LT.-COL. G. MACKINLAY ON BIBLICAL ASTRONOMY. 



123 



As Max Miiller puts it, " when first we begin to learn a new 

 language it seems easy . . . but the more we learn it, the 

 more difficult do we rind it to discover words which will really 

 square with our own words." 



As the divine scriptures are written for all nations and for 

 all times, the main essential truths are plainly put forward ; 

 but when we come to seek for the full force of some of its 

 sentences we thankfully accept the help afforded by careful 

 scholarship. 



Ancient Inscriptions, etc. — The fast accumulating translations 

 of ancient inscriptions afford ample confirmation of the 

 numerous Biblical allusions to the worship of the host of 

 heaven. 



Great assistance is given to ancient chronology ; the account 

 of a total eclipse recorded as seen at Nineveh 763 B.C. has been 

 verified by calculation as having occurred at the date stated, 

 when the band of totality passed about 100 miles North of the 

 city. The eccentricities of the Egyptian Calendar, which moved 

 its months through the seasons in a long cycle of some 1,565 

 years, have been helpful ; as when it is stated that the Nile 

 rose on a certain day of any one month, the date is necessarily 

 fixed within a very few years. 



Sir Norman Lockyer and others have shown that the dates 

 of the construction of various Egyptian and Greek temples 

 oriented to the risings of stars can be known within compara- 

 tively a few years, as the precession of the equinoxes (see 

 Appendix) gradually rendered their central avenues of pillars 

 quite unfitted for their astronomical purpose of allowing the 

 rays of the rising star to enter and illumine the images in the 

 central interior shrines, after a period which varied according to 

 circumstances, but which may have averaged 300 years. 



Even the statements of astrology giving the position of 

 planets at the birth of a child afford chronological data ; 

 Professor Flinders Petrie thinks that the position of the planets 

 indicated on certain ancient Egyptian diagrams show that the 

 dates of birth of Barneses II. and Barneses VI. were respectively 

 B.C. 1318 and 1198. We may, however, doubt the accuracy of the 

 records in some cases, as a desire to please royalty may have 

 tempted the artists to depict more favourable astrological 

 arrangements of the planets than the true ones. 



Contrast of Standpoints. — The appearance of the celestial orbs 

 has little interest to most of us moderns, unless we are 

 astronomers, surveyors, or sailors ; we have no temptation to 

 worship them, nor do we expect any control of our future by 



