Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!lll-winken!unixhub!shelby!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: kilroy@gboro.glassboro.edu (Dr Nancy's Sweetie) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Starry starry night . . . Message-ID: Date: 9 Jan 91 07:44:54 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Lines: 29 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu On this, the first Sunday of Epiphany, I noticed that I've never heard a sermon on Wise Men that addresses the astrological aspect. Christians generally disapprove of astrology (though having looked through several lists of Scripture verses provided to demonstrate that astrology is verboten, I have discovered that most of the verses named have nothing to do with the subject), and we Modern Smart People know that it's all bunk. Isaiah certainly doesn't seem to think much of it, essentially saying (in 47:13-15) that it's all rot. In Matthew 2, however, we read of the Magi coming to find Jesus. They are generally considered to have been astrologers from Persia or Arabia. They know it is the time for him, they say, because "we saw his star in the east" (v2). Worse yet, the return to their own country (and apparently their religion), and nobody has even explained The Four Spiritual Laws to them! Not once in the entire passage does the phrase `substitutionary atonement' appear. If astrology really is bad, why doesn't anybody tell the Magi? And if it's really so much hokum, what do we make of there being a Scripture story that describes successful predictions based on positions of stars? kilroy@gboro.glassboro.edu Darren F. Provine ...njin!gboro!kilroy "If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance." -- John Andrew Holmes