Are the Gospels Astrological Allegories?

by sabastious 11 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

  • sabastious
    sabastious

    I have been doing a lot of reading and thinking about this the past year. I have come to the conclusion that if the Story of Jesus is not fully an astrological allegory than at the very least astrology was interjected into his biography.

    http://members.cox.net/deleyd/religion/solarmyth/christ2002.htm

    Yes, I know not everything on this website is accurate, but that is not the point. If even a shred of the Gospel is allegory than it needs to be exposed as the truth.

    Aid me in discovering the truth.

    Discuss

    -Sab

  • sabastious
    sabastious

    Sore subject?

  • Leolaia
    Leolaia

    No, there is precious little that can be exegetically linked to Jewish or Hellenistic astrology, outside of the Matthean birth narrative and its parallels in Revelation 12 and the Ignatian epistle to Ephesus. The web article linked in the OP is an exercise in eisegesis, which uses an ad hoc conception of astrology as the "key" to interpret the biblical gospel narratives (synthesized into a single "story"). The Society engages in similar eisegesis when it takes its own idealized organizational history (particularly with respect to the events of 1918 and 1919) as the interpretive "key" to biblical prophecy. And so facts and claims that have no natural relation to each other textually or intertextually are tied artificially together by the interpretive scheme that these facts are supposed to be the basis for. So the article has lots of examples of "begging the question"; e.g. Jesus going through Galilee means that the sun goes through the ecliptic because Galilee in Greek means "circuit" (without showing that "Galilee" has this meaning in the text), Christians abstain from meat and subsist on fish during Lent because the sun moves into Pisces in February (without demonstrating that there is an actual link between Lent practices and the sign of Pisces), etc. A similar process is at work in the (arbitrary) construction of conspiracy theories out of unrelated facts and claims. In addition to not being motivated by the text, the interpretive scheme also agrees with the biblical narrative when it is convenient and departs from it when it is inconvenient for the thesis. And so the author finds it significant when the calendrical timing of gospel events coincides with the astrological calendar, such as the timing of Easter and the potential astrological meanings this may hold, and yet dispenses with any coinciding of timing in describing the events that lead up to Easter (making passion week correspond to autumn and winter rather than the week prior to Passover in the spring, as it is in the biblical text). This introduces a discontinuity that is not addressed by the author, how the rebirth is located simultaneously at different points in the calendar (near the spring equinox and near the winter solstice).

    A better approach would go from the text itself and see what connections are implicit therein. For instance, John structures the narrative according to the Jewish festival calendar, so the Fourth Evangelist certainly is interested in the yearly calendar and the symbolic meanings associated with major points in the calendar. But rather than imposing meaning from an external source like astrology, one should rather discover what meaning the author himself is probably trying to signify within the local and larger intertextual context. We can see that rather than being interested in astrology, the author is interested in the cultural meanings associated with Jewish festivals (Passover, Shavuot, Sukkot, Hannukah, etc.) and what these have to say about Jesus' nature as the Son of God, e.g. Jesus' claim as the "bread of life" draws on the ritual symbolism of Passover, the claim of having streams of living water flowing draws on practices associated with Sukkot, the claim to be equal to God made at the portico of Solomon at the Temple is pregnant with meaning associated with Hannukah, the execution of Jesus on the cross on the day of Passover coincides with the slaughter of the paschal lamb, etc.

  • XJW4EVR
    XJW4EVR

    I have an MP3 of a teaching by Chuck Missler of Koinonea (sp?) House on this topic. It's based on the work of an E.W. Bullinger. It's interesting speculation, but I don't put much stock in it.

  • sabastious
    sabastious

    Leolaia, gotta be a little less wordy, that is going to fly over the head of a lot of readers.

    That being said, what do you think about the possibility of Astrological Interjection in the Gospels?

    • The character of John the Baptiser possibly mimicing Auqarius
    • Possible references to the age of Pices (two fish)
    • Herod killing all the first born sons trying to kill Jesus fits perfectly with Herod being night and the stars being the sons (since there is no written record of such infanticide)
    • Or King Herod's sudden death contradicting when history says he died
    • The 12 apostles mirroring the twelve lunar months, and Judas (one of the 12) betraying Jesus as does Scorpio in the Zodiac mythology
    • Bethlehem meaning: House of bread. And the fact that no town called that was ever found for the time frame in the Gospels?
    • Jesus' death of three days perfectly mimics the Sun's "death" before it starts to rise again as the days get longer

    There are more, but to me this is compelling evidence of possible Astrological Interjection by the original writers. Off the top of my head the motivation could have been to have similar elements in their God Story as the Pagens for more conversions/

    -Sab

  • wobble
    wobble

    Sab, I respectfully recommend that you go back and read Leo's post. She shows, in her usual able way, that what you are trying to do does not add anything to our understanding of the Gospels, and tries to link influences that are plainly not there.

    I never find Leo's posts "wordy", rather they are concise and very incisive, and educational.

    I would like it please Leo, if you could use paragraph breaks a little more, just to make it easier on these 60 year old eyes !

  • sabastious
    sabastious

    Wobble,

    I am not coming to a concrete conclusion here. I am pointing out that there is some weird stuff in this Gospels that doesn't make literal sense. Take the story of King Herod trying to kill Jesus by killing all the First Born Sons... The exact thing happened in the story of Moses. As a literal story is absurd and undocumented by history. As an allegory it is very affective is it not?

    A lot of people think that the story of Moses and Jesus as bonified human history, whereas there is a lot of logical and historical evidence to the contrary. The Bible is too accepted by too many, that is my hypothesis as to why the truth has not been unvieled about the true motivation of it's contents.

    -Sab

  • wobble
    wobble

    I agree with your above comment Sab, it is my opinion that the later three Gospels (Mark being the earliest) were more than likely written well after 70 C.E with the purpose of turning the Christian sect of Judaism in to a religion that would spread across the Globe. They were successful in that aim.

    As religious propaganda tracts these writings (even Luke's) do not attempt to be historical in the sense we demand of histories today, truth and accuracy with little fiction.

    They contain much that purely stems from the aims and prejudices of the writer.

    As a "born in" to the WT, the account of the Magi seemed weird to me, why would God allow any of this, especially the slaughter of the innocents ?

    The Bible cannot be trusted as history or theology for a number of reasons, not least Terry's "a translation of copies of copies" reason.

  • agonus
    agonus

    'Astronomical" perhaps. "Astrological"? Now that's a different story. I think. You know, to be perfectly honest, I'm still not entirely sure WHAT EXACTLY "astrology" supposedly is. Attempting to forecast the future? Taking spiritual and symbolic meanings from constellations? Stellar cartography? I guess trying to attach any kind of spiritual significance to heavenly bodies COULD be considered "astrology", but to be honest, I don't know if attaching SOME spiritual significance to astronomy is all bad, unscriptural, or 'astrology" in the bad sense.

    I think the lines get a little blurred sometimes. Let's invent a new word: "Astronomology'.

  • sabastious
    sabastious
    I think the lines get a little blurred sometimes. Let's invent a new word: "Astronomology'.

    I second that.

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