Things Are Looking UP! By Rad Smitt

Biblical Astronomy

The Bible, as a collection of ancient literature, is of great interest to astronomers because of the many references to space related phenomena.

From the famous “Let there be Light” first moment of creation, the Bible captivates and intrigues scientists and historians alike. The question arises: how accurate is the Bible literature in its description of events? Is it scientifically accurate? Is the Bible historically accurate? In this article I would like to look at a few astronomical phenomena mentioned in the Bible and comment on the scientific value of the Biblical passages.

The Book of Genesis begins with an account of creation. Amazingly, “Light” is the first thing created. In 1956 Bell Labs here in New Jersey was vexed by the constant low level background static always present in its radio transmissions. They commissioned two scientists to find out what was causing it, and figure out how to get rid of it. Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson were awarded the Nobel Prize for discovering that the static background radiation was left over from the “Big Bang” – the original explosion of energy that as it cooled during the last 13.7 billion years has become our Universe.

But the Book of Genesis doesn’t stop there. The second thing it records being created was the “vault of heaven” to divide the waters “above” from the waters “below.” Astronomical discoveries over the course of the last 50 years or so have confirmed the presence of water in space. It’s everywhere in fact. Even the Moon, last month (11/09), has been found to have water. A NASA spacecraft currently in operation at Saturn has confirmed the giant planet’s rings are made of water ice particles. It stands to reason: Hydrogen and Oxygen, the two components of water, are among the most prevalent elements of creation. There’s lot’s of water out there in space. Europa, a moon of Jupiter, almost certainly has 4 times more liquid water than Earth’s oceans. We are even building a submarine to explore the oceans of Europa!

Perhaps one of the most controversial passages of Genesis is the account of Noah’s ark, and a worldwide flood. Genesis ch. 6, v. 11 reads in translation: “the springs of the great deep broke through, and the sluices of heaven opened.” It is manifestly clear that the water CAME FROM SPACE. The flood of Noah was an astronomical calamity. In 1992, declassification of spy satellite data confirmed that the Earth is still accumulating water from space. “Car sized” chunks of ice hit the Earth every day, and vaporize in the atmosphere.

If the Earth, in its orbit around the Sun, were to have encountered a swath of ice particles – perhaps left behind by the degeneration of a comet – these particles would crash into the atmosphere and create a “rain” of water coming in from space – from the other side of the vault of heaven. The only people who could have recorded this observation and preserved it in Hebrew tradition – were those who observed it from the ark, and survived.

The Book of Job contains the most explicit astronomical observations in the Bible. The Constellation of Orion is mentioned, as is the open cluster of the Pleiades in Taurus. Of particular interest is that Job mentions he could see the brilliant “mansions” of the Southern Hemisphere. If you go to Israel you cannot see these constellations. There appears to be a direct conflict between the Biblical passages, and scientific fact.

However, because the Book of Job was written about 700 years before the common era, it is scientifically necessary to factor in the 2700 years the Earth has “wobbled” since the time the Book of Job was written. “Precession” is the astronomical term to describe the circle the North Pole draws across the heavens during the course of 26,000 years. It is this slow “wobble” of the Earth that causes other stars than Polaris to be the North Star. 13,000 years ago Vega was the closest bright star to the Pole. Ancient buildings from 7,000 B.C.E have been unearthed that had their entrances still aligned to Vega. Applying the effects of the Earth’s precession to the text of The Book of Job the bright stars of the Southern Celestial Hemisphere rise clearly into view from Israel as the Earth’s axis slowly tips to the south.

Some Biblical astronomical events defy scientific explanation. Perhaps the most perplexing Biblical event for astronomy to explain must be the Sun, and the Moon, pausing their apparent motions across the sky during Joshua’s battle at Gilgal (Joshua 10: 13-14). The only plausible astronomical explanation for the Sun stopping is the Earth’s rotation stopping. If that were the real cause of the event related in Joshua, inertia would have caused all the people to lurch forward at about 800 miles per hour, all the buildings fly apart, and all Earth’s volcanoes erupt at once. Since that didn’t happen, it might be a miracle….

At holiday time we think of the Christmas star recorded in Matthew 2:2-11. Christian tradition still places this “star” on the top of Christmas trees. The “star” moved.

Then it halted. The “wise men from the East,” were most probably Persian Zarathustrian astrologers who were puzzled by the retrograde motion of a close conjunction of three planets – Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. This explanation, developed by Johannes Kepler around 1615, still seems the most astronomically realistic. It explains why sky viewers would travel westward from Persia- they were changing their point of observation in an attempt to find the point from which the backward motion of the planets would be neutralized. Earth was passing these 3 outer, slower moving, planets in its orbit, causing them to appear to move backwards across the sky. The wise men appear to have been working on understanding the dynamics of the Solar System. Such a triple retrograde conjunction of planets occurred in 6 B.C.E. The star doesn’t seem to have been a comet. Problems harmonizing the 6 B.C.E. date of the “star’ with other Biblical references used to date the birth of Jesus remain unresolved.

Jesus’ prophetic description of the end of the world also contains astronomical phenomena, as does the Second Letter of St. Peter. The Sun not giving light, the stars “falling from the sky,” and the atmosphere “rolling up like a scroll,” among other scary eschatological events, all beg for realistic scientific explanations. If the Large Hadron Collider presently in operation in Switzerland revs up after the New Year to full power, and makes a black hole which doesn’t immediately dissolve, but falls to the center of the Earth…we might find out if being swallowed by a black hole is accurately described in the Bible! Have a Happy Holiday, and a Great New Year