Re: how did they read the stars prior to the zodiac

Dear Dan,

I think you are misunderstanding what the "zodiac" is all about. The zodiac is 
not an event: it's the region of the sky through which the Sun appears to
travel, due to the orbit of the Earth. Think of painting a wide circular band
around a globe: that's the shape of the zodiac. Now imagine that the globe is
divided into different countries, with no set shapes. These are the
constellations, and the zodiac passes through 12 of them. 

The idea of the zodiac is not at all new: skywatchers have known about the Sun's
motion through the sky for a long time, and it was certainly known by the time
of Christ. The wise men of the Bible would have known what the sky (all the
constellations visible from their location, not just the zodiac) looked like at
any given time of year, and would have been able to identify any "new star"
which was supposed to give them a sign.

There are various theories about whether the "Star of Bethlehem" actually
existed, and what it might have been. This page from the
Griffith Observatory has some good references.

Pauline