A FEW FACTS ABOUT: DEAD SEA SCROLLS (ALL TRANSLATED NOW), JESUS THE SOLAR DEMI-GOD,
CHRISTOS/MESSIAH VERSUS CHRESTOS/LOGOS, JESUS THE ANTI-MESSIAH FOR JEWS, JEWS NEVER IN EGYPT &
VARIOUS ZODIAC WHEELS AND CHARTS

From Guardians of Darkness

DEAD SEA SCROLLS, NO JESUS, SOLAR DEITIES, CHRISTOS/CHRESTOS

By now, people interested in the subject have read the Dead Sea Scrolls - and they are all published now. All, not just some. All - and this has shown first one FACT and then more FACTS that dismantle all prior assumptions! As some evangelicals might be fond of saying "Well! Now that the Scrolls are translated, that's that, everything else is blown away." Yeah! That's that, alright!

There is no Jesus. There are no Apostles. They are nowhere to be found in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Surely, if such events happened, they'd have been at least - mentioned? In passing? Oh, the silence about this is deafening! Did someone expect there to be a huge revolution where Christianity, as it is right now, got thoroughly overhauled? Heh. What's next? Some idiots will come up with the predictable charge that "the Dead Sea Scrolls are a fraud...." Expect it! (the JEWS done it...:)

How's this for a rewrite: Chrestos was a Roman with Roman parents. That sounds good. Actually, there really was a Roman guy named Chrestos around 48 AD; Claudius knew of him! And he really was a Chrestian. Too bad nobody knows more about him.

Of course, some of us knew there'd be no historical Jesus, just as there was no historical Horus or Mithra or Hercules or - name almost 100 other identical sons of God, born of Virgins, with the same or similar stories.

Also, there needs to be a clear distinction made between the words ChrIstos and ChrEstos. Christos means "anointed one" or Messiah. Chrestos means something very different - it means Logos (see later for much detail).

There were Chrestianoi even during the time of Claudius (40s AD). Claudius threw a man named Chrestos out of Rome for fighting with Jewish Christians! The man was probably named after the concept of Chrestos, since "the Chrestos" was not viewed as a man or person. Jewish Christians of the day were various sects of Messianic Jews, not Pharisees. It's obvious that the Jews took over the Chrestos cult, since there is almost no trace of it left in the New Testament except one - where John refers to Jesus as the Logos. John is also very anti Jewish.

It is also clear that the Gentile Christians either drove off or killed the Jewish Messianic originals - IF they were even there at all - IF they even wrote anything. They'd have been Notzri (Nazarene) or Ebionite Jews. They would not have written in Greek. They'd have either used Aramaic or formal Hebrew, just as in the Dead Sea Scrolls.

There are problems with all of these ideas, assumptions and "supposed to be" situations. Jesus is supposed to have been a Jew, and his disciples are said to have been Jewish fishermen. His language, and the language of his followers would have been either Aramaic, the popular language of Palestine in that age, or they'd be written in Hebrew, even if they didn't speak Hebrew. But the Gospels are written in Greek, every one of them. Nor were they translated from some other language into Greek. Every leading Christian scholar since Erasmus, four hundred years ago, has maintained that they were originally written in Greek. The language itself, linguistically analyzed, is not that of a person whose first language is Hebrew or Aramaic and then translated into Greek. No, it's Greek. These were all written in Greek by a Greek speaker. Not by anyone that spoke Aramaic or Hebrew!

Historians (real ones) of the day, that traveled around writing down details of what they observed wrote of a "Christ cult", a new cult centered around some person "Christos" or "Chrestos", (though in AD 40s in Rome the Chrestos cult was also there, which was NOT the same as the Christos cult at all and not centered around a person. These were confused and literature of the day, historical literature shows this confusion clearly), but that's it. Nobody wrote a word about the person Jesus or any of the Apostles. Nobody doubts that the cult exists - it's still around today. It's clearly just one more cult of a "born of a virgin, solar demi-god." That is all it is, perhaps merged with the 500BC Hellenic Greek Logos/Chrestos concept, or the Inner Light. Or that's all it SHOULD have been.

The problem with it is that it's a Jewish version of this solar story merged with messianic ideas prevalent among sects of Jews - and that is a major problem. Why? Because Jews, unique among the pagan peoples and nations around them, were religiously extremely intolerant, absolutist and tyrannical. They were also an extremely xenophobic bunch of people. One simple reading of the Old Testament can prove this beyond a doubt. Even if all things in there are allegorical or mythological or lessons to learn from, just read what these lessons are! E.g., nowhere are the "worshipers of Osiris" told by Osiris or priests to go and exterminate a nation of other people and take their lands. Nowhere are non-believers in Osiris called heretics, or evil, or put to death. Pagan nations were extremely tolerant when it came to religion. Only Akhnaton is an exception, and Egyptians so hated that Pharaoh that they tried to erase his name from their history. (Some scholars think that Akhnaton's priest was Moses. The idea of Akhnaton as the pioneer of monotheistic religion that later became Judaism has been considered by some scholars. One of the first to mention this possibility was Sigmund Freud, in his book Moses and Monotheism, Freud argued that Moses had been an Atenist priest forced to leave Egypt with his followers after Akhnaton's death.)

None of the nations around the ancient Jews were like that. Even the conquering peoples were nothing like this, Persian Empire, Alexander the Great, the Romans, etc. None were obsessed with religion like that, none were religiously intolerant, none were absolutist and none were xenophobic. They conquered land and collected taxes - but they did not interfere with local customs or religion at all. Only the monotheistic Jews were like this. In fact, even during AD times, with 3 monotheistic religions existing in the West and Middle East, the conquering Shamanistic Mongols had no conception of religious intolerance or tyranny or absolutism! During the AD times, not only the Jews were monotheistic, but now we ended up with two other monsters of tyranny and intolerance: Christianity and Islam. We might end up with WWIII due to this religious nightmare. We're pretty close now, 2009.

This new "virgin-born solar demi-god cult story," Jesus' story, is merged with the Judaic tribal tradition. The Jews themselves have kept aloof from this and remained Jewish, for the most part. Funny as it would be, still, today, 2009, Christian Missionaries are trying to convert Jews into their Jesus cult! STILL!

The merging of these two cults in the past has produced a monster that has harmed mankind and held mankind back, and ironic as it is, harmed the Jews since the time the Gentiles converted. If this never happened, 2000 years of Christian backwardness would not have happened, and Islam probably would not have happened either. Nobody would have pestered and persecuted Jews for so long, either. Though they are not innocent. If not for the Jew Philo trying to unite the Hellenic Greek Logos/Chrestos idea with the Jewish tribal traditions, if not for other Messianic Jews, then Christianity, if it even ever came to be a religion at all considering there were about 60 other identical cults around, might have been just one more cult of a Virgin-born solar Demi-God, celebratory in nature and extremely tolerant - just like the Horus cult! In fact, exactly like the Horus cult. It's the SAME CULT if you remove the intolerant, tyrannical and absolutist Jewish tribal traditions from this picture. Unfortunately, that's not going to be removed anytime soon - to the detriment of the world - potentially causing World War III in the process.

So we have three separate things all intertwined:

1. The ubiquitous virgin-born solar demi-god cults - all such cults were tolerant and celebratory. These no longer exist. They were ruthlessly wiped out.

2. The Chrestos/Logos idea, similar to Kundalini - or more well known as Chi. This esoteric knowledge and cults (Tantrik, Shivaite, Buddhist, etc.) surrounding this never harmed anyone and were quite tolerant - they still exist today, primarily in the Far East and India. These are peaceful - and the only potential threat to them would be the Muslims, or the few Christian missionaries butting into these peoples' lives. The Muslims are the greatest threat for them.

3. Judaic tribal traditions: xenophobic, absolutist, intolerant especially regarding religion.

The only mysterious characters in the Dead Sea Scrolls are listed below. They are characters not named by name, but only by vague titles. The people that wrote these scrolls were not scribes. Many people wrote them, which in itself is not scribe-like. They didn't live at Qumran, aerial photos prove this. They were not Essenes. They called themselves the Yada (unity) and the only cult that fits all the criteria for what these people, now that the scrolls are all translated, were the Sicarii - they used Sica (short knives) to assassinate traitors that were loyal to the Romans (Kittim).

The Yada were a sect in favor of the Sadducees (conservatives) against the Pharisees (liberals). What nobody seems to pay big attention to is that this cult was obsessed with a SOLAR calendar. (See pages 27 - 35, "A New Translation, The Dead Sea Scrolls Revised Edition" 2005, by Michael Wise, Martin Abegg, Jr., and Edward Cook.) All of these people lived during the Hasmonean period, in BC times. None of them are anywhere near the right date to be confused with Jesus.

The Wicked Priest
"...In view of the anti-Pharisaic cast of the scrolls, Hyrcanus II is the best suggestion for the Wicked Priest. It doesn't mean the man WAS wicked. It means only that the Yada cult saw him as Wicked.

The Man of the Lie
"As for the Man of the Lie, it appears from a close reading of the sources that he was probably the head of the Pharisaic party. Rabbinic sources preserve the name of a prominent Pharisaic leader of the first century BC, a man who was noted both for his violence and for his success in winning approval for his views: Shimeon ben Shetah. He may have been a brother or more distant kinsman of Salome Alexandra. Shimeon was able and apparently willing to sentence people to death, and one story tells of his hanging eighty women in Ashkelon for witchcraft. From the Pharisaic perspective, the era was remembered as that of 'Shimeon ben Shetah and Queen Salome,' and it is said that during this golden age 'wheat grew to the size of kidneys, barley to that of olive berries, lentils to that of gold dinarii'."

Teacher of Righteousness
"...The Teacher of Righteousness began his ministry late in the second or early in the first century BC, perhaps during the reign of Alexander Jannaeus. After the Pharisees came to power under Salome, they persecuted the Teacher's group, which was sympathetic to the Sadducean establishment, eventually hounding the Teacher into exile. When Hyrcanus II became king, he renewed his efforts to destroy the Teacher and his group." Exactly who this person was? Not known, but definitely not Jesus or any of the apostles WHO ARE NOT MENTIONED AT ALL IN THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS!

The Hasmonean period might involve "obscure characters/people" for some pompous and idiotic Christian theologians, but they forget that these people were the Kings and Queens of the Jews at that time. They were as well known as is George Washington to Americans. I.e., NOT obscure characters.

A mention should be made of Eisenman's book James the Brother of Jesus. He wrote the book before all the scrolls were translated and did so based on mere theory, assumptions of what people expected there to be in the Dead Sea Scrolls. That was a mistake and Eisenman refuted his own work as wrong, saying he personally didn't even believe it. (A New Translation, The Dead Sea Scrolls revised edition" 2005, by Michael Wise, Martin Abegg, Jr., and Edward Cook.). One might put forth the fact that Eisenman should not have written anything before the scrolls were fully translated. He just caused trouble and confusion. (Basically, he theorized that James, Jesus' brother, was part of the Ebionite Christian group and that this groups was at odds with Paul, who preached to the Gentiles. Of course we know that it is only the Gentiles that ever survived - so the Jewish Christians were wiped out. We have no idea what the Jewish Christians had to say. We only know what Paul had to say - which is clearly un-Jewish.) But what about the others that wrote in the New Testament, the Apostles? See below.

The Jesus of Theology
325 AD marks a pivotal event in the history of Christianity. The Roman emperor Constantine I summoned more than 250 bishops to Nicea in Turkey to resolve a rancorous dispute which was threatening to disrupt the newly won peace of his empire. While all the bishops agreed that Jesus was the Son of God, they disagreed on whether he had existed with God before the beginning of time (as the Alexandrians believed); or had been created later and was subordinate to God (a position popularized by Arius of Antioch).

Constantine, still an unbaptized pagan at the time, decided in favor of the pre-existence of Jesus. In addition he demanded that the bishops add to the creed (drawn up by Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea) that Christ was "of one substance" (homoousion in Greek) with the Father. It was theologically necessary that God himself had become mortal in order to make the hope that mortals may obtain eternal life more believable. That was per the pagan solar demi-god stories. Under pressure of banishment, the council agreed with only two dissenting votes. The true nature of the Son of God was now an ineffable mystery beyond human understanding because the myths that were around before, identical to this new cult, had been wiped out, the knowledge eradicated. Otherwise, everyone would have recognized the solar story.

What Constantine and the Council actually did was turn the character of Jesus into another very familiar solar demi-god, or they saw that the Jesus story was identical. But this was a new and malignant version of this solar cult. So many of these gods were around in centuries previous to this that they were like popular stories today (Batman, Spiderman, the Flash, Superman, etc. - all very similar to each other, but a bit different. Batman is different since he's fully human, not genetically mutated. Superman is also different since he comes from another planet. But the whole rest of the superheros are very much the same, with very similar stories.)

Here is the basic story of all of them: the Virgin Birth, persecution of newborns, the Virgin's newborn escaping slaughter and the 3 Kings that visit, miracles and wonders, crucified and died, 3 days later he returns resurrected. These stories are ubiquitous in that time and they ALL refer to astronomy, main focus on the Sun. All these saviors, including Jesus, can be referred to as solar gods because their births, lives and deaths can be correlated to the transit cycles of the sun.

The Mithra cult was like this, a solar demi-god cult - and that cult was huge in Rome at the time Christians first started in Rome. Mithraism, in the form of Sol Invictus Cult, competed with Christianity in Rome from about 2 to 4 AD. Mithra's cult led to Manichaeism, which also competed with Christianity for "religion of the world" title. Christians won. Everyone knew about it back then. This was as well known as "Republicans versus Democrats" is known today in the USA.

In regard to the four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, no one knows who wrote them. All four Gospels are anonymous, and the names of the purported authors were applied to these works in the second century AD. In regard to the composition of the Gospels, "Justin Martyr, the most eminent of the early Fathers, wrote around the middle of the second century and makes more than three hundred quotations from the books of the Old Testament, and nearly one hundred from the Apocryphal books; but none from the Four Gospels. -- In the latter half of the second century, between the time of Justin and Papias, and the time of Theophilus and Irenaeus, the Four Gospels were undoubtedly written or compiled." (The Gospels: Second Century Writings, Remsberg, John E.).

The early church fathers were very well aware of the resemblance between Christ and earlier dying and resurrected gods, and of the problem of history. Justin Martyr, Tertullian, and Irenaeus explained away the resemblance of the Christ mythos to earlier pagan gods by asserting that Satan had previously created these "imitators" in order to confuse and deceive when Christ incarnated, and Pope Leo X said, "What profit has not that fable of Christ brought us!" How could these be imitators when they PRECEDED Jesus? It's the other way around. Note they refer here to Christ (which means Messiah - different from Chrestos).

Also interesting is the fact that there are no images of the crucified Christ dated to the first three centuries, and Constantine envisioned Christ as a beautiful young man rather like Apollo. As mentioned above, the Dead Sea scrolls, unearthed in 1947, hold no record of this savior who is held to have so tremendously impacted the entire world. The Dead Sea Scrolls show that the Yada group that wrote the scrolls were obsessed with a solar calendar. Jews of all types used a lunar calendar.

What is the solar man-god mythology? You don't know what it is because Christians did everything in their power to not only destroy these other religions that had the same stories, but they destroyed the KNOWLEDGE, which was a mixture of astronomy with astrological signs (zodiac). Here is the myth, and the reason why all these narratives are so similar, with godmen who are born to virgins, who were born in caves or mangers, who were visited by 3 wise men, whose lives were threatened by evil rulers, who had to flee for their life, who was at 12 noon in the house or temple of the "Most High" thereby beginning "his Father's work" at "age" 12, who begins their ministry at the age of 30, who was tempted by a Devil, who has 12 followers or disciples, who later sends out the 72 disciples, who walked on water, who raised the dead, who does miracles, who was crowned with thorns, who was crucified and resurrected after 3 days, who descended into hell for these 3 days, who rose again after 3 days, who ascended into Heaven, is that these stories were based on the movements of the sun through the heavens, an astrotheological development that can be found throughout the planet because the sun and the 12 zodiac signs can be observed around the globe. This same story is repeated down through history over and over again in almost every sun worshipping nation under "the Sun" in, more or less, the temperate zone.

The astronomy is off today (as are the Zodiac signs) - and they may have even been a bit off 2000 years ago. But the story is very, very ancient. That these stories are the same story, is a fact, no matter what errors one might see in the stars. In the ancient Egyptian calendar, for example, the beginning of the year was related to the heliacal rising of Spica. This harked back to a more ancient age, the Age of Gemini, when the equinoxes occurred in Gemini, a period corresponding to around 6500 BC. (Dougherty, Sarah Belle, A Key to Ancient Greece).

Even earlier, the Age of Leo: 10,300-8,140 BC. Modern scientific geological techniques, looking at erosion patterns, dated the great Sphinx of Egypt back to a period of great rains in that country, and it is known when there were great rains. The oldest part of the Sphinx was dated to be 12,000, Age of Virgo, to possibly 18,000 years old, Age of Sagittarius. (In 1990 a team led by Dr. Robert Schoch of Boston University analyzed the Sphinx and the findings were clear, the Sphinx bears rain weathering. This means it was before the end of the last ice age. The data were presented at the Geological Congress of America in 1990 where 1400 Geologists analyzed the data as flawless. It was presented as a documentary, "The Mystery of the Sphinx". Since then, other pre-historic structures as complex have been dug out, such as at Jericho, 8000 BC, by the same Dr. Robert Schoch and geological teams.) It would seem that the history of civilization needs to be rewritten by real scientists, not myth makers. In order to do that, they have to be able to dig. Politically correct archaeologists and historians aren't going to like that, just as there were problems with the Sphinx facts for these historians. (Oh my gosh, history has to be RE written. Yes).

Although little is known of this period, it could have presided over a "Golden Age" (Leo rules gold) where the Sun was worshipped as the primordial god of light and life, since people would clearly regard, and empirically experience, the sun as exactly like that! Note that all cultures refer to a prior Golden Age. How old is this story? Let's point out that astrology is ancient, more ancient than most people realize. There is evidence that our ancestors knew of astrology as far back as 27,000 years ago, (the LAST Age of Aries!) before the destruction of 90% of the world's flora and fauna at the end of the last ice age 12,000 years ago. That is how far back the story might have originated! This is evident from the depiction of Taurus, the Pleiades and the lunar cycles, discovered in the caves of Lascaux in the Dordogne region of France.

The Gospel allegory is merely a retelling, through the life of a supposed Jew and Messianic hopeful, of a mythological/astronomical formula several thousands of years old about the Sun and its path and movements through the heavens. What's more, this co-opting of the Jewish Scriptures by Gentiles (even if some messianic Jewish sects started this), in order to make a Jewish version of this myth, has caused the Jews themselves untold harm, unimaginable harm. It's hard to imagine why the Gentiles didn't just hack off the Jewish tribal part and just make a new religion, since the whole Jewish tribal tradition is so alien to Gentiles in the first place.

Well, it wasn't hacked off. Now, due to all that's transpired, it is the reason today that the Zionist movement exists, merged with the Jewish Messianic tradition (about having to have a Nation of their own) - it might trigger World War III in an age where many countries have nuclear weapons, if they literally follow the Torah against their enemies!. 2000 years of persecution tends to make people fanatic - and potentially genocidal (which is OK by the Torah, even commanded by their God).

Perhaps you didn't notice that according to Mark, Jesus was a man. According to Matthew and Luke, Jesus was a demigod with a story similar or identical to much older solar demigods stories. According to John, Jesus was either God or the Logos. The bringing in of the concept of Logos should be the first hint that something ELSE is being mixed into this that perhaps doesn't belong in the mix.

The first historical mention of the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, was made by the St. Irenaeus, around 190 AD. The only earlier mention of any of the Gospels was made by Theopholis of Antioch, who mentioned the Gospel of John in 180 AD

Now I mentioned John bringing up the Logos. This ties into the Chrestianoi. It ties into the Chrestos (not Christos). Heraclitus of Ephesus used the word Logos around 500 BC to describe his concept of the regularity with which the universe seemed to operate. The universe was a divine machine and Heraclitus credited the Logos (literally, it means "the reason") as the ultimate rationale that secretly operated the universe and the heavens above.

The Logos was responsible for keeping the ratio of all things in proportion, much like the balance of Eastern yin (dark) and yang (light). The cult of Hermes made use of this to describe their Hermetic corpus written about in the Poimandres:

The [Poimandres] writer fell into a deep and heavy trance, in which there appeared to him a being who introduced himself as Poimandres (Shepherd of Men), "the Mind of Authority." Poimandres then shows the mystic a vision, in which he sees a great light and a great darkness, respectively [darkness] reality and [light] matter. From the light comes "a Holy Logos," ...the "shining Son of God," who proceeds from Mind itself. [I.e., it proceeds from out of that Darkness.] This is very Eastern and it is what an initiate "sees" when doing Kundalini Yoga! The Light shining in Boundless Darkness or "apeiron". By the beginning of the Common Era, the Logos was a deeply felt and intricate part of Greek thought despite its mystical machinations. It was well established that the Logos was a divinely felt presence of God, but no philosopher could find a more practical implementation for how the Logos actually mattered to humans and their lives. It remained part of esoteric mystery cults. The man who would provide this meaning and give personified substance to the Logos at the beginning of the Common Era was Philo, who obviously misunderstood the Logos.

Philo of Alexandria (30 BC - 45 AD) was a Jew of the dispersion (Roman conquest dispersed them), and observed the mitzvot, yet like a lot of cosmopolitan Alexandrians of the time, Philo worshipped the Greek gods, too. Philo introduced the concept of the Logos as an allegorical force of Yahweh. Philo believed that the two worlds (Jewish and Hellenic Greek) were not irreconcilable and the Logos was his attempt at melding Yahwism with the Greek vision of God. One might wonder if Philo was delusional. He knew the Jewish tribal traditions. How he thought these could be compatible with the ever-tolerant polytheistic Hellenic Greeks is unfathomable.

That notion, we can see after almost 2,000 years of hindsight, was a royal disaster. These two things should NEVER have been mixed up or combined. Doing so has caused untold misery.

The Greeks, armed with the powerful philosophy of Plato, and later Aristotle, believed that God was inherently "unknowable." He/She/It was beyond human understanding and all attempts to describe God would end in failure. However, a glimpse of God could be attained through rational thinking and deep meditation. If one could achieve the Hermetic level of mystical awareness as chronicled in the Poimandres, one will be able to experience God.

The words attributed to Josephus to "prove Jesus existed" are a well-known fraud. However, in the legitimate writings of Josephus, we can find a few Jesuses. One was Jesus, the son of Sapphias, the founder of a band of mariners; another was Jesus, the captain of the robbers whose followers fled when they heard of his arrest; another Jesus was a madman who went around Jerusalem, crying, "Woe, woe, woe unto Jerusalem!" for seven years. He was killed at the siege of Jerusale. These are obviously not the models for the Biblical Jesus.

There are, however, five people that absolutely did exist that may have been the Jewish choices for their Messianic ideas, since these Notzri (Nazarenes) were around before the story of Jesus gives us bogus dates: the convicted criminals Yeishu ben Pandeira and ben Stada, and the crucified false Messiahs Yehuda, Theudas and Benjamin. Of note, Yeishu ben Pendeira was also known as Yeishu ho Notzri (Nazarene). Details, lots of details about these people and a lot of other things can be found in the article "Refuting Missionaries" by Hayyim ben Yehoshua (pseudonym? no matter, what the man has to say is on the mark, his facts are correct.) "Refuting Missionaries" is very hostile to Christianity and Jewish or Gentile Christian Missionaries and I think it wouldn't serve any purpose in refuting these missionaries. It would just open a can of worms about who else didn't exist as stated in this or that group's Scripture - like Moses! Better ways for Jews to state their stance against Missionaries can be read in anything written by Rabbi Yisroel C. Blumenthal; he's clear, to the point and doesn't bog you down in endless reams of names and dates. I think he's better even than Aryeh Kaplan (The Real Messiah). In all probability, Yeishua ho Notzri was the fellow that the Notzri sect followed. All works that mention him are based on information taken from the Tosefta and the Baraitas - writings made at the same time as the Mishna but not contained in it. This might all be obscure to anyone today, but back then, these things were not obscure at all. Because the historical information concerning Yeishu is so damaging to Christianity, most Christian authors (and even some Jewish ones) have tried to discredit this information and have invented many ingenious arguments to explain it away. Many of their arguments are based on misunderstandings and misquotations of the Baraitas. In order to get an accurate picture of Yeishu one should ignore Christian authors and examine the Baraitas directly.

First of all, Notzri is from the Hebrew word neitzer, which means a shoot or sprout, a Messianic symbol. There were already people called Notzrim (plural) at the time of Rabbi Yehoshua ben Perachyah (c. 100 B.C.), so that would be the time period. The information is that Rabbi Yehoshua ben Perachyah once repelled Yeishu with both hands. People believed that Yeishu was a sorcerer and they considered him to be a person who had led the Jews astray. As a result of charges brought against him Yeishu was stoned and his body hung up on the eve of Passover. Before this he was paraded around for forty days with a herald going in front of him announcing that he would be stoned and calling for people to come forward to plead for him. Nothing was brought forward in his favor however. Yeishu had five disciples: Mattai, Naqai, Neitzer, Buni, and Todah. The connection between Yeishu and Jesus is corroborated by the the fact that Mattai and Todah, the names of two of the real Yeishu's disciples, are the original Hebrew forms of Matthew and Thaddaeus, the names of two of Jesus's disciples in the later Christian myth.

In the Tosefta and the Baraitas, Yeishu's father is named Pandeira or Panteiri. These are Hebrew-Aramaic forms of a Greek name. Keeping this short, this is where the rumor that a Roman named Pantheros was the real father. Some Christians later did a switch with letters and said that his mother was parthenos (perpetually a virgin)! Pantheros - Parthenos. Everyone knows the Gentile Christian sect's version of the story. It's in the New Testament and it's linked to the Torah and some of the Scriptures of the Jews, the ones written down in the Old Testament - written in non-Hebrew. Non-Jews do not know the many more Oral Traditions of the Torah (from Moses) that exist. Christians might reject these traditions, but the entire story of Exodus, and the subsequent revelation by God to the entire Nation at Sinai, that Christians believe is all based on oral testimony that existed long before anyone wrote it down! That whole story, at least the part about Jews in Egypt, turns out to be a myth, as proven by Israeli archeologists! "Jews were never in Egypt!" (see later). But what about the Chrestianoi? Or Chrestians. Justin Martyr, in his first Apology, calls his co-religionists "Chréstians". There is a distinction between the words Christ and Chrest. Prior to Christianity becoming the main religion of Rome, the title was Chrest from the Greek word "chre", which means kind, gracious, etc, or the Egyptian "karast" meaning "fleshbed" (the word made flesh). In Bockh's "Christian Inscriptions" numbering 1,287, there is not a single instance of an earlier date than the third century wherein the name is not written Chrest or Chreist. This was changed to Christ, which meant "anointed" as in Messiah - a Jewish idea. Here are some more examples of Chrest (the one above was an example of Logos. Chrestos means Logos):

470 BC Aeschylus (Cho. 901) pythochresta the "oracles delivered by a Pythian God"

460 BC Pindar (pp. 4-10) The words [chresen oikistera] mean "the oracle proclaimed him the colonizer." In this case the genius of the Greek language permits that the man so proclaimed should be called Chrestos. Hence this term was applied to every Disciple recognized by a Master, as also to every good man.

420 BC Euripides (Ion. 1320) (Eurip. Ion, 1218) Pythochrestos is the nominative singular of an adjective derived from chrao .

420 BC Herodotus - The word [chreon] is explained by Herodotus (7,11,7,) as that which an oracle declares, and See also Vide Herodotus, 7, 215; 5, 108;

420 BC Sophocles, Phil. 437.

350 BC Plato (in Phaed. 264 B) has [chrestos ei hoti hegei] -- "you are an excellent fellow to think . . ."

333 BC Demosthenes saying [o Chreste] (330, 27), means by it simply "you nice fellow"; Demosthenes, De Corona, 313, declares that the candidates for initiation into the Greek mysteries were anointed with oil.

Chresterion is not only "the seat of an oracle" but also "an offering to, or for, the oracle.' Chrestes is one who expounds or explains oracles, "a prophet, a soothsayer;" and chresterios is one who belongs to, or is in the service of, an oracle, a god, or a "Master".

010 AD Philo Judaeus speaks of theochrestos "God-declared," or one who is declared by god, and of logia theochresta "sayings delivered by God" -- which proves that he wrote at a time when nobody was being called a Christian, using the letter "i". The Notzri (Nazarenes) were known to the Jews as a sect, but they had nothing to do with the Chrestians. The notable difference between the two words [chrao]"consulting or obtaining response from a god or oracle" (chreo being the Ionic earlier form of it), and chrio "to rub, to anoint" (from which the name Christos), caused the massive confusion and mix up. It's no trivial matter. Set and sit, bet and bit, let and lit, pet and pit, wet and wit - these are all different words. Chrest and Christ. Two different words.

There were conflicts between the Notzri Jewish sect that probably used Christ (Messiah) and the Greek Chrestianoi who spoke of Chrestos - another word for Logos. The term "logos" might be new to readers today, or seem esoteric, but this stuff was widely known back then, as was the solar demi-god story.

The headquarters of the Logos group was in Antioch in Asia Minor, not in Jerusalem. They were known as Chrestian. The Jewish sect were called Notzri or Nazarenes, Galileans and Brethen. Calling them "Christ-ians" is like calling them "Messiah-ians" or messianic. The Jews in these sects were priestly minded and wanted to found a religion on a personal Christ (Messiah). They'd have been angry to learn of an earlier and rival sect called Chrestians who were not referring to their Christ. The "Chrestos Logia", in time, all mixed and merged and confused, became the "Christian Doctrine".

Three hundred years later, the Western world ended up with a doctrine whose theology derived in small part from the Jews and in large part as a Jewish version of a solar demi-god story; and whose psychology derived from the Jews, especially their "purity" and "sin" ideas; but whose name and purpose came from the Greeks. The tragedy of it is that the two religions got mixed together - and even more tragedy is that the Torah and other Jewish scriptures were tacked onto the new combination religion. Mixed together, they seem to have created a monster that destroyed knowledge and took the joy out of life - not to mention, the new cult persecuted the hell out of Jews and they still try to preach to Jews to this day.

Now, about the Chrestian group - they'd have been as familiar with the solar man-god stories as any other cosmopolitan people. They certainly did use it. But - so did the Jews that had their Christ/Messiah, or at least that's how the New Testament has come down, whoever wrote it in Greek (not Aramaic or Hebrew) used the solar man-god story. In one of the earliest Christian documents (The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles) there is no mention of Jesus being crucified yet the sign of a cross in the sky is used to represent Jesus's coming. Attis and Mithra died on a cross. The number of Wise Men are not numbered in the Jesus story, but "We Three Kings of Orient Are" is a Christian song referring to the Wise Men. Three Wise Men of Persia came to visit the baby savior-god Mithra, they brought him gifts of gold, myrrh and frankincense. Those are the same gifts given to the baby Jesus.

To indicate the universality of the Sun-god myth it is only necessary to enumerate some thirty of the chief figures known as Sun-gods amongst the nations about the Eastern Mediterranean, before the advent of Jesus. There were in Egypt, Osiris, Horus, Serapis, Hermes or Taht (Thoth), Khunsu, Atum (Aten, Adon, the Adonis or Phrygia), Iusa, Iu-sa, Iu-em-hetep; in Syria, Atis, Sabazius, Zagreus, Kybele (femine); in Assyria Tammuz; in Babylonia, Marduk and Sargon; in Persia, Mithra, Ahura-Mazda and the Zoroasters; in Greece, Orpheus, Bacchus (Dionysus), Achilles, Hercules, Theseus, Perseus, Jason, Prometheus; in India, Vyasa, Krishna, Buddha. It doesn't matter that the Buddha was in fact a real person, an Indian Prince - the myths around him are what count as similar to solar. (See also Helios, Christos, the Sun: Ferrying the Archetypal Zodiac Disciples by Ralph Monday)

Unless an earlier version of this "passion play" can be found, as far as anyone knows, the world's earliest report of a dramatic production comes from the banks of the Nile. It is in the form of a stone tablet preserved in a German museum and contains the sketchy description of one, I-kher-nefert (or Ikhernofret), a representative of the Egyptian king, of the parts he played in a performance of the world's first recorded Passion Play somewhere around the year 2000 BC This Egyptian Passion Play bears a notable resemblance to the Passion Plays of the twentieth century concerning Christ. The play closes with the resurrection of Osiris as a god and the foreshadowing to all the faithful of their own final resurrection. In refuting missionaries, including "Jewish Christians" that have become missionaries - we think that Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan (Book The Real Messiah) is way too mild. He behaves as if Jesus and his crew were real people. Rabbi Yisroel C. Blumenthal is way better, more to the point, not so wishy-washy. Look up anything Rabbi Yisroel C. Blumenthal wrote. It's all good and easy to read. What one might easily conclude from what the Jewish experts of today have to say, is that this character Jesus is the ANTI-Messiah!

JESUS IS THE ANTI MESSIAH:

Now - we can pretty much prove, by using the real things that happened after "Jesus" or whoever started the cult lived, that "Jesus" was not only NOT the Messiah, but he was THE ANTI MESSIAH. We can prove this by what the Torah lists for "What Messiah must do, in order to be the Messiah" and by what actually happened after the Jesus cult caused so much trouble. And no, there is nothing about "second comings" in the Torah, which is eternal and which is Jewish Law as given to them by God (in their religion). This was given to the Jews as a People (not just a religion) - given to them and not to anyone else. No amount of "proof texts", which are a bunch of stupid Christian mistranslations, distortions and lies that are used to this day, garbage that was refuted time and time again even hundreds of years ago when Jews were forced to have to pay attention to these Christian pests shoving their religion down the Jews' throats - just ONE MORE TIME.

The problem is that Christians don't just believe that Jesus is their man-god Messiah. They claim and insist that Jesus is the Messiah to the Jews, foretold by Jewish Prophets! They ignore the fact that Jesus doesn't fit ONE qualification - NOT EVEN ONE! The Christians try to prove that by misquoting, mistranslating and/or using "forced translations" of the JEWISH Bible! The sheer arrogance of that is hard to fathom! And so convinced are they of their infallibility, of the "rightness" of this klippothic behavior that you may as well try to explain what they are doing to a stone, because they can NOT see it. CAN NOT! Yet, according to the Torah, anyone that tries to sway the Jews away from the One God who is ONE, should be put to death. Consider that!

First understand that (in the Jewish religion) Jews (Israel) en masse, the entire nation of them at Sinai, were told something by God personally at Sinai. All the Nation witnessed it. It was not done in secret. They were told very specific things by God, and Moses wrote a lot of this down; though not all of it (they also have a national tradition that is oral, things Moses taught them orally, which can be seen even by inference if one reads their Torah). That Christians even have the Torah - and believe that the Prophets were real people that said these things is only by nature of the JEWISH ORAL TRADITION. Christians have to trust that - so when they say they believe "only what's written" and reject the Mosaic oral teachings that have come down, that's imbecilic bullshit. The Torah was written down AFTER God talked to the Nation - talked, as in ORAL. They have to rely on "what Jews say God said" whether Jews wrote it down or not. The oral traditions came first. Then some of it got written down, the main stuff. God chose them as a PEOPLE (not just a religion) and that is also ETERNAL. God never had a change of mind, as Christian klippoth would love to believe.

Here goes - proof that Jesus was the Anti Messiah (thanks to Pinchas Stolper - odd that he didn't conclude that Jesus was the anti messiah! He just concludes that Jesus is NOT the messiah). Uh, more like the ANTI Messiah because Jesus, and every single thing that ever came from, and as result of, that mythical person has been a plague on God's Chosen Jewish People.

1. The Jewish Messiah is to be a human being born naturally to husband and wife. He is descended from his FATHER'S SIDE from King David, not from his mother's side (a nice hedge Christians like to use, using Mary's lineage). The Jewish Messiah is not to be a god, nor a man born of supernatural or virgin birth, as the Christians claim. He comes one time; he has not come YET because the conditions are all wrong. Nowhere does the Torah or the rest of the Jewish Bible say that the Messiah would be a god or God-like. The very idea that God would take on human form is repulsive to Jews because it contradicts the concept of God as being above and beyond the limitations of the human body and situation. Jews believe that God alone is to be worshiped, not a being who is His creation, be he angel, saint, or even the Messiah himself. God is ONE, a UNITY like no other unity. God is not One made up of three parts or many parts. God is ONE. Nowhere does the Bible predict that the Messiah will be born to a virgin. The word Christians mistranslate into virgin is alma. Alma means a young woman. Besulah means a virgin. In fact, virgins never give birth anywhere in the Bible. This idea is to be found only in pagan mythology. To the Jewish mind, the very idea that God would plant a seed in a woman is unnecessary and unnatural. The only "Sons of God" in the Torah are the Jews themselves, the created and chosen people of God as the physical representation of God on earth, in flesh and blood.

2. The Jewish Messiah is expected to return all the Jews to their land. Note that Jews are not all already in Israel before the Messiah comes. The Messiah returns them all to Israel.

FACT: Jesus was born while the Jews still lived in their land, before they had gone into exile. He could not restore them to their land because they were still living in it!

3. The true Messiah is to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem.

FACT: Jesus lived while the Temple was still standing and intact. No need to rebuild anything.

4. The Jewish Bible says that the Messiah will redeem Israel.

ANTI MESSIAH: Jesus would have been considered highly unnatural because he never married. Rabbis HAD to be married. Jesus was not a Rabbi. As for 2, 3, and 4 above, in the case of Jesus, the very opposite took place. Not long after his death, the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed in 70AD, Jerusalem was laid to waste, and the Jews went into exile to begin a 1900 year long night of persecution, largely at the hands of the followers of this self-styled "Messiah"!

5. The Prophets in the Bible foretold (Isaiah 45 and Zafania 3) that when the Messiah comes, all the nations of the world will unite to acknowledge and worship the one true God. "The knowledge of G-d will fill the earth. The world will be filled with the knowledge of G-d as the waters cover the seas" (Isaiah 11,9). (when they said "the world" they probably meant the world they knew, more or less the world around the Middle-East where they were.

ANTI MESSIAH: Nothing of this nature took place following the death of Jesus. On the contrary, Islam developed and became the religion of the Arabs and many other nations. There are many more Muslims today than there are Christians. Christianity broke up into many conflicting sects which were constantly at war with each other, and a large part of the world continued to worship idols. Even today the world is far from the worship of one God.

6. When the Jewish true Messiah comes, his influence will extend over all peoples who will worship God at the Temple in Jerusalem. The Prophet says, "For My House will become the House of Prayer for all the Nations."

FACT: This has obviously not yet taken place, and, therefore, the Messiah has not yet come.

7. During the time of the Messiah a new spirit will rule the world, and man will cease committing sins and crimes; this will especially apply to the Jews. The Torah (in Deuteronomy 30,6) says that "G-d will circumcise your heart and the heart of your children to love G-d." The Prophets taught: "And your people are all righteous, they will inherit the earth forever." (Isaiah 60, 21); "In that day I will seek the sins of Israel and there will be none." Jeremiah 50,20); "I will give you a new heart and a new spirit-and you will obey my laws and commandments and do them." (Ezekiel 36,21).

ANTI MESSIAH: Soon after the time of Jesus, ignorance of God and even ignorance of science and philosophy filled the earth, as the "Dark Ages" overtook the world - primarily due to the Christian ignorance and hatred/fear of the flesh and fear of wisdom.

8. The true Messiah is to reign as King of the Jews.

ANTI MESSIAH: Jesus' career as described in the New Testament lasted all of three years, at the end of which he was crucified by the Romans as a common criminal. He never functioned as anything but a wandering preacher and "faith healer;" certainly, he held no official position or exercised any rule of any kind.

9. During the time of the Messiah, prophecy will return to the Jewish people and the presence of God will dwell amongst us. (Ezekiel 37,27); "And after that I will pour my spirit on all of mankind and your sons and daughters will prophesy."

FACT: These predictions, too, are yet to be fulfilled.

10. One of the Messiah's major tasks is to bring peace to the entire world. In the time of the Messiah, there are to be no more wars, and the manufacture of arms will cease. The Prophet Isaiah (2,4) says, "And they shall beat their swords into plow shares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more."

ANTI MESSIAH: Christian nations are very war-like, and wars have been going on almost non-stop since the time of Jesus up to and including today. Islamic nations are now getting very warlike, as they also were in the past (convert or die).

11. The New Testament itself claims that the prophecies concerning the Messiah were to be realized in Jesus' own generation. Mark (13,30) clearly says, "Truthfully I say unto you that this generation shall not pass till all these things be done." In Matthew 4, Jesus is quoted as saying that "The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand."

ANTI MESSIAH: 2,000 years have passed and still nothing good has been accomplished. Anything the Western World did to advance and progress, in terms of science, medicine, real knowledge, was done by people that had to battle the Christian authorities and their ignorance. Even today, the Pope might accept that the Big Bang and evolution are real (done by or guided by God), but they are against stem cell research, which would alleviate serious ailments that plague humans.

12. Nowhere does the Jewish Bible say that the Messiah would come once, be killed, and return again in a "second coming." The idea of a second coming is a pure rationalization of Jesus' failure to function in any way as a messiah, or to fulfill any of the prophecies of the Torah or the Prophets.

FACT: The idea of a "second coming" is purely a Christian invention, with no foundation in the Jewish Bible.

13. The Bible says that the Messiah would be descended in a direct line on his father's side from King David. However, if God was Jesus' "father," is it not somewhat ridiculous to claim that he is descended from King David on his father's side?

14. Why do some Missionaries insist on distorting the meaning of the words of the prophets in order to substantiate their claims? (An example: the Hebrew term in Isaiah "almah" which means a "young woman" is mistranslated as "virgin." The word "besulah" means "virgin".) Honest Christian scholars now acknowledge that this is "a pious fraud" and now (see the new Protestant "Revised Standard Version" of the Bible) translate the word correctly. This is but one of many mistranslations or forced translations.

ANTI MESSIAH: A pious fraud? PIOUS? No, it's a FRAUD, a LIE. Why do they do it? Because for almost 2000 years Christians have clung to Jews and have tried to make Jews into NOT-Jews. A being that is not itself is a Klippoth. Jesus himself says things that are extremely vindictive against anyone that doesn't accept him or his words. He was especially vindictive to the Jews and even the Levites. If he really existed, he'd have been nothing more than a pretender to the throne. A vindictive fraud.

15. While on the cross Jesus is quoted as saying, "Forgive them Father, for they (the Jews) know not what they do."

ANTI MESSIAH: Why do some Christians insist on persecuting the Jews if Jesus himself gave instructions to forgive them? But further, if his rising from the dead was so crucial to demonstrate who he was, why did this take place in secret and not in the presence of his "thousands" of devotees? At Sinai, God spoke to the NATION, not to one man. All heard it.

16. Jesus claimed that he did not intend to change the Laws of Moses,-"Think not that I have come to abolish the Law (Torah - which was already said by God to be eternal) and the Prophets, I have come not to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Whoever then breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the Kingdom of Heaven." (Matthew 5).

ANTI MESSIAH: Later on, he himself abrogated some of the laws, while his followers eventually abolished or changed nearly all of them. However, the Torah itself clearly states in many places that its laws are eternal, never to be abolished. And even the Christians acknowledge that the Jewish Bible is the word of God. If the Torah is eternal and Jesus himself claims to have no intention of abolishing or changing it, why do the Christians celebrate the Sabbath on Sunday when God clearly calls the Saturday-Sabbath an Eternal Covenant? Why do Christians eat pig when the Torah forbids it? What reason can Christians give for not celebrating Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur which are clearly spelled out in the Torah? This same argument applies to hundreds of other Torah laws that are ignored by Christians. On the other hand, Christmas and Easter are not mentioned in either the Jewish Bible or the Christian "New Testament," these festivals are pagan in origin, adapted for Christian use. But Pesach, Sukkos and Shavuos are clearly spoken of in the Bible. On top of which, Jesus nowhere requests that the Biblical festivals no longer be observed.

17. Christians teach the philosophy of "turning the other cheek" and "loving your enemy."

ANTI MESSIAH: Do you know of any Christian nations that live by this impractical ethic, or even take it seriously?

18. The many Christian statements about God being "Love" have been borrowed from the Jewish Bible and the Jewish religion. Among many such quotations from our Torah are: "Love thy neighbor as thyself"; "Love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt"; "And you shall love the Lord thy God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might." (Ahem, there are a lot more statements by God commanding the Jews to do genocide on people and take their lands....).

ANTI MESSIAH: Christians have literally "loved" the Jews to literal death quite a few times in history. If God is "Love," how can Christians explain the silence and indifference of the Church and most Christian nations during the Jewish Ordeal of the War (WWII)? Why the stone-like silence during the Six Day War? Where was Christian love during the Spanish Inquisition and the hundreds of pogroms inspired by priests and monks? Quite frankly, Christians could never compete with Jews.

19. Judaism believes that God is eternal, above and beyond time. God cannot be born, He cannot die, He cannot suffer, He cannot "become flesh", nor can He be divided into sections. ("Father, Son, and Holy Ghost") And furthermore, the use of the pronoun "he" for God is a quirk of the Hebrew language, which has gendered words. God is neither male, nor female, nor neuter.

ANTI MESSIAH: Christianity is all pagan notions. Certainly no "God" or "Son of God" could have called out on the cross, as Jesus is supposed to have said, "My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?" If he was God's son, he would at least have said, "My Father, why have you abandoned me."

20. If Jesus was really the Messiah, why does the New Testament admit that all the Rabbis of the time, without one exception, rejected his claim? Why was there not one man of learning, nor one prominent leader who accepted him?

21. If Jesus was the Messiah, why did the overwhelming majority of his own people, the Jews living at that time, reject him? Why did his followers consist of a handful of people, almost all of whom were poorly educated? Why did his own family turn against him? Who was in a position to judge if he was or was not the Messiah? His own people, who anxiously awaited the arrival of the Messiah, or pagan peoples who had no understanding of what the concept really meant?

22. If God has "rejected" the Jews for not "accepting Jesus" as Christians claim, why have Jews managed to survive hundreds of years of captivity, war, persecution and then almost 2,000 years of Christian persecution? How do Christians explain the miracle of Jewish survival?

KLIPPOTH ALERT: The Christians often refer to themselves as the "real Jews" the "New Israel," i.e. God chose the Christians because the Jews rejected Jesus. The worst of the Klippoth insist that they themselves are the nations of Israel! Talk about wannabe! They think Jews will be "completed" if they convert to Christianity. Yah, they'll no longer BE Jews. Christians (and even some Jews) don't like to face the fact that the Jews are A PEOPLE, not just some religion. Christians have been trying to step into the garden/soil from which the Jews grew and thrived as a PEOPLE, and also trying to uproot the Jews from their own garden/soil. Metaphor. An uprooted tree is a dead tree. The concept of "being grafted on" like a parasite is just about the most blatant statement about clinging that Christians make. Pathetic. Revolting. Cringeworthy to the max. That alone would make the Jews justified in doing all the things that Professor Kevin MacDonald claims that they did (keep in mind, he makes the claim that certain Jews, who are a tiny percent of 2% of the population among Gentiles, did all this. I refer to MacDonald's book "Culture of Critique." He honestly sees the Gentiles as blameless). Fact is, the Jews would be justified, as per the Torah itself, in exterminating the Christians for trying to sway them away from their own God. The Torah commands them to do just that.

23. Nowhere does the Torah state that someone else's death can bring forgiveness to a person's sins. On the contrary, each man will be punished for his sins, and each man must repent for his sins alone. "The soul that sinneth it shall die"; "Sons will not be punished for the sins of their fathers." The idea that someone else's death 2,000 years ago can somehow bring forgiveness from God for someone else's sins is absurd and unfounded. Each person must return to God, each sinner must change his own ways and seek God's forgiveness. Likewise the absurd concept of "original sin." One does not inherit the sins of Adam or Eve. They already got punished by God for what happened.

FACT: There is no original sin. There is no human blood sacrifice (Jesus) that washes away the "sin of Adam." God did physical punishments enough against Adam et.al. The Christian emphasis on the "temple sacrifices of animals" to overcome sin is wrong. The emphasis in the Jewish Bible is on repentance, not blood sacrifice and certainly not ever human blood.

24 . Over and over in the Torah the Nation is told who to worship, who not to worship, the ins and outs of WHO God is, WHAT God is. Anyone that worships otherwise is an idolater - and the Jew would rather die than commit that sin. Worse, is when another tries to tempt the Jewish People away from their One God. Jesus claimed to BE God, get to the Father through him. That is NOT WHAT GOD SAID TO THE JEWS - and what God said to them, GOD SAID IT WAS ETERNAL. PERIOD. No "yeah buts." Period.

Now - if one wishes to adore our glorious sun, without which nothing would be alive on our earth-moon system - FINE. The entire story, every single bit of it, was known to the initiated Priests, who were also Astronomers, and who understood the sun's passage through the Zodiac. The Zodiac was simply a group of "pictures" that people could make out in the stars. These stars, in reality, have nothing to do with each other. They just look like pictures, like Big and Little Dipper. This enabled the initiated Knowers to really understand the seasons. Everyone else was given mythology, either because they were deemed too stupid to understand the reality behind the myths, or in order to remember the seasons better.

This system of Sun myth or astro-theology, was repeated over and over, many times, over thousands of years because the people living there saw the same sky, the same stars, and lived under the same sun.

For more information about this, read John Rommer "Testament." Or just do some research because Christians did everything in their power to eradicate the knowledge of the sun, seasons and Zodiac - and did everything in their power to eradicate traces of earlier beliefs of virgin-born demi-gods that were so identical.

Some Jews know that Christianity is but a pale copy of the Egyptian original. I don't know why they don't just say this outright when they refute missionaries. Check this out, then:

OSIRIS – EGYPT: He came to fulfill the law. Called "KRST," the "Anointed One." Born of the virgin Isis-Meri (Mirium or Mary) on December 25th in a cave/manger, with his birth announced by a star and attended by three wise men. Earthly father named "Seb" (translates to "Joseph.") At age 12 he was a child teacher in the Temple and at 30 he was baptized, having disappeared for 18 years. Osiris was baptized in the river Iarutana -- the river Jordan -- by "Anup the Baptizer," who was beheaded. (Anup translates to John.) He performed miracles, exorcised demons, raised El-Osirus from the dead. Walked on water and was betrayed by Typhon, crucified between two thieves on the 17th day of the month of Athyr. Buried in a tomb from which he arose on the third day (19th Athyr) and was resurrected. His suffering, death, and resurrection celebrated each year by His disciples on the Vernal Equinox -- Easter. Called "The Way, the Truth, the Light," "Messiah," "god's Annointed Son,' the "Son of Man," the "Word made Flesh," the "word of truth." Expected to reign a thousand years. Horus was said to have walked on water, just as Jesus did. In addition, Horus raised one man, El-Azarus, (Lazarus!) from the dead in front of countless witnesses.

If you want a bit of esotericism, you can squeeze it out of some of what John said about the LOGOS and fits in after the time that the Catholics declared Mary the Mother of GOD.

Tantrik:
Vajra Sattva - Vajra Dhara - Vajra-Yogini (Kundalini - or chi).

Hebrew Kabala:
Binah Eloha upper Shekina - Bahu lower Shekina - Inner Light or Spirit or Breath.

Hellenic Mystery Tradition:
Sophia - Sophia Achamoth or Demiurgos - Logos.

Catholic Esotericism:
Sophia - Mary - Christos used as the Gnostics used it to mean Logos or Chrestos.

Despite there being a Hebrew equivalent here, this is STILL NOT GOD to them.

For Jews, God is God. Period. God is ONE. Period. EVERYTHING ELSE is created - period.

Likewise, in Eastern Esoteric Tradition, everything that exists including the space/time of the Cosmos itself, is THIS (this here) - all of it is EMANATED out of THATNESS or what some call Being-ness. Beingness is ONE - unique. Everything else that exists is in a constant state of Becoming.

It is not difficult to see that there are things about the Jewish Tradition that are somewhat like the eastern esoteric tradition - since the Hebrews (Abraham and Sarah and their people) came from India before they ever did anything else. See this article on Abraham of India. Not just the many names are identical, but the stories are identical too. The rest of the Torah is quite another matter. It reads a lot more like a book with a strategy for survival, by any means necessary.

JEWS WERE NEVER IN EGYPT!

Deconstructing the walls of Jericho: Who are the Jews? By Ze'ev Herzog (Ha'aretz Magazine, Friday, October 29, 1999)

Quote article:
Following 70 years of intensive excavations in the Land of Israel, archaeologists have found out: 1. The patriarchs' acts are legendary,
2. The Israelites did not sojourn in Egypt or make an exodus,
3. They did not conquer the land.
4. Neither is there any mention of the empire of David and Solomon,
5. Nor of the source of belief in the God of Israel. These facts have been known for years, but Israel is a stubborn people and nobody wants to hear about it.

This is what archaeologists have learned from their excavations in the Land of Israel:

1. The Israelites were never in Egypt,
2. Did not wander in the desert,
3. Did not conquer the land in a military campaign and
4. Did not pass it on to the 12 tribes of Israel.

Perhaps even harder to swallow is the fact that the united monarchy of David and Solomon, which is described by the Bible as a regional power, was at most a small tribal kingdom. And it will come as an unpleasant shock to many that the God of Israel, Jehovah, had a female consort and that the early Israelite religion adopted monotheism only in the waning period of the monarchy and not at Mount Sinai. Most of those who are engaged in scientific work in the interlocking spheres of the Bible, archaeology and the history of the Jewish people - and who once went into the field looking for proof to corroborate the Bible story - now agree that the historic events relating to the stages of the Jewish people's emergence are radically different from what that story tells.

In a September 22nd, 2002 speech to visiting Christian Zionists, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon asserted, "This land is ours... God gave us the title deeds..." (For an idea of what Jews really think of Christian Zionists, pay a visit to www.jewsonfirst.com).

However, recent scholarly research, including discoveries by an archaeological team from the University of Tel Aviv, not only deconstruct the Biblical Old Testament and Torah stories upon which this claim rests, but grant previously unthinkable credence to an ancient historian's claim that the Israelites of Exodus were actually the Hyksos, and therefore of Asiatic origin.

To trace the foundations of this ongoing Biblical bonfire, we must go back to 1999. All hell broke loose in Israel in November of that year when Prof. Ze'ev Herzog of Tel Aviv University announced: "the Israelites were never in Egypt, did not wander the desert, did not conquer the land, and did not pass it on to the twelve tribes". Moreover, the Jewish God YHWH had a female consort - the goddess Asherah! (That can also be learned from The Hebrew Goddess by Raphael Patai).

His conclusion that the kingdom of David and Solomon was at best a small tribal monarchy, at worst total myth, has made enemies for him in the camps of traditional Jewish and Christian belief systems. He asserts: all evidence demonstrates that the Jews did not adopt monotheism until the 7th Century BC - a heresy according to the Biblical tradition dating it to Moses at Mount Sinai.

Tel Aviv University's archaeological investigation at Megiddo and examination of the six-sided gate there dates it to the 9th Century BC, not the 10th Century BC claimed by the 1960's investigator Yigael Yadin who attributed it to Solomon. Herzog, moreover, states that Solomon and David are "entirely absent in the archaeological record".

In addition, Herzog's colleague, Israel Finkelstein, claims the Jews were nothing more than nomadic Canaanites who bartered with the city dwellers.

The team's studies concluded that Jerusalem did not have any central status until 722 BC with the destruction of its northern rival Samaria.

However, the real bombshell is Herzog's discovery of numerous references to Yahweh having a consort in the form of Asherah. Inscriptions, written in Hebrew by official Jewish scribes in the 8th century BC, were found in numerous sites all over the land. For Yahweh, supposedly the "One God", to have had a female consort and, of all people, the goddess Asherah, is dynamite of wide ranging significance.

But what does all this do to the validity of the "Title Deeds" from God that Ariel Sharon refers to? Quite apart from the obvious conclusion that the god assumed to have given the "promised land" to his chosen people was just one god from a pantheon and not the alleged monotheistic only God of the cosmos, Herzog's findings corroborate theories that have been "out there" for some time.

The Hyksos

Like Herzog, the historian Josephus (c. 37AD - c. 100AD) denied the account of the Hebrews being held in captivity in Egypt, but he went a drastic step further about the racial origins of the Jews, whom he identified with the Hyksos. He further claimed they did not flee from Egypt but were evicted due to them being leprous.

It must be said that Josephus has been vilified over the ages as a Roman collaborator by both Jewish and Christian scholars who have argued that the dating of the exodus of the "Hebrews" from Egypt in the Bible positively rules out their identification as Hyksos.

However, Jan Assmann, a prominent Egyptologist at Heidelberg University, is quite positive in his writings that the Exodus story is an inversion of the Hyksos expulsion and furthermore that Moses was an Egyptian.

Likewise, Donald P. Redford, of Toronto University, presents striking evidence that the expulsion of the Hyksos from Egypt was inverted to construct the exodus of the Hebrew slaves story in the Torah and Old Testament. His book, which argued this theory, "Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times" was Winner of the 1993 Best Scholarly Book in Archaeology Award of the Biblical Archaeological Society.

There is irrefutable evidence that the Hyksos, a mixed Semitic-Asiatic group who infiltrated the Nile valley, seized power in Lower Egypt in the 17th Century BC. They ruled there from 1674 BC until expelled when their capital, Avaris, fell to Ahmose around 1567 BC.

The Hyksos in Egypt worshipped Set (actually Sutekh), who like ISH.KUR they identified as a storm deity. Under the "inversion theory", Jewish scholars in the 7th Century BC changed the story from "expelled" to "escaped" and as a further insult to their enemy, Ahmose, changed and miss-spelt his name to Moses, presenting him as leader of a Hebrew revolt.
But there is also a strong possibility of two separate origins to the "Moses" character being merged into one, which I will come to later.

Ahmose's success in 1567 BC led to the establishment of the 18th Dynasty in Egypt. ThotMoses III overthrew the transvestite Pharaoh Atchepsut, and under ThotMoses IV Egyptian conquests extended beyond the Sinai into Palestine, Syria, reaching Babylonia and included Canaan.

By the end of this expansion, Amenophis III (1380BC) ruled an Egyptian empire whose provinces and colonies bordered what is now known as Turkey. This empire would have included the regions in which most of the expelled Hyksos now lived.

Amenophis IV succeeded the throne in 1353BC. He established a new monotheism cult establishing "Aten" as the one supreme god and he changed his name to Akhenaton. Married to the mysterious Nefertiti, Akhenaton declared himself a god on earth, intermediary between the one-god Aten (Ra) and humanity, with his spouse as partner, effectively displacing Isis and Osiris in the Egyptian Enead.

Declaring all men to be the children of Aten, historians suspect Akhenaton planned an empire-wide religion. He banned all idolatry, the use of images to represent god, and banned the idea that there was more than one supreme god.

It is alongside Akhenaton and his father Amenophis III that we find the second Moses.

An important figure during this period was confusingly called Amenophis son of Hapu. He was First Minister (Vizier) to both kings. He is generally depicted as a scribe, crouching and holding on his knees a roll of papyrus. He more than anyone was responsible for authoring the religion in which the old gods were merged into one living god, Aten, who had been responsible for the creation of the Earth and of humanity. (He was the first monotheist).

The symbol of this god, the sun disk, represented Ra, Horus and the other gods in one. The sun disk, in symbolism, was supported between the horns of a bull. The Son of Hapu says this about creation: "I have come to you who reigns over the gods oh Amon, Lord of the Two Lands, for you are Re who appears in the sky, who illuminates the earth with a brilliantly shining eye, who came out of the Nou, who appeared above the primitive water, who created everything, who generated the great Enneade of the gods, who created his own flesh and gave birth to his own form."

The king's overseer of the land of Nubia was a certain Mermose (spelled both Mermose and Merymose on his sarcophagus in the British Museum). According to modern historians, in Amenhotep's third year as king, Mermose took his army far up the Nile, supposedly to quell a minor rebellion, but actually to secure gold mining territories which would supply his king with the greatest wealth of any ruler of Egypt.

Recent scholarship has indicated Mermose took his army to the neighborhood of the confluence of the Nile and Atbara Rivers and beyond.

But who was this Mermose? According to historian Dawn Breasted, the Greek translation of this name was Moses. Does Jewish tradition support this identification?

According to Jewish history not included in the Bible, Moses led the army of Pharaoh to the South, into the land of Kush, and reached the vicinity of the Atbara River. There he attracted the love of the princess of the fortress city of Saba, later Meroe. She gave up the city in exchange for marriage. Biblical confirmation of such a marriage is to be found in Numbers 12:1. "And Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Ethiopian woman whom he had married: for he had married an Ethiopian woman."

.."And 'ALHYM' myhla spake unto 'MSHH' hAZsm Moses, and said unto him, I am 'YHWH' hvhy: And I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of 'AL SHDY' yrs la, but by my name 'YHWH' hvhy was I NOT known to them"...
-EXODUS 6: 2-3

The archaeology of the Land of Israel is completing a process that amounts to a scientific revolution in its field. It is ready to confront the findings of biblical scholarship and of ancient history. But at the same time, we are witnessing a fascinating phenomenon in which all this is simply ignored by the Israeli public. Many of the findings mentioned here have been known for decades. The professional literature in the spheres of archaeology, Bible and the history of the Jewish people has addressed them in dozens of books and hundreds of articles. Even if not all the scholars accept the individual arguments that inform the examples I cited, the majority have adopted their main points.

Nevertheless, these revolutionary views are not penetrating the public consciousness. About a year ago, my colleague, the historian Prof. Nadav Ne'eman, published an article in the Culture and Literature section of Ha'aretz entitled "To Remove the Bible from the Jewish Bookshelf," but there was no public outcry.

Any attempt to question the reliability of the biblical descriptions is perceived as an attempt to undermine "our historic right to the land" and as shattering the myth of the nation that is renewing the ancient Kingdom of Israel. These symbolic elements constitute such a critical component of the construction of the Israeli identity that any attempt to call their veracity into question encounters hostility or silence. It is of some interest that such tendencies within the Israeli secular society go hand-in-hand with the outlook among educated Christian groups. I have found a similar hostility in reaction to lectures I have delivered abroad to groups of Christian bible lovers, though what upset them was the challenge to the foundations of their fundamentalist religious belief.

It turns out that part of Israeli society is ready to recognize the injustice that was done to the Arab inhabitants of the country and is willing to accept the principle of equal rights for women - but is not up to adopting the archaeological facts that shatter the biblical myth. The blow to the mythical foundations of the Israeli identity is apparently too threatening, and it is more convenient to turn a blind eye. -
Unquote: That is the end of the article by this Israeli archaeologist. Well! Apparently the truth does not set people free. People don't want the truth. They want myths and fairy tales. That's not indicative of intelligence. It's indicative of the primitive and stupid mind. It's really no different from a child INSISTING, stomping his feet INSISTING, that Santa Claus is real. Well, his parents are a real and so are the gifts.

Also, it has been discovered that the 10 commandments are based on writings that predate any of the authors of the Torah. Hittites: The original texts appear to be similar to "treaties imposed by Hittite kings on their vassals in the 14th-13th centuries BC." The Hittite documents and the Ten Commandments appear to be both divided into the same six sections: stating the name of the ruler, his status, benefits to the people, detailed description of their obligations, "Heaven and earth and various natural features... called to witness" the treaty, 6 and sanctions for non-compliance.

Egyptians: Part of the Egyptian religion's Book of the Dead (a.k.a. the Papyrus of Ani) bears an amazing resemblance to the Ten Commandments. They involve prohibition of adultery, murder, theft, lying, cursing God, false witness, abandonment of parents. Since the Book of the Dead predates the date attributed to the Jewish Exodus from Egypt, and since the Ten Commandments postdate the Exodus, it would appear that the Book was the source of the Decalogue rather than the opposite. Of course, the similarities between the two might have been coincidental. Some might insist that an ethical person of any era or religion might come up with the same ideas.

Wait. ETHICAL? If anything, the Torah, Moses and especially Ezra, are NOT ethical. Any kind of behavior that people today would call extremely unethical, be it robbery, rape, distortion, fraud and murder - even genocide compounded by extreme xenophobia- were OK so long as they advanced the Chosen People! That's a good survival strategy. But it's hardly ethical. From a Darwinian viewpoint, "ethics" has no meaning.

ASTROLOGICAL AGES AS THEY'VE COME DOWN IN TRADITION

The equatorial bulge of the earth causes a shifting in the earth's axis and the point at which the Sun at the vernal equinox points to the zodiacal constellations. This phenomenon is known as the "Precession" and creates the period of 25,920 years that we call the "Great Year." The "Great Year" is divided into twelve "Great Ages" each of approximately 2160 years. Because of the "orb of influence," or "orb," which describes the fact that a change in sign makes itself known several degrees before the actual change (also known as the "cusp"), there is some flexibility to the 2160 figure. Ergo the Age of Pisces is 498 - 2,658 AD.

However.... there is a problem. This solar god story, at least as people have tried to reconstruct it with the Zodiac in mind, is all based on 12 zodiac signs. Or - is it? What if the really ancient ancients didn't use only 12? We know that later on, e.g., in Babylonia, they did use 12, but what about before that?

Here is the Sumerian Zodiac, this is the earliest Zodiac. It passed through the Chaldeans (Priestly Caste) to the Egyptians in about 2000 BC.

Leo was not represented as a lion until the time of Necepsos and his court philosopher Petosiris in 700 BC. - Later on, it might be assumed that their view of the sky changed so that they did divide the night sky into 12 equal 30 degree sections - like our modern zodiac. The Babylonians (people in the same area) used the numbers 60 and 12 - and 360 all the time for measurements. The Vedic system had 12. So did the Chinese system. Egypt had a system of 12, and it is known that they got their astronomy from the Sumerians because Hathor is shown originally with water buffalo, not cows. There were no water buffalo in Egypt. They existed in Sumeria. By the time the Egyptians had this, it was pretty sophisticated and good for time-keeping.

This information below is from Dr Shepherd Simpson, an Astrological Historian. His information (which includes the full text of classics like the Iliad, and full texts of Ptolemy) is on geocities - therefore, it will soon no longer be available (sometime in 2009 geocities will be gone). This small amount of Dr. Simpson's extensive information is here for educational purposes. Don't think you know what this is going to say. YOU DO NOT!

The History of the many Zodiac Wheels Used:

The Ancient Babylonian Zodiac Wheels: The original zodiac wheels were bands of constellations seen in the night sky, which would rise and set as the night progressed. They were first observed by the priest-astrologers (astronomers) of Ancient Babylon, in the 2nd millennium BC or earlier, and were named for their Gods Enlil, Anu and Ea. Aside from their importance in astrological divination, their appearance could be used to tell the time through the night, and their heliacal risings and settings to mark the progress of the year. (See above for the Sumerian version. Sumeria and Babylon are the same physical place, though earliest Sumerians were not Semitic or Indo-Aryan peoples).

Here is the later Babylonian chart, the Mul.Apin [i.e. Mul and Apin] tablets contain the most comprehensive surviving Babylonian star and constellation catalogue from before 600 BC.

The first zodiac wheel in a form recognizable to us was also seen by the Ancient Babylonians. This was the Path of the Moon through the constellations of the night sky, a Lunar Zodiac [we would now call this a Draconic Zodiac] equivalent to fifteen or sixteen of the Greek constellations plus the Pleiades. This Ancient Babylonian definition of a zodiac wheel was therefore: A circle of constellations against which a heavenly body - usually the Moon - is seen to move. So they had more than 12.

The Ancient Greek Zodiac Wheel: The Ancient Greek, Achaean, culture did not possess a zodiac wheel of the same form as the Babylonians. It is certain that they possessed no Solar Zodiac at all, and considered the Zodiac Constellations we know today to be unimportant. However, the earliest Greek works we have, those of Homer and Hesiod, show that the Achaeans were intensely interested in the stars, in fact many of their ancient constellations are those we still use to map the heavens today. Some historical astrologers, (the author, Dr. Simpson, is one of them), are now convinced that the Achaeans did use another type of zodiac wheel, the Galactic Zodiac of constellations, in their astrology. It is notable, as mentioned above, that Zodiac is a Greek not a Babylonian word. (That is probably because a lot of words came down to the West from the Greeks and other Indo-European people, not from Hamito-Semitic people). Note that for the Achaeans to use a Galactic Zodiac wheel, they'd have to know that the earth and planets orbited around the sun, heliocentric.

The Late Babylonian Zodiac Wheel [The Equal Sign Wheel]: At some time later than 550 BC the Babylonians introduced an important change to their concept of a zodiac wheel, that it should be divided into twelve equal segments approximately based on the positions of twelve Constellations. Other planets apart from the Moon also assumed an importance not seen before in their Omen Astrology. This definition of this Classical Babylonian zodiac wheel can be written as: A band of the heavens approximately 14 degrees wide, centered on the ecliptic, against which the Moon and other planets are seen to move, as seen from the Earth. This band is divided into equal 30 degree segments, each one of which corresponds to one of twelve Babylonian constellations.

Unfortunately, this simplified view of the heavens has a large flaw: some constellations, notably Virgo, are in reality much bigger than the others. This fact causes considerable controversy in astrology, even today. However, we have to bear in mind that a simplified view of the heavens would have been far easier for the Babylonians to use in an age without telescopes or astrological computer programs.

The Babylonian Omen Texts show us that no Equal-Sign Zodiac was being used before about 550 BC. Individual horoscopes are not found from before 400 BC. The take up of the new Zodiac system into these new horoscopes can be seen in surviving Babylonian cuneiform tablets. In the third century BC the positions of the Moon were still given with respect to the stars. The first known use of a zodiac position for the Moon dates to 262 BC, in a cuneiform tablet from Uruk. By a century later, the star-related positions have dropped out of use, and lunar positions are only given relative to a Zodiac.

The rise of these important facets of modern astrology [the Equal-Sign Zodiac and the individual horoscope] is so sudden and their differences from the preceding Omen Astrology so great that modern astrological commentators [notably Robert Hand] have speculated that much of the astrology we know today must have been the work of one man, or one school of thought operating in Babylonia during this period. [Perhaps in Uruk; we have no Moon-position cuneiform texts outside Uruk before 150 BC.]

Certainly, there was no time to make the many centuries of observations of the planets and their effects on people, which perhaps we generally assume to underlie the history of astrology - an assumption which goes back to some Classical Greek astrologers.

Perhaps this shouldn't surprise us too much. The Babylonians were not modern observational scientists, but they were perfectly capable of forming rich and complex philosophical world views. However, this does mean that our astrology was never based on actual observations, but rather on ideas of how man and the universe interacted. It still remains a challenge for astrologers today to prove that the theories yield accurate predictions.

(Note that the actual use of star-watching was more astronomical for some people, which is how the "virgin-born solar man-god story" got started. The earliest account of that story is from Egypt, 3000 BC. That predates Babylonian Astrology as given by Dr. Simpson!)

After the fall of Babylon to the Greeks in c 331 BC, cuneiform astrological tablets were transmitted by Alexander the Great's armies to the Greek world. They gave two systems for the point in the heavens at which the Babylonian Solar Zodiac began: that the Vernal Equinox lay 10 degrees from the start of the Zodiac, [System A attributed to Nabu-rimanni, c 560 to 480 BC] or that it lay at 8 degrees from the start of Zodiac [System B attributed to Kidinnu c 400 - 310 BC]. In other words, the Solar Zodiac started either 10 degrees or 8 degrees to the right of the Vernal Equinox, as viewed from the Northern Hemisphere, in the two systems.

Owing to the Movement of the Ages, 10 degrees from the start of the Zodiac would tie to a Vernal Equinox point in about 500 BC, and 8 degrees from the start of the Zodiac to about 375 BC. Hence, they are consistent with what these two Babylonian astrologers would have observed in the skies during the likely periods of their particular lifetimes.

However, this reason for the difference in systems was not widely understood by later Greek astrologers, and both systems were used by later Classical astrologers up to Ptolemy's time, even though by then - because of the Movement of the Ages - they were both inaccurate by several degrees. Archeologists have found ephemerides [tables of planetary positions] based on both systems, dating from Classical times.

The Classical Greek Zodiac Wheel: The Classical Greek zodiac wheel is the basis of the standard Solar Zodiac wheel we use today. It is essentially the Late Babylonian zodiac wheel adopted by the Greeks in the intermingling of cultures that took place when Babylonia and many Greek isles were part of the empire of Alexander the Great and his successors.

The transition of Zodiac and Zodiac Constellations between the two cultures was not perfectly smooth. In particular, the Babylonian constellation Luhunga [LU.HUN.GA in Sumerian script], the Hired Man, [or more prosaically the Agrarian Worker] (Laborer in the older chart above) never made the transition. It was replaced by Aries, the Ram, in Greek zodiacal astrology, thought to be the ram of the Golden Fleece of Jason and the Argonauts.

Libra as a constellation also does not seem to have existed for the Greeks, rather they saw a much larger Scorpius, its claws the stars that we would call Libra today. By the second century AD Greek star maps (e.g. the Mainzer Globus) were still showing the 'Greater Scorpius' as a 'double-sign' of the Zodiac. This confusion is reflected in Ptolemy's Al Magest where he discusses the sign of Libra, but all the star names of Libra are parts of the "Claws of the Scorpion".

Furthermore, the Greek heavens contained an ancient "thirteenth" Zodiac Constellation Ophiuchus, the Serpent Bearer, which doesn't seem to have had a counterpoint in the Babylonian skies. Whilst twelve Greek constellations were co-opted for the zodiac wheel, Ophiuchus was ignored. Again this causes considerable controversy in astrology, even today.

The Sidereal Zodiac Wheel: The Sidereal Zodiac we have today is essentially as given above: the early Classical Greek rendering of the Babylonian system. This can be defined as: A band of the heavens approximately 14 degrees wide, centered on the ecliptic, against which the all the [known] planets are seen to move, as seen from the Earth. This band is divided into equal 30 degree segments, each one of which corresponds to one of twelve Greek constellations. This wheel is not tied to the Vernal Equinox.

The Tropical Zodiac Wheel: In the 2nd century BC the Classical Greek astrologer Hipparchos is thought - or so we are informed by Ptolemy - to have been the first to suggest another change to the solar zodiac wheel: that the Zodiac should begin at the Vernal Equinox. [Rather than that the Zodiac should begin 10 degrees or 8 degrees away from the Vernal Equinox, as the fourth century BC Babylonian astrologers indicated.] This suggestion was rejected by most astrologers of the time, and it had to wait until three centuries later before Claudius Ptolemy made it part of astrological orthodoxy. However, this was a more reasonable thing to do in the second century AD, as by Ptolemy's time the Vernal Equinox did actually lie very close to the start of Aries, because of the Movement of the Ages. [In fact by then it was already in Pisces.]

Previously, in Babylonian astrology, the start of the Zodiac was related to the star positions in the heavens. By stipulating that Aries should begin at the Vernal Equinox, this tied the zodiac wheel to the calendar for the first time, because we, as the Romans did, organize our calendar so that the date of the Vernal Equinox always stays the same. This then is the Tropical Zodiac of Western astrology. This zodiac wheel can be defined as: A band of the heavens approximately 14 degrees wide, centered on the ecliptic, against which the all the [known] planets are seen to move, as seen from the Earth. This band is divided into equal 30 degree segments, each one of which corresponds to a fixed set of dates in the yearly calendar, with the Zodiac starting at the Vernal Equinox.

It is also, as Cyril Fagan put it in Zodiacs Old and New, Llewellyn 1950 AD, p 53, the 'greatest blunder that has ever been made in the history of astrology.' !

The blame for this error really lies with the astrologers of the Middle Ages, not Ptolemy. These later astrologers - rediscovering Classical astrology after it had all but died out in Europe under the influence of the Catholic church - took Ptolemy's comments on the Vernal Equinox starting at Aries at face value, without realizing that this was only true for a little before Ptolemy's time. In the Middle Ages, and now, because of the Movement of the Ages, the Vernal Equinox is in Pisces.

Hence, unfortunately, nearly two millennia after Ptolemy, the Movement of the Ages has made this zodiac wheel hopelessly out of synchronization with the heavens of the Greek Constellations. Nearly all of Western astrology still uses this wheel, following the errors of the Middle Age astrologers, meaning that skeptics can, quite correctly, question one of the fundamentals of current astrological practice. (Again, knowledge totally lost).

The Vedic astrological tradition, being much less broken than astrology in the West, did not make this mistake and continued with the standard astrological practice of using a Sidereal Zodiac wheel.

The Real Solar Zodiac Wheel: The Real Solar Zodiac Wheel is based on the real constellations, without the simplifications of Late Babylonian or Greek astrology. It is defined as: The thirteen constellations against which the Sun is seen to move, as seen from the Earth.

The Planetary Zodiac Wheel: This is the Planetary Zodiac Wheel based on the real constellations, without the simplifications of Classical Babylonian or Greek astrology. It is defined as: The constellations against which the planets are seen to move, as seen from the Earth. The planets are seen against more constellations than is the Sun.

There are 29 signs in the Planetary Zodiac. However, 4 of these, Coma Berenices, Leo Minor, Sextans and Scutum, are not the original constellations of Claudius Ptolemy, the Father of Astrology. 25 planetary constellations would have been seen by the Classical Greek astrologers. Here is a chart:

Real Solar Zodiac Signs.

How many astrological ages are there? Thirteen! The Vernal Equinox Point will pass through thirteen Constellations during the course of a Great Year. Here they are along with the proper dates: (accurate as of 2002):

An Astrological Age is defined as: the period of time during which the Vernal Equinox Point can be found in a particular constellation.

The concept of the Astrological Age was most carefully defined by the celebrated psychologist Carl Gustav Jung who in the 1950s popularized the Age of Aquarius. He tells us that, "it refers to the actual constellation of fixed stars, not to ... the zodiac divided into sectors of 30 degrees each." [C G Jung Aion Chapter IV, "The Sign of the Fishes", Footnote 84, 1951 AD ].

He tells us of a historical tradition which encompasses, "the transition of the Age of Taurus to that of Aries, and then from Aries to Pisces, whose beginning coincides with the rise of Christianity." And that "We are now nearing that great change which may be expected when the spring-point {Vernal Equinox Point) enters Aquarius." (For more on what Jung wrote on this see C G Jung and the Age of Aquarius.}

The length of an astrological age varies, because it is the amount of time taken for the the Vernal Equinox Point to move all the way through a particular "constellation of fixed stars," and the constellations come in a variety of sizes, they are; "not ... sectors of 30 degrees each." Hence, the Astrological Age associated with a large constellation, Virgo, the Maiden, for example, is much longer than that for a small constellation, such as Scorpius, the Scorpion.

An Astrological Age for a particular constellation begins when the Vernal Equinox Point moves into that constellation, as seen from Earth (consider northern hemisphere in the area of the mesopotamian). It ends when the Vernal Equinox Point moves out of that constellation again, as seen from Earth. So it will be the Age of Aquarius when the Vernal Equinox Point moves out of the constellation of Pisces and into the constellation of Aquarius.

Similarly, we would now say - following Jung - that the Age of Aries ended more than two thousand years ago when the Vernal Equinox Point moved out of the constellation of Aries and into the constellation of Pisces, as seen from Earth.

The Classical Greek Non-Zodiac Constellations and their Powers: In Tetrabiblos, in the most important text in the history of astrology, Claudius Ptolemy [c 130 - 170 AD] makes the following, fascinating, statement: "We shall decline to present the ancient method of prediction, which brings into combination all or most of the stars... [as] it depends much more upon the particular attempts of those who make their inquiries directly from nature..." [Tetrabiblos Book iii Chapter 1]

Just what that ancient method was, Ptolemy gives us no clue leaving for us one of the greatest mysteries of astrology! The people Ptolemy wrote this for evidently were very well aware of the method, making any explanation unnecessary. However, in Tetrabiblos, Ptolemy at least lists the powers of the non-zodiac "fixed stars", though he gives us no clue as to how to apply them. Again, the people during Ptolomy's time probably knew how to do this! Such a loss.

From Ptolemy's text it is difficult to tell if he makes a serious distinction between stars and bright stars. See the list of stars below on the chart as they pertain to these numbered comments (i - vi):

i. Now - in modern constellations - split into Carina, the Keel, Pupis the Poop Deck, Pyxis, the Compass, and Vela, the Sail.
ii. Ptolemy refers only to the star Procyon in Tetrabiblos. Canis Minor, the lesser dog - in which Procyon is found - is not described . However it is present in Ptolemy's Al Magest Star Catalogue, and is considered one of the "48 Classical Constellations."
iii. The lore of Coma Berenices, Berenice's Hair, dates back to at least the time of Eratosthenes [c 275 to c195 BC]. Ptolemy names it in Tetrabiblos, but does not include it separately in Al Magest Star Catalogue, where the stars are found under Leo, the Lion. Tycho Brache tabulated the Constellation in his 1602 star catalogue and it has been a fully accepted Constellation since at least that time.
iv. Called Corona Septentrionalis by Ptolemy.
v. Called Geniculator by Ptolemy. Geniculatus in Latin means "with bended knee". To this day representations of the Constellation Hercules show him with a bent knee.
vi. Ptolemy does not mention the stars of Pegasus, the Winged Horse, as having any powers in Tetrabiblos, though he tabulates the stars as a Constellation in Al Magest Star Catalogue. This is the only Ancient Greek Constellation to have no assigned powers. Why Pegasus is such an exception is not known.

Shown in the table below are all the non-zodiac Classical constellations, along with their meanings, the star types Ptolemy described and the planetary powers the stars possessed.

Such stars are usually grouped together as either the stars or bright stars of a Constellation. Occasionally, however, different stars in different parts of the figure of a non-zodiac Constellation have different powers. These include the stars in the constellations of: Boötes, the Herdsman, Canis, the dog, Centaurus, the Centaur, Eridanus, the River, Orion, the Hunter, and Perseus, the Hero. For example, the powers of the stars of Centaurus, Ptolemy noted, differ if they are located in the "human body" part of the centaur, or the horse part of that Constellation. Stars in different parts of the figure of a Solar Zodiac Constellation always have different powers - see for example Capricornus.

The powers themselves are described by Ptolemy as being the same as those of six of the seven planets known to the Classical astrologers. They include the powers of the Moon. No star is ever described as having the same powers as the Sun. Some Constellation's stars, for example those in Ara, the Altar, have powers akin to more than one planet, occasionally with the second planet in a lesser degree. Uniquely, the stars of Draco, the Dragon, have powers similar to three different planets, perhaps because this is an exceptionally large and long Constellation.

Non-zodiac Constellations were pictured in Atlas portatalis coelestis, Johann Rost, Nuremberg, 1723. In the sixteen centuries between Ptolemy and Rost many Constellations were added to the skies, which would not have been recognised by the Ancient Greeks. There are now 88 accepted constellations instead of Ptolemy's 48. Many of these are southern hemisphere constellations. From his observatory in Alexandria, Egypt, Ptolemy would never have been able to see the circumpolar areas of the southern skies. Only the Argo Navis, the Swift One, and Piscis Notius would have been familiar to him. Piscis Notius is better known as Piscis Austrinus, the Southern Fish. [Some invented Constellations have not made it to the official 88. Robur Carolinium - King Charles' Oak - named in 1678 by Edward Halley for Charles II of England - is not one of the 88 modern Constellations.]

Sidereal Zodiac:

The vast majority of Western astrologers don't use this Sidereal zodiac - though it's better than the Tropical Zodiac that is being used (more about that later).

As its based on the actual positions of the stars, the Sidereal Zodiac gives a description of the heavens which is much more realistic and accurate than the Tropical Zodiac. This is because, as the stars move with the Movement of the Ages, accurate observation of the stars can be used to redefine the positions of this zodiac to agree with reality. The Tropical Zodiac in contrast is frozen in time. However, the Sidereal Zodiac still has problems in that it is an oversimplification of what is really 'above' us. The first problem is that it still insists that there are twelve signs, even though in reality there are thirteen, Ophiuchus being the 10th sign of the Real Solar Zodiac. The second problem is that it insists that the Signs are all the same length: one twelfth of a year. The heavens just aren't that tidy. The actual lengths of the signs vary from seven days for Scorpius to forty-five days for Virgo. Gemini is the only Sign whose actual size is close to one twelfth of the year. The third problem is that the Sidereal Zodiac still insists that Aries is the first Zodiac Sign. It has lost the ancient connection with the Ages. In fact Pisces is the Sign at the Equinox and is therefore the first Sign of the year according to the Ancient definition.

Types of Sidereal Zodiac:

There are two main types of Sidereal Zodiac. They differ only by their starting points, the so-called "First Point of Aries". But this causes quite a lot of debate. In the Sidereal systems, the first, or fiducial, point can not be the Vernal Equinox, as in the Tropical Zodiac. It has to be a star in the heavens. But which one? And which part of the Zodiac does it mark? The different types of Sidereal Zodiac differ slightly in how they pick this star and which point of the Zodiac it is meant to represent. This gives a slight difference in results between themselves [and a very large difference - nearly a whole sign - between them and the Tropical Zodiac]. The Hindu word ayanamsha [or Ayanamsa] is the term applied to the angle between the start of the sidereal description of the zodiac and the Vernal Equinox - the start of the Tropical Zodiac. As the centuries go by this difference increases because of the Movement of the Ages. Perhaps the most famous [and standard] ayanamsha - at least in the West - is the Lahiri ayanamsha. Spica, the Ear of Wheat, a Virginis, is taken as the star and it is defined to lie on the zodiac at 0 degrees Libra.

Sidereal Zodiac A: 'Vedic' Zodiac: Perhaps [though Western Siderealists would dispute this] the more ancient Sidereal Zodiac is the Eastern, Vedic, Jyotish or Indian [four names referring the same thing] Sidereal Zodiac. The 'Vedic' Zodiac is followed by more than half a billion adherents in India. [It purports to date back to the Vedas, hence the name. Though, in fact this name has only been used since the 1980s and a reading of the Vedas will reveal precious little about astrology. In contrast, the term Jyotish, meaning "science of light" is millennia old.] However, precisely what is the fiducial point in 'Vedic' astrology is a vexed question, as there is more than one school of thought. For example, the Chitrapaksha ayanamsha [Chitra = the star Spica] is defined by an ayanamsha of zero in the year 285 AD. In other words in 285 AD the Vernal Equinox and the start of the sign of Aries are defined to have been in exactly the same place.] Why the year 285 AD is chosen I have no idea. An example of the current dates [for a particular ayanamsha] of the 'Vedic' Zodiac is given in the table below.

(If you were born on the cusp of a Sidereal Zodiac sign you should note that these dates vary - by a maximum of a day - within the four yearly leap year cycle. They also move forward by about one full day every 70 years because of the Movement of the Ages.)

Sidereal Zodiac B: Fagan Zodiac: The second Sidereal Zodiac claims to represent something even older than the Vedic system, but was either 'formulated' or 'rediscovered' [depending on which side of the discussion you take] in the last century by Cyril Fagan of the Western Siderealist school of astrologers. [See: Zodiacs Old and New: A Probe into Antiquity and What was Found, Llewellyn Publications Ltd, Los Angeles, USA, 1950.] He chose Spica, the Ear of Wheat, a Virginis, as the fiducial point [sometimes called the synetic vernal point], defining it as lying at 29 degrees Virgo in the zodiac [not 0 Libra as above in the Lahiri ayanamsha]. Fagin argued that this was in better agreement with the method used by the ancient Babylonians to describe the Zodiac.

Probably, if there was agreement on one Sidereal Zodiac this type of Zodiac would have made more of an impact in the West. However, the arguments over fiducial points have allowed astrologers to continue using the Tropical Zodiac in the West without much opposition. [These arguments, ironically, reflect the fact that back in the times of the Classical Greeks, astrologers couldn't agree on this issue, never mind today.]

This is unfortunate as the Sidereal Zodiacs are far more accurate than the Tropical Zodiac. However, as the Real Solar Zodiac is available merely from measuring the Sun's position against the actual Constellations, it does make all these arguments seem rather needless. Just as with the problems with Tropical Zodiac that astrologers wrestle with in the West, Sidereal Astrologers seem unable to free themselves from their history - and simply use the real heavens as a guide.

The Stars and the Vedic Zodiac: Unlike the Tropical Zodiac, as the Vedic Zodiac is a Sidereal Zodiac it can include information on the astrological effects of stars themselves. It does this by means of 27 Nakshatras, each corresponding to a particular star. However, these form part of Vedic astrology in the shape of Lunar Mansions, not a Solar Zodiac.

A full list of the Moon Signs of the Lunar Zodiac is given below. In modern constellations there are 20 Moon Signs. However two of these constellations: Sextans (the Sextant) and Scutum (the Shield) are relatively recent asterisms. Only 18 Lunar Zodiac signs would have been seen by the Ancient Greeks, as recorded by Ptolemy:

Tropical Zodiac - the one that been used in the West for a long time - and of course, the wrongest one:

After one reads the details about this Tropical Zodiac, one is confronted with not only the tragic loss of knowledge (actually, the willful destruction of knowledge by ignorant, imbecilic fanatics), but also the loss of intelligence and the absolute insistence on believing in a method, and using a method that is ridiculously wrong. Such have been the fruits of Christianity in the West. It has bred a humanity that is arrogantly ignorant. Imagine you are in China. "No, you are in England, see? The MAP says it's England." Yet you are in China. Imagine it.

The word Tropic relates to the apparent reversal [or "turning"] of the direction of the Sun at the Solstices [the Sun reaches its highest or lowest point in the sky for the year]. It means that the dates of the signs of this particular Zodiac Wheel are kept constant with respect to the seasons - which are based on the sunlight we get, and therefore also how high or low the Sun gets in the sky. However, because of the Movement of the Ages, the seasons don't keep in step with the stars, so over the past two millennia the Tropical Zodiac has become disconnected from the stars it was originally based on! 'The Greatest Blunder That Has Ever Been Made in the History of Astrology: [A quotation from Cyril Fagan's, Zodiacs Old and New, Llewellyn, 1950 AD, p 53.] Unfortunately, because the Tropical Zodiac has lost its original connection with the heavens, almost everything about it is now inaccurate when related to the stars. This has crucial implications for standard Western astrology. If we look at the real stars its easy to see the following:

* There are in fact thirteen signs in the Real Solar Zodiac. The 10th sign is Ophiuchus, the Serpent Bearer.
* The signs don't have the same length, Scorpius for example is only seven days long.
* The first sign of the zodiac isn't Aries. It is Pisces right now.
* Aries does not start on the 21st March, it starts on the 19th April.
* In fact all the 'Tropical signs' are now shifted by almost one whole sign in comparison with Reality.

Is there a defense of this Tropical Zodiac? Yup, here comes the arrogant ignorance defending itself! Even though the Tropical Zodiac is now disconnected from the stars, Western astrologers mostly continue to use it as the basis of astrology. Hence a number of astrologers, who are aware of the problems noted above, have spent considerable amounts of time trying to justify this current position. Their argument is essentially as follows:

1. Western astrology has no connection whatsoever with the stars.* (!!)
2. Instead the important factor is the Earth's cyclical relationship to Sun.
3. The Earth orbits the Sun once a year: it is this cycle which astrologically affects all of us.
4. The cycle starts at the Vernal Equinox and this date marks the first date of the sign of "Aries". (NO! IT DOESN'T!)
5. The sign of "Aries" has nothing to do with the stars of Aries which are in a different place. (!!)
6. This is the case with all the other "signs" and the stars. (!!)
7. There are twelve "signs".
8. They are of equal lengths.
9. Our relationship with the Moon and planets is not based on the stars.
10. Our relationship with the Moon and planets is based on where they appear to lie relative to our orbit around the Sun.

* Have you ever wondered why your standard Western horoscope never says a word about the stars, only the signs? This is the reason.

To this Dr. Simpson has to respond: why? why? why? why? why? why? why? why? why?and why? None of those ten statements is how our Ancient Babylonian and Ancient Greek ancestors, who founded astrology, thought about astrology. Their astrology was of the stars. As is at least a part of Vedic Astrology today. As is at least one branch of Chinese Astrology today. Really, what conventional Western astrologers are trying to do is to defend the indefensible.

The Classical View of Stellar Astrology: Here is a small part of what Claudius Ptolemy the 'Father of Classical Astrology' [c 130 - 170 AD] has to say on the subject of the stars and astrology, taken from his master work - and the seminal text of astrology - Tetrabiblos [the Quadpartite Thesis] :

As it is next in order to recount the natures of the fixed stars with reference to their special powers, we shall set forth their observed characters in an exposition like that of the natures of the planets, and in the first place those of the ones that occupy the figures in the zodiac itself. The stars in the head of Aries, then, have an effect like the power of Mars and Saturn, mingled; those in the mouth like Mercury's power and moderately like Saturn's; those in the hind foot like that of Mars, and those in the tail like that of Venus...

[He goes on to list the powers of the stars in the remaining Zodiac Constellations and Non-Zodiac Constellations.]
... Such, then, are the observations of the effects of the stars themselves as made by our predecessors. [Tetrabiblos Book i Part 9.]

Clearly, Classical astrology was based on the stars, not Tropical Zodiac signs strangely out of step with the stars. Why isn't ours?

The simple answer is that back in the history of the Zodiac Wheels a huge mistake was made.

So What Exactly is the Tropical Zodiac? Western astrology is no longer star-based. So what is it based on? Astrologers who feel the need to defend the Tropical Zodiac normally say that it's Earth based, i.e. it's relative to us on Earth. But what exactly does this mean?

Everything in Tropical Zodiac Western astrology is based on one key point: the Vernal Equinox, and not on the stars. This point is also known as the "First Point in Aries" because it defines where so-called "Aries" begins in the Tropical Zodiac. Essentially this point starts the circle in standard Western Astrology and starts the cycle in Western astrology. So this point is rock solid, right? Never moves? Same for all time? Er, sorry, no. That's just not so!

The Vernal Equinox moves because of the Movement of the Ages. And this means that over the centuries the place where the Earth actually is in its yearly path around the Sun at Vernal Equinox changes too. Because of the Movement of the Ages, the Earth is at a different place in its cycle around the Sun at Vernal Equinox compared to two and a half millennia years ago, and this place keeps changing year by year in the cycle of the Great Year. So even if we did ditch the stars and choose "the yearly cycle around the Sun" to base astrology on, the Tropical Zodiac is still incorrect, because it does not keep pace with our yearly cycle around the Sun. The Tropical Zodiac is not relative to the Earth as some of us assume to to be.

The Seasons and the Tropical Zodiac? The only thing that the Tropical Zodiac does keep pace with are the Seasons. [This may have once seemed significant, when centuries ago it was thought that the stars caused the seasons. But now we know that the seasons are simply caused by the tilt of the Earth's axis.]

So What About Southern Hemisphere? However, the idea that for some curious reason we should give up the stars and base our astrology on the Seasons has one, huge, logical flaw. What about Australia? New Zealand? South Africa? South America? The Seasons are opposite in the southern hemisphere to those in the northern. Should astrology work backwards in Australia? I doubt it! And then there is the Earth's equatorial belt where there aren't proper seasons at all. (How about the North and South Poles?) Are we saying astrology doesn't work at all at the equator? Well, we are saying exactly that if astrology is based on the seasons and nothing else. Really, it's just nonsense!

The Future of Astrology? My opinion is that for the future of astrology we have no choice but to stop using the Tropical Zodiac. How long would you tolerate a map which said you were in London when you were really in Paris? And then had the temerity to say: no, look, this is London in our system.

We have to admit we've got it wrong and move on. I think there are two ways forward: stay with the Sun, but use the Real Solar Zodiac, [i.e. the Solar Zodiac of stars that is actually up there, already accurately charted and dated]; or think about astrology on the larger scale and use the Galactic Zodiac.

Here is a chart of the Galactic Zodiac:

Chinese Zodiac:

What we in the West usually call the "Chinese Zodiac" is a zodiac only in the sense that it is a 'Circle of the Animals'. It is a yearly sign system and does not correspond to a solar zodiac wheel as in the Western tradition. Neither do the animals of the "zodiac" correspond to any heavenly constellations.

Whilst the idea that an astrology can be based on the Chinese year sign [Ba Zi astrology] is increasingly common in the West, the development of Chinese astrology is far more complex.

The Chinese do possess a zodiac system in some ways similar to the West, but it is based on the Moon rather than the Sun. It is known as the Tzu Wei Tou Shu, the Pole Star Astrology System.

The Ancient Chinese identified some 28 "Xiu", or lunar stations/mansions, each based on an asterism, divided into four cardinal directions (and seasons): The Azure Dragon of the East (Spring); The Vermillion Bird of the South (Summer); The White Tiger of the West (Fall); "Genbu", The Black Tortoise of the North (Winter).

There was also a fifth direction, "towards the centre", associated with the North Pole Star, which was considered the closest point to heaven. This lead the Chinese to consider that the wheel of the circumpolar constellations was of great importance and they used these and ecliptic asterisms to define the lunar mansions. Tzu Wei Tou Shu astrology is based on the movement of the Sun, Moon and five planets [Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, just as in the pre-telescope Western astrology] as seen against the background of these lunar stations. Its history is just as ancient as the Western Zodiac Wheels. Traditionally, the system is supposed to date back four and a half millennia, to the reign of the probably mythical Yellow Emperor, Huáng Dì. "Oracle bones" have survived from the Shang dynasty [ca. 1200-1045 BC], half a millennium before the lives of either Confucius (551-479 BC), or the Buddha [ca. 563 - ca 483 BC], which show this type of astrological divination being practiced. A set of astrological predictions are present in the Shih Chih ["Historical Record"] of the historian Sun-Ma Chien dating from the 1st century BC. By the time of the Han dynasty [206 BC - AD 220] solar and lunar eclipses, as well as planetary conjunctions, were part of the predictive astrological framework, though the Movement of the Ages was beginning to cause as many problems for Chinese astrology as it has done for the Western tradition.

Celtic Zodiac:

A lunar zodiac thought to have been used by the Druids was the Tree Zodiac. This "Tree Zodiac" was, according to some, rediscovered by Robert Graves in his famous book, The White Goddess [1949]. Others, however, accuse Graves of being at best mistaken and at worst inventing this Zodiac. Note that many scholars dislike Graves and didn't understand the book The White Goddess.

The problem seems to be that much of what Robert Graves put forward as the Tree Calendar and Tree Zodiac relies on modern interpretations derived from the book Ogygia, seu rerum hibernicarum chronologia [1685], a chronological account of Irish events, by the seventeenth century bard Roderick O'Flaherty [1629 - 1718]. O'Flaherty claimed that his information was gained from Duald MacFirbis [1585-1670], the great Irish scholar, clan bard of the O'Briens. Modern scholars, however, seriously doubt these interpretations, and as the Bardic schools were essentially Christian, they consider it very unlikely that they preserved Druidic knowledge long into the Christian era. ['Camden's Britannia' notes that the word Ogygia comes from the Latin. It is quoted in Plutarch as the Roman's name for Ireland: Most Ancient.] Then again, perhaps the particulars of the Zodiac were kept and handed down. Oral traditions are usually disregarded by scholars more focused on texts.

That there was a comprehensive Celtic astrology is in little doubt. Classical writers, such as Strabo, Caesar, Diodorus Siculus, Cicero and Pliny, comment on Druidic knowledge of astrology. There was even a school of thought amongst some of the Classical Greek astrologers based in Athens that their astrology had been borrowed from the Celts. Perhaps it was identical - or very similar. This gives us an idea of what the Celtic system was like: it was like the Greek one!

For example, Caesar in the Conquest of Gaul [Conquest of Gaul, VI.18] writes: "The Gauls claim all to be descended from Father Dis [a god of death, darkness and the underworld], declaring that this is the tradition preserved by the Druids. For this reason they measure periods of time not by days but by nights; and in celebrating birthdays, the first of the month, and new year’s day, they go on the principle that the day begins at night."

Caesar was not exactly known for his pro-Druidic sympathies. However, his comments do preserve some idea of the difference and complexity of real Druidic astrology.

Unfortunately for us, the Druids left us nothing about their side of the story. They left absolutely no written records. Irish and Welsh written literature does not begin until about the 6th century AD. Therefore, the proof of the existence of any Celtic Zodiac has vanished along with the Druidic culture of two millennia ago. By the time of 6th century literature it appears that standard Western astrology, based on the Babylonian/Greek Solar Zodiac model, had completely displaced any native Druidic system. Either that, or the Celtic and Greek systems were the same, as mentioned above. Why else would ancient Athenians think they got their system from the Druids?

False History of Celtic Zodiacs:

The latest offshoot of Graves lunar zodiac - and the one currently most commonly cited on the net - has been by Helena Peterson in her Handbook of Celtic Astrology [1995]. Joseph Monard, a Celtic scholar has described her work in the following terms: "Her lunar zodiac only makes the ancient Druids look like senile lunatics." and the zodiac as "phony." [Celtic Astrology: A modern Hoax [2002] Centre Universitaire de Recherche en Astrologie]. It is certainly notable that the astrological system as outlined includes Uranus, Neptune and Pluto which were almost certainly unknown to the Druids. It also appears ignorant of the ancient Celtic names of several planets and Gods. Also the zodiac starts on December 24th whereas the Coligny Calendar shows us that the Celtic year started in October/November [see below].

However, the Graves and Patterson models are but two of several competing attempts at a Druidic Zodiac. Others are: Friedrich Hageneder's Tree-signs; Carol Carnac's Celtic Astrology; Edgar Bliss's Gaulish Astrology; and Kaledon Naddair's Shamanistic Calendar. These approaches offer wildly different Tree Zodiacs, some 13-sign lunar, some decanated solar with 36 divisions. Whilst the Hageneder approach is also based on Ogygia, the others possess little in the way of exposition of how precisely each author determined that this was the zodiac used by the Celts.

The Coligny Calendar: This is probably the best preserved example of a Celtic calendar, dated to the 1st century AD. Several important features of the ancient Celtic calendar were notable on the Coligny tablet:

The Celtic month started at the full-moon, rather than the new-moon. Each month alternately contained 29 or 30 days, making a Celtic year 354 days in length. The calendar took into account the problem of the lunar month not being an exact fraction of the solar year by inserting an extra month on a regular cycle. This method of intercalation meant that most years contained twelve months, and approximately every third year contained thirteen months. This extra month was called Mid Samonios, and was intercalated between Cutios and Giamonios in the calendar. The month was divided into two parts, a 'light' half, and a 'dark' half, each approximately of two week's duration; the division marked by the word Atenoux 'returning night' on the Coligny fragments. This indicates that the new-moon also played a part in the Celtic calendar. This also bears-out the impression we get from the traditional Celtic folk-stories which maintain that the normal period of Celtic timekeeping was the fortnight. By extrapolation, the calendar also confirms that the Gallic druids maintained a thirty-year cycle of timekeeping, comprising five cycles of 62 lunations and one cycle of 61 lunations, during which period, eleven intercalary months would be added.

Two major Celtic religious festivals, Beltain and Lughnasadh, were marked on the Coligny calendar by small sigils. Each year started with the month of Samonios, during which period the festival of Samhain was celebrated.

Also, some ancient astrological terms still exist in modern Irish language. The other main evidence for a Celtic astrology is the survival of some of its words. In Old Irish there were at least seven words for an astrologer. Rollagedagh [one who gains knowledge from the stars], fisatóir [one who gains knowledge from the heavens] eastrolach [one who gains knowledge from the moon], fathach [one steeped in prophecy], n éladoir [one who divinates from the sky, or clouds], réalt-eolach [one versed in astrology] and réaltóir.

Here is a list of the real months of the Celtic calendar; translations are based on the work of Caitlin Matthews in The Celtic Tradition:

Here are two charts showing the Ages. Add 2160 years to get the next ages. This is more or less OK. The North star (pole star) also changes with the precession of the equinoxes. The North star was Thuban (Alpha Draconis) when the Great Pyramid was constructed to align with true North. The descending passage of the Great Pyramid points to Thuban, the most accurately aligned pole star of all the North stars in the 25,800 (26920) - year cycle of our Earth.

And Guenther Wachsmuth listed the duration times in a table based on Platonic years:

The Numbers of the Platonic Year Since ancient times, the natural constant of the movements of the point of sunrise, the intersection between equator and eclipse at equinox and solstice in one year was 50 ". In the equation: 1° = 60 '
60 ' = 3600 "
3600 / 50 = 72 (a)
a = 1 earth year
a = 50 " 72 earth years amount to one degree of the Zodiac. One Platonic day lasts 72 earth years. One Platonic month covers a period of 30 Platonic days, or 2160 earth years. Twelve Platonic months give the Platonic year, which lasts 360 x 72 = 25920 earth years. This system, already used in Chaldaeic astronomy, orientates itself by the numbers 6 and 12, out of which 72 is the product. Each Platonic month was related to one starsign, or Zodiac sign. The length of each of the twelve starsigns are different - they are not evenly spaced at 30-degrees each around the 360-degrees of the ecliptic path in the sky. Therefore, the real duration of time in each starsign is not usually equal to a Platonic month.

Note that these above two charts for ages don't agree.

However, using real astronomy from Dr. Simpson: This below is a star map of the Vernal Equinox Point for 2680 AD. The Sun is at the Vernal Equinox Point as required, but in conjunction with it are Neptune, the modern planetary ruler of Pisces, and Uranus, the modern planetary ruler of Aquarius. In other words in the year 2680 AD the planetary ruler of the sign of the old Age, Pisces, and that of the sign of the New Age, Aquarius, are in conjunction with the Sun, in Aquarius, on the very day of the Spring Equinox!

(How to understand the Star Map The Sun is in yellow in the center of the map. Neptune, shown in dark blue, is in the almost identical location. Obscured by Neptune, shown in light blue is the position of Uranus.)

However the Most Important Question: When does the Age of Aquarius dawn? The answer: in approximately 2600 AD when the Vernal Equinox Point reaches the border between the constellations of Pisces and Aquarius.

This date, 2600 AD marks the start of the next Astrological Age:

(How to understand the Star Map The Sun is in yellow in the center of the map. The white line is the Celestial Equator; the red line is the Ecliptic. The Constellation borders are shown in green; the lines representing the Constellation's figure are shown in white; Constellation names are shown in yellow. Individual stars are colored white and their names are shown in red. Planets are marked by their astrological symbols.)

On the star maps shown above, the nice straight line marking the start of Aquarius looks anything but arbitrary. However, that border was properly established only in 1928, at the Conference of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) in Leiden, the Netherlands. Hence, skeptical astrologers quite rightly ask, is this where the Babylonians and Greeks, who originated our constellations, would have seen the Pisces-Aquarius border? Might they have seen it at a different place in the heavens? In which case 2600 AD would be the very much the wrong date. Where in the Heavens did the Master Astrologers of the Greeks say that the constellation of Aquarius begins? Dr. Simpson can answer this! The answer is not lost in the mists of time at all.

We still possess copies of Al Magest Star Catalog of the most famous astrologer of all, Claudius Ptolemy [c 130 - 170 AD]. It was the catalogue of the Greek astrologers, and was thought to be based on the even older star catalogue of the almost as famous astrologer Hipparchos [c 190 - 120 BC] [who probably based his in turn on the works of the star gazers of the Babylonians, though the evidence for this is now lost to us, along with Hipparchos' star catalog.]

The result: the Pisces-Aquarius constellation boundary of the Ancients crossed the Ecliptic at just about where the modern one does today. So: the Age of Aquarius does begin in approximately 2600 AD.

Then again, there is more disagreement. Until recently, the Greek Hipparchus, was given the credit for discovering the procession of the equinoxes. This 25,920 cycle is the foundation for the Age of Pisces which, by modern measurement, puts each age as 2,160 years long.

With more insightful study of ancient myths and Egyptian temples, texts and myths, it now appears that the Egyptians priests knew and measured the procession back to the old kingdom and there are hints that this knowledge went back to the Age of Gemini (6540 - 4380 BC). (See above for earlier dates back to the Age of Leo - or even before. This knowledge was ancient.

In 1895, John Lockyer, the British Astronomer Royal, wrote The Dawn of Astronomy where he visited and measured most of the Egyptian temples to prove their alignment to fixed stars and their realignment every 400 years to compensate for the precession. He was highly disregarded in his time but recognized for his original thinking in the 1970s.

Schwaller de Lubicz showed that the Zodiac of Dendera in the Temple of Hathor (around 100 BC) was actually a time clock measurement that marked the procession of the equinoxes from the Age of Pisces back to the Age of Taurus which started in 4380 BC by his calculations. Schwaller estimated the Age of Pisces to begin near 60 BC and the Age of Aquarius to begin at 2100 AD.

Dr. Giorgio de Santillana, historian and author of Hamlet’s Mill, traced all the ancient myths and legends around the world to show they had a foundation in the description of the procession. Jane B. Sellers then extended Santillana’s concept in The Death of the Gods in Ancient Egypt by analyzing Egyptian myth to show the consistent reference to the procession of the stars in their religious beliefs in the Osiris-Horus myths. These myths were the center of their theology, they empowered the pharaohs, and determined their death beliefs and practices.

The Orion Mystery by Robert Bauval (an engineer) and Adrian Gilbert use the procession of the equinoxes to add proof that the Great Pyramid and the King’s Chamber were used to send the dead Pharaoh’s spirit to the Orion constellation. By use of modern astronomy software they calculate the Age of Aquarius to begin approximately 2,070 AD when a half precession cycle of 12,920 shows the Orion constellation at it’s highest declination of -1 degree 50 seconds and it’s maximum altitude at the Meridian at 58 degrees 11 seconds. It’s opposite point at 10,300 BC would have been the beginning of the Age of Leo when Zeta Orionis would have a lowest declination of -48 degrees 53 seconds and an altitude at the meridian of 11 degrees 8 seconds.

This last calculation hints that the Egyptians might have considered that the concept of Great Return could begin at the Age of Leo when the stars in Orion are at its lowest declination. Jane Sellers stated that “I am convinced that for ancient man, the numbers 72...2160, 25,920 all signified the concept of the Eternal Return.” It takes 72 years for the precession to move 1 degree, 2,160 years for one Age, and 25,920 for the entire cycle to repeat.

Robert Hand in the essay, The Age and Constellation of Pisces, uses the date of 221 AD as the date when the topical and sidereal zodiacs where in alignment which was deduced by Fagan and Bradley. From this point he calculates the first star in Pisces to cross the vernal point at 111 BC, which would place the Age of Aquarius to begin near 2,060 AD.

So, from three very different calculations, we have the Age of Aquarius beginning from 2,060 to 2,100 AD.

What's the big deal about the Age of Aquarius? Lots of New Age ideas circulate about this age, probably started by the song "Age of Aquarius." The invention of mass production, global use of electricity, the car, phone, television, NASA, invention of technology to shrink the globe with computers, and satellite transmission of voice and data like the Internet are all related to Aquarius in popular modern myth. But religion, especially fanatical forms of it, are on the rise and that is not Aquarian at all. The Age of Aquarius is supposed to bring the end to these Churches. Also there is less "brotherly love" now than in the 20th century - also not Aquarian. This might just be New Age wishful thinking, not based on anything standard.

AND - - -

Back to the original ideas in this article. There have been some critics of "Astrotheology" - which is a retelling of the Jesus myth by trying to reconstruct the story using the Zodiac. One can see why the critics might be right about the astrology being off the mark. Also, we have no idea exactly how the ancients interpreted what they saw in the night sky or how old the original story of the sun's journey through the stars really is. Astrology and astronomy are completely unrelated today. Astronomy is Science (think mathematikoi). Astrology is bunk (think akousmatikoi). But back in the ancient days, the two were the same thing and the Priests were Astronomers familiar with the night sky.

Nonetheless, astronomy and astrology and zodiac aside - what we can know and clearly see is that the STORIES THEMSELVES are identical. Jesus' story is an imitation of Horus' story - and/or any of the other stories about Virgin-born Solar Demi-gods, "sons of God."

Even the early Christians themselves saw this clearly enough. They found an excuse for it - they claimed that Satan created the other stories that all predated Jesus. Well, that's rubbish. It would even be funny if it wasn't so serious and tragic. Point is, they knew about these other identical stories.

There is no problem with this story being mixed in with the concept of the inner light or Chrestos/Logos.

The problem exists because this particular solar god Jesus is merged into the Jewish tribal tradition. This mixture is and has been toxic. It might be utterly catastrophic for the human species in the near future.

The irony is that the "Christian Zionists" want to get Jews into Israel because they LOOOVE the Jews SOOO much. They'd like to see WWIII happen - (Armageddon) that is how "pro Israel" they are. See, when the Jews are ALL in Israel, then the supernatural Jesus will come in the clouds and everyone will either worship and accept him (Jews would no longer be Jews if they did that) or if they don't all worship and accept, they'll be wiped out and sent to Hell forever (for Jews to accept this being, would be to go against what God told them in their own Torah, which is eternal). So - Jews are gone if they accept and gone if they reject. Gasp! Such Christian good wishes!

TO RECAP SIMILARITIES: I'm going to just show you Horus. Mithra, Attis and so many other Gods shared by people in the same temperate zone are the same, but Horus is strikingly similar and is the oldest, as far as anyone can tell.

Horus Similarities to Jesus:

1. Both were conceived of a virgin.

2. Both were the "only begotten son" of a god (either Osiris or Yahweh)

3. Horus's mother was Meri, Jesus's mother was Mary (or Mirium?)

4. Horus's foster father was called Jo-Seph, and Jesus's foster father was Joseph.

5. Both human fathers, Jo-Seph and Joseph, were of royal descent.

6. Horus was born in a cave; Jesus was born in a stable. Both are cave-like and sparce environments.

7. Both had their coming announced to their mother by an angel.

8. Horus; birth was heralded by the star Sirius (the morning star). Jesus had his birth heralded by a star in the East.

9. Ancient Egyptians celebrated the birth of Horus on December 21 (the Winter Solstice). Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus on December 25 even though it is known, from the story in the Bible, that Jesus was not born in December, a cold month.

10. Both births were announced by angels.

11. Both had shepherds witnessing the birth.

12. Horus was visited at birth by "three solar deities" and Jesus was visited by "three wise men". (In the Mithra story, the gifts the 3 wise men give Mithra are the same as the ones Jesus receives - note that Mithra also predates Jesus - but his story is not as old as Horus' story).

13. After the birth of Horus, Herut tried to have Horus murdered. After the birth of Jesus, Herod tried to have Jesus murdered. Herut and Herod.

14. To hide from Herut, the God tells Isis, "Come, thou goddess Isis, hide thyself with thy child." To hide from Herod, an angel tells Joseph to "arise and take the young child and his mother and flee into Egypt."

15. When Horus came of age, he had a special ritual where his eye was restored. When Jesus (and other Jews) come of age, they have a special ritual called a Bar Mitzvah. Having the "eye restored" can have meaning: when you come of age, you learn to See as an adult, no longer as a child.

16. Both Horus and Jesus were 12 at this coming-of-age ritual.

17. There is a missing gap in both their lives during the ages of 12 and 30.

18. Horus was baptized in the river Eridanus. Jesus was baptized in the river Jordan.

19. Both were baptized at age 30.

20. Horus was baptized by Anup the Baptizer. Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist.

21. Both Anup and John were later beheaded.

22. Horus was taken from the desert of Amenta up a high mountain to be tempted by his arch-rival Set. Jesus was taken from the desert in Palestine up a high mountain to be tempted by his arch-rival Satan. Wallace Budge sees a clear connection in the way Christians came to envision Satan, fire, brimstone- and it is directly from a story about Set.

23. Both Horus and Jesus successfully resist this temptation.

24. Both have 12 disciples.

25. Both walked on water, cast out demons, healed the sick, and restored sight to the blind.

26. Horus "stilled the sea by his power." Jesus commanded the sea to be still by saying, "Peace, be still."

27. Horus raised his dead father (Osiris: also known as Asar, which is El-Asar in Hebrew, which is El-Asarus in Latin - El-Asarus - LAZERUS) from the grave. Jesus raised Lazarus from the grave.

28. Osiris was raised in the town of Anu. Lazarus was raised in Livanu (literally, "house of Anu").

29. Both gods delivered a Sermon on the Mount.

30. Both were crucified.

31. Both were crucified next to two thieves.

32. Both were buried in a tomb.

33. Horus was sent to Hell and resurrected in 3 days. Jesus was sent to Hell and came back "three days" later (although Friday night to Sunday morning is hardly three days).

34. Both had their resurrection announced by women.

35. Both are supposed to return for a 1000-year reign.

36. Horus is known as KRST, the anointed one. Jesus was known as the Christ (which means "anointed one").

37. Both Jesus and Horus have been called the good shepherd, the lamb of God, the bread of life, the son of man, the Word, the fisher, and the winnower.

38. Both are associated with the zodiac sign of Pisces (the fish).

39. Both are associated with the symbols of the fish, the beetle, the vine, and the shepherd's crook.

40. Horus was born in Anu ("the place of bread") and Jesus was born in Bethlehem ("the house of bread").

41. "The infant Horus was carried out of Egypt to escape the wrath of Typhon. The infant Jesus was carried into Egypt to escape the wrath of Herod. Concerning the infant Jesus, the New Testament states the following prophecy: 'Out of Egypt have I called my son.'"

42. Both were transfigured on the mount.

43. The catacombs of Rome have pictures of the infant Horus being held by his mother, not unlike the modern-day images of "Madonna and Child."

44. Noted English author C. W. King says that both Isis and Mary are called "Immaculate".

45. Horus says: "Osiris, I am your son, come to glorify your soul, and to give you even more power." And Jesus says: "Now is the Son of Man glorified and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will glorify the Son in himself, and will glorify him at once."

46. Horus was identified with the Tau (cross) - the Tau and original cross looked like this: T. The Tau symbols seen with the loop over the T form worked to hang the symbol around the neck, the loop being a hole for a rope or string.

The Cross of Tau, named after the Greek letter it resembles, is suspected to have originated with the Egyptians. When a King was initiatied into the Egyptian mysteries a tau was placed against his lips.[1] It has been a symbol to many cultures before Christianity, including a mention in the Old Testament book of Ezechiel. It has been adopted by Christianity as a representation of the Cross.[2] It is strongly identified with the bull in the astrological sign of Taurus.

In ancient times, Tau was used as a symbol for life and/or resurrection, whereas the eighth letter of the Greek alphabet, theta, was considered the symbol of death. In Biblical times, the Taw was put on men to distinguish those who lamented sin, although newer versions of the Bible have replaced the ancient term “Taw” with "mark" (Ezekiel 9:4) or "signature" (Job 31:35).

The symbolism of the cross was connected not only to the letter chi, but also to tau, the equivalent of the last letter in the Phoenician and Old Hebrew alphabets, and which was originally cruciform in shape.

Again, keep in mind that ALL of these stories are describing star-patterns seen in the sky - or at least the very first original story is describing this - and the rest are just repeated and handed down as tradition. The stars we see have changed and like the astrological zodiac, they don't fit anymore.

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