized it was my duty to communicate these thoughts, yet I doubted whether I was allowed to give expression to them. During my illness I received confirmation and I now knew that everything had meaning and that everything was perfect." Jung's illness was over by 1944.]

[142] If, as seems probable, the aeon of the fishes is ruled by the archetypal motif of the hostile brothers, then the approach of the next Platonic month, namely Aquarius, will constellate the problem of the union of the opposites. It will then no longer be possible to write off evil as the mere privation of good; it's real existence will have to be recognized. This problem can be solved neither by philosophy, nor by economics, nor by politics, but only by the individual human being, via his experience of the living spirit...

[149] The northerly, or easterly fish, which the spring-point entered at about the beginning of our era83, is joined to the southerly, or westerly, fish by the so-called commissure. This consists of a band of faint stars forming the middle sector of the constellation, and the spring-point gradually moved along its southern edge. The point where the ecliptic intersects with the meridian at the tail of the second fish coincides roughly with the sixteenth century, the time of the Reformation, which as we know is so extraordinarily important for the history of Western symbols. Since then the spring-point has entered the southern edge of the fish, and will enter Aquarius in the course of the third millennium84. Astrologically interpreted, the designation of Christ as one of the fishes identified him with the first fish, the vertical one. Christ is followed by the Antichrist at the end of time. The beginning of the enantiodromia would fall, logically, midway between the two fishes. We have seen that this is so. The time of the Renaissance begins in the immediate vicinity of the second fish, and with it comes the spirit which culminates in the modern age85

83 The meridian of the star "O" in the commissure passed through the spring-point in A.D. 11 and that of the star "a 113" in 146 BC. Calculated on the basis of C. H. F. Peters and E. B. Knobel, Ptolemy's Catalogue of Stars: A Revision of the Almagest, Washington, 1915.

84 Since the delimitation of the constellations is known to be somewhat arbitrary, this date is very indefinite. It refers to the actual constellation of fixed stars, not to the zodion noeton, i.e. the zodiac divided into sectors of 30º each. Astrologically, the beginning of the next aeon, according to the starting point you select falls between AD 2000 and AD 2200. Starting from the star "O" and assuming a Platonic month of 2 143 years, one would arrive at AD 2154 for the beginning of the Aquarian Age, and at AD 1997 if you start at star "a 113." The latter date agrees with the longitude of the stars in Ptolemy's Almagest, p. 199, n. 1.

85 Modern astrological speculation likewise associates the Fishes with Christ: "The fishes... the inhabitants of the waters, are firstly an emblem of those whose life being hid with Christ in God, come out of the waters of judgment without being destroyed [and illusion to fishes that were not drowned in the deluge! C. G. J.] and shall find their true sphere where life abounds and death is not: where, forever surrounding with living water and drinking from it's fountain they 'shall not perish, but have everlasting life.' ... Those who shall dwell for ever in the living water are one with Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Living One." (E. M. Smith, The Zodia,, pp. 280f, London, 1906.)

Well this doesn't fit the usual description of an aquarius

My moon is in taurus, which squares my sun, not a great combination, but as in all things, it depends on what one does with it..

At least, that is how I see it.

Quadruplicity is an orientation toward the world, fixed is, like you said.. stubborn and unwilling to bend once set upon an idea or direction. They tend to have great staying power. Leo and scorpio are also fixed.

Cardinal signs (aries, cancer, libra and capricorn) are more dynamic, they seek to shake things up, introduce change. They are also willing to work for that change, not just dream about ideas, they put them to good use.

Mutable signs (gemini, virgo, sagitarius, pisces) are as the name suggests, more able to go with the flow and are also easily influenced. These people are able to compromise and adapt to new situations with ease.

But a person's sun sign isn't the whole picture, not by a long shot!

I see Astrology as a "chicken or egg" scenario.

Some astrological descriptions are very accurate- but why? Is it that the stars genuinely influence a person based on the configurations at their birth- or is it that people believe that occurs, and act accordingly?

God hates shellfish!

^^ Interesting post, but what is your opinion of astrology in the bible?

Trippy:
Nice modern spin on my fave sufi parable!! Love it : )