Hello Mel, thank you very much for commenting here, and welcome to Booktalk.

The interpretation I have provided here has not been analysed or accepted by anyone in any published literature. It conflicts entirely with Dan Brown's theory in The Da Vinci Code that John is actually Mary Magdalene. Brown provides no suggestion of a zodiac code.

Re your question 'so what?, here at the dawn of modern science we have a recognition by Leonardo that Christian dogma is metaphor for natural observation. This insight presents a basis to extend the deconstruction of Christian faith by showing how it is grounded in allegory for the physical structure of terrestrial time. If true, as I fully maintain that it is, Leonardo's secret cosmic code in The Last Supper provides a major point of support for the emerging scholarly view that Jesus Christ was not an actual historical man but was invented in the gospels, which are entirely fictional.

There is no zealotry in this material, just scientific analysis. The match between the angles and lengths in the figures in the painting and the actual positions of the stars in the sky proves that Leonardo used observation of the sky as his template. The failure to see the reality for 500 years shows the enduring power of Christian dogma to prevent scientific investigation.

Leonardo is one artist among many, and I don't accept that his opinion is the final arbiter in this controversy. I don't doubt that he was inspired by the Zodiac to construct his famous painting, I just ask, what does that mean to me and if I choose to believe in Christ or not?

Hi Mel. Do you mean the controversy about whether Christ and the twelve disciples are allegory for the sun and the twelve signs of the zodiac? Leonardo can't be an arbiter, as there is nothing explicit in Leonardo's work to indicate he held that view. Discretion on such topics was a wise path in his day, given that this claim is seen as heretical by the church, and heretics were persecuted or even executed.

However, it is clear to me that the precise matches in The Last Supper show that Leonardo used the twelve constellations of the zodiac in order as his template for the stance of each figure, and used the constellation Pisces as his template for Christ.

The Pisces match is also seen in his painting of The Baptism of Christ, and reflects the scientific observation that the spring equinox point moved into the constellation of Pisces at the time of Christ. This symbolism can only really be explained by seeing a continuity between Leonardo's view and the heretical view of the early Gnostics, explicitly condemned by the Church Fathers, that the twelve disciples represent the zodiac, and with the abundant imagery in the New Testament presenting Christ as the avatar of the Age of Pisces.

I have given more background on this controversy earlier in this thread, and it also comes up in our current non-fiction book discussion, Christ in Egypt.Well thank you, I am so glad you agree with me. It would be nice to see this opinion getting analyzed further, but it is suppressed from public view by the intense taboo against natural theology maintained by church, universities and media.This observation helps to understand the origins of Christianity. There is no historical evidence for the existence of Jesus Christ, and much evidence that He was invented as a cosmic spiritual myth. If Christ is an allegory for the sun, it re-bases Christianity on nature rather than any supernatural miraculous occurrence, and makes Christianity compatible with science.

It should not affect the ethical content of Christianity, but it has major theological implications by removing the basis for the old worn out magical cosmology of orthodox dogma (the idea that Christ is sitting at the right hand of God in heaven, etc). Leonardo da Vinci was extremely smart and observative, so on reflection it is not surprising that he thought deeply about such topics, even if he was very cautious about expressing his views other than in this hidden code.

Thanks again for commenting, I appreciate your interest.

I appreciate your cordiality in this discussion. As far as there being no historical proof for the existence of Christ, what about the work of Flavius Josephus, who mentions Christ in Chapter 3 of his history of the Jews? Of course Christ is not going to be prominent in historical narratives written in that period, because he was not a ruler or a soldier, but a simple carpenter from Galilee. To the Romans he was just another one of a score of Jewish rebels who were undermining their rule. To the Empire, he only became important in later years as the religion he established grew like wildfire. Furthermore, I don't think Da Vinci is denying the existence of Christ, he is merely calling attention to a different interpretation of Christ, one that would have been considered heretical in his time.

It is a pleasure to discuss these ideas. The Josephus mention is a late interpolation, and was not quoted until the fourth century, by its author Eusebius. The Gospels are fiction, but this fact was systematically concealed and suppressed after Christ was invented as a supposed historical man in the second century. None of the first century references mention anything clearly historical about Jesus, as they considered him a cosmic myth, along the same lines we see in The Last Supper by Leonardo.Josephus was head of the Jewish rebels in Galilee soon after the supposed time of Jesus, and discusses the history exhaustively, with nary a mention of Jesus. Literal historical faith is a Big Lie.Christ did not exist, so it is not true to claim that he established Christianity. Instead we see diverse widespread myth coalescing into a single historical story.
I don't suggest Da Vinci denies the existence of Christ, but the symbolism of The Last Supper shows that it was the cosmic 'as above so below' symbolism that provided the real meaning behind the historical fantasies. This secret tradition is abundantly present in Christian art, but was entirely suppressed from public mention.

Whether or not you believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ, which I concede is a matter of faith and belief, I find it preposterous to accept the notion that the man responsible for forming the world's largest religion was not a historical figure. I think that believing so is as much an article of faith as accepting his divinity is. Once again, I stress that a carpenter from the backward province of Galilee is not going to make the front pages of the history books. Perhaps your own faith in the infallibility of Da Vinci makes you relunctant to accept this.

Hello again Mel, I am pleased that I have prompted your response. I too found this notion preposterous until I studied it. The fact is that none of the first century texts about Jesus make any reference whatsoever to him having a physical location in Bethlehem, Nazareth or Jerusalem. It is not until the Gospels, a full century after Christ was supposedly born, that these biographical details start to appear. As well, there were Christians across the western world before Paul, with no indication of how such a diverse movement could have sprang fully formed from one man. In fact, Christianity started as a diverse mythology, and only achieved the united incarnational version that we read in the Gospels much later. The irony here is that I simply can’t tell if you are referring to believing in Jesus or not. Your sentence is ambiguous. My view is that belief in the literal historical Jesus is purely an article of faith, based on no provable historical evidence whatsoever, and with much evidence to contradict it. I do not have faith that Jesus did not exist, but believing that he did requires faith. I don’t think that Leonardo was infallible. But he was an actual historical man, unlike Jesus.

I think the only reason why Jesus doesn't appear in any historical texts before the gospels is because his disciples would have been the only people motivated to write about him. Once again I stress his obscure origins in a backwater province.

Jerusalem was a back water province? No one would have seen or noted him making waves with the religious authorities in the Temple? That doesn't make very much sense at all.

Or, are you suggesting that the proposed historical Gospel Jesus never spent any time in Jerusalem in public and never made any waves with the religious authorities in the first place and so was never noted by either the Jewish or Pagan writers contemporary to his supposed life?

In any case, we're left with no contemporary source material to confirm that the Gospel tale which didn't appear into the literary record until the second century, was truly about real history during the first century. It's a complete loss. And it boils down to not evidence, not certainty, but faith in a situation of great uncertainty lacking any credible evidence to go by. You have to have faith that this mythological and exaggerated story had an historical core at the base of it, whether you're a believer or an evemerist...

I am currently reading Jesus Neither God Nor Man by Earl Doherty. This book is destined to be a world changing classic, rebasing theology on science. The way Earl is treated as invisible is a sign of the pathology regarding religion in popular culture. But gradually as people discuss his work, which links in closely with the findings of D.M. Murdock and other pioneering researchers, the idea of a historical Jesus will come to be seen as just as quaint as the fear of Columbus that his ship might fall off the waterfall at the edge of the world.

The reason I mention it here in this thread on Leonardo da Vinci's painting of The Last Supper is that scientific attitudes towards Christian origins have long existed, but until now they have been suppressed, and geniuses like Leonardo had to present their views in code. Leonardo did this by depicting the myth of Christ as a reflection of the actual observed stars of the path of the sun each year, in precise order. The fact that this simple method for explaining his painting was not seen properly until now, and the fact that my findings here are ignored, again shows the depth of religious pathology, that people cannot see something they strongly wish not to see.

Doherty points out that the literal and mythical theories of Christian origin are in stark conflict. To simplify, I interpret them by analogy with the Big Bang (literalism) and the Cambrian Explosion (mythicism). In the Big Bang theory of Christian origins, there was one divine man, Jesus Christ, and his revelation of God expanded from this single point, as the universe did from the Big Bang about 13.8 billion years ago. This theory is universally accepted as the basis of orthodox Christian belief and has all the official power of traditional authority and popular belief. The problem is that it is not true, and illustrates the ability of delusory fantasy to produce a mindset that can achieve a massive unwarranted consensus.

The Cambrian Explosion analogy is very different. Life on earth began four billion years ago, and was entirely microscopic, or microbial, for more than three billion years until a sudden emergence of multicellular life about 550 million years ago. The trigger for this change was that algae had been pumping oxygen into the air, and only when the oxygen level reached a critical mass did it become possible for multicellular life to evolve. What happened then, as Stephen Jay Gould explains in his celebrated book Wonderful Life, was that numerous weird and wonderful body designs suddenly emerged. As all these new life forms competed against each other, our modern phylum, Chordata, containing all organisms with a backbone, proved the best shape for the niche, and most of the other Cambrian phyla gradually went extinct. It seems many of the others just could not compete with the more efficient design of the backbone, although of course many non-chordata phyla still thrive, such as those containing insects and crustacea.

The analogy between the Cambrian explosion and Christian origins is that just as oxygen was in the air to enable multicellular life, so was something 'in the air' in terms of religious consciousness around the time of Christ to create a new myth of an anointed savior. What Doherty points out is that this myth of Christ was believed across the Roman world by the communities whom Paul wrote to in mid first century, but there was no sign of a historical Jesus of Nazareth until the writing of the Gospel of Mark a century later. Doherty explains through close textual scholarly analysis that all the other literal Gospel tales derive from Mark, and from a lost collection of sayings known as Q which contains no reliable Jesus figure. The writings of the second century give no indication of dependence on other historical traditions other than Mark's late and fictional account for the passion narrative of the death of Christ on Calvary. But meanwhile, the idea of Christ as a purely spiritual being, without incarnation, was already seeded across the Empire, in forms as various as the Cambrian phyla, ready for an efficient, believable and unifying story to convert the myth into historical dogma.

As in the Cambrian origins of multiple competing phyla, there were numerous competing weird and wonderful Christ beliefs at the start. However, as society evolved, it became expedient to unify all of these traditions into a single common story for a common era. Mark's Jesus was like the chordata, extremely well suited to the needs of its time. Its success was not grounded in historical truth but on resonance with popular desire, making it the most adaptive evolutionary competitor. Its success was sealed with Constantine's vision of the galaxy and zodiac at the Milvian Bridge, a cosmic experience that produced the conquering sign of the cross.

Big Bang or Cambrian Explosion? The Big Bang theory of Christ is venerated by tradition but has no support in historical evidence. The Cambrian Explosion theory matches completely to the historical evidence, but remains suppressed from popular view. Leonardo da Vinci helps us to see just what was 'in the air' that made Christ belief so attractive in the time of the early church. It was the exact match, as above so below, between the observed movement of the cosmos and the new myth of Christ. This is why Leonardo depicts Christ as Pisces, both in The Last Supper and in The Baptism of Christ.

The position of the sun at the spring equinox moved into Pisces at the time of Christ, a cosmic observation probably prefigured by the prophet Daniel, and then made central to the allegorical visions of Mark and Paul. As the faith evolved, the allegorical supporting framework of cosmic reflection was gradually distorted, hidden, forgotten and lost. This cosmic scientific framework, 'On Earth As In Heaven', remains the causal source of power for Christianity, as reflected in the cross, with its four points matching to the solstices and equinoxes, and as also abundantly reflected in art works such as The Last Supper.

The conflict between the Big Bang and Cambrian accounts of Christian origins bears comparison to another natural scientific process - plate tectonics. Deep beneath the surface of the earth, vast plates the size of continents slowly grind against each other. The pressure gradually builds, with no sign of impending change, until suddenly the tension is released in an earthquake that establishes a new stability, bringing the surface appearance back into harmony with the deep causal processes. Literal and mythical Christian paradigms are similarly moving invisibly against each other, creating a spiritual tension in human culture that will be suddenly resolved with the establishment of a new aeon, as the Piscean 'Age of Belief' is replaced by an Aquarian 'Age of Knowledge'.

he truly does? I don’t know ‘bout this trivia before..thanks!

Evidence? Source?

Here is Jesus on a piece of toast

http://s3-ak.buzzfed.com/static/imagebu ... 547-19.jpg

Ever hear of the Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_sharpshooter_fallacy

Why is this Zodiac Last Supper speculation not a great example of someone trying too hard to find a pattern that does not exist?

Don't mean to join in with that guy who was banned, Robert. I'm curious where you gathered your evidence from to back your theory.

No, you're not.

But there is something praiseworthy about attempting to be a maverick.

Hi ant, thanks very much for these questions. You may wish to read through the thread where I discuss these issues in some detail. In summary, this is a completely new interpretation that I have developed myself by looking at The Last Supper, reading Leonardo’s writings, and placing him within his historical and cultural context. Why this interpretation has not previously been seen is either (a) it is wrong, or (b) it deals with deep cultural problems that have caused a pervasive inability to see what is plainly there. I underestimated how something that is obvious to me, and to others who have taken the time to study it in detail, is simply invisible to people who are predisposed not to see it.Yes, but I reject the argument that there is any fallacy in this work. People who think it is a fallacy just have not examined it carefully enough.

The Texas sharpshooter fallacy is a logical fallacy in which pieces of information that have no relationship to one another are called out for their similarities, and that similarity is used for claiming the existence of a pattern. This fallacy is not relevant here because the pattern has no other possible explanation, and it has a clear motive and design that fits perfectly with Leonardo's body of work. In this case, the pieces of information have a strong and clear relationship to each other. Quite simply because the pattern does actually exist, it fits with a coherent explanation of Leonardo’s theology and philosophy, it matches to old heresies that see the twelve as symbols for the zodiac, and it is so precise and detailed, with each constellation shape providing the actual template for each figure in order, that assertions about pareidolia, comparing it to seeing animals in clouds, are unfounded. The pareidolia dismissal is rather like the Catholic Church saying to Galileo that the earth could not orbit the sun because they could not imagine it, they found it inconvenient, and they refused to look. Please read the thread, I go into a lot more detail about why this is a correct hypothesis, the extensive Gnostic background for an astrotheological reading of the Gospels, and why Leonardo would prudently have encoded the stars in his painting in such a way that the pattern is invisible unless you are looking for it. I have not found any previous research that makes the same argument, so it is entirely new. For many people who prefer to see Leonardo as an orthodox Christian the newness is reason enough to ignore it. A good friend of mine suggested how I could lay out the claim in a much simpler and more irrefutable way, but I have just not got around to doing that yet.