Freethought Nation

In asserting that the Gospels have an astrotheological intent, that their symbolism conceals a hidden cosmic message, this instruction from Christ to his disciples about finding the upper room on the day before his trial and death is intriguing.

Conventionally, Jesus provides the secretive messages of the man with the water jug and the password request about the guest chamber, conventionally the upper room, as hidden signals. Jesus knows that Judas is seeking an opportunity to betray him, and wishes to ensure the Last Supper occurs, so arranges things in a way that those in the know can understand but the authorities will not see.

If we start instead with the supposition that these events are fictional, then the question of their intent and meaning requires that we look for deeper layers of symbolism. If Mark is not relating history, then Jesus and the twelve stand as code for some hidden message.

We have no independent corroboration of the life of Christ where we really would expect to find it, including in texts such as Paul’s Epistles and the writings of Philo. So, if we accept the resulting hypothesis that Christ is a myth, it is perfectly reasonable to explore how the mythicist argument, that the Gospels are fiction, constructed its picture of Jesus. What is the hidden message?

Astrotheology interprets religious texts within a cosmic framework. Starting from observation of the cycles of nature, with the movement of the sun, moon and stars forming the day, month and year, astrotheology asserts that these natural observations provide the origin of religious myth.

The cycles of light and dark have formed all terrestrial evolution, going back to the dawn of life as its enfolding structure. We do not say that a tree is conscious of the autumn, and yet by clockwork, the leaves of deciduous trees turn and fall each year, following the cycle of light and dark. We do not say a baboon is conscious of the relation between the earth and the sun, and yet each morning baboons hold their hands to the sun in a warming gesture also seen in ancient Egyptian imagery.

Religious imagery, ideas and rituals have evolved from time immemorial, out of natural practices. Such continuity is at the foundation of explaining why practices persist and resonate with popular emotion. This natural framework provides the context for explaining Biblical symbols.

With the story of the Upper Room and the Last Supper, the coded meaning seems to be that the man with the water jug represents the constellation of Aquarius, and so that the parousia, the reconciliation of earth and cosmos, will occur when the equinox precesses into Aquarius, thousands of years in the future.

Most Christians reject this cosmic line of thinking out of hand, preferring instead the conventional magical myths of a supernatural interventionist God. And yet, there is a strong case to say this natural vision was the real main intent of the symbol of the man with the jug.

The Gospels first appeared several generations after Jesus supposedly lived, initially with Mark, the source of the quoted text here. Mark full knew that the heroic triumphal messianic expectation of a king who would bring political victory had suffered dismal failure. Jewish efforts to gain independence from Rome had been met with crushing defeat, including the destruction of the temple of Jerusalem and the dispersal of the Jewish people. Mark tells of this defeat in the story of the 'desolating sacrilege' in the temple, an apparent reference to the Roman victory. Mark’s agenda was to explain the defeat of Israel by Rome as containing a hidden victory.

The hidden victory of Jesus, the idea that the cross and resurrection symbolise the triumph of good over evil, can be understood in the framework of eschatology, the theory of end times. End times theology now has a bad name, due to its links to insane fundamentalist theories such as the rapture. As well, the Bible itself is contradictory, with Jesus saying on the one hand that the Second Coming would not occur until ‘the gospel of the kingdom had been preached to the whole world’, and on the other hand also saying he would return before those listening had died.

Some readers see the ‘within your lifetime’ view as more authentic, insisting that Jesus predicted a quick victory. But from a mythicist view, is this tenable? If we read Mark as symbol, as presenting a fictional story of what the Messiah would have done if he had actually lived, then it really is very strange for him to say the Second Coming would occur even before Mark himself came to write down the events forty or so years later. Mark knew that was untrue, so why would he attribute a prophecy to Jesus that he knew had already been proven false?

My view is that it makes much more sense to stick instead to the conventional time line of eschatology, seeing history over a seven thousand year period from fall to redemption. If we try to explain how Mark presents this big story in symbolic terms, then texts such as the man with the jug start to make sense in a way that completely reshapes the conventional supernatural cosmology of Christianity.

The astrotheological reading is that this event is a hidden way of saying the second coming of Jesus Christ, the parousia of the Kingdom of God, will not happen until the Age of Aquarius, some 2000 years from the time of the Gospel story.

By this reading, the city is the visible heavens, the man with the jug is the Age of Aquarius beginning around 2000 AD, Jesus is the sun, the disciples are the twelve signs, and the upper room itself is the path of the sun through the twelve signs of the zodiac. The upper room is the 'above' of the old framework as above so below, representing the cosmos, while the 'below' is the earth.

The message is that the writers of the Gospels could see that evil was so rampant on the earth that it would dominate the Age of Pisces, so their goal was to present a message of an ethical vision that could be prepared until the end of the age, at which point it would become understood as a basis for the conflict between good and evil. On this model, the millennium is envisaged as the first thousand years of the Age of Aquarius, on the day-millennium model from Psalms and Peter whereby the week of creation is the model for the 7000 years from Adam.

If this is the message concealed in the Gospel, it presents a very different story about the meaning of the Bible for today. The cosmic vision of the Aquarian symbol concealed in the Gospel presents an ethical message that accords well with the dangers facing our planet. This message, seeing Christ as symbol rather than history, also opens a critique of the false prophets in the evangelical churches who insist on unscientific interpretations. Cosmic mythic reading presents a hard and narrow way to find a real message of salvation in the Bible, rejecting the broad and easy path of supernatural alienation that is sending humanity towards destruction.

Here we see the conventional picture of Aquarius as the man with the jar of water.


And here, between the paws of the Sphinx of Giza, we see the stela showing the cosmic polarity of Leo and Aquarius, the lion and the man with the jug of water. As Yeats put it in The Second Coming, the sphinx is 'slouching towards Bethlehem after twenty centuries of stony sleep'.

There is a something within fundamentalist-type Christianity that, I believe, has embraced the Age of Aquarius as the time of the literal second coming, even if they are not fully aware of how that teaching began.

Within Max Heindel's Rosicrucian teachings is that of a Cosmic Christ and the coming Age of Aquarius when Christianity will be changed within a generation. Heindel's organization sent out free astrology lessons around the turn of the 20th century, and his branch of Rosicrucians still provides free lessons on Heindel's teachings yet today.

I see many similarities between the Rosicrucian mysteries and what is known as the "Latter Rain" movement in Christianity. "Latter" as in last days, "Rain" as in the stream of water pouring forth from the jug of Aquarius.

Pyramidology was incorporated into last day teachings, along with the Mazzaroth/zodiac of the Bible. The various 'Gospel in the Stars' type books that are now over 100 years old, were in the last 20 or so years further elaborated on by Chuck Missler (close friend of Hal Lindsay who authored 'The Late Great Planet Earth') and the founder of Coral Ridge Ministries, the late Dr. D. James Kennedy. These are two prominent teachers who both put a Christian spin on the zodiac.

Latter Rain teachings have crept into denominations that formerly denounced such interpretations, and like a little leaven it has leavened the whole lump. It ultimately has become known as "Dominian" theology, where enlightened Christians dominate the world preparing for Christ to return through them.

The Sphinx, as you mention Robert, illustrates the opposition of the signs Aquarius (sign of the enlightened man) and Leo (sign of the Lion). The fixed star Regulus is the brightest star in the constellation Leo and is one of the four so called "Watchers" of the Old Testament that pin point the four corners/four fixed signs of the zodiac.

The fixed star Regulus has recently left the last degree of Leo entered 0 degrees Virgo. By some calculations this happened just this past March 20, though some calculate it happened during 2011.

If Regulus as a fixed point at 0 degrees Virgo is placed on the descendant of an astrological chart, the ascendant or rising degree is 30 degrees Aquarius. This has prompted one astrologer that I know of to state that this is the heralding of the New Age and that we are now in the Aquarian Age.

So how could Christianity be changed in a generation? What if a great war in the Middle East destroyed Israel and Christ does not return?

Just my rambling.

_________________
I am the Wind that blows over the Sea;
I am the Wave of the Deep;
I am the Bull of the Seven Battles;
I am the Eagle upon the rock;
I am a Tear of the Sun;

I was not aware of this particular flavor of dominion theology. Very interesting indeed.

I was looking at youtube vids a couple months ago and ran into something in the way of a sermon with a slide show of constellations. The more I watched I could see that this pastor was basically trying to take astrotheological symbols and twist them around into favoring a type of fundamentalist agenda. I don't remember where the video was though. I'll have to see if I can find it again. It may have something to do with this dominion theology you speak of.

I just thought that it was some new reaction to the post zeitgeist generation where they're willing to admit to the astrotheology but then suggest that it has to do with creationism through end times, God's way of letting people know about the end just before it happens, and so on. I've noticed for some time now that Christians could essentially embrace the astrotheological symbolism of the bible as some type of priest to priest system of knowledge preservation designed to last over long periods time.

I actually sat down a friend of mine (who was into the Herald Camping craze a few years back) and showed him diagrams that I'd drawn up of the how the Leo-Aquarius axis marked by the sphinx at Giza, and the opposite Aquarius-Leo axis given in the bible, basically outline the minimum and maximum points on the meridian due to the earths axial wobble. This is covered thoroughly by Robert Buvual as concerns the Giza side of things. I told him that Camping doesn't even know about or understand any of this and his own interpretations completely neglect all of it. My friend was taken back a bit when I showed him how Luke 22:10 corresponds to this astrotheological outline of the effects of precession on constellations such as Orion through half the precession.

What he didn't like about this astrotheological reading is that it points not to any literal doomsday, but rather the end and beginning of a new cycle within a series of cycles that have been going on and on and will continue to go on and on. This guy likes the doomsday stuff and was very drawn in by it. I moved away before Campings predictions failed so I don't even know where my friend is at now after the fall out, but we had a running bet about Campings doomsday and I told him that I'm sure Campings predictions will fail, for many various reasons.

But seriously, this Aquarius stuff has the potential of getting way out of hand if a Herald Camping type personality took hold of it and hyped it up. There are clear ways of twisting things around to the point of declaring a second coming of a literal Jesus at the end of the current world Age / Aeon. The only argument against such a thing, that I can see, is to point out that the astrotheology makes the story non-historical and therefore non-literal as concerns a real humanoid Jesus here in the past or returning again. But so what? That wouldn't do a bit of good against the preaching of some strong personality swearing with certainty that Jesus was real and left a coded map of the stars in order to reveal through his initiates (apostles / disciples) when he'd return to the earth.



Luckily not too many fundies are that clever. Most of them are too busy trying to deny astrotheology, mythicism, and fight the ZG movement to ever switch gears and try to use the knowledge for their own purposes....

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The Jesus Mythicist Creed:
The "Jesus Christ" of the New Testament is a fictional composite of characters, real and mythical. A composite of multiple "people" is no one.

The celestial Origins of Religious Belief
ZG Part 1
Jesus: Hebrew Human or Mythical Messiah?

I remember when Boy George came out with that song, so to speak.

The idea of 7000 years from fall to redemption goes back to the early church and is fundamental to the Christian creed, including the idea of a millennium of peace and healing.

This Christian vision of the structure of time matches exactly to the observed scientific astronomy of the precession of the equinox. The conventional symbolic meaning of each age is roughly as follows.

Adam (4000 BC) = Age of Taurus the Bull: possession of property as basis of fall = knowledge of good and evil (have)
Abraham (2000 BC) = Age of Aries the Ram: emergence of monotheism (am)
Christ (0 BC/AD) = Age of Pisces the Fishes: 'compassionate mystical belief'
Second Coming of Christ (2000 AD) = Age of Aquarius the Water Bearer: 'innovative humanitarian knowledge'.

This structure of time involves a simple reverse mapping of the seasonal cycle of the year on to the stellar cycle of the Great Year, based on the idea that each Age is characterised by the sign of the sun at the spring equinox. We also see here the seven days of creation mapped to the seven thousand years of Christian time within the fundamentalist young earth creationist model. Against this model of the first half of the Age of Aquarius as the predicted Christian millennium, it really is hard to escape the fact that young earth creationism sits precisely within an accurate cosmology formed by the actual wobble of the axis of the earth.

I looked at Heindel's work, including commentary on the Age of Aquarius at The New Sense of the New Age. Heindel presents numerous pseudo scientific claims, and supports magical ideas from theosophy and anthroposophy that are discredited. It is very difficult to extract a sound vision from within the error. This is the sort of thinking that makes rational people highly suspicious of all discussion of a New Age. And yet, Heindel has a basic insight, that the stars will keep turning, and the equinox will move from Pisces to Aquarius. This is a scientific fact, but what it may mean for human culture is very hard to discern. Looking at how the authors of the Bible may have imagined this far distant future time is one interesting way to explore it.To me the bottom line in discussing this material is the truth of a scientific world view. Evidence is the basis of ethics. Missler is a creationist Zionist, so essentially puts himself outside rational debate. Kennedy was a conservative Calvinist. Dominion theology involves an alienated supernatural vision of the relation between God and earth. These forms of thinking have little time for discussion of the zodiac in any positive way. Understanding the Great Year as a basis of Christian mythology is essentially pantheistic.There are numerous overlapping cycles which contribute to the long term structure of time. Actual climate cycles of the earth have a greater dynamic impact than any merely stellar alignments. The actual climate cycle involves the meshing of precession, 25765 years, with the separate rotation of earth's orbital ellipse to produce an observable cycle of period 21,600 years. The stellar alignment of the entry of the equinox into Pisces at 21 AD has a significance as an observable event that ancient seers could use as a marker.

Dynamic effect of stars on the earth is not plausible as they are too far away. All these cycles have to refer back to actual dynamic processes of the earth, such as the axial wobble that causes precession.

The riddle of the sphinx is really the question of the Ages. The ancient God Aion symbolises how the sphinx marks the ages, with the six coils of the snake representing the six ages from the Age of Leo to the Age of Pisces, with the seventh age of Aquarius symbolised by the union of the four living creatures at the point of the third eye.


Thanks KC, this is all really interesting material in my view, and I appreciate you discussing it. Human culture can change suddenly, especially if one appears who speaks with a tongue on fire. My view is that Christianity provides hope for the reconciliation of Judaism and Islam, through a doctrine of repentance, forgiveness and love. But first people have to put aside magical claims, and accept that religious language is symbolic for observable reality.

One further thought. Judaism says the messiah has not yet come. One way to interpret this could be to say that Christianity imagined the Jewish messiah, presenting a template for an actual world savior who would use Christ as a model in the Age of Aquarius.

Over Easter I have been debating this material on a Biblical Studies site. Here are some main points. Most interesting, in my view, is whether the Talmud theory of the 7000 years of time was used as a source for Christian eschatology. Apologies for posting such a long comment, but I find it a really interesting theme regarding the existence of an astrotheological agenda in the Gospels.


The question is the weight and meaning of the various eschatological statements in the Gospels. There is a contradiction between "the gospel will be preached to the whole inhabited earth and then the end will come" (Matt 24:14) and "some who hear these words will not taste death. (Matt 16:28)". Both these texts have correlates in Mark.

I don't think it makes sense to demean the brains of the Gospel writers by saying they thought the earth was small and flat, so the end of the age would be very soon. They knew full well the gospel would not be preached to England and India within a generation.

As I see it, there must have been conflict between the political and cosmic wings of the messianic movement. The political wing, as seen for example in the Pauline Epistles, imagined the Kingdom of God arriving soon. The cosmic wing, as reflected dimly in Revelation, and also in some Gospel texts, was in my view the origin of the Jesus idea, and had a much more long term vision of fall and redemption.

This is why this 'man with a water jug' text is so crucial. If the 'upper room' (ie the physical heavens) will not be seen until the disciples (ie the twelve signs of the zodiac) are led by a man with a water jug (ie precession of the equinox into the Age of Aquarius), then we can interpret the gospels as saying the Age of Pisces will be a time of preparation, in which the Gospel would be proclaimed but not understood, and the full understanding of the real message would not occur until the then distant future.

This distant future was symbolised by the God Aion in a way that displays precise correspondence with the dawn of the Age of Aquarius. As I mentioned with the Aquarius - Leo imagery of the Sphinx stela, the design of the God Aion shows the sixth coil of the snake meeting the third eye of the man-lion - http://www.digital-brilliance.com/histo ... w/Aion.jpg Each coil is a 2000 year period observed in the sky, starting with the Age of Leo in the distant past, then going through six ages of 2000 years each over a period of about 12,000 years.

We cannot simply assert a priori that Mark was not talking about astrological ages. The extent of astrological imagery in the New Testament suggests that in fact this reading is the more parsimonious and elegant interpretation of the existing evidence compared to traditional supernatural miraculous fantasies. "Heaven" should be read as 'the heavens". Jesus Christ as Alpha and Omega supposedly lived at precisely the time when the spring equinox was seen by the ancients as moving from the first sign Aries to the last sign Pisces. The miracle of the loaves and fishes is a metaphor for the movement of the equinoxes into Pisces and Virgo. Revelation has abundant precessional imagery, especially in the Holy City.

In Luke 21, verse 22 says "For this is the time of punishment in fulfillment of all that has been written." However, verse 24 says "Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled." This latter text seems to insert a much more long term vision of redemption, again illustrating the tension between the short term political and the long term cosmic visions that informed the writing of the New Testament.


Jake wrote "So the Biblical chronology is to be so construed as to be prophetic of our own day? How perfectly parsimonious."

The Schweitzer Attack provides no grounds to exclude the logic of what is a very old tradition. To observe that previous historians have interpreted Jesus as a reflection of their own biases and interests does not mean that this failing can be used to reject current interpretation, unless those biases can be exposed explicitly. I freely admit my own bias, namely that the laws of physics are absolute truth and all supernatural claims originate in allegory for natural observation.

The day-millennium scheme from Peter and Psalms was used by Church Fathers to extrapolate from Genesis to a 7000 year theory of history as the basis of orthodox eschatology. We see this scheme also in Judaism - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_esc ... sianic_Era

If that tradition of 7000 years of creation was actually central to the construction of the Christ Myth, then it is perfectly reasonable to look for an empirical basis for it in ancient observation of the cosmos. When we consider the sky as the ancients could see it, the millennial ages of precession of the equinox are a main shaper of the long term structure of time. And yes, that is parsimonious.

The cosmic seers who wrote the Gospels were steeped in astrology, as the framework of ancient cosmology. However, the association perceived between astrology and pagan evil, going back to Deuteronomy, meant that this guiding framework for the relation between eternity and time was used as a secret basis, not a public dogma.

The schema of the 7000 years, based on actual observation of the sky, is

4000 BC: Age of Taurus
2000 BC: Age of Aries
0 BC/AD: Age of Pisces
2000 AD: Age of Aquarius.

The day-millennium principle puts the seventh day, the sabbath of healing and peace, at the Age of Aquarius, with two 'days' for each previous Age. If we wish to consider it scientifically, we can see the actual period of precession gives a millennium of 1074 years, as 1/24th of the observed precession period, and the actual date when the equinox crossed from Aries to Pisces was 21 AD, so the Age of Aquarius is due to start in 2169.

Those exact dates are not the main issue. What is relevant is that Biblical stories such as the Man with the Water Jug suggest the writers saw the Age of Pisces as a time of preparation for the arrival of the Kingdom of God in the Age of Aquarius. This interpretation matches well to the zodiac symbolism and to the millennial eschatology. My view is that the Gospel authors accepted that Rome could not be defeated militarily, and had to be subverted using a Long March through the institutions.

Robert Tulip


The argument I am presenting is not “consistent with that historical trend” of fundamentalist supernatural fantasy. There is nothing fundamentalist, supernatural or fantastic in anything I have written. My argument is purely evidence-based.
If you look at lunatics like Camping and other Adventists and such like, the prophecies they present of the date of the second coming are based on fundamentalist readings of scripture that are not compatible with modern science. It is easy to dismiss such writers as soon as they make magical claims that are based on faith rather than reason. By contrast, what I am doing is trying to reconstruct the actual thought processes of the writers of the Gospels. I argue that they:
(i) predicted that events on earth would mirror observed events in the sky (your will be done on earth as it is in heaven);
(ii) observed actual events in the sky (precession of the equinox); and then
(iii) embedded this observable cosmic framework in the Bible and related texts (various examples such as man with jug, alpha-omega, loaves and fishes, holy city, new heaven and new earth, end of the age).
Your argument is like saying “Aristotle got the theory of motion wrong, therefore Newton must also have been wrong”. It is a non-sequitur. The fact that people have made unscientific false claims in the past does not have any bearing on whether a current claim is also unscientific. I would prefer the argument I present be considered on its merits, not simply dismissed with the dismal argument that people have been wrong in the past and therefore must always be wrong on this topic. I know eschatology is an emotional topic, but the insistence that the Gospels were written against a short time frame seems to me a basic error.
Regards
Robert Tulip


Carl said "He was claiming that the eschatological event would occur within the lifetime of those living and that the gospel would be preach throughout the world before the end would come. Christians have also misunderstood these text, and that is why their creeds speak of a coming to a distant generation. There is no reason for that interpretation."

RT: Carl, you are just asserting that your interpretation is the only one and not engaging with the texts I mentioned. For example, if the man with the water jug represents the constellation Aquarius, and the widespread Jewish and Patristic 7000 year time frame is Biblical, then there is a "reason for that interpretation" that the Gospel authors saw eschatology on a millennial time frame. In Australia we have a saying 'have two bob each way', meaning to bet equally on both horses in a two horse race. Genesis does this by including two creation stories, etc. It seems to me that the political and cosmic visions of eschatology were in conflict, and both were therefore included in the Gospels. My bet is that the cosmic story was the deeper one, although it remains to be seen what the Age of Aquarius will bring. Perhaps Carl you are like Jake (and King Canute) and think there will not be an Age of Aquarius. After all, David Hume said the sun may not rise tomorrow.


Carl: "First, "world" does not have the significance that we would give it today. Notice that Luke 2:1 tells us that "the whole world" was taxed by Caesar Augustus. At most, this is talking about the Roman Empire, and that is probably hyperbole, for no such taxation is recorded in history. More than likely, it was the "whole" land of Palestine that was taxed, and even that is doubtful. Certainly, it was not the whole planet!"

RT: A good website setting out the three Biblical meanings of world - oikoumene, aion and kosmos - is at http://gospelhall.org/bible/bible.php?s ... lang=greek Oikoumene both does and does not mean world, and variously could mean the Roman Empire or all of humanity. The "end of the world" in the Authorized Version translation of Matthew 24 is actually the End of the Age. To me it makes abundant sense to interpret Age as Zodiac Age.

Carl: "Now notice, with that fact in mind, that Paul says the faith of the Roman church was acknowledged throughout the "whole world" (Romans 1:8). Surely you don't think he included those living on the American continent in that count! The "whole world" for Paul was the Roman Empire (or less). Josephus speaks of the Romans as rulers of the world, and yet we know that they only ruled the Mediterranean region, not the whole planet. And in I Clement 5, we read that Paul preached both in the East and the West - "having taught righteousness to the WHOLE WORLD."
And in the letters of Paul, we read that the gospel "was preached (Past Tense) to every creature which is under heaven..." (Col 1:23)."

RT: Romans 1:8 uses 'cosmos', which it seems means order. The pseudoPauline Colossians line is obviously allegorical, implying rather absurdly that the Gospel has been preached to non-human creatures, at a time when it was well known many people had not heard of Jesus Christ, certainly none who wrote it down. Elaine Pagels in The Gnostic Paul suggests that Paul concealed Gnostic ideas.

Carl: "a tendency to use modern definitions ... only leads to misunderstanding. Let's give the authors of Matthew and Mark the benefit of the doubt. They knew how long a generation was during the time they lived, and they knew that the end came before their generation passed away, for they were there to witness it. No only did they witness it, but they recorded the event pretending it had been a prophecy of the mythic Jesus."

RT: In my first post I cited the four-fold God Aion, or Age, made of man, lion, snake and eagle and standing on top of the world. Aion has six coils of the snake from feet to head, in a motif that exactly matches the long term vision of time from the Age of Leo to the Age of Aquarius. Saying that Aion means Zodiacal Age is not using a modern definition, it is recognizing the obvious ancient meaning. Aion was also known as Chronos, Time or Eternity. Carl Jung's book Aion is a good source. http://www.theoi.com/Protogenos/Khronos.html states "Khronos was imagined as an incorporeal god, serpentine in form, with three heads--that of a man, a bull, and a lion." Here we see the observation of the kosmos as the framework of time, with the fixed constellations the bull, lion, scorpion and man marking the turning points of the seasons and the ages, as also explained in Ezekiel and Revelation.

A problem with this material is that religious thinking has been so badly infected by supernatural error that we often cannot see simple natural evidence that stares us in the face. This is the complaint Jesus leveled at the disciples in Mark 8.

Robert Tulip

I then got into debate with a rather bigoted individual, GR, who gets into a frenzy at any mention of the zodiac...

[GR] So you're saying that you have evidence that a golden age, predicted by the bible 2 000 ago, is about to come upon us, i.e., the age of Aquarius? What evidence do you have, Robert? The predictions made in the Bible, as interpreted by your assumptions that the stars guide the course of our destinies? That's magic, not science. From where I'm standing, your assumptions are like those of the Fundamentalists: they are supernatural/magical and not at all scientific. This is all based on astrology, not just observations of the stars, which is astronomy, but a belief that the stars guide our destinies. Again, what evidence do you have that the stars do this?

[RT] Thanks GR. There is no magic or astrology involved, nor have I mentioned a golden age. The question here is what the author of Mark meant by the man with the water jug who guided the way to the Upper Room for the Last Supper. I am saying that this was intended as code to describe an accurate astronomical theory of time informing Christian eschatology, Men did not usually carry water, but the symbol for Aquarius is ancient, so Mark's choice of this cosmic zodiac symbol demands interpretation. The Jewish Year started at the spring equinox. Against the ancient 7000 year theory of time, the imagined millennium of peace and rest corresponds to the time when the spring equinox enters the constellation of Aquarius. Similarly, the alpha-omega moment of Christ corresponds to the time when the spring equinox moved from Aries to Pisces. This theory of time, considered against the available ancient scientific framework, requires no astrology whatsoever. They predicted a millennial reign of Christ, and the scholarly question is when they expected that to happen, We cannot know if it will happen, but the question is what the Gospel authors believed.

[GR] Please show us what science has to do with astrology and the belief that someone can predict what will happen thousands of years ahead of time? That's magic, Robert, not science., and it's the kind of thing one would expect from "lunatics like Camping."

RT: GR, your comment seems to illustrate a weak grasp of astronomy. You may wish to have a look at the science of precession of the equinox explained at. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axial_prec ... (astronomy) and the diagram of the position of the equinox over historical time at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Equinox_path.png This is science not magic. Science is about prediction. Astronomy predicts that the axis of the earth wobbles at a rate of one circle per 25765 years. This means that the spring equinox is now reaching the end of the constellation of Pisces and about to enter the constellation of Aquarius. This science is so basic that even the Gospel authors knew it as a rough observational framework. They already had a 7000 year theory based on Genesis and Psalm 90:4. The stars are just temporal markers for this theory, and do not have a causal role.

[GR] Please demonstrate that [as above so below] is science.

RT: The idea that the microcosm reflects the macrocosm is basic causality. Things that occur within a system reflect the larger causal processes of the system. For example, the position of the tide (microcosm) reflects the causal influence of the sun and moon (macrocosm). Leaves fall (microcosm) when the weather gets colder due to axial tilt (macrocosm). It is not about magic or influence of stars, just actual causality. Stephen Jay Gould is one scientist who has used this idea to explain fractal geometry. 'As above so below' is a central idea in hermetic philosophy. Of course, the hermetic tradition has been calumnated by hysterical witch burners, but it was central to the cosmology of great thinkers such as Kepler and Newton. Newton took it so seriously that he translated the main hermetic text, the emerald tablet of Thoth, where this idea is presented, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emerald_Ta ... ranslation

The Lord's Prayer, 'thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven', shows the prominent role of this hermetic vision of causality in the Bible.

[GR] And predict a golden age of Aquarius some 2,000 years ahead of time. Again, just how is this scientific?

The Bible does not say the Age of Aquarius will be a Golden Age, except perhaps in more gushing poetic moments about wiping away tears and abolishing death. How I read it is that the vision should be interpreted against the ancient cosmology of fall and redemption, considered against the reality of history. The Bible emphasises how the world is in the grip of evil and sin, such that when the Son of God appeared he was despised and rejected. Many people today regard evil and sin as useless magical ideas, but I find them helpful as a way to interpret politics and ethics. In looking at human life against a long time frame, the 7000 year picture suggests that the Ages of Taurus and Aries (4000BC-0) were times of steady cultural decline from peace to war, as depicted in the schema of successively worsening ages in Hesiod, also appearing in Daniel 2 and the Vedic Yuga. On this temporal schema, Christ arrives as the perfect man at the lowest time of the cycle, and the Age of Pisces is a time when the word of truth has been provided by Christ but not understood, due to the sway of ignorance. The Age of Aquarius is depicted as the time of the Kingdom of God, when the word of Christ will be understood. We are hardly entering a golden age, considering we expect to have nine billion people living on our planet this century. I don't think the Bible predicts anything unrealistic, except as allegory. What it predicts is that once the Gospel has been preached to the whole planet, we will have a global paradigm shift, a new heaven and new earth, in which the wrath of God will be against those who destroy the earth (Rev 11:18) and we will restore our understanding of nature (Rev 21).

[GR] Your argument is ... based on astrology and magic, so why should anyone take it seriously?

RT: I have explained here that there is no astrology or magic in this argument. It is quite simple. The Gospel authors looked at the stars and predicted the future of the earth against the framework of the perceived movement of the cosmos. They said Christ would not be understood until 'the end of the age', at which time politics would be reordered to make works of mercy central (Matt 25). You are entirely at liberty to believe they got it wrong and we are not headed for a millennium of repair but will descend into mayhem and war. I find the idea of global transformation a helpful way to see the Biblical cosmology as purely rational and good.

Robert Tulip

Continued...

This post replies to GR's suggestions that we should expunge any thought of long term cosmology from the Gospels. I really appreciate that GR expresses his views so vigorously, as he helps to clarify how things are seen by many others, and where he and they have false assumptions that need to be exposed and rebutted.

GR wrote: "You seem to think this age of peace and rest, what I termed a golden age, will happen when the age of Aquarius arrives; all this signified by a Mark describing a man carrying a jug of water showing the way to an upper room... [as] ... secret code."

RT: The point is to try to understand the Gospels through a consistent and rational natural scientific framework, putting all the pieces together in a way that makes sense. This line from Mark is just one instance of a cosmic theme found widely through ancient sources, such as in the God Aion, as I have explained already. The Gospel authors looked at the cosmos, they saw the simple pattern of time in the cosmos, accurately enough, and they developed an allegory on that basis, saying that the cosmic structure of time provides a framework for their theory of human history. It is rather like if I say 'when the clock strikes 6 I wll have dinner", there is no sense that the clock causes me to eat, it is a simple marker. In the same way, the Gospels, consistent with Jewish eschatology, say, when the equinox reaches Aquarius, the world will reach the end of the present age. The stars no more cause the new age than the clock causes me to eat.

There are numerous references to a new age in the gospels, especially in Matthew. Mark gives at least one statement which considered literally refers to the whole inhabited earth, at 13:10, 'all nations'. Matthew gives several more, especially in Chapter 13, where Jesus says "The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels... As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age... at the end of the age the angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous."

I, and orthodox Christian faith, accept that it makes sense to consider these age references as pointing to a very long period of time. As I mentioned earlier, there are also abundant Jewish sources that are fully consistent with this framework - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_esc ... sianic_Era It is not just me arguing for this general framework, this link states "According to the Talmud,[7] the Midrash,[8] and the Kabbalistic work, the Zohar,[9] the 'deadline' by which the Messiah must appear is 6000 years from creation. A majority of Orthodox and Hasidic Jews believe that the Hebrew calendar dates back to the time of creation; the year 2009-2010 corresponds to the Hebrew year 5770. There is a kabbalistic tradition[10] that maintains that the 7 days of creation in Genesis 1 correspond to seven millennia of the existence of natural creation. The tradition teaches that the seventh day of the week, Shabbat or the day of rest, corresponds to the seventh millennium (Hebrew years 6000 - 7000), the age of universal 'rest' - the Messianic Era... Elaborating on this theme are numerous early and late Jewish scholars, including the Ramban,[11] Isaac Abrabanel,[12] Abraham Ibn Ezra,[13] Rabbeinu Bachya,[14] the Vilna Gaon,[15] the Lubavitcher Rebbe,[16] the Ramchal,[17] Aryeh Kaplan,[18] and Rebbetzin Esther Jungreis.[19]

It is perfectly reasonable to posit that these traditions were part of a widespread mystery doctrine at the time of the writing of the Gospels. In line with these widespread traditions, the man with the jug is just the number on the clock for the year 6000 in the Jewish eschatology.

I have previously argued that a famous suspected Jew, Leonardo Da Vinci, used this temporal framework as the template for his painting ofThe Last Supper. It all illustrates that there is a Jewish tradition about these matters that is not well understood in the Christian literature.

My view quite simply is that there were conflicting eschatologies that informed the Gospels, an accurate long term cosmic vision, and an inaccurate short term political vision. These sit alongside each other just as the creation stories do in Genesis. If we consider the symbolism in the Bible as allegory for accurate cosmic observation, the entire vision becomes coherent.

Why did the New Testament use the zodiac as a "secret code"? My view on this is that the politics of Christianity demanded hostility to pagan thought, whereas the framework for the idea of Jesus Christ was entirely cosmic, based on accurate observation of the precession of the equinox as the actual structure of time. The resolution of this tension between politics and cosmology was that the cosmology was included in a concealed format, and was later forgotten and suppressed.

[GR] "Okay, so the gnostic understanding of the Bible is what you espouse? The Bible is replete with secret code/teaching that only the enlightened can see and understand? From what I've read of Hermeticism, it's just another name for secret Gnostic knowledge for the enlightened, a drak ages holistic philosophy now
only embraced by New Agers, like you."

RT: There are many Gnostic ideas that accord with the observable cosmology of precession, such as the 'duodecad of the aeons' condemned by Irenaeus. This idea of codes has got a very bad press due to irrational magical traditions such as gematria and use by fundamentalists. All I am saying is they had a 7000 year theory of time, they matched that up to the star clock, and they hid it in the Bible. It is a simple claim for which there is abundant evidence, which helps us to make sense of the Bible.

[GR] "Robert, you're nit-picking here. An age of peace and rest is
essentially the same as a golden age."

RT: Actually, I have a good scientific reason for 'nit-picking' on this. The origin of the idea in Daniel and Hesiod and Virgil of the Golden Age appears to be the old Vedic idea of the Satya Yuga. My view is that this Indian cosmology informed the basis of Christian eschatology, much as Dyaus Pita is the source of Deus Pater, so it is worth setting out.

The Vedic idea sees history as cyclic, declining from gold through silver, bronze and iron ages before ascending again through each metal in order. On face value this looks like an absurd myth, especially in its corrupted popular format of billions of years. However, against the actual temporal framework of precession of the equinox, this cosmology matches precisely to the actual planetary cycles of light and dark that drive glaciation.

The best source I know to show these cycles scientifically is the Journey of Mankind at http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/journey/ where the orbital cycles of precession are shown as impacting on glaciation, sea level and human migration over the last hundred thousand years. Against the accurate scientific basis of the Vedic framework, earth has cycles of light and dark every 20,000 years.driven by precession, and we are now emerging from the depth of an "iron age". So the Age of Aquarius is a bronze age, against this accurate scientific framework, and the next Golden Age is due in some 6000 years. I hope homo sapien has the brains not to go extinct before then.

I do not think that the Gospel authors were aware of this scientific understanding of climate cycles, but it seems to me to be feasible that they had an intuitive grasp of it, with the sense that climate had grown more difficult since the dawn of the Holocene 10,000 years ago, and was now approaching a turning point from which it would grow easier over the next ten thousand years. This turning point actually happened astronomically in 1296 AD, when the perihelion passed the solstice, as shown at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Prece ... easons.jpg

Against the cosmology of fall and redemption, the 'sabbath' age is a time of repair. Fixing the damage of the last 6000 years will only lay the foundations for future evolution.

[GR] "Right, sin and evil in the Bible, invented by Jewish priests a few millennia ago to control the rabble. Is that part of the science you keep referring to?"

RT: You are welcome to your apparent view that sin and evil are not real. Again, that would take us into a metaphysical theological discussion that is off topic for the historical question of the study of the Gospel authors.

[GR] "Thank you, I most certainly do think they got it wrong. I think this whole way of seeing the Bible boils down to bad science, bad exegesis and just plain ol' contradicting what the Bible says. However, you're
welcome to this "scientific" method of interpreting the Bible; I think I'll just stick to sound exegesis.

RT: Thanks again GR for expressing your self so clearly, even if I think you are completely wrong. I have explained here why I consider my ideas to be sound exegesis.

Some key themes emerge from the supposition that the authors of the Gospels actually had a sound appreciation of the difficulty of turning around human culture towards a non-alienated spirituality, with a long term vision of atonement and redemption that is real, not magical. The authorial communities involved competing perspectives and interests, with long term and short term views in conflict. You say the short term view is the only one there is, whereas I say that the basic symbols of the identity of Jesus Christ are based in a long term accurate cosmology.

Considered sub specie aeternitatis, the Bible aims to an eternal validity. To say Mark formulated his concept of this age and the next as indicating an immediate political overthrow of Rome demeans his capacity to see the power of Rome, and how the Christian vision had to take a patient long term view.

Robert Tulip




Carl: "Could it be that you consider those passages allegorical when that serves your purpose and fits your theory?"

Robert: Colossians said "the gospel has been preached to every creature." From Genesis, "creature" includes animals. I'm struggling to imagine how this might be anything other than an allegory. Did Paul preach to animals? Who preached the word of Christ to every insect in the jungles of Africa? Forget the literal absurdity, the idea here has to be an allegory. It may mean that animals are in tune with God so have an intuitive understanding of Christ as the point of reconciliation between fallen humanity and divine reality. Just because a Pauline writer makes an absurd extravangant literal assertion does not justify saying that Mark agreed with it and saw the eschaton solely as an immediate looming political event, especially when Mark had emphasised that 'only the Father knows the time'.

Carl: "I gave you several examples of how "world" is used in the text. There is never any indication that it refers to a zodiacal age."

Robert: Aion means age, and is translated "world' in the KJV discussion of judgment day at the end of the world. The Greco-Roman God Aion quite clearly symbolizes the zodiac ages. Some good analysis on this is in Aion by Carl Jung. The coherent reading of the Gospels is that 'end of the age' means 'end of the age of Pisces'. Fish imagery indicates that the new age of Christianity is the age of the fish, matching the stars. The twelve jewels of the holy city symbolize the twelve zodiac ages of the Great Year. In existential terms (eg Heidegger), 'world' is a context of meaning, so matches to the paradigm framework of an age.

Carl: "the writers of the gospels ... created a historical fiction to explain how the fall of Jerusalem fits into their divine plan."

Robert: This is a short term political reading, It stands in conflict with the long term cosmic reading that equally appears alongside it in the text. My point in this thread has been to argue you cannot entirely exclude the cosmic in favour of the political.

Carl: "One only has to read the story to see that the gospel writers have a specific focus, and that focus is not some distant event at the cusp of a zodiacal sign. The keynote of the gospels is the urgency with which the message is to be proclaimed. That would not make sense if the "time of the end" was thousands of years in the future."

Robert: Mark and Matthew defer this supposed "urgency" of the arrival of the kingdom until after the gospel has been preached to all nations. The proclamation of the message is urgent, but that is a different thing from the coming of the kingdom at what is conventionally called the day of doom. The message has to be proclaimed to all before the kingdom will come. As a matter of historical fact, it was only in the twentieth century that every country on earth had heard of Jesus Christ. Surprisingly, that is a timing that matches well to the Jewish idea that the messiah would arrive 6000 years after Adam.

Carl: "The gospel story begins as John the Immerser preaches that "the axe has already been laid to the root." All three of the Synoptic writers place the final outcome of their story before the passing of their own generation. This re-affirms the urgency that is central to their story."

Robert: This 'axe' line at Matthew 3:10 reads like a supposed prophecy of the destruction of the temple in 70 AD, not as a prophecy of the second coming of Jesus Christ. "Urgency" related primarily to preaching and repentance, not the parousia, except in the 'keep the wick trimmed' sense. There are two contradictory narratives on the 'final outcome', one that is short term, possibly aimed at fostering fervor, and one that is long term, possibly linked to an original cosmic back story.

Carl: "I think [the idea of zodiac ages] makes sense to you because you have already made up your mind that it means something that context will not support. The Christians scriptures talk about Covenant Ages, and although there may be some literary parallels with the cosmic solar myth that influenced their culture, that is not of much significance to the purpose of the authors of the gospels."

Robert: But the context does support the idea that Ages are about 2000 years long, even more so when we consider Revelation. The Covenant Ages (a phrase I did not find as such in a Bible search) are the covenant of law given to Moses and the covenant of grace given through Jesus Christ. These match exactly to the Zodiac Ages of Aries and Pisces. There is also the rainbow covenant through Noah in the Age of Taurus. Perhaps it even makes sense to say the coming of the kingdom in the Age of Aquarius is imagined as another covenant, of the kingdom of God?

The covenant of the Age of Aries started with Abraham sacrificing the ram in place of Isaac. Moses presents his covenant of law as arising from the destruction of the idolatry of the golden calf (Taurus) and with the passover celebrating the lamb, symbol of Aries. Joshua emphasises this 'Age of Aries' covenant with the ram's horn trumpets that destroy Jericho. It is entirely plausible in each of these 'Covenant Ages' that religious leaders and seers saw that the spring equinox had moved into the constellation that corresponded to their covenant idea, and reinforced the cosmic observation using religious symbols.

Ignoring zodiac ages requires us to imagine the ancients did not look at the stars. That suits the alienated supernatural biases that have infected Christianity, but the fact is they looked at the stars a lot more than people do today.

Carl: "You have to read the story from the author's point of view and purpose in writing. You need the same focus in reading as they had in writing. Otherwise it is just wild speculation, and anything can be interpreted to mean whatever you want."

Robert: And that is precisely what I am questioning. What is their point of view and purpose? I say they envisaged the transformation of the world and saw this as a long term endeavour. Far from wild speculation, my view is that is a reading that explains the Bible far better than the assertion they envisaged a celestial messiah overturning the Roman Empire. In fact we cannot yet reconstruct their focus in any way that commands a consensus, since we cannot even agree if Jesus Christ was real or imaginary.

We do not know how the ancients thought, but we can seek to reconstruct it by asking if various interpretations make sense against the historical evidence, including the wider frameworks of cosmology and mythology. Claims of literal supernatural faith that don't match the broader evidentiary record and scientific plausibility are what we should exclude first as wild speculation. Just saying you do not like a view because it reminds you of astrology is not a meaningful critique, especially when this is an area of ancient focus that is systematically neglected in modern readings.

Carl: "I don't hear you giving any consideration to the passing from one Covenant Age to another. How do you account for that being the contextual focus?"

Robert: I discussed the covenant context already. Incidentally, I wrote a song about this, The Seven Days of Creation, in which each millennium is imagined as a divine covenant, two covenants per zodiac age. Here are the words

Seven days of creation, into the seventh day.
On the first day of creation, Adam and Eve fell from Paradise.
On the second day of creation, Noah built the Ark
On the third day of creation, Abraham and Sarah came from India.
On the fourth day of creation, King David brought the Ark to Jerusalem
On the fifth day of creation came Jesus Christ, the alpha and omega, the sun of love
The sixth day of creation was the dawn of modern times.
And the seventh day is the sabbath day, the healing day, the day of peace
Into the seventh day.
There are seven days of creation, the future is the seventh day.

Carl: "how did Paul himself use Gnostic terms?"

Robert: Pagels explains how Valentinus and other Gnostic theologians read Paul as speaking at two levels. The Gnostics say that Paul's letters distinguish between a secret spiritual or `pneumatic' level of teaching aimed at initiates and a popular simplified `psychic' version for ignorant newcomers. For example, Gnostics said Paul's teaching of the resurrection of the dead was code for how a person grows from psychic ignorance to pneumatic spiritual knowledge. From my review of The Gnostic Paul at http://www.amazon.com/review/R2803T62V90MTR

Carl: "Paul's letters reveal that he was dealing with his belief in an "end of the age" that he expected to see in his own lifetime. This is the same message of urgency that we find in the gospels. Obviously, the age coming to an end was that of the Hebrew Covenant, and the new age to follow was "a new heaven and a new earth" of Christian understanding."

Robert: Perhaps Paul is more sympathetic to the political than to the cosmic vision of eschatology, but it is far from obvious that you can equate the age of grace proclaimed by Paul with the new heaven and new earth of revelation. My reading is that the age of grace is the Age of Pisces while the new heaven and new earth is the Age of Aquarius. Romans 8:25 calls for patience in awaiting the time when creation "shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God."

Carl: "Obviously, the symbols in the cosmic myth of Christ, being part of Paul's world of religious thought, would be used to link the message to previous and well-known buzz words that people would recognize and identify with. Some of these were zodiacal, but given a new literary construct and used in a historical, rather than a cosmic, setting. You seem to want to disregard that fact and return to the older meaning of the cosmic myth. If the purpose of the New Testament writers was just to re-tell the cosmic myth, they could have done so without creating a historical fiction. You're not accounting for that fact."

Robert: The motives for the Gospel language choices are far from obvious. For example I don't think the purpose was just to re-tell the cosmic myth. My assessment is that the authors saw the degraded mentality of the emerging times, and sought to conceal their cosmic vision in a historical story that would popularise and protect it until a time when people could understand and discuss it. Maybe they did also tell it just as explicit cosmic prediction, and that version was sought out and burnt? Various pressures and tendencies influenced the Bible text, from perspectives including the cosmological, the spiritual, the ethical, cultural, historical and political.

Carl: "The cosmic myth may have been the literary archetype, but the way it is used is what is important to understanding the Biblical texts."

Robert: This recognition of the role of cosmic myth in Biblical ideation is a very important observation, and I fully agree. It could be expanded to discuss how myth and empirical observation serve as template as well as archetype for the Christ Myth. I am arguing that observation was used to construct the Biblical cosmology in ways that scholarship still has not fully appreciated.

Carl: "To dismiss the author's intent and return to extrapolating meaning from the cosmic myth will not really get us anywhere."

Robert: Now that is a complex assertion! I am not dismissing the author's intent. How are we to separate intent from the myth when we have no reference to determine intent? How can we tell how they used the myth? Surely exploring the cosmic myth on its own terms is a first step?

Carl: "Now, you say that you don't believe in the superstition or magic of the zodiacal mythology, and yet you make a remark about waiting to see what the Age of Aquarius will bring. Which way is it??"

Robert: The Age of Aquarius is just a real time period when the equinox point will be in that constellation, as observable from the diagram I linked from wikipedia in reply to GR. The interesting thing, as a matter of objective fact, is that the equinox point moves into Aquarius in the period corresponding to the time the ancients envisaged as the millennium in their expressed 7000 year theory of time. It is not anything superstitious or magical. I made a diagram of the age structure including the future, available at http://rtulip.net/yahoo_site_admin/asse ... 56_std.JPG

The Age of Pisces is now coming to an end. We can readily see that Christianity used Piscean symbols, just as the stories of Moses and Abraham used Aries ram symbols, without having to assert some mystic emanation from the sign of the fish to inspire the ichthys acrostic.

What would be magical would be if I lived long enough to see Christianity shift from a Piscean belief framework to an Aquarian knowledge framework! I regard the laws of physics as omnipotent and omnipresent, if not omnibenevolent. I don't think science yet has a deep understanding of terrestrial cycles, and this is a field where there is a lot of research needed before we understand how the structure of the seasons is embedded in life and time at all scales.

Robert Tulip



GR wrote "The word translated "creature" is the Greek "ktisis", which means the act of creating or founding, the things created. All men according to the Bible are created and are therefore creatures."

RT: Thanks GR for helping me make my point that "creatures" at Colossians 1:23 is allegorical. Just on a point of logic, the text says "all creatures". In the Biblical framework all men are creatures, but not all creatures are men.

GR: "[Paul thought] Enough people in the (known) world had heard the gospel to usher in the so-called second coming"

RT: Yes, I agree some Paulines may well have thought that. But there is also a cosmic line in the Gospels which you ignore, why I am not sure, since I have explained it at some length in this thread.

GR: "I wouldn't boast about having the same interpretive framework as Orthodox Christianity"

RT: I don't boast, and nor do I claim to have an orthodox framework. There are many features of orthodoxy that are not true, such as all claims of the supernatural and the miraculous. But the 7000 year time frame of orthodoxy is one that warrants much more careful scrutiny. You are the one saying that Orthodox Christianity is completely wrong in its reading of Biblical eschatology, despite the abundant Biblical and non-Biblical basis for the ancient 7000 year theory of time. I am simply observing that this 7000 year theory has a clear observational astronomical basis, and provides a much better interpretative framework for the Gospels than your straw man insistence that we can dismiss the whole of gospel eschatology because of an incorrect prophecy.

Robert Tulip



GR wrote: "The context of Colossians is what determines the meaning of "creature" and one doesn't preach the gospel to animals, but to men; therefore "ktisis" applies to men, not beasts"

RT: Yes, so ktisis (creature) is allegory for men, which has its own perfectly good Greek word which the author would have used if he did not wish to speak allegorically. What am I not getting?

[GR] "How can I ignore what isn't there? Your explanations are but you reading your beliefs about astrology back into the Bible when there are none there. I'm not saying there's no astrology at all, but not in the
eschatology of the NT which is so clearly written to express a soon coming of Jesus. The age "Jesus" was referring to was a New Covenant age, not the age of some guy with a water jug."

RT: This requires that we analyse the history of the 7000 year eschatology whereby the man with the jug is allegory for the Age of Aquarius, without jumping to prejudicial conclusions. The 7000 year theory is presented in the BabylonianTalmud, for example Rosh Hashana 31a and Sanhedrin 97a which date at least to late antiquity. GR's theory requires a very convoluted process for this basis of orthodox Christian eschatology to get into the Talmud. GR's theory requires that Christianity was first proved wrong by the failure of the kingdom of heaven to arrive, and then the Jews hastily cobbled their 7000 year theory out of embarrassment at the Christian failure.

Frankly, GR's view on this looks ludicrous. The Talmud texts accord with the sweep of long term eschatological views which see Psalm 90:4 as presenting the seven days of creation as allegory for 7000 years of historical time. They document an oral tradition which in this case very plausibly predates and informs Christianity. I have not been able to find a source indicating when the 7000 year theory was first expressed, and would welcome if other learned members on this list could comment. But I feel confident in questioning GR's suggestion that it only arose as a cobbled together reaction to failure of Christianity.

GR is saying the 7000 year eschatology "isn't there" in the Gospel of Mark, even though it explains texts such as "preached first to all nations", the man with the water jug, and the basis of Christianity in Jewish lore. Instead he insists fanatical politics is the only driver, and only the texts which derive from this line should be considered.

[GR] "Orthodox Christianity is wrong in its reading of NT eschatology because the predictions made didn't materialize, so they re-interpreted them to mean that it would be much later."

RT: Again, so this means the Talmud got the same 7000 year theory of time from Christianity? No way. You are deriving orthodox Judaism from Christianity when the real causal direction is the reverse.

Robert Tulip

Why don't you show them Campbell's quote about precession and the number of the Goddess (432 variants) in the Icelandic Eddas, the Veda's, and the OT. That's a good example of how there are two stories told in the flood myth - one of a tribal creator God mad at the world and the other of the more hidden reference to the Sumero-Babylonian cycles of time also employed in the texts:



What you're suggesting about the NT writing era is hardly different from what is evident in the OT. If we can see that contrary theologies informed the OT, and the gospel writers sought to mine the OT to create the NT, why should we suspect any different from the NT? And I think the deeper question is to try and understand why these contrary theologies were employed in the OT and sit side by side in the first place, so as to appear once again sitting side by side in the NT efforts.

_________________
The Jesus Mythicist Creed:
The "Jesus Christ" of the New Testament is a fictional composite of characters, real and mythical. A composite of multiple "people" is no one.

The celestial Origins of Religious Belief
ZG Part 1
Jesus: Hebrew Human or Mythical Messiah?

Hi Tat, thanks, yes, Campbell's material on the presence of the precessional period in older texts is a powerful argument. Here is more.

I am presenting an explanation for how Christianity emerged that matches well to all the evidence. Yes there were other conflicting stories, but these do not get to the deep question of motive for inventing Jesus, whereas seeing it as cosmic parable provides this explanatory key. It is prejudicial to insist on seeing astrology in my views when I am deliberately leaving any astrological speculation out in order to show that this material can be understood without astrology, based solely on empirical astronomical observation.

My view is that the story of Jesus Christ provided an earthly parable for what was observed happening in the heavens, and that this is explicable without any reference to supernatural or magical or astrological worldviews. This cosmic correlation between the myth of the Historlcal Jesus of Nazareth and the Eternal Christ of Faith helps strongly to explain why it was Christianity that triumphed, whereas other myths such as Mithras did not. The story of Jesus as Avatar of the Age of Pisces and Forerunner of the Age of Aquarius matches to simple observation, and remained relevant as the explanation for the ongoing observed movement of the heavens, with Jesus Christ as the mythic link between the mundane and the eternal.

I've been investigating further about when and how the 7000 year eschatology was invented. Scholars such as Joseph Campbell (following Carl Jung) have observed a range of indicators of understanding of precession of the equinox in the Old Testament and in Indian scriptures. I have here discussed Aion, an ancient God figure clearly based on a precessional cosmology. It seems from all the evidence that it is highly implausible, if not impossible, to defend the argument that the 7000 year framework entirely postdated Christianity given the pervasive earlier presence of precessional fragments that support it.

The "times, time and half a time" of Daniel and Revelation adds to 7000 years when a "time" is understood as 2000 years, the observed period of a zodiac age. Daniel 12.5-7 says "I heard him swear by the one who lives forever that it would be for a time, two times, and half a time, and that when the shattering of the power of the holy people comes to an end, all these things would be accomplished."

And yet, as far as I can tell, the first clear public statement of the 7000 year cosmology was in the second century CE in the Talmud, in a debate about the meaning of Daniel's prophecy. As with the Talmud references to Christ, this does in fact give time for this theory to have evolved in the early years of the common era, on the assumption that before Christ the Jews expected an imminent triumphant messiah, and were disappointed, so like the Christians shifted their view to the far distant future. But that discounts the appearance of the motif in Daniel.

The Talmud say its texts were based on earlier oral teachings, including this line from Daniel about 3.5 times. So there is a real possibility, I would say a likelihood, that this teaching was older, and was the source for the Gospel eschatology. It is not cut and dried, but is open to alternate readings and further research. The support comes from seeing the extensive precessional imagery hidden in the New Testament, such as the man with the water jug.

One intriguing Talmudic statement in Sanhedrin is cited in "Redeption and Repentance in Talmudic Judaism" by EE Urbach, where it is stated that the period of time predicted to the end of the world is 4291 years. I cite this simply because it is so close to the actual period of two zodiac ages, which modern science calculates at 4296 years. It is entirely possible that ancient astronomers calculated the precession to this level of accuracy.

Looking to the Jewish Encyclopedia, we find an abundance of leads at http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/artic ... gy#anchor6 with the following ancient references listed under the heading world epochs and world weeks. While none of these seem to be definitive about the 7000 years predating Christianity, they open tantalising clues that are well worth pursuing.

Robert, I believe it is happening before our eyes, the Age of Aquarius, the Age of the Brotherhood of Mankind, The Age of Science, The Age of the God/Man. From the Age of I Believe to the Age of I Know.

I was sent a link to this video by a blog I superficially follow by a Christian lady who is somewhat of a 'cult buster'. So be aware that this is a Christian production.

But the lady in the video is Johanna Michaelson who wrote a book in the 1980s called The Beautiful Side of Evil. Johanna's book tells about her experience with guided imaging, the occult, and a rather long experience with a psychic healer in Mexico whom she worked with.

The strange part is that Johanna Michaelson is somehow related through marriage to Hal Lindsey, author of The Late Great Planet Earth. Lindsey in turn also encouraged Chuck Missler (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Missler) to go into the ministry and to write books. Missler has an audio of his preaching on the Mazzaroth on his website, is an amateur astronomer, and knows about "the gospel in the stars" teaching, which he propounds.

Keep in mind my mention of the Latter Rain (i. e. aquarian) Movement, The Manifest Sons of God (i. e. aquarian) Movement, and the incorporation of these terms into different branches of fundamentalist Christians that I mentioned up in my previous post.

Emergent Christianity has quite an Aquarian flavor to it! Now the old guard must kick against what they themselves helped to create. I don't quite know what to think of it, because there is an element to Aquarius that forgoes the good of the individual for the good of the group. One side of Aquarius is very freedom oriented and radical, while the other is responsible, disciplined and unbending.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out for change has happened rapidly, relatively speaking.

_________________
I am the Wind that blows over the Sea;
I am the Wave of the Deep;
I am the Bull of the Seven Battles;
I am the Eagle upon the rock;
I am a Tear of the Sun;

Chuck Missler is the only hobbiest astronomer who also happens to be an evangelist that I know of, though there may be others.

Here he explains that the gospel in the stars is found by following in descending order the stars which are brightest in the Zodiac and their Decans. I know that this realization blew his socks off!


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decans

Interestingly, his interpretation of the signs of the Zodiac sounds very close to astrological interpretation used today.

_________________
I am the Wind that blows over the Sea;
I am the Wave of the Deep;
I am the Bull of the Seven Battles;
I am the Eagle upon the rock;
I am a Tear of the Sun;

That was not a promising introduction, and Missler lived fully down to my expectations. Missler comes across as a Christian fundamentalist with some screwy derivative zodiac ideas. I didn't see anything in this video that made any sense.

The topic of this thread, the story of the man in the water jug as prefiguring the Age of Aquarius, makes sense against a coherent reading. By contrast in Missler, we get ideas like John 12:21-24 is a description of the constellation of Virgo holding the branch and corn.

The John passage is

There are real allegorical discussions of Virgo in the Bible, for example the queen of heaven in Revelation and the loaves in the miracle of the loaves and fishes. But this mention of wheat falling into the ground gives no indication I can see of referring to Virgo, and Missler does not explain how it might.

But thanks anyway KC for sharing this odd talk. Many people assume that all attempts to find cosmic references in the Bible are of this ilk and just turn off. I would hope that people who don't get the story of the man with the water jug can ask how it makes sense as a cosmic reference, rather than a piece of mad pattern fantasy or pareidolia, which is my impression of Missler.

Missler cites as his main reference http://www.heavendwellers.com/hd_witnes ... _stars.htm a book by the "hyperdispensationalist" EW Bullinger. I looked at this book and it made no sense to me whatsoever.

Yes, Bullinger is archaic, but he is an historical reference for the teaching that the same story found in the zodiac can be found in the scriptures by the meaning attached to the specific stars that make up each constellation. Each star has a meaning, and together they make up the meaning of the entire sign or constellation.

For instance he says something about a star in the constellation of Cancer meaning the "possession secured". Now that is a direct astrological meaning since "security" and "possessiveness" are astrological characteristics of the sign of Cancer. The possession, I assume, would be the bride of Christ or the redemption of mankind.

Of course, if you've been warned never to study astrology, you most likely would not know that. And these ministers that have tried to pre-emptively prepare their congregations against the teaching of Jesus as a solar myth have taken a fair amount of heat for getting too close to astrology.

The very nature of astrology is "predictive", as is the nature of "prophecy". Astrological prediction depends on the angles and relationships of the sun, moon, and the wandering stars or planets to each other as they move against the background of the fixed stars of the zodiac. So the stories can constantly vary, but are still celestial stories.

But imagine having the ability to predict when Venus will appear to move backwards, or when an eclipse will occur to a prehistoric culture, and the magical power that you would be assumed to possess.

My point being that Missler is admitting that the names of the stars are the same as descriptive terms found within the Bible, and he is a Christian. The star names are in line with Messianic predictions in the Old Testament that use the same phrases such as branch, seed, etc., as specific attributes regarding the Messiah.

True, he tries to make it out that it pre-dates and is the basis for Greek astrology, when it is the other way around. He does admit that "these stories" can be found in many different cultures.

This is how he reconciles it with his faith.

He is not able to say that Jesus plays the role of the sun in the gospels and that the story correlates with the meanings of the signs. In his apologetic interpretation, it all goes back to the Tower of Babel (an observatory?), the confusion of the languages when God brought that tower down (why? because they were trying to reach the top of heaven), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_Babel and those pesky Babylonian astrologers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylonian_astrology

When you have to issue an alternate Christian interpretation, you are at the same time admitting that there is a legitimate reason for a so-called mis-interpretation.

Regarding Virgo, the Virgin Mary herself represents the sign pretty well, too, but he fails to make mention of that, either.

What he tries to explain is that the constellation of Virgo is not so called because of its shape, rather it is because of the meaning of each star within that section known as Virgo, that the individual names of these stars go back thousands of years and that these names, strung together, make a story that is directly describing a redeeming Messiah who is dual natured (both God and man), who is the seed of a woman, the Branch of David, who is humiliated and rejected, but secures the possession. All the meanings of the names of the individual stars contained within the constellation of Virgo.

Spica (Alpha Virginisis) is the brightest star in the constellation Virgo, and the 15th brightest star in the nighttime sky. The name Spica derives from Latin spīca virginis "Virgo's ear of grain" (usually wheat). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spica#Etym ... gnificance

Thus the correlation between Virgo and wheat. The seed is contained within the Virgin. The short video on Missler that I linked to was just to show the "gist" of his teachings, not the specifics.

And so forth for each of the stars that make up the 12 constellations.

He does explain how these constellations were important in both a desert and seagoing environment, which I believe a lot of people in the Western world have never thought much about.

Elsewhere, not in this particular video, he states that Daniel was associated with the Magi through the Chaldeans during the Babylonian captivity. I've been fantazing about Daniel and the Magi wearing golden wizard hats (see my pictures in the archaelogy section) as Magi astrologers!

So in this instance, Missler admits that the Magi were astrologers and believes that Daniel was a member of the Magi.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylonian_astronomy

Sorry if I went off topic because I do agree that the man with the waterjug represents Aquarius. He points out the way to the "upper room" and the entrance into the next age. There just doesn't seem much more to say about him, though.

_________________
I am the Wind that blows over the Sea;
I am the Wave of the Deep;
I am the Bull of the Seven Battles;
I am the Eagle upon the rock;
I am a Tear of the Sun;

Hi KC. The interesting thing about this material you have introduced from Missler and his source Bullinger is that it is halfway between science and religion, but neglects key good points from both, so sits in a lukewarm Laodicean no-man's-land. Their zodiac theories are extremely speculative and arbitrary, and do not fit into any coherent scientific framework, unlike the Aquarian water jug suggestion.

It often happens that as myths change, strange hybrids emerge, with people who retain an emotional commitment to the old myth (eg supernatural Christianity) but can see the new myth (eg Bible as cosmic code) is attractive. This is how I read Missler. It is a common problem in astrological religion, and one that I have tried hard myself to identify and avoid.

Bullinger's theory "the same story found in the zodiac can be found in the scriptures by the meaning attached to the specific stars that make up each constellation" is just garbage in my opinion. Sorry to be so negative, but we should try to be completely evidence-based in this work.

Robert, I was really only arguing for the evidence that there are Christians who subscribe to a celestial interpretation of scripture however they may present that and that this teaching has infiltrated and had an influence on certain branches of fundamentalist-type Christianity whether they realize it or not.

The origin of the term "age of Aquarius" may be traceable to early Rosicrucian teaching, but is based on astrology, not science, just as the Bible is based on astrology and not science.

You are going to have to specify for me how any mention of "Aquarius" and the "Bible" in the same paragraph can be shown to be science and NOT religion.

The line between astrology and astronomy was non-existant when the writings that make up the Bible were written. Please reference for me any scientific sources that show that the Aquarian Age is anything but astrology.

Yes, I know that the precession of the equinox is scientifically provable, but the theory that the constellation of Aquarius in the background as the sun rises at the Vernal Equinox as a marker of an "Age" that will correspond to a change in mankind's worldview, is not. Unless there is something that I do not know about, and if there is, I do want to know about it.

This is where I believe perhaps I am confused on exactly what you are trying to demonstrate.

I still maintain that magic is religion is science. The magic of a previous era is the religion of another and the science of today. One leads to the other through the course of time, evolution, and scientific discovery.

Here is evidence of how Babylonian astrology still influences the science of today:

_________________
I am the Wind that blows over the Sea;
I am the Wave of the Deep;
I am the Bull of the Seven Battles;
I am the Eagle upon the rock;
I am a Tear of the Sun;

That's fine, but I think it is important to clarify that Missler's views make no sense. The Age of Aquarius has a perfectly scientific meaning in astronomy. The natural year can be considered as starting at the spring equinox. A Zodiac Age is the time period in which the sun is in each constellation at the equinox. The astrology only intrudes when we interpret prophecies which suggest some magical symbolism about the position of the sun at that time.It is like looking at the hands of a clock and saying at 7pm we will eat dinner. The movement of the clock hand does not cause us to eat, but refers to a common cause, the movement of time. The Bible clock of fall and redemption sets history over 7000 years from 4000 BC to 3000 AD, with each millennium like a day of creation, and the seventh day as the sabbath. The science regarding Aquarius is that this millennial seventh day equates to the first half of the Age of Aquarius. The prophecy of fall and redemption is religious, not scientific. But setting that temporal framework against the slow movement of precession is entirely scientific. The point here is that the man with the water jug fits precisely with the theory of fall and redemption, indicating the theory that the seventh cosmic day, when the equinox hits Aquarius, will be the start of the millennium, which Christian mythology identifies with the cosmic battle between Christ and Satan, etc.

It is scientific to claim that the obscure Biblical allegories such as the man with the water jug, the twelve jewels and the dragon sweeping a third of the sky are actual astronomical references based on accurate observation of precession of the equinox. The science here is the observation that these readings fit within a consistent and coherent astronomical understanding that was available to the Bible authors.

But when we start to say the Age of Aquarius will replace the Pisces Age in a way that corresponds to astrological interpretation, that is pure speculation and is not scientific. This speculation notes that the theme traditionally assigned by astrologers for Aquarius is innovative humanitarian knowledge, and the traditional theme for Pisces is mystical compassionate belief. Constructing a theory of history as a shift from the Age of Belief to the Age of Knowledge based on this symbolism may be interesting, but at present it has no scientific basis. That is just not true. Astronomy is about observation, astrology is about interpretation. The distinction is between what we see and what it means. There has always been a clear conceptual distinction between these in practice, even if they were intimately related in ancient times.As I noted above, it is just a reference to when the equinox will be in Aquarius. That is the observation. Admittedly, the term "Age" has accreted a lot of astrological symbolism, but at base it is no more astrological than hour, day or year, they are all just units of time. I have previously discussed at some length how the actual planetary orbital cycle of light and dark studied by climate science (Milankovitch) matches precisely to the Vedic idea of a Golden Age-Iron Age cycle driven by precession. This is a useful scientific starting point. Change of worldview or zeitgeist is obviously a far more obscure topic, and it is impossible to say what the Age of Aquarius will bring in terms of culture. But that does not mean there will not be an Age of Aquarius; it is as certain as night follows day.I think we need to accept the modern distinction between science and magic. Before the rise of modern evidentiary methods, people believed all sorts of things that were not true, and explained them as magical. We ought to aim to completely exclude magic, in the sense of a miraculous supernatural event, from our explanations. In principle, everything can be explained as completely natural.