[Megillot] Horoscopes

[Sveta Babkina]

Dear List Participants, In the article of F. Schmidt “Ancient Jewish Astrology an Attempt to Interpret 4QCryptic (4Q186)” in Biblical Perspectives: Early Use and Interpretation of the Bible in Light of the dead Sea Scrolls, Brill, 1998, pp. 189-191, on p. 194, he tell about the Zoroastrian or Egyptian astrological theory, which “permits us to understand how the sun, moving from sign to sign and from decan to decan, contributes to the maturity of the fetus during the entire nine months of gestation”. Could anyone, please, tell me the source of this information about Zoroastrians? And are there any other explanation of “9 portions” in the horoscopes? I found just H. Lichtenberger’s Studien zum Mehschenbild in Texten der Qumrangemeinde, where on p. 144 he says, that 9 is not typical figure for horoscopes and has no parallels in ancient astrological texts. And Albani in DSS Encyclopaedia (vol. 1 p. 371), and also in his article in The DSS after Fifty years, writes about “nine parts of the body of the rising zodiacal sign and the human body”, but he puts “human body” under the question (Why?). Thank you, Svetlana Babkina, Russian State University for the Humanities, Moscow.