Christ in Egypt: The Mythicist Position

[Robert Tulip]

Good decision to shift my post, Mr. Moderator.

Just in case it confuses anyone, your post has not been moved, but is linked to in my post if anyone is keen to follow the discussion.

The problem I'm having with your analogy between science and mythicism is that physical science, as you say, uses epistemologic standards that have been broadly agreed on and proven to be trustworthy. It also devotes itself to that which can be subjected to experiment and quantification. A scientific spirit in areas that do not lend themselves to experiment and quantification is of course also important, and is responsible for the higher criticism of the Bible, among other approaches that have yielded better understanding of history and society. But as we venture into culture and history our ability to exercise control over variables nearly disappears; and our own placement within a particular subjective framework--from which we cannot escape--crucially affects what we think we see. Regarding generalizations and broad conclusions, we need to be extremely cautious and tentative. Historians merely try to furnish small bits of a basis from which we might draw conclusions. Their awareness of the limitations to knowing all the factors that contributed to the unfolding of history makes them conservative, just as scientists are extreme conservatives. So historian equals scientist, and there is no difference between your "scientific" approach and a "historical" approach. If mythicists employ the careful tools of historians, then no problem. I'm not saying that they never do this, but I am saying that being committed to a specific outlook will ramp up the probability of subjective interference, which is always there in some degree anyway.

Yes, this is all legitimate comment, exploring the extent to which mythicism offers an evidence-based critique of conventional biblical history. The argument is specifically focused on the existence of Jesus Christ. Murdock observes abundant examples from history of how historians appear to have been intimidated by the church to avoid stating the implications of their findings. As I mentioned in my comments on the Conclusion to Christ in Egypt, "The situation is that “censors have removed material threatening to their faith – a common occurrence that reduced much of the ancient world to rubble, the wrecked pieces of which we are only now putting back together.” (p504) This reconstruction effort is the primary goal of Christ in Egypt. “Scholarly timidity" has led many to hint at ideas they dare not voice, often in tantalizing concluding questions like breadcrumb trails. Entire genres of literature, such as Hermeticism, are still treated with disdain and denounced. “Because of cherished beliefs and biases, entire premises have been overlooked or rejected, such as looking for the influence of Hermetic literature on Christianity.” (p506) One interesting scholar, Morenz, cautioned against seeking out Egyptian parallels, advice that reflects a well-founded fear of persecution. As DM Murdock has commented here at Booktalk, much good material in other languages remains unavailable in English translation."

So, we have a situation where mainstream opinion is very unscientific, and mythicism is actually seeking to bring scientific method to bear, against strong opposition and ignorance. Christianity holds the existence of Jesus as an article of faith, an unquestioned axiom, and generally reacts with scorn to any effort to explore the scientific basis of their faith.

shouldn't most of our attention be going to the text, to the narrative in front of us? I can't help thinking that you're placing an attribute or a vestige at the top level, instead of noting what the narrative means and what it says about the culture that produced it. Take the domestic dramas of the descendants of Abraham as an example. If there are astral parallels that someone might deduce, it seems perverse to say that these are what the narrative is about, or that the stars were the inspiration for these tales that are very specific to the culture of that time and place. Life experiences are what mark people and shape the narratives they make about themselves.

The Old Testament is not the best example of astral parallels, given the vigorous hostility in Judaism towards worship of nature. I would not want to say that Abraham or Noah are primarily stellar in origin, although their existence as unique men is dubious to put it mildly. Mythicism is not restricted to asserting that all myths are stellar in origin, it is about saying that the conventional historical claims generally cover over a mythic origin.

The New Testament combined the transcendental monotheism of Israel with traditions that are clearly astral, from Egypt and Greco-Roman myth. We still call the planets by the names of the Roman Gods, so it seems far more certain to assert that the Roman pantheon developed from observation of the sky. In my reading, the clearest astral parallels in the Old Testament, encoding the myths around precession, include the flaming cherubim barring the way to paradise as a symbol for the constellation of Gemini, and the wheels within wheels described by Ezekiel as a recognition that the wheel of the year sits within a bigger wheel of time, with precession of the equinox slowly moving the stars backward against the seasons.

I think the vision begins with the life, not with impulses from the skies. There is no way I can see that this difference can be resolved. I would appeal to the stronger, more visceral effects of the struggle for existence vs. the intellectual/spiritual experience you see as primary.

You might need to explain in more detail what you mean by saying the vision begins with the life. It reads like an assertion that the stories of Adam and Eve, Noah, Abraham and Sarah, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, etc, must have started from distinct individuals with those names. In The Bible Unearthed, Israel Finkelstein provides a strong case that this traditional view is wrong. Stories gradually solidify around what the audience responds to. Each of the pivotal mythic events in early Biblical history, creation, flood, founding, exodus, conquest, required a hero. Since the events are very dubious, so are the heroes.

Okay, invective was strong, but you have a grievance. Nothing wrong with that except that it can skew your outlook. Yes, of course the things you point out about Christian suppression went on, but isn't this where perspective and proportion come in? Religion could be the most political endeavor we've come up with, so skullduggery is the order of the day. It was no different throughout the history of Egypt, no doubt. Christian monotheism brought with it a greater concentration of power, a greater ability to control the game.

"Perspective and proportion" have traditionally been used to avoid and suppress all criticism of faith. Looking for some sort of balanced forgiveness of Christian suppression of apostates, I would prefer to go back to the advice of Jesus, that forgiveness is conditional on repentance. If no one explains to the Christians why what their institution did was wrong, they have no chance to repent, and they stand under condemnation. Opening up this information is about giving Christians a chance to see their error and change their beliefs. People have little chance to see the truth if it is systematically hidden from them.

Now, as to the causes of the "Dark Ages," that's an opportunity for some detailed historical exploration.

Sadly a bit tangential to this thread. How I see the Christian contribution is that the faith of Christendom led to some serious errors which helped to expose Rome to collapse, by promoting an otherworldly mysticism over the Roman tradition of pragmatic reason. The conventional idea that 'Jesus saves' when we are washed in the blood of the lamb contributed to the fall of the ancient world.

[DWill]

This would be in reply to tat also. If the mythicist position is to be specifically understood as the arguments in favor of a purely fictitious Jesus, I don't have opposition to that--even though I'm still of a mind that the Gospel writers as well as Paul believed they were dealing with someone who had lived. Evidence for the contrary view (yours) is there, however. What I was questioning was a position that assumes astrotheology must be seen as pervasive enough to dominate almost every aspect of the texts we're talking about, and that it is "really" what is going on behind a screen of allegorizing. Is that also part of the MP, or have I misunderstood?

[Interbane]

I'm still of a mind that the Gospel writers as well as Paul believed they were dealing with someone who had lived.

I see no reason to believe any part of the stories. Even if I thought Paul believed the things he'd written, that would still not be enough reason to think Jesus was real. I'd ask how you have a looking glass into Paul's head. Men can tell lies and still make them seem undeniably real. Men also believe things with their entire souls without realizing what they believe is false. I'm not claiming the stories are false... just that there's no support. The only trail of evidence I see leading away from the scene is mythicism. This includes supplementing real events with mythological elements.

[Robert Tulip]

This would be in reply to tat also. If the mythicist position is to be specifically understood as the arguments in favor of a purely fictitious Jesus, I don't have opposition to that--even though I'm still of a mind that the Gospel writers as well as Paul believed they were dealing with someone who had lived. Evidence for the contrary view (yours) is there, however. What I was questioning was a position that assumes astrotheology must be seen as pervasive enough to dominate almost every aspect of the texts we're talking about, and that it is "really" what is going on behind a screen of allegorizing. Is that also part of the MP, or have I misunderstood?

D.M. Murdock is the principal contemporary advocate of astrotheology, presented as a scientific explanation of how the myths about Christ arose. Other advocates of mythicism, such as Earl Doherty, put less emphasis on astral origins for the myths, at least in my understanding of the debate. Others such as Tat may wish to comment.

My own take on this material is based on research over many years into precession as a framework for ancient cosmology. So my views support Murdock’s emphasis on astrotheology.

I don’t think that even Murdock says that astrotheology dominates every part of the text. For example it seems that ethical propositions such as the Sermon on the Mount are entirely grounded in social analysis, although even this has an eschatological content that is given deeper meaning by the physical and temporal framework of precession.

One way to show how astrotheology encompasses and explains Biblical cosmology is to look at the Biblical references to the tree of life. This is a rather enigmatic symbol, appearing only three times in the Bible, in the first and last books, Genesis and Revelation, and in Proverbs. The tree of life symbolizes human reconciliation with divine reality.

Revelation says the tree of life has twelve kinds of fruit, one for each month, and grows on both sides of the river of life. Now, it is a very unusual tree that grows on both sides of a river! However, when we look at this mysterious reference against astrotheology it becomes crystal clear. The zodiac has twelve ‘fruits’ one for each month, and is bisected by the Milky Way, long considered a celestial river. It is simple. The tree of life is the zodiac, the path of the sun observable in the night sky.

What this implies for cosmology is that the fall from grace at the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, when humanity was mythically banished from contact with the tree of life, represents the rise of an alienated spirituality, out of contact with the natural context of the zodiac. Similarly, in Revelation the tree of life symbolizes the new heaven and new earth, when humanity will once again be reconciled to God, a.k.a. the natural reality of the cosmos. So, the whole fall and redemption motif of Christianity can therefore be understood in natural astrotheological terms, with redemption a restoration of a natural cosmic basis for faith.

The idea that the tree of life is a symbol for the zodiac is obvious when you consider possible readings of Revelation. However, the prevalence of supernatural theories of Christian meaning has led to this simple natural explanation being ignored.

Returning to DWill's question of whether astrotheology is pervasive, we see from this example of the tree of life, an image of perfection that is seen before and after Christian history, that the theory of time in the Bible ultimately sits within a large scale and objective natural observation of the cosmos. Water in a bucket is shaped by the bucket. The ethics of Christianity are shaped by astrotheology.

[jRup]

This is my first entry into a serious discussion, so I hope you'll take that into consideration.

I have been interested in star myths for decades, perhaps my whole life (I was read mythology along with other
fairy tales as a child born before the Age of Television) ... Despite the Hebrew Bible's condemnation of
'astrology' I find that many of its stories are quite simply that, e.g., wrestling all night with god is exactly
what the one-eyed Ophiuchus brothers have been doing for as long as humanity has been entertaining
itself with 'bedtime stories' - the 'heal-clutcher' legends come from the same constellation and so does the
commandment "When the serpent (Draco) strikes his heel, he shall strike his head" (which has been thought
to enjoin us to kill snakes or crush our brothers' skulls, depending upon the political needs of the day).

The story of Lyra/Vega/Wega has been creative beyond words or perhaps more visual than descriptive. It has
been a descending vulture (Egypt, probably since collapse of Old Kingdom into a drought so severe even the
Nile dried up), Gilgamesh reaching for the lotus of immortality (Corona, which Serpens got to first), Rama the
Archer, Indra (who used the circle of Corona as a poisonous 'wreath' to slay Vritra, the goddess of monsoon),
and among others, David. As a mere boy he is said to have slain a giant (Ophiuchus who fell on his face) and
the 'sling' he used are the same stars as formed the bow of Rama and the wings of Horus the Hawk/vulture).
David, in his second 'cycle' becomes a musician and poet, using his triumph to inspire love and 'plenty' thereby
making him eligible, the following year, to take up the Corona as his 'crown' (and incidentally, becoming our most
famous, although hardly the first, soap-opera character). All of these predate the Greeks.

The Christian Bible used variants of this tale to create such characters as the wandering son who always returns
home after so many 'depleting' misadventures. His initial departure is from the god/goddess Virgo, who reigns on
a bed of stars during the time of milk and honey (Cancer having been Beehive before the Greeks changed it).

The legend of Sinbad grew out of 12th Dynasty Egypt's story of the Shipwrecked Sailor in the Land of Punt.
The same'monarch'/Virgo/Queen of Heaven sent a sailor (unnamed, but she is shown pointing at Vega) on a voyage
to attain gold, silver and other precious goods. With him are 300 of Egypt's finest sailors. But two months out on
his trip, the ship is wrecked in a storm and all of the crew, save the Sailor, are drowned. The constellation Scorpio's
poised tail exactly replicates the stern of such a vessel as it sinks amidst the blaze of stars in Ophiuchus, Sagittarius
and Scorpius - incidentally, there are 300 days left in the standard 'year' - the Sailor survives by washing ashore
on an island which mysteriously appears and he wanders around for 4 months finding no 'inhabitants'.
Then a booming voice comes from a very long serpent with a long beard, who proclaims himself 'king of
Punt'. About this time Leo and Hydra (the water snake) become visible (Leo, without much imagination,
can be configured into the cowled head of a cobra). The sailor is hugely impressed and offers KOP riches
and renown if he will provide the sailor with a ship to take him back to his queen. But the KOP replies that it will
not be necessary because in four months time a ship will appear to take him home and the Land of Punt
will disappear once again beneath the sea. In the meantime, the sailor was invited to visit among the
'people' of Punt and enjoy their fruits. Surprised, the Sailor now found Punt extremely 'well populated'
and fruitful. And just as the king promised, after four months a ship appeared and the sailor embarked with all
manner of gifts for his queen. Also, just as promised, Punt slid beneath the waves and disappeared. Two
months later the Sailor returned to Egypt and was welcomed with great festivity. He was honored and
elevated to a station 'among the peers', presumably stars.

Why? He lost his ship and crew, failed to return with gold, silver and precious gems and benu bird feathers.
What makes him worthy of peerage? The wonders he brought back from Punt were those which could be
found nearby, such as animal skins, wheat, beer, etc., -

This story is a simple calendar peculiar to Egypt and the flood cycle of the Nile, which had only three seasons.
The first, in late summer, came as the Nile flood receded and left its replenishing riches in the farmlands.
After two months, the land reappeared and planting season began. Four months later, as the Milky Way and
Beehive became prominent in the night sky, so did the crops and the King of Punt. They were 'fruitful' and
plentiful. Once harvested, the Nile flood returned, rising for two months before the cycle began all over again.

Even the smallest child could understand the calendar in the sky using this story and a few 'sky creatures'
to guide him.

I have written about this before and am currently working on a series of novels called Starlight On Stone.
Books WEST and EAST have been published as ebooks and the third, SOUTH, about Egypt, is in progress.
The series will culminate at the Battle of Kadesh, prototype of Armageddon, which I believe to have been
a lavish hoax committed by the scribes of two vain but crumbling empires.

Very interesting subject with many implications for today's madness.

[Robert Tulip]

Hi jRup, thank you very much for joining the discussion here. You are absolutely right that understanding stellar mythology is a very interesting subject with many implications for today's madness. The broad lack of interest in this material is one indicator of how mad our world is.

I was intrigued by your information about Vega, which was the pole star at the start of the Holocene, the time the Egyptians call Zep Tepi. The material you provide about Sinbad bears interesting comparison to the story of Jason and the Argonauts, understood as a children's tale with a mystery back story about the precession of the north celestial pole. Since Zep Tepi the pole has precessed from Vega the Lyre through Draco the Dragon into its current position in the Little Bear. You may be interested to see my comments on the constellation Argo.

[DWill]

I'm still of a mind that the Gospel writers as well as Paul believed they were dealing with someone who had lived.

I see no reason to believe any part of the stories. Even if I thought Paul believed the things he'd written, that would still not be enough reason to think Jesus was real. I'd ask how you have a looking glass into Paul's head. Men can tell lies and still make them seem undeniably real. Men also believe things with their entire souls without realizing what they believe is false. I'm not claiming the stories are false... just that there's no support. The only trail of evidence I see leading away from the scene is mythicism. This includes supplementing real events with mythological elements.

That the people who wrote those books believed they were writing about a Jew who was delivered to death by his own people, is to me the important thing to emphasize. Whether he really did live is not so essential. But we're talking about books, and those books don't make full sense when their narratives are explained as a front for the ageless events of the cosmos. They are much, much more political in their primary intent than they could be if they were but another iteration of symbolic death enacted in the skies. Without the fervent belief that a god-man named Jesus was betrayed by his people, how would we have arrived at the Holocaust 2,000 years later? This, the hatred of Christ-killers, wasn't a belief that took centuries to develop. It is right there in every Gospel and in the earlier Acts as well, though it does reach its peak in the latest one, John. I haven't heard a more parsimonious explanation for the enmity of Jews and Christians.

Jewish messianism is another thread that makes likely that a person like Jesus would be produced and believed in. The messiah was supposed to be a real man, as the biblical Jesus was. Jesus gets in the door in this way, but his unexpected death throws a wrench in the works, as he then couldn't fulfill the secular mission of the messiah. The mystery is exactly how and why his followers made this brutal defeat into a victory for a new theology.

[DWill]

I think the vision begins with the life, not with impulses from the skies. There is no way I can see that this difference can be resolved. I would appeal to the stronger, more visceral effects of the struggle for existence vs. the intellectual/spiritual experience you see as primary.

You might need to explain in more detail what you mean by saying the vision begins with the life. It reads like an assertion that the stories of Adam and Eve, Noah, Abraham and Sarah, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, etc, must have started from distinct individuals with those names. In The Bible Unearthed, Israel Finkelstein provides a strong case that this traditional view is wrong. Stories gradually solidify around what the audience responds to. Each of the pivotal mythic events in early Biblical history, creation, flood, founding, exodus, conquest, required a hero. Since the events are very dubious, so are the heroes.

Let's call the people of the Bible characters. What characterizes them are some universal traits such as greed, sibling jealousy, gullibility, and fear of the unknown. Some other qualities more particular to the time and culture also characterize them, such as foreskins, patrimony, and the size of flocks. These traits all draw on life. It isn't necessary at all for the characters to have biographical integrity. They can be iconic yet recognizably Hebrew. So there is another alternative besides "real person" and astral projection.

[Interbane]

It is right there in every Gospel and in the earlier Acts as well, though it does reach its peak in the latest one, John. I haven't heard a more parsimonious explanation for the enmity of Jews and Christians.

The point I see here is that even 2,000 years later after all evidence is gone, words in a book are enough to cause such enmity. Unless you think Hitler had some esoteric evidence he was hiding from the world? All that is needed is the belief that the Jews killed a man named Jesus. There is no reason to also think the belief must rest upon something real. Belief in fiction is no different, phenomenally, than belief in fact.

But we're talking about books, and those books don't make full sense when their narratives are explained as a front for the ageless events of the cosmos. They are much, much more political in their primary intent than they could be if they were but another iteration of symbolic death enacted in the skies.

I agree with this. The stars do not supply the motive. I don't see them as including astrotheological themes for any other reason than that the source pareidolia is in a place that can't be forgotten or ignored. The stories crafted around them would be the ones that the biblical authors may have heard in passing while they were young, told with that creepy tone of voice that sticks in your head. Further studies would find the parallels of these stories in the stars. If anything were divine in the mind of an ancient, it had to do with the stars.

[tat tvam asi]

The life of Jesus is specifically modeled around the annual path of the sun through the constellations.



When you see that the whole thing opens up. And from the perspective of having seen the story open up like that it becomes obvious that either this myth was fictional from the beginning and set to a 12 labors of Hercules type setting, or it was fashioned to the life a person who really did live and die.

As GodAlmighty noted, it could have been a spin off from the life of Yeshua Ben Sedata / Pantera which took off during the second century and then went from Paul's writings to the gospels, all appearing into the literary record during the second century. Gerald Massey has a lecture on this as well called The Historical Jesus and Mythical Christ. That person could have been speaking about the new age of Pisces and changes that he thought should take place (loaves and fishes and others) which didn't sit well with the Jewish authorities. And was therefore killed for blasphemy. There's no hard evidence to substantiate the gospel Jesus story coming from followers of Yeshua Ben Sebata / Pantera of the Talmud, but it's simply the closest historical picture that can be constructed. There's zero for such a person being crucified by Pontius Pilate as described in the gospels and the Jews swear up and down that Pantera is not the gospel Jesus. So it's basically a complete dead end for trying to establish an historical gospel Jesus. Those who are aware of that path understand how difficult it is to try and establish hard evidence proving the existence of the Jesus. And after some time GodAlmighty took his video series down for reconsideration because several parts of the series no longer sit well with him at present. I'd be interested in seeing the new revision when it comes out. But I had to hand it to him, he presented the very best evemerist theory I've ever seen. But it still fell short in the end and I understand why it doesn't work out.

There are good reasons for holding off on evemerism in my view. It's almost like I was born into the world ass backwards. I should have started out mythicist (skeptical of the whole thing), then if substantial evidence was presented moved on to evemerist (skeptical only of the supernaturalism and exaggeration), and later yet moved to a believer position (not skeptical at all, of any of it) if substantial evidence was presented every step of the way to prove not only that Jesus did exist without doubt, but also that all of the miracles and supernaturalism were not just allegory, not just myth and metaphor, but indeed absolutely true historical events completely proven beyond question. Could I have ever gathered enough information to move from mythicism (all myth) to evemerism (part myth), let alone move to believerism (not myth) based on credible evidence each step of the way?