If you are still struggling with leaving xianity

[Geezer]

If you are still struggling with leaving Christianity I would like to suggest you do this. Go to YouTube and in the search engine type in D.M. Murdock. There will be a lot of video's that pop up. Watch all of them.

 

When I began my search for historical truth I ran across the name D.M. Murdock, but there were a lot of negative reviews by "Scholars" criticizing her work and credentials, so I basically ignored her work and books. That was a serious mistake on my part. She passed away recently and I accidentally ran across a couple of her books and video's. This time I watched and I intend to read her books. I now realize she was an absolutely brilliant scholar. I recently ran across a lengthy public apology to D.M. Murdock posted by my absolutely favorite scholar Dr. Robert M. Price.  He profusely apologized to her for his negative review of her work and for questioning her credentials. They became close personal friends after that.

 

I am now convinced, after examining her credentials, that she may very well have been one of the most brilliant Egyptian, Roman, and Greek historians of our time. Her scholarly flaw seems to be that she never bothered to get her PHD, but her knowledge about the subjects is beyond reproach. And her academic credentials are solid. Earl Doherty  is another brilliant scholar that didn't bother to get a PHD but he is still recognized as a brilliant scholar. His book The Jesus Puzzle is a must read.

 

Both Doherty and Murdock's unpardonable sin seems to be that they are both Christ Mythicist. It seems among the scholarly University elitist anyone whose research has lead them to conclude that Jesus was a literary figure rather that a real person is a complete moron. Bart Ehrman appears to be the inspiration for this group. I like Ehrman's books but I don't like the man. He strikes me as being an arrogant, obnoxious, elitists. He has publicly stated that he "HATES" fundamentalists and Mythicist. That is a real open mind ya got their doc.

 

Sorry there Dr. Ehrman, but it appears more and more scholars are joining the Mythicist camp, because there simply is no evidence of a historical Jesus. I read your book where you present your evidence that Jesus was a real person and it was not convincing. In fact your arguments were weak in my opinion.

 

Anyway, I've spent the last few days watching D.M. Murdock's YouTube video's and she's blown me away. I believe it is well worth the time to check her video's out. I've got a list of her books that I intend to read. Her theory on where the gospel story came from makes more sense than anything else I've heard. I now realize we lost a truly brilliant scholar with her passing.

 

[Geezer]

I really don't understand why this mythicist thing is such a big deal for academia. The Biblical Jesus is clearly a myth,  that is not to say the Gospel story could not have been based on a real human, but the Biblical Jesus found in the Gospels is clearly a mythical person.

 

Both sides admit they have no empirical evidence to support their theory. So, for either side to take such a hardline stand seems pretty silly to me. It seems the best evidence that supports a historical Jesus comes from Galatians where Paul recounts his trip to Jerusalem where he met Peter & the other Apostles & James the Lord's brother. That implies James wasn't an apostle, which would be odd, And does brother refer to a sibling or as "brother" in Christ meaning he wasn't related to Jesus, but was a follower of Christ.

There is also a question as to whether the text is even authentic. And there is also the question as to what happened to the rest of Jesus family that disappeared from the gospel story. 

 

Mythicist come at at this problem from the perspective that the gospel story reads like a story not like history. They also note the gospel story has numerous similarities to many Egyptian & Greek myths. Additionally the 4 gospel stories are very different. D.M. Murdock points out that the Gospel of John is virtually identical to the story of Osiris.  

 

 

[Joshpantera]

I'm sure you recall that I have moderated for DM Murdock's forums. 

 

I found her after the first Zeitgeist movie came out. She was misunderstood a lot of the time mainly because of so many people trying to straw man her so much of the time. It's pretty sad really. Having dealt with her directly as a mod I had a chance to try and better understand what she was about. And I took up her cause, I argued on her behalf for the sake of trying to hold the astrotheological based mythicist position that she put forward. It makes a lot of sense to me. But it's radical for a lot of scholars. It delves into many taboo's. And so it's been met with much disdain. And she felt that there was a misogynistic undertone behind a lot of her male counter parts which has been hotly denied, but may well have had some truth to it. 

 

Every new book she produced took into consideration the bitching and complaints people were having with the previous books. She was evolving in real time and always trying to meet the challenges critics kept putting foward. I was watching it unfold, she was consulting me at times about certain of the directions in the latter released books to see what I'd think about something or another as far as arguments go. I'll keep that vague as we kept to strict guidelines of not discussing moderator actions and behind the scenes discussions publicly. I'll respect that even in the face of her death and the disbanding of our, shall we say, radical and rebellious online presence. It pretty much fell apart after she died. But I still consider myself an authority on her astrotheological position taking and would gladly keep it going along. She would have wanted it that way. 

 

Everyone has to decide for themselves, but ultimately I think the astrotheology of ancient peoples is something key to understanding religion and mythology. But it involves discussion of the astrological zodical constellations, the zodiac, precession of the equinoxes and a lot of content that a lot of people shy away from. Especially mainstream scholars. And that's because it's messy and hard to hammer down what exactly is what. But enough of it seems to be straight forward enough to see that observation of the night sky played a role and does seem to be layered into the christian mythology as it is in many of the myths christianity was copying and emulating. 

 

She chose to take this argument to showing how Jesus could have been completely mythical and largely astrotheological, representing the sun going through the 12 constellations and many other aspects in common with the Egyptian and Greek myths. And what happened is that because the astrotheological was being used to show how Jesus could have never existed, astrotheology itself came under ferocious attack by both Evermist theists and atheists alike. Evemerist's meaning those who think that Jesus was a man elevated to god status rather than a mythical god brought down to manhood status. In all of this, I think that a lot of people rejected astrotheology just for the sake of rejecting the notion that Jesus may have been pure myth. When obviously Jesus could just as well have existed and the astrotheological could have been layered on after his death. The astrotheology by itself doesn't make or break an historical Jesus. 

 

And as time went on she took more of a direction that Jesus seems to be a mix of multiple prophet type's of the time mixed in with the mythic god men of old as this combined figure which isn't any one historical person nor god man at the bottom of it all - no core to the onion. I enjoyed Christ in Egypt: the Horus - Jesus Connection. She researched that one pretty hard with many of the criticism from the past about citation in mind. I thought it was well cited. It reads as literally going from one citation to the next, page after page. Easily found. On purpose, to kick the apologist's complaining about citation square in the nuts. They didn't care. They still claimed it was poorly cited which showed me that they will not back down one inch. No amount of blatant and in your face citation will stop them from claiming that there's no citation. 

 

Anyways, she was fighting these idiots nonstop. Then She came down with breast cancer, and finally passed away. 

 

Due to the content of her work I could see that she was likely one of those people who don't stand a chance of being understood within their own lifetime. And I can see her work inspiring generations down the road in the way that a lot of old scholarship appeals to us now in certain cases. Without her at the helm the whole thing has died down for the time being though. I'm glad that you decided to look into her work and that you were able to see past the negative reviews enough to glean some insight into what she was trying to get out to people. I miss her. It's really sad that her life was cut short when it was. She truly was a shinning gem within the ex christian community. 

 

[Geezer]

I was late getting to the party, but I'm a fan now. She was a captivating speaker & her theories make too much sense to be pushed aside & ignored. Many mainstream established standards began as radical nonsensical theories, but nothing about her conclusions strike me as being all that radical. In fact I think they are logical & rational and make a lot more sense than some of the theories academia is floating around. 

 

JP you are fortunate to have known her so well. 

 

 

[Joshpantera]

I began watching the winter solstice procession every year because of all of this. It's quite obvious when you see the constellations procession that the nativity has squarely to do with the night sky around the time of year of the winter solstice. The three belt stars of Orion are seen rising above the south eastern horizon at sundown. Later Sirius rises. They rise in the location roughly marking out a line down to where the sun will also rise the following morning, one degree north after having visibly stopped for three days at the solstice. Virgo processes across the sky behind the three belt stars and the bright star that rose below them in the east. It's obvious enough that the story has nothing to do with any real Jesus being born. But it does allude to the night sky and constellations about the time of the winter solstice. In very obvious ways. I've often pointed this out to people in real time around Christmas, sometimes down in the Keys where the stars are clear to see over the water. And even around central Florida with a great viewing platform of the eastern and southeastern sky. I even pointed it out one year up in the mountains of Tennessee. It's obvious and stand out, once you get it. 

 

She played absolute hell discussing things like this with both atheists and theists alike. The biases that run deep against anything astrological in nature, from both theists and atheists actually prohibits many people from ever gaining a comprehensive view of what these religions actually consist of. We all burned out a bit arguing these topics with people over and over again. 

 

Her forums were taken down. With that was the loss of a lot of information and brainstorming that took place there, especially by myself and Robert Tulip. I'm tempted to summon him over here to ex-C with me so that we might replicate some of the brain storming information again - concerning precession, Egypt, and unique ways of trying to decode Daniel and Revelation through this astrotheological focus. While reading through Robert Buvual's work on how many of the Pyramids are oriented to viewing the northern circumpolar sky, I looked back at the symbolism of Revelation and realized that there seems to be a correspondence also alluding to the northern circumpolar sky. Draco, Ursa Minor, Leo, and Saoshat the Egyptian Leopard dressed goddess who represented the night sky, and was emulated in the stretching of the chord ceremony, all seem to have representation in Revelations bizarre hybrid creatures. This gets deep, but there's a lot of allusions to precession in Revelation, such as the 12 Jewels representing the signs of the zodiac by old tradition, but given in reverse order from the annual year. It takes diving in to astrological symbolism to really get anywhere with these ancient mystical oriented texts. They're chalked full of these references. 

 

I hope that eventually some very comprehensive way of decoding these references will be found and applied to academia. Not just with the bible, but with all of the myths that contain astrotheological referencing. 

 

I'm leaving reference to DM Murdock's personal coining of "The Mythicist Position," which as far as I know is unique to her having created it a few years back after writing CiE:

 

http://www.stellarhousepublishing.com/mythicist.html

 

 

 

[Geezer]

One wonders why this is even a issue. No one questions Greek, Roman, & Egyptian mythology. Scholars agree those were myths, but when it comes to Judaism & Christianity Scholars just accept those were real people? That makes no sense. 

[Robert_Tulip]

On 03/09/2017 at 6:51 AM, Joshpantera said:

brainstorming that took place there, especially by myself and Robert Tulip. I'm tempted to summon him over here to ex-C with me so that we might replicate some of the brain storming information again - concerning precession, Egypt, and unique ways of trying to decode Daniel and Revelation through this astrotheological focus.

Hello Tat, your wish is my command, as Barbara Eden said to your fellow Floridan Larry Hagman.

I am in touch with Free Thinka Luvva, who plans to restore the historic discussion boards from Free Thought Nation, with all their great content from Acharya and others.

This theme of Christianity and myth is very deep, addressing major assumptions that people have about the nature of reality, confronting the key Christian innovation which was to place its myths specifically into history.  My recent research on Jung's work on the role of collective unconscious archetypes in defining the Age of Pisces as the Christian Aeon has helped me to further pursue the central problem of the role of the precession of the equinox in Christian origins.  

As this is my first post on this forum, I will keep it brief, and hope to explore further and follow up.  My most recent work is at rtulip dot net/astronomy.

[Joshpantera]

@Robert_Tulip

I've made a few posts elsewhere about precession, which of course took some time for people to understand what I was talking about. Illustrations are always good. I did it in the spirituality section as part of my thoughts on anticipating a possible future based on the religious direction of the past - staying in line with the movements of precession and the themes that have attached to each of the 12 world ages, or Aeon's. Basically, I was trying to at least inform people here in the ex christian community about this undertone from the ancient mysteries which has been at play before christianity and which christianity latched on to.  And concerning the Aquarian Age some of the scenarios we might expect to pop up based on the general trend holding true into the future. 

 

The main problem I found was that most people couldn't get over the notion of astrology. That's usually the main reason that astrotheological studies are frowned upon - their usage of the astrological symbols of ancient peoples. There's so much disdain for astrology that it's hard to get the points across about archeo-astronomy and astrotheology. And that's essentially why we've found such resistance in academia. But as Geezer stated, one must wonder why there is even an issue? There shouldn't be. No one's talking about superstitious astrology, we're simply looking at the beliefs of ancient peoples and using those beliefs to decode their religions which allude to those beliefs. It's a scientific minded endeavor for trying to uncover the mysteries of christian origins, along with the mysteries of diverse cultures world wide. 

[Robert_Tulip]

On 04/09/2017 at 9:48 PM, Joshpantera said:

@Robert_Tulip

JP: I've made a few posts elsewhere about precession, which of course took some time for people to understand what I was talking about.

RT: Hi Josh, please bear with me as I am unfamiliar with the format of this discussion board. Precession was described by Copernicus as the third motion of the earth.  All it means is that as well as the day and year, the earth’s orbit includes a wobble like a top.  This was definitely known hundreds of years before Christ, and is arguably the basis for the arcane prophecies such as in the book of Daniel.  For those who wonder why it is of interest, modern science has discovered that precession is the main driver of ice ages.  Long Island in New York is a ‘calling card’ of precession, having been caused by a two mile high ice dozer driven just by this invisible spin wobble.  And precession has been stable for four billion years, two hundred thousand cycles, so all life on earth has evolved in this recurring context.

JP: Illustrations are always good. I did it in the spirituality section as part of my thoughts on anticipating a possible future based on the religious direction of the past - staying in line with the movements of precession and the themes that have attached to each of the 12 world ages, or Aeon's.

RT:  I call the hidden references to precession in the Bible ‘fugitive traces’, a term from the modern philosopher Martin Heidegger.  Basically, as you will recall from our conversations at Free Thought Nation, once you start to look you will find that precession provides an ordering framework for Christian eschatology, as a scientific hypothesis.  The reason only hidden traces remain is that the orthodox church assiduously expunged all overt mention, because this precessional origin conflicted with the literalist politics of Christendom.  Essentially, the key point to explain the origins of Christianity is that the Second Coming of Jesus Christ was understood in Gnostic cosmology as the Dawning of the Age of Aquarius.

JP: Basically, I was trying to at least inform people here in the ex christian community about this undertone from the ancient mysteries which has been at play before christianity and which christianity latched on to.  And concerning the Aquarian Age some of the scenarios we might expect to pop up based on the general trend holding true into the future. 

RT:  The Chi Rho cross is a direct depiction of the equinox point shifting into Pisces at the time of Christ.  This use of precession to explain the turning point of time puts Christianity into a scientific empirical framework, compatible with ancient visual astronomy and philosophy.

JP:The main problem I found was that most people couldn't get over the notion of astrology.

RT:  There is no need to accept any magical claims from astrology to open a scholarly study of the role of precession in Christianity.  Unfortunately, the context of this analysis in traditions such as Theosophy is highly speculative and magical, muddying the waters.  There has been a systematic vilification of all astrological thinking as part of the modern mythology of science.  For example it is little known that Galileo’s main occupation was astrology.  Ex Christians who are angry about how the church has lied to them should be open to the possibility that both the church and the scientific establishment have also lied about the status of astrology in pre-modern culture.    

JP:  That's usually the main reason that astrotheological studies are frowned upon - their usage of the astrological symbols of ancient peoples.

RT: But if you are going to ignore a main part of ancient culture such as astrology, how can you possibly hope to achieve a coherent explanation of how Christianity actually evolved?  That is the objective which Acharya’s work is so valuable for.  

JP:  There's so much disdain for astrology that it's hard to get the points across about archeo-astronomy and astrotheology. And that's essentially why we've found such resistance in academia.

RT: This modern disdain is a psychological trauma, and in effect is a denial that humans are connected to and part of the cosmos in which we live.  We do not need to accept any popular astrological speculation to see that you cannot hope to have an accurate interpretation of Christian origins that leaves out the astrological context, despite how both the modern church and scientific establishments have sought to suppress and ignore this context.   

JP: But as Geezer stated, one must wonder why there is even an issue? There shouldn't be.

RT:  Cultural evolution occurs slowly.  The massive modern scientific myth of humans as separate from nature, with its grounding in the Genesis idea of dominion, is remarkably persistent and hard to shake, or even to identify as a philosophical problem.  

JP: No one's talking about superstitious astrology, we're simply looking at the beliefs of ancient peoples and using those beliefs to decode their religions which allude to those beliefs.

RT: A lot of people do talk about superstitious astrology, so there is a problem for rational minded people of how to separate the wheat from the tares.  This point you make about decoding is central to Biblical hermeneutics.  For example, the loaves and fishes are code for the observed movement of the equinoxes into the constellations of Virgo (Bread) and Pisces (fishes), as a basis of universal abundance arising from reconciliation of spirit and nature.  

JP: It's a scientific minded endeavor for trying to uncover the mysteries of christian origins, along with the mysteries of diverse cultures world wide. 

RT:  Exactly.  One theme I recently discovered in this regard is about the relationship between Platonic philosophy and Christianity.  In The Republic, Plato said the ‘noble lie’ is a myth with a good effect, making people more inclined to care. His noble lie is about the origins of society in a golden age and its descent to an iron age.  My view is that when the Greeks conquered Israel, this philosophical myth was mixed first with Egyptian myth to produce the Christ figure Serapis, and then with Jewish prophecy to formulate the idea of Jesus Christ as the presence of the golden age in the midst of the iron age. 

[Joshpantera]

On 9/1/2017 at 1:45 PM, Geezer said:

Anyway, I've spent the last few days watching D.M. Murdock's YouTube video's and she's blown me away. I believe it is well worth the time to check her video's out. I've got a list of her books that I intend to read. Her theory on where the gospel story came from makes more sense than anything else I've heard. I now realize we lost a truly brilliant scholar with her passing.

 

 

@Geezer

 

I assume that you mean that her theory on the gospel story being astrotheological in context, with Jesus and the Disciples representing the sun and constellations in allegorical gesture, is what makes sense. Is that what you're driving at here? 

[Joshpantera]

8 hours ago, Robert_Tulip said:

RT:  Exactly.  One theme I recently discovered in this regard is about the relationship between Platonic philosophy and Christianity.  In The Republic, Plato said the ‘noble lie’ is a myth with a good effect, making people more inclined to care. His noble lie is about the origins of society in a golden age and its descent to an iron age.  My view is that when the Greeks conquered Israel, this philosophical myth was mixed first with Egyptian myth to produce the Christ figure Serapis, and then with Jewish prophecy to formulate the idea of Jesus Christ as the presence of the golden age in the midst of the iron age. 

 

@Robert_Tulip

 

This is something interesting about early christianity than many people don't understand. The world ages changing at that time was critical to the birth of the religion. And the significance of the age change was that one entire Great Year, consisting of 12 world ages, had ended. And the next cycle of 12 world ages was beginning. The symbolism in question had to do squarely with the age of the Ram ending the last Great Year, and the age of the Fishes ushering in the new cycle. It was quite literally the alpha and omega point on the cosmic calendar. So ancient priests, Gnostics, seers, and mystics of all variety who were the astronomical observers of that remote time and place, were apparently a buzz trying to mythologize this event. A point in time that some viewed as "the end of the world," for one thing. The Great Year ending apparently brought about a lot of the dynamic we find in early christianity about people thinking the world was going to end within their own life time, within that particular generation. That's a topic that get's discussed often around here, without the added clarity of understanding some of their dooms day opinions against this cosmic world age frame work. 

 

In The Christ Conspiracy Murdock quoted several Freemason's and esoteric sources which spoke about the book of Revelation having to do with the end of the Great Year. And indeed, Revelation has much to do with the precession of the equinoxes. Robert, can you back track a little and briefly describe how you originally discovered evidence of precession of the equinoxes in the book of Revelation on your own, years before you ever came across Murdock and the mythicist camp - the 12 jewels and all. 

[Geezer]

3 hours ago, Joshpantera said:

 

@Geezer

 

I assume that you mean that her theory on the gospel story being astrotheological in context, with Jesus and the Disciples representing the sun and constellations in allegorical gesture, is what makes sense. Is that what you're driving at here? 

Yes

[Robert_Tulip]

@Josh Pantera

JP: This is something interesting about early Christianity that many people don't understand. The world ages changing at that time was critical to the birth of the religion.

RT: Yes, this observation of the role of astronomy in Christian cosmology is central to understanding the actual emergence and evolution of Christian mythology.  For example, the Chi Rho Cross is a clear depiction of the shift of the equinox point from Aries into Pisces which occurred in 21 AD.  But it is no wonder such material is not understood or even discussed.  The church depiction of Gnostic cosmology as heresy led to the explicit imperial policy that made discussion or possession of unorthodox literature a capital crime for a thousand years.  This active suppression and intimidation was so successful that even today there is little genuine debate about what actually happened to produce Christianity.

JP: And the significance of the age change was that one entire Great Year, consisting of 12 world ages, had ended. And the next cycle of 12 world ages was beginning.

RT: Yes, the depiction of Jesus Christ as the beginning and end of time, the BC/AD moment, the turning point, the first and last, the Alpha and Omega, the basis of our calendar, coheres precisely with the observed precession of the start of the Jewish year at the spring equinox from its former position the first sign of the zodiac, Aries, into the last sign, Pisces.  This shift occurred in 21 AD, in terms of the actual star positions. Astronomical knowledge of precession of the equinoxes dates definitely from the second century BC with Hipparchus, and is probably much older in view of the detailed knowledge of the stars in places such as Babylon.  

The link between astronomy and Christianity illustrated by the pervasive precessional motifs in the story of Jesus Christ coheres with the line in the Lord’s Prayer, thy will be done on earth as in heaven.  This link between earth and heaven makes sense as a hermetic statement of the perennial philosophy as above so below.  The founders of Christianity observed the change of ages in the heavenly position of the sun against the stars, and imagined this celestial change as reflected in a new age on earth, symbolised by the fish of Pisces.  And this turning point was imagined not only as a new zodiac age, but also as the beginning and end of an entire zodiac cycle, a Great Year, in terms of the prevailing astrological framework from ancient Greece with links across to Babylon.  Just as the annual cycle begins with Aries and ends with Pisces, so too the Great Year cycle lasting nearly 26,000 years was imagined as starting with the equinox in Pisces and ending with the equinox point in the stars of Aries.

JP: The symbolism in question had to do squarely with the age of the Ram ending the last Great Year, and the age of the Fishes ushering in the new cycle. It was quite literally the alpha and omega point on the cosmic calendar.

RT: My study of the astronomy of precession, using astronomy software SkyGazer, found that the spring point moved across the first fish of Pisces in 21 AD.  Ancient astronomers could have predicted this timing to decadal level for hundreds of years beforehand.  This ability to observe the slow motion of the seasons against the stars provides a plausible basis for prophecies such as from Daniel, and also for the placement of the Gospel timing during the rule of Pilate.

This question of the ram and fish symbolism is highly complex, as I recently discussed in an essay on Carl Jung’s book Aion.  There are a series of remarkable coincidences at work here.  For example the astrological theme of Aries is “I am”, matching to the “I am” statements in the Old Testament, while the astrological theme of Pisces is “I believe” matching to the centrality of belief in the New Testament.  Before jumping to any supernatural assumptions, such coincidences can be analysed as meaningful in a purely scientific way, for example by looking at the physics of orbital drivers of climate change.

JP: So ancient priests, Gnostics, seers, and mystics of all variety who were the astronomical observers of that remote time and place, were apparently a buzz trying to mythologize this event.

RT: The situation at the time of Christ was that all the formerly separate peoples of the Mediterranean region had been brought together under Rome, which contrary to its propaganda was a violent and oppressive dictatorship, actively preventing free association and trade among its subjugated nations.  This big shift into a Common Era provided a social framework for people to look to a cosmic sign.  In Jerusalem on 23 March 4 BC, a blood moon appeared at Passover at the foot of the woman, in the constellation Virgo, a possible explanation for the great sign that appeared in heaven mentioned at Rev 12:1.  Passover had since time immemorial occurred with the full moon in Libra, so this decisive shift indicated that a new age was beginning, with the equinox axis moving to the signs of the loaves and fishes, Virgo and Pisces.  It is likely that there was extensive discussion of this observation among the Platonic secret mystery Gnostic societies who founded Christianity, but records of this discussion have not survived except as fugitive traces in the coded form found in the Gospels, because possession of such literature was a capital crime throughout the Christendom millennium.

JP:A point in time that some viewed as "the end of the world," for one thing. The Great Year ending apparently brought about a lot of the dynamic we find in early christianity about people thinking the world was going to end within their own life time, within that particular generation. That's a topic that get's discussed often around here, without the added clarity of understanding some of their dooms day opinions against this cosmic world age frame work. 

RT: The misleading phrase “end of the world” appears in the King James Version of the Bible as helpfully explained at a site containing pairsite TR-kjv-issues.html#age (I appear not to have rights to post links here).

In fact, the texts refer to “end of the age”, which in context means the zodiac Age of Pisces, and the transition from the era of Christendom to a new age of Aquarius, expected to be inaugurated by the second coming of Jesus Christ, in power rather than in imagination.  This prophecy points to a time of transformation of the world, not destruction, a sabbath millennium of peace and restoration, on the Psalm/Peter model of a thousand years as a day, with the six thousand years of tribulation and work followed by a thousand years of recovery matching the allegory of the seven days of creation in Genesis.

JP: In The Christ Conspiracy Murdock quoted several Freemason's and esoteric sources which spoke about the book of Revelation having to do with the end of the Great Year. And indeed, Revelation has much to do with the precession of the equinoxes.

RT: There are abundant coded references in the apocalypse to the precession as the real structure of time.  These include the twelve jewels of the holy city marking the twelve zodiac signs in reverse, the moon at the foot of the woman as mentioned above, Jesus Christ as the Alpha and Omega, the leopard-bear-lion obtaining the power seat and authority of the dragon as clear simple allegory for the observed movement of the north celestial pole, the 12,000 unit width of the holy city matching the estimated scale of the Great Year, and also the tree of life and river of life symbolising the stars of the zodiac and milky way.  The Zoroastrian origins of the apocalyptic cosmology is referenced by the presence of the Magi at the holy birth as related by Matthew.

JP: Robert, can you back track a little and briefly describe how you originally discovered evidence of precession of the equinoxes in the book of Revelation on your own, years before you ever came across Murdock and the mythicist camp - the 12 jewels and all. 

RT: Sure Josh.  For me it goes back to about 1981 when I was an undergraduate philosophy student and wrote an essay on science and astrology.  I remember being intrigued at that time by the observation that the thematic claim of precession, that an age of knowledge (Aquarius) would follow an age of belief (Pisces) exactly matches to the real cultural evolution from faith to reason seen in the growth of scientific method.  That got me started on a long process of research, reading ancient texts, from Plato through to the Bible and various Christian theologians, looking for evidence of encoded mentions of precession.  And there are a lot, but all artfully concealed, in just the way you would expect if in fact this idea was central to the original blueprint of Christianity but was then aggressively suppressed.

Reading the story of the twelve jewels at Rev 21, which all the orthodox commentaries say have long been understood as matching the twelve signs in reverse, appeared to me as a ‘smoking gun’ for this Gnostic cosmology.  Now that I google it the first thing that comes up is my own essay Precession of the Equinox in Christian Revelation, which I wrote in 2004 at a time when I thought that Jesus Christ really existed.  You can find it at Twelve_Jewels.16004545. Since then, I have come to the view that reading the Gospels as pure fiction provides a far more coherent, elegant and ethical way to understand the original intent and meaning of Christianity.

[♦ ficino ♦]

A bit OT: did ancient astrologers generally believe that the heaven w/ fixed stars rotates by nature to the right or left? And the sphere of the planets rotates the opposite direction? So there is an absolute right and left in the heaven/cosmos, as well as even an absolute forward and backward and absolute up and down?  I assume they held the earth occupies the center.

[Robert_Tulip]

On 13/09/2017 at 9:33 PM, ficino said:

A bit OT: did ancient astrologers generally believe that the heaven w/ fixed stars rotates by nature to the right or left? And the sphere of the planets rotates the opposite direction? So there is an absolute right and left in the heaven/cosmos, as well as even an absolute forward and backward and absolute up and down?  I assume they held the earth occupies the center.

Hello Marcelo.  To see north as up is Eurocentric.  Ancient astrologers could tell the earth was a sphere, which meant that from the south it appears that the stars rotate daily to the left. This can be quite confusing in terms of spatial geometry. Plato discussed this theme of stars and planets as circles within circles moving right and left at Timaeus 36c "the outer motion He ordained to be the Motion of the Same, and the inner motion the Motion of the Other. And He made the Motion of the Same to be toward the right along the side, and the Motion of the Other to be toward the left". 

[Joshpantera]

@Robert_Tulip

 

FYI on the forum here. You can outline a section of someone's post for copy and paste, at that point a little icon will appear saying, "quote this." You can click on that icon and it will paste the outlined section below in the comment area. You can easily quote sections this way. 

[Joshpantera]

On 9/13/2017 at 2:50 AM, Robert_Tulip said:

JP: Robert, can you back track a little and briefly describe how you originally discovered evidence of precession of the equinoxes in the book of Revelation on your own, years before you ever came across Murdock and the mythicist camp - the 12 jewels and all. 

 

As such. 

 

On 9/13/2017 at 2:50 AM, Robert_Tulip said:

RT: Sure Josh.  For me it goes back to about 1981 when I was an undergraduate philosophy student and wrote an essay on science and astrology.  I remember being intrigued at that time by the observation that the thematic claim of precession, that an age of knowledge (Aquarius) would follow an age of belief (Pisces) exactly matches to the real cultural evolution from faith to reason seen in the growth of scientific method.  That got me started on a long process of research, reading ancient texts, from Plato through to the Bible and various Christian theologians, looking for evidence of encoded mentions of precession.  And there are a lot, but all artfully concealed, in just the way you would expect if in fact this idea was central to the original blueprint of Christianity but was then aggressively suppressed.

Reading the story of the twelve jewels at Rev 21, which all the orthodox commentaries say have long been understood as matching the twelve signs in reverse, appeared to me as a ‘smoking gun’ for this Gnostic cosmology.  Now that I google it the first thing that comes up is my own essay Precession of the Equinox in Christian Revelation, which I wrote in 2004 at a time when I thought that Jesus Christ really existed.  You can find it at Twelve_Jewels.16004545. Since then, I have come to the view that reading the Gospels as pure fiction provides a far more coherent, elegant and ethical way to understand the original intent and meaning of Christianity.

 

It really is a "smoking gun" as far as listing the 12 jewels associated with the 12 constellations of the zodiac, but listing them exactly in reverse order, which, is what the precession of the equinoxes is - the zodiac going in reverse order of the annual cycle. The mystical nature of Revelation, along with this astrological symbolism that clearly pairs with mystical belief and writing of the time, is very plain and in our faces obvious. 

 

And yet people from various sides will ferociously reject such a suggestion. 

 

It's odd, really. I myself never paid attention to things like astrological symbolism, let along decoding astrological symbolism in the bible. But after watching the first ZG movie I became interested. It actually makes a lot of sense that biblical writers were alluding to these things. And also that the general public was more or less oblivious to the content as it was only supposed to be recognized between astronomer priests of the time, being up front and obvious to them one to another.

 

 

[★ Citsonga ★]

On 9/4/2017 at 7:48 AM, Joshpantera said:

The main problem I found was that most people couldn't get over the notion of astrology. That's usually the main reason that astrotheological studies are frowned upon - their usage of the astrological symbols of ancient peoples. There's so much disdain for astrology that it's hard to get the points across about archeo-astronomy and astrotheology. And that's essentially why we've found such resistance in academia.

 

I don't get it. Why would anyone think that because we recognize that astrology is laced with superstitious nonsense automatically means that it couldn't have been an influence in the development of a religion millennia ago?

 

[Joshpantera]

On 9/17/2017 at 10:06 PM, Citsonga said:

 

I don't get it. Why would anyone think that because we recognize that astrology is laced with superstitious nonsene automatically means that it couldn't have been an influence in the development of a religion millennia ago?

 

 

It's weird. But as moderators for DM Murdock both Robert and I have had to confront these odd reactions coming from both atheists and theists alike. I think it comes from a couple places. One being that the bible itself at face value speaks against fortune tellers and mystical types in certain places. And people are generally raised with biases against things like astrology, along with witchcraft and other mystical oriented things. But what they neglect to realize is that the bible also very blatantly makes use of such things at the same time. 

 

The real issue comes from the fact that the astrological content has been used by mythicist's to lay out theories on how Jesus may not have existed historically. So automatically all those theists and atheists who are invested in arguing that at least some historical Jesus did exist, will ferociously wave of hand dismiss and deny the astrological content because they see accepting it as loosing ground in some way for their historical Jesus arguments. But as Robert pointed out, originally he thought some historical Jesus did exist, and was responsible for these astrological symbolism teachings in the NT. Either way, Jesus or no Jesus, the astrological content still applies. In fact, when Robert and I met it was over his first visit to Murdock's forums where we bickered back and fourth about whether or not Jesus existed. And after a while Robert looked into it closer and changed his mind about an historical Jesus. As he was saying, the astrological content makes better sense without an historical Jesus at it's core. 

 

One great example is the loaves and fishes allegory. People get so hung up on the miracle aspect of the story and never look deeper to the allegorical structure. It's not really even about a miracle, it's a blatant outline of the heavens at that time. And it's central to the gospels because it appears in all four. The fish is pisces and the bread is virgo, by way of spica in virgo representing wheat. The axis of the age change had turned from aries - libra (ram and law) to pisces - virgo (fish and virgin). These old astrological allegories played off of the constellations opposite one another in the circle of the zodiac. Manly P Hall speaks of this in his astrotheology series in a lecture about the old mystery of 5 and 7 which played out in many cultures and which christianity also made use of in this loaves and fishes allegory. And the number sequences have to do with people seeing 5 visible planets, and 2 luminaries which were different than the fixed stars. This is content from the mysteries which has passed down in esoteric circles and is well known to people like Hall in Freemasonry and other mystical fraternal groups.

 

The above gets started what I'm referring to. And he makes his way into relating how this was utilized in christianity after having long been used in many other cultures. 

 

Altogether we find an astrological allegory in the loaves and fishes stories which describe the sun, moon, and visible planets (the sacred seven) coming into a new age in pisces - virgo. The entire issue of a miracle and arguing about the miracle of whether or how Jesus fed a multitude with loaves and fishes is a complete false scent when dealing with deconstructing these myths. Theists and atheists will go off the path arguing over things that are ultimately irrelevant to what's actually being said in the myth. This is what Murdock means in the video I posted earlier about going beyond the usual theist and atheist banter. And the need for an academic and scientific based third way of looking at, analyzing and approaching christian mythology. 

 

At the bottom (and Robert can certainly add to what I've written above) the loaves and fishes has more to do with a reference about abundance coming into the new age of pisces - virgo back in the remote period when this age change was happening and in the time periods shortly thereafter. We're looking at what was back then a new age cult which was off shooting from Judaism and which was Gnostic in content and symbolic usage. And it all fits together. Paul was Gnostic. The gospels behind Paul have this Gnostic stellar content. It flows through to Revelation. It was present in the OT with Daniel and the prophets. The NT writers were taking what was already described in places of the OT and furthering it. It's just that old astronomer priest language which they were using to pass along content that was essentially part of the ancient mysteries in diverse cultures in the near east and abroad. An astronomer priest could look at something like the loaves and fishes allegory, or the last supper and completely get it. People outside of the priesthoods, would just read a mythological story about magically transforming loaves and fishes to literally feed a multitude. The theists will blindly accept it, the atheists will reject it as nonsense. But all the while the ancient mystery content is both open and obvious for the understanding, and yet concealed from the uninitiated and unaware at the very same time. 

 

The whole point of discussing these obscure mystical and astrotheological aspects from Murdock's perspective, is simply to make people aware of it once and for all. Awareness of it can allow people to move on and not remain slaves to ancient and outdated religions. It's ultimately humanitarian to raise and air out these issues. 

[Joshpantera]

Thanks for the question, @SeaJay

 

I think the best answers come from outlining some of the issues I would have to deal with as Murdock's moderator. JP Holding and other's would often visit her forum under hidden screen names and try toying with us. I'd usually respond as such:

 

The night of Christmas Eve starts out at sundown with the 3 belt stars of Orion rising on the southeastern horizon, where the sun will rise Christmas morning. After the sun has risen (to the naked eye, sundials) for three days at the winter solstice, at it's furthest southern point in the southeastern sky, it will rise one degree north after the solstice. This goes way back in terms of the ancients noticing and mythologizing this time of year, which is a marker for the beginning of the sun's journey north ward again and hails the coming of warmer temps and the spring. So the nightly procession of stars was noted as far back as Egypt and likely much earlier. First the three belt stars, then Sirius, the brightest star in the sky which is in the east, then virgo also rises and finally the sun. 

 

Three Kings, Magi, Wise men, or Gifts as it were, began the nightly procession of stars and constellations which correspond closely to the christian nativity. The virgin born sun rises in glory behind this procession as it's born anew, and thus begins the next annual solar cycle. 

 

So there are key issues dealing with specific constellations that occur in the mythologizing. The three stars of Orion's belt have been associated with the three Pyramids at Giza, the Orion correlation theory of Robert Buvual. And that ties in to the Egyptian antiquity of associations with Orion's belt and the star Sirius. They also go by the "three kings," known to christians from "we three king's of orient are..." Of course the song is referring to the wise men from the east who bring the three gifts to the nativity scene.

 

There's a lot of back ground on this topic, here's a blog entry from DM Murdock. I recommend reading the entire article : http://www.stellarhousepublishing.com/star-east-three-kings.html

 

Quote

 

Herod points the wise men in the right direction, but he too evidently becomes so discombobulated that, instead of following his own instructions to find Jesus, he needs to slaughter all of the children in the village, a heinous act that can be found nowhere in the historical record and would be rather deplorable for the all-powerful God/Jesus to allow in order to save his own neck. In any event, although in the gospels these magi are not numbered, their gifts are counted as three, and over the centuries tradition has set them at three as well. Hence, the familiar tale is that Jesus’s birth was accompanied by a "star in the east" and "three wise men." These three wise men were also said to be "kings," as in the popular Christmas song, "We Three Kings." At a certain point the three kings were given names, Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar, and the mythmaking continued.

Coincidentally, there happen to be three very conspicuous stars in the "belt" of the constellation of Orion that are also called the "Three Kings." Moreover, as French philosopher Simone Weil (1909-1943), herself a Christian, remarked, "The Christians named the three stars of Orion the Magi," revealing esoteric knowledge of Christian astrotheology, regardless of when it was first adopted. In addition, one of the brightest stars in the sky is that of Sirius, which, along with Orion, was a favorite of the Egyptian priesthood for thousands of years, keen observers of the skies as they were, and well aware of astronomical phenomena. Not a few people have thus equated this bright star and these wise men in Christian tradition with these revered celestial bodies within Egyptian and other mythologies.
 

 

 

The apologist's who argue that the three kings, magi, wise men, are not numbered have generally faced a weak argument altogether. When you're familiar with the annual Christmas Eve procession of stars and constellations, understand the history and antiquity of ancient star observer's mythologizing the procession well before christianity came along, and then face christianity making use of the same general symbolism and placing their holiday at the same time, the whole thing becomes rather self evident that we have a match going on here.

 

It's the whole procession, in order when looking at the nativity scene which is celebrated on the very night that this procession of stars and constellations takes place every year. And of course there have  been commentators along the way who have pointed this correspondence out over the years. It's one of those things that the churches will have to forever argue, regardless of how self evident the whole thing is. Because to admit that they simply copied the pagan sun holiday and claimed it as Jesus' nativity and birth, instead of the sun's, discredits christianity tremendously as far as orthodoxy is concerned. Perhaps a Gnostic thinking christian wouldn't suffer the same blow as an orthodox thinking christian because the mystical ways need not depend on historicity, but christianity today is primarily orthodox and does suffer for it.

 

[sdelsolray]

Here's an interesting set of views of the constellation Orion by visualizing it from observation points other than the Earth.  Note how the belt of Orion only looks like a belt the Earth perspective and not from any other perspective.

 

 

[Joshpantera]

The constellations only looking the way they do from earth is something we spoke about before. One of the interesting points to discovering life on another planet would be to see if people evolved similar to the way that we have here on earth, and mythologized their own particular fixed constellations from the view of their own planet into something that resembles things that they would be familiar with. I would think that noticing consistency in the sky and applying that to spiritual and religious beliefs would probably happen anywhere that life emerges in the universe, similar to the way in which it's happened here. 

 

I had an idea a long time ago about a sci-fi plot where space travelers do the very thing described above. On this alien planet the space traveler's from earth find that some dominant religion on this alien planet had evolved with some similar type of hero mythology character like Jesus. And our space travelers would find themselves thrown into a controversy where the alien people were learning that their hero was simply a collage of things and orchestrated to represent their local star in the same way Jesus is a solar hero figure.

 

Just one of those movies that would make people think when they watch. Let people figure out the parallels being suggested. 

 

This alien mythic hero would have a number of followers based on the fixed constellations there on that planet, which could be some number other than 12 for the sake of making it different than earth. The Jesus figure may have 14 disciple / followers, matching the number of fixed constellations in procession with their local star. Another twist is that there could instead be a binary system and the hero for that planet would be these two twin god-men, son's of the highest god who save that planet with eternal life, or something to that effect. And we'd be watching the corrupt religious system based around it's own astrotheological lore about twin saviors, allegorizing the binary star system, failing at the end of it's natural life cycle as being relevant to the people.

 

There's a lot of ways of making key points and drawing parallels to how religion has evolved here on earth from animism and onto astrotheology and the more sophisticated philosophical and theological frameworks, which evolved over time and then began to digress going into the technological age. And are now starring down the possibility of drifting away into insignificance. 

[Joshpantera]

Back to Orion, here's a video on the correlation theory: 

 

The correspondence's tend to show a conscious effort to build a complex below which mirrored what the astronomer priests observed in the sky.

 

This same type of structuring of society below based on the heavens above filtered down into the Jewish tribal era where the 12 tribes of Israel are numbered according to the 12 constellations of the 12 months. Philo and Josephus both refer to this, as well as the 12 jewels on the breast plate of the high priest representing the 12 constellations of the zodiac. The 12 disciples being 12 in number to represent the 12 tribes of Israel, also points to a representation of the 12 constellations which were always at the base of the structuring of 12 tribes.

 

This trend of trying to always consciously structure society below similar to the observed sky above lasted from who knows when, in deep antiquity, right down the christian era. And a lot of this ancient solar mystery content found it's way into the christian myth making periods. Orion's belt, Sirius, and Virgo being observed the night following the winter solstice being one blatant example. The fascination proceeded Egypt and continued on with a new religion which sought to take of the business of "resurrection" and run with it. I used to wonder what the correspondence was between the Egyptian religion of resurrection and christianity was, because it's very obvious that christianity tried to build upon an already existing idea of resurrection. Murdocks book "Christ in Egypt: The Horus - Jesus Connection" explains those connections very well.

 

 

 

 

[Joshpantera]

The ZG movie is a good illustration when it comes to understanding the basics: 

 

 

Now most of this comes Murdock's work. The controversy from this film went sky high. In time Murdock worked together with Peter Joseph to produce a source guide for the information used in the film. Mainly because so many people were trying to refute the information or flat deny it altogether. 

 

The free pdf source guide to the ZG film is linked here: http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/Zeitgeist, The Movie- Companion Guide PDF.pdf

 

Now a lot of this sounds sensational at first glance in the video, I realize that, and that's what the source book is for. Many people rant and rave about the information but never get around to reading the source material for themselves or reading further on the subject matter to where they can offer well informed opinions. The source book was created for that very reason. It goes through the transcript of the entire part 1 section providing sources and directing people to where they can be found. As a moderator, I had to deal with this issue a lot. 

 

@LogicalFallacy

 

If you haven't read the source book pdf that goes through the entire transcript of ZG part 1 on religion, citing sources and making clear where the claims are coming from, here's your chance to brush up on it. I've noticed that you've made some derogatory comments elsewhere about the Horus and Jesus connections. But the connections between Horus and Jesus are not so easily dismissed. She wrote an entire book centered on those connections. 

 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004LGTOCY/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

 

 

[Robert_Tulip]

On 18/09/2017 at 12:06 PM, Citsonga said:

 

I don't get it. Why would anyone think that because we recognize that astrology is laced with superstitious nonsense automatically means that it couldn't have been an influence in the development of a religion millennia ago?

 

Hello again.  Just to respond on this question about astrological influence, I am in a Bible Study group at the moment on the Book of Judges, where the constant theme is that when Israel whores after other Gods their national security is lost.  Christianity has internalised this message to define interest in astrology as whoring, an attitude that leads to a very disparaging dismissal of interest in natural theology, prevented by the Orwellian stratagem of crimestop. 

A constant tension has existed within religion between the transcendental monotheist patriarchal orthodox hierarchy, and the immanent pantheist egalitarian Gnostic philosophers.  My sense is that the real creative impulse in Christian origins is Gnostic, based on the cross-cultural connections between Greece, Egypt, Israel, Babylon and India, but the high astral theology of this secret mystery wisdom tradition was corrupted by the mass movement of the church as it used the doctrines for the strategic stability objectives of national and imperial security.  In that process, astrological reading of scripture was condemned as heresy, and possession or advocacy of heresy was a capital crime for most of Christendom.  So the astral influences on the original blueprint for Jesus Christ can only be detected as fugitive traces, since all explicit discussion of the topic was under an extreme fatwa for more than a thousand years. 

A sermon I gave at my church last Sunday discusses these themes in relation to the river of life as a solar symbol, and is at my blog, rtulip.net