APPENDIX B: TIME STUDIES

 

 

The concept of time is of the very essence of the interpretation of the Book of Revelation.[1]  The very purpose of the book, as given in verse one, regards things which must happen within a short time.  The mention of time in the third verse, “…the time is at hand,” reemphasizes that time is a major factor of the message.  Again in the closing verses, 22:20 Christ says: “Surely, I come quickly (soon),” reminds the reader that the message is time sensitive, urgent.

 

Time is again a major issue in 10:6 when the Angel announces that “there shall be no more delay”, or “time no longer.”  In 11:2-3 and 12:6 a 42-month period and a thousand two hundred and threescore days are mentioned.  Three days and a half are mentioned in 11:9 and in 12:14 there is the “time, times and half a time”.  In chapter 20: 3-7 a thousand year period of time is mentioned in which satan is bound and Christ and His saints reign.

 

With all of these references it is surely necessary that we understand the concept of time that lies behind them.  If we can grasp the rhythms and patterns of time that lie behind the text, it will greatly enhance our understanding and enjoyment of the message.

 

PRIMITIVE TIME RECKONING:

 

Primitive time reckoning was accomplished by reference to the original source of time measurement, the heavens.  The systems of time had not yet been codified into neat calendars and clocks.  The study of the heavens for time telling was not so much a science as an art.  It was intimately tied in with the processes of life.  When God created the sun, moon and stars for signs of seasons, (Gen. 1:14), He gave Adam the ability to read these signs.  After the fall of Man, this innate knowledge of the times was lost or bedimmed and the long process of perfecting the art of time telling began.

 

Nilsson distinguishes between time-reckoning and mere observance of time-indications, (Nilsson, 148).  Time-reckoning is a continuous system: “The system is like a chain the links of which run into one another without gaps: each link is equivalent…to every other link of the same class, and therefore need only be given a name and counted…. This is the only genuine system, a system of continuous time-reckoning, which excludes all gaps in the chain and all links of indeterminate length” (ibid., 8).  However, since the term ‘time-reckoning’ has become ‘naturalised’ he distinguishes these two methods as ‘continuous’ and ‘discontinuous’ time-reckoning.

 

Nilsson also distinguishes between ‘time-reckoning’ and ‘the calendar.’  Time-reckoning, he says, is calculating of times and seasons through empirical observation of the time-indicators, related to the concrete phenomena of the heavens and of nature.  This may be a discontinuous system where units are not joined together.

 

The ‘calendar,’ on the other hand, is the systematized method of foretelling the times based on known mathematical formulae that predict future times.  The various cycles of the time-indicators are reconciled into a continuous and continual pattern that may or may not be perpetual (ibid., 8-9).  The term ‘the calendar’ usually refers to the officially determined appointed times for religious feasts and observances.

 

Perhaps the oldest basis for time reckoning is the month.  The Semitic languages reflect the fact that the moon was the original source of measurement of time.  “In Arabic the word for moon means ‘the measurer’ and the Egyptian moon god, Thoth, was the god of measure,” (“Calendar” ZPBD 139.)

 

There are many words that reflect this parentage.  For example, in English there is a wide range of phonosthemes using the m-n/n-m sequence with the common area of meaning: ‘reckoning,’ or ‘measurement’ for example: number, many, mental, minimum, etc.)  The Cretans had their Minotaur, related to the time-reckoning function.  The Egyptians believed Menes invented writing.  Some of their “gods” were Amen Re, etc.  (Note the m-n sequences.)  However, what we call ‘gods’ in many cases probably meant ‘abstract conceptions’ instead of some personified deity.

 

HOW THE CONSTELLATIONS WERE FORMED:

 

In order to distinguish the months, there had to be first a map of the heavens which developed when Mankind began to record the constellations and note the movements of the sun, moon and planets in relation to these constellations.

 

E. W. Maunder, The Astronomy of the Bible[2], says concerning archaeology and the constellation figures that designers of the constellations lived between 36° and 42° latitude and at date 2800 B.C.  By the absence of certain animals and the presence of a ship, the region of Asia Minor and Armenia is indicated, on the coasts of the Black, Mediterranean, Caspian, and/or Aegean seas.  When the spring equinox was in Taurus, the sun ascended through the signs facing east, descended in the signs facing west.  At about 3000 B.C. the four royal stars[3] would have marked closely the four cardinal points of the year, that is, the spring and autumn equinoxes and the summer and winter solstices.

 

There are also named configurations of constellations within other constellations.  The Pleiades are a cluster of stars within Taurus, following close behind the star Aldebaran.  Since Aldebaran is much brighter than the Pleiades, it would no doubt have served as an indicator or pointer for the Pleiades (Nilsson, 129).  Six of the traditional ‘seven stars’ are visible to the naked eye, but astronomers can view many hundreds more.  Nilsson says that the Pleiades are the most important stars as to their use for determining the times for certain natural phenomena.  They were used as symbolic of the congregation, and the star Aldebaran was symbolic of their leader.

 

With the discovery of the constellations there developed the knowledge of the entire circle of twelve constellations through which the sun, moon and stars moved in their annually repeated cycles.  This circle is called by the Greeks, the ‘zodiac’.  In all the ancient zodiacs that have come down to us, the constellation Taurus begins the year.  The sign called the Tau Cross, found on many ancient Egyptian monuments, is said to represent the spring equinox.  The Babylonian tablets reveal that the Akkadian signs, sphere, and “zodiac” were introduced prior to 3,000 B.C.

 

Seiss describes the word ‘zodiac’ as being derived from ‘zoad’, “a walk, way, or going up by steps as Jacob’s ladder, (pp. 17-18).”  When Jesus said: “I am the Way,” He may have been using the analogy of this heavenly circle of constellations.  Seiss describes each division of the ‘Way’ as having three accompanying constellations, or ‘Decans’, which Arabs called ‘Faces’, or ‘dek’, ‘pieces or divisions’.  It is these beautiful starry configurations that John saw around the throne in Revelation chapter 5.

 

One of the constellations in the ‘zodiac’ is Virgo, meaning ‘the virgin’.  This constellation is called ‘Bethulah’ in Hebrew.  In the Semitic folklore this ‘virgin’ has a Son having the Hebrew name Ihesu (Seiss, 28-9).  .[4]  She is pictured as holding a spike of wheat in one hand, and a small son on her lap.  This is so clear a picture of the Virgin birth of Christ as the Seed of the Woman, that it is considered to be prophetic from the very creation of the heavens.

 

Olcott says that the knowledge of the heavens, (called ‘Sabianism’) was originated by the Akkadians (highlanders, or mountaineers) from Elam or Susianna to the east of Assyria, and that they also originated writing and ‘civilization.’  There does seem to be a connection between the early alphabets and the constellations.  The alphabets were used for numbering and a numerical system would have been necessary for discovering the patterns of the movements.

 

The Chaldean observatories, (ziggurats), in all their large cities were no doubt used for viewing the heavens for the purpose of establishing the times.  There were many shrines located atop terraces for this purpose.  The stars were named and numbered by this time.  In this culture at this time the zenith was thought to be over Elam (Olcott, 6).  The ‘zenith’ is the point of the heavens directly above the observer.  Its opposite is the ‘nadir’, the point directly below the observer.

 

THE HEAVENLY POINTS OF REFERENCE

 

Besides the constellations, the zodiac, zenith and nadir, there is one other point of reference which is perhaps the most practical of all, and that is the pole star.  It is the star which appears to be the precise center of the turning heavens, and the entire heavenly sphere appears to revolve around it.  It is the point of due north and has been used for navigating by sea or by land from the dawn of recorded history.  It is the prime point from which the earth is surveyed.  It has been observed and in practical use by all cultures in the northern hemisphere.  Some of the names for the pole star are ‘Cynosura,’ ‘Polaris,’ ‘the Chariot Star,’ ‘the Steering Star,’ ‘The Lodestar,’ ‘the Northern Axle,’ or ‘the Spindle’ (Olcott, 371-377).  It is the ‘Alpha’ star of the cosmos, and so far as the circle of the heavens is concerned, it is also the ‘omega’ star.  It is therefore a powerful and beautiful symbol of Christ. (See Commentary at 1:8 “Alpha and Omega” for other names of the pole star.)

 

Astronomers point out that there is no mathematically exact “pole star” for all time, but that the deviation from the precise polar position is so small that, for all practical purposes, the pole star serves as the reference point.  Because of the earth’s wobble over the eons of time, the earth’s north pole projected into space would draw a wavy line around the celestial pole.  These deviations, however, are so small as not to be apparent to the observer on earth except with very sophisticated instruments.

 

It also must be kept in mind that all celestial motions as observed by the natural eye are only the apparent motion; that is, what they appear to be doing from our earthly perspective.  For example, we perceive the earth as steady, not in motion, and the sun, moon, and stars as revolving around the earth.  But from the perspective of the universe, the earth is actually spinning on its axis in orbit around the sun.  This causes the periodic shadow of night and the changing of the seasons which we experience.

 

These imperfections in our perceptions do not nullify the analogy with the supremacy of Christ in His majestic role as Light.  It simply points up the fact that no symbol is fully worthy to describe Him.  We only see Him now as through a darkened glass – as we must view an eclipse of the sun – but when our bodies become like His glorious Body, we shall see Him as He is, and we shall be like Him.

 

DISCOVERY OF THE PRECESSION OF THE EQUINOX

 

The problem with this complete annual circle of time was that it was not perfect over an extended period of time.  There was a gradual slippage of the times that it took for the sun to go through these ‘houses’, as they were called.  This became apparent when there was a very slow delay, precession, of the equinox.  This led to the discovery of the exact time measurement involved in the precession.  The significance of the precession lies in its impact upon ancient religions and may have been passed down from Adam through the Semitic line from the Sumerians to the Babylonians to the Greeks.

 

Olcott says that the precession was discovered by about 4000 BC, that the precession of the equinox is a variation of the equinoctial point amounting to fifteen degrees in 2300 years, a margin of error of about 65/1000ths degree per year!  There is some discrepancy in the rate of precession in the various authors.  According to Neugebauer, Ptolemy used the constant of 1 degree per century as the rate of precession, (Exact Sciences, 68, note ad. 28), whereas Ulansey says: “Put most simply, then, the precession of the equinoxes results in a slow movement of the equinoctial points backward through the zodiac, moving through one constellation every 2,160 years and thus through the entire zodiac in 12 times 2,160, or 25,920 years,” (Ulansey, 50).  This would be a rate of 1.3888+ degrees per century, or about one degree each 72 years.  This might explain why the number 72 was important to the ancient Hebrews.

 

Neugebauer, however, believes the precession was not discovered until the time of Hipparchus in the Hellenistic period, (about 130-180 BC, ibid.).  He later shows that Hipparchus was heir to much astronomical and mathematical lore from a tradition that extended back to the Babylonians (Neugebauer, 139).  In fact, the mathematics of the Hellenistic period “is in part only a link in an unbroken tradition which reaches from the earliest periods of ancient history down to the beginning of modern times” (ibid., 140).  The Babylonian Berossos is known to have moved to Greece about 270 B.C. where he taught Babylonian astronomical lore, (ibid.,150-151)  It seems most likely to me that Hipparchus ‘discovered’ the precession in these more ancient texts, rather than from first hand observations of his own.  It would be highly unlikely that he did not; it would be impossible to prove that he did not.

 

Neugebauer seems to distinguish between the transmission of astronomical lore and that of mathematical lore from the Babylonians to the Hellenistic Greeks.  Yet, he clearly shows that the two are inseparable and that astronomical calculations involved the use of mathematical principles.  One example of this is in the importance of mathematical geography (ibid., p. 152).  This shows that the numero-alphabet had to develop alongside the astronomical lore.

 

It seems to me that the complexity of the discovery of precession has been overestimated, and that it may actually have been a rather simple, indeed inevitable discovery.  Actually, since the world is about 24,800 miles in circumference and the precession makes its entire circle in 25,920 years, it would have moved in relation to the earth only about 1.045 miles per year.  This could have been discovered by observers watching for the vertical crossing of a given star at the point of the equinox.  Each year the star would be only about one mile farther off, a distance that could easily have been plotted empirically.

 

Certain aspects of the universal movement would have required more expertise and more time, however.  The ancients would have needed to know the measurements of the earth’s circumference in order to know the length of the entire cycle.  They would need to have made very long and careful calculations of the motion of the axis of the earth in regard to the polar region of the heavens in order to discover the actual design of the movement of the pole through the 25,920 year precession cycle.  So, while the precession was probably known by the earliest Sumerian calendar makers, the rate and design came much later.  It depended upon careful, accurate and detailed transmission of time-telling data over thousands of years, or by knowledge passed down from Adam.

 

Ulansey’s thesis is that the mythology of the religion of Mithraism developed from the knowledge of the precession of the equinox and the myths symbolized this cosmic reality, (Origins of Mithraic Mysteries).  He discusses the Mithraic rituals and myths concerning the slaying of the bull.  He shows how these are closely correlated to the conventional cosmography of the Roman era, indicating that the bull represents the sign Taurus and the bull-slayer the sign Perseus.  The fact that the sign Taurus was losing its place in the ecliptic because of the precession of the equinox was mythically portrayed by the slaying of Taurus.  The real meaning was part of the secrets of the cult, taught gradually to the initiates.  He believes that this original meaning was the power that inaugurated the religion, although it was later lost, diluted or perverted.

 

The significance of this for our present study of the Book of Revelation is that the Calendaric discoveries were very powerful in ancient religion.  This is also true of the religion of the Old Testament, as I discuss in my Commentary on “Time” and “Alpha and Omega”.  The alphabet developed along with the knowledge of the calendar and so each contributed to the development of the other.  Seeing that these two powerful concepts are a symbol of Christ opens a view of His majestic place and power in our universe.

 

The school of thought known as the ‘Pan-Babylonians’ which flourished in the early 20th century, Ulansey says, believed that the ancient Babylonians had discovered the precession of the equinox and had made it the basis of a cosmic religious system that subsequently branched out into various other religions.  Because that school later suffered almost complete loss of credibility, scholars since that time have shied away from making any connection between religion and the cosmos.  Ulansey, however, returns to that debunked idea in regard to the religion of Mithraism.  That the Babylonians found a common thread between the cosmos and religion shows the prevalence of this idea in those ancient times in which the Old Testament religion developed.  In the Old Testament the relationship is based on the fact that God created the cosmos for the purpose of time telling.  God revealed the ‘Pattern’ to Adam, to Moses and again to David so that they could “make all things according to the Pattern”.  It was a significant factor in Old Testament Israel.

 

An example of how ancient writings reflected the time telling heavens is found in the ancient Babylonian Epic of Creation.  It is structured according to the constellations, each book of the epic corresponding numerically to the ‘zodiacal’ sign or division of the ecliptic which we know as a ‘month.’  The Epic has an account of the flood in Noah’s day similar to the account in Genesis.  This account is in the eleventh book corresponding to the eleventh constellation, which we now call ‘Aquarius.’  The conventionalized sign for that constellation from ancient times has been water,* probably from the tradition of the flood having occurred in this month.  The eleventh month in Babylonia at that time was called “Shabatu,” which has been interpreted as meaning ‘the curse of rain,’ (or ‘the destroyer’ according to the Nippur ideographs), (Neugebauer, 230).  I believe that meaning is not the original one but was secondarily derived from the flood tradition.  It should be interpreted as related to the word shab, ‘return,’ with reference to the return of the year.  The ending –atu is the morpheme indicating ‘month.’  (See also ibid., 227-231 and my Commentary at 1:3 “Christ as Light and Time.”)

 

(* The sign for water is the same as for the oldest form of the Hebrew letter “Mem“, [M].  In the Hebrew alphabet, if one leaves out the semi-vowels vau and he, it is the eleventh letter of the alphabetic order and its oldest form seems to represent waves.)