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Comment by infradig | Hacker News Reader

The milky way and zodiac from the Bible 2000 years ago... Revelations 22: Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month.

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I don‘t think that text literally refers to the night sky. Most of Relevations describes things „to come“ and are communicated in signs / metaphors. See 1:1.

It's odd to look for hidden references to the Milky Way and the zodiac in the Bible, considering they were both well known before the Old Testament. If a biblical author wanted to talk about the Milky Way, or the zodiac, he could.

It's not odd at all to identify "hidden references" to a lot of things. The Hebrews weren't so big on astrology, but the Jews had more or less had centuries of contact with expert astrologers from Babylon, and that's where many "Western" concepts were codified.

On the other hand, astrology pervaded everything the Greeks and Romans believed. So much so, that I'd say that metaphors comparing Jesus to sun-gods such as Apollo were rife in the Apostolic Age. It is not difficult to find some pericopes where Jesus' supernatural qualities can be drawn parallel to Apollo, Dionysus, Zeus, et. al. Nor is is a mere coincidence that "Sun" and "Son" are pronounced the same way.

There are a ton of references to someone "entering the house" especially Jesus, and I feel that this had astrological significance to Hellenic readers, with well-established concepts of what an "astrological house" was.

My mind was blown even further when I approached a hypothesis about the Bethlehem Star and its true nature, and the true nature of those "Wise Men from the East" who were following it. It's like, modern astronomers are all gratuitously missing the point by trying to track the thing down using modern criteria. Poor guys.

> Nor is is a mere coincidence that "Sun" and "Son" are pronounced the same way.

This is an outright crazy claim. How long do you think that's been true, and for who?

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