The Strand Study Bible

GENESIS

86

GENESIS

Each of these twelve parts (consisting each of about 30 degrees) is distinguished, not by numbers or by letters, but by pictures and names, and this, as we have seen, from the very earliest times. They are preserved to the present day in our almanacs, and we are taught their order in the familiar rhymes:– “The Ram, the Bull, the heavenly Twins, And next the Crab, the Lion shines, The Virgin and the Scales; The Scorpion, Archer, and Sea-Goat, The Man that carries the Water-pot, And Fish with glittering scales.” These signs have always and everywhere been preserved in this order, and have begun with ARIES. They have been known amongst all nations, and in all ages, thus proving their common origin from one source. No one can dispute the antiquity of the signs of the Zodiac, or of the constellations. No one can question the accuracy of the ancient star names which have come down to us, for they are still preserved in every good celestial atlas. 1

In fact, when one looks at the figures themselves, i.e., the Ram (ARIES), the Bull, etc., one finds them to be completely arbitrary. Meaning, there is nothing in the group of stars that make up the Zodiac that even remotely suggest the figures they are called by. Take for example the sign of Virgo (the Virgin), and look at the group of stars that make up that constellation. There is nothing whatsoever to suggest a human form; much less whether that form is male or female. And so it is with all the others. Yet amazingly, if we turn to history and tradition, we are at once met with the fact that the Twelve Signs (the Zodiac) are the same, both as to the meaning of their names and as to their order in all the ancient nations of the world. Thus, the tower of Babel was an attempt to preserve and hand down those Stellar Revelations, which by that time, unfortunately, had been corrupted by man. E.W. Bullinger continues: 2. To unite the world religiously ( lest we be scattered ). The great Jewish historian, Josephus, declared that the tower of Babel was built because the people did not want to submit to God. Harold L. Willmington in Signs of the Times notes: These verses describe for us the first ecumenical meeting in history and the official beginning of religion. 2 Since that day the world has had a common theme within the religious community–it’s called “working together to reach heaven” ( let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven ). NOTE – The following are just some of the religions of the world that believe you have to “work” to reach heaven: Judaism (works – Jn 6:28), Hinduism (karma), Buddhism (nirvana), Taoism , Confucianism , Gnosticism , Catholicism , Islam , Mormonism , Apostolic Church , Seventh-Day Adventists , Jehovah’s Witnesses , New Age , Unitarian Universalism , Disciples of Christ , Church of Christ , United Pentecostal , etc. 11:6 According to the Bible, initially all mankind came from one area after the Flood –Babel (modern day Iraq). The one language spoken by all men upon the face of the earth before the languages and the nationalities were divided was probably Hebrew. Why? Because the only “complete” summary of our pre-Flood ancestry: creation (c. 4000 BC), the Flood (c. 2344 BC), and the Tower of Babel (c. 2243 BC), came from the Hebrew Scriptures. Outside of the Hebrew Scriptures, which were written down for us by Moses c. 1500 BC, no other historical source chronicles for us a complete pre-Flood ancestry. The Columbia History of the World agrees: Many of our fairy tales may go back to the imagination of men who lived long before the foundation of Babylon or in the regions, such as north Europe, which remained outside the historical tradition that began in the Near East. But no living memory links us with the inventors of fire, with the masters who some 15,000 years ago painted walls of caves in France and in the Ural Mountains, or with the builders who, perhaps about 2000 B.C., began to erect the still-standing monoliths at Stonehenge in England. These men left signs, and they knew what those signs meant, but they left no written words, and their message cannot be clearly understood by us. 3 We either accept the Hebrew Scriptures as a reliable historical source for pre-Flood ancestry or we “guess” as to what happened before 2000 BC, like all “pre-history” historians attempted to do. NOTE - Though humanists hate to admit it, historians have nowhere else to turn for written historical information before the year 2200 BC but to the Bible and/or the latest archaeological dig. Interestingly enough, the oldest written historical document known to mankind was discovered in the Middle East near Babylon in a town called Larsa. Called the Larsa Weld Prism , this fine document, written on baked clay, was written 174 years after the event of the Flood (c. 2344 BC – Gen 7:7 ) by a scribe by the name of Nur-Ninsubur (c. 2170 BC). This earliest known outline of world history, recovered in 1922 by two archeologists by the names of Weld & Blundell, recorded for us a list of ten pre-Flood kings. At the end of the list Nur-Ninsubur added, “Then the deluge (Flood) overthrew the land.” This tower, with its planisphere and pictures of the signs and constellations, was to be erected like those temples were afterwards, in order to preserve the revelation ( the revelation of God mentioned in Gen 1:14 – my emphasis ). 1

1 Bullinger, E.W. The Witness of the Stars , Grand Rapids, MI, Kregel, 1893/1967. Print. 2 Willmington, Harold L. Signs of the Times , Wheaton, ILL, Tyndale, 1983. Print. 3 John A. Garraty and Peter Gay. The Columbia History of the World , New York: Harper & Row, 1972. Print.