When exploring the evolution of Mankind's knowledge, one usually thinks that, somehow, mythology came before mathematics. But, really, mathematics and mythology evolved and mixed from the very beginning. It's better to understand mythology in terms of mathematics, than the other way around. So, we begin by understanding mathematics.
Unless you think Biological things are static structures, you should realize that this science and technological dependent species had to evolve from the animal life. Regardless of the details, Humanity had to evolve from animal life. How did this "intelligence", whatever that means, species come about?
Plants and even animals follow environmental signals. When the sun goes up, the sunflower's face follows the sun across the sky. Snakes come and go based on day and night. If you go out in mornings and sunset, you'll see them come out, and when sunset comes, you'll see them going back to their home in the ground.
Similarly, you'll see many animal and even human behaviors are reactions of this sort. Depending on what you do, body language or even spoken language, gets an automatic response. There's usually no stop and thinking, and then a response.
If I pet a cat or dog, the cat or dog generally rubs back. If I meow at it, it generally comes and rubs next to me. If I were to make some violent gesture, the cat or dog usually goes away. But, If I cuss at it, tell it it's stupid, while being nice, it generally keeps on cuddling or standing there purring. If I tell a human it sucks on the other hand, I generally will get a negative reaction. How did humans come to this higher level thinking?
I like to point out a waterfall. Looking at a waterfall, you generally see chaos. But, if you pick a point up top, and follow it at the same rate as it falls, you might find your perspective change, a simple stable pattern falling all the way down. One can do the same thing with a river. Pick a point upstream, follow it as it passes you, and you might find that a simple stable pattern flows all the way downstream! Like the way we can see the simple pattern flowing downstream that otherwise looks like chaos, Humans don't react to the sun coming up and down, or mate just because of a seasonal signal. We're not mechanically locked into environmental signals the way other life is. How does this come about?
Jacob Bronowski shows how, in his "Origins of Knowledge and Imagination."
People like to think that what they see in terms of visual senses is what the world is really like. James Maxwell's elucidation of the electromagnetic nature of light is enough to dispel that notion. Maxwell's discovery showed that light comes in many other wavelength's as well - infrared, ultraviolet, x-rays, and gamma rays. Maxwell's discovery was the greatest physics discovery since Isaac Newton; but, getting back to the point. We cannot get at nature directly. We have to infer nature indirectly.
Our eyes see with discreet rods and cones that can only see some wavelengths of light. We've had to use facts and logic to straighten out our conditioned perspective. We have to establish boundaries, or error rates for which things apply or not. Scientists use terms like accuracy and precision of measurements. Accuracy refers to how accurate your measurement is to a known or theoretically calculated quantity. Precision is how close each measurement is to one another. Mathematicians have a reversible definitions idea for mathematical definitions. If one can reverse the definition, and mean the same thing, then the concept is well defined. Jacob Bronowski argues, and I agree with him, in his, "Origins of Knowledge and Imagination", that the universe is this infinitely detailed whole. Any cut in it can only be an artificiality. But, clearly, mathematicians have found that one can restrict the field of applications of a concept to a certain time and place. Of course, in time, as structures, or concepts, influence one another in this energetic universe, things influence one another, and one has to revise, or generalize concepts. Getting back to restricting ideas in a certain time and place . . .
Jacob, once again in his 'Origins' book mentioned above, suggests that when one makes a cut, establishes a boundary, for however fleeting a moment of applicability, certain undefined terms fall out. He considers concepts like inertia, electron, atom, the sun centered solar system really, are of this nature. We didn't first build a spaceship, launch it to some polar position, look down, and say, "look, the sun is the center of the universe." As described above, we decoded it out of noticing that the Sun seemed abnormally large compared to the other 'planets'. The phase of the moon seemed to point to the Sun. And, the planets seem to precess; they stop their forward movement, loop backward, and then move back forward again. What one does is dam up nature - like a hydro-electric dam. And in so doing, one generates electricity. I've noticed an analogy between Jacob Bronowski's ideas in his 'Origins' book and some connections ideas in James Burke's 'Connections' book and video series.
In James Burke's Connections(and this is an idea in archaeology and anthropology long before), agriculture leads to technologies. Clearing the fields(I mean like ‘slash and burn’ to remove everything except the plants desired to grow) and having to farm introduces one to problems of irrigation, pest control, and fertilization. I'm equating these to the new undefined terms that Jacob Bronowski is pointing out above. Also, agriculture, once it gets established frees up the populace to do other jobs, or ideas. Jobs/Ideas . . . like a military, a scribe to keep track of taxes, business people, priests, rulers, and mathematicians. The farming is predicated on the seasonal cycles. So, one needs a calendar, and an astronomer and mathematicians.
James Burke notes some more things in episode/chapter two and three. In episode 2, Guericke is found producing the first vacuum, and doing all sorts of amazing things with it. He keeps two hemisphere's of a ball together by a vacuum. A vacuum so strong that two horses can't pull it apart. He then notes that Guericke presents his vacuum to a German prince. And he shows that mice suffocate in it/bell's don't make a sound when you try to ring it/fire goes out. In episode 3, he shows how the horse takes center stage for all kinds of technologies and is the basis for the second half medieval Europe economy. There's the horseshoe, the neck brace for the Horse, and the stirrup and saddle for the Horse rider. Then, there's the Knights armour. But, these are all very concrete technological ideas. What's the connection between the concrete technological world and abstract mathematical ideas such as number, one-dimensional lines that don't really exist beyond our heads?
I'd suggest as Susanne K. Langer, in her "Introduction to Symbolic Logic" does, the difference between constituent relations and logical relations. Constituent relations are like the verbs in a sentence. Logical relations are like conjunction/disjunction/inclusion of deductive reasoning. These are similar relations to set theory relations of union/intersection and equality of sets. And, as mathematicians noted in the eighteen hundreds, numbers are like equivalent sets.
Numbers are the abstract identity of equivalent, or analogous sets - apart from there concrete manifestations. Like there's a couple of apples, and a couple of oranges. The apples and oranges are concrete manifestations of the abstract concept of number two. Everything has a structure. a Relation with parts that makes sense with respect to that relation. There's binary relations, and relations that can take on three parts, or terms. For instance, between is a triple relation because something is between two other things. You would never say ‘love between john’. But, within a given relation, say Jane loves John, there's a whole set of terms, or parts, that makes sense with the love relation. You could even say Ferrari loves racing. But, taking the relation, the binary form from all it's concrete manifestations is what Symbolic Logicians and Mathematicians call an abstraction.
When we present a specific instance of a concept, we're thinking of it in a very specific context. If I just mention some verb like running, you think of either Paul is running away from something. Or Paul is running the show. Something very time specific. Only by noting the general concept, does the concept go beyond the very time specificity of this or that structure. When humanity first started noting ideas, the ideas were very provincial. The number two was associated with male and female properties. As ideas are generalized, they strip themselves from imprints of their origins.
Scientific philosophers have noted many times over the centuries since Copernicus revived Aristarchus's theoretical insight, each such insight removes humanity from its ethnocentric philosophies. We are no longer the center of the universe.
As Arizona astronomers noted, the Papago Indians, or what they like to call themselves, the Tohono O'odham people, believed that Baboquivari Peak was the axis of the universe.
Former Manhatten project physicist(he was one of the physicist who figured out how to make radioactive lenses that makes for implosion force to set off a neutron cascade - a nuclear bomb) makes an appearance in perhaps Carl Sagan's first science documentary effort - The Violent Universe. At the end, Philip Morrison explains the Tohono people's provincial ideas in relation to the latest Big Bang cosmology. How the further back in time and space that our generalizations/theories apply, the less provincial our theories become. How, the arrangement of atoms that went into the plant he was handling was only true for a few years. How his arrangement as a person was only true for a few decades, and how the arrangement of atoms in a rock are true only a few millions of years. This is the case for rocks on the Earth, which has active tectonic plates and rocks get recycled. On the moon, the arrangements of rocks goes back billions of years. Then, the structures of atoms goes back to the big bang – or based on the Hubble Space Telescope data – 13.7 billion years.
We can see people's provincial ideas in mythology,
"But if cattle and horses and lions had hands
or could paint with their hands and create works such as men do,
horses like horses and cattle like cattle
also would depict the gods' shapes and make their bodies
of such a sort as the form they themselves have.
...
Ethiopians say that their gods are snub–nosed [σιμούς] and black
Thracians that they are pale and red-haired." - Xenophanes
People believed in their own gods because that's what culture they were born to,
"The former city loved its founder, and therefore believed him to be a god; the latter believed Christ to be God, and therefore loved him." This is in St Augustine's "City of God" - chapter 22-6. If you read this in Augustine's "City of God", you'll see that he's saying the Roman's believed in the tales of Romulus being raised from wolves, and that he is a god, because they were raised as Romans.
People talk about dystopian future. But, they never note that being conditioned, believing in lockstep, never stopping to question their beliefs is dystopian.
Communism is dystopian. And, religion, with their medieval monasteries, closed off to the world,
I like this one from the James Bond film, "for your Eyes Only",
Monastery of the Holy Trinity, Meteora
James Burke finds a Buddhist monk city up high in some mountains in episode 10 of his "The Day the Universe Changed." They have these prayer wheels, which those who can't read use. There's small ones down on the streets. And, then there's a temple, with many levels that initiates go through. At the very top, is a human sized prayer wheel.
- here's some "prayer wheels",
James Burke finds that the Buddhists teach everything is relative, so it's not worth learning.
Jacob Bronowski points out in chapter 13 of his "Ascent of Man"(23:50) that most people are conditioned to think nothing of more than what they're culture tells them to. They only aspire to be like their father/mother. Things like the accent/tone of voice is a conditioning; but, also ways of thought; kids carry themselves like their parents and culture in general. They are essentially like the drones of a bee hive, forever repeating the same things they learned as a kid. Never stopping themselves to consider that maybe what they're senses are telling them(that the Earth is flat for instance).
And then, around 26:30, Jacob says "thou shall not question." He shows, like James Burke monks of a monastery, who live their regimented lifestyle. He's talking about Erasmus, who experienced the robotic lifestyle. Jacob quotes Erasmus, "a heathen wrote this to a heathen. Yet, it has justice, sanctity, truth. I can't help but refrain, "Saint Socrates, pray for me."
Being conditioned is like having provincial ideas above. The spiritualists will often say that mathematical science is mechanical, and that it's not the only way to knowledge - that there must be some kind of spiritual knowledge. A knowledge that mathematical science can't get to. As I explained above about abstraction, abstraction is a concept that is formed by making connections to the world. Yes, you start by idealizing, but then you generalize - or, make connections. This is how mathematical science progresses. Mathematical insight is looking beyond what the senses tell you. As explained above, with the Buddhist monks, it's the religious ideas of "everything is relative, and the universe is always changing; so, it's not worth learning, or questioning" that is mechanical. It's these societies that makes for a regimented lifestyle.
Mathematical science is about going from conditioned to general non-conditioned universal laws. But, we had to evolve from those provincial ideas. Scientifically, we'd like to know how we evolved from conditioned provincial ideas to seeing behind what the senses tells us.
We see the mechanical idea of nature that comes from mythology and magic anyways(religion is politicized mythology), in the Dial of Ahaz - 2Kings20:1-11, and and Isaiah 38:7-8. In 2Kings20:1-11, Hezekiah gets ill and fears death. He has a prophet Isaiah of of Amoz speak to the Lord. and this prophet uses magic, "Prepare a poultice of fig, they applied it to the boil, and he recovered." Then Hezekiah asks what the Lords sign will be, and his prophet replies "Shall the shadow go forward ten steps, or shall it go back ten steps?” 10 “It is a simple matter for the shadow to go forward ten steps,” said Hezekiah. “Rather, have it go back ten steps.” 11 Then the prophet Isaiah called on the Lord, and the Lord made the shadow go back the ten steps it had gone down on the stairway of Ahaz."
Here we see the mythology and magic's idea of how to control nature. It's not like the process described above about mathematical science. It's more like the hope that if you throw a rock into a pool of water, and see the ripples come out, and that of reversing nature, seeing the ripples go back to the rock, and watching the rock come out of the water and back into your hand. We see this in the famous Joshua 10:13 quote of Joshua making the sun stand still and even turn back. Joshua 10:13 also gives scriptural authority to a book of Jasher,
In Jasher 9:8 says Abraham's father worshipped 12 gods/figurines, which were a personification of the twelve Zodiacal constellations. A theme will see over and over again in this Gospel of Truth. But, there's another theme that can be found in 2Kings20:1-11 - "I will add fifteen years to your life."
Before the Judeo-Christian single god, there were many gods, goddesses in fact. And males would be made "King for a day." They'd marry the goddess/priestess, and he was to rule by divine right for a year, or more. And then, he'd either successfully bring the rains through magic, and the crops would grow, or he'd be executed. We'll see below that these Sacrificial Kings decided to extend their rule for various theological reasons. They'd extend their year to a great year. Sometimes, they'd try to kill all the infants that could supplant him. This is the basis for the Slaughter of the Innocents story in Gospel of Matthew 2:13-23
More proof of magic in the Old Testament is Numbers 21:9 - "So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, they lived." I'll explain more about how the ancient mythologists thought of magic below.
Part 1
Whether on purpose or not, when we evolved from poorly defined knowledge to more defined, our well defined knowledge would often be mixed or still have imprints to the poorly defined knowledge of the past. Numbers provide a convenient example. There's different names for some numbers - "a pair of shoes, a brace of pheasants, a yoke of oxen, or a couple of shoes." - see John Barrow's "Pi in the Sky" for much more. We'll see that our growth of knowledge was always tied up with vague mythology.
There's flat-Earth knowledge, like the Greek elements - Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. These are flat-Earth views of knowledge. And the way we get to mathematical knowledge is by looking for underlying structural relations. I like the example in Susanne K. Langer's "Introduction to Symbolic Logic", page 56, where she shows how mathematicians distinguish between many different types of "is."
1) the rose is red (ascribes a property to a term)
2) Rome is greater than athens ( auxillery function serving the function of asserting)
3) Barbarossa is Frederick 1 ((expresses identity)
4) Barbarossa is a legendary hero ( membership in a class)
5) to sleep is to dream (entailment)
6) God is (existence)
Most people's idea of "is" doesn't distinguish between all these cases. We'll see in mythology how they distinguished between different seasons, how many Zodiacal constellations, and how they mixed in their mythology with their mathematics.
Mankind’s language knowledge started out as actual drawings. The famous cave paintings . . .
The ancients often wore the skulls and hides of the animals they killed. If you've ever put on a mask of an animal like a Lion, or a Bull, you'll know the feeling one gets of power. You feel accomplished, and you feel that you've taken on that animals magic powers. Below, we'll see that this is how magic worked. This magic was the science of the day. In this way, they thought they could mechanically make the universe go backwards, as in the Dial of Ahaz above.
At the same time, there were tally sticks,
- image of lebombo bone - a 40,000 year old tally stick
The tally stick above is one of many dated to tens of thousands of years ago. It shows that some number, and hence mathematical knowledge existed at a very early stage of Humanities evolution from almost purely sensual knowledge to abstract reasoning.
A good way to understand numbers is the theater example. If you have a theater of people, and you don't know how many seats are in the theater, you can at least say that you have a theater of people, if all seats are taken.
See, humans can't tell how many objects there are without counting, past five. If you throw a number of objects on the ground larger than five, humans need to count how many there are. And, if you don' t have a number system adequate to the job, then you can only say you have a theater of people, or bucket equivalent, even though you don't know the exact number of objects in the bucket that is equivalent to the number of people being matched up.
So, humans had to go from base 2, to base 3, 5, 8,9, 10, 12, and even base 60. Either base has wholes, numbers they can't count. Until the ancients had a number system advanced enough, a symbol for each number, they could not use mathematics for anything. We'll see below that the ancients mixed up their mathematics with their religion, and the motivations for advancing their numbers systems and changing their religions for social political reasons.
The image above shows an image of a Venus figurine holding a tally stick. This is called the "Venus of Laussel" Here we see mathematics combined with mythology. This shows how hard it is for mathematical knowledge to separate itself from provincial biases.
The Venus figurines shows that female Earth goddesses were the dominant religion for tens of thousands of years. Meanwhile, numbers went through a bit of an evolution
I should mention Gobeki Tepe,
- a picture of Göbekli Tepe - built almost ten thousand years ago, and abandoned around that time as well. - Just one of many stone carvings arranged in circles. Nobody really knows what it all means. Seems the caved painters pre-occupation with animals over stars continued when they were able to make great architecture like this. Getting back to separating ourselves from provincial ideas . . .
Language is denotative. There's connotative and denotative. Denotative is surface level pointing to something. It has no underlying structural understanding of behavior.
Another art-form is poetry. Poetry is analogy. It's a step towards more connotative knowledge.
Jacob Bronowski, in his "Science and Human Values" points out that poetry and mathematics share a common feature - analogy. Analogy in poetry is what's called metaphor/simile. Analogy in mathematics is what's called abstraction. Abstraction is a analogous form between two different things. The easy quick example is two oranges and a couple of apples share the property of number two. Jacob Bronowski finds ways to show the unity of thought, of human creativity. A connection he doesn't make is that mythology is poetry.
I make this connection, and find that a Sir James Frazer, back in the 1800s pretty much makes this connection as well. Sir James Frazer finds an evolution from magic to religion. He comes upon it by exploring the mythology of a Dianna of Aricia. This Etruscan goddess, really, originated in a Lake Nemi, nineteen miles south of Rome. There, from Etruscan times to Roman, a King would use magic to pray for the crops to come each season. If the harvest wasn't successful, this King would be killed and replaced by the killer.
This is Lake Nemi, where the goddess Dianna originated.
This is a ~400 B.C. Etruscan Mirror of Dianna giving fruit to the new King, who must kill the old King.
Sir James Frazer finds an instance of this in even more ancient Babylonian times. The Babylonian festival of Sacaea, or Zagmuk. If a solar eclipse occurred on any of the twelve days, a substitute King would be put in the real Kings place. This was probably because, at one time, when a solar eclipse occurred, or a harvest season didn't go right, the King was killed.
The mythology is of the harvest of crops. But, this is a seasonal thing, which is related to celestial cycles - or, astrotheology. And, the King uses magic(or tries to), to make the crops grow.
He identifies two main types of magic - homoeopathic and contagious magic. Homoeopathic is about analogies. Contagious magic is about contact. Magicians would, for instance, make analogous figurines, and whatever they did to it, they thought something would happen to the real thing. If they didn't like someone, they prick it with sticks and burn it and so on.
The Hebrews at least made an advance here and discredit the worship of 'idols.' Still, in the Bible, we have evidence that these idols were considered Gods; and hence, we know that god(s) were made up. There's a cute little story in Genesis 31 about stealing gods. For instance, there's 31:30 - "yet wherefore hast thou stolen my gods?" Jacob, in the next verse, answers Laban that he stole them because he was afraid. He thinks that by taking his gods, he can control Laban. But, unknown to Jacob, his wife, Rachel, stole them!(Gen 31:32). And in Gen 31:34 - "Now Rachel had taken the images, and put them in the camel's furniture, and sat upon them."
Ezekial 21:21 - Teraphin are another name little statue gods that Rachel hides, as described above. They were used for divination.
Teraphin were also mentioned in Judges 17:5, 18:14- 17-20.
The Hebrews are transitioning from statue gods/idols, to a sky god, Psalm 115:2 - "Wherefore should the nations say, where then is there god? . . . further in Psalm 115:3 - "But our god is in the heavens" . . . and Psalm 115:4 - "Their gods are silver and gold, the work of men's hands." This quote alone establishes the fabrication of god(so), whether made of gold, or moved to Heaven, so their god cannot be found, questioned, and disproved. See my logical/deductive disproof of god(so) in the appendix A at the very end of this Gospel of Truth. This Psalm 115:4 establishes a part of the logical disproof of god(s).
The magic of contagious is where if something comes in contact, then no matter how distant two objects are, whatever happens to one object happens to the other.
These magical principles lead to charms/spells and taboos. Either do these magical things for good(charms, or don't do certain things(taboos). Some taboos noted in the bible, there's Leviticus 21:5 - "They shall not make baldness upon their head, neither shall they shave off the corner of their beard, nor make any cuttings in their flesh." There's many more examples, of course, of homeopathic taboo/magic, in the Leviticus analogy above(see Tim Callahan's "Secret Origins of the Bible, page 314)
The Old Testament writers tried to ban magic! Exodus 22:18 states, "Do not allow a sorceress to live" and Deut 18:10, "There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch." Once again, see Tim Callahan's "Secret Origins of the Bible", pages 314/315 for more.
A curious example is 1Samuel9:9, "for he that is now called a Prophet was beforetime called a Seer." So banning magicians is banning Prophets. Oops, as usual!
Another favorite of mine, “1Samuel 28:3-9,
This passage says Saul got rid of magicians(called necromancers/soothsayers), but then, because he's not as great as David(who oddly seems to hang out with Philistines a lot), Jehovah is with David instead of Saul. Saul is jealous and is trying to kill David quite often. Jehovah doesn't speak to Saul anymore in either dreams/prophets. So, Saul orders his servants to find him a woman necromancer to talk to god!
The reason magic is being banned at the time of the Hebrews is because someone wants to take control of you. In particular, Priests and Kings want to be the conduit from which people believe. They don't want some outside people saying something different. For instance, Deut chapter 13(the whole chapter), and in particular 13:5, "because he hath spoken to turn you away from the LORD your God,"
Banning and violence against questioning are two main properties of immaturity and irrationality - Nazi really. Here we have God willing to kill his chosen people because they questioned him - Numbers 21:5, "And the people spake against God, and against Moses, Wherefore have ye brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? for there is no bread, neither is there any water; and our soul loatheth this light bread. . . . Numbers 21:6, "And The lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died."
Banning and violent acts to stop people from noting facts/logic is a form of evasive tactics. I've noted this language. A 400 A.D. Bishop of Constantinople Gregorius of Nyssa noticed this type of thinking and complained,
"People swarm everywhere, talking of incomprehensible matters, in hovels, streets and square, marketplaces, and crossroads. When I ask how many oboloi I have to pay, they answer with hairsplitting arguments about the born and the unborn. If I inquire the price of bread, I am told that the father is greater than the son. I call a servant to tell me whether my bath is ready; he rejoins that the son was created out of nothing."
Here we see what's usually the first fear tactic of those who won’t learn - evasive language. Violent acts usually come second.
Getting back to god(s) and magic . . .
Sir James Frazer notes that the Australian Aborigines know magic, but not Gods. So the evolution of thought must have gone from magic to Gods. At one time, everything was a god. Leviticus 17:7, "They must no longer offer any of their sacrifices to the goat idols" Here, Goats are gods as well.
As indicated above, the Old Testament preserves remnants from a magical world before god(s). Hippocrates of Kos(of the famous Hippocratic Oath), reveals the connection and reason for the evolution from the magical world to god(s). . .
"They who first referred this malady to the gods appear to me to have been just such persons as the conjurors, purificators, mountebanks, and charlatans" About the attribution of diseases to the god(s) . . .
""Men regard its nature and cause as divine from ignorance and wonder," . . . But if it is reckoned divine because it is wonderful, instead of one there are many diseases which would be sacred" - If things that we consider sacred/divine is because of ignorance, then the whole universe(certainly back then) is "of the god(s)". Furthermore . . .
"Such persons, then, using the divinity as a pretext and screen of their own inability to of their own inability to afford any assistance, have given out that the disease is sacred, adding suitable reasons for this opinion, they have instituted a mode of treatment which is safe for themselves, namely, by applying purifications and incantations, . . . "All these they enjoin with reference to its divinity, as if possessed of more knowledge, and announcing beforehand other causes so that if the person should recover, theirs would be the honor and credit; and if he should die, they would have a certain defense, as if the gods, and not they, were to blame,"
The quotes right above show that they say a certain disease they don't know about must be "of the god(s)", and they give magical treatments as the antidote for their and the victim's ignorance. As we've seen some of the evasive thinking quote above from Gregorius of Nyssa, when questioned, they use all kinds of evasive language tactics. Here, the mental trick is that, no matter what happens, god(s) did it. If the person magically gets well, the god(s) are on their side. If not, they say "god works in mysterious ways." We'll see another mental trick to convert people to their religion, "believe, and you will believe" below.
The above proves Sir James Frazer's Golden Bough. Sir James Frazer did not find this evidence. It also established that god(s) invented as a catch-all to explain everything without explaining anything.
The Old Testament is transitioning from many gods to one god. But the writers do a poor job erasing the memory of those many gods. The Old Testament admits to there being many gods in Genesis chapter 1 - 1:26, "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness."
I've already mentioned the Genesis story of Rachel hiding the idols/gods above. In Numbers chapters 22/23, God actually has a conversation with Baal. Numbers 22:9, "And God came unto Balaam, and said, What men are these with thee?" Not only is God talking to another god here, but this passage reveals that God doesn't know everything. If he knew everything, he wouldn't be asking another god who these people are.
Numbers 23 reveals a major Biblical contradiction - 23:19, "God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent". Jesus Christ is suppose to be god come down to Earth as a man. But this biblical scripture says this does not happen. And God cannot die for our sins as well(repent). New Testament authors would midrash Jesus Christ into existence. They'd point to Old testament scripture and say that's prophecy. But, here we have prophecy that this is not possible.
Getting back to abstractions and god(s) . . . an idea is an abstraction. And, as we've seen, an idea is a structural relation. It generally takes being precise about the terms and the relations amongst them to combine ideas into new concepts. One can think of terms as nouns of sentences, and relations as verbs.
When ancient people conquered each other back then, they'd either combine their gods with the new conquered people, or rename the new gods and try to erase them out of history. Ruth is a daughter of Moabites. Ruth joins the Hebrews, and says in Ruth 1:16, "thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God:" Renaming previous people's gods as God/Jehovah happens in Hosea 2:16, "It will come about in that day," declares the LORD, "That you will call Me Ishi And will no longer call Me Baali." Also, God argues in Exodus 6:3 that Moses knew him previously as El Shaddai, "I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as El-Shaddai--'God Almighty'--but I did not reveal my name, Yahweh, to them."
When we combine ideas in mathematics, the terms of different relations are the exact same terms. Combining the vertices of three line segments into a circle are the same things/vertices. When we combine god(s), we're generally very vague about the the gods being combined. They didn't worry about whether the other tribes gods were storm gods or star gods. They'd just make combinations that don't make sense.
For instance, there's the famous Greek Centaur's,
. . . combining a horse and man.
Or, how about the famous Egyptian Seth combining a human and a dogs head,
Getting back to how people perceive a flat-earth(The Bible says the Earth is flat - Psalm 93:1 - the world also is stablished, that it cannot be moved. This doesn't say the Earth is flat, but that it doesn't move; therefore the Sun goes around it, as well as the planets. . . . Psalm 75:3 The earth and all the inhabitants thereof are dissolved: I bear up the pillars of it. Selah. This is saying the Earth is flat; it says it's held up from below by pillars. More - 1 Samuel 2:8 - for the pillars of the earth are the Lord's, and he hath set the world upon them.). The Greeks said there were four elements - Earth, Water, Fire, and Air. But, this is a very flat-earth viewpoint. What is Earth? It's fire, water, air, and much more. What is fire? And Air? And Water? Saying the universe(Earth essentially) is composed of Earth, fire, water, and air doesn't explain anything. Similarly, the Greeks would make "Greek Elements" theory of the seasons. They'd make a season correspond to an Animal. An animal would symbolize a season. The composite beasts from the Egyptians Sphinx, really, to the mermaids of the Babylonians, and the Chimeras are "Greek elements" combined.
At Morocco Volubilis, much later, around 300 B.C. there's a four seasons Bacchss fresco
Macrobius Saturnalia, book 1-21 describes the signs of the Zodiac and the seasons.
But, there's also hints and clear proof that before there was a four seasons, there was a three, and even two seasons! For instance, there's the Greek triple goddesses Horae, pictured here as being led by Dionysus,
There's many different names for the Horae - "Thallo, Auxo and Carpo", and "Eunomia Dike, and Eirene.", "Pherusa, Euporie, and Orthosie" Each triple corresponds to different "Greek Elements" properties. There's also various hours - 9,12, and 24. There's a four seasons Horae - "Eiar(spring), Theros(summer), Phthinoporon(Autumn), Kheimon(winter)". And, there's a two season's Horae - Auxesia and Damia. This two seasons brings me to Robert Graves Sacred King/Tanist, and back to Babylon before the Greeks.
Robert Graves shows throughout his "The Greek Myths" that there seems to be a common pattern of Sacred King/Tanist throughout Greek Mythology. He also shows that Greek Triple goddesses permeate Greek mythology. Each King would rule for one half a period. One would rule, get sacrificed, and the Tanist would then rule. He gets the Sacred King/Tanist terminology from Northern Europe mythologies. But, he was noticing this pattern in Greek Mythology. I found a proof in a Babylonian Goddess mythology - Inanna.
In Inanna Descent to the Underworld, which goes back 5,500 years, or 3,500 B.C., "“Now, alas, my ……. You for half the year and your sister for half the year: when you are demanded, on that day you will stay, when your sister is demanded, on that day you will be released.” Thus holy Inanna gave Dumuzi as a substitute"
The Sacred Kings/Tanists soon worked not get Sacrificed every year. For instance, there's the Sargon of Akkad story. In the story, Sargon's mother puts him in a reed basket, sets him adrift to escape his father. Why escape his father? Because his father was trying to avoid being killed annually. He wanted to rule longer. This story is also remarkably analogous to the Moses story. Because the Sargon story comes way before the Moses story, we know the Moses story is a later invention.
This Sargon of Akkad "Slaughter of the Innocents" story also says, "I will rule for four years", and let my son rule after me. Four years is almost 50 moons. Lots of the Greek mythology Sacred Kings/Tanists have Kings ruling for 50 months, and the Tanist rules for another 50 months.
The Sargon of Akkad "Slaughter of the Innocents story is important for everything described above, but there later Greek Examples. Cronus had a "Slaughter of the Innocents". Cronus is a pre-Zeus/Olympic god. Here's a quote I got from the Cronus wiki -
""Cronus learned from Gaia and Uranus that he was destined to be overcome by his own sons, just as he had overthrown his father. As a result, although he sired the gods Demeter, Hestia, Hera, Hades and Poseidon by Rhea, he devoured them all as soon as they were born to prevent the prophecy."
Furthermore, there's a Melisseus - "Melisseus was the eldest and leader of the nine Kuretes of Crete. They were chthonic daimones of Mount Ida, who clashed their spears and shields to drown out the wails of infant Zeus, whom they received from the Great Goddess, Rhea, his mother. The infant-god was hidden from his cannibal father
Here we have proof of the extension from three to nine. One way the Sacred Kings tried to stay in power was to kill his would be children; another was to get an extended year. With the Melisseus story, we see the Muses extended from three to nine. The three Greek Goddesses would correspond to a single year. The extension to nine means three years. There's another extension. The extension mentioned in the Dial of Ahaz has to with an extension to 19 years, when the sun and moon roughly line up. I'll give a quote proving this when I get to the Classical Greeks.
The three Horae were the half-sisters of the three Muses - Moira. Horae sounds related to Hours. So the Horae are more about time, or the seasons than the Muses. The three Muses, or the Moira are Zeus/Olympus gods. The Sirens are also a Greek triple goddesses, that are pre-male God Zeus and Mount Olympus. The Sirens loose a singing contest to the Muses - " On the market-place of Coroneia I found two remarkable things, . . . A little lower down is a sanctuary of Hera with an ancient image, the work of Pythodorus of Thebes; in her hand she carries Sirens. For the story goes that the daughters of Achelous were persuaded by Hera to compete with the Muses in singing. The Muses won, plucked out the Sirens' feathers (so they say) and made crowns for themselves out of them." Pausanias [9.34.3]
A Greek example of a Goddess/Priestess, telling a King Acrisius at an Oracle that he will be killed by his son - "
Apollodorus, [2.4.1] "When Acrisius inquired of the oracle how he should get male children, the god said that his daughter would give birth to a son who would kill him."
This King Acrisius is from the Danae story. Mother of Perseus.
Here's Danae showered with gold. King Acrisius shut her up in a Bronze room to keep her so, so that no child of hers could replace him at some yearly festival. But Zeus pregnated her with a shower of gold. Danae gave birth to Perseus. Perseus went on to slay a Titan with Medussa's head.
The Medussa is one of the Gorgon Goddess triple. She was turned ugly. This signifies the Sacred Kings changing the religion from female Earth goddesses to a male god. Then, Bellerophon also rode Pegasus as did Perseus. Hence, Bellerophon is a redo of Perseus, this time to kill the Chimera. The Chimera is a composite beast. And as we saw above, composite beasts are calendar beasts. The Chimera has three parts -
lion's head, a goat's body, and a serpent's tail.So, the Chimera represents the three seasons era. And the slaying of Chimera is representing a change from the three seasons to the four seasons.
Picture of Bellerophon slaying the Chimera on a Greek Vase.
Another Slaughter of the Innocents I forgot to mention is from Hercules. There's a "Madness of Hercules. There's a Euripides play about this.
Autonoe and Aristaeus had a son Actaeon, who was bred by Chiron to be a hunter and then afterwards was devoured on Cithaeron by his own dogs.47 He perished in that way, according to Acusilaus, because Zeus was angry at him for wooing Semele; but according to the more general opinion, it was because he saw Artemis bathing. And they say that the goddess at once transformed him into a deer, and drove mad the fifty dogs in his pack, which devoured him unwittingly. Actaeon being gone, the dogs sought their master howling lamentably, and in the search they came to the cave of Chiron, who fashioned an image of Actaeon, which soothed their grief." Apollodorus [3.4.4]
The Actaeon story describes a sacrificial king getting killed "because he saw a Goddess bathing." The dogs howled because they missed him. This story is a remembrance of a Goddess past. Another one is Anchises,
Anchises is a mortal lover of Aphrodite. Aphrodite gets pregnant. She warns him not to tell anyone, or Zeus will strike you with a thunderbolt. He ends up telling someone and gets struck by a thunderbolt.
Herodotus i, 173 "
they take their names not from their fathers but from their mothers, There's a transition from Earth Goddesses to male Gods. And, so there's these remembrances of this Goddess past, and in the last paragraph of the Argonautica, it says they were once the dominant religion,
"Listen, friends; as I lay in my grief, three goddesses girded with goat-skins from the neck downwards round the back and waist, like maidens, stood over my head nigh at hand; and they uncovered me, drawing my cloak away with light hand, and they bade me rise up myself and go and rouse you, and pay to our mother a bounteous recompense for all her travail when she bare us so long in her womb, when Amphitrite shall have loosed Poseidon's swift-wheeled car. But I cannot fully understand concerning this divine message. They said indeed that they were heroines, Libya's warders and daughters; and all the toils that we endured aforetime by land.
There's a "Judgement of Paris" which indicates, mythologically, that the Trojan War was due to a transition from these Earth Goddess triples to a male god religion. In Greece, that would be Zeus and the Mount Olympus twelve. I've mentioned the Sirens as one of the pre-Zeus/Olympus triples. Then there's the Gorgons. The main Zeus/Olympus God's Goddess triples are Hera/Athena/Aphrodite. Hero by the way has been shown to have a slight linguistic relation to Hero. Another residue of the transition from the female Earth Goddesses to the male dominated Iron age. But, getting back to the Judgement of Paris . . .
There was a big Gods/Goddesses party, and Eris, Goddess of discord wasn't invited. Se she made a contest for the three Goddesses Hera/Athena/Aphrodite. But, Zeus intervened, and handed the contest over to Hermes. He chose Aphrodite because she promised him Hellene(Hellen of Troy). Which triggered the Trojan War.
I'm sure the mythology is just that. But, as you'll see much of the Biblical evidences of the transition from female to male Gods, there was clearly a religious transition, which doesn't go down without a war. People don't change their beliefs because of reason. But, because someone has more military might than the other.
- The Olympic games were originally ran by girls to be priestesses for Hera, then the males later took over! Pausanias v16-2 "Every fourth year there is woven for Hera a robe by the Sixteen women, and the same also hold games called Heraea. The games consist of foot-races for maidens. " . . . v16 - 4 " The games of the maidens too are traced back to ancient times; " . . . v 16 - 6 "The cities from which they chose the women were Elis," . . . then, when the male centered Greeks took over, the males took part in the Olympic games - Pinder Pythian Odes ix - 40, " You ask me from what race the girl comes, lord Apollo?" . . . " There she will bear a child, whom famous Hermes [60] will take from beneath his own dear mother and carry to the Seasons on their lovely thrones and to Gaia." . . . For right away he stood the whole band of suitors at the end of a course, [115] and told them to decide with a footrace which of the heroes, who came to be bridegrooms, would take which bride." . . . Pausanias 5-6 "As for the Olympic games, the most learned antiquaries of Elis say that Cronus was the first king of heaven, and that in his honor a temple was built in Olympia by the men of that age, who were named the Golden Race. When Zeus was born, Rhea entrusted the guardianship of her son to the Dactyls of Ida, who are the same as those called Curetes"
I've given proof that the Muses were extended from three to none above. The extension gives the Sacred King almost four years. Which is the time of the Olympics. The above passage shows that the Olympics were originally controlled by the Goddess/Priestesses, and then later were taken over by the males. Further down before I get into Jesus Christ, I show the proofs for yet another extension; this time to 19 years, called the Meton cycle.
One God that the Hebrews are trying to wipe clean from the Earth is Asherah. Asherah is a Canaanite wife god of Elohim. Because the Hebrews are taking from the surrounding cultures gods, they mention this female goddess, and because they are trying to make a single male god, they're trying to erase Asherah's from the face of the Earth. Female goddesses appear to have been the dominant religion of the mediterranean up to the Bronze/Iron age.
Archaeologists have found what they call Venus figurines, such as this one,
They've found them all over the Mediterranean, and as far away as Siberia. The 'Venus of Hohle Fels' goes back to 35,000 years ago.
To give some idea of the ubiquity of the Venus figurines, both in time and space, the Malta ruins, built around 3000 B.C.(just a little bit before the Pyramids were made) have a comparatively giant Venus figurine,
Clearly, early religious worship centered around the female. But, religion seems to have changed certainly by the time of the Bible. The Biblical God is a male god.
Biblical archaeologists have found Asherah in Akkadian(Summarian), Hittite, and Ugaritic. See the Asherah wiki - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asherah The Bible mentions Asherah's many times - for instance, Exodus 34:13, ""But rather, you are to tear down their altars and smash their sacred pillars and cut down their Asherim ". See also, Deut 7:5/12:3/16:21/ , Judges 3:7/6:25-6/6:28/6:30, 1Kings14:15/ 1Kings14:23, 1Kings15:13, 1Kings16:21, 1Kings18:19, well, there's a bunch more. Clearly, female worship is being hunted down.
A Ugaretic female god Shapesh got turned into a male god, Shamash. These are Sungods, and the Sungods are being turned into male gods as opposed to female goddesses.
More male bias in the bible is the Adam and Eve story, and Judges 9:54
Eve takes the fall for mankind, for taking on knowledge. Here knowledge is denounced, and females take the fall for it. Getting a little ahead of the story, in in 1Timothy 2:11-14, "A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet . . . for Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner." - What we have here is Paul believing woman should be quite and submit to husband, because of midrash. More on midrash, which is what the majority of the New Testament is . . . not to mention what Jesus Christ is . . . later.
More midrashing of the old testament to downgrade women, "likewise ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands . . . even as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord" - 1Peter 3:1-6
In Judges 9:54, an Abimelech, asks fellow male soldiers to kill him, so "that men say not of me, a woman slew him."
The transitions from female worship male gods, and from magic to god-religions occurred in the Aegean collapse. Nobody knows how the Bronze age cultures collapsed. Before the end of the Aegean collapse, the major civilizations were the Hittites and Egyptians. The Hittites lived in contemporary Turkey. Egypt lived in, well, Egypt. There was the Lavant between them. There was also the Babylonians in Mesopotamia. Then, there was the city of Troy famously, and Ugarit less famously, and also the Minoans of the Crete island. Somehow, the iron age came out of the bronze age.
In a similar way to the Hebrews mentioning gods, magic, and female goddesses, they make references to the Iron age. Tim Callahan, page 57-58 points out some linguistic evidences that Cain symbolizes metallurgy. Cain in Hebrew is Qayin. Qayin means metalworker. And, Quayin also means Kenites. Kenites are mentioned in Judges 1:16, where Moses is made a relative of Kenites. Further, Cain has descendents, Tubal-Cain, who are said to work in bronze and iron(Genesis 4:22).
Deuteronomy 28:23 And thy heaven that is over thy head shall be brass, and the earth that is under thee shall be iron.
Leviticus 26:19 And I will break the pride of your power; and I will make your heaven as iron, and your earth as brass:
Iron was a technology that the Bronze age cultures couldn't match up against. Iron can go through bronze with comparable ease. So, on the one hand, people back then would want iron-smiths. On the other hand, iron working was mysterious magic. They'd want to keep iron workers from ruling them, but they'd want to get the iron-works. This is seen in 1Samuel13:19 - "Now there was no smith found throughout the land of Israel; for the Philistines said, Lest the Hebrews make them swords or spears." In Greek iron god mythology, Hephaestus had an epithet, "the lame one"(Hephaestus wiki reference, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hephaestus), in Norse mythology, it's "Wayland the Smith", who is "Later, King Niðhad captured Wayland in his sleep in Nerike and ordered him hamstrung and imprisoned on the island of Sævarstöð. There Wayland was forced to forge items for the king."(Wayland the Smith wiki, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayland_the_Smith).
So iron workers appear valuable to the Hebrews. But, in the Old Testament, all powerful God can't drive out the Canaanites because they have chariots of Iron! Joshua 17:16 and 18 - "and all the Canaanites that dwell in the land of the valley have chariots of iron . . . for thou shalt drive out the Canaanites, though they have iron chariots, and though they be strong." Clearly, Iron is dreaded. In Judges 1:19, the Jews God cannot drive out the Canaanites because they have chariots of Iron!
There was another transition during the Aegean collapse. Mythology went from Earth goddess to Sun god(s). Stonehenge is proof enough for sunworship. Stonehenge records the equinoxes, and surely, those people worshipped the sun in this way. A recent discovery shows Stonehenge sized down to a small bronze disk.
Archaeologists call it the "Nebra Sky disk" dated to 1600B.C. It was unearthed in contemporary Germany around 1999A.D. It has the stars, sun, and moon. It also has the Pleiades, two equal gold leafs on either side a boat at the bottom. The two gold leaflets at the edges may measure out degrees geometrically without numbers. The boat is rather interesting as is the Pleiades representation. The Pleiades and the boat were often used in Egyptian mythology. Many Egyptian temples had sunboats in them, actually. In Egyptian mythology, the sunboats were to take the Pharohs or the Egyptian sungods Ra and Osirus to heaven and hell and back.
The Egyptians put boats in all their temples as sunboats for the Pharoh to be taken to heaven.
It's interesting that the sun takes center stage in Egyptian mythology and finds its way to Europe. The English Stonehenge(there's many stonehenges around Ireland as well and throughout Europe actually) is also proof that ancient peoples everywhere worshipped the Sun, and mapped out the seasons. Stonehenge maps out the sun through the twelve months of the year. Mankind whether through cultural contact or the fact that all cultures growing up from ignorance to knowledge of the heavens would naturally mythologize and worship the sun, the moon, and the stars. But, today's cultures seem to be ignorant or often shocked that their latest religions may take from and evolve from those sungod worshipping peoples - the Egyptians and people before them.
The personification of the twelve zodiacal constellations turns out to be very important. One historical proof is presented here . . .
"I know the abysses" is thy name. I work for you, O ye Khus-four million, six-hundred thousand, one thousand and two hundred are they . . .[I am] over their affairs working for hours and days in setting straight the shoulders of the twelve Sah gods and joining the hands of their company . . . " - Papyrus of Nebseni, chapter/spell 64 of the "Book of the Dead." - Here we see the magic number twelve is associated with "hours and days", hence astrotheology. When one learns that twelve is associated with the twelve zodiacal constellations, one realizes this passage is one of the earliest archaeological proofs that the twelve gods is a personification of the twelve zodiacal constellations. More B.C. time proofs will be found below.
Just to speed through history and hint at things to come. The word Easter comes from Ishtar, lover of Bablonian sungod Tammuz, who was given "Sheppard" and "Lamb of God" symbolism thousands years before "Jesus Christ." Herodotus replaces Osirus in his writings as Dionysus; hence, he considers the two sungods to be the same. The name Dionysus is translated as "God of Nysa"(Herodotus, Histories, 3-97 has Herodotus mentioning Nysa, "The Ethiopians who dwell about sacred Nysa and hold the festivals in honour of Dionysus"), and city in modern Turkey(in ancient times, Bablon). Excavations of Nysa have uncovered temples of the Mithras god. This establishes links between Dionysus and Mithras. And, we've already established link between Dionysus and Osirus. Everyone knows that the Vatican Saint Peters is built on top of an old Mithras temple; can we establish links between all these ancient sungods, Osius, mithras, Dionysus, and . . . Jesus Christ?
- here's a famous Mithras tomb underneath a Christian church.
Before we get to Jesus Christ, we should mention yet another significant development that came during or after the Aegean collapse - the Phoenician alphabet innovation.
One major idea in Robert Graves "The Greek Myths" that I didn't feel I found any concrete proof for was that the alphabet might have evolved out of a calendar code. The days and seasons could have been named for various things and animals. And these names for various parts of the calendar could have been the first words that weren't pictograms. As he says, the main book for his evidences is "The White Goddess." I haven't read that yet.
One major thing the Hebrews and Greeks took from the surrounding cultures was the alphabetical style of language started from the Phoenicians(there's some indications the Phoenicians might have originaly come from Minoa Crete). The Phoenicians might have been the sea peoples. The "Sea peoples" are a mystery that some suspect for the Aegean collapse. Whether they destroyed Bronze age civilization by bio-plague weapons or iron is a question still not settled, or, whether they were really responsible for it at all. Maybe they were a consequence of plague from their homeland. We don't know. Out of the social vacuum created by the sea peoples came the Greeks and the Hebrews. Both these cultures picked up on the new alphabetical style language created according to all ancient sources from the Phoenicians. But for the most part, these two cultures evolved in radically different ways. The Greeks created "Euclid's Elements"; the Hebrews created the Torah and associated writings. This doesn't mean the Greeks were totally rational as we'll see.
The Phoenician alphabetical language helped language detect structural differences better than the pictograms before it. Hence, one reason to consider the mathematics of the Egyptians and Babylonians, with the quadratic equation, Pythagorean theorem and triples as works of genius.
The mathematics of the Hebrews . . . Joshua chapter 4 is about counting the number of people by means of twelve stones. They just lay down twelve stones, and place a person per tribe next to them. . . . 2Samuel 8:2, David measures his Moabite prisoners by lines drawn on the ground. He puts the ones he's going to kill lined up on one line, and those who are going to be his slaves on another line . . . numbering seems to be for practical/political purposes. Although, Solomon uses basic arithmetic to measure out the size of God's tent(1King2:28 and 1Kings7)(god and his ark are to be in a certain place on Earth), numbering people seems to be a no-no(Job 14:5-6). In 2Sam24, God/Jehovah wants David and his worker Joab to count the sinful Israelites. . . . then, in Job 36:26, we see that God is to be supernatural; to be beyond number - "Behold, God is great, and we know him not;
the number of his years is unsearchable."
Here, we see that God is evasive language. The god concept here is used to avoid the use of numbers to get at there god. They don't want god to be knowable. This is proof of what I say above about mythology and magic being a way of sidestepping having to learn nature through mathematics. Psalm 115:2-4 fits in here as well. First, they move their gods past art/sculpture, then, they decide gold isn't good enough, so they make up their gods in the Heavens; finally, they say god is beyond number. They do this so their god cannot be seen or disproven. They want to just wave their wands instead really getting at nature.
The mathematics of the Hebrews appears primitive; but, there’s the also the famous mathematics of Pi found in the Old Testament . . .
“1Kings7 is Solomon building a temple for God. In it is the famous mention of the Biblical calculation of Pie. It says . . .
"He made the Sea of cast metal, circular in shape, measuring ten cubits from rim to rim and five cubits high. It took a line of thirty cubits[o] to measure around it."
The algebraic formula for circumference is c=2(pie)r. One can just as easily say diameter for 2r. Algebraic manipulation produces C/D= (pie). The biblical passage above says circumference equals 30, while diameter equals 10. So, 30/10 = 3. Pie equals 3 according to the Bible. A more mathematical correct value of Pi is 3.14159 . . . off to infinity.
This may seem like nit picking; but, then again, that's why the Bible isn't mathematical, and the say Euclid's Elements is.
- Further, 1Kings 7, right after the Pi passage mentions the 12 again . . . 1Kings 7:25 - "The Sea stood on twelve bulls, three facing north, three facing west, three facing south and three facing east." . . . here we see the twelve is clearly astronomical in the twelve being split into three bulls facing each direction North/South/West/East.”
Related to the last part above about twelve bulls . . . 1 Kings 4:7 - "Solomon had twelve district governors over all Israel, who supplied provisions for the king and the royal household. Each one had to provide supplies for one month in the year."
With these two biblical passages, we know that the number twelve is associated with the astronomical context – in particular, the constellations – especially the 1Kings 4:7 passage. We’ll see original Christian apologists quotes that the twelve followers of Jesus Christ are the twelve constellations below.
We’ve seen that out of the Aegean apocalypse, came the Hebrews and Greeks. And we’ve seen a little bit that the Hebrews took to mythology a little more to solve their problems, and the Greeks used and developed mathematics(the truth is, they both used mythology and mathematics. It’s just that those in charge of the Hebrews used their writing literacy to write out and ban mathematics as we’ll see below, and the Greeks did a lot more mathematics).
Archaeologists discovered a Merneptah Stele around 1896. It is the first historical mention of Israelites. So, we know they had to be around before then. But there, we run into problems. In fact, the archaeological problems become biblical problems because the Judahites writing in 600B.C. timeframe gave clues of a great exodus from Egypt; and that according to them was where Israelites came from. The archaeology presents problems for the Judahite account because back then, greater than 1200 B.C, the Egyptians were at the height of their powers. This was the time the Egyptians built Karnak and Abu Simbel. Archaeologists find that during this great building time, they had built great fortress walls indicating the boundaries of their country. There, they had guards stationed, patrolling up and down these barriers. They've found tablets recording everything and everybody that went in and out of these gates. And well, there's no mention of a great exodus, of a hundred thousand slaves of anybody Jew or otherwise happening sometime before 1200B.C. There was the Hyksos around 1500 when some Canaanites actually conquered Egypt for a period. The Egyptians eventually drove them out and into the Levant/Canaan/Israel. One could argue that this was what the Judahites of ~600B.C. meant.
The Israelites mentioned by the Merneptah Stele grew into a rather sophisticated and rich nation. Understand that there was a fertile lower ground northern land where the Israel state was, and a higher land southern land where Judahites lived. There was certainly some connection between the two, as there probably was between the Canaanites and the Israelites. But, there was distinctions to be made. There's great marble column ruins build by the Omrides(whom the later Judahites demonized in their writings). Point is the northern Israelites were rich and sophisticated enough to create great cities that can be seen today. The southern highlands were dry and barelly habitable. Back in these ancient times, slave labor was like gold and oil is today. Nation-States fight over them. Nation-States went to war to take the skilled slave labor of other countries to help build their great temples. This is essentially what happened to the northern Israelites. These were moderate willing to trade with one another surrounding cultures and even take in each other gods. The Assyrians conquered and absorbed the northern state of Israel around 740B.C. To stress that the Israelites and the Judahites were a bit more distinct than most would think, there's 2kings14:9, the Israelite king calls the Judahite king a thistle who goes to Lebanon for help because they can't take care of themselves. Here we also see that the Israelites were generally strong and rich, while the Judahites were weak and poor. When the Assyrians came to conquer the Israelites for their skilled labor, they didn't lift a finger to conquer the southern highlands. They didn't have any slave labor worth picking up. When the Assyrians did come to exhile the Judahites, they did so for their slave labor . . . “2 Kings 24:14 – “He carried away all Jerusalem, and all the princes, and all the might men of valor, ten thousand captives, and all the craftsmen and the smiths; none remained, except the poorest people of the land.”
The biblical literature was clearly written by the Judahites. In Genesis 49:8-10, it is said that Judah is to be the center of the world really; it says the skeptre shall never depart Judah. Why would anywhere in the universe be the center of the universe? The fact that the Bible essentially makes Judah of all places the center of the universe is a dead giveaway that the Torah and associated writings were written in Judah around the time of King Josiah around 640 to 600 B.C. Stronger evidence is that Abraham calls himself a Chaldean(Genesis 11:28 - well, Abraham says his father Terah is Chaldean Babylonian). The Chaldean Babylonians only came into power around 700 B.C. In fact In 2Kings 22:8-23:24, High Priest Hilkiah miraculously finds the torah in his back room(kind of convenient, ha!?). Getting back to the whole astrotheology theme.
More on Orion. In Genesis chapter 6, right before the flood story is mention of Giants. A literal translation of Giants is Nephilim. Nephilim in Arabic is Orion! The Giants that come down, impregnate humans to make them live longer are just the constellations!
And about that flood story . . . the flood story is the last tablet of the Epic of Gilgamesh. Close to the beginning is "But what shall answer the city, the populace, and the elders?. A few pages later, "How could I say evil things in the assembly of the gods. ordering a catastrophe to destroy my people!" See, the flood story of the Bible is just a rehash of the Epic of Gilgamesh(Babylonian, before the Hebrews) flood story. In the Jewish version, the flood story is used to wipe out everyone who doesn't believe the god of the only righteous Jew - Noah. But, in the original flood story, the ethics of wiping out "everyone else who is not us" is called into question; surely not everyone of those other cultures is a bad person, right? . . . in the book of Jasher, which I showed above, the book of Joshua gave scriptural authority, book 6:19 - "And Noah, with a loud voice, answered them from the ark, saying, Have you not all rebelled against the Lord, and said that he does not exist? and therefore the Lord brought upon you this evil, to destroy and cut you off from the face of the earth."
Whether King Josiah innovated the single god concept, or the male theologans, the idea of one god fit the dictator King idea to a tee. Rule by divine right - goes from God, to King, to everyone else to serve this King. Everyone elses gods had to go. And this is what we have going on in the Old Testament. Lots of the evidences have already been pointed out. More evidences will be pointed out below.
The Judahites took a lot more from the surrounding cultures than just astrology(hence proof the astrotheological nature and origin of any cultures gods). For instance, there's the famous ten commandments Deut chapter 5 for instance. These have always been known as analogous to Code of Hammerabi from the Babylonians and the Egyptian book of the dead chapter 125. What I'd like to note about the ten commandments is that they say things like never take the lords name in vain, and don't stop worshipping me. Talk about a Jealous god. This is the language of every dictator and gangster in history! In fact, I'd go so far as to equate religion, with cults, and cults with gangsters. Nowhere in the bible old or new testament will you find, "question everything including what I say." It's always, believe in everything I say or else I'll kill you and your mother. Yet another transition from the Bronze age to the Iron age, reflected in the faith ethics of the Bible is 1Samuel-15:22 - "behold, obedience is better than sacrifice." Faith is a convenient tool for gangsters and dictators/kings. In fact, in 1Samuel chapter 8:10-22, Samuel offers democracy, but the people and ultimately God shouts him down.
One could have lots more fun with scripture about the nature of gods back then. In Exodus, we find that mana from heaven is just hallucinogenic mushrooms, "Exodus 16:14 . . . it came by night after dew had settled in the soil . . . and a little round thing appeared". God hardens the heart of the Egyptian Pharaoh so he can make a fool of him; he hardens lots of hearts so that some Jews can run them through. God hardens hearts in Exodus 4:2-1, 7:4-5, Deut 2:30; in this one, God hardens some tribeman's heart so that Moses has to strike him down. He does it again at Joshua 11:20.
I've had plenty of fun blasting the Hebrew mythologizing for now. I'd like to stress Deut chapter 5(there's also Deut chapter 4:19) again. Here we have King Josiah ordering his fellow jews from patterning their gods after the stars. Hence, some Jews were trying to learn the universe. But, as Proverbs 3:5 says "Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding." Point is that the anti-science Jewish religion is due to some king with a literary weapon(literacy and the new Phoenician alphabetical language) making a religion to rule by divine right. It's not all the Jews. The word all is the problem. Much of the human problems has been people going to war because some subset of a given culture stirs up trouble. Then, the other culture just decides all of the other culture must be destroyed. Part of Humanities problem is refusing to question their own beliefs. The other problem is gross generalizations poor questioning of assumptions and drawing idealizations to far. I've seen some modern Israelites(really Jews; the Israel state and people were taken in by the Assyrians; modern day Iraqis and Iranians!) who understand this religious problem of "we're the chosen ones; all else get to go to hell". But, they go back and forth, so I also don't mean to let modern Jews off the hook either. The fact that the Judahites made a 'chosen ones' religion(the old testament) is what led to further Jewish problems of being Exiled, and then the Messianic frenzy that led to the Romans destroying the Jews temple(really Herodian) around 66 and 125 A.D. But this is all getting ahead of the story.
People like to hold up the book of Job and Ecclesiastes as great works of literary art. When what's missed is how anti-science they are. Both of these books are essentially saying "we can't know the universe, therefore God exists, and I'm his mouthpiece. So, believe in what I say." The book of Ecclesiastes essentially repeats "Vanity of vanities", knowing the universe is vanities, and "there's nothing new under the sun." The book of Job is a guy who says "why do you torcher me with being born?" Why give me this awful life where I can't learn the universe, and I deal with so much evil?"
What astrotheology can be found in the Old Testament?
The fact that the six days of creation of the book of Genesis follows closely the Epic of Gilgamesh and the flood story is also clearly a redo of that more ancient story is well known and well established. But, I've found that the Egyptian influence on the Torah is perhaps underrated. Actualy this part is farely well known also. It seems that the Hymn to Akhenaten is reproduced in the Psalm 104. The Hymn to Akhenaten is about sunworshipping. Well, I've found that this Hymn to Akhenaten is more integrated in the Torah(the first five books of the Old Testament) than just this little curiosity.
Some of the influences of the religion of Akhenaton are how Yahweh created the languages, the seasons, and how Yahweh begat King Soloman. See Andrew Benson's "The Origins of Christianity and the Bible" for the Hymn of Aton equivalents.
Akhenaton Aton created the seasons, just as in Genesis 1:14 - And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years. God creating day/night for seasons, days, and years makes sense, but what about these signs? What's not obvious here is that the Biblical writers could be referring to astrology here. It's a first clue that the heavens were personified as gods.
D.M. Murdock gives much evidence that Christianity is Egyptian Osirus/Horus religion reexpressed. For my purposes here, I'd like to point out the trinity as coming from Egyptian religion long before Christianity . .
The Leiden Hymn to Amun,
- All Gods are three,
Amun, Re, Ptah they have no equal.
His name is hidden as Amun,
He is Re in the face,
and his body is Ptah.
Josephus(who we'll see more of later) mentions that the twelve tribes of Israel are just the twelve constellations of the zodiac. Josephus is referring to Genesis 49. Reference is Josephus "Antiquities of the Jews" book 3 chapter 7 section 7(practically the very last paragraph of chapter 7 as well).
-Rueben = aquarius because of "the beginning of my strength . . . unstable as water."
-Simen and Levi = Gemini because of the twins of Gemini
-Judah = Leo beause of the "lions welp"
-Zebulun = libra because of "who shall be far an haven of ships; or the ship sign, ark"
-Issachar = Taurus because of "strong ass, workhorse"
-Dan = Scorpio because it is between sagitarrious and capricornious
-Gad = Pisces because Gad is the reversal of dag, a fish god
-Asher = Virgo because of "rich food or fat bread"
-Naphtali = Capricornus because he's a "hind let loose, the goat
-Joseph = Safittarious because he was fiercely attacked by archers
-Benjamoin = Aries becuase "the ravenous wolf who divides the spoils"
Philo of Alexandria, another character we'll meet again later, also says the twelve tribes of Israel are the twelve constellations.
Biblical proof that the God(s) are astrotheological in nature . . . In Dueteronomy 4:19, we have "the sun, the moon, and the stars and all the hosts of heaven." This is much quoted; but, reading around it, we find King Josiah actually telling the Jews to stop worshipping the sun and stars(and Asherahs) Going back in time, we have Amos one of the very earliest Israelite prophets/writers. In Amos 5:8 - Seek him that maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night: that calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth: The LORD is his name" Here we see that the God(s) are just the sun, the moon, the stars, and the constellations! Oh yes, the Pleides shows up again in Hebrew mythology just like in Egyptian and the Nebra sky disk! Getting back to Genesis 1:14, we have it that the stars are created for astrological purposes(also see Psalm 104:19 - "He appointed the moon for seasons: the sun knoweth his going down."). Astrology is astronomy for the purpose of healing the sick; it's also often taken in by the Kings and Priests to tax the population and 'rule by divine rite.' Here we're beginning to see that the Old Testament is a astrology text. The constellations and the Pleides turn out to be gods again in Job 9:9. Also, in Job 38:31-33 we see God as controlling the constellations. Why would god control some artificial pattern(the constellations)? That's right, it's humans making up gods and making them for astrological purposes to rule by divine right. Isaiah 47:13 explicitly mentions astrology, 47:13 - Thou art wearied in the multitude of thy counsels. Let now the astrologers, the stargazers, the monthly prognosticators, stand up, and save thee from these things that shall come upon thee. Clearly, God(s) are the sun, moon, and stars, and astrology.
Proofs of the astrotheological nature of god(s) can be found amongst the Greeks as well. In fact, there's a remarkable Plato passage suggesting the switchover from Venus Earth goddesses to male sungods
Symposium 190, has Plato saying before there were two humans(male/female), there were three. He says males came from the sun/ females from the Earth, and then there was the moon god. The sun/earth gods were being unruly; so, Zues had to do something. He couldn't destroy them and make them extinct, otherwise, he's get no sacrifices/gifts. So, he had to limit them. He made the sun/earth gods with two legs and invented man/woman."
Plato's works also prove astrotheology,
Apology 26d asks if Socrates doesn't believe if the sun/moon are gods; hence, others, if not Plato did.
Laws, chapter 7-821a-d ,"we Greeks do the great gods - Sun and Moon - an injustice, if we don't understand their motions(wanderers - Planets)
Laws, chapter 12-950d says "the sun and other gods
Plato also proves that people derive gods existence from ignorance of the workings of nature - Epinomis 983a mentions ignorance of how something so big as the sun equals God's existence
The Greeks were coming out of their dark ages around the time the Jews were being exiled to Babylon again. "Diodorus of Sicily says the Pythagoreans got their religious ideas from the Egyptians(book one, 98). More from Diodorus a little further down. Thales, Pythagoras first went to Egypt and Babylon to learn all the knowledge they could. They took everything, the mathematics and the mythology. At least they took the mathematics. But, they also took the mythology.
Early in Iron Age Greek society was Orpheus. One major belief of Orpheusm was that the Earthly material world was corruptible, while the heaven's were incorruptible. Related to (in)corruptability is abstract vs concrete concepts. There's concrete/corruptible manifestations of the pure heavenly abstract concepts,
"Now some say that the body(soma) is the prison(sema) of the soul, as if it were burried in its present existence; and also because through it the soul makes signs of whatever it has to express, for in this way also they claim that it is rightly named from sema. In my opinion it is the followers of Orpheus who are chiefly responsible for giving it the name, holding that the soul is undergoing punishment for some reason or other, and has this husk about it, like a prison, to keep it from running away." - Plato, Cratylus 400c, Phaedo, 61e-62c, Gorgias, 493a, Republic IX 586a
Related to this feeling dirty because we're made out of corruptible manifestations of the abstract concepts is that the concrete manifestations of these abstract concepts are sinful. The Christians would take this Platonic idea to the tilt and argue against human knowledge.
The Greeks like the Hebrews grew up on the Phoenician alphabetical style language. They used the same symbols they used for their natural language for their representation of numbers. They'd then use the numbers for their natural language in their mixing of mathematics and Egyptian/Babylonian mythology. This is called gematria and later with the mixing of Greek or Hellenistic religion with Jewish old testament 'midrashing.' Midrashing is a kind of literary interpretation. The point is that the Plato gematria would mix with the midrashing of the old testament to make the New testament. For instance, the logos, or the word of God that Jesus Christ is called in the Gospel of John goes back to Plato.
Getting back to Plato. The middle 1900s were a great time for biblical archaeology. They found the dead sea scrolls(1946) and the Nag Hammadi library(1945). The Nag Hammadi library is a collection of Gnostic gospels and epistles. The suggetion is that after Emperor Constantine made Christianity the official religion of the Roman empire, they went on a book burning crusade. Some Gnostics apparently got smart and stuck their scrolls in jars and ditched them in the Egyptian sands. Amongs the catch was found . . . Plato's Republic! What in the world was Plato's Republic doing amongst Gnostic christian scrolls? Midrashing. They were midrashing the old testament to fit Platonic philsophy - the dominant philosophy in various forms since Hellenistic times(Alexander the Great spreading Greek culture is called "Hellenism"). We're getting ahead of the story.
Evidences for Platonism and Plato's Republic in the New Testament . . .
- "Plato’s hell is Tartarus(Plato, Phaedo 113e). Curiously, the writer of 2Peter says tartarus at 2:4.
-“keeping the soul unspotted”(Plato Republic Book 10, 621B-C also found in Epistle of James 1:27.
-”believe and you will be saved”(Plato Republic, book 10, 621B-C also found in Luke 8:12)
-”Lake of fire”(Plato, Phaedo, 113A also found in Revelation 20:10)
-”all things work together for the best”(Plato Republic Book 10, 613A and Romans 8:28
One last Plato/New testament tidbit is most shocking of all!
- "the just man will have to endure the lash, the rack, chains, the branding-iron in his eyes, and finally, after every extremity of suffering, he will be crucified" (Plato Republic II. 361D-362A)
I'd like to stress Plato's "believe and you will be saved" a bit more. In 1931, Kurt Godel became one of the great logicians(deductive logic) by publishing his incompleteness/inconsistency proofs. In Euclid's "Elements", the deductive process is started by means of assuming certain self-evident statements. Euclid has ten. Every ruler from Hammerabi to King Josiah has put up a list of fundamental rules to live by; in the old testament, these are the ten commandments. I've already covered this a bit. My point is that Kurt Godel proves that a finite set of axioms cannot prove an infinity of truths. Of if they can, they must be inconsistent. Euclid's axioms are consistent; the ten commandments and most supernatural religious commandments are made to be inconsistent - such as "believe and you will be saved." Well, this statement gets generalized to "believe and you will believe" through the ages. Another vague twisty statement to shut up further questioning and thought is Exodus 3:14 where Moses asks God for his name, and God says "I am that I am." God is a vague word. It is an inconsistent statement that can prove everything without explaining anything. God is the algebraic X standing for "I don't know", and "don't bother me with questions I can't answer" , and "I don't want to know."
There's some more curious Plato Republic quotes that relates to mythology versus mathematical science. A Socrates passage through Plato is Republic, Book 2, 380A-B. "Socrates through Plato apparently argued that the god passages in Homer sound suspiciously made up!(Plato Republic, Book 2, 377D-E, 378A.) Socrates then further argued that to make the passages legit, one should allegorize." What we have here is questions of whether to historicize or allegorize the mythological ideas of religion. - They're fighting on the reality of the poetry/mythology process. Both mythology and mathematics are analogies; one is consistent and constructive, the other is not. The Greeks from Socrates to Plato are getting confused on this issue!
I've found a curious reference to Eratosthenes writing some gospel out of the zodiacal constellations. Eratosthenes was writing around 200B.C. He's more famous for having the logical insight to calculate the circumference of the earth using vertical sticks. In Thomas Heath's "History of Greek Mathematics:Vol 2" about Eratosthenes, Mr Heath notes in passing that Eratosthenes wrote some story about the twelve constellations of the zodiac. I've tried to look around. All I can find is commentary that others have seen this. They further note that Eratosthenes argued that one should not confuse the such myth making for real science. That these mythological stories should be used only for entertainment purposes. Apparently, the vast majority turned a deaf ear.
I've yet to see this Zodiac poem; but, I have discovered a Greek mythologized Zodiacal story - Aratus Phaenomenon, which mentioned both the Muses and the Meton cycle.
We've already seen the Meton cycle with the Dial of Ahaz, mentioned above. I quotes a passage where the King gets a fifteen year extension. In 2 Kings 20:6 "
I will add fifteen years to your life." Why fifteen? Because he's ruled for four years already.
The Meton Cycle is when the Moon's cycles and the Sun's coincide every 19 years. As we've seen the Sacred King extension from 3 to 9, or almost 50 months, or four years. Well, they also found a way to extend the Sacred King to the Meton cycle,
In Diodorus Siculus, book II-47.6 says their God Apollo comes around every nineteen years, and that this is when the stars align, and they call it the Meton cycle. I'm paraphrasing here; but, it's pretty close.
The famous Antykthera mechanism is based on the Meton cycle. Or, it's designed to predict that.
The proof of the personification of the twelve Zodiacal constellations has been found much further than Eratosthenes. In Herodotuses Histories, book 2, he relates, "The Egyptians, they said, were the first to discover the solar year, and to portion out its course into twelve parts . . . The Egyptians, they went on to affirm, first brought into use the names of the twelve gods, which the Greeks adopted from them".
Herodotus further states, in 2:46 that the 8 gods came before the 12 gods. We see here that people had a hard time figuring out whether there was eight or twelve seasons, and likewise, they evolved the number of seasons through the years.
Twelve seems to be a magic number. We've seen the Hebrews say the twelve tribes of Israel are the twelve constellations, and now, we have it from Herodotus that the Egyptians personified the twelve constellations. Where else do we see this twelve constellations personification(another principle of poetry)?
The idea that Jesus Christ is a sungod, and the last sungod that combines the same mythology of the sungods before him - Osirus/Mithras/Dionysius, to name the big three has partly evolved out of the astrologers. But, there may be an even bigger pattern with these twelve zodiacal constellations.
There's what's called, in modern times the precession of the equinoxes. Astronomers consider the precession of the equinoxes to have been officially discovered in the 2nd century B.C. by a Greek Hipparchus. The precession of the equinoxes has to do with where the pole of the Earth's axis is pointing - what star. Today, our pole star is Polaris. Also, the sun would rise on the equinoxes in a particular constellation. Hipparchus, at least, learned that the equinoxes shift from one constellation to another every 2,166 years, and the time for a full rotation to the original constellation back to it is 26,000 years. The astrologer/sungod theory suggests that Jesus Christ is the Passover sungod from Aries to Pisces(the two fish one often sees on Christian cars). But, this makes little sense, since a look at the zodiacal constellations shows Aries to Pisces then Aquarius, which is often associated with John the Baptist. Jesus Christ is suppose to surpass John the Baptist and not the other way around. And some more problems I find with this whole great year/precession of the equinoxes theory of the Jesus Christ sungod is Jesus Christ birth is suppose to be in December - a solstice, not an equinox. There's also the Virgo constellation, which is suppose to be associated with the virgin birth. But the current winter solstice is Sagittarious, which is a constellation far away from the Virgo constellation. Whether I can ever solve these problems(I'm surprised the sungod theorists never bring these up or notice them), one interesting character back then, a Philo of Alexandria, did think the Passover was associated with this precession of the equinoxes.
He says the spring equinox occurred in Aries . . ."“And the sun, the ruler of the day, making two equinoxes every year, both in spring and autumn. The spring equinox in the constellation of Aries, " - Philo, "on the creation"(chapter heading), XXXIV-116. Philo, here, seems to suggest the sun is some kind of being that rules the day and makes the equinoxes, with the spring equinox in Aries. The astrology/sungod theory suggests the Taurus/Aries/Pisces pattern from one 'age' to the next. They suggest that Moses is the Passover god from Taurus to Aries, and Jesus Christ is the Passover god from Aries to Pisces. I don't think any Christian would deny that Jesus Christ is associated somehow with two fish; but, they'd find it odd idea that these fish are associated with the Pisces constellation.
One thing is for sure about the Philo passage above, he's suggesting the sun rises in the Aries constellation. Only, during his time, there was the Passover to the Pisces era.
The scriptural evidences for Passover is Exodus 12, which has some things to note. The Passover is the Hebrew god passing over the evil Egyptians and eliminating them from the face of the Earth. Exodus 12:12 "On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn of both people and animals, and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt." . . . further . . . "Go at once and select the animals for your families and slaughter the Passover lamb"(Exodus 12:21; really, the beginning of the chapter to the end is about making a lamb/ram the new Passover animal) . . . and further Exodus 12:27 - "It is the Passover sacrifice to the Lord, who passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt and spared our homes when he struck down the Egyptians."
There's Exodus 32, which talks about Moses and God damning the fellow Hebrews who make a golden calf/Bull. But, it's not clear this has anything to do with the Passover.
The Gospels are a lot more about the ages and the Passover. But even then, it's rather vague. They mention ages many times - Matt 28:20, "And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” - I'll use Hebrews because it's pre-Gospel; Hebrews 6:5, "powers of the coming age", and Hebrews 9, "But he has appeared once for all at the culmination of the ages." Hebrews 9 seems to me to reveal a lot. It mentions both lamb and bulls sacrifice - well, maybe.
In Hebrews 9:12, "He did not enter by means of the blood of goats(rams) and calves(bulls)" . . . and then, a bit more literally in the scripture itself, 9:13 - "The blood of goats and bulls"."
Hebrews chapter 9:13 is also about Jesus Christ being sacrificed for our sins, instead of making any kind of sacrifice to any god - whether animal or human. This is getting back to Sir James Frazer's "Golden Bough."
Sir James Frazer's "Golden Bough" is about magic, superstitions that people used in a time when there was no mathematical science. One of the issues Mr Frazer brings up that people did back then to deal with Nature that often was capricious was sacrifice, or offerings to "the god(s)". They'd make either animal or human sacrifice. Jesus Christ is a change from these uncomfortable sacrifices by the Herodians/Romans, as we'll see further below.
Animal sacrifice in the Old Testament - Gen 4:2-4, 8:20-21, Exodus 20:24, Leviticus 8:14-25, Numbers 18:17-19, Deut 12:27. There's also numerous old testament passages where God bans animal sacrifices. This is called a contradiction. There's also human sacrifice in the old testament!
The famous human sacrifice in the old testament is Abraham willing to obey God's commandment to sacrifice his son. This turns out to be just a test. But, there's examples of human sacrifice that are carried out . . . Exodus 22:29 - "the firstborn of thy sons shalt thou give unto me." Numbers 31:35 and 31:40 has virgin girls, loot of Moses war as being sacrificed to God - "And the booty ... was ... thirty and two thousand persons in all, of women that had not known man by lying with him ... of which the LORD's tribute was thirty and two persons." Judges 11:29-40 has a Jephthah, who sacrifices his virgin daughter because he accepts Gods commandment to sacrifice whoever comes out to meet him first, after slaughtering some canaanites(Ammonites). 2Samuel 21:1 and 8-14 - David sacrifices the sons of Saul.
God also gets human sacrifices for anybody worshipping others gods - Leviticus 18:21, Deut 12:31(this one, God tries to make other people's gods look bad by saying they do human sacrifice; but, oh, as if he/god doesn't!), Leviticus 20:2 commands those who gives seed to people who worship others gods, shall be stones to death.
These "offerings" would often be made in each new season - or yearly. Hence, the importance of astrotheology(proven above). Re-quoting here - 1Samuel-15:22 - "behold, obedience is better than sacrifice." Getting back to astrotheology of the Passover . . .
The scriptural evidences for these ages is vague in my opinion. But, the art is clear. There's the famous Minoan bull,
Mithras is associated with Bull sacrifice as well. The Egyptians had a bull god - Apis, which later turned into Serapis.
One might not think of Moses as a sungod, but in Exodus 34:29-35, we see that his face is radiant . . . "When Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the covenant law in his hands, he was not aware that his face was radiant because he had spoken with the Lord", "When Moses finished speaking to them, he put a veil over his face.", "they saw that his face was radiant. Then Moses would put the veil back over his face until he went in to speak with the Lord." . . . so, Moses is a sungod(there's much more evidence of this; check out D.M. Murdock's "Did Moses Exist"), and as we've proven above, he harolds the Passover from the age of Taurus to the age of Aries.
Further evidence of the ubiquity of the rams symbology is Alexander the Great, who has a coin of him with rams horns,
Alexander the Great, of course, conquered "the known world" of the Mediterranean. He died young, and his empire was divided into four - Ptolemaic Alexandria, Seleucid Mesopotamia, Attalid Anatolia, and Antigonid Macedon. Our concern is Ptolemaic Alexandria. Ptolemy 1, the very first Ptolemy founded the cult of Serapsis - a combining of Osiris and Apis. Apis is a bull god. I mention this as more evidence of bulls. Later, Hadrian considered knew Christians and Serapsis worshippers,
"From Hadrian Augustus to Servianus the consul, greeting. The land of Egypt, the praises of which you have been recounting to me, my dear Servianus, I have found to be wholly light-minded, unstable, and blown about by every breath of rumour. There those who worship Serapis are, in fact, Christians, and those who call themselves bishops of Christ are, in fact, devotees of Serapis. There is no chief of the Jewish synagogue, no Samaritan, no Christian presbyter, who is not an astrologer, a soothsayer, or an anointer. Even the Patriarch himself, when he comes to Egypt, is forced by some to worship Serapis, by others to worship Christ."
The whole Serapsis mythology shows that Kings and Rulers made up mythologies by combining gods to appease the population. And also note that this passage says all these religions are astrologers - hence astrotheology.
More proof that Hellenistic society was conscious of a new age are these two B.C. time passages . . .
"The Providence which rules over all has filled this man with such gifts for the salvation of the world as designated him as savior for us and for the coming generations; of wars he will make an end, and establish all things worthily. By his appearing are the hopes of our forefathers fulfilled; not only has he surpassed the good deeds of earlier times, but it is impossible that one greater than he can ever appear. The birthday of God has brought to the world glad tidings that are bound up in him. From his birthday a new era begins."
Now for the Virgil passage from his "Eclogue 4",
"Come are those last days that the Sybil sang: The ages' might march begins anew. Now comes the virgin, Saturn reigns again: now from high heaven descends a wondrous race. Thou on the newborn babe-who first shall end . . . That age of iron, bid a golden dawn . . . Upon the broud world-chaste Lucina, smile: Now thy Apollo reigns."
The political climate at this Passover period was Roman. Roman's were not intellectuals.
""This terror then and darkness of mind must be dispelled not by the rays of the sun and glittering shafts of light, but by the aspect and law of nature." - Lucretius. Lucretius was never much of a mathematical scientist. In fact, the Roman's didn't produce one mathematician in their thousand year history. If they wanted some engineering done, they brought in a Greek. Lucretius science was just classification and noting things. But, here, he reveals that the religions of his day are based on sunworship, and that religion is used to keep people inline. This is a plee for rationalism; but, as we'll see, it fell on deaf ears.
Diodorus of Sicily is interesting here because he’s b.c. time and notes that hell is made up to keep people inline(book 1.2.2 -”For if it be true that the myths which are related about Hades, in spite of the fact that their subject-matter is fictitious, contribute greatly to fostering piety and justice among men,”). Santa Clause is one mythology for keeping kids in line; religion is politicized mythology for dictator/Kings to keep his ruled people in line and believing in him(usually a Him and not a Her).
As mentioned a little bit above, the Romans didn't produce one mathematician in their entire history. When they wanted engineering or a calendar, they brought in a Greek. As Cicero said,
"Geometry was in high esteem with them, therefore, none were more honourable than
mathematicians; but we have confined this art to bare measuring and calculating." - Cicero
The Romans, as evidenced by the Ptolemy 1 to Hadrian above about the invention of Serapsis, were likewise, only interested in religion, in so far, as it kept the people happy - slaving away. If one mythology didn't do the trick, they'd invent another one. As we'll see below, the New Testament is pro-Roman/Herodian. To maybe suggest some Imperial Roman bloodlines to first century Christianity . . .
Melito of Sardis seemed to have the ear of Marcus Aurelius(whom most people like to consider as intellectual as Cicero) and Antoninus Caesar. Antoninus is father of Marcus. Antoninus Pius(Caesar) predecessor was Hadrian(mentioned above). Hadrian was the last Roman to sack Jerusalem in 125 A.D. Antoninus Pius further was the son of a Titus Aurelius Fulvius. Titus and his father Vespasian will be mentioned again further down. Melito of Sardis also mentions sungods - ""that this was the first-born of God, who was begotten before the sun."
Going back further in time, Malachi 4.2 “But for you who fear My name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings; . . . Malachi is the last Jewish prophet/writer before the New Testament. He's actually writing around 400 B.C. But, it's clear that the spirit if you will that is to come from God, who will heal with the rays of the sun is the sun. The Sun of righteousness is spelled Sun. That's how they spell it; so, the son of God here, is the sun of god. Reading around the passage, Malachi is suggesting this sun of righteousness will come to herald a new age. It's a sungod who will Harold this new age. At the end of Clement of Alexandria's EXHORTATION TO THE HEATHEN, he actually uses the Malachi quote above CHAP. XI.--HOW GREAT ARE THE BENEFITS CONFERRED ON MAN THROUGH THE ADVENT OF . . .
"For "the Sun of Righteousness," who drives His chariot over all, pervades equally all humanity, like "His Father, who makes His sun to rise on all men," Clearly, for Clement of Alexandria, the son of god, is the SUN of god.
There's been discovered a "Revelation of Gabriel" tablet that speaks of a Simon who was resurrected after three days. The truth is there were many people around the first century B.C. waiting for the end of the world.
Here's a picture of the Revelation of Gabriel tablet,
So clearly, Jewish culture picked up on being messianic.
The Malachi book doesn't call this sun of god Jesus Christ. But, more proof that Jesus Christ is a sungod has been found. . .
Clement's(of Alexandria)Excerpta ex Theodotus, 25.2
"He(Valentinus) says the Apostles were substituted for the twelve signs of the Zodiac, for, as birth is directed by them, so is rebirth by the Apostles."
and . . .
Clementine homoliee, 2:23, " and as the Lord had twelve apostles, bearing the number of the twelve months of the sun,"
I'm not going to trace the story of the Zodiacal constellations, and match them up with the Gospel stories, because I can find a short way of proving it. When I match the Zodiacal constellation story with the Gospels, I found that the Gemini twins were hard to find. Around that point, there was mentioned like one guy getting healed. It got vague, and the story just seemed to skip. But, then I found this Mark 3:17 passage - "And James the son of Zebedee, and John the brother of James; and he surnamed them Boanerges, which is, The sons of thunder:" James and John are the missing Gemini twins - Castor and Polydeuces. Castor and Polydeuces are the "Sons of Thunder." This proves the Gospel story is centered around the Zodiacal constellations story, because the Gemini twins are one of the Zodiacal constellations.
What's more - Robert Graves shows in his "The Greek Myths" that Castor and Polydeuces are Sacred King/Tanist with respect to one another. From the Babylonian goddess story of Inanna of 3000 B.C. to Castor and Polydeuces to James and John in the Gospel of Mark. This proves that people would re-cast other people's mythologies into their own. So could Jesus Christ be a new Sungod, just like Dionysius, Mithras, Osirus/Horus before him? Well, I just proved the twelve constelations above. But who did it? Not who you'd think, and I'll prove below.
The whole precession of the equinoxes mythologized may have been a reason for the force of converting so many people to these religious ideas. Another is midrashing.
A main guy, perhaps the main guy, to start midrashing the old testament and combine with Greek philosophy is Philo, who lived before, during and after the supposed life of Jesus Christ; but, he never mentions a Jesus Christ in his works!
Philo is very into Plato's 'logos'. He has even more interesting history that perhaps evolves into more significance for the beginnings of Christianity. Philo was dirty stinking, filthy rich. He controlled the trade from the city of Alexandria down to India. He was essentially the guy in charge of the silk road! That should give you some idea of how rich this guy was. The guy could practically pay people to believe in whatever he wanted the ignorant masses to believe. I don't know if he used his money quite like that; but, Philo happened to have a Nephew - a Tiberius Alexander.
Tiberius Alexander was second in command with Titus who was second in command to his Roman Emperor father Vespasian. Tiberius Alexander hated a James the Just. He was said to have gone from pure Judaism to some radical religion. Tiberius Alexander along with Titus destroyed Jerusalem around 66 A.D. Also, Tiberius Alexander used his uncles money to pay Vespasians way into the Emperor seat of the Roman empire.
Another nephew of Philo was a Marcus Alexander, who became husband to a Berenice, a Herodian(half Jewish princess). Berenice makes some appearances in the New Testament(Acts 25:23). - just one of the curious appearances of Herodians in the New Testament. One major point I'm going to give below is that the Gospels, and really the New Testament is Herodian/Roman. Gospel of Mark 3:6 is one fact that suggests it. "And the Pharisees(a Jewish sect. There were many Jewish sects at the time - Sadducees, Essenes, Samarians) went forth,and straightway took councel with the Herodians against him(this is saying the Pharisees sided with the Herodians against Jesus Christ!).
There's another curious character in the destruction of Jerusalem around 66 A.D. - Flavius Josephus.
Josephus was a Jew. Flavius is an official imperial roman name. How does a Jew get an official imperial name? Josephus was a Jewish general fighting the romans. According to his testimony, he decided to turn Roman. One day, the Roman legions were coming, him and some of his fellow officers remaining hid in a cave. They drew straws to see who was going to cut the others throats. Fortunately for Josephus anyways, he got the right straw. He slit their throats and surrendered to the Roman emperor Titus. Titus was Roman emperor Vespasian's son and second in command at the time. Josephus apparently told Titus and Vespasian about the Jewish prophesy in Numbers 24 that a messiah will save them and destroy their enemies. Josephus became the Roman's spokesperson to try to get the messianic Jews to not be messianic and pay their taxes like every other culture the Romans had conquered and absorbed. Josephus also told them everything about the Jews. Why did he do this?
Apparently, Flavius Josephus felt that the messianic strain of Jews brought the Roman legions down on the Jews; so, the messianic strain had to be taken out. But, could Josephus have been more than even that? Could he have acted as a spy? Getting a little ahead of the story, Robert Eisenman in his "James Brother of Jesus" shows analogies between the works of Josephus and the Pauline epistles and much other literature, some clementine recognitions and much else besides. What he decodes out of it all is that whether there was a Jesus Christ or not, the Jesus Christ of the Gospels is just a hellenistic sungod overwright for a "James the Just." Quoting from the first paragraph of Josephus's "The Jewish War" . . .
"while some men who were not concerned in the affairs themselves have gotten together vain and contradictory stories by hearsay, and have written them down after a sophistical manner; and while those that were there present have given false accounts of things, and this either out of a humor of flattery to the Romans, or of hatred towards the Jews;" - Flavius Josephus
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At the end of the Gospels is Pontus Pilate cleansing his and the Romans/Herodians hands of the killing of Jesus Christ. They even blame it on the Jews!
Pontus Pilate tells the Jews that he'll give back Jesus Christ and take a criminal Barabbas. But, the Jews are made to say they'd rather have the criminal! Mark 12-13, "And Pilate answered and said again unto them, What will ye then that I shall do unto him whom ye call the King of the Jews? . . . And they(the Jews) cried out again, Crucify him."
In Matthew, this is Matt 27:11 through 27:26; In 27:24, Pilate cleanses his hands, "he took water, and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the blood of this just person:" . . . and then the very next verse has the Jews willingly taking the blame for the crucification, "Then answered all the people, and said, His blood be on us and our children."
In Luke, the Herodians get cleared of all wrong doing. In John 19:15, the Jews are made to say, we have no king but Caesar!
But! Right at the end of each Gospel, Jesus Christ does not tell, in this case, Pontus Pilate, to not reveal his name. Now, it’s o.k.
Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 2:15
the Jews:
Who both killed the Lord Jesus, and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they please not God, and are contrary to all men:
2:16 Forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved, to fill up their sins alway: for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost. "
The Jews were called "Christ killers" all through the dark ages. Why? Does it make sense? No. The only thing that makes sense, is there never was a Jesus Christ, and the Jews had to take the fall. The whole Christ killers thing is disproof enough that there never was a Jesus Christ!(and the dangers of vague mythologizing minds).
Justin Martyr midrashes that the Jews were given circumcision as punishment for not knowing of Jesus Christ.
CHAPTER XVI -- CIRCUMCISION GIVEN AS A SIGN, THAT THE JEWS MIGHT BE DRIVEN AWAY FOR THEIR EVIL DEEDS DONE TO CHRIST AND THE CHRISTIANS.
"And God himself proclaimed by Moses, speaking thus: 'And circumcise the hardness of your hearts, and no longer stiffen the neck. For the Lord your God is both Lord of lords, and a great, mighty, and terrible God, who regardeth not persons, and taketh not rewards.' And in Leviticus: 'Because they have transgressed against Me, and despised Me, and because they have walked contrary to Me, I also walked contrary to them, and I shall cut them off in the land of their enemies. Then shall their uncircumcised heart be turned.' For the circumcision according to the flesh, which is from Abraham, was given for a sign; that you may be separated from other nations, and from us; and that you alone may suffer that which you now justly suffer; and that your land may be desolate, and your cities burned with fire; and that strangers may eat your fruit in your presence, and not one of you may go up to Jerusalem.' For you are not recognised among the rest of men by any other mark than your fleshly circumcision. For none of you, I suppose, will venture to say that God neither did nor does foresee the events, which are future, nor fore-ordained his deserts for each one. Accordingly, these things have happened to you in fairness and justice, for you have slain the Just One, and His prophets before Him; and now you reject those who hope in Him, and in Him who sent Him--God the Almighty and Maker of all things--cursing in your synagogues those that believe on Christ. For you have not the power to lay hands upon us, on account of those who now have the mastery. But as often as you could, you did so. Wherefore God, by Isaiah, calls to you, saying, 'Behold how the righteous man perished, and no one regards it. For the righteous man is taken away from before iniquity. His grave shall be in peace, he is taken away from the midst. Draw near hither, ye lawless children, seed of the adulterers, and children of the whore. Against whom have you sported yourselves, and against whom have you opened the mouth, and against whom have you loosened the tongue?' - Justin Martyr, DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO, chapter 16
Judah/Judas the betrayer. Judas, who betrays Jesus Christ is linguistically similar to Judah, the southern Hebrew kingdom. If this is so, then why? Because the Gospels are written by Romans/Herodians, who are anti-Jewish. Recall, that Jesus says "Give to Caesar what is his", and then there's the whole Jesus Christ/Pilate scenes where Pilate cleanses his hands of the blood of Jesus Christ's crucification(essentially the Romans, and in Luke it's the Herodians who cleanse their hands of the blood of Jesus Christ crucification) and put the blame on the Jews.
At this point Judas as Judah betraying Jesus Christ makes sense. But, there's more!
Papias states the following!
"Judas walked about in this world a sad example of impiety; for his body having swollen to such an extent that he could not pass where a chariot could pass easily, he was crushed by the chariot, so that his bowels gushed out."
Judas/Judah was crushed by the Chariot/Romans
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I for one find it weird that Josephus knows so much of the happenings between Paul and James the Just. One of the things Eisenman decodes is that Paul killed James the Just. This is just me; but, with Josephus's photographic memory(as described by Mr Eisenman - see his James the Just, which goes through the literature of the period - the dead sea scrolls,), of the events, I've often suspected that Josephus is Paul! I've found one almost undeniable correspondence between the life story of Josephus and Paul,
"Josephus: Shipwrecked on voyage to Rome
"But when I was in the twenty-sixth year of my age, it happened that I took a voyage to Rome ... At the time when Felix was procurator of Judea there were certain priests of my acquaintance ... whom on a small and trifling occasion he had put into bonds, and sent to Rome to plead their cause before Caesar ...
Accordingly I came to Rome, though it were through a great number of hazards by sea; for as ourship was drowned in the Adriatic Sea, we that were in it, being about six hundred in number, swam for our lives all the night; when, upon the first appearance of the day, and upon our sight of a ship of Cyrene, I and some others, eighty in all, by God's providence, prevented the rest, and were taken up into the other ship.
And when I had thus escaped, and was come to Dieearchia, which the Italians call Puteoli."
- Josephus, Life,3
St Paul: "Shipwrecked on voyage to Rome"
"Felix, willing to show the Jews a pleasure, left Paul bound." - Acts 24.27.
"They talked between themselves, saying, This man doeth nothing worthy of death or of bonds. - Acts 26.31.
"It was determined that we should sail into Italy ... And entering into a ship of Adramyttium ... we came to Myra ... And there the centurion found a ship of Alexandria sailing into Italy ... they sailed close by Crete. But not long after there arose against it a tempestuous wind ... no small tempest lay on us ... But when the fourteenth night was come, as we were driven up and down in Adria ... And falling into a place where two seas met, they ran the ship aground; and the forepart stuck fast, and remained unmovable, but the hinder part was broken with the violence of the waves.
The centurion ... commanded that they which could swim should cast themselves first into the sea, and get to land. And the rest, some on boards, and some on broken pieces of the ship. And so it came to pass, that they escaped all safe to land. And after three months we departed in a ship of Alexandria ...
And landing at Syracuse ... and came to Rhegium: and after one day the south wind blew, and we came the next day to Puteoli."
More curious things between Josephus and the New Testament Pauline epistles is a Epaphroditus, a roman emperor secretary. This roman secretary makes an appearence in the New Testament, Philippians 2:25 where Paul says Epaphroditus is an apostle for christianity. Epiphroditus funded the works of Josephus. There's more curious things about this friend of Josephus. Mr Eisenman's "The New Testament Code", shows some remarkable linguistic shorthands for various people in the Josephus circle; that of Timothy for Titus, a Silas as equivalent linguistic form shorthand for a Silvanus(yes, the silas of the Da Vinci Code), a Erastus could correspond to Epaphroditus. References would be acts 19:22, 2Timothy4:20, Romans 16:23. So, all these friends of Josephus appear in this linguistic shorthand except! Josephus! Where does Josephus go in the New Testament? I'd say Paul. Josephus is overwritten as Paul just like James the Just is by Jesus Christ.
Epaphroditus is also mentioned in Philippians 4:18. A little further down, "Paul" salutes the household of Caesar(Philippians 4:22. Getting back to 4:18 above, Robert Eisenman notes that Paul describes Epaphroditus as "an odour of a sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable, wellpleasing to God." This is the exact language, word for word, used in the dead sea scrolls. Josephus was an Essene veteran. He knew the Essenes intimately. Once again, this suggests to me that the original Paul was Josephus.
Titus (whom I've already mentioned was the son, and second emperor next to Vespasian, and whom Josephus said, at the end of his Jewish war was the coming messiah to save the Jews . . .) (who has an epistle named after him in the New Testament) is also mentioned as being with Paul in Galatians 2.3 "But neither Titus, who was with me, being a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised:" - Titus is also mentioned in Galatians 2.1, 1 Corinthians 16:10-11(where Paul is commanding soon to be Roman Emperor Titus around! Who could do that? Other than Josephus(before Titus becomes Roman Emperor for a little while), 2Corinthians 2:13, where Paul is grieving because Titus is not with him at all times, 2Corinthians 7:7 and 7:13, 1 Corinthians 4:17, Acts 19:22.
More good stuff from Galatians is that of Paul acknowledging that James the Just is in charge of the church - Galatians 2.9 "And when James, Cephas, and John, who seemed to be pillars"
Another curious person Paul is hanging out with is an Agrippa. He has to be hanging out with Agrippa II, because that's who's there during the time of Paul. Acts 26:28 "Then Agrippa said unto Paul, Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian.
Agrippa II was good friends with Josephus, and he had three sisters, Mariamne, Drusilla, and Berenice, all make appearances with Paul in the Pauline epistles, as mentioned already.
Here's the Triumphal arch of Titus; it stands for Vespasian/Titus's destruction of Jerusalem; yet, there's not mention of a Jesus Christ.
People often like to point to Josephus as historical testimony that Jesus Christ was real. There's a Josephus passage, called the Testimonium Flavianum - Jewish Antiquities, 18.3.3.
One of the main problems has been no one before Eusebius(Emperor Constantine's right hand man), ever mentions this passage.
Origen, a church father of Alexandria, a hundred years before, analyses and uses Josephus as much as possible. But, Origen notes that Josephus doesn't mention any Jesus Christ,
"I would like to say to Celsus, who represents the Jew as accepting somehow John as a Baptist, who baptized Jesus, that the existence of John the Baptist, baptizing for the remission of sins, is related by one who lived no great length of time after John and Jesus. For in the 18th book of his Antiquities of the Jews, Josephus bears witness to John as having been a Baptist, and as promising purification to those who underwent the rite. Now this writer, although not believing in Jesus as the Christ, in seeking after the cause of the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple, whereas he ought to have said that the conspiracy against Jesus was the cause of these calamities befalling the people, since they put to death Christ, who was a prophet, says nevertheless— being, although against his will, not far from the truth— that these disasters happened to the Jews as a punishment for the death of James the Just, who was a brother of Jesus (called Christ),— the Jews having put him to death, although he was a man most distinguished for his justice. Paul, a genuine disciple of Jesus, says that he regarded this James as a brother of the Lord, not so much on account of their relationship by blood, or of their being brought up together, as because of his virtue and doctrine. If, then, he says that it was on account of James that the desolation of Jerusalem was made to overtake the Jews, how should it not be more in accordance with reason to say that it happened on account (of the death) of Jesus Christ, of whose divinity so many Churches are witnesses, composed of those who have been convened from a flood of sins, and who have joined themselves to the Creator, and who refer all their actions to His good pleasure." Chapter 47 of Origen's Contra Celsus
This Origen passage says a lot. It shows the Josephus "Testimonium Flavianum" is a forgery, and then it notes that James the Just is the reason for the Jerusalem Temple's destruction(which was built by Herod the Great, by the way). It also says that James the Just is not a blood brother of Jesus Christ, but a 'club member brother' of the Jesus Christ club. As Robert Eisenman, shows through his thousand page volume - James brother of Jesus, James the Just is over-written/replaced by Jesus Christ, which is just a sungod.
More brother of Jesus Christ doesn’t mean “blood brother”, but “being part of the gang/club/cult” brother . . . “1Corinthians 9:5 "as do the other apostles and the Lord’s brothers and Cephas". Here we see the twelve apostles of Jesus Christ being called the lords brothers. . . . further . . . “Hebrews 2:11, "Both the one who makes people holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters."
A second Josephus passage proves this for sure - "Antiquities 20:9:1, which has in it, "the brother of Jesus, who's name is James"
So, the followers of Jesus Christ are the brothers/sisters of the Jesus Christ cult/club. Further down, we’ll see that James the Just and Paul . . . where, as we’ve seen above, James the Just is a brother of the Christ cult . . . and both of these guys came after the supposed life of Jesus Christ . . . are constanly telling people, “don’t worry, Jesus Christ will come.”
The mystery of Paul deepens. Romans 16:11 has it that Paul is a Herodian. Also, biblical scholars can't help noticing that Paul's travels and an Appollonius of Tyana are the same. Seems that Paul is a combining of many different people. Scholars note that the Paul of Acts is different from the Paul of Romans/Corinthians. And then, the later Pauline epistles seems to be a different character as well - the Epistles of Titus. One thing is for sure, the New Testament appears to be pro-Romans/Herodian.
As with the Old Testament proof above about the convenience of the one god concept by the Kings to subjugate the population and to keep them in line(and remember the Diodorus of Sicily passage above about the use of Hell to keep people fearing the ruling elite), so with the New Testament . . .
The Gospel of Mark 12:17 says "Give back to Caesar what is Caesar's". Paul in Roman's 13 says to conform to what the government says and pay your taxes, "Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. 2 Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. 3 For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and you will be commended. 4 For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. 5 Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also as a matter of conscience. 6 This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time to governing. 7 Give to everyone what you owe them: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor." - Wow!
More evidence that there never was a Jesus Christ is coins. coins from Minoa crete over 1000B.C. have been found with mazes on them, of course, there's the Alexander the Great coin with the rams horns. I've seen Greek coins around 300 B.C. with geometric algebra on them. For a thousand years before the supposed life of Jesus Christ, people coined every major historical event, concern, and major figures, kings and philosophers. There are no Jesus Christ coins. There's people who have mentioned passages that the Jews don't make idols; but, they don't do so so their mythology can't be disproved. It's the same reason the gods were moved first to the heavens, then to extra dimensions, anywhere that can't be seen. Besides, when one comes to understand that the Gospels and Pauline epistles are Herodian/Pro-Roman(give to caesar what is his; in other words pay your taxes, Matt 22:15, Mark 12:17 and even in the Pauline epistles), then you would figure that someone, somewhere would make Jesus Christ coins. It wouldn't have been up to the Jews to do so. Oh yes, they had coins too! So where does this Jesus Christ come from?
He comes from Midrashing. Almost every page of every gospel and Pauline epistle and even Revelations has it stated where they get their info about Jesus Christ - from scripture. Yes, that's right, Jesus Christ is scripturally derived. Meaning, Jesus Christ is a literary fabrication. Philo, if you remember was the man who started the midrashing of the old testament and Greek philosophy(Plato's Logos). Giving some highlights,
- Romans 16:25, "Now to him that is of power to stablish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began,”
- Zechariah 9:9 seems to be the midrash for Jesus coming into Jerusalem on an ass . . . or a colt . . . or both depending on which gospel you read!
- Isaiah 7:14 says a lord shall be born of a virgin and called Immanual. The Gospel of Matthewe quotes this even calling Jesus Christ Emannuel. The Isaiah 7:14 passage is a confirmation that Jesus Christ is made up because, whoever did this midrashing, midrashed the Septuagint, a Greek translation hundreds of years before the supposed life of Jesus Christ. Even if the Isaiah passage said virgin, instead of 'young woman', it's still midrash. But, The Greek translators of the city of Alexandria, around 300 B.C. mistranslated it. The maker of Matthew took this mistranslation at face value, and this reveals the truth that Jesus Christ is a just a midrashing, a scriptural derivation of the Old testament.
Believers will tell you this is "Prophecy"; but, as we know that Philo was midrashing, we know that midrashing is a kind of literary interpretation. Prophecy is taking these 'literary analyses' as some kind of workable mathematics.
More biblical evidences Paul is midrashing Jesus Christ into existence, and that this is what sets his sungod(Jesus Christ) apart from others . . .
Acts 17:2 ,"And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three sabbath days reasoned with them out of the scriptures,"
17:11 "in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so."
More of what sets Jesus Christ apart from Dionysus, Osirus/Horus, is he's suppose to be historical . . .
-"then he clearly manifested himself to be the son of god. For had he not come in the flesh, how should men have been able looked upon him, that they might be saved?"
This is in the Epistle of Barnabas chapter 4:13-14. Here, we see a kind of logic for midrashing Jesus Christ; to make him historical; otherwise, how else are people to be saved? This is the same type of vague reasoning/mental trick as "believe and you will believe."
This type of reasoning, a smoking gun to midrash the Old Testament and Platonic philosophy to create a messianic savior is also in the New Testament, "Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? why are they then baptized for the dead?" - 1Corinthians29
1Corinthians15:3-4 - Jesus died for our sins and raised on the third day - both according to the scriptures, not some historical event. Raised on the third day is one feature of dying and rising sun; the sun stalls for three days on the equinoxes. This passage alone says "Jesus Christ is a literary fabrication.
He shall also judge those who describe Christ as [having become man] only in [human] opinion. For how can they imagine that they do themselves carry on a real discussion, when their Master was a mere imaginary being? Or how can they receive anything steadfast from Him, if He was a merely imagined being, and not a verity? And how can these men really be partaken of salvation, if He in whom they profess to believe, manifested Himself as a merely imaginary being?" Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book IV, Chapter 33, paragraph 5
So, we see that this reasoning, that of "if Jesus hadn't come in the flesh, then we can't be saved", is no flash in the pan. This reasoning is why they felt right to midrash/apologize to make up a Jesus Christ from Old Testament materials.
Getting back to the Romans 16:25 passage . . . it mentions something about mysteries. All the sungod priests since at least Greek times kept the mythology as 'mysteries.' Well, according to this Herodotus passage(book 2, chapter 61 of the "Histories"(de silencourt translation)}, the Egyptians also practiced keeping the mythology a mystery. Back then, there were tests to see if your mythology was worth listening to: in Dideche Chapter 11. An example in the New testament is 1John4:1.
The christians were willing to reveal Pagan mysteries. These were secrets the Pagan mysteries were dependent on to keep people in their mysteries.
"And now, for it is time, I will prove their orgies to be full of imposture and quackery. And if you have been initiated, you will laugh all the more at these fables of yours which have been held in honour. I publish without reserve what has been involved in secrecy, not ashamed to tell what you are not ashamed to worship." - Clement of Alexandria, "Exhortation to the Heathens" 2
Paul says the ‘mystery’ of Jesus Christ was known before. This states that Jesus Christ is just a retelling of previous sungod mythologies. When one has an inconsistent statement, one can prove anything one wants to. When one doesn’t feel comfortable with a fact, they use evasive inconsistent statements; and, if that doesn’t work, they resort to violence. . . .
400 A.D. Bishop of Constantinople Gregorius of Nyssa quote again, noticed this type of thinking and complained,
"People swarm everywhere, talking of incomprehensible matters, in hovels, streets and square, marketplaces, and crossroads. When I ask how many oboloi I have to pay, they answer with hairsplitting arguments about the born and the unborn. If I inquire the price of bread, I am told that the father is greater than the son. I call a servant to tell me whether my bath is ready; he rejoins that the son was created out of nothing."
New Testament/Jesus Christ examples . . .
here’s one guy whom Jesus Christ himself is confronting, “In Mark 5:9, "Then Jesus asked him, “What is your name?”
“My name is Legion,” he replied, “for we are many.”
The man in the tomb didn't want Jesus Christ to know there was only one man in the cave; so, he told them there was legions of people.” But Jesus Christ himself is constantly trying to hide his identity . . .
“Mark 1:24-25, “What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God!”
25 “Be quiet!” said Jesus sternly. “Come out of him!”
. . . here we have the Demons telling Jesus they know who he is, and Jesus Christ telling them to shut up and come out of the possessed man. And then, further below, Jesus tells the now clean man to not tell anyone of this . . .
Mark 1:43 - "Jesus sent him away at once with a strong warning: 44 “See that you don’t tell this to anyone."
- Mark 3:11-12 has more cleased from demons people, and Jesus Christ telling them not to reveal it to anyone.
- Mark 5:43 . . . Mark 7:36 . . . Mark 9:9(Mark 9 is where Peter/James/John up to a mountain and transfigured . . whatever that means; he got white bright . . . Elijah and Moses appeared to them, and Jesus tells them not to tell anyone about this).
I should further relate these "don't tell anyone, less my dirty little secrets get out" to one of my favorite Pauline passages . . .
2 Thessalonians3:6 Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly, and not after the tradition which he received of us."
and another, "3:14 And if any man obey not our word by this epistle, note that man, and have no company with him, that he may be ashamed."
Both Pauline and James the Just camps are saying, "listen to our midrashing, but not the other." Above is the Pauline group saying don't listen to James the Just, and others. Just listen to our midrashing. Below is the James the Just camp saying don't listen to the Pauline group!
"Chapter XXXV. Beware of False Prophets.
Then after three months were fulfilled, he ordered me to fast for several days, and then brought me to the fountains that are near to the sea, and baptized me as in ever-flowing water. Thus, therefore, when our brethren rejoiced at my God-gifted regeneration, not many days after he turned to the elders in presence of all the church, and charged them, saying:
Our Lord and Prophet, who has sent us, declared to us that the wicked one, having disputed with Him forty days, and having prevailed nothing against Him, promised that he would send apostles from amongst his subjects, to deceive. Wherefore, above all, remember to shun apostle or teacher or prophet who does not first accurately compare his preaching with that of James, who was called the brother of my Lord, and to whom was entrusted to administer the church of the Hebrews in Jerusalem," - PseudoClementine Homolies 11:35
Pagans/Heathens/Gentiles come from Christians saying who the others are. It's a way of labeling anybody else who's not "christian" and making them look bad; and, then as with the two Thessalonians passages right above, to stay away from these "Pagans/Heathens/Gentiles". As we'll see below, Christianity will demonize knowledge and learning, just as the Old Testament writers did(as explained pretty far above).
Robert Eisenman further explains that James the Just and Paul are in competition with one another. James the Just sides with a Queen of Edessa, Helen of Adiabene. Meanwhile Paul went to the Romans for help. There's a temple dedicated to Helen of Adiabene right outside of the Jerusalem temple today!
There's a passage in what's called the Psuedo-Clementine Recognitions where an attack by Paul/Saul on James the Just is revealed . . .
"Chapter LXX.—Tumult Raised by Saul.
“And when matters were at that point that they should come and be baptized, some one of our enemies,596 entering the temple with a few men, began to cry out, and to say, ‘What mean ye, O men of Israel? Why are you so easily hurried on? Why are ye led headlong by most miserable men, who are deceived by Simon, a magician?’ While he was thus speaking, and adding more to the same effect, and while James the bishop was refuting him, he began to excite the people and to raise a tumult, so that the people might not be able to hear what was said. Therefore he began to drive all into confusion with shouting, and to undo what had been arranged with much labour, and at the same time to reproach the priests, and to enrage them with revilings and abuse, and, like a madman, to excite every one to murder, saying, ‘What do ye? Why do ye hesitate? Oh sluggish and inert, why do we not lay hands upon them, and pull all these fellows to pieces?’ When he had said this, he first, seizing a strong brand from the altar, set the example of smiting. Then others also, seeing him, were carried away with like readiness. Then ensued a tumult on either side, of the beating and the beaten. Much blood is shed; there is a confused flight, in the midst of which that enemy attacked James, and threw him headlong from the top of the steps; and supposing him to be dead, he cared not to inflict further violence upon him.”"
This is after many passages saying the Jews were waiting for a Mesisah to come, and that the Jews said the Messiah never came.
And who could have gotten so close to James the Just? Who could recognize James the just(there's no pictures back then). That's right - Josephus! Once again, I argue that the original Paul is Josephus.
In the Gospel of Mark, James is the less in chapter 15:40. Jerome in his "Perpetual virginity of the blessed Mary", equates James the less with the "son of Alphæus", and Mary as the wife of Alphaeus, and Mary who is called by John the Evangelist "Mary of Clopas". Then, in Jerome's "De Viris Illustribus", . . ., equates James the less with James the Just - "James, who is called the brother of the Lord, surnamed the Just, the son of Joseph by another wife, as some think, but, as appears to me, the son of Mary sister of the mother our Lord <Mary of Cleophas> of whom John makes mention in his book.(John 19:25)"
In Mark 13, Jesus is made to prophesy the destruction of the temple of Jerusalem – Mark 13:2 – ““Do you see all these great buildings?” replied Jesus. “Not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.” This passage dates the Gospels to after the destruction of the Herodian temple to the Jews by Vespasian and Titus. Also remember what’s said about prophesy/midrash and Philo above. Also, note the Origen passage above proving that the Temple was destroyed and Jerusalem sacked in 70 A.D. not because of Jesus Christ but because of James the Just. Of further import of this passage, James the Just and Paul are both telling people and trying to convert people to their new religion . . . really, both are trying to take over the the sungod religion in the new Pisces age . . . by saying their midrash will work; Christ will come in their time. James the Just and Paul both lived and went around trying to make a new religion after the supposed lifetime of Jesus Christ. As the passages prove below, Jesus Christ never came.
. . . Here Paul, 1 Thessalonians 2
"Are not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming? " and 2 Thessalonians 2
"2:2 That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand.
. . . and here James the Just, Epistle of James(James the Just?), says 5:7 Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord." and " 5:8 Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh. "
Researchers have found over 41 such passages - 1Corinthians4.5, 1Corinthians11:26, 1Corinthians15:23, 2Peter1:16, 2Peter3:3, 1 Thessalonians 2:19, 1 Thessalonians 3:13, 1 Thessalonians 4:15, 1 Thessalonians 5:23, 2 Thessalonians 1:10, 2 Thessalonians 2:1-2 , 2Thessalonians2:8, Hebrews 10:37, Revelation1:4, Revelation2:16, Revelations2:25, Revelation 3:3, Revelation22:20, 1Thessalonians1:10 , Philippians1:6 , Philippians 1:10 , 1John2:28, Colossians 3:4, 1Peter5:4 , 1Timothy 16:14 , 2Timothy4:1, Titus 2:13, 1Peter4:13, 1Peter5:1 , 2Thessalonians 1:7, 2Thessalonians 2:6, 1Peter 1:13, 1Coninthians 1:7 These passages are Paul and James the Just assuring those they are trying to convert to their new religion(the new age because of the precession of the equinoxes)(note, they're in competition with one another) that Jesus Christ will come in their lifetime. This lifetime thirty years after the supposed life of Jesus Christ. This is a big oops and proof that Jesus Christ never existed. I’ll just mention one more – 2Peter3:4 – “Where is the promise of his coming.”
Mark 13 is also messianic. I pointed out above about Jesus Christ is suppose to change from human sacrifice to dieing for our sins. Well, he does, but it’s bent for Roman/Herodian purposes. Mar 13:5 says don’t listen to other’s ideas of the coming messiah(James the Just). Mark 13 goes on to say don’t be alarmed at rumors of war; such things must happen. In fact, the end of the world will come(in 70 A.D. as Mark 13 is dated to the destruction of the temple of Jerusalem), nation will go against nation . . . and, brother will turn against brother . . . children will turn against parent and kill them. This is not kids criticizing parents. This is a call for bringing down a world order. A world of Greek Platonism and mathematical knowledge.
As I pointed out when first talking about the Iron Age Greeks, Orpheusm said the material world is dirty. The real world is somehow punishment. The real world isn't worth knowing, and we're just being tested.
Romans 7:18 "
For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing:" Some of the numerous passages proving that the Christians took after this Orphic/Platonic idea are 1Corinthians 9:25, Romans 1:23, 1Corinthians15:53, Hebrews 9:23-24, Romans 7:25, Romans 8:3 Romans 8:4, Romans 8:8, Galatians 5:13-24(i'd say in Gal 5:20 in particular says witchcraft; Christians would associate witchcraft with mathematics), Romans 5:12, Romans 5:19, Romans
3:23, Hebrews
7:26, Hebrews "8:4, 9:23-24, Acts 14:11, Philippians 2:7-8
Paul(Romans/Herodians) took over the Christ cult. The Jews had to become "Christ-killers", and philosophers also had to be demonized. In 1Corinthians19, it is written! "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise"(this is actually a Isaiah 29:14 midrash as well!).
- Tertulian who said, "I believe because it is absurd." Further "The Son of God was born: there is no shame, because it is shameful. And the Son of God died: it is wholly credible, because it is unsound. And, buried, He rose again: it is certain, because impossible."
Where people want to be fooled, there's always somebody willing to oblige them,
- "XXXI. That it will be necessary sometimes to use falsehood as a remedy for the benefit of those who require such a mode of treatment(that is Eusebius Preparatio Evangelica, book 12, chapter 31." This is the chapter heading(the style of the age); if you go to this book and the chapter, you'll see that Eusebius quotes Plato's Laws.
As Paul says in Colossians 2:8 "Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ." . . . and, 1Timothy6:20, "Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to your care. Turn away from godless chatter and the opposing ideas of what is falsely called knowledge," And, "Every trace of the old philosophy and literature of the ancient world has vanished from the face of the earth." - this is John Chrysostom of the Byzantine empire.
The early Christians were Pagan drop-outs. They couldn't take the gematria. They became anti-science as shown above. But, their new sungod was analogous to the Pagan sungods. They often had to defend themselves from charges of plagiarism of the Pagan sungods as proven below.
Justin Martyr ‘defended himself from Pagans(Christians word for those who are not christian), by saying “CHAPTER XXI — ANALOGIES TO THE HISTORY OF CHRIST.
And when we say also that the Word, who is the first-birth of God, was produced without sexual union, and that He, Jesus Christ, our Teacher, was crucified and died, and rose again, and ascended into heaven, we propound NOTHING DIFFERENT from WHAT YOU BELIEVE regarding those whom you esteem sons of Jupiter. For you know how many sons your esteemed writers ascribed to Jupiter: Mercury, the interpreting word and teacher of all;AEsculapius, who, though he was a great physician, was struck by a thunderbolt, and so ascended to heaven; and Bacchus too, after he had been torn limb from limb; and Hercules, when he had committed himself to the flames to escape his toils; and the sons of Leda, and Dioscuri; andPerseus, son of Danae; and Bellerophon, who, though sprung from mortals, rose to heaven on the horse Pegasus. For what shall I say of Ariadne, and those who, like her, have been declared to be set among the stars?”
As the passages above suggest, Christianity spread by being easy to learn. It was anti mathematics and anti-knowledge. Lucian, a poet who criticized both pagan and Christian mythology, notes that people took to Christianity because it made them money,
"Peregrinus; much money came to him from them by reason of his imprisonment, and he procured not a little revenue from it . . . Therefore they despise all things indiscriminately and consider them common property, receiving such doctrines traditionally without any definite evidence. So if any charlatan and trickster, able to profit by occasions, comes among them, he quickly acquires sudden wealth by imposing upon simple folk." - Lucian, chapter 13 of THE PASSING OF PEREGRINUS
More on this appealing to the uneducated,
In Origen's "Against Celsus", he notes that Celsus points out that the christian converts were the uneducated,
"the following are the rules laid down by them. Let no one come to us who has been instructed, or who is wise or prudent (for such qualifications are deemed evil by us); but if there be any ignorant, or unintelligent, or uninstructed, or foolish persons, let them come with confidence. By which words, acknowledging that such individuals are worthy of their God, they manifestly show that they desire and are able to gain over only the silly, and the mean, and the stupid, with women and children."
- In 325 A.D. was the Council of Nicea. The Council was set up by Roman Emperor Constantine and Bishop Eusebius. It's said that Eusebius converted Constantine to Christianity on his death bed; but, this is clearly false. Constantine went around saying he was pagan. While behind the scenes, he was setting up the Council of Nicea; he was dividing the Roman empire up into two halves - the western pagan Rome, and the now, under Constantine, the eastern Byzantine empire. He did this because he knew he could never get Pagan Rome to convert to Christianity. Pagan Rome knew what Christianity was.
Alexander the Great created Alexandria to spread and combine the worlds knowledge. Unfortunately, it backfired because it combined mythology with mathematical knowledge(gematria - see the works of Philo!). When you're arguing against vague ideas, one can argue endlessly. This is what happened in the library of Alexandria. The mathematics schools got swamped by the mythologizing - the constant literary analyses of poetry/mythology which can never be proved one way or another. Meanwhile, the mythologists would point out that the mathematics of the day wasn't perfect; therefore, believe in their god. See, god is just a play on ignorance. It says, we don't know/can't know the infinity of nature . . . not to mention pointing out the errors of this or that mathematical theory; therefore, god exists, and throw away all that mathematics. Don't learn how nature works; don't develop technology because it will eventually break. This all culminated in the theology of Saint Augustine's "City of God"- note - Saint Augustine's "City of God" has two chapters in an effort to say Christianity is a new version of Platonism(which it is).
To stand on top of the old Pagan world, they put they converted pagan temples into Christian churches,
Apollo, for instance here, Sant'Apollinare
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c6/Ponte_-_s_Apollinare_restaurato_1060037.JPG/200px-Ponte_-_s_Apollinare_restaurato_1060037.JPG- Where there was a temple to Mars, there now stands Saint Martina,
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5a/Santi_Luca_e_Martina_-_facciata.jpg/210px-Santi_Luca_e_Martina_-_facciata.jpgBecause of this irrationality apologetics, the religious went on a destruction of the light of Reason. They murdered Hypatia about 415 A.D. They lured her in a Christian church, from which they flayed her skin by seashells, then tore her apart, limb by limb, and burned her remains to ashes. They burned down the library of Alexandria(the Arabs would finish the job around 600 A.D. because as they say, "if it's of Allah, we already know; if it's not, then it must not be worth learning."
The European dark ages were a Christian era through and through. There's a lot of Christian history that happened there; so, I'm ending this at the sacking of Rome around 410 A.D.(curiously, they didn't sack Constantinople, and/or destroy the Sophia Haglia temple, which is great; it's a great building; I'm just saying, how come they didn't invade the Eastern Roman empire, but they did manage to invade the western Rome and then go around spreading Christianity? Could the Germanic barbarians have been payed off by the Eastern Christian empire to help end the pagan world? This would have fit in with Emperor Constantine's 'divide and conquer' tactic of setting up the Eastern Christian empire) But, real quickly, the dark ages can be divided into two halves. The first five hundred years after the sacking of Rome, and then the second half, around 1060 A.D. when Europeans discovered the Arabs had preserved Greek mathematical science knowledge.
The first half of the dark ages was a fight between those who believed Jesus Christ was the son of man, and those who claimed he was the sun of God. Read the Jesus Wars for the details. It was literally bloodshed between Christian factions for five hundred years. Not to mention, they were using torture to convert the northern European pagans. The result was a Viking backlash that destroyed the Charlemagne renaissance(if you want to call a Christian reawakening a renaissance).
Then in the second half of the dark ages was the famous Inquisitions against the new Greek knowledge coming from Arab Spain, and the crusades that helped pay for the island state of Venice
Part II - Magic in the Dark ages up the Renaissance and the Scientific Revolution
One of the last major additions to my "Gospel of Truth" is the evidences preserved in the old testament about magic. As one can see, the evidences suggests there was a kind of movement to eliminate the previous world of magic. Likewise, in the new testament, I find evidence in the Pauline epistles for efforts to ban the Greek sciences and philosophy. But, the religious efforts to do so clearly could not. Although, due to taking over the Roman empire, they did thrust Europe into a thousand years of dark ages. Jacob Bronowski finds in his "Magic, Science, and Civilization" evidence that the magical world couldn't be thrust away so easily as well.
In fact, Jacob Bronowski shows that the mathematical science world may have been inspired by the failures of Magic to accomplish it's goals - to control nature. Jacob quotes a Pietro Pompanazzi, who lived around 1460 to 1520, and was part of the Bologna school(if there's any readers who may have seen the James Burke "The Day the Universe Changed" episode 2 before that series . . . and the Connections series ) . . .
"It is possible to justify any experience by natural causes and natural causes alone. There is no reason that could ever compel us to make any perception depend on demonic powers. There is no point in introducing supernatural agents . It is ridiculous and frivolous to abandon the evidence of natural reason and to search for things that are neither probably nor rational." - Of Incantations(here, through Jacob's "Magic, Science, and Civilization"s book
Also, in episode 3 of James Burke's "The Day the Universe Changed", James mentions the Medici as taking kind of center stage of the Italian Renaissance wealth. Jacob Bronowski notes that a Cosimo Medici( o.k. a quick wiki search suggests he was the first Medici) translated and printed out many books on "black magic" trying to find a way to learn the universe. He had a secretary, a Fecino. Copernicus was influenced to his sun-centered cosmology by a little book by Fecino - of the Sun. Then in quick succession, lots of people were publishing books on 'white' magic versus 'black' magic. A Giambattista della Parta, in 1558, published "Natural Magic." By 1620, Francis Bacon makes his famous quote, "Knowledge is Power."
Bacon's "Knowledge is Power" doesn't mean something political. He's saying mathematical/science knowledge is the way to understand nature - not magic. Magic tried to use spells and such to control . . . to gain power over nature. Jacob points out that in magic, one often tries to control nature by having power over it and rewinding it back. He points out the backward broomstick you see in some pictures of witches. And then, there's the famous biblical passage of Joshua making the sun stop and turn back.(I subtly remember a Genesis book passage about turning back the mechanism of nature; it's an idea a bit like turning wheel backwards from what it was doing before; the magicians hoped to by able to do that to nature). Around renaissance time, people were coming up with a different idea - to learn nature, one must become harmonious with it. Padua university intellectuals started thinking mathematics was the key to tapping into this harmony of the universe. Pietro also studied at Padua.
Jacob Bronowski also notes that Kepler was also influenced by magic about his idea of gravitation. He tried to understand nature by both what magical knowledge tried to accomplish things, and the way mathematics tried to accomplish things. He tried to understand the orbits of planets by means of the five platonic solids. Because they could be embedded in one another, they might be the key to the different size orbits of the planets! He of course saw the Tycho Brahe data and came to understand/appreciate a principle of science - when the data says no, discard the theory.
Kepler also had an idea of gravitation he got from magical thinkers. Kepler got his idea from a Nicholas of Cusa . . . who got his idea from a Pico Della Mirandola(who also had this idea that mankind is unique because it creates) . . . who got his ideas from a Dionysus(whom turned out to be a fake named person and stole his ideas from someone else back in 500 A.D. Christianity). The idea is that everything attracts because love permeates the universe. Everything has love(is that true? what about hate?). The quote . . .
"I transform the lover into the beloved and the beloved into the lover. The lover becomes the beloved because the lover dying, lives in the beloved. And the beloved becomes the lover for he learns to know himself in the lover and gets to love himself through the lover. And while he is thus loving himself in loving the lover he loves the lover who himself has become the beloved."
This magical passage shares a striking similarity to the vague statements that can prove anything. As I've mentioned here and there, Kurt Gödel published his "Incompleteness/Inconsistency" proofs of axiomatic systems. He basically says, a consistent finite set of axioms cannot prove an infinity of truths(consistent statements). But, an inconsistent finite set of axioms can. Above we have a magical passage that can prove anything and everything.
It also seems similar to the Bishop of Constantinople Gregorius of Nyssa quote that I've quoted many times thoughout this blog.
Around Renaissance times, clearly, as indicated above, people were tired of so such unwieldy/non-constructive thoughts, and found the answer in mathematics.
Part III - Scientific Humanism
I'll begin this section with the Buddha quote,
"Believe nothing on heresay. Do not believe in traditions because they are old, or in anything on the mere authority of myself or any other teacher."
You'll never see anywhere in the Bible saying "question everything I say." - much less Jesus Christ.
The Greeks are generally credited with being the first people to think of the universe rationally - without any supernatural explanations(which is no explanation at all; the god concept doesn't explain or allow one to understand anything about the universe). Of course, they were not without mixing their mathematical explanations of the universe without mixing it up with their supernatural beliefs(see the Gospel of Truth above). But scholars will point out interesting philosophical thoughts that were perhaps first put down in print.
Plato, in his Thaetateous book, points out that doing mathematics "stings your assumptions." For instance, our immediate perceptual impression of the Earth is that the Earth is flat. But questioning the assumption, looking around to see if there's some odd things going around, stings that assumption.
When we learn, we do so from our current perspective. When we make progress, there's often imprints of the previous perspective left - such as number names. Deductive reasoning stings ours assumptions(the imprints from our previous perspectives). Mathematics and science through several ways - questioning assumptions - reversible definitions - establishing error/significant figures - noting things like red herrings and other such literary/linguistic hang ups, we establish objective ideas. Mathematics establishes an objective truth away these imprints.
Scholars of ancient Greek civilization will point out that the Greeks first thought that we must put values in our lives. We can't assume life has value. We must work hard to be somebody. We must train - athletically, or learn mathematics to become something. The universe is senseless. There's a famous Steven Weinberg quote,
"in a way, it's more freer . . . in a way, it's more noble, and more admirable to give point to our lives ourselves rather than to accept it from some external source."
This is the point of Jacob Bronowski, in his "Magic, Science, and Civilization" book. That the ethics of science doesn't come from the equations of Quantum Mechanics or something like that, but the process of doing science generates the scientific ethic. What are those scientific ethics?
It's being allowed to be skeptical of assumptions, or ideas. It's having courage to try new ideas, and to question them. - and being honest when the data says otherwise on an idea. One can't make an idea work by saying "believe, and you will believe." We can't just say that an idea is inconvenient.
Appendix A - Logical disproof of God
The problem with disproving god logically is that everyone has a different definition of 'their' god. A quick wiki(yep, that dates the era this was written in!) on god reveals god is all knowing/all powerful, and/or supernatural.
The first property of an infinite all knowing god is this leads to all kinds of contradictions. How does an infinitely all powerfull god do both good and bad? Well, then the god believers will play vague statement(see my points about the Gödel proof and the Gregorius of Nyssa example quote of vague evasive language in my Gospel of Truth above) "god works in mysterious ways." QED for the first definition of god. QED is what mathematicians put to end logical proofs since Euclid's day.
Part 2 of the logical disproof of god The other direction the god believers will go is to say God exists in some non-material world. Today, they might even say in some other dimension. Bottom line, they try to move their god further and further away from any material or anywhere else that can be tested or seen. First in the "Heavens", then when astronomy found Big Bang cosmology, they go to some extra-dimensional space(see Psalms 1:15 -2 through 4, where they point out previous people made their god of stone, then gold. "They" put their god in the heavens . . . where you can't see or disprove him; at least back then!). This process takes away more and more properties of their god. Take this process of removing any possible properties of their god to the limit equals zero properties. Zero properties equals non-existence! QED
