What do you propose the fixed meaning of life is by focusing on precession and the local observable natural cycles that are symbolized in Christian myth?

The New Testament encodes extensive symbolism of precession of the equinox, with the traditional supernatural idea of heaven actually meaning the visible heavens. The evidence starts with Jesus Christ as the alpha and omega matching exactly to the movement of the spring equinox at the BC/AD moment at the turning point of our calendar. The shift of the spring sun from the first constellation of the zodiac, Aries the Ram, to the last constellation, Pisces the Fishes, at the time of Christ reflects the messianic symbols of the sacrificial lamb and the emerging Christian fish in the ethical idea that the last will be first.

As well, the holy city of New Jerusalem has twelve foundations which are traditionally understood as the zodiac signs in reverse order from Pisces to Aries, matching the cosmology of the Great Year of precession of the equinox beginning at the time of Christ. The miracle of the loaves and fishes encodes the movement of the equinoxes into Virgo and Pisces at the time of Christ as a symbol of the universal creative abundance available through transformation of the world into a new age, with the idea in the Lord’s Prayer that the divine will should be manifest on earth as in heaven.

The slow change of the heavens seen in precession is embedded in the Bible as a theory of time, extending to the eschatology (theory of end times) as a theory of origin and destination. The scientific framework of precession provides a basis for interpreting the predictions made in the Bible about history. This cosmology is entirely compatible with mainstream scientific knowledge, but explores cosmology at the level where it affects the grand sweep of history.

The Christian theory of history envisages the structure of time over a period of 7000 years from creation to completion, centered on the life of Christ, presenting an eschatology of fall and redemption. While obviously mythical and false in its literal claims, this framework nevertheless exhibits a close correlation to the actual cycles of terrestrial time, and contains ethical teachings that hold their validity, notably around how the idea of sin is expressed in John’s idea that men prefer darkness to light. Some time ago I explored the astrotheology in John’s prologue here.

The cycle of precession of the equinox is a primary driver of natural climate change. This is now an accepted mainstream scientific fact as a result of the study of orbital cycles and the long term correlation between the precession cycle and ice ages. I explored the correlation between climate science and mythology here.

Looking at the geological period of known history, we see that the earth was at a relative warm point over ten thousand years ago, at the dawn of our current epoch known as the Holocene. The planet cooled slightly until about 1300 AD, when the December solstice passed the perihelion, and has since begun a warming cycle that will last for the next ten thousand years. This cycle is just a result of orbital dynamics and does not take into account the rather apocalyptic anthropogenic factors of the so-called Anthropocene.

My view is that this slow natural climate cycle provides a foundation for astrotheology, the study of how the real meaning behind theology is grounded in observation of nature. The climate cycle maps to the Biblical eschatology of fall and redemption, although I am not suggesting that the Biblical authors had any direct knowledge of this scientific framework other than what they could see and infer and hope. Rather, the suggestion is that the authors used clues observable in history to intuit an encompassing vision which is surprisingly accurate in key respects.

My speculation is that the Biblical authors used precession as a framework for their eschatology. This means they saw each zodiacal age as reflecting symbolic themes associated with that sign of the zodiac. This material was well known in the Hellenistic period leading up to the composition of the New Testament, but was closely associated with secret mysteries. I recognise this claim of a cosmic framework is speculative, but there is an interesting correlation here that is worth exploring. The key idea is that the second coming of Jesus Christ was imagined by the original writers of the New Testament as the dawn of the Age of Aquarius.

Traditionally, the theme associated with Pisces is mystical compassionate belief. We clearly see this theme in the New Testament doctrine of Christ, who DM Murdock refers to in Christ in Egypt as the avatar of the Age of Pisces. With a precessional eschatology, the idea is that just as Christ marked the transition from the old age of Aries to the new age of Pisces, so too the transition to the next age, Aquarius, involves a messianic transformation of culture. But it is about succeeding where the Christ figure depicted in the Bible failed, predicting that global cultural evolution will have advanced sufficiently by the Age of Aquarius for a messianic vision to be acceptable, and not to be condemned to crucifixion. In the myth of Christ, the resurrection is a hollow victory. A real messianic victory would have made the ethics of the sermon on the mount the basis of social transformation. The world was simply not ready for such a change, but the pump could be primed for a future time when it would succeed. This is the meaning of the idea in Matthew 24 that the gospel would be preached to the whole inhabited earth before the end of the age, meaning the Age of Pisces.

The theme traditionally associated with Aquarius is innovative humanitarian knowledge. What this means is that the shift predicted in world culture is from mystical compassionate belief (Pisces) to innovative humanitarian knowledge (Aquarius). The shift from belief to knowledge is seen in the replacement of supernatural faith by scientific evidence. The shift from mysticism to innovation reflects the triumph of capitalism over traditional stagnation. The shift from compassion to humanitarianism is more complex, recognising that often compassion puts emotion before reason with perverse consequences, whereas a humanitarian attitude involves systematic analysis of the results of policy. So the fixed meaning of life at this point in time is the centrality of innovative humanitarian knowledge as the key to save our planet.

The biblical vision of the second coming in Matthew 25 says works of mercy are the central theme of salvation, and names these good works as helping the hungry, thirsty, strangers, naked, sick, and imprisoned. Salvation in this vision of the new Aquarian age is not about conformity to mystical doctrine, but how faith is revealed in practice to improve the world.

I earlier mentioned the problem of sin. How I see the sin of orthodoxy is that early Christians wanted to justify their secular interests, and did not understand the long term symbolic intent of the writers at the source of Christian ideas, and so the church distorted faith for corrupt motives. The idea that the blood of Christ shed on the cross ensures salvation for true believers is a foul corruption of the messianic ethics of Christ, subordinating truth to imperial stability. The real message of the cross is that when the world was presented with a vision of salvation, the world chose to crucify the messenger. The idea that Jesus has ransomed believers may be a simplified and distorted version of an underlying truth that Jesus represents ultimate integrity, but the truth got lost in the mass appeal of the myth.

The basic trouble was that the authors recognised that things would get worse before they got better, as part of a long term vision of fall and redemption. Imperial power represented a mass psychosis of alienation from nature. The original astrotheological idea of the gospels and many other New Testament writings was to put a vision of truth and integrity out there, mapping history to the slow evolution of the cosmos, wrapped in an accessible fiction, in the hope that eventually people would perceive it.

...So the fixed meaning of life at this point in time is the centrality of innovative humanitarian knowledge as the key to save our planet.

Now of course you've offered a possible meaning for life right now, not anything remotely close to a fixed meaning for mere existence and life by extension. So the point I was making still remains, there is no fixed reason or meaning for mere existence, and by extension no fixed meaning of Life:

Joseph Campbell wrote:Thou Art That

"We all are born as animals and live the life that animals live: We sleep, eat, reproduce, and fight. There is, however, another order of living, which the animals do not know, that of awe before the mystery of being, the mysterium tremendum et fascinans, that can be the root and branch of the spiritual sense of one's days. That is the birth - the virgin birth - in the heart of a properly human, spiritual life.

The virgin birth is a spiritual teaching about the mystery of mere existence which comes with it's allegorical cosmic presentation in myth. Isis, as we know, is a mystery nature Goddess. She is a representation of the deep mystery associated with existence itself. Neith / Isis, in the inscription in the temple at Sais, is the "mystery of existence" which gave rise to the power and glory of the sun itself. This is what the ancient myths deconstruct down to. The sedimentary layers are built up and up from a foundation of pure awe, wonder, and amazement at the mystery of existence itself. Several layers up we find the layers of Judaism and then finally Christianity.

That which was, is, and will forever be is existence, ground in deep mystery to the mind. Neith / Isis says "I am all that ever was, is, or shall ever be..." This is not about a literal historical woman eventually placed in the stars, as we see from the deconstruction of mythology. This is not about the virgin dawn, or the constellation Virgo, or the Moon, firstly. It is about all of those things secondly, because the first function of a traditional mythology is the mystical / religious function which is nothing more than addressed to standing in awe of the great mystery of existence, and by extension life itself. The second function of a traditional mythology is addressed to the cosmological function. We find the astrotheological allegories of mythology serving the purpose of the second function which is to provide an image of a cosmic order and model society below in various aways in order to mirror the movenments of the heavens above, and the seasons, etc. They wanted to follow the order, move with the groove of the natural cycles they were observing and viewed as pointing back to the glory of the divine.

Basically everything you just posted is addressed to the second function of myth with little or no atttention paid to the first function underlying it all, and which the second function is addressed to point right back at giving the cosmologies a religious purpose. The wonder of the cosmic order points one to the sheer mystery underlying the very existence of it all, and that basic recognition of the sheer mystery underlying the existence of the whole universe, and by extension our own lives, is the root of all spiritual feelings, although most people never get around to deconstructing their mythological traditions to the underlying foundational sedimentary layers as you've chosen to describe this ordeal...

Just think of it! We have come forth from this Earth of ours. And the Earth itself came of a galaxy, which, in turn, was a condensation of atoms gathered in from space. The Earth may be regarded as a precipitation of space. Is it any wonder, then, that the laws of that space are ingrained in our minds? The philosopher Alan Watts once said, "The Earth is peopling, as apple trees 'apple.' People are produced from the earth as apples from apple trees." We are the sensing organs of the Earth. We are the sensing properties of the universe. We have it all right here within us. The deities that we once thought were out there, we now know, were projected out of ourselves. They are the products of our human imagination seeking to interpret, one way or another, the mysteries of the universe, which we surely see today as a very different universe from what it was in the days when Yahweh threw down stones from heaven on the army of the Amorites and caused the sun to stand still in the sky until his chosen nation took vengeance on its enemies (Joshua 10:13).

In this modern world of ours, in which all things, all institutions, seem to be going rapidly to pieces, there is no meaning in the group, where all meaning was once found. The group today is but a matrix for the production of individuals. All meaning is found in the individual, and in each one this meaning is considered unique. And yet, let us think, in conclusion about this: when you have lived your individual life in your own adventurous way and then look back upon its course, you will find that you have lived a model human life, after all."

Saying that there is no fixed meaning for mere existence, and by extension no fixed meaning of life, that is not to take away from the idea that there is still meaning to be found in the individual where meaning was once found in the group during the advancement of human evolution. For instance Robert, you've expressed an individual perspective of a meaning for life from your own unique perspective of mixing Christian Gnostic allegories with modern science and philosophy. This has worked for you because it's given you a sense of meaning and a drive in life to constantly gather information and evolve in leaps and bounds as you go along piece working your own personal belief system. I'm often taken back by some of the connections you make and how you immediately fashion them right back to you're underlying intention of trying to present Christianity as compatible with science, because you were raised Christian and have also loved science at the same time, real science. It bothers you that the two - Christianity and real empirical science - are viewed as conflicting by society. So much so that you've created all of this to try and merge the two as one in your own mind and also try and lead others to believe the same.

This deconstruction of the errant "logos" in order to reveal a valid "mythos" leads to where in the end? At the best, as I understand currently, it can only lead as far as human knowledge and awareness will allow, which, fades away and dissolves into absolute mystery as I've pointed out. The cosmic order of the cosmological function dissolves back into the mystery reference of the first function. That's just a matter of solid comparative mythology and religion. It doesn't lead to any one fixed meaning or reason underlying mere existence, and by extension life itself. When you objected I wondered if you actually realized what you were trying to object to. And so as a truth seeker I must object to any claim falling somewhere short of being true...

If I am mistaken, then I have no problem standing corrected.

tat tvam asi wrote:Dwill, my only position right now is that I question authority. I question whether or not Jesus as described in the gospels had any historical existence to begin with as an appeal to authority would have it. You may feel that you have enough information to move from an agnostic position of uncertainty to a position of certainty on the historical existence of Jesus, but I have not been able to get to that point in life by taking the issue from point A to point B. I could possibly get to that point provided that the evidence presented for making such a conclusion of certainty wins me over. And if so, it wouldn't really be a back track despite the way I may have presented it previously. It would be an advancement in terms of a progression of awareness when all is said and done. But I must ask, what evidence do you find so convincing to move from uncertainty to certainty?

Thanks, tat, I'd like to tell more about my thoughts on this when I have the time. For now, I'd just say that it's not certainty I feel about the kernel of a historical Jesus, but the feeling that he probably was real. I lean toward this belief out of a combination of points of argument and a sense of the situation as we see it from the Gospels and Acts. It's that sense of the whole that is very hard to define and even to defend with specifics that presents the most difficulty. I would give credence to Einstein's comment to the effect that when we read the Gospels we have the sense that we're reading about a living, breathing human being--despite the fact that we take many of the events related as colored by legend or as outright fabrications.

I'm also aware that my view could be subject to change if I were to do the kind of reading on the subject that you have done. My background in this area is not deep. Most of the views I have about anything I see as provisional.

I guess that puts us on two sides of the uncertainty coin - you feeling uncertain but leaning towards probable and me feeling uncertain but leaning towards not as probable. So it looks like neither of us have moved into a confident position of certainty at this point.

I'm struggling with the fact that we can't even firmly place the gospels into the first century. Yeah, NT scholarship has claimed 1st century origins for the gospels but there's no firm proof for this (as GA pointed out in his youtube series). I was having a little back and forth with a self proclaimed scholar on the Sam Harris forums recently and he took it down to claiming that we know this, this, and that about what first century people believed about Jesus from Pauls testimony about the Jerusalem church James the brother of Jesus. But the only thing we have about any beliefs or goings on from a first century Jerusalem church comes from Paul, it comes from the bible. So then I had to ask the question of whether the bible works as valid proof for the claims being made in the bible? We have no outside confirmation for Paul or any of the disciples ever being at the places ascribed to them, let alone taking the writings of Paul as authoritative proof for the goings on and beliefs of a first century Jerusalem church...

Indeed, if such historical people did exist then they were so far removed from any contemporary public notice it's as if they never even existed at all. This would all be solved if we had something from Pilate to Rome, something from the Jewish authorities during the supposed life of the gospel Jesus, or even something from Philo or any other contemporary historian writing in the early first century about that region of the world. But we don't have anything even remotely close to any of that. When I read through debates on this it's always the same sources raised by the apologist or NT scholar and they each get refuted the same way over and over again. The sources and evidence given by these people is hardly concrete and certain.


The life of Jesus is written to closely mirror the light cycle of the year. Many of these little details of the things he supposedly did and said in the gospels are written specifically to fall into accord with the sun passing through each season and zodiacal sign of the year. There's more than likely no documentation of the Temple incident by Jewish contemporary sources because when you look closely at the cycle of the sun and how it relates to the writers intention, it has more to do with an allegory about that season of the year more than any literal historical event happening in real time. These are the factors I must juggle when approaching the issue. But that's only because of my personal progression of awareness. Life has unfolded in such a way that all of these many factors and details have come to my attention. Granted, the story of Jesus chasing the money changers out of the temple reads as if it is being presented as history. And with good reason, most of the Jewish mythology reads as if it is giving a history when we know that it actually isn't a lot of the time. The temple scene isn't one of the supernatural aspects of the story and so it seems less suspect as pure mythology. But it's actually very suspect when you've been tuned in to how it corresponds with the seasonal journey of the sun.

You know, tat, I was thinking about whether it might be the best idea to leave the historical Jesus question aside and ask instead whether the writers of the NT believed they were writing about a person, and whether their express purpose was to convince their world that he was the only god. The important thing to me is how a view of the purpose of those writings intersects with the big historical picture. I don't, after all, believe that a person named Jesus made any miracles happen or was translated into an everlasting spirit upon death. I don't insist on the historicity of any particular event related in the Gospels, either, so you might well question why I would even care to defend the conventional view that Jesus was real. (I do lean toward that view, but it's not essential here.) And I don't care about that as much as trying to reconcile the Bible with how history unfolded. The best way to do that in my thinking is to emphasize the social/political ferment of the times, which we can clearly see in the NT as the beginning of the most momentous religious split in history, Christianity forming from Judaism. The world was transformed forever with that separation.

Whether or not Jesus was real, I can't escape the conclusion that it was the fervent belief in him that caused everything to happen. Christians hating Jews, for example, was a matter of their believing that Jews had killed their savior. I don't think you'd disagree, but you seem to be saying, as a mythicist, that previous to this kind of gross, literalistic interpretation, came the original intent of the biblical writings, which had mostly to do with encoding esoteric knowledge. This is where I get stuck, trying to believe that writers of the Jewish tradition, whose m.o. throughout the ages was to record Yahweh's hand in their history, had turned to a different theology and method altogether. What was going on during the first and second centuries seemed to be a high-stakes game between two factions. The impetus for all this must be, on a primary level, something other than the continuance of ancient myth.

DWill wrote:whether the writers of the NT believed they were writing about a person

This is a really good question. I have been exploring the purely astronomical argument here. A key point is that the gospels did not achieve final form until several generations after the supposed time of Christ, so there was abundant opportunity for 'Chinese Whispers' to intervene between the original idea and the texts we have. Paul was much earlier than the Gospels, but the historical Jesus does not really appear in his letters, except in primarily spiritual terms of the incarnation, and a few lines which might be interpolations or which might have been meant as allegory for a spiritual vision. The most plausible argument is that the Christ story gradually evolved from myth to dogma, and then evidence of the origin was suppressed.

This argument suggests that the original secret teaching was the myth that God became incarnate on earth as a reflection of the cosmic turning point of the ages. Here we find the seed upon which faith gradually elaborated a literal historical story.

The original idea, in my view, was that the cosmic shift of the starting point of the natural year from the sign of Aries to the sign of Pisces, observable by all who studied the stars, marked a transformation on the earth. This idea of a new age beginning around the time of Christ was a widespread general theme, as in the Roman writer Virgil who saw the Empire as the new age.

What happened in Christianity was the Nietzschian evolution of ideas - the fantasy of the father became the dogma of the son. An astronomical fable, the turning point of the Great Year signifying a change on earth, was gradually reified, turned into literal history. Only those writings that were compatible with the reification were accepted, and the rest were burnt.

Paul is decisive. Coming a generation after the time of Christ, Paul misunderstood and simplified the 'as above so below' cosmic story of the original Jesus myth, while still speaking at two levels, a secret code for the gnostic initiates and a simple message for the public. His ambiguous framework started the idea that perhaps the myth was historical. Then the fiction writers got to work, vying to present the most plausible tale that would support growth of the Christian movement among the general public.

The popular idea, serviced and reinforced by the Gospels, was that this spiritual narrative of salvation is a special revelation of god on earth, in real events in history. The complete falsity of this popular meme had already been largely suppressed and forgotten by the time the gospels were written, although traces of the cosmic vision remain sprinkled as clues throughout the texts.

Thank you, Robert and others, for having this discussion here. I appreciate all the profound and detailed commentary.

I am perplexed by the strange impressions of my book given by the critic here, however. When I wrote "Christ in Egypt," I was being hounded by countless critics to provide as much evidence as I could from credentialed authorities - that's precisely what I did. As I have done in my previous books, I quoted these individuals so that the reader could see for him or herself precisely what the authority was saying. I didn't want to provide any room for criticisms of "interpretation" and "out of context." As I say, such methodology has been my modus operandi in all my scholarly books.

Not only do I provide all these sources - as requested and which were sometimes extremely difficult to dig up, as they were in ancient or other foreign languages - but I also connect the dots, as I likewise do in my other books. I have seen no other source do as much, which is why I spent a considerable portion of my life putting this resource together. It would be a shame if the resource is being ignored because of peculiar and petty criticisms.

I am particularly fond of the last chapter, in which I provide the evidence of how Christianity was created from the Egyptian religion, among others, vis-a-vis the efforts and influences of various individuals and groups.

Again, much of the research in this book is not easily found and has never been put together in this manner, including, for example, the discussion of the brotherhood network such as the Therapeuts, around the Mediterranean at the time. I found the restoration of this aspect of the milieu at the time of Christianity's foundation to be fascinating. In any event, I suppose that should be the subject of other threads here.

I guess you're referring to Azrael's critism. That was a bit strange.

And with respect to questioning what was going on during the first century, the discussion of the therapuets, Philo, Hadrian, and others, is something Dwill may find interesting because it addresses many of the questions just raised.

D.M. Murdock wrote:Thank you, Robert and others, for having this discussion here. I appreciate all the profound and detailed commentary.

Hi Acharya, thank you again for joining the discussion, and glad you think the commentary is profound! It illustrates the challenge here, that Christ in Egypt touches on deep questions of identity and history, with ideas that many people will find confronting and implausible.

I know just a few years ago I thought the idea that Jesus Christ was not a historical individual was simply preposterous, and assumed that anyone who suggested Jesus did not exist was ignoring evidence. As I commented recently, provoking some discussion in the Introductory Remarks thread, probably 99% of Christians have never encountered anyone who seriously argues that Jesus was a myth. Jesus is such a familiar and loved person, with Christians engaging with the depth of his ideas in the parables and the amazing tales of his life every Sunday as they hear Bible lessons from the Gospels. People have grown up with Jesus as the ideal of human life, the greatest hero of history. These stories are so central to Western civilization that for someone to say they are a fraud is just dismissed out of hand.

I am perplexed by the strange impressions of my book given by the critic here, however. When I wrote "Christ in Egypt," I was being hounded by countless critics to provide as much evidence as I could from credentialed authorities - that's precisely what I did. As I have done in my previous books, I quoted these individuals so that the reader could see for him or herself precisely what the authority was saying. I didn't want to provide any room for criticisms of "interpretation" and "out of context." As I say, such methodology has been my modus operandi in all my scholarly books.

As Tat said, there has only been one criticism, a very strange comment from Azrael (TAFKA Star Burst), who expresses admiration for your earlier book The Christ Conspiracy but disappointment that Christ in Egypt is heavy by comparison. He said this was just based on flicking through the book, so it is a shallow comment that should be ignored, unless other critics come along for a real debate.

I think it is more constructive actually to have the sort of debate that Tat and I have had, for example on the question of what the findings of Christ in Egypt imply for the future of religion. Tat has argued it suggests that religion will wither away, while I suggest it presents a scientific framework to rebase religion in reality.

Apologists are not interested in evidence, because their agenda is more concerned about their belief that faith is a virtue than any concern about truth. So the attacks on you have always been primarily emotional, expressing disbelief that you have the effrontery to question their cherished myths and provide a more elegant explanation for them. This debate is a slow cooker, because it calls people to a comprehensive re-wiring of their mindset and worldview.

The challenge is to look beneath the surface twittering about how similar Jesus and Mary are to Horus and Isis. As GodAlmighty has commented, some people would not be satisfied unless Egyptologists found an old Egyptian depiction of Horus strung up on the cross, complete with nails in the stigmata and spear in the side, with Isis and Nephthys wailing at his feet. What this indicates is that apologists have so deeply assimilated the idea that the Gospels are literal history that they are simply incapable of thinking in any different way.

It all points to a paradigm shift. As TS Kuhn argued in his groundbreaking 1962 book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, adherents of an old paradigm never change, they just gradually die off, and the new generation looks at the debate more objectively. What we will see with the mythicist debate is that the evidence that Christianity evolved from previous myth is compelling, as long as it gets presented in a simple logical way, as you have done in your books. Part of the problem is the strong association with unscientific ideas, simply reflecting that speculation about religious origins runs the entire gamut from crazy to enlightened.

This thread is all about the philosophical implications of Christ in Egypt. Tat and I have debated these implications, such as whether the scientific deconstruction of myth points us toward a wholly finite understanding, rejecting the old myths about an infinite god. These are quite tough questions, which may not have a final answer, but are still highly interesting in terms of the cosmology implied by mythicism.

So I would not worry that not enough people are joining, or that there is the occasional ignorant snipe. My view, which I know people call arrogant, is that this material points to a paradigm shift as big as those of Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Darwin and Einstein. Western religion is based on fraud. This observation seems to destroy all meaning to those who believe. It is just like how Kant was attacked as the ‘all-destroyer’ for his observation that the ontological proof is illogical. We are now applying these tools of logic to the supposed proofs of Jesus – the idea that a perfect man must have existed to redeem the world. Yes he ‘existed’, but only in imagination.

Not only do I provide all these sources - as requested and which were sometimes extremely difficult to dig up, as they were in ancient or other foreign languages - but I also connect the dots, as I likewise do in my other books. I have seen no other source do as much, which is why I spent a considerable portion of my life putting this resource together. It would be a shame if the resource is being ignored because of peculiar and petty criticisms.

Taking the example of Darwin, he provided sources for the theory of evolution in fastidious detail, together with an elegant parsimonious theory, but still nearly half of all Americans think he was wrong. Scientists shake their heads in bewilderment at the idiocy of the public. The issue with religious origins is that people believe things that have an emotional resonance for them, such as the story of Jesus as a redeemer. Anything that challenges this rock of faith is like water off a duck’s back.

The problems with mythicism include its association with unscientific traditions such as astrology, the indifference of theology to evidence, the need for an interdisciplinary approach to understand why any of this matters, and the common view that progress in reason is not assisted by looking at ancient culture. As I have mentioned before, scientists also have their myths, such as the idea that the enlightenment of the eighteenth century brought a revolution in which everything associated with the old ‘monkish virtues’ (to use Hume’s term) deserved to be condemned as obsolete, obscure and offensive. You are not promoting a scholastic worldview, but that is how it looks to empirical scientists who are not interested in textual understanding. See Derrida’s comment on the indifference to book learning that I mentioned early in this thread.

I am particularly fond of the last chapter, in which I provide the evidence of how Christianity was created from the Egyptian religion, among others, vis-a-vis the efforts and influences of various individuals and groups.

Yes, I can’t wait to get up to that chapter, but I would like to go through the book systematically. Up soon is Horus v Set, a real pair of heavyweight sluggers. More ‘Carnage in Karnak’ than ‘Thrilla in Manila’. (Sorry )

Again, much of the research in this book is not easily found and has never been put together in this manner, including, for example, the discussion of the brotherhood network such as the Therapeuts, around the Mediterranean at the time. I found the restoration of this aspect of the milieu at the time of Christianity's foundation to be fascinating. In any event, I suppose that should be the subject of other threads here.

That is a really important observation, the originality and rigor of this research. When you start with an organising hypothesis, in this case that Christianity is a big lie, it provides impetus to bring together material that earlier scholars have never connected. If the hypothesis is true, then all the evidence falls into place, produced by simple causal consistency.

If it is any solace, at the moment I am also reading a really brilliant book by Kunzig and Broecker, called Fixing Climate. They point out that many scientists have encountered a bewildering brickwall of indifference and ignorance, so their new findings have often only been recognised many years after they first presented them. Examples include continental drift, orbital cycles affecting climate, and the theory of ice ages. Now these are accepted by mainstream science. The roots of Christianity in Egyptian myth will similarly become mainstream, but the tectonic plates of culture are perhaps as inertial as the plates of our planet. In both cases, pressure builds up without apparent movement, followed by a massive sudden change.

Robert Tulip wrote: The popular idea, serviced and reinforced by the Gospels, was that this spiritual narrative of salvation is a special revelation of god on earth, in real events in history. The complete falsity of this popular meme had already been largely suppressed and forgotten by the time the gospels were written, although traces of the cosmic vision remain sprinkled as clues throughout the texts.

So your answer to the question I posed is yes, the gospel writers believed they were writing about a man-god named Jesus. That in the process of propagandizing for the new religion they trailed along some original elements of cosmic myth-making, I can find plausible. I can't find plausible that they did anything more than that, that there are correspondences between the events related, such as throwing the moneylenders out of the temple, and the movements of the heavenly bodies. That would take more deliberation than seems reasonable to assume.

Speaking as a reader, the strong impression I get of all the Gospels is their function as propaganda. That's also the main reason I find them disappointing. But as far as the falsity of the popular meme, aren't all religions false to a degree, and don't we expect elements from existing religions to be recycled in new ways? I can't see much that's scandalous in what happened to the root elements of the Christ myth.