The ability of the Old Testament prophets to predict the rough timing of the incarnation of Jesus Christ is readily, simply, clearly and elegantly explained by the astrotheology of precession of the equinoxes. This basic explanatory fact provides strong and parsimonious support to the scientific hypothesis supported by the Mythicist School led by Richard Carrier and Earl Doherty that Jesus Christ was invented on a celestial framework.

For more than a thousand years before Christ, the astronomer-priests of Babylon recorded the daily positions of the stars and planets to assist with prediction of seasons and eclipses. This motivation became absolutely central to Judaism, as seen in the myth of the Fourth Day of Creation in Genesis 1:14, “Then God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years.” The use of the sun and moon and stars to mark the seasons is a key piece of background knowledge throughout the prophetic tradition, especially in Daniel’s prophecy of the 70 weeks to predict the incarnation of Christ at the time of Pilate.

The Babylonian ability to maintain accurate long term records of exact visual astronomy formed the basis of Jewish prophecy of the incarnation of Jesus Christ, understood as occurring at a time when the earth would uniquely be in tune with the visible heavens, reflecting the order of the cosmos. Despite initially appearing to be an absurd magical myth, this theory of cosmic reflection is actually a simple and clear empirical concept.

A stumbling block people tend to have in discussing this material is that this idea of earth reflecting heaven is based on the astrological theory “as above so below”, the motif that formed the intellectual philosophical basis of ancient star religion. Rather than any magical influence, the old core of cosmic reflection is simply the true observation that because the earth is within the heavens it obeys the same causal processes as the observable stars. That is a simple observation which is at the basis of modern science, as seen in Newton’s theory of gravity. While of course it is easy to add magical claims to this science, no magical ideas are actually needed to understand it, and we must exclude all magic, including Christian supernatural theories of prophecy, if we want to see the truth. Understanding this basic concept also provides a scientific way to understand the mysterious prayer of Jesus that God's will should be done on earth as it is in heaven.

The ancients extended the correct principle of part-whole analysis to the belief that visible patterns in the heavens must also be reflected on earth. For Jewish prophecy, this astronomical method provided the empirical basis for the mythical prophecy of the incarnation of Christ. The process at work was that the idea of ‘ages’ or ‘worlds’ was based on the observation of the star group where the sun began each year at the spring equinox. This star point could readily be seen by a long term observant stable ancient civilization such as Babylon to be moving backwards through the zodiac at a rate of one degree of arc about every 72 years. While we do not have extant proof of this observation from more than 140 years before Christ, the ability and interest to make it is completely congruent with the data that has survived from Babylon, and is the only coherent way to explain how the many centuries of Babylonian star data were used in Jewish prophecy.

For an observant viewer in ancient Babylon, the prediction of when the world would enter a new phase would be based on observation of the main slow patterns of the sky. This basic principle of prophecy as astronomy has a simple and elegant fit with the Jewish prediction of the incarnation of Jesus Christ. Prophecy such as Daniel’s seventy weeks has to be understood as a way of mythologizing the real empirical observation, predictable from centuries beforehand, of when the spring point would leave its traditional position in the constellation of Aries and enter the constellation of Pisces. This event is readily defined as the ‘alpha and omega’ point, based on simple visual observation of the stars. It occurred at a specific moment which modern astronomy can date to September of 21 AD, and which ancient astronomers could readily date to within a decade of that exact moment, so therefore any time within what later came to be thought as the life of Christ. As such, this empirical event provided the exact basis for the main symbol of Christianity, the Chi Rho Cross, which incorporates the path of the sun, the celestial equator, the first fish of Pisces and the alpha and omega.

The reason the stellar timing is so exact is that the shape of the constellation of Pisces includes a line of stars, known as the rope holding the first fish, which crosses the path of the sun at a right angle. At the moment when the equinox point crossed this line, for ancient astrology the earth was in tune with the stars. Only at that precise moment did all of the twelve signs of the zodiac, measured and defined by the equinoxes and solstices, line up perfectly with their background stars. This sense of cosmic attunement provided the empirical basis for the myths of incarnation and atonement, that at that special moment alone God was present on the earth.

The fact that this star lore was well known for centuries beforehand, (‘by seers foretold’ as the carol of The Angel Gabriel puts it), means that there was an intense emotional yearning that it should actually be fulfilled, especially in the context of the conquest of Israel by Rome and the desire for a military king who would restore Jewish rule. The prospect for Jewish victory over Rome was nonexistent, so the prophecy had to be interpreted against the realities of history. This process led to the steady accumulation of belief that the prophecy had in fact been fulfilled, despite the absence of any real events supporting that hope.

Over time, in line with the real and predictable processes of natural cultural evolution, the New Testament and its associated Christian belief structures is precisely what we should expect would come into existence as a way of explaining away the failure of messianic prophecy.

Understanding Bible prophecy requires a radical exclusion of all supernatural traditions as corrupt and false and vain social imagination. When we replace these mythical beliefs by orderly scientific understanding, the entire picture falls into place. Jesus Christ is a pure myth, not as a celestial entity, but rather as a way of describing the observed harmony between the visible stars and imagined events on earth at the time of his supposed incarnation.

The Gnostic Basis of Christianity

The core difference between Gnosticism and Christian orthodoxy is whether we are saved by knowledge (gnosis) or by belief (pistis/doxa). The Gnostic vision of salvation by knowledge has its roots in Greek philosophy, specifically in Plato’s Republic, which presents knowledge as reliable and belief as unreliable. The orthodox (literally right belief) theory is seen in texts such as John 3:16 – whomsoever shall believe will be saved.

The social structure proposed in Plato's Republic has three distinct classes of individuals within the state. The Bronze Class are the Producers (farmers, miners, industrial workers etc), the Silver Class are the Auxiliaries (military), and the Gold Class are the Guardians, the philosopher kings. This model was applied by Gnostics, as explained by later Gnostic writers such as Valentinus, who presented Plato’s philosopher kings as the Gnostic spiritual elite, known as pneumatics, ruling by knowledge. In the place of the military auxiliaries the Gnostics considered that the broader church, known as psychics, operated on the basis of belief. And then there were the ignorant masses, the hylic or materialist class.

The presence of The Republic among the Gnostic Gospels at Nag Hammadi illustrates Plato’s importance for Gnosticism, an importance that comes through in his ideas about social structure and epistemology. As with Plato’s own political ambitions, the Gnostic idea of a spiritual elite was incompatible with the interests of the real elite of the Roman State, who saw rival lords as seditious and deserving crucifixion. Only when the psychics took over from the pneumatics, suppressing Gnosticism and accepting the subordination of church to state, was the church able to escape from persecution and produce the Christendom alliance of throne and altar.

Plato’s Timaeus provides a further major Gnostic component of Christianity. The Timaeus discusses the Chi cross in the sky, representing the observed precession of the celestial equator against the background stars of the zodiac. This became the basis of the core ancient Christian symbol the Chi Rho Cross, allegedly seen in the sky by Constantine as the sign in whose name Christendom would conquer. Christianity added the Rho to Plato’s Chi to symbolise the movement of the equator across the first fish of Pisces observed in 21 AD. This movement, known as the precession of the equinox, marked the alpha and omega moment between the age of the lamb and the age of the fish. This astronomical content was deemed unacceptable to supernatural monotheism and was rigorously eliminated from surface view. The cosmology provided the blueprint for the manufacture of the Christ myth, including the temporal placement under Pilate, and remains visible in numerous core Christian symbols such as the chi rho cross and many texts of the New Testament.

The Hellenistic philosophy from Plato was mixed together in the Alexandrian crucible of the Therapeuts, as discussed by Philo. The Therapeuts established the tradition of monasticism in Egypt. This monastic tradition came from India, brought by Buddhist missionaries sent by Emperor Asoka in the third century BC. The Indian origin of monasticism is broadly attested in archaeology of the Sanga from centuries before Christ, and is also seen in the basis of the Therapeuts in the word Theraputta, meaning ‘son of the elder’, as discussed at http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/buddha.html

Alexandria provided the location where thought from Egypt, Israel, Babylon, India and Greece could mix to formulate a shared vision of an Anointed Saviour, the English translation of the pre-Christian Greek phrase Christ Jesus. Beginning with the Greek-Egyptian invented God Serapis, the addition of the Jewish prophetic tradition of the suffering servant (Isa 53), and the Netser or Nazarene (branch of Jesse = yisay weneser) (Isa 11:1) enabled the mythical messiah figure to evolve into the imagined person of Jesus of Nazareth.