I guess you won't be telling this in Stamford Hill, b'nai brak or Lakewood! just to add, tishrei means beginning (maybe of the winter season, perhaps?) The astrological sign for Tishrei is Libra, scales of justice. Who will live/who will die, the common refrain at this time of year, from what i can gather doesn't appear in writing until Biblical Antiquities, c 100 CE., maybe later. There's lots more. It's the brilliance of Chazal that they linked this all together with Yom Kippur. Anyway, happy Rosh Chodesh Tishei.
I don't know where or when the astrological signs first appeared but it is quite likely that it was in Babylon, like the Akitu festival. So the scales and the theme of repentance may all have been included in the same package imported from Babel. But one of the hints of an original spring Rosh Hashana is that Nissan = Aries= the Ram, or shofar!
As far as I know the earliest occurrence of who shall live who shall die is in Hechalot Rabati, may be as early as 200 CE. The words are put into the mouth of R. Ishmael but that is almost certainly ahistorical.
I guess you won't be telling this in Stamford Hill, b'nai brak or Lakewood! just to add, tishrei means beginning (maybe of the winter season, perhaps?) The astrological sign for Tishrei is Libra, scales of justice. Who will live/who will die, the common refrain at this time of year, from what i can gather doesn't appear in writing until Biblical Antiquities, c 100 CE., maybe later. There's lots more. It's the brilliance of Chazal that they linked this all together with Yom Kippur. Anyway, happy Rosh Chodesh Tishei.
I don't know where or when the astrological signs first appeared but it is quite likely that it was in Babylon, like the Akitu festival. So the scales and the theme of repentance may all have been included in the same package imported from Babel. But one of the hints of an original spring Rosh Hashana is that Nissan = Aries= the Ram, or shofar!
As far as I know the earliest occurrence of who shall live who shall die is in Hechalot Rabati, may be as early as 200 CE. The words are put into the mouth of R. Ishmael but that is almost certainly ahistorical.