The idea of an unseen supernatural heaven was far too abstract for ancients. There was the great sky above them peering down with its multitude of lights day and night. How could they ignore it? It makes no sense that they could overlook something so vast and mysterious! To make sense out of it, they looked to the sky for omens. Astrology permeated the kingdoms of Sumeria, Babylon, Assyria, Egypt, Chaldea, Persia, Arabia, Greece, Rome and even China. Hebrews and early Christians could not have ignored it. To make that point, here are some examples from Genesis and Revelation.
Belief in a firmament implied a sky surrounded by a shell. That shell was believed to be formed by the arc by which heavenly bodies travelled from east to west.
6And God said, "Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters."
7And God made the firmament and separated the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament. And it was so.
8And God called the firmament Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day. (Gen. 1:6-8)
The greater light-the sun- ruled the day and the lesser light-the moon-ruled the night.
16And God made the two great lights, the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night; he made the stars also.
17And God set them in the firmament of the heavens to give light upon the earth,
18to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. (Gen. 1:16-17)
Abraham believed that the number of stars foretold the number of his descendents.
3And Abram said, "Behold, thou hast given me no offspring; and a slave born in my house will be my heir."
4And behold, the word of the LORD came to him, "This man shall not be your heir; your own son shall be your heir."
5And he brought him outside and said, "Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them." Then he said to him, "So shall your descendants be."
6And he believed the LORD; and he reckoned it to him as righteousness. (Gen. 15:3-6)
17I will indeed bless you, and I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore. And your descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies, (Gen. 22:17)
Joseph in a dream, believed that the sun, the moon and the eleven (later twelve) stars were bowing down to him.
9Then he dreamed another dream, and told it to his brothers, and said, "Behold, I have dreamed another dream; and behold, the sun, the moon, and eleven stars were bowing down to me." (Gen. 37:9)
"Clouds" defines the Milky Way.
7Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, every one who pierced him; and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so. Amen. (Rev. 1:5)
A star falls from heaven? In modern parlance, we say stars descend.
10The third angel blew his trumpet, and a great star fell from heaven, blazing like a torch, and it fell on a third of the rivers and on the fountains of water. (Rev. 8:10)
These verses describe the twelve constellations of the zodiac, and Virgo with the small constellation Coma Berenices next to it. Translation: the portent appears when the full moon is in Virgo.
1And a great portent appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars;
2she was with child and she cried out in her pangs of birth, in anguish for delivery. (Rev. 12:1)
Equinoctial Christolatry is formost in the bible, you just have to have the eyes to see
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