How
to Determine Ancient Dates of Biblical History?
Introduction
When reading the Bible it is usual to come across passages
that mention specific periods of reigns. Such an example is Jeremiah 1:1-3
and 25:3, where we find:
"[Jeremiah]
to whom the word of Jehovah occurred in the days of Jo·si'ah the son
of A'mon, the king of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reigning. And it
kept on occurring in the days of Je·hoi'a·kim the son of Jo·si'ah,
the king of Judah, until the completion of the eleventh year of Zed·e·ki'ah
the son of Jo·si'ah, the king of Judah, until Jerusalem went into exile
in the fifth month
"From
the thirteenth year of Jo·si'ah the son of A'mon, the king of Judah,
and down to this day, these twenty-three years the word of Jehovah has occurred
to me, and I kept speaking to YOU people, rising up early and speaking, but
YOU did not listen."
Several relative dates are mentioned in the above texts.
However, to what dates of our calendar do they correspond? Just reading
the Bible does not enable us to know that information. And the same happens
with all other narratives of the Bible that mention relative dates. What then
can we do to determine ancient dates of Biblical history? And is it possible
for laypeople to know how this is done?
Specialists use various methods to arrive at the dates we
see in history books. It would take another book to discourse perfectly on
them. The objective of this article is to explain, in a summarized and didactical
way, one of these methods: astronomy assisted dating.
For our luck some ancient peoples were profound experts on
the night sky, besides having knowledge of mathematics and geometry. They
were the first astronomers. The ancient Chaldeans (Babylonians) excelled in
this area. They were capable even of foreseeing eclipses and knowing with
exactitude the course of the planets then known. A certain book of mathematics
said about them:
“A people of famous constructors and astronomers, it is no
wonder the Babylonians had a mathematical culture that was very developed
for their time, and it is inferred that, among others things, they were able
of solving multiplication problems without the use of the abacus.”
Thousands of baked clay tablets, unearthed from the region
of ancient
Cuneiform tablets
Since the Bible, in its internal dating, mentions some Babylonian
kings of that period, it is not very difficult to synchronize the absolute
chronology of
Note: Jeremiah 32:1 uses the nonaccession
method of reigns. For more details, read later this article.
The tool necessary to confirm absolute chronology
The present evolution of knowledge on planets and stars has
no precedents in human history. With the surge of computers and the development
of software
specialized in Astronomy, it is today possible for anyone to verify whether
or not the contents of astronomical diaries of ancient
The program we chose to exemplify this is “Starry Night”
- Backyard Version (whose “download” can be done here). It was developed by this company, and it has other more resourceful versions.
“Starry Night” simulates visually the
sky for any date of the past or the future. This is possible only because
the relative movement of the stars is like a high precision clock in full
swing. All we have to do to travel in time is to advance or delay the hands
of the clock! The program does that by means of mathematical calculations
which have been fed with data from celestial movement mechanics.* But notice
that “Starry Night” is not a meteorology satellite program. It shows what
an observer would see in the sky regardless of clouds. More recent versions
show also where communication satellites are, as well as international space
stations (ISS), and the new comets recently discovered by astronomers.
* The margin of error is negligible (only a few minutes).
To
confirm the precision of the program “Starry Night”, read the topic ahead
"Is Starry Night a trustworthy program?"
The demonstrations in the following topic will consist in
testing the veracity of the dates presented, in order to know whether or not
they are true. To carry through this verification some steps will be necessary:
1) To know which is the date ascribed by historians to a
certain moment of the reign of the king who is being considered.
2) To install the program Starry Night in your computer.
3) To adjust the location from which the “observation” will
take place. To enter this adjustment you need to go to “Set Home Location”.
4) To make the program go back to the desired moment, that
is, to the date shown by historians.
5) To verify whether on the chosen date the sky is exactly
as it says on the cuneiform tablet. If so, the date is correct!
Shall we go? Ready to “travel in time”?
Simulating ancient astronomical observations
Initially we shall use as examples for the following simulations
two astronomical tablets: B.M. 76738
(+ B.M. 76813) and VAT 4956, which are in the
Tablet with Saturn ephemeris
These two fragments are known as “Saturn tablet”. It was
published by C. B. F. Walker, in the book Ancient
Astronomy and
Celestial Divination, by N. M. Swerdlow, (“Babylonian Saturn observations
during the reign of Kandalanu”, in English - Cambridge, Massachusetts and
London: Publishing company of MIT, 2000), pags.. 61-76. The information contained
therein was written during the rule of king Kandalanu. The tablet says (here
in blue):
Year 8 [of Kandalanu], month 6, day 5,
behind the Plough (α+
Virgin), last appearance [of Saturn].
[Year 8], month 7, day 5, “between” Plough
(α+ Virgin) and Scales (Libra), first appearance
[of Saturn].
Plough (or “furrow”) is the name they called Spica, the main
star of the constellation of Virgin. (see note). Thanks to the knowledge that modern
astronomers “transferred” into Starry
Night, it is possible today for any one to simulate the above event and to
check whether or not the date shown by historians is right.
As you see, it is said that in the eighth year of Kandalanu,
the planet Saturn was on the constellation of Virgin. But when exactly did
that happen?
Kandalanu was the king who ruled
1st year of Nabopolassar -
625 BCE
22nd year of Kandalunu - 626 BCE (last year of Kandalanu)
21st year of Kandalunu - 627 BCE
20th year of Kandalunu - 628 BCE
19th year of Kandalunu - 629 BCE
.......... And so on until
reaching the:
8th year of Kandalunu - 640 BCE <-- look here the year of the tablet!
7th year of Kandalunu - 641 BCE
........... And so forth
1st year of Kandalunu - 647 BCE.
From the above we discover that the eighth year of Kandalanu
is the year 640 BCE.
Now let us adjust the place of our observation. Since Babylonia
sat where now
Latitude: 33° 20 ' 02,0 '' N
Longitude: 4° 23 ' 52,0 '' E
Remember to modify the age, switching from “AD” (Anno Domini = after Christ) to “BC” (Before Christ).
What? Shall we go and see how the night was in the sky of
......................................................................................................................
From the table we see that the month of ululu starts approximately
in mid August. We shall consider here that ululu starts on August 16th. Should
we err by one day or two, that will not jeopardise our observation, for each
planet stays more than one day on a certain constellation. Therefore, if 1st
of ululu was on day 16 of August, day 5 of ululu will be on day 20 of August.
According to Starry Night, on 20 of August of 640 BCE, at 7:30 p.m., the sky
was like this:
Looking at the computer screen, we see that the sky is exactly
as described in the cuneiform tablet! (In the program, Virgin is called “Virgo”).
Notice that the tablet supplies still another piece of information. It says
that for one month planet Saturn has moved further and is now between constellations
Libra and Virgo. Requesting the program to show the sky one month later we
shall see exactly that: Saturn is moving between Libra and Virgo.
Just by curiosity, shall we test the date the Watchtower
ascribed the eighth year of Kandalanu?
In the encyclopaedia “Insight on the Scriptures”, the legal
entity that runs the Jehovah’s Witnesses said:
“…the Chaldean Nabopolassar founded
a new dynasty in
It is perceptible that 20 years are added to the ruling period
of Nabopolassar, father of Nebuchadnezzar. Then, if we establish that same
sequence of dates as above, we shall discover that the eighth year of Kandalunu,
according to the Watchtower, would be 660 BCE. Ask now your computer how was
the sky in
The screen of the program shows that Saturn was in the constellation
Capricorn and not in Virgo! Actually neither Virgo nor Libra were on that
sector of the sky on day 5 of the month ululu of 660 BCE. This is clear and
undisputable evidence that the date shown by the Watchtower has an error of
20 years!, as had already been proven here
through other pieces of evidence. We are perfectly safe in this statement
for the simple reason that the skies are a precision clock with no error margin.
Any Astronomy student knows that. Then, the possibility of there having been
a flaw in that demonstration is zero. Without mentioning that astronomers
know that Saturn only passes on the same constellation once every 29.5 years.
That is, by that physical parameter created by God, there is no possibility
that in the year 660 BCE Saturn might have passed through constellation Virgo,
for the cycle had not yet been completed. Not accepting this fact is to want
to change times and epochs. It is like wanting to be God!
b) VAT 4956.
Front and verse of cuneiform board VAT 4956
For the above tablet we shall set in motion three resources
of Starry Night called: “boundaries”, “labels” and “auto identify ".
They divide the sky in different sectors, identify the constellation of each
sector, and show an artistic representation of the constellation. This makes
for an easier identification of the part of the sky where each planet is.
As reference, we shall use the dates presented by historians,
and which can be found in the table below:
Obs.: Amel-Marduk is called Evil-Merodach at 2 Kings 25:27 and Jeremiah
52:31.
Among other things, VAT 4956 says:
"Year 37 of Nebuchadnezzar, king of
We see that the above information was written down in the
37th year of Nebuchadnezzar. If his 1st year was 604, then his 37th year was
568 BCE. The dairy states that on the first day of the second month of that
year 'Saturn was in front of Swallow', name given to the constellation of
Pisces. Ayaru is the second month, which starts in mid April. Thus we can
define that this event happened on April 16th of 568 BCE. Let us see whether
Starry Night confirms that register (the hour chosen was 03:50 a.m.):
We see that in fact Saturn is opposite the constellation
of Pisces, as was said in the tablet. Now let us look at twenty years before,
in 588 BCE, which would be the correct date for the 37th year of Nebuchadnezzar,
according to the Watchtower Society of U.S.A.:
In Pisces we see only the planets Venus and Jupiter. Requesting
the program (in the function “find”) to locate Saturn, it informed that Saturn
will only appear on the sky at 10:44 a.m. of April 16th 588 BCE,
Notice: As soon as possible, we will provide an explanatory
list of the names Babylonians called stars and constellations. Thus it will
be easier for anyone to test the content of astronomical dairies of ancient
c) Cylinder of Nabonidus
nr 18
Cylinder of Nabonidus discovered in
Ur
“On account of the wish for an entu priestess, in the month Ulûlu, the month (whose Sumerian name means) ‘work of the goddesses,’ on the thirteenth day the moon was eclipsed and set while eclipsed. Sîn requested an entu priestess. Thus (were) his sign and his decision.” - See complete text here.
On this occasion Nabonidus dedicated his daughter En-nigaldi-Nana (or Bel-salti-Nanar) to the god-moon Sin, so that she would be priestess in the temple of Egipar, in Ur. By acting so he was following the list of astrological omens called Enuma Anu Enlil, which said specifically that whenever an eclipse would occur in the “dawn of the morning” of day 13 of ululu, that would be a sign that the god-moon Sin was requesting a priestess. - “The Babylonian Antecedent of the Legend of Kay Kâûs”, Archiv Orientalní, Vol. XVII, H. Lewy (ed. by B. Hrozny, Prague, 1949), pages. 50, 51.
Even this cylinder not being an astronomical document, it is possible, with the astronomical information it contains, to know which was the year of that eclipse, by means of a verification of the eclipses that occurred in that period, that is, the seventeenth year of the reign of Nabonidus (from 555 to 539 BCE). Combining the information of this cylinder with another archaeological finding known as Royal Chronicle, it is possible to determine in which year of the reign of Nabonidus this eclipse took place, since Royal Chronicle says that the dedication of En-nigaldi-Nana happened in the second year of Nabonidus.
As seen above, the text says that the eclipse happened on 13 of ululu (or elil). As shown in the table referent to the simulation of Saturn tablet, this Babylonian month corresponds to parts of August and September in our calendar (And sometimes to parts of September and October). Therefore it is not necessary to locate all eclipses that occurred in the reign of Nabonidus. It is enough to look up those that happened between August and October, of all the 17 years of his reign.
Another important information supplied by the cylinder is that the eclipse was still in progress at the time the moon set and at that exact moment the sun was rising (for it was the “vigil of dawn”). That is, the end of the eclipse was not watched by anybody in Babylon. Because of such peculiarities this rare eclipse is called heliacal, for the moon sets while eclipsed, while the sun rises.
To make a simulation of this eclipse on Starry Night we would need to know the exact coordinates of ancient Babylon, whose ruins are in the surroundings of the city Al Hillah, some 25 kilometres away. To this end enter the following numbers in “Set Home Location”:
1)Latitude:32.30 N
2)Longitude: 44.10 E
The cuneiform inscription says the eclipse took place in the second year of Nabonidus, and historians say this year was 554 BCE. Being so, we shall have to check the month of ululu of the year 554 BCE. Was there a heliacal eclipse in that year? Yes, there was! If we take Starry Night to the day September 26th of 554 BCE, we shall see that the moon was full and shining in the sky. Meanwhile, at 01:40 a.m., a penumbral phase started to occur. That foreshadowed the beginning of an eclipse, which would start at 3 a.m. The climax was around 04:26 a.m., but the moon did not get to be totally covered by the Earth shade, and a border of the penumbral moon remained visible.
See bellow images supplied by the program at each of the moments mentioned:
At 02:00 a.m. the full moon
is being covered by a penumbra
At 02:48 the moon is already
in total penumbra
At 03:00 a.m. starts the
beginning of the eclipse, with the moon already in total penumbra
At 03:16 the eclipse keeps
progressing
At 04:13 the eclipse reaches
its maximum point and the sky already shows signs of dawn
At 05:14 the moon is about
to set, nevertheless the eclipse is not yet finished
At 05:39
the eclipse was not yet finished and the moon started to set in the west.
At the same time, in the east, the sun started to rise. Thus there is no doubt
about this being the eclipse mentioned in the Cylinder of Nabonidus which,
according to Starry Night, occurred exactly as described on that cuneiform
text!
At 05:39 in the west, the still eclipsed moon starts to set, whereas in the east the sun starts to rise
At 05:39 the sun starts
to rise
At 06:07 the sun is already
risen was born and the moon is not visible anymore, for it has already set
in the west
In
the course of verifying all the reign of Nabonidus, we found that in other
years there had happened three more lunar eclipses in the month of ululu.
However, in none of them did the moon set heliacally. The date of another
lunar eclipse of this type was fifty four years before, on day 24 of August
608 A.E.C.** This proves that
the royal inscription Nabon. Nr 18 undoubtedly marks the second year of Nabonidus
as 554 BCE. But what is the importance of this event in our view? Speaking
about the famous Chronicle of Nabonidus, the Watchtower declared:
“It may be noted that the phrase
“Seventeenth year” does not appear on the tablet, that portion of the text
being damaged. This phrase is inserted by the translators because they believe
that Nabonidus’ 17th regnal year was his last. So they assume that the fall
of
**
Even if it had been a heliacal eclipse, 608 BCE could not be the second year
of Nabonidus, not even for the chronology of the Watchtower (according to
whom the king in 608 was Nebuchadnezzar), nor for historically established
chronology (which says that in 608 the king was Nabopolassar).
It is noticeable that the Watchtower, in “Insight…” considers the possibility that the reign of Nabonidus has lasted more than 17 years. No doubt this could help to repair the breach of 20 years in its chronology, as shown in the tables bellow:
Neobabylonian period according to historians:
Neobabylonian period according to the Watchtower:
There is no way of
fixing this breach of 20 years in the chronology of the Watchtower, for there
are no archaeological findings that permit stretching the time of rule of
each king, or including new kings, for several prosopographical independent pieces of evidence provide
not only the duration of the neobabylonian period, but also the connecting
links between reigns that existed during that long dynasty initiated by Nabopolassar.
And the Cylinder of Nabonidus confirms unequivocally that Nabonidus in fact
only reigned 17 years, and that 554 BCE was his second year of reign. Moreover,
Nabon. text. nr 18 confirms the consistency of Beroso’s List of Kings and
the Canon of Ptolemy, which are unfavourably looked upon by the Watchtower
for being copies and not original documents of neobabylonian times. But we
should remember that royal inscriptions such as the Cylinder of Nabonidus,
and thousands of business tablets unearthed in Iraq, are original documents
of that time, and all of them together confirm the chronology presented by
Ptolemy and Beroso, which is correctly reported in every current book of Ancient
History.
------------------------------------------ end of simulations ------------------------------------------
Demonstrations
like those described above provide a complete survey of the chronological
picture of that Babylonian period. Joining all other sources of information
to the ones explained here, we can uncover periods of reigns such as the one
in the table below:
From among the thousands of archaeological discoveries that
make possible the construction of this table, there is not a single register
that authorizes the lessening or addition of years to the periods established
above. Moreover there are links binding the end of a reign to the beginning
of the following one, rendering thus impossible the inclusion of more rulers
or the addition of more time to each reign. In the future we will try to comment
on such additional evidence.
Finally, if anyone alleges that Starry Night can have some
meaningful margin of error, capable of modifying the true date, such person
is completely unaware of the nature of this program, created by specialists
who understand deeply the subject. And even if there existed such a grotesque
error, why would it support precisely the date defended by historians? The
margin of error of Starry Night is only of some minutes, not of 29.5 years!
For more details on the precision of Starry Night, read below the topic "Is
Starry Night a trustworthy program?".
The true reason why the Watchtower adds 20 years to the neo-Babylonian
period
The An important fact to highlight is that, after all, the Saturn tablet, the VAT 4956, and all other sources of that time, prove that it was in 587 BCE that Jerusalem was destroyed by the Babylonians. However, this date can not serve for the predictive speculations of the Watchtower. The date 1914*** only checks right if Jerusalem had been destroyed 20 years earlier, in 607 BCE. Because of this the Watchtower prefers to force astronomical evidence and to cause a 20 years rupture in the established historical period, trying to change History by a mere pen stroke…
***
According to the Watchtower, 1914 was the starting year of the “last days”
designated by Biblical prophecy. 1914 would be the final moment of an augured
period of 2520 years, which started in the year Jerusalem was destroyed by
the Babylonians.
Let us consider the remote possibility that Saturn tablet
and VAT 4956 were wrong. But if this were the case why would they err exactly
to prove that the date 587 is the correct one?****
And what to say about the remaining astronomical tablets of that time? Would
they all be wrong? For a complete exam we would have to analyze the other
astronomical tablets and test their content one by one, in the same way we
did for the demonstrations in this page. We, the ‘Beroean Minds’, have not
yet tested all available astronomical tablets. We only verified a few that
have been published and translated by specialists like Dr. Abraham Sachs,
one of the greatest assyriologists of the 20th century. So far what has happened
is what was already expected: the dates of historians are confirmed and the
dates of the Watchtower for that period are rejected.
****
Remember that the same happens with all the other cuneiform registers of that
time, written over an interval of hundreds of years. All of them point to
587 BCE.
In truth it is not even necessary to test all Chaldean astronomical
diaries, for on the basis of specialized literature we already know that no
source supports the date 607 BCE. If there were any tablet to support the
date 607 certainly the Watchtower would have mentioned such evidence. In any
way, we intend, in time, to publish other astronomical demonstrations of the
neo-Babylonian period, using the program Starry Night. We know that more information
of this type will not convince the dogmatists, but meanwhile it certainly
can make reasonable Jehovah’s Witnesses review their opinions on this subject.
By
J. Sachs & H. Hunger, Vol. I
(Vienna:
Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1988)
Now let us ponder about this: Logically it is reasonable to expect that some measure of error could happen in the registers of the Babylonians. And in fact some have already been detected. But what would be the probability that THOUSANDS of cuneiform registers covering an interval of hundreds of years might ALL be wrong and, by an amazing coincidence, ALL OF THEM indicating the date 587 BCE as the correct one?
Any Jehovah Witness who believes this extraordinary coincidence should also believe the theory of evolution of species, for it must be more probable that man has evolved from an “amoeba” created by a primitive spark, than for such absurd possibility to be true! In other words, in order that all tablets might be wrong it would be necessary that all Babylonian scribes throughout hundreds of years had, in some way, agreed in an international plot whose only intention would be to discredit a religion that in the 20th century would claim to be the only legitimate representative of God in Earth, and holder of the best and most precise knowledge there is…
And for those who say
that the Watchtower bases its chronology in the Bible rather than in secular
sources, let them read this article. In it they
shall discover that the Bible does not contradict in any way the neo-Babylonian
chronology. On the contrary, confirms it! In any way, even that is irrelevant
for, as we already stated here, without secular sources it is not possible
to know the dates of the Bible. So there is no way of finding support for
our dates in “Biblical chronology", for this chronology is relative and
not absolute. This is clear evidence that dates are not necessary for God’s
people. - Compare with Acts 1:6,7.
Is “Starry Night” a Trustworthy Program?
When using the program “Starry Night” to simulate astronomical observations of cuneiform tablets, we can notice the incredible degree of precision of the program in relation to what is told in the tablets. That is by itself evidence that the program works correctly and can be trusted unreservedly. If there were any great margin of error, results would be most adverse and not as it is, of total harmony in all the cases studied. However, to settle any doubts that someone may have about the precision of this computer program, we shall simulate a recent event that can be proven by photos.
The event we chose is the first lunar eclipse of the year 2007, which happened on 3rd March. Before the occurrence the Brazilian newspaper “Folha de São Paulo” published the following:
“The first total lunar eclipse of 2007 can be seen next Saturday in the whole Brazil and through Internet…. The phenomenon will be observable from 6.35 p.m. few minutes after the emergence of the Moon. Astronomers reckon that the Moon will be completely covered by the Earth shade between 7.44 and 8.57 p.m.” - Link to notice.
Anyone who on that day could avail of “Starry Night” would have been able to connect his computer and verify whether or not the above forecast was correct. To repeat what such person would do, it is necessary first to inform the program about the location from where the “observation” will take place, supplying the coordinates of the site (latitude and longitude). For this simulation we shall choose the coordinates of the city of São Paulo, Brazil:
Latitude: 23º 32 ' 51 " S
Longitude: 46º 38 ' 10 " W
Where S stands for South and W for West.
To insert this information it is necessary to enter “Set Home Location", that is in “Go”, on the upper task bar of the application. The newspaper said the phenomenon could be observed from 6:35 p.m., few minutes after the emergence of the moon. Then, in order to check, it suffices to place the desired day and time on the entrance field of the program. And it really shows that at 6:35 p.m. the moon began to appear.
6:35 p.m. - Moon begins to appear at the horizon of Sao Paulo.
If we advance the program a little, we shall see the moon already above the horizon and the eclipse in full course:
6:55 p.m. - Moon above horizon, eclipse in progress
Advancing to 7:20 p.m., we see that the moon is now almost covered up:
7:35
p.m. - eclipse in advanced stage
Finally, the newspaper had mentioned that from 7:44 p.m. the moon would be completely covered by the Earth shade. And that is exactly what “Starry Night” shows for that moment:
7:44 p.m. - eclipse at maximum point; moon totally covered
The newspaper also said that the moon would be covered until 8:57. “Starry Night” confirms this information as well:
8:57 p.m. – the moon, now higher in the sky, continues covered
Shortly after the schedule above, the moon starts to reappear:
9:10 p.m. - moon initiating reappearance
At 9:25 p.m. the reappearance of the moon is yet more pronounced, as the eclipse approaches its end:
9:25 h - eclipse ending
The eclipse ended totally a little after ten p.m. Thus the above images, extracted from “Starry Night”, coincide perfectly with the forecast published in Folha de Sao Paulo.
Let us now look at a photograph of this eclipse and compare it with what the program shows. The photo that follows was taken in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, at 6:37 p.m.
http://www.cosmobrain.com.br/astrofotografia/eclipse2007/grupo6.php
Requesting “Starry Night” to show that Belo Horizonte eclipse at 6:37 p.m., the image shown will be the following:
Look that the moon already suffered its first “bite” and that the eclipse is beginning, as proven by the photo taken in Belo Horizonte. If we look closer at the image supplied by “Starry Night”, we shall see the following:
...............
06:35 p.m............................. 06:37
p.m. ............................. 06:40 p.m.
In case you care to perform the above simulation, the coordinates of Belo Horizonte are:
Latitude: 19º 55 ' 15 " S
Longitude: 43º 56 ' 16 " W
To see a complete list of the coordinates of Brazilian cities, consult this
site.
Conclusion
What then, dear reader? What will you do with the knowledge you just received here? That will surely be your decision. Still it is never excessive to remember what James told us:
"But now YOU take pride in YOUR self-assuming brags. All such taking of pride is wicked. Therefore, if one knows how to do what is right and yet does not do it, it is a sin for him." - James 4:16,17.
Although James was speaking of a different matter, the principle he put forth in this text should apply to every aspect of our lives. Also important are the following words of Jesus Christ:
"And he went on to say to them: “A lamp is not brought to be put under a measuring basket or under a bed, is it? It is brought to be put upon a lampstand, is it not? For there is nothing hidden except for the purpose of being exposed; nothing has become carefully concealed but for the purpose of coming into the open. Whoever has ears to listen, let him listen." - Mark 4:21-23.
Therefore, dear reader, be responsible with the knowledge you just received! If you are a “Jehovah’s Witness” do not follow the example of religious bigots of the past. - See also Malachi 3:16 and Hebrews 4:13.
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Spica means “spike”.
If we go back a little to the mythology related to this name, we shall see
that this constellation was already represented by a woman holding something
in her hand, in a way very similar to the current representation of Virgin.
As everything points out, this woman represented Istar, goddess of fertility. Two references in the Net say:
"The constellation of Virgin was considered in Babylonia and ancient Egypt as symbolizing the 'Great Mother'. Its representation showed in the hand a spike, symbol of abundance, fecundity. The main star of the constellation of Virgin is precisely Spica (Spike). “ – Link .
“This alpha star in Virgo represents the harvest of barley. The Babylonians saw Spica in Virgo as a representation of harvested barley stalks held in one hand with her other hand holding barley roots directed upward. “ – Link.
Contrary to the current representation, where the woman holds a plant in her right hand, in the Babylonian version the woman holds a bundle of barley spikes in her left hand and in the other she holds the plough blade that cuts the earth. In one of the extremities of the spike there is a star. That is the reason why the name given to her is Spica, that is to say “spike”.
.......
Spica is the brightest star of Virgin, therefore it is called “alpha”. This term always refers the brightest star of every constellation. For instance the brightest star of the constellation of Scorpion is Antares, so it is the “alpha” of Scorpion; the brightest star of the constellation of Canis Major is Sirius, so it is the “alpha” of Canis Major, and so on. Therefore, the description “a+ Virgin " means that this is the brightest star of Virgin.
