Download Calendars and Divination in the Dead Sea Scrolls: the Case of

Calendars and Divination in the
Dead Sea Scrolls: the Case of
4Q318: 4QZodiac Calendar and
Brontologion
Helen R. Jacobus
Dead Sea Scroll 4Q318, written in Aramaic, has two units: a zodiac
calendar and a thunder omen text (brontologion). It will be shown that
the zodiac calendar is mathematically sophisticated. Its accompanying
thunder omen text has standard Hellenistic parallels. The genre belongs
to the late Graeco-Roman period and there is an identifiable
Mesopotamian background. This scroll is important for the study of the
development of the Jewish calendar, the history of astronomy, astrology,
and ancient science.
Reshaping Karma: an Indic
Metaphysical Paradigm in
Traditional and Modern Astrology
Martin Gansten
Despite its Hellenistic origins, horoscopic astrology has nowhere gained
as firm and lasting acceptance as in India. It is argued that this
acceptance is conditioned by the conformity of astrological practice —
comprising both descriptive and prescriptive aspects — to the doctrine of
action or karman, which is central to the Indic religions. The relation of
astrology to this doctrine is examined with regard to questions on
causality, determinism and moral freedom. Traditional conceptions of
karman are then contrasted with fin-de-siècle Theosophical notions of
‘karma’ as a fundamentally evolutive, spiritual force, used to redirect the
practice of astrology from prediction towards esoteric interpretation. It
is noted that this modern development constitutes a reversal of the
European medieval and Renaissance compromise between theology and
astrology.
Néladóracht: Druidic CloudDivination in Medieval Irish
Literature
Mark Williams
Irish literature in the high and late Middle Ages includes a large body of
sagas set in the pre-Christian past, in which druids often feature as
important characters. In a number of texts, druids perform a type of
divination from the clouds, termed néladóracht. This paper investigates
the origins of the literary topos of druidic nephelomancy, arguing that it
is ultimately dependent on astrology rather than any native, preChristian custom.
Astrology in the SeventeenthCentury Scottish Universities
Jane Ridder-Patrick
There is evidence that astrological concepts were being taught, or
engaged with, in all four Scottish universities until at least 1700. For that
reason alone, astrology has a valid claim to be considered a component
of contemporaneous mainstream intellectual life. This paper will address
the questions of what — and who — shaped the university curricula and
those men’s attitude toward astrology. It will examine the manuscript
evidence that demonstrates how, where and why astrology could fit into a
predominately Presbyterian educational system, the factors that
sustained its presence until this relatively late date and those that
facilitated its demise.
Decoding the Inter-Textual Literary
Strata of the Mummers’ Play:
Some Unexpected Astronomical
Themes and a Pagan ‘Fingerprint’ —
Continuity or Reconstruction?
Glenford Bishop
The Mummers’ Play, or English folk play as folklorists refer to it, was for
many years thought to be a relic of pagan survivals. This perspective was
finally abandoned when the evolutionary survivals theory became
obsolete. There is no alternative theory. However, analysis of the texts
through a structural hermeneutical literary approach, informed by the
work of Lacan and Riffaterre, resulted in a reconciliation of the pagan
origins theories with the contemporary folklorists’ perspectives of
eighteenth century invention. This analysis penetrates through the textual
layers of the plays and reveals astronomical and other themes derived
from, and located in, the eighteenth century’s field of Celtic
reconstruction.
The Beltane Fire Festival: its Place in
a Contemporary World
Pauline Bambrey
It is widely believed that the four fire or quarter-day festivals —
Samhuinn, Imbolc, Beltane and Lughnasadh — were of great importance
and significance in pre-Christian communities. The festivals brought
communities together to strengthen bonds, re-establish identities and
celebrate the changing seasons. Do these festivals have a role in a
contemporary world and, if so, what? This paper will explore these
issues by reporting on ethnographic evidence obtained through
anthropological research with the Beltane Fire Society based in
Edinburgh.
The Traditional Festivals of Northern
Europe
Ronald Hutton
Academic specialists in the history of calendar customs have tended,
naturally enough, to make case studies of specific examples, often
confined to particular communities or districts. What is attempted here is
a rarer and broader enterprise: to reconstruct the basic shape of the
ritual year across ancient Britain and Ireland, and to suggest any
enduring patterns in its celebration.
Cyberspace and the Sacred Sky
Frances Clynes
The sacredness of the celestial realm found expression the works of
Plato, in Gnosticism and in Christianity. Today, Internet terminology is
packed with celestial terms such as clusters, and parallels with celestial
terms from the Deep Internet to Cloud Computing. Just as the sky has
been viewed as sacred, cyberspace theorists write of cyberspace as a
sacred space, and it has been compared to Eliade’s sacred space and
Cassirer’s mythical space. This talk looks at current views of cyberspace
and asks if they are a re-packaging of the age-old concept of a sacred
sky?
BIOs
Pauline Bambrey is currently a PhD candidate in Social Anthropology
at the University of Wales, Trinity Saint David, conducting research into
The Beltane Fire Society, Edinburgh. Her research looks at how the use
of the body in ritualised performance establishes identity within a
community.
Glenford Bishop is a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society. He is
currently a lecturer at the University of Plymouth and a PhD student with
the Sophia Centre, University of Wales, Trinity Saint David. Glenford
has a clinical and educational background in occupational therapy and
dramatherapy, focusing on psychodynamic approaches. These latter
approaches have informed a literary method for re-appraising the
Mummers Play and the mystery of its origins.
Nicholas Campion is Senior Lecturer in the School of Archaeology,
History and Anthropology and Director of the Sophia Centre for the
Study of Cosmology in Culture at the University of Wales, Trinity Saint
David. He is course director of the University’s MA in Cultural
Astronomy and Astrology. His publications include the two-volume
History of Western Astrology (Continuum, 2009).
Frances Clynes was awarded the MA in Cultural Astronomy and
Astrology from Bath Spa University in 2007, and is currently working on
a PhD at the University of Wales, Trinity Saint David, where she is also a
part-time tutor. She has a BSc and MSc from Trinity College Dublin and
works as a computing lecturer in a Dublin college.
Martin Gansten is a historian of religion specialising in astrological and
other divinatory traditions in India as well as the west. He has taken
particular interest in the South Indian phenomenon of nāḍī reading, in the
development of the method of primary directions (aphesis, at-tasyīr)
from the early Greek period up to the present day, and in the mutual
influences of Perso-Arabic and Indian astrological traditions in the
Middle Ages. He is based in Lund University, Sweden.
Ronald Hutton is Professor of History at Bristol University, and the
author of thirteen books on different aspects of British and overseas
history. Those most relevant to this collection are The Rise and Fall of
Merry England (Oxford University Press, 1994) and The Stations of the
Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in Britain (Oxford University Press,
1996).
Helen R. Jacobus is a PhD candidate at the University of Manchester
researching the Dead Sea Scroll that is the subject of this paper and
calendars at Qumran. Her publications include ‘The Date of Purim and
Calendars in the Book of Esther’, in Jonas Vaiškūnas, ed., Archaeologica
Baltica (Klaipėda University Press, 2008, pp. 114-118), and ‘4Q318: A
Jewish Zodiac Calendar at Qumran’, in Charlotte Hempel, ed., The Dead
Sea Scrolls: Texts and Contexts, Studies on the Texts of the Desert of
Judah, Volume 90 (Brill, forthcoming, 2010).
Jane Ridder-Patrick has a MSc in history from the University of
Edinburgh, where she is currently pursuing a PhD in Astrology in Early
Modern Scotland. Trained in pharmacy, naturopathy, herbal medicine
and psychotherapy, she is author of A Handbook of Medical Astrology.
Lionel Sims is Head of Anthropology at the University of East London,
Vice-President of the Society of European Archaeoastronomy (SEAC),
and is a member of the Stonehenge Round Table hosted by English
Heritage.
Mark Williams is a research fellow at Peterhouse, Cambridge, where he
teaches Latin and Medieval Irish and Welsh language and literature. His
first book, Fiery Shapes: Celestial Portents and Astrology in Ireland and
Wales, 700-1700, is forthcoming from Oxford University Press. He is
currently writing a cultural history of the gods of Irish mythology.