Reviews for The Witness Of The Stars

The average rating for The Witness Of The Stars based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-01-11 00:00:00 William Harmon This book was originally published in 1893. I am fortunate to have the Kregel publications edition with colour plates and a pull out constellation map in the back and it's a family book that I treasure. Reading it gives you chills; Bullinger has written a sort of dissertation outlining a complex, well researched idea that all the constellations have at their core, meanings and interpretations, a primeval prophecy of Jesus, his redeeming power and ultimate victory over death. It's incredibly gripping, educational, and oftentimes convincing. As a Christian, and a believer in God's hand in Nature, and being in awe of the beauty and wonder of the world, I would like to believe that nature has esoteric knowledge stitched into the fabric of time. It's a thrlling concept. His theory is summarised in a quote from Psalms on the front page: "He telleth the number of the stars; He giveth them all their names." Psalm 147:4 - RV. In the book, Bullinger describes each of the constellations in the zodiac starting with virgo through to leo - the riddle of the sphinx is explained (!!); the virgin to the Lion of the Tribe of Judah - by discussing their original names, in many ancient languages, and the names of the highest magnitude stars within them which elucidate the person of Jesus and his plan for the Bride of Christ (Israel, not the Church). Bullinger also mentions a few historical events and what was going on in the sky at that time which also tells a story, and takes great pain to highlight the shifting position of stars over the millenia, and how they would have been when originally set down or where relating to various events. Some explanations and "proofs" seem a little tenuous and he is heavily biased; he has a habit of discounting any cultural name or explanation that doesn't fit his theory ie he says often enough that the Greeks and their myths were "ignorance" or they had "forgotten" the original meanings. Most of the cultural references are based on the zodiac of Denderah (Egypt), and the Egyptian, Hebrew and Arabic names are most commonly used, which suggests the obvious common root, but other cultures are referenced (Ethiopian, Syriac, Hindu, Greek, Latin, Chaldee etc) but not consistently. Even discounting the cultures not represented, if they are the names of the stars are real (weird if NOT signficant), and this is historically acurate research not a posteriori interpretation, then the story outlined in the heavens how it is described is quite simply jaw-dropping and certainly prophetic as it is millenia old. He lost me in the last chapter talking about periods of time and special numbers outlining the time that Jerusalem will be "trodden underfoot," and he goes to great lengths in saying how some prophecies are about Israel and Jerusalem, NOT the Christian Church. What is never explained is how the constellation pictures (that bear little resemblemce to the clusters of stars) came to be in the first place. The pictures are not a celestial dot to dot but still are - if his book is believed - similar the world over; if not for the same pictures exactly, but still similar meanings but the exact same clusters of stars - given the infinite choice, this is phenomenal in itself. Overall, it's an amazing book, brilliantly presented and researched and written with obvious love and devotion, a magnum opus of biblical scholarship. Read it and I defy you not to be amazed at least once.

Review # 2 was written on 2012-01-06 00:00:00 Martin Rizzo This was a .99 Kindle purchase. In this case, I got less than I paid for. Not that the content itself wasn't worthy -- it was. However, there were two unforgivable shortcomings: 1) The book was not indexed 2) Much more serious: there were no star chart illustrations that apparently were part of the original edition. The absence of the star charts really dissipated the value of this book. Come on publishers: charge a little more and make this a worthy read. There were also some typos that confirmed the editorial slothfulness. As for the content itself. It's very intriguing. The first part of the book is difficult to read owing to its technical nature. It's the only work I knew of that examined Biblical Astronomy and NOT Astrology. Bullinger's premise is that the Heaven's pictorially proclaim Psalm 19:1 (The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.) He then posits that among different cultures the same (or very similar) images are used to map the night skies. He then describes these images in the (star) light of Biblical redemption. As with his brilliant Number in Scripture, Bullinger exhibits excellent scholarship. While there are no endnotes, he does reference several works. However, this was published in the 1880s. I'm not sure if the MLA or APA manual of styles existed. Such a work should be footnoted. Despite this lame Kindle edition, this does provoke the reader to look at the skies in a different way. If Biblical Astronomy is something you would like to pursue, this work is the definitive way to start BUT NOT THIS EDITION!