"Four Heroes of the Night Sky"

The Bible tells us that in the days before the Great Flood, there were giants on the earth who were mighty men, men of renown. We are not told much more than that, probably because the message of the Bible is that we are to reverence God alone. In other cultures, heroes were exalted to the status of gods.

Some hero names and myths are attached to constellations. Drawings of hero figures on star maps include props from the myths.

• Perseus carries the severed head of the horrible monster, Medusa, whose hair was of snakes and whose direct stare turned anything to stone.

• Hercules wears the skin of a lion he has slain and grasps the heads of the multi-headed Hydra.

• Ophiuchus wrestles the giant serpent.

• Orion holds aloft a lion's head and skin.

Of course, the names and myths are not consistent around the world. This is expected because these thousands of years witnessed the development of many languages and the rise of many cultures. Yet the themes are consistent:

• a dread enemy
• an enslaved victim
• a self-sacrificing hero
• a conquering hero

These themes are also consistent with the message of the Bible. Satan is the dread enemy; we are/were his enslaved victims. Messiah is both the self-sacrificing and the conquering hero.

"He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love." Colossians 1:13

Four Women of the Night Sky

Virgo, Andromeda, Coma Berenices, Cassiopeia. These are the four constellations figured as women.

Virgo always carries a branch or some grain, sometimes both. Both are symbols of the "desired one," a coming savior, born of woman without human father, who would crush the serpent.

 

 Andromeda is the chained woman. Her rebellion has enslaved her to the sea dragon. A hero comes, delivers her, and slays the monster. 

 

Coma Berenices, the hair of a queen, is not the most ancient representation of this constellation. The Dendera Planisphere represented it as a woman holding a child, a restatement of Virgo bearing the seed.

Cassiopeia is the woman enthroned. Not only is she saved from the monster who would devour her, she is enthroned to reign beside the king.

Do you see human history in the story of these four women of the night sky? Humanity lost, cut off from God by our rebellion, yet God in his great love promised to send one to deliver us. Christ redeemed us from the curse, destroyed the power of death, and seats us beside him on his throne.

Some of these truths we have not yet seen with our physical eyes, but they have been accomplished in eternity and some day we will have the full experience of them.

Here are some scriptures to study for a better understanding of these ancient images:

Genesis 3:1-15; Galatians 4:4; Haggai 2:7; Colossians 1:13; Romans 6:22; 2 Timothy 2:12.

Comets, God, and the Oort Cloud

Wikipedia defines the Oort cloud as a hypothesized spherical cloud of comets which may lie nearly one light-year from the sun.

Notice the "hypothesized" and "may."

No one has ever seen the Oort cloud. No one has ever measured its size or density, or counted the objects in it. Yet science articles will assume the Oort cloud exists, and even say that it has a dense core, that it contains an estimated six trillion comets, that one sixth of these are in the outer region of the cloud, and that the comets are tens of millions of kilometers apart.

Do they know this, or did someone make it up?

I painted this a couple weeks ago. It's called "Comet Launch."

It is easier for me to believe that God plays marbles with comets than it is for me to believe in an Oort cloud.

Why? Because I know God is the Creator, and that the Oort cloud is an invention. It was invented by astronomers, who reject God and the Bible, as a way out of a dilemma.

You see, comets which periodically pass near the sun, lose so much matter each time they pass that they could not still exist after thousands of years. Comets are one evidence for a young (thousands not billions of years) universe.

A young universe implies that the Bible is true, that God is real. And a real God implies our responsibility to him. That cannot be allowed! So, the imaginary Oort cloud gives astronomers a source for new comets, making it okay that those we see are young—and solves their dilemma.

^"Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?

For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe.

Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength." 1 Corinthians 20-25 

Lepus and Lupus

Lepus and Lupus are two constellations rarely heard of except that Lepus contains a famous deep red variable known as Hind's Crimson Star.

Lepus is known as The Hare; Lupus as The Wolf. Which would you guess represents a dangerous enemy? Most would say the wolf—although if you have a garden, you might consider the hare a more immediate threat.

The Hare. Hebrew and Arabic names associated with the constellation Lepus mean the enemy, the mad, the bound, and the deceiver. Lepus' head lies just below the upraised foot of the mighty Orion, and so we have here another of the heavenly pictures of the Seed of the woman crushing the head of the serpent, as God declared in the Garden of Eden.

The Wolf. Before this constellation's name became Lupus, it wasn't any particular type of animal—just a nondescript beast. The figures show it either carried in the right hand of Centaurus or pierced by the spear Centaurus carries. The constellation is also known as Victima, the victim.

Centaurus is a complicated figure with a complicated meaning. He is both the slayer and the slain. He pierces Victima, but he himself is a willing victim on behalf of another. This idea was carried into the myths surrounding the Centaur Chiron, but the origin of that thought lay in the mind of God from eternity.

Surely he took up our infirmities
       and carried our sorrows,
       yet we considered him stricken by God,
       smitten by him, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions,
       he was crushed for our iniquities;
       the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,
       and by his wounds we are healed.
We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
       each of us has turned to his own way;
       and the LORD has laid on him
       the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53:4-6 NIV)

The Fish's Mouth

Piscus Austrinus, the Southern Fish, lies low in the south. If you can ever see it where you live in the northern hemisphere, this is the month. It will be at its highest point 11 PM as October begins, 10 PM after daylight savings time ends, and 9 PM by the middle of the month.

Its brightest star—and the brightest one you will see low in the south this month—is the famous star Formalhaut, the fish's mouth. The figures show the mouth open, and flowing into it, the water from Aquarius' urn.

Piscus Austrinus is associated with Oannes who was considered a god in much of the early Middle East. Oannes has been identified as Noah, the patriarch who survived the Great Flood. Since Oannes went through the sea and lived long afterwards, he pictures resurrection.

Aquarius pours pours living water from his urn. We, like the Southern Fish, may receive everlasting life from the One who is its source. Oddly, on many old sky maps, the Southern Fish is often portrayed turned on its back, lying upside down. No one seems to know why, but to me it shows that receiving the water of life requires submission.

It doesn't work to add Jesus to our religious beliefs. He must be all. He offers the water of life freely, but it is to Him, and Him only, that we must go for it. All other ideas must be relinquished in order to drink the living water.

"Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him." John 7:37-38.

For the beautiful story of Jesus and the woman at the well, click here to read John chapter 4.

For those interested in astronomy science, here is a link to information about a debris disk surrounding Fomalhaut and a planet discovered within it.