IS – RA – EL
ISIS – Feminine aspect, wife of Osiris and mother of Horus.
RA – Sun-god.
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The Eye of Ra,
or the Right Eye of Horus
EL – gods (plural) Elohim
Israel
Horus
Gnostic Chrestians
The Historical Jesus Christ (the presentation of “the Christ” as taught through the medium of a presumed historical person to serve as an example for all mankind to emulate and follow), is not all there is to christianity. It’s the milk for the infant spirit, to awaken it to the mythical and then the amazing mystical. Every major religion has it’s mystical counter part, Islam included (called Sufism).
The Mythical Jesus Christ is the personification of the Sun as it moves on its prescribed path through the Heavens where we find it moving through each house of the Zodiac which goes hand in hand with the changing seasons of the year [Spring Equinox, Summer Solstice, Autumn Equinox, Winter Solstice.
The Mystical Jesus Christ is the allegorical expression of a hidden teaching, a secret doctrine, given under strict and exacting conditions to approved candidates by the Ancient Masters of Spiritual Wisdom regarding the descent of the Logos (God) into matter, ie., mankind.
What escapes the vast majority of Christianity in today’s world is that many of the stories of these “solar gods” and “godmen” down through history which parallel the events in the life of the New Testament “Christ” as found in the New Testament and which appear at first thought to be apparently historical were really purely allegorical. This is why the stories of Osiris, Horus, Dionysus, Attis, Adonis, Mithra, and a host of others read like the New Testament “Jesus Story”. Nowhere is it more necessary to understand this than when we are studying the story of Jesus, surnamed “the Christ”, for when we fail to separate the allegory from the literal truth, and see where the symbols have been mistakenly taken and believed as “historical” events, allegories as histories, we lose most of the instructiveness of the narrative and much of its “Eternal Truth” once given to the Ancient Spiritual Masters. Men fear that Christianity will be weakened when one comes to this understanding, and that it is “dangerous” to admit that events thought to be “historical” have a deeper significance in both a “mythical” and “mystic meaning”. Those who advocate not delving into these deeper areas of understanding of “the Christ” keep others from recovering the truths concerning “the Christ” as the Ancients who gave us those concepts understood them and “him” in the first place. Let us not forget that as Egypt taught in the beginning of recorded history mankind was made in the image of God and not God in the image of man!
The “Mystical Jesus Christ” is how the earliest Christians (actually called Chrestians, not Christians; Chrestians literally means The Good Ones) and the First New Testament from Marcion, which Rome would later corrupt and destroy, understood “the Christ” as a Divine Allegory of a Divine Concept inherent within all of mankind and not exclusive to just one person. That is why this First New Testament of these earliest Gnostic “Chrestian” believers did not teach a “fleshly” or a “historical Jesus Christ”. Nor did the authentic letters of Paul in the modern New Testament teach a Jesus of flesh. His letters were edited, and even misrepresented to make it look like Paul, a Gnostic, hated Gnostics. What a cruel thing to do! An Epistle of Paul are truly now just ”a piss hole of Rome.”
The “Gnostic” understanding of “the Christ” would be lost to the world by the fifth century and forced “underground” by Roman Christianity and their military might. These earlier Gnostic Spiritual Masters were almost persecuted out of existence by Rome and the “Divine Allegory of the Christ Within” would be later “literalized” by Rome in their Second New Testament. Lost to the world will be the earliest understanding of “the Jesus Christ” as known since the beginning of recorded time. This is where most of Christianity exists today believing in a “Literalized Jesus Christ” which has been presented as a historical person when the deeper truths of the “Christ Within” are seldom heard and that goes double for the “Mythical Christ”.
Christians and followers of “the Christ” have a spiritual book given us by Rome that is “forged” in key places which hides these deeper truths from us. It is well past time we get new “keys” to understand our Creator and His true message to us.
Gnosticism flourished in Egypt and Western Asia between 250 B.C. and AD. 400. It was a Theosophic movement made up of elements of Egyptian mythology, Indian metaphysics, Judaism, and Greek philosophy. Gnosticism was overwhelmed by Orthodox Christianity in the fourth century, AD., but some of the lost Gnostic literature has been recovered. The ancient Gnostics were those who “knew”, just as the modern Agnostics are those who “do not know”. Gnostics believed in a Supreme God who was both unknown and unknowable. This unknown god was not the creator of the world; this task was delegated to lesser gods (the demiurge), who were emanations of this Supreme God. Egypt called this the “many in the One”. These subordinate gods or emanations (attributes) from the One true God, who created and governed the world, were called “Aeons”. Among the Aeons were:
The Logos (The Word, Christ [masculine])
Sophia (Wisdom [feminine])
Nous (Mind)
Phronesis (Judgment)
Dynamis (Power)
All of the above are but attributes of the One Supreme Mind, they exist separately but yet are interrelated. The Supreme God and the Aeons altogether formed the Pleroma (Fullness of the Godhead).
After the Roman Emperor Constantine made the Christian religion the State religion of the empire the remaining Gnostics were persecuted out of existence and their literature was destroyed. How and why Gnosticism was destroyed by organized Christianity is, as a rule, glossed over in history textbooks. One American scholar has penned an accurate and colorful account of these episodes. Please read the following slowly and gleam the truths from it:
“Preceding Christianity there was a school of science and philosophy which had accumulated practically all the wisdom and knowledge understandable to mankind. The object was to broadly educate the masses of the people by a unit system which would give to humanity a wisdom in common. This was the most potential period in human intellectual advancement the world has known. This school was called Gnosticism. Gnosis means to know – knowledge. Christianity means to believe – ignorance. These are the two schools; the one advocating the universal education of men, the other the universal ignorance of men. The one desired to develop the unit man, the other desired to suppress the unit and level all mankind to a common plastic mass. To accomplish this necessitated the suppressing of all extant knowledge; the closing of all the avenues through which people might acquire independent learning, education and intellectual training, and the debasement of humanity in abject ignorance The school which pitted itself against Gnosticism assumed the name Ecclesia. This name at once identified the purpose for which the organization was created to seize control of government, that it might exploit mankind for profit, and for its own glorification. Temporal power was the church goal. The name Ecclesia was derived from the Greek, and signified the legislative body which governed ancient Athens long before Christianity was invented. The first essential act of the Eccliesiasts was to suppress Gnosticism, and confiscate its vast accumulation of wisdom and knowledge, in order to control the education of future generations in a manner to adjust mankind to its purposes. Therefore the Gnostic wisdom was not wholly lost to the world but its great, universal educational system was supplanted and displaced. It is a well-established historical fact, not denied by the church that it required about 500 years to accomplish this submersion of Gnosticism, and to degrade the new generations in ignorance equal to the state of imbecility. History again points its accusing finger at the living evidence. The horrible results of such a crime against nature and mankind are pictured in the Dark Ages .. . Not even priests or prelates were permitted to learn to read or write. Even bishops could barely spell out their Latin. During this period of mental darkness, the ignorant masses were trained in intolerance, bigotry, fanaticism, and superstitious fear of an invisible power secretly controlled by the church; all of which begat a state of hysteria and imbecility. Through this terrorism popes seized control of the temporal power, retaining this control for nearly 1500 years. They appointed and deposed kings at will, hence they dictated legislation to their ends and purposes – the very essence of government . . . This process of legislating evil into mankind is to vindicate that damnable doctrine of original sin, which slanders nature and insults all mankind . . . Originally the motive was to confiscate the intellects of man, but the modern policy is much more concerned in confiscating their personal rights and property. Here is the other aspect of the suppression of Gnosticism. Its method of teaching was an understandable symbolism. It specifically recognized nature as the great teacher, and visible things as the traditional records of past events, in progressive evolution from the lowest state to the highest, with thinking, reasoning man as the highest evoluted being. Man did not fall, he was raised up by a natural promotion. Hence every man was a Gnostic to the extent of his accumulated knowledge and understanding. Thus each unit man became a teacher, and all men were given equal rights in the acquirement of knowledge. It was wholly an educational system, and a natural consequence in evolution. The Eccliesiasts, the Roman church, being thoroughly familiar with the Gnostic wisdom concerning astronomy, chemistry, and mathematics, as demonstrated by the splendid systems of Babylon, Egypt and Assyria, conceived the idea of developing a religio-political form of universal government, to control and exploit the future generations of people upon the earth through living, personified agents of the imaginary heavenly powers. . . to monopolize such a divine power as that contemplated it was necessary to personify nature, using the Gnostic system of symbolisms, and to give to these wholly imaginary beings names and functions. The Gnostic system had to be confiscated, and Gnosticism suppressed, to prevent exposure. This is why Christianity is so viciously antagonistic towards science and philosophy.” ~ (Thomas Sawyer Spivey; The Last of The Gnostic Masters, pp. 544-551.)
source: Craig M. Lyons Ms.D., D.D., M.Div. – Bet Emit (House of Truth)
Astrotheology: The Gnosis of Religion
The more things change, the more they stay the same. And nowhere is this more clearly demonstrated than in the history of man’s quest for “God”, and we still keep holy the ancient religion of Astrotheolgy to this day, though certainly cloaked in an historical allegory. Belief is ignorance, it’s dogma. It is used by people to fill in the void of what they do not know. That void is filled with a belief and that belief becomes their reality, no matter if the facts prove otherwise. Understanding reality is essential to an evolving life that is growing to the Ultimate Reality, which is Love. However, for the most part I feel religion went from holy science to holy shit. I don’t think religion will get us there. You have to do right because you know it’s right, that reality is designed to evolve by your doing right, that you will come back after ‘death’ over and over till you do get it right. Doing right because of belief is different. It’s good your doing right, but you have no solid basis for doing so. It either makes you feel good, or you think it will keep you out of hell, or whatever. It is not growing. Growing comes from knowing. I agree with the Dalai Lama above, religion isn’t for me. But it has always intrigued me. I’m into Truth and how reality works. But let’s move on to the subject, you that know me know I can ramble completely off track and be talking about so many things nothing makes sense. I’m going to attempt to write a coherent piece here, wish me luck.
What we all we need to do is understand the origins of religions, and the fact that they have been mistakenly taken as literal (or worse deliberately forced literalism for mind control) for years. Those that knew the truth were driven underground or slaughtered, for God’s sake (because god is love and stuff). Knowing the Truth we could perhaps all have one religion, without war and another Golden Age on earth. Hey, Light Workers are saying this is written in the sky. I think that is the purpose of Life, I’m optimistic about that fact. Let’s trace religion, concentrating (not picking on) on christiaanity:
First and most importantly, no people of the ancient world believed the “Sun” to be “God”. That is pure “disinformation”. All Ancient cultures and nations on Earth have all used the Sun as the most logically appropriate symbol to represent the Glory of the unseen Creator of the heavens. It’s an allegory within an allegory. That’s why I love myths, they are pregnant with deeper levels of meanings.
It was accepted by everyone that man was bound to a life on Earth, but the sky was God (the Father’s) abode – His dwelling place. (The moon represents the Divine Femine, Virgin Mother). Naturally, God’s Sun (Son) would reside with his Father “up in heaven”. (The English language is derived from the German. In the Germanic, the word ‘Sun’ is spelled ‘Sonne’. Having a son is having a tiny sun. the word youngster is derived from young star. Language was more wonderful when it was understood. May our young stars have a bright future).
Since life is energy, and energy from the Sun gave life, and our existence was sustained by taking in energy from our food (which came directly from God’s Sun), you can see that the Sun must give up its life supporting energy so that we may continue to live. “God’s Sun gives his life for us to live.”
As it was clearly true that our life came from and was sustained each day by “Our Savior… God’s Sun”, it would only be true as long as the Sun returned each morning. Our hope of salvation would be secure only in a “Risen Savior”. So even if man himself died, as long as the Sun comes up each day, life on Earth will continue forever. Therefore, it was said in the ancient texts that everlasting life was “the gift” that the Father gives through his Sun. For…”God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten SUN that we may have life everlasting”….on Earth! Not for you personally – but on Earth!
We now have before us two (2) cosmic brothers – one very good, and one very evil. One brings the “truth to light” with the “light of truth”. The other is the opposite, or in opposition to the light – “The Opposer”… Prince of this World of Darkness-The “Devil”. It is at this point that we come to Egypt. More than 3,000 years before Christianity began, the early morning “Sun/ Savior” was pictured in Egypt as the “New Born Babe”. The infant savior’s name was “Horus“.
At daybreak. this wonderful, newborn child, God’s ‘Sun’, is … ‘Born Again’ Horus is Risen. Even today, when the Sun comes up, we see it on the “Horus-Risen”, or “Horizon”. His life was also divided into 12 parts or steps across Heaven each day: 12 HORUS = 12 HOURS. This is the origin of the modern ” 12 Step Program”. Horus is the (new-born) Sun, or the Bringer of the Light. In Latin, Light Bringer is Lucis, or Lucifer, or Luke. But now, what about the evil brother of God’s Sun, that old rascally “Prince of Darkness” himself? In the Egyptian, he was called “SET”. We are told in the Bible that when God’s Sun died, He left the world in the hands of the Evil Prince of Darkness. This evil prince took over the world at “SON-SET”.
Keep in mind ‘God’s Sun’ symbolically represented the light of truth, but was condemned by His enemies who could not endure the light of truth in their life. The ancients taught that the very act of opposing or denying the light of truth to the point of killing it, happened in one’s own mind! When we are confronted with the harsh realities of life, the light of truth, which we do not wish to face, and which runs counter to our views, such truth is judged in your mind, or judged “in the temple area” of your brain, and put to death in your head!
Therefore, ‘God’s Sun – The Truth and The Light – is put to death at “Golgotha” , or “place of the skull “, located right between your ears! This putting to death of the light of truth in your mind is always accompanied by two thieves: Regret for the past and Fear of the future.
God’s ‘Sun’ brought His wonderful light to the world, and distributed it over 12 months. So it was said, God’s ‘Sun’ had 12 companions, or helpers, that assisted His life-saving work. So it was, God’s ‘Sun’ had 12 apostles (or months) that followed Him religiously through His life. Incidentally, now you know why the American jury system has 12 jurors who help bring the truth to light, with the “Light of Truth”
As far back as we can go into the ancient world, we find that all known cultures had a “Three-in-one” Triune God. The very first trinity was simply the three stages of the life of the Sun.
A) New Born Savior at dawn.
B) Mature, full-grown (The Most High) at 12 (High) noon.
C) Old and dying, at the end of day (going back to The Father).
All three were of course One Divinity – The Sun, three different phases, but one sun, or god!
Since the Earth experienced 4 different seasons, all the same and equal (in time) each year, the round Sun calendar was divided into 4 equal parts. This is also why we have, in the Bible, only 4 Gospels. Of this point, there can be no doubt.
The 4 Gospels represent the four 4 seasons which collectively tell the entire story of the life of God’s ‘Sun’. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John are Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. This is why the famous painting of “The Last Supper” pictures the 12 followers of the Sun in four groups (of three) … the seasons!
On the round surface of the yearly calendar, you can draw a straight line directly across the middle, cutting the circle in half… one end being the point of the winter solstice; the other end being the point of the summer solstice. Then you can draw another straight line (crossing the first one); one end of the new line being the spring equinox; the other end being the autumn equinox. You now have the starting points for each of the 4 seasons. This is referred to by all major encyclopedias and reference works, both ancient and modern, as “The Cross of the Zodiac”.
Thus, the life of God’s ‘Sun‘ is on “the Cross“. This is why we see the round circle of the Sun on the crosses of Christian churches. Look for the circle (God’s Sun) on the cross on many Christian churches if you haven’t noticed it before.
This is just the basic foundation of the religions of the world. It goes much deeper, but this is the basic blue print.
“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I will meet you there.” Rumi
Thanks to:
Tom Campbell
Jordan Maxwell
Santos Bonacci
Bill Donahue
Zeitgeist Movement
Gnostic Warrior
Acharya S
and many others
Horus
Horus was known by many names such as The Truth, The Light, God’s Anointed Son, The Good Shepherd, The Lamb of God, and many others.
“Horus was born on December 25th”
The December 25th, the winter-solstice, birth of the sun god is a common theme in many cultures around the world over the past millennia.
“Horus was born of a virgin”
The Egyptian Goddess was the Great Virgin (hwnt) the Mother of the God, and was the object of the very same praise bestowed upon her successor Mary, Virgin Mother of Jesus. – Bonn Dr. G. Johannes Botterweck
“Three Wise Men Came to Adore the New Born Savior”
Three Kings: Three Kings are the stars in Orion‘s belt: They are anmed “Mintaka, Anilam and Alnitak.”
”At the age of 12, he was a prodigal child teacher, and at the age of 30 he was baptized by a figure known as Anup and thus began his ministry.”
The age of 12 refers to the sun at high noon, the twelfth hour of the day, when the God Sun is doing his heavenly father‘s work.
Concerning the sun god‘s nightly journey back to life, Egyptologist Dr. Jacobus Van Dijk of the University of Groningen says that ―according to the Pyramid Texts, the sun god purifies himself in the morning in the Lake of the Field of Rushes. Thus, the morning sun—or Horus—was said to pass through the purifying or baptismal waters to become reborn, revivified or resurrected.
”Horus had 12 disciples he traveled about with, performing miracles such as healing the sick and walking on water.”
Horus is thus firmly associated with 12 star gods, who, in conducting the sun god through his passage, can be deemed his ―protectors, assistants or helpers.
…in the tenth hour of the Amduat, Horus the Elder leaning on his staff is depicted as leading the 12 “drowned” or lost souls to their salvation in the “Fields of the Blessed.” These 12 deceased, Hornung relates, are “saved from decay and decomposition by Horus, who leads them to a blessed posthumous existence…” In this manner, Horus’s companions, like the disciples of Jesus, are meant to “become like gods,” so to speak, and to exist forever, reaping eternal life, as do those who believe in Christ.
Now, probably the most obvious of all the astrological symbolism around Jesus regards the 12 disciples. They are simply the 12 constellations of the Zodiac, which Jesus, being the Sun, travels about with. In fact, the number 12 is replete throughout the Bible.
Biblical examples:
The 12 Princes of Ishmael (Gen 17:20)
The 12 Sons of Jacob (Gen 35:22)
The 12 Tribes of Israel (Gen 49:28)
The 12 Prophets and Kings of Israel
The 12 Wells of Water (Exd 15:27)
The 12 Pillars of the Lord (Exd 24:4)
The 12 Stones of the Breastplate (Exd 39:14)
The 12 Cakes of the Tabernacle (Lev 24:5)
The 12 Princes of Israel (Num 1:44)
The 12 Oxen of the Tabernacle (Num 7:3)
The 12 Chargers of Silver, Bowls of Silver and Spoons of Gold (Num 7:84)
The 12 Bullocks, Rams, Lambs and Kids of the Offering (Num 7:87)
The 12 Rods of the Princes of Israel (Num 17:6) The 12 Stones of Joshua (Jos 4:8)
The 12 Cities (Jos 18:24, 19:25, 21:7, 21:40)
The 12 Judges of Israel (Jdg 3, 4, 6, 10, 12, 13)
The 12 Pieces of the Concubine (Jdg 19:29)
The 12 Servants of David (2 Sa 2:15)
The 12 Officers of Solomon (1 Ki 4:7) The 12 Lions of Solomon (1 Ki 10:20)
The 12 Pieces of Jeroboam‘s Garment (1 Ki 11:30)
The 12 Stones of Elijah (1 Ki 18:31)
The 12 Bronze Bulls of Solomon (Jer 52:20)
The 12 Disciples/Apostles of Jesus (Mt 10:1-2)
The 12 Baskets of Bread (Mt 14:20)
The 12 Thrones in Heaven (Mt 19:28)
The 12 Legions of Angels (Mt 26:53)
The 12 Patriarchs of Israel (Acts 7:8)
The 12 Stars of the Woman‘s Crown (Rev 12:1)
The 12 Gates, Angels and Pearls of Holy Jerusalem (Rev 21:12, 21)
The 12 Fruits of the Tree of Life (Rev 22:2)
“After being “betrayed” by Typhon, Horus was “crucified,” buried for three days, and thus, resurrected.”
This symbolic imagery of a person on a cross or in cross-shape was fairly common in the Pagan world, concerning many gods, goddesses and other figures.
These pre-Christian or non-Christian gods on a cross were what was being discussed around 150 AD/CE by Church father Justin Martyr (First Apology, 21):
”And when we say also that the Word, who is the first-birth of God, was produced without sexual union, and that He, Jesus Christ, our Teacher, was crucified and died, and rose again, and ascended into heaven, we propound nothing different from what you believe regarding those whom you esteem sons of Jupiter.”
Catholic scholar Dr. Botterweck states:
”…In a sun myth the sun is swallowed up by the western part of the sea and then rises again. This myth is “historicized and re-neutralized in Jonah, as…Jonah replaces the sun and the ‘great fish’ plays the role of the sea.” On the other hand, the period of time Jonah stayed in the belly of the fish suggests a moon myth, and calls to mind, among other things, Inanna’s descent into the underworld…”
As Horus who manifests himself in the sun goes to rest in the evening and awakes from the sleep of death in the morning, so do death and resurrection seem to be equally inevitable and natural.
From the ancient hieroglyphics in Egypt, we know much about this solar messiah. For instance, Horus, being the sun, or the light, had an enemy known as Set, and Set was the personification of the darkness or night (sunSet). And, metaphorically speaking, every morning Horus would win the battle against Set—while in the evening, Set would conquer Horus and send him into the underworld. It is important to note that “dark vs. light” or “good vs. evil” is one of the most ubiquitous mythological dualities ever known and is still expressed on many levels to this day. Egyptologist Dr. Jan Assman
The sun, with its life-giving and saving qualities was personified as a representative of the unseen creator or god — “God’s Sun”
The sun was NEVER worshipped as a material ball of fire in the sky by any Pagan, ever. It was seen as symbolically having the attributes of the unknowable God/Creator/Us or whatever you want to call the un-namable. Ha! Wow. Well, it cannot be named! The story of the sun has always been personified, and there are numerous sun-gods in history. Jesus is just one of many, and the others came BEFORE him. Jesus is the greatest story ever sold, and without Roman influenced dogma everyone would see how beautiful and meaningful the jesus myth was meant to be.
Horus lives on even today. We’re always aware of the time, but not that ‘hours’ comes directly from the name Horus. Horizon is also from the name Horus. How did all these over 20 early man-god sun figures become known as mythical but the last myth, created from the others, is literally true? God is in everything, and everything is in God. It’s an energy without substance and it’s in me/you. I am that I am. We are.
Rescuing the Bible from Literalism
As you can probably tell, saving Christianity and Christ Consciousness from religion is very important to me. Sometimes it feels like it was my mission before being born. Maybe I was burned as a heretic in a past life…
By RICHARD SMOLEY
—
“The world,” wrote the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, “is the totality of facts, not of things.” So it is, but facts take many forms. The hard-edged events of ordinary reality are only one form, and not always the most important.
This insight can be hard to accept in the positivist world of mainstream Western thought. In these terms, either an event took place or it did not. Truth and falsehood are judged by this criterion alone. And yet such a stance has only a limited value. It is indispensable in history and journalism and perhaps in science (although the anomalous discoveries of twentieth-century physics have blurred the picture somewhat). But in the spiritual dimension, even though there are facts here as well, they are not of this kind. To overlook this truth is to mistake one reality for another.
Conventional Christianity has often made this mistake. Practically from the start, it has presented its case in literalistic terms: the Bible is true; moreover it is literally true. Its facts must be historical facts, and its record of the past must be a true one. At first these claims fostered Christianity’s rapid success in the ancient world. By the early centuries of the Common Era, Greco-Roman civilisation could no longer take its own myths seriously, so it was persuaded to adopt the Scriptures of the Jews and Christians on the grounds that these presented not only sacred truths but an accurate record of the past.
Since the Enlightenment, such claims have been more of an embarrassment than an advertisement for the faith. Over the last 250 years, scholars in many fields have taken Christianity at its word and investigated in great depth just how much the Bible jibes with science and history. The findings have not exactly vindicated the Good Book. Indeed the trend over time has been to call more and more of the Bible into question as a historical record.
From a scientific point of view, the tide began to turn in the early nineteenth century. In 1830–32, the British scientist Charles Lyell published his classic Principles of Geology, arguing that geological changes that are recorded in rocks could not possibly have taken place in the mere 6,000 years that Genesis assigned to the earth’s lifetime, but had occurred over a much longer period. A generation later, another, even more famous scientist, Charles Darwin, suggested that animal species had not been created by the Almighty on a single day of creation in 4004 BCE, but had evolved over much longer periods by what he called “natural selection.” (In fact, when Darwin had finished his magnum opus, The Origin of Species, he sent it to Lyell for comments.)
Historicity of the Bible Questioned
In recent decades, archaeology has cast doubt even on parts of the Bible that had seemed more or less factual, such as the history of Israel in the Old Testament. To take one example, a generation ago most scholars accepted the historicity of the Exodus from Egypt, believing at least that some migration of this kind happened, even if the narrative had to be stripped of its miraculous festoonings. Since then, the picture has changed considerably. Summarising recent findings in their 2001 book The Bible Unearthed, Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman contend that the Exodus did not happen in any form that is recognisable from the archaeological record. The first mention of Israel in any known inscription, they note, dates from the reign of the Egyptian Pharaoh Merneptah in 1207 BCE. While this is around the time traditionally assigned to the Exodus, the inscription speaks not of a flight of Israelites (or even an expulsion), but of Merneptah’s successful incursion into Canaan, where Israel is reckoned among the peoples subdued. In any case, the Israelites could not have escaped to Canaan out of the hands of the Egyptians, because Canaan was part of Egyptian territory at the time; Merneptah’s invasion would have been to quiet a troublesome province.
Instead, Finkelstein and Silberman suggest that the biblical account of the Exodus is a composite of folk memories of the Hyksos – a Semitic people who ruled Egypt from c.1670 to c.1570 BCE before being expelled by the Egyptians. The Exodus story as we know it was framed in the seventh century BCE, when the national ideology of Jerusalem and the nation of Judah was beginning to crystallise – and Egypt was a powerful and aggressive neighbour.
Other scholars have come up with equally revolutionary insights. In her work The Great Angel, the British biblical scholar Margaret Barker points out that originally the Israelites worshipped a female goddess, known as Asherah (or sometimes as Hokhmah or “Wisdom”), as the consort of Yahweh, alongside El, the Most High God, and Yahweh himself, who was essentially a national deity allocated to Israel alone. Barker suggests that the famous Deuteronomic reform under the Judahite King Josiah – in which Josiah purges the Temple of these other gods and restores the worship of Yahweh alone (2 Kings 22-23) – was not a reform but an innovation, a purge of time-honoured traditions in an attempt to create a “Yahweh-alone movement.” This movement eventually took over Judaism after the Babylonian Exile and imposed its own agenda on the past.
One could make similar points about much of the rest of the Bible. The “quest of the historical Jesus,” as Albert Schweitzer so famously dubbed it, has gone on for over two centuries now without any really conclusive results. Most scholars are convinced that there is some admixture of myth and legend in the life of Christ as portrayed in the New Testament, but they differ enormously about just what was legend and what was not. The panel of liberal New Testament scholars known as the Jesus Seminar has won some notoriety for contending that Jesus neither said nor did most of the things attributed to him in the Gospels. As shocking as some may find this claim, it is hardly new: an array of German New Testament scholars reached much the same conclusions in the nineteenth century. A still more radical view holds that Jesus never existed at all: his story was merely a Jewish equivalent of the numerous death-and-resurrection myths circulating in the ancient world. Since there is no archaeological evidence for Christ’s life, and the textual evidence is elusive (none of the Gospels, canonical or apocryphal, even claims to be an eyewitness account), this position, as extreme as it is, is hard to definitively refute.
Biblical Stories as Allegory, Not History
What, then, are we to do with the Bible as history? Some will no doubt cling to it. The literary critic Harold Bloom has noted that in evangelical Christianity, the “limp leather Bible,” waved at the audience by the preacher, has itself become a totem. But others are unlikely to find refuge in a simplistic bibliolatry. They may be drawn to another approach – one that is equally ancient, and possibly more profound. It is that the Bible is not, and never was, meant to be taken literally, but has deeper meanings that are to be unearthed by those are capable of doing so.
This idea goes back to the very beginnings of Christianity and has always existed side by side with narrow literalism. Ironically, it was a major impetus for the creation of Christianity as a separate religion from Judaism. The nascent Christian movement often had to allegorise the Hebrew Scriptures to make use of them for its own purposes. The Apostle Paul writes about one biblical passage:
It is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a freewoman.
But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the freewoman was by promise.
Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar.
For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children.
But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all (Gal. 4:22–26).
Paul is saying that the real meaning of the story of Abraham and his two sons lies in the relationship of the Jews and the Christians. Ishmael, the older son, born to Hagar (or Agar), “the bondwoman,” is the Jews, who are in “bondage” to the Law of Moses. Isaac, the younger, born to Sarah, the “freewoman,” represents the Christians, who are freed from having to follow the Law. The story is an “allegory.”
The first authority to use the word “allegory” in this sense (the Greek is allegoria) – and the first to expound the Hebrew Bible in this way – was a philosopher who lived at the same time as both Jesus and Paul: Philo of Alexandria (c.20 BCE–c.50 CE). Although there is no reference to Jesus or Paul in his works or to Philo in the New Testament, it would be hard to overstate Philo’s influence on Christianity. To take one example, it was he who first used the Greek word logos (often translated as “word”) to mean the creative, structuring element in consciousness and to contend that this principle had engendered the world. Philo’s view was prevalent in the Judaism of the first century CE, in which the logos was often seen as a kind of deuteros theos or “second god.” The Christians appropriated this theology, especially in the Gospel of John, whose prologue “In the beginning was the Word” etc. is almost a programmatic statement of Philo’s thought. Philo, of course, never equated this logos with Jesus, as the Christians did, and once the Christian view had spread throughout the ancient world, the Jews dropped the concept of the logos entirely.
In any event, Philo viewed the Hebrew Bible through the lens of allegory. Here is Philo on Genesis:
“And on the sixth day God finished his work which he made.” It would be a sign of great simplicity to think that the world was created in six days, or indeed all in time…. But… it would be correctly said that the world was not created in time, but that time had its existence as a consequence of the world….. When, therefore, Moses says, “God completed his works on the sixth day,” we must understand that he is speaking not of a number of days, but that he takes six as a perfect number.
Philo goes on to explain what he means by a perfect number. Obviously this is a far richer and more sophisticated understanding of a sacred text than the simplistic idea that the world was made in six literal days.
The Christian theologian who is most indebted to Philo was the third-century Church Father Origen. Origen went further than Philo, however, in being much more eager to discard the literal truth of passages that seemed contrary to reason. Here is Origen on Genesis:
Who is so silly as to believe that God, after the manner of a farmer, “planted a paradise eastward in Eden,” and set in it a visible and palpable “tree of life,” of such a sort that anyone who tasted its fruit with his bodily teeth would gain life: and again that one could partake of “good and evil” by masticating the fruit taken from the tree of that name? And when God is said to “walk in the paradise in the cool of the day” and Adam to hide himself behind a tree, I do not think anyone will doubt that these are figurative expressions which indicate certain mysteries through a semblance of history and not through actual events.
Origen does not spare the Gospels or the writings of the Apostles, “for,” he writes, “the history even of these is not everywhere pure, events being woven together in the bodily sense without having actually happened; nor do the law and the commandments contained therein entirely declare what is reasonable.”
Such an attitude seems strikingly modern – and yet these are the words of a third-century Church Father. Origen spoke of three levels of meaning to Scripture (body, soul, and spirit, in accordance with the tripartite division of human nature accepted by early Christianity). This view would be tremendously influential. The scholar Beryl Smalley has written that “to write a history of Origenist influence on the West would be tantamount to writing a history of Western [biblical] exegesis.”
By the Middle Ages, Origen’s three levels of meaning for Scripture would be expanded to four. They were called the literal, allegorical, moral, and “anagogical” or mystical senses. Dante, writing in the early fourteenth century, refers to them in his Letter to Can Grande, where he says of the Exodus:
If we look at it from the letter alone it means to us the exit of the Children of Israel from Egypt at the time of Moses; if from allegory, it means for us our redemption done by Christ; if from the moral sense, it means to us the conversion of the soul from the struggle and misery of sin to the status of grace; if from the anagogical, it means the leavetaking of the blessed soul from the slavery of this corruption to the freedom of eternal glory. And though these mystical senses are called by various names, in general all can be called allegorical, because they are different from the literal or the historical.
Origen, who is evasive about actually setting out the hidden meaning of Scripture (“it was the method of the Holy Spirit rather to conceal these truths and to hide them deeply,” he writes), makes reference to Egypt as well. He speaks of “the descent of the holy fathers into Egypt, that is, into this world.” For Origen as for Dante, then, the Exodus ultimately presents an allegory of spiritual liberation.
Origen died around 253 CE, crippled by torture during the persecution of the Christians by the Roman Emperor Decius. Since then, Origen has had an ambiguous destiny in the mainstream church. Revered in his own day, in later centuries he fell into disrepute among the orthodox. This happened for a number of reasons, but it was largely because his views on the relationship between the Father and the Son did not jibe with the doctrine of the Trinity as it would evolve in the fourth and fifth centuries. Furthermore, later theologians did not feel entirely comfortable with Origen’s assertion that much of Scripture was not meant to be taken as literally true. Although the churchmen were generally content to accept his idea that there were other meanings in addition to the literal one, they did not like to think the literal sense was wrong or even (as we’ve seen Origen say about the myth of Eden) ridiculous.
Protestantism and Literalism
If the Catholic and Orthodox churches were always comfortable with a symbolic meaning to the Bible, where did today’s excruciating biblical literalism come from? Partly from Protestantism. Catholicism and Orthodoxy always regarded the Bible as an authority, but never as the authority: the teachings and practices of the Church itself were held to be of at least equal weight. The Catholic Church always insisted that the Bible could be easily misunderstood by those who lacked the proper training; this was why the Church discouraged Bible reading by laypeople until comparatively recently.
By the early modern era, however, the Catholic Church had become so corrupt that some Christian leaders (and many of the ordinary faithful) realised that the church was keeping an exclusive monopoly on spiritual power largely to suit its own worldly ends. In breaking with the church, these leaders – the Protestant Reformers – decided to return to the Bible as the only proper authority: sola scriptura, “Scripture only,” as the formula had it.
This in itself might not have been so problematic, but the Protestantism that reached the American frontier in the nineteenth century was dominated by men who had little education and little idea of any other literature than the Bible. Such people have always existed: Thomas Aquinas, the medieval Catholic theologian, was alluding to them when he said, “Timeo hominem unius libri”: “I fear a man of one book.” In the United States, and, I suspect, in much of the rest of the English-speaking world, evangelical Christianity has become co-opted by these “men of one book.” Today in many parts of the US, it is possible to go into people’s houses and see no other book than the Bible. It is this element in Christianity that has made its presence felt in the rise of fundamentalism.
As a result, the Bible’s inner meaning has increasingly become the province of esotericism. Regarding the story of Christ, in her book Esoteric Christianity the Theosophist Annie Besant speaks of “the Christ of the human Spirit, the Christ who is in every one of us, is born and lives, is crucified, rises from the dead, and ascends into heaven, in every suffering and triumphant ‘Son of Man.’” The story of Christ is thus the story of each of us; the Incarnation symbolises our own descent into the world of materiality, where we pass across the stage for a short while before being crucified on the cross of time and space. But this suffering and death is only transitory or even illusory, since the Logos – the principle of consciousness – in ourselves cannot die. It will be resurrected again in other forms, recognisable or otherwise. (In the Gospels the risen Christ is sometimes recognised by his disciples, sometimes not.)
Some may find themselves impatient with these ideas, insisting that they are nothing more than a way of skirting the issue of historical factuality that must supposedly serve as the bedrock of faith. But what, might one ask, is being dismissed as mere allegory? Viewed in the way sketched out above, the stories of the Exodus and the passion of Christ are not mere edifying tales of the past. Nor are they creeds for blind belief or flags around which to rally the faithful. Rather they are deep expressions of what is going on inside us now. To know from inner experience what it is to be spiritually in “the land of Egypt, the house of bondage,” to see the Logos in ourselves crucified on the cross of time and space, is not evasion but among the most profound insights a human being can have.
I would even take the argument a step further. An allegorical reading of the Bible can actually be more demanding than merely dwelling on the meaning of the letter. Acknowledging “Pharaoh,” “Moses,” the “scribes and Pharisees,” even Christ as parts of ourselves can be unsettling. Few are eager to come to grips with their inner tyrants and hypocrites, and there are possibly even fewer who can bear to see their own higher natures. After all, to know that Moses the lawgiver exists in oneself is already a step out of the house of bondage. To see the Christ within is already to experience a resurrection. Such realisations confer a responsibility upon us that we are not always delighted to face.
As a result, it is often easier to keep these things at the safe remove of antiquity – to follow the disputes about who was the Pharaoh of Exodus; to pore over accounts of recent excavations in Biblical Archaeology Review; to thrill over the latest news feature that breathlessly proffers some allegedly new fact about the historical Jesus. In such a way we can keep these issues alive, but at a comfortable distance: they remain ineluctably “other,” about people who lived long ago. I suspect that this dynamic helps explain the unshakable thirst for biblical archaeology among the American public.
All this said, there is admittedly a problem with leaning too heavily on allegorical readings of Scripture. To be no longer able to take one’s own myths literally – even while accepting them in a figurative sense – does strip them of their power. This is due to the limits of our own understanding; we as a civilisation seem unable to hear the message “Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet believed” (John 20:29). This is not a call to blind, stupid faith; it is an appeal to recognise realities that do not present themselves to our physical eyes and hands – the “evidence of things unseen.” But, trusting as we do in the Gradgrindian world of cold, hard facts, we put more trust in texts than in our own inner experience. We discover that the texts are not telling the exact truth about history, and we lose our faith.
Despite the noise (much of it overstated) about rising fundamentalism in the Western world, this loss of faith is likely to accelerate. What will happen when the news sinks in and we collectively understand that much, perhaps most, of the Bible is not literally true? We may continue to see their beauty and power as myths, just as we do with the tales of the Olympian gods, but they will have lost their numinous force for us. We will see the old gods mocked and derided, as they were in antiquity in the satyr plays of the classical Athenian stage and the satires of Lucian, and as we see today in films like Dogma and Jesus Christ Superstar.
In such instances, new myths, new versions of eternal truths arise. What these will be in the future remains to be seen; it is hard to imagine that they will come from any religion now existing. Of the models of reality now available, it is above all the one provided by science that has most captured the imagination of the thinking public. Like Christianity in ancient times, it seems to offer truth in place of myth, actualities in place of legend. And then we are left with a question that, I suspect, will not be answered in the lifetime of anyone reading these pages now: what will happen when the facts of science, implacably hard and substantial as they now seem, are proved to be myths in turn?
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Bibliography
Dante Alighieri, Letter to Can Grande della Scala, Translated by James Marchand, http://medieval.ucdavis.edu/20B/Can.Grande.html
Margaret Barker, The Great Angel: A Study of Israel’s Second God, Louisville, Ky.: Westminster/John Knox, 1992.
Annie Besant, Esoteric Christianity, or the Lesser Mysteries, Reprint, Wheaton, Ill.: Quest, 2006.
Harold Bloom, The American Religion, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992.
Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman, The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology’s New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts, New York: Touchstone, 2001.
Susan A. Handelman, The Slayers of Moses: The Emergence of Rabbinic Interpretation in Modern Literary Theory, Albany: State University of New York Press, 1982.
Origen, On First Principles, Translated by G.W. Butterworth, Reprint, New York: Harper & Row, 1966.
Philo, The Works of Philo, Translated by C.D. Yonge, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1993.
Albert Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus: A Critical Study of Its Progress from Reimarus to Wrede, Translated by W. Montgomery, Reprint, New York: Macmillan, 1961.
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Translated by D.F. Pears and B.F. McGuinness, 2nd edition, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1971.
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RICHARD SMOLEY is author of Inner Christianity: A Guide to the Esoteric Tradition; Hidden Wisdom: A Guide to the Western Inner Traditions (with Jay Kinney); and The Essential Nostradamus. His latest book is Conscious Love: Insights from Mystical Christianity. He is editor of Quest Books and is executive editor of Quest magazine. His web site is www.innerchristianity.com.
The above article appeared in New Dawn No. 110 (September-October 2008).
© Copyright New Dawn Magazine, http://www.newdawnmagazine.com. Permission granted to freely distribute this article for non-commercial purposes if unedited and copied in full, including this notice.
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Random Notes On The Jesus Myth – Part One
Connecting the dots concerning the fabricated “history” of Jesus has been eye opening to me. There’s overwhelming evidence the whole story of Jesus was invented by the political powers of Rome. Since so many people assume there was an historical Jesus, fear of the truth overcomes their reason, and they immediately defend their ego based false beliefs. I don’t want to convince anyone of what I’ve learned as the truth. My mother was indoctrinated into believing Jesus was a real person. I don’t want to kick her crutch out from under her. I have no reason to convince anyone who believes in Constantine’s cult that they are wrong. Their defenses range from childish to downright dangerous. Many immediately assume that if Jesus wasn’t real then there’s no God. Nothing could be further from the truth. The reason there have been so many god-man heroes based on Astrotheology is because mankind is obviously attracted to it. Even if in it’s ignorance (ignore-ance) mankind blindly follows the saga of the Sun, the planets and other signs in the cosmos as historical events taking place in history, it is the opposite of Spiritual. Myth is a way of teaching ever deeper meanings. An historical superman is a dead end. It’s blind faith (requires no critical thinking), it is ignorance that goes nowhere. The shock of learning that this story is untrue historically is a slap in the face of one’s completely brainwashed stupidity, and it’s not pleasant at first. But it does wake one up! But it’s not my job to awake anyone but myself. If a person finds comfort in a lie, who am I to interfere? I’m interested in truth no matter where it leads. I have found the truth will absolutely set us free, and also enlighten us in a way the church doesn’t want. They have their agenda and it has nothing to do with what’s in our best interest. The Gnostics were destroyed, but amazingly some of their writings have been found, and at a time in history where they wouldn’t be burned again. And I’m living in a time where I won’t be burned at the stake for speaking the truth. The mystical side of various religions I find quite beautiful. The fundamental and literal part is 100% worthless hogwash. It’s embarrassing to me to be a part of such an ignorant and easily tricked group of zombie-like sheeple. If they use fake history to prove their point, they are fake people, living in a fake reality, and are as if already dead. The truth is hidden but can be discovered by anyone open minded enough to look for it. Yes, much of history has been altered for this myth, you do have to dig a bit. You cannot look up an early Church Father and quote them, because early pro-Christian quotes were interpolated centuries later. Hisorians have proven this. Hey, the built the town of Nazareth just to make the gospels literally true! They’ll stoop very low for this lie, because it is the lie upon which all other lies have been built upon. Rome lives on, trust me. Our laws and banks are made from Roman legalisms and Vatican maxims. They learned long ago to never inform or educate slaves.
“Osiris’s coming was announced by Three Wise Men: the three stars Mintaka, Anilam, and Alnitak in the belt of Orion, which point directly to Osiris’s star in the east, Sirius (Sothis), significator of his birth.”
Barbara Walker, The Woman’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets (749)
“So this was the harbinger of the annual inundation of the Nile through her appearance with the rising sun at the time when the inundation was due to begin. The bright star would therefore naturally become, together with the conjoined constellation of Orion, the sign and symbol of new vegetation which the Year then beginning would infallibly bring with it.”
Dr. John Gwyn Griffiths, The Origins of Osiris and His Cult (157)
The three stars in the middle of the constellation form an asterism known as The Three Kings, or Orion’s Belt.
Dionysus: Born of a Virgin on December 25th, Killed and Resurrected after Three Days
The goddesses have stories to tell. One such story—far too long ignored—is that, in their original, unadulterated form, they were parthenogenetic. The word parthenogenesis comes from the Greek parthenos, ‘virgin’ more or less, and gignesthai, ‘to be born.’ It means, essentially, to be born of a virgin—that is, without the participation of a male. For a goddess to be ‘parthenogenetic’ thus means that she stands as a primordial creatrix, who requires no male partner to produce the cosmos, earth, life, matter and even other gods out of her own essence. Plentiful evidence shows that in their earliest cults, before they were subsumed under patriarchal pantheons as the wives, sisters and daughters of male gods, various female deities of the ancient Mediterranean world were indeed considered self-generating, virgin creatrixes.”
Dr. Marguerite Rigoglioso, Virgin Mother Goddesses of Antiquity (1)
“Let our Christian readers bear in mind that the worship of the virgin and her child was common in the East, ages before the generally received account of Christ’s appearance in the flesh.”
Existence of Christ Disproved
“Crishna was born of a chaste virgin, called Devaki, who, on account of her purity, was selected to become the ‘mother of God.'”
Doane, Bible Myths and Their Parallels in Other Religions
The Virgin Mary is called not only the Mother of God, but the Queen of Heaven. This connects her directly with astronomic lore. The ornamentation of many continental churches often includes a representation of the Sun and Moon “in conjunction,” the Moon being therein emblematical of the Virgin and Child.
As the Moon is the symbol of Mary, Queen of Heaven, so also a bright Star sometimes symbolizes him whose star was seen over Jerusalem by the Wise Men from the East.
Regarding the astrotheological nature of the gospel story, including the virgin birth/immaculate conception, the famous Christian theologian and saint Albertus Magnus, or Albert the Great, (1193?-1280) admitted:
“We know that the sign of the celestial Virgin did come to the horizon at the moment where we have fixed the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. All the mysteries of the incarnation of our Saviour Christ; and all the circumstances of his marvellous life, from his conception to his ascension, are to be traced out in the constellations, and are figured in the stars.” – Hackwood
Again, the Christian virgin birth is no more historical or believable than that of these numerous other gods. Moreover, as Robertson says, “The idea of a Virgin-Mother-Goddess is practically universal.” The list of Pagan virgin mothers includes the following:
Alcmene, mother of Hercules who gave birth on December 25th
Alitta, Babylonian Madonna and Child
Anat, Syrian wife of “the earlier Supreme God El,” called “Virgin Goddess”
Cavillaca, Peruvian huaca (divine spirit) impregnated by the “son of the sun god” through eating his semen in the shape of a fruit
Chimalman, mother of Kukulcan
Chinese mother of Foe (Buddha)
Coatlicue, mother of the Mexican god Huitzilopochtli
Cybele, “Queen of Heaven and Mother of God”
Danae, mother of Perseus
Demeter/Ceres, “Holy Virgin” mother of Persephone/Kore and Dionysus
Devaki, mother of Krishna
Frigga, mother of the Scandinavian god Balder
Hera, mother of Zeus’s children
Hertha, Teutonic goddess
Isis, who gave birth to Horus on December 25th
Juno, mother of Mars/Ares, called “Matrona” and “Virginalis,” the Mother and Virgin
Mandana, mother of Cyrus/Koresh
Maya, mother of Buddha
Mother of Lao-kiun, “Chinese philosopher and teacher, born in 604 B.C.”
Mother of the Indian solar god Rudra
Nana, mother of Attis
Neith, mother of Osiris, who was “worshipped as the Holy Virgin, the Great Mother, yet an Immaculate Virgin.”
Nutria, mother of an Etruscan Son of God
Ostara, the German goddess
Rohini, mother of Indian “son of God”
Semele, mother of Dionysus/Bacchus, who was born on December 25th
Shin-Moo, Chinese Holy Mother
Siamese mother of Somonocodom (Buddha)
Sochiquetzal, mother of Quetzalcoatl
Vari, Polynesian “First Mother,” who created her children “by plucking pieces out of her sides.”
Venus, the “Virgo Coelestis” depicted as carrying a child
“Both Mithras and Christ were described variously as ‘the Way,’ ‘the Truth,’ ‘the Light,’ ‘the Life,’ ‘the Word,’ ‘the Son of God,’ ‘the Good Shepherd.’ The Christian litany to Jesus could easily be an allegorical litany to the sun-god. Mithras is often represented as carrying a lamb on his shoulders, just as Jesus is. Midnight services were found in both religions. The virgin mother…was easily merged with the virgin mother Mary. Petra, the sacred rock of Mithraism, became Peter, the foundation of the Christian Church.”
Gerald Berry, Religions of the World
“Mithra or Mitra is…worshipped as Itu (Mitra-Mitu-Itu) in every house of the Hindus in India. Itu (derivative of Mitu or Mitra) is considered as the Vegetation-deity. This Mithra or Mitra (Sun-God) is believed to be a Mediator between God and man, between the Sky and the Earth. It is said that Mithra or [the] Sun took birth in the Cave on December 25th. It is also the belief of the Christian world that Mithra or the Sun-God was born of [a] Virgin. He travelled far and wide. He has twelve satellites, which are taken as the Sun’s disciples…. [The Sun’s] great festivals are observed in the Winter Solstice and the Vernal Equinox—Christmas and Easter. His symbol is the Lamb….”
Swami Prajnanananda, Christ the Saviour and Christ Myth
Mithra has the following in common with the Jesus character:
Mithra was born on December 25th of the virgin Anahita.
The babe was wrapped in swaddling clothes, placed in a manger and attended by shepherds.
He was considered a great traveling teacher and master.
He had 12 companions or “disciples.”
He performed miracles.
As the “great bull of the Sun,” Mithra sacrificed himself for world peace.
He ascended to heaven.
Mithra was viewed as the Good Shepherd, the “Way, the Truth and the Light,” the Redeemer, the Savior, the Messiah.
Mithra is omniscient, as he “hears all, sees all, knows all: none can deceive him.”
He was identified with both the Lion and the Lamb.
His sacred day was Sunday, “the Lord’s Day,” hundreds of years before the appearance of Christ.
His religion had a eucharist or “Lord’s Supper.”
Mithra “sets his marks on the foreheads of his soldiers.”
Mithraism emphasized baptism.
“In the ancient world there was a very widespread belief in the sufferings and deaths of gods as being beneficial to man. Adonis, Attis, Dionysos, Herakles, Mithra, Osiris, and other deities, were all saviour-gods whose deaths were regarded as sacrifices made on behalf of mankind; and it is to be noticed that in almost every case there is clear evidence that the god sacrificed himself to himself.”
Sir Arthur Weigall, The Paganism in Our Christianity
“Osiris…was successively god of the Nile, a life-giver, a sun-god, god of justice and love, and finally a resurrected god who ruled in the afterlife…. The most popular legend about Osiris is one of a resurrected god. He was killed by Set, the god of darkness… Osiris was then resurrected and went to live on high. Osiris became the first of a long line of resurrected deities—Tammuz, Mithras, Balder, Christ. Every spring the life of Osiris was re-enacted at Abydos in a stirring passion play, dating back to the eighteenth or nineteenth century before Christ. This play is the earliest record in history of drama.”
Gerald L. Berry, Religions of the World
“Osiris or the sun was now worshipped throughout the whole world, though under different names. He was the Mithra of the Persians, the Brahma of India, the Baal or Adonis of the Phoenicians, the Apollo of the Greeks, the Odin Of Scandinavia, the Hu of the Britons, and the Baiwe of the Laplanders.”
W. Winwood Reade, The Veil of Isis; Or, Mysteries of the Druids
The Roman Conspiracy to Invent Jesus
Who was Jesus?
Why is there no historic archaeological evidence of his existence?
Who wrote the Gospels?
Why were they written in Greek, rather than Hebrew or Aramaic?
How did the Christian religion come to be centered in Rome?
Why were the first Christian pope and earliest saints all members of the
Flavius Caesar ruling family?
The truth will set you free…
hipmonkey 