WHAT ARE WE TO DO WITH THIS "JESUS CHRIST"?
MY THOUGHTS ON JESUS AFTER 20 YEARS OF STUDY
#3
WHAT ARE WE TO DO WITH THIS "JESUS CHRIST"?
MY THOUGHTS ON JESUS AFTER 20 YEARS OF STUDY #3
Like most being reared in Christianity as their birth faith I assumed before Seminary that "all is well that end well" and never questioned anything in the Bible for I had been positively programed to believe that I had a "infallible, inerrant, and inspired" Bible as the unadulterated Word of God. That worked until I set in classes in Seminary and saw the "Swiss cheese theology" and began to read very closely and begin to notice the contradictions that had escaped my shallow reading before as a just a "believer" and "pew setter". Having begun an intensive investigation of this Book, the Bible, my life would never be the same again. All I can remember from back then is that I was concerned at what I was beginning to notice and knew that something was wrong and at that time but I could not put my finger upon it but I would be able later to identify just what those problems were as my studies advanced. I began to devote my life to achieving and coming to the answers I sought for the many questions that surfaced concerning the "Jesus Story" as my studies grew into other areas like Judaism, Biblical History, Archeology, Comparative Religions, Astronomy, etc. Following graduation from Southwestern Theological Seminary, in Ft. Worth, Texas, I would begin to devote the time the time to pursue the "answers" to the many questions I had when I left there concerning both a "Jewish Jesus" and a "Historical Christ". Let me say up front I was not prepared for the whole of what I would find.
Intensive and prolonged studies into these above areas of knowledge only rattled me more as I found out when reading many books on comparative religion by such famed authors as Albert Churchward and his The Origin And Evolution Of Religion, C.F. Volney and his Ruins, Dupis and his The Origin Of All Religious Worship, T.W. Doane and his Bible Myths and Parallels in Other Religions, Arthur Weigall and his The Paganism In Our Christianity, James Frazer and his The Golden Bough, Samuel Angus and his The Mystery-Religions And Christianity, Edward Carpenter and his Pagan and Christians Creeds, F. Max Muller and his Lectures On The Origin And Growth Of Religion, etc., where I uncovered the undeniable and terrible alarming facts that revealed beyond any doubt that the "Jesus Story" existed thousands of years prior to the alleged time which Jesus was supposed to have lived. In fact it existed in the earliest recorded religious literature of mankind on this planet as far back as the Old Kingdom in Ancient Egypt. The only problem is that this "Jesus Story" and its origins was shown to have come from the personification of the Sun and the Moon and their movements in the Heavens! Now you understand why I had to begin a study of Astronomy as well as I found that all religions in one way or another came from the Ancients understanding of the celestial orbs and their movements and paths in the Heavens above.
If one looks into such study he finds that many other religions have identical and indistinquisable stories of crucified saviors who all resurrected and ascended 3 days following their deaths on a "cross". Little did I know that when I began such a study that this "cross" was in the Sky thus making sense of the phrase:
Rev 13:8 8 And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. (KJV)
This will become clear to you when you look at our Jesus-Astronomy website.The fruit of my studies in comparative religion as I contrasted it with the "Jesus Story" in the New Testament showed plainly that the exact same story, various accounts and events, and many "sayings" in the life of the New Testament Jesus already existed in numerous religions prior to the alleged time of Jesus. These same "events" and "sayings" found in the "Jesus Story" could be found dating thousands of years earlier than the New Testament Jesus. I was overwhelmed when I discovered that the accounts of Chrishna, Horus, Orpheus, Bacchus, Osiris, Dionysus, Buddha, Apollo, Hercules, Adonis, Ormuzd, Mithras, Indra, Œdipus, Quetzalcoatle, etc., all read like the "Jesus Story" in the New Testament. Other than the names being changed the story read the same. The motif of a virgin born Crucified Savior who was resurrected 3 days following his death was already existing prior to the alleged time of Jesus and dating back to thousands of years earlier than the supposed time for the life of Jesus of Nazareth. When reading comparative religions I found that they basically all had virgin births, were visited by wise men and shepherds, were given the same 3 gifts, had to flee a king which desired to kill the new born infant, was tempted by a devil, turned water into wine, raised the dead, walked on water, had transfigurations and shinned brightly, had 12 dedicated disciples, were betrayed by 30 pieces of silver, were pieced, had a twin for a disciple, were wounded in the house of their friends, were crucified between two thieves, had darkness at their deaths, was dead for 3 days, raised from the dead after 3 days and ascended, was expected to return, etc. Even a blind man could see that there is a "common story" here or a "common mythology" that ties all these stories of these sungods together with the "Jesus Story". The more I read about the "Jesus Story" and saw its origin as far back as Egypt and the earliest recorded written records that exist on this planet, many of which can be seen on the side of the walls of Egyptian temples today, then I seriously had to doubt the "Jesus Story" of the New Testament being a divine and unique revelation. The more I studied it appeared as if my "Jesus Story" was a fraud. I began to wonder where I could find any truth concerning this supposed "Jesus Christ" of history. What is even more startling is that Early Christian apologists admitted this "farce" and "forgery" when confronted by those exposing such Christian plagiarism in the first and early centuries and they tried to explain this all away by saying that this "replay of the lives of the Solar gods" away as the work of the Devil.
Let us look at Augustine for just a second because he says some incredible things that most Christians will never read. What never ceased to amaze me when reading the early Church Fathers is their admission to their own deceptions in foisting the Christian faith upon the world. One of the great admissions by Augustine in his writings is one which pulls the underpinnings out from under the whole of the "unique" Christian Religion as the "only" path to Heaven which Roman Christianity attests today. I can remember it well when studying Augustine and his theology as this passage jumped out at me like few that I had read in that time of my life. In what I was reading of Augustine one day I was startled by what he said and it stopped me on a dime and I had to re-read it several times to see not only the picture of what Augustine was painting but at the same time identify with his own concern about how could there be "Christianity before Christ"! I read more I felt the concern and identified with the great mystery of which Augustine had written. I began to see that Augustine, the supposed greatest Church Father ever, had studied this question regarding a "Christianity before Jesus" and answered it accordingly as follows:
"That which is known as the Christian religion existed among the ancients, and never did not exist; from the beginning of the human race until the time when Christ came in the flesh, at which time the true religion, which already existed began to be called Christianity"
(Retractt. I, xiii, cited by Dr. Alvin Boyd Kuhn in his Shadow of The Third Century, Elizabeth N.J.: Academy Press, 1949, p.3). Please take the time to re-read this quote above from Augustine.Also read anything you can written by Alvin Kuhn if you want to know the truth behind our Christian Faith.
I wondered at what this astounding quote from Augustine could mean. It would take several years of study on my part to identity exactly what Augustine meant by that quote. He was speaking about Egypt and the Egyptian religion which was a mixture of the Mystical and Mythical representations of Divine Truth given to the earliest of mankind on this planet. Now Augustine wrote around 400 A.D. and mind you this is far removed from the time period supposedly of the "Historical Jesus". I would come to see with more study that Augustine "assumes" something that was not in this "TRUE RELIGION" which "ALREADY EXISTED FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE HUMAN RACE" which is really not true; namely, that nowhere in this "TRUE REGION FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE HUMAN RACE" was there ever a "Karast/Christ" who was believed to have come in "the flesh". This is a major study to say the least that took several years to get to the bottom of it thoroughly on my part but I did and the fruits of my studies are becoming available in various websites as time permits.
The Bishop of Carthage, Tertullian, says that Christians were considered Sun worshippers because they prayed towards the east just like their pagan counterparts who also worshipped the Sun. Tertullian goes on to say, “You say we worship the Sun; so do you.” (Catholic Encyclopedia, xiv, 525; Ad. Nationes, xiii; Ante-Nicene Father. iii, 123)
Answer for yourself: How much do you know about this Tertullian?
Tertullian went on to renounce Christianity and admitted that he was in error. When challenged by their opponents the Christian's general argument was, "What better way to for the Devil to combat our True Religion than for the Devil to have previously created a whole bunch of false religions identical to our True Religion." I don't know how dim you have to be to believe such a thing but they had no choice when cornered by their critics. Such dialogue among early Christian Church Fathers only went to expose the whole of Roman Christian dogma as a bunch of Church Fathers best known to be "copy cats" and they knew it! It is they who forged a "Historical Jesus" and it is we who don't know of this today! Instead of teaching the same Divine Truths and Divine Revelations as held by the Ancient priests and sages as expressed through the medium of "myth, legend, and symbols" since time began these early Church Fathers like Ignatius, Justin Martyr, and Irenaeus "LITERALIZED THE WHOLE THING" and presented these prior symbolic godmen as if a unique character all rolled into one named "Jesus Christ" and inserted him into a historical time line of their making.
One can read the many books by those authors listed above and others and find the same basic story line as found in the "Jesus Story" from every Aryan Sun Worshipping nation under the Sun. This common story line was troublesome to say the least for such a one as myself being reared in a Christian home with Jesus taught as the only way to Heaven. I had to know from where all these nations got this "same story". I reasoned that there had to be an original source for these multiple "Jesus Stories" as found in the lives of Osiris, Dionysus, Attis, Mithra, etc. The more I read these authors over the span of 2-3 years and consumed book after book it began to appear that my "Jesus Story" was not the story of a historical person after all but a retelling of a much older "original story". I had to know how it came into being in the beginning and I set my sights on finding out where the ultimate source for the "Jesus Stories" lay.
I had to know how this "Jesus Story" had begun in the beginning and where it had come from. I had to know where all these godmen like Chrishna, Horus, Orpheus, Bacchus, Osiris, Dionysus, Buddha, Apollo, Hercules, Adonis, Ormuzd, Mithras, Indra, Œdipus, Quetzalcoatle, etc., had their ultimate origins. Sure the stories of each one of these exist and overlap amazingly but I reasoned that such a "common story" must of had an ultimate origin that all nations could see for themselves and had done so in successive periods of time spanning hundreds if not thousands of years. Just a little more study and I would have it. I had noticed that in all of my reading that the mention of Constellations as well as the Sun and Moon seemed to recur continually. The more I studied I began to see how these orbs provided the ultimate source for the original "Osiris Story" and since the "Osiris Story" is again a prototype for the "Jesus Story" then it made sense that behind the "Jesus Story" somewhere lay these same orbs that gave life to the "Osiris Story". I was right as my studies into Astronomy and Astrology would show me fairly quickly. The source for all of this that lays behind the "Jesus Story" was to be found in Astronomy and Astrology. Now I had it. This was the final key to the whole puzzle. I had found the beginning of the "Jesus Story" and it was above my head in the stars and constellations all the while. No wonder all the nations had similar stories; mankind saw the same things in the sky and as trade and travel increased over time, let alone captivities through military conquest (the Jews) throughout the world the stories and mythology of these constellations would become undifferentiated between all nations.
In pursuit of this knowledge and having to know how the "Jesus Story" began I found that all roads led to Egypt, as well as other nations chronologically down through history, where the events were the same but only the names of the characters in their own "Jesus Stories" were different. In such study I ran into the revelation that the whole "Jesus Story", as well as the stories of all the other crucified saviors and godmen prior to Jesus, was nothing more than an allegory of the Sun's annual journey through the sky and the Zodiac and the transit of the Sun and stars through the 4 seasons of the year (the Spring equinox, the Summer solstice, the Autumn equinox, and the Winter solstice). Various personifications of the movements of these celestial orbs, all mixed together, told the "Jesus Story" verbatim. I quickly realized that this one solar event, the path of the Sun through the Heavens, repeatedly observed by all of mankind year after year, for thousands of years, recorded and chronicled by all nations for thousands and thousands of years, explains why all these stories of the sungods and the "Jesus Story" are essentially the same. Only the names for their "Jesus" was different as one would expect. The allegory of the personified Sun in its path through the sky was the original precursor to the "Jesus Story" in our New Testaments and not an assumed historical person. Rome would come later and "literalize" this prior allegory and out comes the "historical Jesus".
Answer for yourself: But how can be certain that the above is true? There is a way. Do you know what it is? Just do more study into the existing supposed evidences for a historical Jesus and see if they can pass the test of scrutiny. I did and they cannot as modern scholarship today attests. We learn from such a study is that that all existing outside references to the "historical Jesus" are faked in one way or the other.
An unbiased study of History will show you that there is not a shred of legitimate historical evidence anywhere that the Jesus Story originated as the biography of a man named Jesus, and quite a lot of evidence that it did not. Outside of this one forged book, the Roman Bible and the New Testament, there exists not one piece of unforged or unadulterated evidence for the historical existence of this man from Galilee. I had already discovered for myself that an unbiased and through study of Comparative Religion revealed to me that the basic plot of the "Jesus Story", from beginning to end, including the motif of a crucified savior, already existed in many other religions thousands of years prior to the alleged time of Jesus. As I continued such dedicated studies into Astronomy and Solar Mythology I then found that beyond any doubt the "Jesus Story" is nothing more than an allegory for what would naturally be the oldest and most important story humans would notice and write down, that of the annual passage of the seasons of the year and the path of the Sun through the celestial sphere and the 12 Houses of the Zodiac during the year. Amazingly I found that the personification of the Sun through the sky as found in the story of ancient solar and lunar gods follows in chronological procession through the year the exact chronology of the "Jesus Story" when personified from Matthew chapter 1 through then end of the book of Matthew. Doing such an involved personal study made me realize that my hope for finding the "historical Jesus" evaporated into thin air. Then I realized that the Jewish Nation had been right all along; their Messiah had not come and Jesus of Nazareth was not only an imposter but non-historical as well.
This period in my life is when I coined this phrase:
A Christian's religious belief system, when tested and exposed to contradictory facts from Biblical languages, Biblical history, Biblical culture, the study of Gnosticism as well as Comparative Religions, Astronomy and Astrology, and Archeology, must in the Spirit of Truth and Repentance, be flexible enough to change.
I quickly came to realize that the parallels of the Ancient legends and myths (as told by the Ancients of the personified Sun in it annual path as it travels through the Zodiac) with the "Jesus Story" are so numerous that it is impossible to explain them away as just a coincidence. During the course of such study I was so overwhelmed by what I saw at first I could not believe what I was encountering; in fact I felt that I had to began a simultaneous study of Astronomy and Astrology in order to see for myself the "Jesus Story" in the sky. The fruit of such study was the personal accumulation of mounds of data that showed without a doubt that the "Jesus Story" in the New Testament is nothing more than Rome's plagiarism of the personification of Sun and its path through the sky. Never had I dreamed when in Seminary that my studies would ever lead into such areas as Comparative Religions, Solar Mythology, and Astronomy, but pursuing such studies in these areas proved beyond any doubt that the "Jesus Story" is just an allegory for the Sun passing through the Zodiac and the passage of the seasons of the year. This common origin, the personification of the Sun by nation after nation, explains why all the stories of crucified saviors are essentially the same as the "Jesus Story" of the New Testament.
Of course these are just words but the articles are packed with evidence and facts to prove what I say. For those who have not read the websites and studied for themselves the materials presented I am not going to ask the reader to do a little reading in these areas as we continue with articles. But if you want to know the truth about the "Jesus Story" then you have to become acquainted with the evidence and facts that lie behind such above statements. The following is a presentation in summary form of the Astral Theology that lies behind the "Jesus Story". Once you have read this then you will see that the outline for the "Jesus Story" being little more than a combination of Solar Mythology coupled with Lunar Mythology.
In my studies I repeatedly discovered, no matter whom the author, that down through history there exists two principal types of Savior-Gods and this is agreed to by the vast majority of hierologists and others who study the Ancient literature regarding "sacred things. They are:
- vegetation gods and
- astral gods.
The vegetation theory was presented with great erudition by Sir James G . Frazer in The Golden Bough, Abridged Edition (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1949), and also by Grant Allen in The Evolution of The Idea of God (London, Watts and Co., 1931). The stellar, lunar and solar myth theories have been treated with an equally vast scholarship by Charles F. Dupuis, Count Volney, Gerald Massey, Dr. Albert Churchward, Dr. Alvin Boyd Kuhn, John M. Robertson, Godfrey Higgins, Ernest Busenbark, and Rev. Robert Taylor. Other experts will be cited as we progress, but the men named above are among the outstanding authorities in these areas and many of their books are yet available to the interested reader.
An accurate and concise summary of the vegetation theory has been given by Dr. Forsyth in his Psychology and Religion:
"Many gods besides Christ have been supposed to die, be resurrected and ascend to heaven. This idea has now been traced back to its origin among primitive people in the annual death and resurrection of crops and plant life generally. This explains the world-wide prevalence of the notion. Among still more primitive tribes, Grant Allen showed, it is not yet understood that sown corn sprouts because of the spring sunshine, and they attribute the result to divine agency. To this end, they are accustomed at seed time to kill their tribal god, either in human or animal form, and scatter the flesh and the blood over the sown fields. They believe that the seeds will not grow unless the god is sacrificed and added to them in this manner. When, therefore, the crop appears, they never doubt that it is their god coming to life again. It is from this erroneous belief of primitive tribes that Christianity today derives its belief in Christ’s death and resurrection" (David Forsyth, Psychology and Religion, London: Watts and Company, 1935, p. 97.)
Now a quick note on Astral theology and Astral gods. As I continued my reading and study over the years I discovered that the majority of the specialists in solar mythology have regarded the ancient crucified Saviors as personifications of the sun and believed that their biographies were allegories of the sun’s passage through the twelve constellations of the zodiac. This theory has been oversimplified by some scholars, since stellar and lunar elements also enter into the solar mythology. The vegetation cults were the most ancient, but they were over time blended with the astral worship. It serves our purpose greatly to learn a little about them especially concerning the death and resurrection of the god. In the primitive sacrificial rites, the victim was originally the king or chief of the tribe or clan. The prosperity of the group was supposed to have a magical relation to the health of the king. If the ruler became old and feeble, it was thought that the nation or tribe would suffer a similar decline, so the king, considered to be a god in human form, was sacrificed for the good of all and then replaced with a younger and more vigorous successor (a type of rebirth). In later times the king’s son was chosen as the scapegoat, and, being of divine origin, was called the son of the god. In even later days a condemned criminal replaced the royal victim. The culprit was given regal honors for a time, then put to death. He was usually slain while bound to a tree with arms outstretched, as if on a cross. After being entombed, he was believed to rise from the dead within three days; the three-day period being based on the three-day interval between the old and new moons. Later with the development of solar theology we find ironically this same "3 day" period expressed at the Solstices. This become the time period of darkness and the death of the god before his "rebirth". Berossus in his Chaldean History tells of an annual festival celebrated in Babylonia, called the Sacaea. This fete lasted five days, and during that time masters and servants exchanged places in society. The king temporarily gave up his throne, and a mock king, Zoganes, took his place. After five days the mock king was dethroned, scourged, and then either hanged or crucified. “In this regard,” an eminent Egyptologist remarked, “it is interesting to notice that in the Acts, the writer mistakenly speaks of Jesus as having been slain and then hanged to a tree, as though this were a common phrase coming readily to his mind, and the word hanged is frequently used in Greek to denote crucifixion.” (Weigall, The Paganism in our Christianity, pp. 77-78.)
The Roman scholar Macrobius (fourth century) in his Saturnalia discussed the practice in pagan temples of representing the gods at different ages of their lives and stated that:
"These differences of age refer to the sun which seems to be a babe at the Winter Solstice (Christmas), as the Egyptians represent him in their temples on a certain day; that being the shortest day, he is then supposed to be small and an infant".
This hypothesis was not original with Macrobius, who obtained it from the priests of Egypt since Horus as depicted in the same way as the "rising sun, the midday sun and the setting sun". I discovered upon such study the many parallels between the careers of Horus and Jesus Christ which Gerald Masses listed in his Ancient Egypt. This compendium gives nearly 200 similarities and identical events between the "Horus Story" and the "Jesus Story". It was in Egypt that I found the 1st "Jesus Story" from which all others descend. I discovered that in Egypt, 3000 years ago, the birthdate of the sun-god was celebrated on the 25th of December; the first day to noticeably lengthen after the day of the Winter Solstice (the 21st of December). At the midnight hour on the first minutes of the 25th of December the birthday of the sun was commemorated. The sun was then in the zodiacal sign of Capricorn, then known as the Stable of Augeus, so the infant sun-god was said to have been born in a stable. Follow the above link and you can follow the life of Jesus as traced not only chronologically through the Gospel of Matthew as well as the successive path of the Sun through the Zodiac beginning with the Constellation of Capricorn. Now back to the events of December 25h. At the time of the Winters solstice brightly shining on the meridian was Sirius (The Star from the East); while rising in the east was Virgo (The Virgin), with the horizon passing through the center of the constellation. To the right of Sirius was the constellation Orion (The Great Hunter), with three stars in his belt. These stars, in a straight line, point at Sirius and were anciently known as the “three kings.” We have met them in the Gospels as the three Magi or wise men from the East. In the Zodiac of Denderah the constellation Virgo was pictured as a woman with a spike of corn in one hand, and on the adjacent margin the Virgin was denoted by a figure of Isis with Horus in her arms. If anyone doubts the relevance of this to the Christian cult, then ponder the words of Edward Carpenter in his Pagan and Christian Creeds:
"But it is well known as a matter of history that the worship of Isis and Horus descended in the early Christian centuries to Alexandria, where it took the form of the worship of the Virgin Mary and the infant Savior and so passed into the European ceremonial. We have therefore the Virgin Mary connected by linear succession and descent with that remote Zodiacal cluster in the sky! . . . A curious confirmation of the same astronomical connection is afforded by the Roman Catholic Calendar. For if this be consulted, it will be found that the festival of the Assumption of the Virgin is placed on the 15th August, while the festival of the birth of the Virgin is dated the 8th September. . . . At the present day, the Zodiacal signs (owing to precession) have shifted some distance from the constellations of the same name. But at the time when the Zodiac was constituted and these names were given, the first date obviously would signalize the actual disappearance of the cluster Virgo in the sun’s rays, i.e., the Assumption of the Virgin into the glory of the God, while the second date would signalize the reappearance of the constellation or the Birth of the Virgin" (Edward Carpenter, Pagan and Christian Creeds, New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1920, pp. 32-33.)
With
all this talk about the Constellations and the unbelievable parallels to
the "Jesus Story" it was but a short time and I realized that I
needed to learn more about Astronomy if I was to understand the "Jesus
Story" found in the sky so after reading and scanning a few books to
learn about celestial concepts I was ready to go deeper in my search for
the origins of the "Jesus Story". Especially
important is the understanding of the Precession of the Equinoxes as
explained in our other websites. In so doing I was left
simply breathless and utterly amazed: I had found the "keys" to
deciphering the whole "Jesus Story" as seen in the Heavens above
as interpreted by the Ancients by observing the movement of the Sun, Moon,
and Constellations down through time. The next thing I did was go purchase
a telescope for I wanted to see the "Jesus Story" in the Heavens
for myself. I realized that behind the "Jesus Story" was an
intimate link with the Precession of the Equinoxes. In the time period of
the New Testament in the Middle East it was the beginning of the age of
Pisces, the two fishes. The age was changing and the Age of Aries, the
Lamb; or should I say the "Lamb of God", had just ended only to
be replaces by a new understanding of "the Egyptian Karast/Christ" with the emergence of the Age of Pisces. I was ecstatic to come to see
this knowledge. It was with further study that I learned that at the
Winter Solstice the sun was at the lowest point of the celestial sphere,
at its southern limits, then it began to move northward along the ecliptic
passing over the celestial equator at the Vernal Equinox (Easter). The crossing of the sun
from the south to the north side of the equator was the origin of the
festival of the Passover. The
Sun literally "passed over" the crossing of the Earth's equator
where it 
intersected
with the ecliptical orbit of the Earth around the Sun thus forming a CROSS
IN THE HEAVENS! The Sun was on the Cross and when later personified the
Son of the Sun was on the Cross; said differently as if the Son of God was
on the Cross. When the sun passed over the celestial equator 3000 years
ago it was situated in the Constellation of Aries the Lamb, or Ram, so the
lamb became the symbol of the sun-god. This suggests the origin of the
Paschal Lamb, widely known as a symbol of the crucified Christ. Several of
the sacrificed saviors were said to have been crucified in the heavens.
This solar crucifixion may be
explained as follows:
L. Gordon Rylands, in his The Beginnings of Gnostic Christianity goes on to say: "For in an astronomical chart, the sun is apparently crucified upon the intersecting lines of the Equator and the Ecliptic at the moment of his descent into the lower hemisphere, the hemisphere of darkness and death; and so again at the moment of his resurrection into the hemisphere of light and life, while the period of transit is three days. At the time when the myth of the death of the sun-god originated, the sun, being in the constellation Aries at the Spring Equinox, was identified with the Ram. That is the Lamb which has been slain from the foundation of the world. The custom of dressing the paschal lamb in the shape of a cross is referable to the same myth" (L. Gordon Rylands, The Beginnings of Gnostic Christianity, London: Watts and Co., 1940, p. 217.) A blind man can see the crucifixion of the Son of God in this celestial event that occurred twice a year as observed by mankind: at both the Vernal or Spring Equinox and the Autumn Equinox. The Spring Equinox was chosen as most special for it association and connection with the new life from the dead of winter as seen in the new greenery and lush growth of vegetation in the Spring of the year.
All roads in my
studies always led back to Egypt where these Ancient observations captured
Divine Concepts which were encased in myths and legends in order to
preserve the message of God to mankind for all Eternity. Again it needs to be stressed that these myths and legends like Osiris and
Horus were not to be seen and understood as if they happened to a "literal"
god or person like Osiris but in them was captured by there Spiritual
Masters the messages of God; namely, that God gave to all Creation
patterns and cycles that expressed Heavenly truths like "birth, life,
death, and rebirth" that was appointed for all mankind created in His
image. The Ancients, seeing Divine Order and Divine Laws operating in both
the Cosmos and in Nature reasoned that likewise man, created in the image
of God, was given life in order to experience this God and live their
lives in like order exampled above their heads in the sky as well in
Nature that surrounds mankind. These Laws of the Cosmos were delineated by
the Spiritual Masters and from them the Ancients developed similar
patterns and cycles or order for man's life according to God's pattern
revealed to them in the Heavens and in Nature. Egypt
called it living in Ma'at in hopes that man, at the end of his cycle of
birth, life, and death, would be ready for his judgement and be accepted
by the Divine Creator
.
Following the examples of Osiris and Horus, as well as many others,
provided mankind with a "pattern" of righteousness which he was
to emulate during his life. These myths were but the
anthropomorphic way (to ascribe human form or attributes to an animal,
plant, material object) of providing instructions for man as how to live a
life honoring to the Creator so that in his death he would be judged with
mercy instead of punishment. So we find these Divine Messages gathered
from the Ancients scrutiny of the Heavens and Nature whereby they
extrapolated the Laws of the Cosmos which they later expressed in the
various personifications of forces and powers in both the Heavens and in
Nature along with the movements of these orbs in the Heaven.
These Laws taken from the
movement of the Sun, Moon, Constellations, as well as parallel Laws seen
in Nature, provided mankind with a pattern to emulate for his life and
prepare him for his death and later accounting before the Creator. But yet
these personifications and earlier "Jesus Stories" were but
that; namely, allegories and were never intended to be understood as if a
literal historical person. The vehicles chosen to
express these Divine Truths, myths and legends about a non-historical
being, achieved it purpose for these religious myths yet live today in the
world. We must never loose sight of the fact that these Ancients never
viewed these "vehicles" as historical truths about a historical
Osiris or even later vehicles like Dionysus or Attis or Mithra or even
Jesus for that matter. Rome and its "literalization" of these
prior myths in their unique synthesis creates a "fleshly Christ"
out of the Egyptian Karast. But let us not be deterred but let us see as
did the Ancients the genius of using myth to capture for all Eternity
these Divine Truths and Divine Message and Laws of the Creator. It worked
for them but it has not worked for us. Sadly we have lost the knowledge on
how to interpret these myths today. We have lost the "gnosis" or
knowledge necessary to properly interpret these myths today; even the "Christ
Myth" and the "Jesus Story".
Accordingly we find in the vast body of world mythology that we have vegetation gods, tree gods, star gods, moon gods, sun gods, etc., but Osiris of Egypt seems to have been all of these blended into one. We need to talk about a few before closing this article. In the Temple of Isis at Philae was an engraving of the body of Osiris with stalks of corn growing out of it, and sometimes this god was called the crop or harvest, so Osiris was symbolic of the corn which annually died and came to life again. In such a way Osiris was teaching mankind of God's plan for "life exists after death". Understand it was the SAME Osiris who died who was raised to life and not a reincarnation. The Ancients understood that as the same plant that died the previous year was raised to new life the following year then they like Osiris would be raised to a new life following their deaths. The same principle was seen in the Moon as the SAME Moon who went through its phases into total darkness and death only to be illuminated by the light of the Sun following 3 days of total darkness was representative again of the same principle noticed first in nature; namely, life cycles from death into life. The Ancient reasoned as it was the SAME moon it would be the SAME person who would live again following the darkness of death.
Osiris, in another aspect, was a god of the dead. Among his titles were: Ruler of the Dead, Lord the Underworld, and Lord of Eternity. On the monument he occupies the judgment seat and holds the staff of authority and the cross of life. On his breast a St. Andrews cross may be seen, and his throne is covered with a pattern of squares in two colors, like a chessboard, representing the good and evil which he was required to judge.
Osiris, in another aspect, was a moon-god. Osiris is credited with ruling over Egypt for twenty-eight years. This is symbolic of the twenty-eight days of the lunar month. The rending of the corpse of Osiris into fourteen parts by Set and his fellow conspirators refers to the waning of the moon, which was imagined to lose a part of itself on each of the fourteen days of the second half of the lunar month. The mythical account tells of Set’s discovery of the body of Osiris at the time of the full moon, so the dismemberment took place during the waning of the moon. An explanation of this was given by Gerald Massey:
"Osiris as light giver in the moon was torn in fourteen pieces during the latter half of the lunation by the evil Sut, the opposing power of darkness. He was put together again and reconstituted by his son, beloved Horus, the young solar god. This representation could not have been made until it was known that the lunar light was replenished monthly from the solar source. Then Horus as the sun-god and the vanquisher of Sut, the power of darkness, could be called the reconstituter of Osiris in the moon" (Gerald Massey, Ancient Egypt, Vol. I, p. 187.)
The spring season in Egypt was heralded by the new moon of the month of Phamenoth, and at this time in the temples the ceremony of the entry of Osiris into the moon was celebrated. At the rite of the burial of Osiris, his worshippers built a crescent-shaped chest, because the moon approaching the sun becomes crescent-shaped and then vanishes. On the monuments Osiris is sometimes seen as a human-headed mummy, holding the emblems of power, and wearing on his head the image of a full moon within a crescent.
Osiris, in another aspect, was a sun-god. John M. Robertson in his Christianity and Mythology states:
"Rightly intent on establishing a hitherto ill-developed principle of mythological interpretation, the cult of the vegetation spirit, Dr. Frazer had unduly ignored the conjunction seen deductively to be inevitable, and inductively to be normal, between the concept of the vegetation god and that of others, in particular the sun-god. He becomes for once vigorously polemical in his attack on the thesis that Osiris was a sun-god, as if that were excluded once for all by proving him a vegetation god. The answer is that he was both, and that such a synthesis was inevitable . Dionysus and Adonis, Dr. Frazer shows, are vegetation gods. Yet they too are both born on December 25th, as was the Babe Sun-god Horus, who however was exhibited as rising from a lotus plant. Now, why should the vegetation god be born at the winter solstice save as having been identified with the sun-god?" John M. Robertson, Christianity and Mythology, p. 33.)
The esoteric religious rites of the ancient Egyptians were known as the MYSTERIES. There were two sets of Mysteries. Osiris was the god of the Greater Mysteries, and Isis was worshipped in the Lesser Mysteries. The Mysteries were based on dramatic performances representing the death of Osiris (the sun-god) and the search for his body by Isis (the moon goddess). Many ancient nations celebrated mysteries, but those of Egypt were the earliest. In the words of Brown:
"The mysteries of all the other nations were quite similar to those of Egypt, and were no doubt derived from them" (Robert Brown, Jr., Stellar Theology and Masonic Astronomy, New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1882, p. 11.) Of course this would apply to Christianity as well.
My studies enlightened me to the fact that the sacerdotal or Priestly caste of ancient Egypt were an admirable group of men, possessed of keen intellect, profound knowledge, and high character. The Mystery Schools of Egypt were the world’s earliest universities. The wise men of ancient Greece went to Egypt for their higher education. Among these men were Plato, Thales, Eudoxus, and Pythagoras. Plato studied in the Nile Valley for thirteen years. The metaphysical doctrines now called Platonic were first taught in the sanctuaries of Thebes, Memphis, and Heliopolis long before Plato was born.
I have had the privilege to read some of the best scholars and minds ever on this planet who has been able to peer down through thousands of years and lost knowledge and piece together again the source for all the world's religions. In so doing I learned that the role of the zodiacal symbolism in ancient mythology and religion was revealed to the modern world by a French scholar, Charles François Dupuis (1742-1809), who wrote a twelve volume work entitled The Origin of All Religious Worship. A one-volume abridgment, translated into English, was published in New Orleans in 1872 and extracts from this translation have recently been reprinted in The Rise of Modern Mythology, by Burton Feldman and Robert D. Richardson. Count Volney was a disciple of Dupuis and popularized many of his ideas in The Ruins of Empires (New York: Peter Eckler, 1890). Some of the key ideas have been concisely epitomized by Professor Richardson in his The Rise of Modern Mythology, as follows:
"Dupuis . . . traced much of Western Civilization, religion, and myth, to the development of the zodiac. He argued, the zodiac must have arisen in North Africa, in Upper Egypt and Ethiopia, about fifteen-thousand years ago, since the constellations and their signs were matched best at that time and place... The zodiac, Dupuis thought, was an astronomical and agricultural calendar, the first most important schematization of the astral, solar and lunar events that interested early man, and the general source of most early stories, personifications, and myths. Early man according to Dupuis, worshipped nature and the forces of nature: he did not worship some abstract or nonexistent force behind or above nature" (Burton Feldman and Robert D. Richardson, The Rise of Modern Mythology, Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1972, pp. 276-277.)
The theoretical position taken by Dupuis was brilliantly defended by his disciple, Volney, and at a later date by Massey and Churchward. The classic statement on the origin of the zodiacal system was given by Count Volney in his celebrated Ruins of Empires, and since that work is now out of print I reproduce the following eloquent passage:
"Should it be asked at what epoch this system took its birth, we shall answer on the testimony of the monuments of astronomy itself, that its principles appear with certainty to have been established about seventeen thousand years ago. And if it be asked to what people it is to be attributed, we shall answer that the same monuments, supported by the unanimous traditions, attribute it to the first tribes of Egypt; and when reason finds in that country all the circumstances which could lead to such a system; when it finds there a zone of sky, bordering on the tropic, equally free from the rains of the equator and the fogs of the North; when it finds there a central point of the sphere of the ancients, a salubrious climate, a great, but manageable river, a soil fertile without art or labor, inundated without morbid exhalations, and placed between two seas which communicate with the richest countries, it conceives that the inhabitant of the Nile, addicted to agriculture from the nature of his soil, to geometry from the annual necessity of measuring his lands, to commerce from the facility of communications, to astronomy from the state of the sky, always open to observation, must have been the first to pass from the savage to the social state; and consequently to attain the physical and moral sciences necessary to civilized life.
It was, then, on the borders of the Upper Nile, among a black race of men, that was organized the complicated system of the worship of the stars, considered in relation to the productions of the earth and the labors of agriculture; and this first worship, characterized by their adoration under their own forms and natural attributes, was a simple proceeding of the human mind....
As soon as this agricultural people began to observe the stars with attention, they found it necessary to individualize or group them; and to assign to each a proper name. . . A great difficulty must have presented itself. . . First, the heavenly bodies, similar in form, offered no distinguishing characteristics by which to denominate them; and secondly, the language in its infancy and poverty had no expressions for so many new and metaphysical ideas. Necessity, the usual stimulus of genius, surmounted everything. Having remarked that in the annual revolution, the renewal and periodic appearance of terrestrial productions were constantly associated with the rising and setting of certain stars, and to their position as relative to the sun, the mind by a natural operation connected in thought these terrestrial and celestial objects, which were connected in fact; and applying to them a common sign, it gave to the stars, and their groups the names of the terrestrial objects by which they answered.
Thus the Ethiopian of Thebes named stars of inundation, or Aquarius, those stars under which the Nile began to overflow; stars of the ox or bull, those under which they began to plow; stars of the lion, those under which that animal, driven from the desert by thirst, appeared on the banks of the Nile; stars of the sheaf, or of the harvest virgin, those of the reaping season; stars of the lamb, stars of the two kids, those under which these precious animals were brought forth....
Thus the same Ethiopian having observed that the return of the inundation always corresponded with the rising of a beautiful star which appeared towards the source of the Nile, and seemed to warn the husbandman against the coming waters, he compared this action to that of the animal which, by his barking, gives notice of danger, and he called this star the dog, the barker (Sirius). In the same manner he named the stars of the crab, those where the sun, having arrived at the tropic, retreated by a slow retrograde motion like the crab (Cancer). He named stars of the wild goat (Capricorn), those where the sun, having reached the highest point in his annuary tract... imitates the goat, which delights to climb to the summit of the rocks. He named stars of the balance (Libra), those were the days and nights, seen being equal, in equilibrium, like that instrument; and stars (Scorpion), those where certain periodical winds bring vapors, burning like the venom of the scorpion. In the same manner he called by the names of rings and serpents the figured traces of the orbits of the stars and planets, and such was the general mode of naming all the stars and even the planets, taken by groups or as individuals, according to their relations with husbandry and terrestrial objects, and according to the analogies which each nation found between them and the objects of its particular soil and climate. (Volney, The Ruins of Empires, pp. 120-123.)
I found with more study that the symbolism of the zodiac has been brilliantly displayed in the myth of Hercules, and this myth was known among other peoples: to the Sumerians, Phoenicians, and Greeks. Herodotus named Hercules as being originally one of the great gods of Egypt. There is no god named Hercules in the official pantheon of Egypt, but an ancient Greek tradition identified Hercules with Khonsu, an ancient god of Ethiopian derivation.
Dupuis was of the opinion that the "Jesus Story", like the twelve labors of Hercules, were astronomical allegories and myths of the passage of the sun through the twelve signs of the zodiac, and that the story of Jesus Christ in the Bible was equally mythological, since both Jesus and Hercules were sun-gods, and that neither were historical characters. This theory of the non-historicity of Jesus Christ has been ably defended by Count Volney, Lord Bolingbroke, Reverend Robert Taylor, Gerald Massey, Dr. Albert Churchward, Dr. Alvin Boyd Kuhn, John M. Robertson, G . R. S. Mead and several other scholars, equally eminent.
Gerald Massey and his school have argued persuasively for an Egyptian origin of Christianity, claiming that the whole Christian Bible, both Old and New Testaments, are traceable to the religious records of ancient Egypt. Massey presented his opinions backed up by impressive documentation. I cannot discuss these works at length, for that would require a book in itself. However, Massey did publish a book of ten lectures; the most important being The Historical Jesus and the Mythical Christ. I shall discuss this work briefly because of its importance in the study of the myth theory of Christian origins. Massey noted that two birthdays had been assigned to Jesus by the Christian Fathers; one at the Winter Solstice (Christmas), and the other at the Vernal Equinox (Easter); and he observed:
"These, which cannot both be historical, are based on the two birthdays of the double Horus in Egypt. Plutarch tells us that Isis was delivered of Horus the child, about the time of the Winter Solstice, and that the festival of the second or adult Horus followed the Vernal Equinox. Hence the Solstice and Spring Equinox were both assigned to the one birth of Jesus by the Christolators; and again, that which is impossible as human history is the natural fact in relation to the two Horuses, the dual form of the Solar God in Egypt" (Massey, Lectures, p. 6.)
The relation between Osiris, Horus and Jesus, along with the astronomical elements underlying the mythology, is explained thusly:
"In Egypt the year began just after the Summer Solstice, when the sun descended from its midsummer height, lost its force, and lessened in its size. This represented Osiris, who was born of the Virgin Mother as the child Horus, the diminished infantile sun of Autumn; the suffering, wounded, bleeding Messiah, as he was represented. He descended into hell, or hades, where he was transformed into the virile Horus, and rose again as the sun of the resurrection at Easter. In these two characters of Horus on the two horizons, Osiris furnished the dual type for the Canonical Christ, which shows very satisfactorily how the mythical prescribes the boundaries beyond which the historical does not, dare not, go. The first was the child Horus, who always remained a child. In Egypt the boy or girl wore the Horus lock of childhood until twelve years of age. Thus childhood ended about the twelfth year. But although adultship was then entered upon by the youth, and the transformation of the boy into manhood began, the full adultship was not attained until thirty years of age. The man of thirty years was the typical adult. As with the man, so it is with the God; and the second Horus, the same God in his second character, is the Khemt or Khem-Horus, the typical adult of thirty years. The God up to twelve years was Horus, the child of Isis, the mother’s child, the weakling. The virile Horus (the sun in its vernal strength), the adult of thirty years, was representative of the Fatherhood, and this Horus is the anointed son of Osiris. These two characters of Horus the child, and Horus the adult of thirty years, are reproduced in the only two phases of the life of Jesus in the Gospels and these two characters of Horus necessitated a double form of the mother, who divides into the two divine sisters, Isis and Nephthys. Jesus also was dual-mothered; and the two sisters reappear in the Gospels, as the two Maries, both of whom are the mothers of Jesus. This again, which is impossible as human history, is perfect according to the mythos that explains it."
"As the child Horus, Osiris comes down to earth; he enters matter and becomes mortal. He is born like the Logos or as a Word. His father is Seb, the earth, whose consort is Nut, the heaven, one of whose names is Meri, the Lady of Heaven; and these two are the prototypes of Joseph and Mary. He is said to cross the earth a substitute, and to suffer vicariously as the Savior, Redeemer, and Justifier of men. In these two characters there was constant conflict between Osiris and Sut, the Egyptian Satan. At the Autumnal Equinox the devil of darkness began to dominate; this was the Egyptian Judas, who betrayed Osiris to his death at the last supper. On the day of the Great Battle at the Vernal Equinox, Osiris conquered as the ascending God, the Lord of the growing light. Both these struggles are portrayed in the Gospels. In the one Jesus is betrayed to his death by Judas; in the other he rises superior to Satan. The latter conflict followed immediately after the baptism. In this way: when the sun was half way round from the Lion sign, it crossed the River of the Waterman, the Egyptian Iarutana, Hebrew Jordan, Greek Eridanus. In this water the baptism occurred, and the transformation of the child — Horus into the virile adult; the conqueror of the evil power, took place, Horus became hawk-headed, just where the dove ascended and abode on Jesus; both birds represented the virile soul that constituted the anointed one at puberty. By this added power Horus vanquished Sut and Jesus overcame Satan" (Massey, Lectures, pp. 13-15.)
Since the mythology of Horus was known in Egypt thousands of years before the advent of Christianity, then the Egyptian Christ must have been the original and the Christian Christ a copy of the much earlier prototype. This viewpoint again was cogently presented by Massey in the following passage:
"The Christian dispensation is believed to have been ushered in by the birth of a child, and the portrait of that child in the Roman catacombs as the child of Mary is the youthful Sun-God in the Mummy image of the child-king, the Egyptian Karast, or Christ. The alleged facts of our Lord’s life as Jesus the Christ, were equally the alleged facts of our Lord’s life as the Horus of Egypt, whose very name signifies the Lord ... Whether you believe or not does not matter, the fatal fact remains that every trait and feature which go to make up the Christ as Divinity, and every event or circumstance taken to establish the human personality were pre-extant and pre-applied to the Egyptian and Gnostic Christ, who never could become flesh. The Jesus Christ with female paps, who is the Alpha and Omega of Revelation, was the lu of Egypt and the lao of the Chaldeans. Jesus as the Lamb of God, and Ichthys the Fish, was Egyptian. Jesus as the Coming One; Jesu born of the Virgin Mother, who was overshadowed by the Holy Ghost; Jesus born of two mothers, both of whose names are Mary; Jesus born in the manger, at Christmas and again at Easter; Jesus saluted by the three kings, or Magi; Jesus of the transfiguration on the Mount; Jesus whose symbol in the Catacombs is the eight-rayed star — the Star of the East; Jesus as the eternal child; Jesus as God the Father, reborn as his own Son; Jesus as the Child of twelve years; Jesus as the Anointed One of thirty years; Jesus in his Baptism; Jesus walking on the waters, or working his Miracles; Jesus as the Caster-out of demons; Jesus as a Substitute, who suffered in a vicarious atonement for sinful men; Jesus whose followers are the two brethren, the four fishers, the seven fishers, the twelve apostles, the seventy (or seventy-two in some texts) whose names were written in Heaven; Jesus who was administered to by seven women; Jesus in his bloody sweat; Jesus betrayed by Judas; Jesus as conqueror of the grave; Jesus the Resurrection and the Life; Jesus before Herod; in Hades, and in his reappearance to the women, and to the seven fishers; Jesus who was crucified both on the 14th and 15th of the month Nisan; Jesus who was also crucified in Egypt (as it is written in Revelation); Jesus as judge of the dead, with the sheep on the right hand, and the goats on the left, is Egyptian from first to last, in every phase, from the beginning to the end" (Massey, Lectures, pp. 21-22.)
As if these discoveries in my studies were not enough I further discovered to my surprise that the worship of Osiris and Isis was popular in the Roman Empire for hundreds of years and especially during the time of the assumed period of Jesus Christ, and the Greeks got many of their gods from the Egyptians, but neither the Romans nor the Greeks really understood the symbolism or mythology of the Egyptians. They had lost the "gnosis" and knowledge necessary to understand these myths as the Ancients intended.These Europeans turned these allegorical gods that represented Divine Concepts into literal men, and the esoteric meaning of the old religion was lost; hence the ancient beliefs and how to interpret them was lost over time. The old gods became humanized. Some remarks of Sir Wallis Budge on the decline of ancient Egyptian faith may appropriately be cited here:
"..the cult of Osiris and Isis spread all over Southern Europe, and into many parts of North Africa, and it continued to be a religious power in them until the close of the fourth century A.D. At Philae . . . the worship of Osiris and Isis continued until the reign of Justinian, and it only came to an end in Nubia then, because the Emperor caused the temple to be closed by force, and confiscated the revenues of the shrine. The ideas and beliefs which were the foundations of the cult were not even then destroyed, for they survived in Christianity. And the bulk of the masses in Egypt and Nubia who professed Christianity transferred to Mary the Virgin, the attributes of Isis the Everlasting Mother, and to the Babe Jesus, those of Horus. About the middle of the Ptolemaic Period the attributes of Osiris were changed, and after his identification with Seraphis, i.e., Pluto, the god of death, his power and influence declined rapidly, for he was no longer the god of life. In the final state of the cult of Osiris and Isis, the former was the symbol of Death and the latter the symbol of Life" (E. A. Wallis Budge, Osiris: The Egyptian Religion of The Resurrection, New York: University Books, 1961, Vol. II, pp. 305-306.)
As you might imagine the literature on the Osirian cult is rather large. This information is critical and necessary to understand properly if a Christian is searching out the true origins for his faith. I recommend that for the novice the best introductions would be James George Frazer, Adonis, Attis, Osiris, (New Hyde Park, NY: University Books, 1961), and Harold P. Cooke, Osiris: A Study in Myths, Mysteries and Religion, (London: The C. W. Daniel Co., 1931). Highly recommended and a must read is Historical Deception: The Untold Story of Ancient Egypt by Moustafa Gadalla as well as all books by this gifted author.
As quoted above "whether you believe it or not does not matter". The evidence speaks for itself.
Answer for yourself: What is the chance that 200 identical parallels between Horus, the Son of God, and the "Jesus Story" is but coincidence as Gerald Massey delineates in his masterful works on Egyptian religion?
When all the evidence is amassed from History, Comparative religion, Gnosticism, and Solar and Lunar mythology and compared with the accounts of New Testament and its "Jesus Story" then any thinking believer will be convinced that the depiction of Jesus Christ as found in the New Testament is not the Jewish Messiah and not even a real historical person. He is just a myth. Having said that the evidence must yet be examined for mere statements should never suffice to convince anyone of anything. You have to see the facts and evidence which we present to be certain and that requires your personal study.
Let us continue our study in the fourth article in this study
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