of Holy Scripture

Author: E. Walter Maunder

Release Date: April 8, 2009 [EBook #28536]

Language: English

Character set encoding: UTF-8

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ASTRONOMY OF THE BIBLE ***

Produced by Curtis Weyant, Jeannie Howse, Lisa Reigel, and

the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
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Transcriber's Notes: Variations in spelling and hyphenation have been

left as in the original. Words italicized in the original are surrounded
by _underscores_. Characters superscripted in the original are enclosed
in {braces}. Some typographical and punctuation errors have been
corrected. A complete list follows the text.

THE ASTRONOMY
OF THE BIBLE

[Illustration: _From the Painting by Sir Edward Burne-Jones in the

Birmingham Art Gallery._

THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM.

"We have seen His star in the east, and are come to worship Him."

[_Frontispiece._]

THE ASTRONOMY
OF THE BIBLE

AN ELEMENTARY COMMENTARY ON THE

ASTRONOMICAL REFERENCES
OF HOLY SCRIPTURE
BY
E. WALTER MAUNDER, F.R.A.S.

AUTHOR OF
'THE ROYAL OBSERVATORY, GREENWICH: ITS HISTORY AND WORK,'
AND 'ASTRONOMY WITHOUT A TELESCOPE'

_WITH THIRTY-FOUR ILLUSTRATIONS_

NEW YORK
MITCHELL KENNERLEY

RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED,

BREAD STREET HILL, E.C., AND
BUNGAY, SUFFOLK.

To

MY WIFE

My helper in this Book

and in all things.

PREFACE

Why should an astronomer write a commentary on the Bible?

Because commentators as a rule are not astronomers, and therefore either

pass over the astronomical allusions of Scripture in silence, or else
annotate them in a way which, from a scientific point of view, leaves
much to be desired.

Astronomical allusions in the Bible, direct and indirect, are not few in
number, and, in order to bring out their full significance, need to be
treated astronomically. Astronomy further gives us the power of placing
ourselves to some degree in the position of the patriarchs and prophets
of old. We know that the same sun and moon, stars and planets, shine
upon us as shone upon Abraham and Moses, David and Isaiah. We can, if we
will, see the unchanging heavens with their eyes, and understand their
attitude towards them.

It is worth while for us so to do. For the immense advances in science,

made since the Canon of Holy Scripture was closed, and especially during
the last three hundred years, may enable us to realize the significance
of a most remarkable fact. Even in those early ages, when to all the
nations surrounding Israel the heavenly bodies were objects for
divination or idolatry, the attitude of the sacred writers toward them
was perfect in its sanity and truth.