BORN OF A VIRGIN: TRUTH OR
SUN MYTH RETOLD?
Matt 1:23
23 Behold, a virgin shall be with
child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel,
which being interpreted is, God with us. (KJV)
The New Testament teaches that Jesus was born of the virgin Mary.
This means that Mary had no sexual relations with any man prior to the
birth of Jesus.
Luke
1:27-38 27 To a virgin espoused to a
man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin's name
was Mary. 28 And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art
highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women. 29
And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind
what manner of salutation this should be. 30 And the angel said unto her,
Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God. 31 And, behold, thou
shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name
JESUS. 32 He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest:
and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: 33
And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom
there shall be no end. 34 Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this
be, seeing I know not a man? 35 And the angel answered and said unto her,
The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall
overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of
thee shall be called the Son of God. 36 And, behold, thy cousin Elisabeth,
she hath also conceived a son in her old age: and this is the sixth month
with her, who was called barren. 37 For with God nothing shall be
impossible. 38 And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto
me according to thy word. And the angel departed from her. (KJV)
According to traditional Christian dogma the virgin birth is set
down in the New Testament as an historical fact. The writers who recorded
the story were Matthew -an eyewitness to the events in the life of
Jesus-and Luke, the doctor, who presents many things in the life of Christ
from Mary's viewpoint. The passages in both Matthew and Luke are
authentic, with no evidence at all that they were later additions to the
text. The doctrine of the virgin birth has been believed by the church
from its inception. Ignatius, who lived at the start of the second
century, wrote to the Ephesians: "For
our God, Jesus the Christ, was conceived in the womb by Mary, according to
a dispensation, of the seed of David but also of the Holy Ghost."
Answer for yourself: Is the virgin
birth that we read about in the New Testament taken from Astronomy and we
not know about it?
It is taken from granted that the reader of this article is very
familiar with our prior article on the
nativity and
the winter solstice. This is
necessary information that is crucial to the understanding of the origin
of the virgin birth teaching. Having said that then understand that the
virgin birth dogma makes reference to another sidereal phenomena happening
at the same time. On the
eastern horizon on the morning of the 25th of December, the day of the
winter solstice noting the birth of the Sun from lying motionless and dead
for 3 days, the ancients also took notice of the constellation of Virgo.
THE CONSTELLATION VIRGO...IS IT THE ULTIMATE
ORIGIN FOR THE VIRGIN-BIRTH TEACHING?
Answer for yourself: What do we know
of the constellation of Virgo and its legend or myth? Well, let me help
you catch up.
Virgo is the Winged Virgin. We see this clearly when looking at Isis
in Egypt. Virgo, personified as Isis, often is depicted holding a Palm
Branch in her left hand or an Ear of Wheat in her right, a symbol of the
fruitfulness 
of
woman, which marks her brightest star, Spica. Virgo was worshipped as the
great goddess of the harvest throughout the ancient world.
The origins of the cult of
the Great Goddess, who was both virgin and mother, are prehistoric,
but since the dawn of recorded history the Great
Goddess has been associated with the constellation Virgo.
The Sun nowadays passes through the constellation of Virgo in
September/October, and is therefore the constellation that announces the
harvest. Virgo is the second largest constellation (after Hydra).
The image of a female
deity has long been associated by early cultures with the constellation of
Virgo. Ancient star maps often depict a
winged woman holding stalks
of wheat or corn in her left hand. The bright star that
represents the woman's left hand is called Spica, which means "Ear of
Grain" in Latin. The representation of the constellation as a goddess
of cultivation is due to the position of the summer solstice within this
portion of the sky from 6000 to 4000 BC. The
appearance of the constellation Virgo in the horizon marked the time of
harvest and the change of seasons. The figure of a woman
within this portion of the sky was probably determined by the
matriarchal societies of
this era when the development of the sciences and arts
of agriculture and grafting, the domestication of animals and the settling
of cities was occurring. Few know today that earliest understanding of God
was "feminine" and not "masculine". When
human beings first began to acknowledge a higher, creative power they
recognized that power as belonging to the female principle.
If one looks into the distant archaic world that initiated the worship of
the Goddess one will find that the earliest understanding of God was "feminine".
In time, however, the male principle pushed aside and eventually crushed
the worship of the female divinity, and replaced it with a Father God who
was responsible for all creation. Now the Male Principle is perceived as
the ultimate creative force in the universe, somewhat of an obvious
paradox, but one we have bought into for thousands of years. Few ever stop
to think that the Bible was written by men. The early patriarchs of the
Jews wrote in masculine terms, convinced that there had never been a
Goddess and that God had always been male. This was advantageous for men
politically as well as socially. Empowered by the belief that a male God
favored men as the superior creation, they abolished any female worship.
Because of this we have lost the true understanding of Virgo and its
influence upon religion today; especially in Christianity with its
emphasis upon Mary, the immaculate conception, and the Virgin birth.
The Arabs called the star Spica the "Defenseless One"
because it lacks bright companion stars. It is visible on clear summer
nights if you trace a line from Polaris to the south, through Arcturus in
Boötes. It also forms a large triangle with Arcturus and Denebola in
the constellation Leo that can be used to orient yourself.
Some of the mythological
representations of Virgo are Nana, Eve, Istar, Demeter, Hecate, Themis,
Hera, Astraea, Diana, Cybele, Isis, Fortuna, Erigone, Sibylla and the
Virgin Mother. From Virgo we get all of our
representations of the Great Mother in some form. Virgo as the feminine
aspect of the Creator existed before the masculine gods of ancient and
classical mythology.
In Egypt Virgo represents the goddess Isis, the moon goddess-wife of
Osiris the god of fertility and
agriculture, and mother of Horus the new moon. Isis originally represented
the Great Mother, similar to Nana and Themis. She is usually depicted as a
woman carrying a small child in her arms, probably the infant Horus.
The image eventually came
to represent the Virgin Mary holding the infant Jesus.
The "Virgin myth" began long ago in Egypt. It is in the
Predynastic Egypt that we find the myth of the Virgin in its inception
which was taken from the constellation Virgo. We have three characters in
this story. It starts off by the killing of Osiris. Isis (Inanna in
Sumerian times) collects the pieces of her dead husband. The only piece
she keeps is his phallus (penis), subsequently impregnating herself (of
course here is where the "virgin" part comes in). Isis became
pregnant and bore a child, Horus. This
child Horus of 
course
parallels the profile of "Jesus". The Isis and Horus story
was very popular in Egypt and it was symbolic
for life and death and the life that raises out of death which again found
its earliest expression from the "rebirth
of the Sun from the dead at the Winter Solstice".
As you can see when contrasting the pictures of Isis and Horus and Mary
and baby Jesus there are remarkable similarities not only in the statues
but when you examine the facts of these two "myths" as found
between the story of Isis and Horus and Mary and the virgin born Jesus
then there is no doubt that the Christian story of the Virgin birth was
plagiarized from the Isis and Horus story of Egypt. When one examines the
evidence then one is led to accept the same conclusion as the scholars.
The myth was obviously stolen; the names were changed and the events were
changed (typical Christian behavior down through history).
Herein lies another 2000
year old case of plagiarism in the first century of the early Christian
movement. This mother and son relationship was universal
among pagan nations. Each nation would have their own name for their gods
and goddesses, but they all adopted each others concepts. This was mainly
due to one nation conquering another, and absorbing each other's cultures.
Later, this pagan culture was absorbed into the (un)holy Roman Empire, and
ultimately by the Roman catholic church. Notice the similarity between the
catholic Madonna (Mary) and the Egyptian Madonna (Isis).
Isis had a pronounced effect on the Christian perception of Mary,
the mother of Jesus. Isis was endlessly depicted holding the divine child
Horus, so there was no break in continuity when the Christian image of the
Madonna and Child took over. Looking at old figurines it is often quite
impossible to tell which was which. Mary
was first called the Mother of God in Alexandria, the Egyptian
centre of Isis worship, in the third century.
Just after 400 AD Epiphanius denounced women who worshipped Mary as a
goddess. Yet by 430 AD Proclus hailed her as the Mother of God and an
intermediary between God and man. Nestorius objected to this. But a
decisive sermon was preached in 431 AD at Ephesus which led to Nestorius
being discredited and Mary elevated to the Queen of Heaven. In another of
those pointed coincidences, Diana or Artemis, whose day was 13 August, had
been the goddess of the Ephesians and represented an aspect of Isis. In
the sixth century a popular myth that Mary had been miraculously carried
to Heaven by Jesus and his angels was officially recognized by the Church
as The Assumption.
Now it is a great Roman Catholic festival held on... 13 August! But that
is not all we need to notice. Get a load of this. The
festival of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin is held on
25 March because it is precisely nine
moths before the official birth date of Jesus on 25 December. It is
no coincidence that the birth of Jesus was set on the same day as the
birth of the sun god who was identified with Horus (Ra), the son of Isis
and Osiris. 25 March is thus also the date of the Annunciation of Isis.
Isis was often represented standing on the crescent moon, with
twelve stars (Zodiac) surrounding her head. In almost every Roman Catholic
church on the continent of Europe may be seen pictures and statues of
Mary, the "Queen of Heaven," standing on the crescent moon, her
head surrounded with twelve stars. "It
would seem more than a chance that so many of the virgin mothers and
goddesses of antiquity should have the same name. The mother of Bacchus
was Myrrha; the mother of Mercury or Hermes was Myrrha or Maia; the mother
of the Siamese Savior - Sommona Cadom was called Maya Maria, i.e. 'the
Great Mary'; the mother of Adonis was Myrrha; the mother of Buddha was
Maya; now, all these names whether Myrrha, Maia or Maria, are the same as
Mary, the name of the mother of the Christian Savior. The month of May was
sacred to these goddesses, so likewise is it sacred to the Virgin Mary at
the present day. She was also called Myrrha and Maria, as well as Mary...
" (T.W. Doane, Bible Myths And Parallels In World
Religions, p. 332).
With the rise of the patriarchal society and religion of
Christianity, no strong female figure was easily recognizable. The Virgin
Mary, as mother of God, became the obvious representation of all the noble
and necessary feminine traits of the Great Mother. Her representation in
the stars was placed with Virgo.
Virgo is the Queen of
Heaven (Isis, Mary, etc.). Of all the names that she has
been given and all the roles ascribed to her, surely this title represents
her best. In the zodiac, as we now know it, she is the only female
representation. As such, she rules over one whole half of creation,
existence, and experience. All the other female figures in myth are bits
of her, or in the case of Innana-Isis-Ishtar-Aphrodite - different facets
of her Personality as seen by different cultures at different times.
In Christian symbology she is the Blessed Virgin, Mother of the Son of
Light, and/or the Magdalene Mary.
ASTRONOMY AND THE VIRGIN BIRTH
Now if we logically look at the allegories and origins of Virgin
Births in all myths and religions we discover that the prototypes
of the Virgin Mary, are the sister-wives of Sun-gods. It
is in this context that we must understand certain virgin goddesses such
as the Egyptian Isis, and the Greek Artemis, are both sisters of the Sun
gods, Osiris and Apollo respectively.
The Virgin Mary is
the Constellation of Virgo and the story of virgin births is the timeless
allegory of Virgo giving birth to the Sun on the darkest night of the
year, the 24th of December. This we have seen is
connected to the birth of the Sun
at the Winter Solstice (later personified as "the Son" of the
Sun). We can see in the study of early histories (including church
fathers, Jerome and others) that December 25th was celebrated by pagans of
past times for the rebirth of a “ray” from a sun-god born in
human form in a cave. In Syria and Phoenicia this “ray” was
named Adonis (lord). In Persia this human incarnation was Mithras, also
known as Mitra in India. Born in a cave, the one called Mithras was seen
by worshipers as a god who takes on the sins of mankind, and it is
reported too that a ritual similar to that of Christian baptism was
apparently indulged in by believers. The births of these god-men was
celebrated like our Jesus on or around December 25th called both the “Birthday
of Mithras” and “Night of Light”. Justin Martyr (2nd
century Christian writer) records Mithras was born on the day the sun was
born anew, in a stable. If we follow the path of the Sun we discover that
towards the end of August
the radiant Sun enters the celestial Virgo and places the seed of the new
Sun in her to germinate the embryo of the new Sun, Horus, Apollo or
Christ.
This phenomenon,
which takes place every year in August, gave rise to Christmas,
a festival which still exists, and in which it is supposed that the Mother
of Christ, disregarding her earthly life, is associated with the glory of
her son, and is placed by his side in the heavens. We
know that the sign of the celestial virgin (the constellation Virgo) rose
over the horizon at the moment assigned to the birth of our Lord Jesus the
Christ (Winter Solstice). Ignoring that fact Christians
may be reluctant to recognize Virgo as the Blessed Virgin. Yet Virgo’s
stars descend after harvest below the horizon, and the sun of the winter
rises from the same point which is understood in astrology to be the
infant Sun in his Mother’s arms. It is the birthday of the Christos
who represents the Sun that is born in each and every one of us.
The story of the Virgin Mother Isis, giving birth to the Sun-god,
Horus, which Christianity has so faithfully preserved, is a reminder of
the inscription concerning Mary’s Egyptian prototype, Isis, which
appeared on the Temple of Sais: The inscription reads "The
fruit which I have brought forth is the Sun".
Horus, son of Osiris, the Sun-god, was conceived of even though his
phallus had been cut off by his brother Set, the dark, twin, aspect of
Osiris. On a very important
related note December 25th was celebrated in Rome, Italy as this “New
Birth” or “Unconquered Sun”, the Sol Invictus as seen on
ancient calendars. The cult of Isis became enormously popular in the Roman
Empire. Romans called her the "eternal savior of
the race of men. The
transfer of part of the Isis myth undoubtedly took place in the 1st
century A.D. Over time "the image of Isis suckling
her child Horus under the sacred tree of Hathor at Denderah," became
the archetypal model for images of the Virgin Mary with the infant Jesus.
lshtar, taken from
Isis and the personification of the constellation Virgo, is the Babylonian
Mary, called Mother of the Fruitful Breast, Queen of Heaven, Creator of
People, Guide of Humanity. lshtar was worshiped in
Jerusalem where priests staged the time honored death and resurrection of
her Sun-god lover Tammuz, Innana and Dammuzzi in Sumerian, whose Syrian
name was Adonis.
Ezek 8:14
14 Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the LORD's house which
was toward the north; and, behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz.
(KJV)
Her breast offering pose suggested her function as the goddess of
all nourishment. Eventually Christian writers belittled her Holy sexual
character by calling her the ‘Whore of Babylon and Mother of Harlots
(Revelation 17:5)
In mythology, Mary is
a development of the goddesses: Isis, Hathor, lshtar, Aphrodite among
others as depicted in the works of Plutarch. Her left
the foot on land and the other in water to show her dominion over earth
and sea. She is shown as the naked goddess with all her usual halo of
stars, one breast was a moon, which figure was repeated on her pubis. Her
right breast was a star, or sun pouring blessings on the world. Isis and
Hathor were the two major goddesses in Egypt. Hathor was called the mother
of all gods and goddesses, who brought forth herself, never having been
created. She was Queen of Heaven and her name was on every royal list in
the earliest dynasties. Isis also existed from the beginning. She was
goddess from whom all becoming arose. Both were said to have given birth
to the Sun, Hathor as the Nile Goose, Mother of the Golden Egg, and Isis
as the womb of Horus.
The
great Christian doctrine of the virgin birth, if looked at logically, is
similar to a series of divine births of both Hindu, Egyptian, Persian,
Greek and Old Testament gods. In the Hebrew scriptures we have stories of
the "wondrous births" in connection with Isaac, Samson and
Samual. The Talmudic Moses has a virgin mother; Samuels mother became
pregnant after receiving the divine seed.
Impregnation
by angels was deemed holy and desirable. The Immaculate Conception
represents such a union. Among the offspring of such human beings are:
Buddha, Dionysus, Hercules, Christna, Theseus, Melchizedek, Plato,
Apollonius of Tyanna, and Merlin the Magician. On the Greek side not only
were the heroes of legend, Hercules, Theseus, Perseus, Jason and others
believed to be the sons of divine fathers and human mothers, but the same
legend reached down to more historical figures like Pythagoras and Plato,
both of whom were sons of the sun-god Apollo.
So as stated above
the constellation Virgo was noticed by the Ancients on the Easter horizon
on the morning of the 25th of December when the Sun was "born"
from the dead of winter. As we have seen above the
constellation Virgo was always known as being associated with Isis, the
divine and archetypal Mother. So it
was said that the sun of god, the light of the world was born or risen
again after his 3 days of death when he laid motionless in the
south-western horizon and in
his reawakened "birth" that he is born in a crib or manger (in
the sign of Cancer), of a Virgin. And
even long before these particular constellational dynamics were known, the
sun was said to be born of a virgin. The
relevance came from the fact that in ancient times, the Egyptian New Year
began in the sign of Virgo, on the 25th of July. So it was said that the
sun was born of a Virgin, or in a Virgin.
The star-sprinkled Egyptian night sky that not only stuns visitors
to Egypt was also studied intensely by special temple priests who soon
discovered that the appearance of a star they named sepdet (which we know
as Sirius) was associated with the beginning of the Nile flood . This was
the start of the world's first calendar, invented over 5000 years ago. To
develop a calendar, you need a regular event that is predictable. And what
was more regular and important to the ancient Egyptians than the rise and
fall of the River Nile? The waters started rising around the end of June,
and the flood period (achet) lasted until October, covering the land with
rich black mud and preparing it for the sowing and growing period (peret).
The harvest time (schemu) started at the end of February and ended with
the new Nile flood This predictable, ongoing cycle defined the
agricultural year. But there was a problem! The flood came within a range
of 80 days with variable intensities .... all in all, not very accurate
timing. The brightest star
in the sky, Sirius, or Sothis as it was called by the ancient Egyptians,
the star who's heliacal rising was in early July 3000 years ago, but due
to the wobble of the earth on its axis is now a few weeks later, turned
out to be a very reliable predictor of the recurring flood and defined the
exact length of the trip of the earth around the sun .
From their mythology, the Egyptians saw a connection between Sirus'
appearance and the beginning of the Nile flood. They believed the Nile
flood was caused by the tears that Isis ( the Great Mother of All Gods and
Nature ) shed, after her husband Osiris was murdered by his brother Seth.
Sirus was the cosmic appearance of Isis. The first new moon following the
reappearance of Sirius after it disappeared under the horizon for 70 days
was established as the first day of the New Year.
Now knowing all this then I ask you to think with me a moment. We
all know that daylight hours gain as our new year unfolds. This of course
concerns the return of the Sun to its northward movement following the
Winter Solstice as we have learned above in the articles on the
Winter Solstice and the
nativity. Thus
we are reminded and asked by Edward Carpenter in his Pagan and
Christian Creeds (see his chapter on Solar Myths), to imagine a time
when the average person had no access to Almanacs or Calendars. A time
when all that “timid mortals” could see was the failure of light
and warmth and the sun sinking low in the sky (in northern climates with
the coming of Winter which for them meant "death"). Further, if
we go out next Christmas
evening, at midnight, we will see the brightest of the fixed stars,
Sirius, afire in the southern sky to the left of the meridian.
Due to the Precession of
the Equinoxes, this same star, some three thousand years ago was almost
exactly on meridian line. Without printed calendars
therefore, the arrival of
Sirius to the meridian at midnight “became the sign and assurance of
the Sun having reached the lowest point of his course, and ....the moment
of rebirth. This then was the sacred hour when in the
underworld (the Stable or the Cave or whatever it might be called )”
[the sun having plunged under the earth] a “personified
Sun-child was born to be the Savior of men. At that moment Sirius stood on
the southern meridian (and in more southern lands....this would be more
nearly overhead); and that star Sirius, of whom there is little doubt, is
the Star in the East mentioned in the Gospels”.
Still thinking back in time, while
Sirius is at midnight on the Meridian, the constellation Virgo (Virgin) is
rising on the horizon. Here we see an astronomical myth
or fact of the brightest star in the Heavens, the blazing star sirius
pointing to a Virgin in the East, who will soon give birth (sunrise) to a
renewed and reborn “sun” god (or son of god) who will save
mankind from darkness (personified "dark-evil", "d-evil",
"devil)by no longer remaining motionless for 3 days in the
Heavens but reversing its course (December. 25th) northward in the horizon
once again thus gaining in light and delivering a new year filled with
gifts of warmth, renewed energy, food and spiritual relief.
One can visualize Virgo, the virgin, giving birth lying on the horizon “out
of her side” as in the story of Buddha being born from his mother’s
side. Albert Magnus (13th century bishop) has written “we
know that the sign of the Celestial Virgin rose over the horizon at the
moment we fix the birthday of our Lord Jesus Christ” (the personified
Sun).
These astronomical
event-myths and thoughts are noted in many writings and recordings and are
also projected Romulus (the founder of Rome and son of Mars), as well as
Plato and Krishna among others in worldwide traditions. Our
Christmas story appears to be an old one, retold many times throughout
history.
And we read that Mary came into the Inn upon a donkey or ass. This
refers again to Cancer, as one of the largest and most well known of the
constellations in Cancer was and is called the Ass. This constellation and
that of the Manger can be seen on any planisphere. In the art-work of the
Medieval and Renaissance periods, four animals are commonly seen around
the cot of Jesus. There is the donkey, the bull, the lamb and the lion.
These represent the constellations and paranatellons of the Cardinal
signs. There can be no other reason why a lion would be incorporated into
the depiction. Actually the
reference to Mary being a virgin is not from the Hebrew Scriptures being
the essence of physical accuracy. The word almah, was mistranslated to
read 'virgin,' when it really meant 'unmarried mother' or "young
woman". The
mistranslation occurred purposely to align the concoction of the
'biography' of Jesus to ancient cosmological and mythic motifs.
There is much more to learn regarding the Virgin birth teaching as
applied to the "Jesus Story" in relationship to the forgery of
the religious texts we find both in the Christian Old Testament as well as
the later forgeries in the Roman New Testament. We now continue our study
in these related areas.
Bennoah1@airmail.net