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Were the 12 Tribes of Israel Based on the Zodiac?
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Original Message
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Here's a subject about which there is much disinformation, including attempts to claim that the zodiac postdated the founding of the Israelite nation with its 12 tribes and that, hence, the numbering of the tribes could not be based on the 12 zodiacal signs, as has been suggested by many people since ancient times.
Testimony of Josephus and Philo
The claim that the 12 tribes of Israel were identified with the 12 signs of the zodiac is spelled out clearly by the ancient Jewish writers Philo and Josephus, during the first century. During the first century BCE, Diodorus Siculus identified the 12 tribes with the 12 months.
As I relate in Christ in Egypt (261): [link to stellarhousepublishing.com]
See Exodus 39:9-14: "...they made the breastplate... And they set in it four rows of stones... And the stones were according to the names of the children of Israel, twelve...according to the twelve tribes."
As Josephus says (Antiquities, 3.8 ): "And for the twelve stones, whether we understand by them the months or whether we understand the like number of the signs of that circle which the Greeks call the zodiac, we shall not be mistaken in their meaning." (Josephus, 75.)
Earlier than Josephus, Philo ("On the Life of Moses," 12) had made the same comments regarding Moses: "Then the twelve stones on the breast, which are not like one another in colour, and which are divided into four rows of three stones in each, what else can they be emblems of, except of the circle of the zodiac?" (Philo, 99.)
As we can see, by the first century it was well known that the theme of "the 12" was astrological in nature.
Age of the Zodiac
The zodiac is mentioned in the Bible at Job 38:32, where the author refers to the "Mazzaroth." The Book of Job is traditionally placed in an early setting, as the RSV says, from the patriarchal period, preceding the founding of Israel. Job is believed to have been an adult when Moses was allegedly born, which would mean that Job's adventures and story, with its discussion of the Mazzaroth/12 signs, preceded Moses and the gathering together of 12 tribes.
Skeptical historians question whether or not the OT history of Moses and others truly occurred at any point, much less the 13th century, and much of the Bible appears to have been written only as early as after the Babylonian Captivity. If we were to subscribe to the Bible as history, however, we would have to accept that the Zodiac was known to the Hebrews before Moses created Israel with its 12 tribes, which many - including Philo and Josephus - have identified with the 12 zodiacal signs.
There is much more to the history of the zodiac, including the Karanovo Zodiac, which dates to around 6,000 years ago. In The Astronomy of the Bible, Christian royal astronomer Walter Maunder dates the emergence of the zodiac as we know it to some 5,000 years ago. The Indians have their own history of the zodiac, dating back thousands of years as well.
The Egyptians possessed gods numbering 12 long before the Bible was written down, reflecting, for one, the 12 hours of the day and night. We may not be surprised, then, to discover that early Church father Hippolytus associated the Christian 12 with the hours of the day, while as early as the late second century, Clement of Alexandria wrote about the Valentian Gnostic Theodotus identifying the 12 apostles with the 12 signs of the zodiac.
There is much reason to suspect that whoever wrote the various pertinent biblical scriptures was well aware of the astronomical, astrological and astrotheological symbolism of the number 12.
Zodiac on a synagogue floor at Beit Alpha, Israel (6th cent. AD/CE) [link to www.zeitgeistmovie.com]
[link to freethoughtnation.com]
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