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During the early years of my study into a "Jewish Jesus" as I was finding the "Jesus Story" repeated when studying the lives of the other "god-men" found in other religions I was perplexed to see that the "Jesus Story" was duplicated in the lives of Attis, Dionysus, Osiris, Mithra, etc. I was not happy to find that there are many dozens of events in the gospels that are very similar, or identical, to incidents which appeared centuries before, in the stories of Pagan hero/saviors. These "god-men" were worshiped by the priesthood and laity of Mediterranean and Middle East religions. I reasoned that there had to be a common link between them. Then answer would come in a few months as futher study indicated that Jesus and the other God-men are personifications of the Sun. I found upon doing the necessary studies that the Ancients formulated their Mythology (Religion) after astronomical phenomena. They saw this as the best way to connect with the Creator God. This was done by patterning their religious rituals in accordance with the most visible and observable aspects of God's creation, the Cosmos. The Ancients saw the universe and their immediate environment, as well as the capacities embodied within their own intellect, trustworthy representations of the Creator God. The Universe (terrestrial and celestial) appeared to our ancestors as the only authentic image of the Father. The Cosmos was undoubtedly His Handiwork and we, the human creation, were likewise the Handiwork of the Almighty. The ancients personified the elements of the Cosmos and recorded the movements of the stars and planets as personified deities and demons. Thus we should expect and do find that the collection of fables which make up the majority of the Bible are actually various dramas of Solar Mythology. Of course I include the Gospels in such a statement as I found them as well to be little more than solar mythology personified in the life of a "Jesus Christ". The fact that so many saviors were alleged to have been born on the same day of the year, under the same and similar circumstances in different parts of the world throughout history, indicates a common mythology. All these saviors, including Jesus, can be referred to as solar gods because their births, lives and deaths can be correlated to the transit cycles of the sun. Running upon this information as an adult and a graduate of a Seminary and currently pastoring a large congregation took my breath away as you can imagine and made me do some serious reflection for some time in my life as to what I was to do in light of now possessing this knowledge.
I came to realize why I had not found this information up to then in my life. I realized upon study that Spirituality in ancient times from the Mediterranean region was composed of two components:
Frequently, the "Outer Mysteries" would comprise of re-enactments of basic astrological stories of the fall and rise of the sun, and of stars as personified in the form of gods and godmen. This re-enactment of the rise and fall of stars, like the Sun following the Summer solstice and the Autumn equinox, began in Egypt. The world's earliest report of a dramatic production comes from the banks of the Nile. It is in the form of a stone tablet preserved in a German museum and contains the sketchy description of one, I-kher-nefert (or Ikhernofret), a representative of the Egyptian king, of the parts he played in a performance of the world's first recorded "Passion" Play somewhere around the year 2000 B.C. This Egyptian Passion bears a notable resemblance to the Passion Plays of the twentieth century concerning the Christ. Its purpose is obviously the same as that of the one at Ober-Ammergau, or the Tyrolean, or the Persian Passion Play of Hussein . . . the principal object, as always, being to keep vivid in the minds of the faithful the sufferings and triumph of a god. The play closes with the resurrection of Osiris as a god and the foreshadowing to all the faithful of their own final resurrection. This original passion play is copied today not only in the "Jesus Story" but in the passion plays about his life and death. History records for us a rather popular one which is the three day mourning on the Winter Solstice of the death of the sun, followed by a rejoice at it's birth as the days begin to get longer around the 25th of December. The Outer Mysteries would be public displays of mourning then rejoicing, and the Initiates, once moving into the "Inner Mysteries" would then be taught what it all means, like how today many Christians parents will teach their children about the 'real meaning of Easter' which is the equivalent of an Inner Mystery part, whereas the Easter eggs, chocolate eggs, and festivities are the Outer Mystery and the part for public consumption that yet hides the hidden meanings behind the public presentation of the "diluted version".
A religion was a Mystery Religion if only the initiates were allowed to know the keys with which to decode the Outer Mysteries. It is an early religious method to take theological concepts and encode them into stories, legends, and myths, creating characters and events which need to be "decoded" in order to see what the storyline actually means. Not knowing the key would be like reading Cinderalla or Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs and attempting to interpret it literally! We have done the same thing with the "Jesus Story". The keys, the inner understanding, allowed initiates to see what the story was really saying. Such stories were created to be fascinating, a little compelling, so that certain types of people would be attracted to the group through the symbolism used in the story, even though they don't actually know the inner meaning.
Late in the 4th century CE, Christianity was established as the state religion. Pagans were given the choice of converting to Christianity, being exterminated or being exiled. Their temples were either stolen for use as Christian churches, or destroyed. Eventually, detailed knowledge of the inner mysteries was lost. The core of the Outer and Inner mysteries was a mythical, male entity who was part god and part human -- often referred to as a "god-man." His origin however came from the personification of the Sun and its path through the Zodiac and constellations and it was this "knowledge" which was reserved for the "Inner Mysteries". The biographies of these god-men were consistent from religion to religion because they were taken from the same Sun which the Ancients observed move the same way in the Heavens from year to year, from century to century, and from age to age. The main difference among these various accounts and faiths was the name of the personified "Son" of "the Sun":
I had spent my entire adult life as a Christian reading few if any books on Jesus or the Bible. I had read no books on comparative religions again believing what I was told from the pulpit weekly; namely, that it is we who have the truth and it was our job to take this "Jesus" into all the world that they "might be saved". I had assumed that I was "correct" in my religious beliefs because I was told that Sunday after Sunday that I was and after all I had a supposed Divine Book that I carried to church that told me that I was "right" in my theological thinking. Then came a major repentance in my life to which I surrendered to the ministry and began serious study of the Christian faith and the rest is history as found in the websites of Bet Emet Ministries.
The reason why all these narratives are so similar, with a godman who are born to virgins, who were born in caves or mangers, who were visited by 3 wise men, who lives were threatened by evil rulers, who had to flee for his life, who was at 12 noon in the house or temple of the "Most High" thereby beginning "his Father's work" at "age" 12, who begins their ministry at the age of 30, who was tempted by a Devil, who has 12 followers or disciples, who later sends out the 72 disciples, who walked on water, who raised the dead, who does miracles, who was crowned with thorns, who was crucified and resurrected after 3 days, who descended into hell for these 3 days, who rose again after 3 days, who ascended into Heaven, is that these stories were based on the movements of the sun through the heavens, an astrotheological development that can be found throughout the planet because the sun and the 12 zodiac signs can be observed around the globe. This same story is repeated down through history over and over again in almost every sun worshipping nation under "the Sun".
This, as you can imagine for an ordained and successful Pastor, was devastating. The continued documentation of this story in all of its nuances would in time lead to my resignation from my Pastorate as I no longer could condone the good that I was doing with the compromises I was forced to make to remain on staff once possessing this knowledge. In other words, I found out that the "Jesus Christ" as depicted in the Gospels and all the others upon whom this character is predicated are but personifications of the sun, and the Gospel allegory is merely a retelling thorough the life of a supposed Jew and Messianic hopeful of a mythological formula dating several thousands of years old about the Sun and its path and movements through the heavens. This can be proven by just considering for a second that many of the world's crucified godmen have their traditional birthday on December 25th.
Answer for yourself: Are these similarities between the "Jesus Story" and the lives of these solar gods and godmen just a coincidence? Not not at all. The worlds saviors and godmen, including Jesus, have their birthdays on December 25th, because the ancients recognized that (from an earthcentric perspective) the sun, as it moves across the sky in the fall of the year, makes an annual descent in its trajectory and position when it sets on the horizon until December 21st or 22nd, the Winter solstice, when it stops moving southerly for three days and then starts to move northward again. During this time, the ancients declared that "God's sun" had "died" for three days and was "born again" on December 25th. The ancients realized quite abundantly that they needed the sun to return every day and that their very lives depended upon the rebirth of the Sun after these 3 days. They feared not only the dark but the threat that one of these years the Sun might continue to move southward and would not stop and reverse its direction as it had before. Thus, these many different cultures celebrated the "sun of God's" birthday on December 25th. According the Ancients noticed that the Sun, personified as the Son of God "dies" for three days on December 22nd, the Winter solstice, when it stops in its movement south, to be born again or resurrected on December 25th, when it resumes its movement north.
Answer for yourself: How as a virgin tied into the birth of the "Son of the Sun"?
In some areas, the calendar originally began in the constellation of Virgo, and the sun would therefore be "born of a Virgin" at the Vernal equinox. The story is all about the stars in one way or the other.
This same story of the path of the Sun through the Zodiac can be found around the globe for thousands of years prior to the supposed Jesus of history. You only have to look.
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