Ancient astrology isn’t the same as the modern version. The astrology we see in the daily newspapers today was developed in the late 1800s and focusses on predicting the future for individuals, even predicting the outcome of a single day.
Ancient astrology has a more rational basis.
Firstly, what does the Bible say?
Gen 1 v 14
And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years”
God’s plan was for humanity to use the stars and planets for signs, season, days and years. God wanted people to use them to help record time.
So how did the ancients record time?
Every day could be marked by the sunrise and sunset. Every month could be recorded by the new Moon. Every year could be recorded by the Sun returning to the same point on the horizon. But what about more than a generation?
They would then use the planets and the stars. It takes 29 years for Saturn to orbit the Sun and return back to the same constellation in the sky.
Ancient cultures believed in circular time as opposed to our modern understanding of linear time, where time has an origin point, travels in a straight line and never repeats.
Circular time can be best explained in Ecclesiastes.
Ecc 1 v 9-10
What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.
Is there anything of which one can say “Look! This is something new”? It was here already, long ago; it was here before our time.
If we understand that time repeats, then the stars and planets would help the ancients to know when is the best time to sow and the best time to harvest.
But even more so, when a rising empire would likely fall. When a great king would be born. When a war would be best fought. And when a famine might strike the land.
Everything in history, follows the same pattern and repeats. Birth precedes maturity, maturity precedes decline and then falls into death.
A modern parallel to this could be geo-political analysis. This uses the historical record to understand the future interactions between politics and geography.
But what is God’s concern about ancient astrology?
Deuteronomy 4 v 19
And when you look up to the sky and see the sun, the moon and the stars—all the heavenly array—do not be enticed into bowing down to them and worshiping things the Lord your God has apportioned to all the nations under heaven
God warned against people worshipping the stars as though they were gods. He was concerned they would put their trust in the movement of these heavenly bodies, rather than trust and rely on Him.
By 350 BC, the ancients around the Mediterranean started using astrologers to predict the future for individuals. This was clearly outside of God’s plan.
We can see Paul encountered an astrologer in Act 13 v 6. Here Paul tells him:
Acts 13 v 10
You are a child of the devil and an enemy of everything that is right! You are full of all kinds of deceit and trickery.
So what about Job?
Job 38 v 31
“Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades? Can you loosen Orion’s belt? Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons or lead out the Bear with its cubs?
Do you know the laws of the heavens? Can you set up God’s dominion over the earth?”
God wanted Job to understand that only He sets out the path of the stars and planets. Only He leads events according to His Wisdom. Only He defines the past, the present and what the future unfolds.
Only He rules time.
So, Ecclesiastes beat Spengler by what...about 3000 years?