Origins of Hellenistic Astrology

waybread

Well-known member
Following up on Frank's thread on domiciles I thought it would be worthwhile to start a new thread on the origins and early history of Hellenistic (Greek and Roman) horoscopic astrology. A lot is unknown, but both astrologers and classical studies scholars are contributing more research. Feel free to add to, subtract from, modify, or debate the following! I can add more references if anybody is interested. The books should be available via amazon.com.

One type of source that we have to treat with a lot of caution are what ancient astrologers themselves said about the origins of their craft. There is a big literature among classical studies scholars demonstrating that the Greeks and Romans were often mistaken about the origins of their knowledge disciplines at any given time, including the origins of astrology.

Good general overview sources are these books: Nicholas Campion, The Dawn of Astrology; Tamsyn Barton, Ancient Astrology; and the Oxford Classical Dictionary.

We might start with 3 ancient centres.

1. Mesopotamian/Babylonian (Chaldean). The Babylonians had a lot of really ancient "cultural astronomy" but much of it dealt with predicting eclipses and tracking planets as omens for king and country. We start getting horoscopic astrology for individuals in about the 6th century BC. However, the horoscopes are mostly in the form of cuniform writing on ostraca, or pottery pieces that ancient people used to write on. The horoscopes give some planetary placements, but hardly anything about how Babylonian astrologers interpreted their data.

Main contributions to western astrology: ephemerises, planets in signs, eclipses, dodekatemoira (dwads), planetary hours, rising times, and the trine aspect. Rochberg-Halton claims planetary exaltations (hypsomata), but another author (cited below) claims an earlier Egyptian origin. The Babylonians saw planetary placements as evidence of what the gods intended, not as bodies themselves having any ability to influence human events. Ptolemy gives both "Chaldean" and Egyptian terms. The Babylonians also established the "If....then...." nature of astrological predictions. The "If" conditions refer to specific astrological placements. The "then" material interprets the meaning of those placements for human outcomes.

The Babylonians did not use houses, nor many of the techniques that appear in Greek sources on astrology.

Good sources:
Ulla Koch-Westenholz, 1995, Mesopotamian Astrology (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press.)

F. Rochberg-Halton, 1988, "Elements of the Babylonian Contribution to Hellenistic Astrology," Journal of the American Oriental Society 108: 51-62. (available through JSTOR)

Francesca Rochberg, 1998, "Babylonian Horoscopes," Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, v. 88 parts 1-3. (available on Google Books.)

Francesca Rochberg, 2004, The Heavenly Writing: Divination, Horoscopy, and Astronomy in Mesopotamian Culture (Cambridge University Press.)

Gavin White, 2008, Babylonian Star-Lore (London: Solaria Publications.)

1. Egyptian. Historians of astrology generally haven't found much in Egyptian tradition to validate the ancient Hellenistic astrologers' claim for Egyptian roots to Hellenistic horoscopic astrology. Some of them traced astrology's origin to a King Nechepso and his scribe Petosiris, yet the Egyptians kept detailed king lists, and nobody by this name shows up. There were two pharoahs named Neko, but there is no evidence that they were astrologers. I personally believe that the ancient Egyptian religions of death and renewal were the origins of our thematic houses, but this would take a lot more research to demonstrate (or dismiss) conclusively.

Perhaps more relevant for the history of astrology is the blend of Greek, Egyptian, and other cultures that appeared in centres of learning like Alexandria, Egypt (home to Ptolemy and Vettius Valens) and elsewhere in the Greek and Roman empires. Egyptians emigrated to different parts of the Hellenized world, just as Greeks, Jews, and other ethnic groups moved to Egypt. When we first find archaeological horoscopes in Egypt, for example, they often appear in a script called "Demotic": the Egyptian language written in Greek characters. The Dendera planisphere (or zodiac) on the temple of the goddess Hathor shows a mix of Babylonian zodiac and Egyptian religious motifs. The multi-authored, esoteric "hermetic" literature attributed to a mythical Hermes Trismegestus (discussed by Campion, Dawn of Astrology) and the "Greek magical papyri" contain astrological material.

Main contributions to western astrology: The decans derived from the ancient Egyptian star calendar used to predict Nile floods and religious festivals. They had a detailed systematic system of star-watching in order to time risings and settings. They adopted the Babylonian practice of star and eclipse omens. They had their own system for planets in terms. They may be responsible for our orientation of the MC not only as "up" but also as "south." Their observation of the sun's passage across the heavens from east to west, re-emerging at dawn, in combination with their beliefs about the regenerative gods Hapi, Re, Isis, Osiris, and Horus may have a lot to do with our current house systems. Joanne Conman also gives them the origins of our system of planetary exaltations.

Good sources:

Hans Dieter Betz, The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation, 2nd ed. (University of Chicago Press)

www.sofiatopia.org/maat/hidden_chamber01.htm (not an astrological source, but highly relevant)

Joanne Conman, 2003, "It's about Time: Ancient Egyptian Cosmology," Studien zur Altagyptischen Kultur, 31: 42-57.

Joanne Conman, 2006-09, "The Egyptian Origins of Planetary Hypsomata," Discussions in Egyptology 64: (found on-line, sorry-- n.d.!)

Joanne Conman, 2010, "Origins of Astrology," Kepler College website at www.kepler.edu

O. Neugebauer, 1955, "The Egyptian Decans," Vistas in Astronomy 1:47-51.

R. A. Parker, 1974, "Ancient Egyptian Astronomy," Philosophical Transactions, Royal Society of London 276: 51-65.

Neugebauer, Otto, 1943, "Demotic Horoscopes," Journal of the American Oriental Society 63: 115-27.

Neugebauer, Otto and Richard A. Parker, 1960-1969 Egyptian Astronomical Texts, 3 vols (Brown University Press)

3. Greek and Roman (to be continued)
 

waybread

Well-known member
3. Greek and Roman ("Hellenistic") continued...

Again, please add to, subtract from, modify, discuss, or debate this material!

Good sources: too numerous to be covered in one post. Again, good general sources are Nicholas Campion, The Dawn of Astrology; Tamsyn Barton, Ancient Astrology; and the Oxford Classical Dictionary. James Herschel Holden, A History of Horoscopic Astrology is a set of sketches of leading astrologers, of whom 18 would be called Hellenistic. Unfortunately the works of most of these astrologers no longer exist and we know about them only because of what other Hellenistic astrologers reported about them.

There is also a lot of information at the Skyscript website, and in Deborah Houlding, Houses: Temples of the Sky. If you google "Robert Schmidt astrology" you will find a lot of essays by him (see "Project Hindsight"), as well as his Hellenistic astrology forum that seems mostly inactive, but that includes interesting material. Joseph Crane and Chris Brennan are practitioners and interpreters of Hellenistic astrology for today.

The major Hellenistic astrologers that are easily available in print and in English translation (available at amazon.com) are: Manilius, Astronomica; Dorotheus of Sidon, Carmen Astrologicum; Vettius Valens, Anthologies; Ptolemy, Tetrabiblos, Firmicus Maternus Matheseos Librii VIII; Porphyry's Introduction to Tetrabiblos; and James H. Holden's translation of Rhetorius the Egyptian. Robert Schmidt has made many additional minor (and some major) original sources available through the Project Hindsight website www.projecthindsight.com . Dorian Giesler Greenbaum also has a translation of Paulus Alexandrinus and Olympiodorus available for sale at her website www.classicalastrology.org .

Classical studies scholars have also published a lot of books and articles on astrology and relevant topics. While astrologers have criticicized the professors for not knowing their astrology, these scholars generally have far greater backgrounds than astrologers do in the whole context of Greek and Roman literature and history. Many are experts in ancient languages and how to resurrect ancient texts, well beyond what the typical astrologer who studied university Latin or Greek would acquire. Some of the scholarly works are partly archaeological in nature, such as Otto Neugebauer's work on ancient astronomy and horoscopes.

If anyone is interested in a particular topic or author, let me know and I will try to look up references for you, as I have access to an on-line university library data base. However, you would have to contact the journal publisher or an on-line article delivery service such as JSTOR on how to purchase any scholarly journal articles.

main contributions to western astrology: too many to mention! What didn't they invent? This is partly because the Islamic astrologers who came next had access to classical works; and once Ptoelmy's Tetrabiblos was re-discovered in the West in the Middle Ages, his work had a huge impact on the development of traditional astrology from then on. But if you review inventions of the Babylonians and Egyptians, you can see all kinds of techniques in traditional astrology that go well beyond their contributions. One thing the Hellenistic astrologers didn't fuss with particularly was developing an improved quadrant house system, which came later. Horary astrology was a later development, although a few Hellenistic astrologers were concerned with electional (choosing an auspicious date) astrology.


The Big Question (to me) in the origins of western astrology, is what happened in the centuries just prior to the explosion of some pretty technical astrological delineations in the first and second centuries AD. There is hardly any discussion of horoscopic astrology by insiders or preserved horoscopes prior to the 2nd century BC, although there is abundant mention of astrologers practicing their craft by Latin and Greek authors. An analogy would be starting up a car from being parked during long over-nights in the dead of winter, and then reaching a speed of 60 mph (100 kph) in a matter of seconds.

Alexandria, Egypt seems a likely place to look. It was conquered by the Greeks (Alexander the Great) in 331 BC, and then by the Romans in 80 BC. Not only many Greeks and Romans settled in Alexandria, but also members of many other cultures: Jews, Babylonians, Persians, and so on. Consequently it was a hub where many different ideas could be exchanged. It was the second largest city in the Roman empire after Rome itself, and was home to Vettius Valens and Ptolemy. It also had a famous library where many ancient manuscripts were preserved until it was burn during one of the Roman invasions.

Astrology in Hellenistic times was far more diverse than what most of us think of "astrology" today. The Greeks and Romans developed their own star calendars long before the introduction of astrology to assist farmers in forecasting appropximate dates for various agricultural activities. Sailors used star calendars to know when to end the shipping season with approaching storms on the Mediterranean Sea, and they were also used to time religious festivals. Although some of these calendars were set down in verse form, they also had actual devices called perapegmata for this purpose.

The Hellenistic astrologers like Ptolemy also developed a kind of astrological anthropology or geography to explain cultural differences between different nationalities, by assigning them different planetary rulers and signs.

Astrology filtered into black magic spells (Greek Magical Papyri) discovered in Egypt, and into an esoteric semi-religious/philosophical belief system called hermeticism (after the god Hermes, i.e., Mercury.) A new religious mystery cult, Mithraism, that flourished in the Roman empire during the first four centuries AD, made extensive use of astrological symbolism.

Understandably, today astrologers are most interested in focusing the scope of Hellenistic astrology on natal chart interpretation, but it is worthwhile realizing that it was not so narrowly understood in ancient times. Back then, astrology might also be a way for you to decide when to plant your barley crop, celebrate a holy day dedicated to one of the gods, make a recalcitrant lover come to your home at night (via a spell,) or understand why the different ethnic groups you encountered looked and acted so different from your own.
 

dr. farr

Well-known member
Relative to your last paragraph, that WAS the original purpose of macrocosmic analysis and prediction (forgive me, that is how the hermeticists always refer to "astrology", and am I guilty of being one of them); TIMING of events, actions, physical and spiritual, was (once) the all-important thing to know: the most ancient Egyptian indications show this, and it is also clear from astrological references in the Vedas and Puranas of India (dating to as early as 2000/3000BC) , that this katarchic understanding held sway, possibly for millenia.
 

sandstone

Banned
thanks for doing these posts waybread.. i think it is a fascinating exercise to try to unearth the origins of hellenistic astrology, or astrology in general..

i did go and look at the book you mentioned -"babylonian horoscopes" by fancesca rochberg which is the basis for your statement babylonian astrology was sidereal based..

while i didn't read the whole book, i note that they were dividing up space in 30 degree segments and seemed to be using the star data specifically for finding the location of the moon... the astrology is more interested in lunar position then anything else from what i read.. i find it interesting the desire to put the data in 30 degree increments while ignoring the constellation boundaries.. if they were indeed doing a form of sidereal astrology, it was nothing of as i think of it from the late cyril fagan, but instead a very different kind.. i would call it lunar astrology mostly it seems a tool to map the sky in order to keep tabs on lunar cycles, or solar lunar cycles...

what is also interesting is the starting point at 8 or 10 aries which seems to suggest they were also making the equinox point - or basis for the tropical zodiac - an important consideration as well.. perhaps i will have to read the whole book and it doesn't appear that long either.. here is a google e book link to it..

http://books.google.ca/books?id=dSE...ce=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false
 

JUPITERASC

Well-known member
Relative to your last paragraph, that WAS the original purpose of macrocosmic analysis and prediction (forgive me, that is how the hermeticists always refer to "astrology", and am I guilty of being one of them); TIMING of events, actions, physical and spiritual, was (once) the all-important thing to know: the most ancient Egyptian indications show this, and it is also clear from astrological references in the Vedas and Puranas of India (dating to as early as 2000/3000BC) , that this katarchic understanding held sway, possibly for millenia.
dr. farr, you may be interested to read what Rumen Kolev posted on ACT asatrology forum on Thu Mar 12, 2009 8:42 pm http://actastrology.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=97

“I have rock-solid proof for many elements in Hellenistic coming directly from Babylonian.......

Hellenistic astrology used the Babylonian Calendar to compute its Birth-Day
Exaltations go very far back - at least to 500 - 700 BC minimum.
But I think the first traces of exaltations are much before Omhros - from around 5,500 BC.
Syzygies go back to at least - 700 BC - firm textual evidence, but ultimately they go again to around 5,500 BC when Agriculture started.........

So, the Greeks are the meeting Point: Point in Time where the True Astrology finished ….The Keys were being lost gradually. The Greeks are in the Center: Sumer-Babylonia-Greece-Arabs-Europe"


http://www.babylonianastrology.com/ :smile:
 

sandstone

Banned
i think the word TRUE got me to thinking about whether it was the one TRUE glass or not..

maybe this was a joke?
where the True Astrology finished...

define true astrology when you get a chance..

 

tsmall

Premium Member
old keys lost and new keys found...

reminds me of the conversation about whether the glass is half empty or half full..

and

Is there a 'glass'? :smile:

"There is no spoon..."

Both of you remind me of the pragmatist's view...the glass is neither half empty nor half full, there is just too much glass...:wink:

sandstone, I do believe the "True Astrology" comment was a quote from Rumen Kolev.

I haven't read the entire pdf (220 pages), but this link to a Western Sidereal textbook has an interesting first few chapters on the origins of astrology...

http://starscience.info/as_above_so_below.pdf
 

sandstone

Banned
thanks - whenever i see the word true connected to anything i wonder about where the person is coming from.. astrological crusades here we come...next it will be burning astrologers at there computer screens!
 

JUPITERASC

Well-known member
thanks - whenever i see the word true connected to anything i wonder about where the person is coming from.. astrological crusades here we come...next it will be burning astrologers at there computer screens!
Plenty of modern 'astrological Crusaders' , as well as traditional and ancient 'astrological Crusaders' - it's all relative...
spontaneous combustion of astrologers at their computer screens is an intriguing idea, one wonders which sign would be most prone to such an inflammatory event

Elementally, Fire would seem the appropriate candidate, although there may well be mitigating as well as exacerbating factors, therefore all signs had better remain alert :smile:
 
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waybread

Well-known member
Thanks for participating, everyone!

JA, That the Babylonians used exaltations at an early date is not in dispute. What Joanne Conman argued, however, in her article, "The Egyptian Origins of Planetary Hypsomata" cited in my OP, is that there is even older evidence from Egyptian sources.

Just some aditional bits I've gleaned by going through academic journal article data bases:

Alexander Jones and John M. Steele, 2011, "A new Discovery of a Component of Greek Astrology in Babylonian Tablets..." ISAW Papers 1 (2011) on-line at http://dlib.nyu.edu/awdl/isaw/isaw-papers/1/

They discouss the discovery of tablets indicating Babylonian terms. The tablets cannot be precisely dated, but the authors think they come from the 5th or 4th century, BC. Note that Ptolemy in Tetrabiblos mentions both Babylonian and Egyptian terms, and they're different.

Daryn Lehoux (2004) "Observation and prediction in ancient astrology," Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 35:227-246. (available for a fee from www.elsevier.com/locate/shpsa .

She looked at both astrological texts and archaeological finds of calendrical instruments known as perapegmata, (singular=perapegma) and concluded that Greco-Roman cultural astronomy stopped being a discipline of directly observing the heavens, and moved to one concerned with recorded data and instruments at a very early date, sometime after Hesiod wrote his Works and Days (ca. 700 BC) but possibly as early as the 5th century BC in Babylon. Much of her information concerns astro-meteorology rather than birth chart interpretation; but an instrumental/data-table astrology had taken hold by the time the major texts about nativities appear from Hellenistic astrologers.
 

JUPITERASC

Well-known member
There was an uproar in 1902 when several of the foremost Assyriologists in the World found that the story of the Flood had been transmitted word for word into Genesis from Cuneiform tablets.

The Church felt attacked and responded mightily: their Most Conservative and Dogmatic levels rising as one against Delitzsch, Jeremias, Winckler and other brave scholars - to annihilate them and their ideas once and forever. And they did.....!

In short, the German Assyriologists had discovered that Astrology is the foundation of all religions and cultures of all times and all people and it all came from Mespotamia-Sumeria in around the era of Gemini: 5,000 - 6,000 BC. They also discovered that the Old and even many things from the New Testament are direct off-shoots from this first Revelation-Astro-Philosophy.


Kugler Franz from the order of Societas Jesu - a brilliant mind combining vast knowledge of languages (including Akkadian) with Astronomy and Mathematics annihilated the Pan-Babylonians in a battle that raged for 7 years between 1907 and 1914...

From around 1945 more or less the Pan-Babylonianism ceased to exist and only traces are found here and there in single scholars-outcasts like Papke Werner. From the main-stream scholars of today. Only Simo Parpola has some respect for the Pan-Babylonians and has read them. He even extolls Jeremias Alfred. Unless you are a top level Assyriology expert, such as Parpola, you are finished the moment you say few good words for the Pan-Babylonians.


Rumen Kolev has nothing against the Church and advises us that the way forward is to realise that what filtered into Christianity and main stream Judaism is a Treasure-Vault for Ancient Knowledge.

The Jews preserved one version of the most ancient stories... there are also other traditions in Judaism such as Hassidism, Kabbala, Enochian Judaism.. in fact Rumen Kolev states that if it was not for the 'bright' branch of the Judaic tradition (Jesus being one of them!), the 'dark forces' would have taken over the world long time ago! Actually the most serious research in Assyriology and Babylonian-SUmerian Astrosophy is in GERMAN ! And there are no translations of these in English !!



Rumen Kolev says: “I have the ultimate proof that will restore the Pan-Babylonians as scholars fighting for the Truth and destroy once and forever the other dogmatic Kuglerian-Neugebauerian camp which is currently dominant worldwide.

In English you can find many modern academic authors on Babylonian Astrology such as Ulla Koch-Westenholz who wrote 'Mesopotamian Astrology' A typical viewpoint of a good mainstream, politically-correct Assyriology with huge errors, with one of which I will deal briefly here.

Ulla Koch-Westenholz rejects the fact that the first tablets of Enuma Anu Enlil date from Sargon the Great and Ur III.
However the facts are absolutely confirm the dating! There is one omen in Enuma Anu Enlil which mentions Sargon by name. Also Enuma Anu Enlil mentions the nomadic tribe GUTI and that tribe happened to have existed only for several hundred years around 2300 BC and not after 2000 BC. (Sargon the Great is around 2300 BC in modern dating, the Guti come after him.)


http://www.babylonianastrology.com/ as well as http://skyscript.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=6479&highlight=babylonian and also
http://skyscript.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=4554&highlight=babylonian and http://skyscript.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=6257&highlight=babylonian :smile:
 

waybread

Well-known member
Biblical roots in Mesopotamian and Egyptian soil have been well known since the 19th century. Although his methodology has been criticized, James Frazier, The Golden Bough is still a good read. In its own way it is as contronting to Christianity as Darwin's theory of evolution.

JA, you wrote: "the German Assyriologists had discovered that Astrology is the foundation of all religions and cultures of all times and all people and it all came from Mespotamia-Sumeria in around the era of Gemini: 5,000 - 6,000 BC."

If you unpack this statement, you will realize that it cannot be correct, although star-lore was important in most religions, so far as I am aware.

One reason is because astrology per se didn't exist prior to about the 6th century BC, although Babylonian cultural astronomy is far older. (See the sources quoted in my OP.)

Another reason is because religions involve many themes that astrology, let alone Babylonian omen-literature, demonstrably do not address. The heirarchical structure of faith communities, ethical systems for ordinary people, rituals for life-passages, and concepts of personal salvation are examples.

A third reason is because many cultures were unaffected by the Babylonians, such as the Japanese, native peoples in the Americas and indigenous people of Australia-NZ during the period of Babylonian civilation.

Another consideration is that by 1902 "the church" was hardly a monolithic structure. Probably the Unitarians and Quakers were comfortable with archaeological findings, and non-attendance at churches was on the rise in Protestant countries, just as science was on the ascendant.

"Pan-Babylonians"???? Seriously?

Otto Neugebauer was an incredible scholar. You should read him. His Greek Horoscopes (co-authored with Van Hoesen) is a google book and a remarkable document. But scholars hardly find him-- or anyone to be infallible. So is Mr. Kolev setting up a straw man debate?
 
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dr. farr

Well-known member
Astrology AS WE HAVE COME TO KNOW IT, with an emphasis on individual nativities, I do think dates to around the 6th century BC; however, in the wider sense, involving timing, mundane issues, etc, it goes back much farther: we know that Chinese were using stem/branch determinations as early as 2000 BC; many astrological (wider sense) references exist in the Vedas and Puranas, which many scholars date at least to around 2-3000 BC; and then there is evidence from early Egypt, not so much from the Egyptological "academic establishment" as from the astro-archeological community (yeah, some nuts but also a good number of serious and knowledgeable investigators as well)
Me? I think the Babylonians were late comers to the whole matter, and I think origins must be sought much further back, arising from Egypt, India, Sumeria and China...
 

sandstone

Banned
jup asc - thanks for quoting where the 'true astrology' quote from in your last post, something you neglect to do in many of your posts here at aw... quoting people while not referencing them gives most readers the impression you are the one talking, when in fact this isn't the case... perhaps you could show those you are quoting more consideration by referencing your quotes in the future...

Rumen Kolev

sounds like a real quack either way...
 

waybread

Well-known member
Astrology AS WE HAVE COME TO KNOW IT, with an emphasis on individual nativities, I do think dates to around the 6th century BC; however, in the wider sense, involving timing, mundane issues, etc, it goes back much farther: we know that Chinese were using stem/branch determinations as early as 2000 BC; many astrological (wider sense) references exist in the Vedas and Puranas, which many scholars date at least to around 2-3000 BC; and then there is evidence from early Egypt, not so much from the Egyptological "academic establishment" as from the astro-archeological community (yeah, some nuts but also a good number of serious and knowledgeable investigators as well)
Me? I think the Babylonians were late comers to the whole matter, and I think origins must be sought much further back, arising from Egypt, India, Sumeria and China...

good comments!

I think it might be worthwhile to distinguish between "cultural astronomy" (aka ethnoastronomy) and astrology.

There are so many intriguing examples of all kinds of cultures with star lore that ranged from calendars to weather prediction to temple orientation to origin myths. In the Near East, India, and the Mediterranean, many of these practices did provide a foundation for astrology when it appeared. Something like Stonehenge as a giant calendar for religious purposes would probably qualify as cultural astronomy, vs. the horoscopes that appear around 0 BC/AD.

Astrology would seem to deal more directly with individual (vs. collective) human destiny; although weather and natural disaster predictions suggest that astrology actually doesn't require a human component.

Definitions, anyone? When does a culture's indigenous form of astronomy or religious beliefs about the heavens turn into astrology?
 

JUPITERASC

Well-known member
http://www.babylonianastrology.com/ Rumen Kolev reads Ancient Greek and Latin as well as Russian, German and a few other languages and has translated a cuneiform text from ancient Akkadian a language few could translate! I posted the link to his website at the end of my post for anyone interested to read his articles and literature on his website - did you not follow up the link and read Rumen Kolev's writings more fully? I have already posted the link several times on previous posts so anyone familiar with my posts would know whose work I refer to :smile:
Rumen Kolev says: “I have the ultimate proof that will restore the Pan-Babylonians as scholars fighting for the Truth and destroy once and forever the other dogmatic Kuglerian-Neugebauerian camp which is currently dominant worldwide.

In English you can find many modern academic authors on Babylonian Astrology such as Ulla Koch-Westenholz who wrote 'Mesopotamian Astrology' A typical viewpoint of a good mainstream, politically-correct Assyriology with huge errors, with one of which I will deal briefly here.

Ulla Koch-Westenholz rejects the fact that the first tablets of Enuma Anu Enlil date from Sargon the Great and Ur III.
However the facts are absolutely confirm the dating! There is one omen in Enuma Anu Enlil which mentions Sargon by name. Also Enuma Anu Enlil mentions the nomadic tribe GUTI and that tribe happened to have existed only for several hundred years around 2300 BC and not after 2000 BC. (Sargon the Great is around 2300 BC in modern dating, the Guti come after him.)


http://www.babylonianastrology.com/ as well as http://skyscript.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=6479&highlight=babylonian and also
http://skyscript.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=4554&highlight=babylonian and http://skyscript.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=6257&highlight=babylonian :smile:
JA, you wrote: "the German Assyriologists had discovered that Astrology is the foundation of all religions and cultures of all times and all people and it all came from Mespotamia-Sumeria in around the era of Gemini: 5,000 - 6,000 BC."

If you unpack this statement, you will realize that it cannot be correct, although star-lore was important in most religions, so far as I am aware.

One reason is because astrology per se didn't exist prior to about the 6th century BC, although Babylonian cultural astronomy is far older. (See the sources quoted in my OP.)

Another reason is because religions involve many themes that astrology, let alone Babylonian omen-literature, demonstrably do not address. The heirarchical structure of faith communities, ethical systems for ordinary people, rituals for life-passages, and concepts of personal salvation are examples.

A third reason is because many cultures were unaffected by the Babylonians, such as the Japanese, native peoples in the Americas and indigenous people of Australia-NZ during the period of Babylonian civilation.

Another consideration is that by 1902 "the church" was hardly a monolithic structure. Probably the Unitarians and Quakers were comfortable with archaeological findings, and non-attendance at churches was on the rise in Protestant countries, just as science was on the ascendant.

"Pan-Babylonians"???? Seriously?

Otto Neugebauer was an incredible scholar. You should read him. His Greek Horoscopes (co-authored with Van Hoesen) is a google book and a remarkable document. But scholars hardly find him-- or anyone to be infallible. So is Mr. Kolev setting up a straw man debate?
Ask Rumen Kolev he has an email address on his website that I have posted a link to on a number of occasions
 

waybread

Well-known member
JA, I don't care how many languages Mr. K. reads. What he wrote (cited in your post) is simply (a) illogical, and (b) not based on current historical, archaeological, or ethnological evidence. I've cited above some good publications by scholars who also read cuniform, and they don't make this kind of wild, unsupportable assertion.
 
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