Mark 4

Flann 5 wrote: Hi Robert. Are you going to take up my challenge to provide the true astrotheological interpretation of Mark 4:1-20?

Saint Mark wrote: 4:1Again he began to teach by the seaside. A great multitude was gathered to him, so that he entered into a boat in the sea, and sat down. All the multitude were on the land by the sea.

Later in Mark, in the miracles of the loaves and the fishes, the multitude of either 5000 or 4000 men stands for the visible stars. It is therefore reasonable to interpret Jesus in the boat preaching to the multitude as allegory for the stars.

Saint Mark wrote: 4:2He taught them many things in parables, and told them in his teaching, 4:3”Listen! Behold, the farmer went out to sow,

The parable of the sower presents four alternative human responses to the word of God – reception, competition, barrenness and error.

Saint Mark wrote: 4:4and it happened, as he sowed, some seed fell by the road, and the birds* came and devoured it.

Competition from other things happening in our life can stop us both from taking an interest in theology or religion and from being receptive to different theories in these areas.

Saint Mark wrote: 4:5Others fell on the rocky ground, where it had little soil, and immediately it sprang up, because it had no depth of soil.

Where we simply lack resources to engage with learning, an encounter with teaching will fall on barren ground and not sink in.

Saint Mark wrote: 4:6When the sun had risen, it was scorched; and because it had no root, it withered away.

This mention of the sun as the parable for the teacher is astral. The natural parable of the seed growing in the light of the sun is a metaphor for humanity’s spiritual growth, having both a purely intellectual part as well as the natural connection we have to plants.

Saint Mark wrote: 4:7Others fell among the thorns, and the thorns grew up, and choked it, and it yielded no fruit.

Error, in the form of ideological dogmatics, prevents people from hearing true teachings.

Saint Mark wrote: 4:8Others fell into the good ground, and yielded fruit, growing up and increasing. Some brought forth thirty times, some sixty times, and some one hundred times as much.”

People who are receptive to learning generate creative abundance.

Saint Mark wrote: 4:9He said, “Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear.”

This appears like a standard call to mystery secret teachings. It implies that most hearers do not have ears to hear, and that the good ground is occupied only by a few.

Saint Mark wrote: 4:10When he was alone, those who were around him with the twelve asked him about the parables.

The mention of the twelve here sets up the astral myth of Jesus as the sun and the apostles as the twelve months of the moon, alluding also to the geometrical observation that a sphere can touch exactly twelve spheres the same size. The one and the twelve is a central idea in both astronomy and geometry.

Saint Mark wrote: 4:11He said to them, “To you is given the mystery of the Kingdom of God, but to those who are outside, all things are done in parables,

Here we see the Gnostic separation between the spiritual initiates and the materialist public, described as between pneumatics and hylics, with the psychics a third group representing the mixed group who later came to run the dogmatic church. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hylics for this basic Gnostic sociology, which mirrors Orwell’s communist social theory of the party and plebs in modern times and Plato’s Republic with its philosopher kings.
The twelve who are given the mystery of the Kingdom learn secret teachings. My view is that these secret teachings must have contained a strong focus on topics such astronomy and geometry, explaining how the stellar allegory found its way into the Bible. These teachings would be kept strictly secret on account of being politically dangerous in a volatile world, explained only in the coded form presented in Mark’s Gospel, and the more abundant cosmic symbols of the Apocalypse.

Saint Mark wrote: 4:12that 'seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand; lest perhaps they should turn again, and their sins should be forgiven them.'“

Jesus is describing the hylic social strata who are totally embodied, and therefore also called somatic, and lack any capacity for cosmic engagement. Also the psychics are an intermediate group between the hylics and the enlightened pneumatics, with the psychics having a partial vision of divine reality.

Saint Mark wrote: 4:13He said to them, “Don't you understand this parable? How will you understand all of the parables?

Here Jesus prepares the ground for stepping through the sower story as a guide to interpreting the rest of the Gospel. All miracles are parables. The miraculous parables of Mark include the passion of Christ, with all its stellar allegory such as the empty tomb at the rising of the sun on the third day after the cross matching the rebirth of the sun after the solstice.

Saint Mark wrote: 4:14The farmer sows the word.

ie the farmer is God, whose cosmic order of grace and love is the source of salvation and wisdom.

Saint Mark wrote: 4:15These are the ones by the road, where the word is sown; and when they have heard, immediately Satan comes, and takes away the word which has been sown in them.

Competition from the adversary of God makes it much harder for the truth to get through, reinforcing how effort is needed to communicate effectively.

Saint Mark wrote: 4:16These in like manner are those who are sown on the rocky places, who, when they have heard the word, immediately receive it with joy.

Barren ground welcomes rain to sprout its seed, buth without follow up the seed will die.

Saint Mark wrote: 4:17They have no root in themselves, but are short-lived. When oppression or persecution arises because of the word, immediately they stumble.

This theme of persecution because of the word illustrates the highly complex and secretive cultural context in which Mark was writing. It is far from clear what Jesus allegedly thought would be the main sources of persecution. It is equally possible that this means internal jostling for power as well as the broad unacceptability of the teaching of messianic transformation for the wider world. The powers who took over the church from its founding Gnostic astronomical seers rejected the root of thinking that comes from visual cosmology, so stumbled into a corrupted teaching that evolved on the basis of political utility, not inherent truth.

Saint Mark wrote: 4:18Others are those who are sown among the thorns. These are those who have heard the word, 4:19and the cares of this age, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things entering in choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful.

The power of evil is able to make people believe error. This phrase from Jesus “the deceitfulness of riches” is a remarkable one that I confess I had not noticed before. Perhaps some have drawn attention to it, but it has passed me by. It does bear striking comparison to Saint Peter’s comment about filthy lucre: “Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind;” And Paul’s Letter to Titus gives an anti-Semitic blast against “many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers, specially they of the circumcision: 11Whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole houses, teaching things which they ought not, for filthy lucre's sake.” Mark has Jesus say that wealth is deceptive and chokes our access to truth. This is a call to a rigorous analysis of how worldly interests can affect values and opinions.

Saint Mark wrote: 4:20These are those which were sown on the good ground: such as hear the word, and accept it, and bear fruit, some thirty times, some sixty times, and some one hundred times.”

While the church has co-opted this line to refer to true believers in the Historical Jesus, another way to read it is that Jesus is talking about the Gnostic Pneumatic spiritual elite, the seekers after wisdom who enter in secret into the mysteries of the kingdom as an inner church. The romantic Gnostic dream crumbled before the church like Trotsky before Stalin, or like Winston Smith before Big Brother. The context of the fall from grace means that the ability to hear the word of God with any purity and clarity is severely constrained by the corruption of the world. Jesus has set out a ranking of people in spiritual terms, to be judged on his return against the criteria in the parable of the talents.

great stuff Robert after brekky and a ciggie i might have a go myself it's always fascinating to see how all the various people relate to and interpret the symbols.

i always think of that story where Don Mclean said he stopped telling people what he meant with the lyrics to american pie because often their interpretations were more interesting to him than his original intent.

Mark 4:4 and it came to pass, in the sowing, some fell by the way, and the fowls of the heaven did come and devour it;

first the word "way"

greek hodos

as in

John 14:6 Jesus saith to him, 'I am the way,

the hodos

some fell by the hodos, i am the hodos

back to Mark 4:4

as he was sowing, some seed fell beside the road, and the birds came and ate it up.

next birds

my favourite rendering of this symbol came to me standing in the back yard.

i saw birds flying from one tree to another and it occurred to me...

as birds fly from one tree to another so ideas fly from one person to another

birds of the heaven, ideas of the mind

youkrst wrote:Mark 4:4 and it came to pass, in the sowing, some fell by the way, and the fowls of the heaven did come and devour it;
first the word "way"
greek hodos as in John 14:6 Jesus saith to him, 'I am the way,
the hodos some fell by the hodos, i am the hodos

Googling hodos tao, http://www.patheos.com/blogs/billykanga ... ative.html compares Jesus' road trip to Steinbeck and Pirsig.

The really keen could seek out http://www.zvab.com/Begriffsgeschichtli ... 4747157/bd which analyses the concept of "The Way" against Greek and Chinese antecedents.

My view is that this central concept in Biblical theology, "The Way" or hodos, illustrates the intellectual roots of Christianity in natural eastern thought and the conceptual hostility of Jesus Christ to the dominant western idea that a natural way of life cannot be imagined.

The parable of the sower imagines a natural way of life, but noting that ravenous harpies are at every side, cautions the reader to stick to the hard and narrow path rather than the broad and easy way to hell beckoned by the sirens of the leaden winter.

Hi Robert. Thanks for taking up the challenge to interpret this passage astrotheologically.To set a standard to measure this by here are M.P.Hall's words again.

"Those who chronicled the life and acts of Jesus found it advisable to metamorphose him into a solar deity.The historical Jesus was forgotten,and nearly all the salient features recorded in the four gospels have their correlations in the movements,phases or functions of the heavenly bodies."

Robert Tulip wrote:Saint Mark wrote:
4:1Again he began to teach by the seaside. A great multitude was gathered to him, so that he entered into a boat in the sea, and sat down. All the multitude were on the land by the sea.


Later in Mark, in the miracles of the loaves and the fishes, the multitude of either 5000 or 4000 men stands for the visible stars. It is therefore reasonable to interpret Jesus in the boat preaching to the multitude as allegory for the stars.

Obviously you take Jesus to be allegory for the solar deity and here the multitude to be the stars. What movements,phases or functions of the heavenly bodies correlate to Jesus getting into a boat and teaching the multitude?

Robert Tulip wrote:Saint Mark wrote:
4:2He taught them many things in parables, and told them in his teaching, 4:3”Listen! Behold, the farmer went out to sow,


The parable of the sower presents four alternative human responses to the word of God – reception, competition, barrenness and error.

You help yourself in advance to the interpretation given later. But what for an atheist is the word of God? The opening words are interesting. "Listen,Behold.." especially with the later explanation of hearing without understanding and seeing without perceiving.
Parables are peculiarly visual though heard which seems to be more an Eastern than Western mode of instruction. We see it in our minds eye.

Robert Tulip wrote:Saint Mark wrote:
4:4and it happened, as he sowed, some seed fell by the road, and the birds* came and devoured it.


Competition from other things happening in our life can stop us both from taking an interest in theology or religion and from being receptive to different theories in these areas.

But why should an atheist take a blind bit of notice of theology,which is completely irrelevant and redundant in such a worldview.
I know you think some ethical value exists in Christianity and I agree with you on that.

Robert Tulip wrote:Saint Mark wrote:

Robert Tulip wrote:Saint Mark wrote:
4:5Others fell on the rocky ground, where it had little soil, and immediately it sprang up, because it had no depth of soil.


Where we simply lack resources to engage with learning, an encounter with teaching will fall on barren ground and not sink in.


Saint Mark wrote:
4:6When the sun had risen, it was scorched; and because it had no root, it withered away.


This mention of the sun as the parable for the teacher is astral. The natural parable of the seed growing in the light of the sun is a metaphor for humanity’s spiritual growth, having both a purely intellectual part as well as the natural connection we have to plants.

Robert Tulip wrote:Saint Mark wrote:
4:17They have no root in themselves, but are short-lived. When oppression or persecution arises because of the word, immediately they stumble.

What's awkward here is that Jesus 'the allegorical sun' is sowing the seed but the sun/ 'Jesus' is scorching the seed sown by the sun 'Jesus'.
We talk of feeling the heat metaphorically of persecution and oppression, but here it's the sun that represents this, which hardly fits with the allegory of the sun as great benefactor.

Robert Tulip wrote:Saint Mark wrote:
4:18Others are those who are sown among the thorns. These are those who have heard the word, 4:19and the cares of this age, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things entering in choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful.

Robert Tulip wrote:Saint Mark wrote:
4:7Others fell among the thorns, and the thorns grew up, and choked it, and it yielded no fruit.


Error, in the form of ideological dogmatics, prevents people from hearing true teachings.

I'm afraid your interpretation here is pure Tulipology and simply doesn't correspond to the interpretation given.

Robert Tulip wrote:The power of evil is able to make people believe error. This phrase from Jesus “the deceitfulness of riches” is a remarkable one that I confess I had not noticed before. Perhaps some have drawn attention to it, but it has passed me by. It does bear striking comparison to Saint Peter’s comment about filthy lucre: “Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind;” And Paul’s Letter to Titus gives an anti-Semitic blast against “many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers, specially they of the circumcision: 11Whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole houses, teaching things which they ought not, for filthy lucre's sake.” Mark has Jesus say that wealth is deceptive and chokes our access to truth. This is a call to a rigorous analysis of how worldly interests can affect values and opinions.

For the given interpretation you have another go at it focusing on the enticement of greater riches which promise but never truly deliver and are therefore deceitful, which is fair enough, though it also includes the cares of this life and the desire for other things that can take precedence over the word of God and choke it out.

Robert Tulip wrote:Saint Mark wrote:
4:10When he was alone, those who were around him with the twelve asked him about the parables.


The mention of the twelve here sets up the astral myth of Jesus as the sun and the apostles as the twelve months of the moon, alluding also to the geometrical observation that a sphere can touch exactly twelve spheres the same size. The one and the twelve is a central idea in both astronomy and geometry.

There are more than the twelve here but I know that's integral to your scheme of interpretation.

Robert Tulip wrote:Saint Mark wrote:
4:11He said to them, “To you is given the mystery of the Kingdom of God, but to those who are outside, all things are done in parables,


Here we see the Gnostic separation between the spiritual initiates and the materialist public, described as between pneumatics and hylics, with the psychics a third group representing the mixed group who later came to run the dogmatic church. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hylics for this basic Gnostic sociology, which mirrors Orwell’s communist social theory of the party and plebs in modern times and Plato’s Republic with its philosopher kings.

Whatever of Gnosticism no third group is found here such as a Mr Magoo category of "psychics".

Robert Tulip wrote:Saint Mark wrote:
4:12that 'seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand; lest perhaps they should turn again, and their sins should be forgiven them.'“


Jesus is describing the hylic social strata who are totally embodied, and therefore also called somatic, and lack any capacity for cosmic engagement. Also the psychics are an intermediate group between the hylics and the enlightened pneumatics, with the psychics having a partial vision of divine reality.

Ironically, for Robert the psychics/fundies are partially sighted and yet they are the ones who emphasize the problem of sin and need for forgiveness as Jesus does.
Whereas the pneumatic 'enlightened' ones see no need at all for this,but rather gnosis.

Robert Tulip wrote:The twelve who are given the mystery of the Kingdom learn secret teachings. My view is that these secret teachings must have contained a strong focus on topics such astronomy and geometry, explaining how the stellar allegory found its way into the Bible. These teachings would be kept strictly secret on account of being politically dangerous in a volatile world, explained only in the coded form presented in Mark’s Gospel, and the more abundant cosmic symbols of the Apocalypse.

For all that astronomy and geometry are useful I don't get the impression that the gospels are all about that but more moral issues and redemption. I'm not quite sure how politically threatened the Romans imperialists were by geometry or astronomy, but know they were by nationalist rebels.

Robert Tulip wrote:Saint Mark wrote:
4:13He said to them, “Don't you understand this parable? How will you understand all of the parables?


Here Jesus prepares the ground for stepping through the sower story as a guide to interpreting the rest of the Gospel. All miracles are parables. The miraculous parables of Mark include the passion of Christ, with all its stellar allegory such as the empty tomb at the rising of the sun on the third day after the cross matching the rebirth of the sun after the solstice.

I would question interpreting the words "all the parables" to mean everything in the gospels as the more simple explanation the other parables like this one, makes more sense to me.
Of course Jesus wasn't crucified and resurrected at the winter solstice but at Passover time which is the very obvious clue to it's meaning.
Thanks for your response to the challenge just the same, Robert.

Flann 5 wrote:Obviously you take Jesus to be allegory for the solar deity and here the multitude to be the stars. What movements,phases or functions of the heavenly bodies correlate to Jesus getting into a boat and teaching the multitude?

Not wanting to be a smartass but it seems to me that if J.C. really wanted to make an impression, rather than stand in a boat teaching the multitude, would not standing
on said water be more memorable and drastic?

Taylor wrote:Flann 5 wrote:
Obviously you take Jesus to be allegory for the solar deity and here the multitude to be the stars. What movements,phases or functions of the heavenly bodies correlate to Jesus getting into a boat and teaching the multitude?




Not wanting to be a smartass but it seems to me that if J.C. really wanted to make an impression, rather than stand in a boat teaching the multitude, would not standing
on said water be more memorable and drastic?

Hi Taylor. What's interesting is that John in his gospel applies the same quote from Isaiah used here by Jesus for his parables but there in the context of miracles.

I'll borrow it from Robert's post.

Robert Tulip wrote:Saint Mark wrote:
4:12that 'seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand; lest perhaps they should turn again, and their sins should be forgiven them.'“

John says that despite his performing many miracles before them,still they did not for the most part believe. It's a kind of judicial blindness.
I went into it on the Greta Vosper thread if I remember right.

I'll have a look to see if it's there and exhume or resurrect it for your perusal.

Flann wrote:But why should an atheist take a blind bit of notice of theology

because if they don't they will wake up and find they are considered "blinded by satan" by the chosen few.

we desparately need to take back what the theists stole from us, equality.

an atheist is just as spiritual as a theist, often more so.

My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky;
So was it when I was a child;
So is it now I am a man;
So shall it be when I grow old,--
Or let me die!
The child is father of the man,
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each in natural piety.

nothing is the exclusive province of any group.

atheists don't own science and theists don't own spirituality.

we are all in this together!

now Flann, explain to me again how Satan is a fallen angel

Flann 5 wrote:Hi Robert. Thanks for taking up the challenge to interpret this passage astrotheologically.To set a standard to measure this by here are M.P.Hall's words again. "Those who chronicled the life and acts of Jesus found it advisable to metamorphose him into a solar deity.The historical Jesus was forgotten,and nearly all the salient features recorded in the four gospels have their correlations in the movements,phases or functions of the heavenly bodies."

I had a bit of a look at Manly Hall a few years ago, and Tat Tvam Asi has recommended him here recently. My view is that sound understanding involves analyzing Jesus Christ as myth historized, not history mythified, so I disagree with this quote from Hall. That Hall falls for the claim that the story of Jesus is history shows just how deeply entrenched this idea is even among thinkers with alternative ideas, despite its weak evidentiary and logical standing when critically examined. The idea of the historical Jesus has a simple beauty and emotional attraction, with its only flaw its failure to cohere with evidence and reason.

Flann 5 wrote:What movements, phases or functions of the heavenly bodies correlate to Jesus getting into a boat and teaching the multitude?

This parable coheres well with the idea that Jesus is allegory for the sun. The sun is our main source of cosmic order, not as a conscious entity but as the natural power behind the regular patterns of life. This sense of unchanging cosmic order emerges in Biblical ideas such as Christ as pre-existent cosmic logos in Colossians 1.

This symbolic sense of the boat before the multitude is that Jesus has delivered the rational order of the cosmos for all eternity, and matches to what the sun has actually done in nature, defining the regular order that enables life to prosper and evolve on our planet against the unchanging background of the multitude of stars.

The rationality of the solar pattern, the sense of connection to ultimate reality that justifies a close identity between the sun and reason or logos, is seen in the orderly regularity of the seasons with their annual cycle of life, death and rebirth, and in the big slow cycles of the ages. Jesus lecturing to the multitude indicates the relationship between the one and the many, seeing the primary rationality of the cosmos encapsulated in the power of the sun.

Flann 5 wrote: what for an atheist is the word of God?

Thanks Flann, great question. I think of the word of God in allegorical terms as language that is conducive to sustained human flourishing. Our ideas about God can promote salvation in a material sense, meaning continued prosperity on our planetary home, rather than the imaginary fantasy of a heavenly afterlife.

The point of atheism is the scientific removal of all supernatural belief. Where I think that atheism needs to evolve is in recognizing that old spiritual language can be a linguistic construction serves our real long term evolutionary interests. These global human interests are served by a framework of understanding that is stable, durable, coherent and productive.

Language in religion provides spiritual support to this practical agenda of rational evolution, addressing the core evolutionary principle that new adaptive methods build incrementally upon existing precedent rather than bringing massive sudden changes. Big change in evolution are always destructive, so the idea that we could abolish God by atheism is very superficial. Far better to keep everything about Christianity while promoting a small mutation of its DNA by recognising its genetic origin in ancient culture was allegorical rather than literal.

The main themes traditionally attributed to God - power, durability, stability, order, love - appear in material reality and can be transposed onto nature within Christianity by systematically reading the Bible as allegory. We do not have to postulate God as an intentional governing entity to see that these themes are meaningful for science and society.

Against the atheist agenda of asking how human society can best evolve using evidence and logic, the ironic and irenic surprise is that the best ethics come from Jesus Christ. The Sermon on the Mount and the Last Judgement are sublime ethical teachings, pointing to a possible future world society that overcomes the depravity of alienated ignorance. The ethics of Christ can be analysed against a purely scientific and materialist political economy and sociology to understand how humanity can best evolve to avoid the looming dangers facing our planetary civilization, especially with climate change. Indeed these danger are so severe that my opinion is that without Christ we are doomed, but that Christ can only re-enter the conversation in a sensible way stripped of all the supernatural weeds that have grown around Christianity.

Flann 5 wrote: Why should an atheist take a blind bit of notice of theology, which is completely irrelevant and redundant in such a worldview.

The culture war between science and religion masks their common goal of explaining reality. Scientific observation of the corrupt intransigence of the church can be seen against Hegel’s theory that society evolves through a process of thesis, antithesis and synthesis. If Christian faith is the thesis, and scientific atheism the antithesis, then the next expected step in the evolution of ideas should be a synthesis between faith and reason.

Science alone is purely about facts, not values, and therefore lacks the central capacity delivered by religion of social organization. The problem which is so well answered by the Sermon on the Mount is the vision of a long term goal of a rationally ordered society, seeing the greatest divine blessing as resting upon those whose only defence is to exist in a state of grace, summarised in the line that the least in the world shall be first in the Kingdom of God. This is an evolutionary idea about how human values have to change to prevent social collapse.

Flann 5 wrote: I know you think some ethical value exists in Christianity and I agree with you on that.

Very much so, but I see the reform of Christianity for a new age as delivering on the parable of the wheat and tares, with the wheat as scientific reason and the tares as supernatural corruption.

Flann 5 wrote: What's awkward [in the seed falling on barren ground] is that Jesus 'the allegorical sun' is sowing the seed but the sun/ 'Jesus' is scorching the seed sown by the sun 'Jesus'. We talk of feeling the heat metaphorically of persecution and oppression, but here it's the sun that represents this, which hardly fits with the allegory of the sun as great benefactor.

Seed that does not get water cannot grow. The sun combines with rain to produce fertile abundance. Rain here is like a metaphor for how the holy spirit should operate in human life, manifest primarily in courteous and responsive dialogue. I see our world as a spiritual desert, so traumatized by suffering and war and error that courteous dialogue is rare and endangered. The word of truth has to be nurtured in a responsive mind and social support. When we block out dialogue we are like the barren ground where the soil is so thin that seed can sprout after a light shower but cannot take root.

Flann 5 wrote:

Robert Tulip wrote:Saint Mark wrote: “4:7 Others fell among the thorns, and the thorns grew up, and choked it, and it yielded no fruit.” Error, in the form of ideological dogmatics, prevents people from hearing true teachings.

I'm afraid your interpretation here is pure Tulipology and simply doesn't correspond to the interpretation given.

I don’t wish to let that vague critique pass without noting that in the next response you appear to accept that my reading of the thorns as representing error is based on sound textual interpretation. Perhaps your “Tulipology” objection is to my description of dogmatics as error? That is hardly just a personal view from me though, since the whole secular critique of religion shares it. I see the church as on the brink of collapse precisely because of its thorny response to anyone trying to have a courteous dialogue about its beliefs.

Flann 5 wrote: focusing on the enticement of greater riches which promise but never truly deliver and are therefore deceitful is fair enough, though it also includes the cares of this life and the desire for other things that can take precedence over the word of God and choke it out.

Here we see the symbolic depth of the parable of the thorns that choke the growth of truth in the world. I see that depth as including a strong Gnostic critique of the church, where the desire for personal gain and acceptable belief (groupthink) does continue to choke out the deeper inconvenient truths which are often hidden within myths and are essential for salvation.

Flann 5 wrote: There are more than the twelve here but I know that's integral to your scheme of interpretation.

I will come back to that one.

Flann 5 wrote:

Robert Tulip wrote:Saint Mark wrote:
4:11He said to them, “To you is given the mystery of the Kingdom of God, but to those who are outside, all things are done in parables,

Here we see the Gnostic separation between the spiritual initiates and the materialist public, described as between pneumatics and hylics, with the psychics a third group representing the mixed group who later came to run the dogmatic church. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hylics for this basic Gnostic sociology, which mirrors Orwell’s communist social theory of the party and plebs in modern times and Plato’s Republic with its philosopher kings.

Whatever of Gnosticism no third group is found here such as a Mr Magoo category of "psychics".

“Voiced by Jim Backus, Quincy Magoo is a wealthy, short-statured retiree who gets into a series of comical situations as a result of his nearsightedness, compounded by his stubborn refusal to admit the problem. However, through uncanny streaks of luck, the situation always seems to work itself out for him, leaving him no worse than before.” (wiki)

Yes for once we are in full agreement Flann; Mr Magoo is the perfect myth for the founders of the church. Naturally the church remains highly sensitive and censorious regarding their depiction by the spiritual Gnostics as “psychics”, a term treated negatively in the NT by Paul and Jude. Psychics is the only term at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_gnostic_terms that does not link to its own wiki entry.

Texts such as The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels provide good discussion of this group, whom I categorise as the “outer party” in Orwell’s social terms. In the Gnostic imagination explained by Valentinus, the psychics could be seen as the ten percent of the population who serve as functionaries for the spiritual elite. The naivety of the Gnostics meant they were incapable of matching the scheming and networking skills of these shortsighted Magoos who purged the original spiritual wisdom from the church. Paul distinguishes between psychics (the ‘natural man’) and pneumatics (the spiritual) at 1 Cor 2:14-15 http://biblehub.com/interlinear/1_corinthians/2-14.htm and 1 Cor 15: 44-47 http://biblehub.com/interlinear/1_corinthians/15-44.htm These links are to the interlinear version putting the Greek against the English.

Jude 1:19 discusses psychics as sowers of division in the church, perhaps rather like Lenin forseeing the tyranny of Stalin, although the church would contest that reading. The famous Gnostic Valentinus “taught that there were three kinds of people, the spiritual, psychical, and material; and that only those of a spiritual nature (his own followers) received the gnosis (knowledge) that allowed them to return to the divine Pleroma, while those of a psychic nature (ordinary Christians) would attain a lesser form of salvation, and that those of a material nature (pagans and Jews) were doomed to perish.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentinus_(Gnostic)

Flann 5 wrote: Ironically, for Robert the psychics/fundies are partially sighted and yet they are the ones who emphasize the problem of sin and need for forgiveness as Jesus does. Whereas the pneumatic 'enlightened' ones see no need at all for this, but rather gnosis.

This idea is defending church dogma of salvation by belief, "whosoever believes shall not perish". The church dogma is that if you only believe in Jesus as Lord and Saviour you are forgiven. This is a simplistic psychology suited to the construction of a mass movement, rather like the Roman governor saying a pinch of incense for Caesar’s statue is sufficient for social acceptance.

The Gnostic ideas behind the NT see salvation in far more complex terms. We could begin with how Mark introduces the Nazirite John at the start of his tale, preaching forgiveness as conditional upon repentance, not as a simple matter available in response to stated belief in a simple formula. The clash between the enlightened vision of the depth of sin in the world and the popular demand for a mass faith shows the absence of sight among the natural psychics who took over the church from its Gnostic founders.

The Gnostics saw the Magoo simpletons as the destroyers of the high original wisdom, typified by the Gnostic recognition that forgiveness requires confession, understanding and penitence to identify and heal the trauma, rather like modern psychological analysis, against the Magoovian view that the mere statement “I believe in Jesus” is a magic talisman that puts you straight on the holy elevator to eternal bliss.
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Flann 5 wrote:Hi Robert. Thanks for taking up the challenge to interpret this passage astrotheologically.To set a standard to measure this by here are M.P.Hall's words again. "Those who chronicled the life and acts of Jesus found it advisable to metamorphose him into a solar deity.The historical Jesus was forgotten,and nearly all the salient features recorded in the four gospels have their correlations in the movements,phases or functions of the heavenly bodies."

I had a bit of a look at Manly Hall's work a few years ago, and Tat Tvam Asi has recommended him here recently. My view is that sound understanding involves analyzing Jesus Christ as myth historized, not history mythified, so I disagree with this quote from Hall.

That Hall falls for the claim that the story of Jesus is history shows just how deeply entrenched this idea is even among thinkers with alternative ideas, despite its weak evidentiary and logical standing when critically examined. The idea of the historical Jesus has a simple superficial beauty and emotional attraction, with its only flaw its failure to cohere with evidence and reason.

Flann 5 wrote:What movements, phases or functions of the heavenly bodies correlate to Jesus getting into a boat and teaching the multitude?

This parable coheres well with the idea that Jesus is allegory for the sun. The sun is our main source of cosmic order, not as a conscious entity but as the natural power behind the regular patterns of life. This sense of unchanging cosmic order emerges in Biblical ideas such as Christ as pre-existent cosmic logos in Colossians 1.

This symbolic sense of the boat before the multitude as the venue for showing how mysteries can be revealed is that Jesus has delivered the rational order of the cosmos for all eternity. The role of Jesus here matches to what the sun has actually done in nature, defining the regular order that enables life to prosper and evolve on our planet against the unchanging background of the multitude of stars.

The rationality of the solar pattern, the sense of connection to ultimate reality that justifies a close identity between the sun and reason or logos, is seen in the orderly regularity of the seasons with their annual cycle of life, death and rebirth, and in the big slow cycles of the ages. Jesus lecturing to the multitude indicates the relationship between the one and the many, seeing the primary rationality of the cosmos encapsulated in the power of the sun.

Flann 5 wrote: what for an atheist is the word of God?

Thanks Flann, great question. I think of the word of God in allegorical terms as language that is conducive to sustained human flourishing. Our ideas about God can promote salvation in a material sense, meaning continued prosperity on our planetary home, rather than the imaginary fantasy of a heavenly afterlife.

The point of atheism is the scientific removal of all supernatural belief. Where I think that atheism needs to evolve is in recognizing that old spiritual language can be a linguistic construction that serves our real long term evolutionary interests. These global human interests are served by a framework of understanding that is stable, durable, coherent and productive.

Language in religion provides spiritual support to this practical agenda of rational evolution, addressing the core evolutionary principle that new adaptive methods build incrementally upon existing precedent rather than bringing massive sudden changes. Big changes in evolution are always destructive, so the idea that we could abolish God by atheism is superficial. Far better to keep everything about Christianity while promoting a small mutation of its DNA by recognising its genetic origin in ancient culture was allegorical rather than literal.

The main themes traditionally attributed to God - power, durability, stability, order, love - appear in material reality and can be transposed onto nature within Christianity by systematically reading the Bible as allegory. We do not have to postulate God as an intentional governing entity to see that these themes are meaningful for science and society.

Against the atheist agenda of asking how human society can best evolve using evidence and logic, the ironic and irenic surprise is that the best ethics come from Jesus Christ. The Sermon on the Mount and the Last Judgement are sublime ethical teachings, pointing to a possible future world society that overcomes the depravity of alienated ignorance. The ethics of Christ can be analysed against a purely scientific and materialist political economy and sociology to understand how humanity can best evolve to avoid the looming dangers facing our planetary civilization, especially the dangers of climate change. Indeed these dangers are so severe that my opinion is that without Christ we are doomed. Christ can only re-enter the conversation in a sensible way stripped of all the supernatural weeds that have grown around Christianity.

Flann 5 wrote: Why should an atheist take a blind bit of notice of theology, which is completely irrelevant and redundant in such a worldview.

The culture war between science and religion masks their common goal of explaining reality. Scientific observation of the corrupt intransigence of the church can be seen against Hegel’s theory that society evolves through a process of thesis, antithesis and synthesis. If Christian faith is the thesis, and scientific atheism the antithesis, then the next expected step in the evolution of ideas should be a synthesis between faith and reason.

Science alone is purely about facts, not values, and therefore lacks the central capacity delivered by religion of social organization. The problem which is so well answered by the Sermon on the Mount is the vision of a long term goal of a rationally ordered society, seeing the greatest divine blessing as resting upon those whose only defence is to exist in a state of grace, summarised in the line that the least in the world shall be first in the Kingdom of God. This is an evolutionary idea about how human values have to change to prevent social collapse.

Flann 5 wrote: I know you think some ethical value exists in Christianity and I agree with you on that.

Very much so, but I see the reform of Christianity for a new age as delivering on the parable of the wheat and tares, with the wheat as scientific reason and the tares as supernatural corruption.

Flann 5 wrote: What's awkward [in the seed falling on barren ground] is that Jesus 'the allegorical sun' is sowing the seed but the sun/ 'Jesus' is scorching the seed sown by the sun 'Jesus'. We talk of feeling the heat metaphorically of persecution and oppression, but here it's the sun that represents this, which hardly fits with the allegory of the sun as great benefactor.

Seed that does not get water cannot grow. The sun combines with rain to produce fertile abundance. Rain here is like a metaphor for how the holy spirit should operate in human life, manifest primarily in courteous and responsive dialogue. I see our world as a spiritual desert, so traumatized by suffering and war and error that courteous dialogue is rare and endangered. The word of truth has to be nurtured in a responsive mind and social support. When we block out dialogue we are like the barren ground where the soil is so thin that seed can sprout after a light shower but cannot take root.

Flann 5 wrote:

Robert Tulip wrote:Saint Mark wrote: “4:7 Others fell among the thorns, and the thorns grew up, and choked it, and it yielded no fruit.” Error, in the form of ideological dogmatics, prevents people from hearing true teachings.

I'm afraid your interpretation here is pure Tulipology and simply doesn't correspond to the interpretation given.

I don’t wish to let that vague critique pass without noting that in the next response you appear to accept that my reading of the thorns as representing error is based on sound textual interpretation.

Perhaps your “Tulipology” objection is to my description of dogmatics as error? That is hardly just a personal view from me though, since the whole secular critique of religion shares it. I see the church as on the brink of collapse precisely because of its thorny response to anyone trying to have a courteous dialogue about its beliefs.

Flann 5 wrote: focusing on the enticement of greater riches which promise but never truly deliver and are therefore deceitful is fair enough, though it also includes the cares of this life and the desire for other things that can take precedence over the word of God and choke it out.

Here we see the symbolic depth of the parable of the thorns that choke the growth of truth in the world. I see that symbolic depth as including a strong Gnostic critique of the church. The desire within the church for personal gain and acceptable belief (groupthink) is like thorns that choke out the deeper inconvenient truths which are often hidden within myths and are essential for salvation.

Flann 5 wrote: There are more than the twelve here but I know that's integral to your scheme of interpretation.

I will come back to that one.

Flann 5 wrote:

Robert Tulip wrote:Saint Mark wrote:
4:11He said to them, “To you is given the mystery of the Kingdom of God, but to those who are outside, all things are done in parables,

Here we see the Gnostic separation between the spiritual initiates and the materialist public, described as between pneumatics and hylics, with the psychics a third group representing the mixed group who later came to run the dogmatic church. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hylics for this basic Gnostic sociology, which mirrors Orwell’s communist social theory of the party and plebs in modern times and Plato’s Republic with its philosopher kings.

Whatever of Gnosticism no third group is found here such as a Mr Magoo category of "psychics".

“Voiced by Jim Backus, Quincy Magoo is a wealthy, short-statured retiree who gets into a series of comical situations as a result of his nearsightedness, compounded by his stubborn refusal to admit the problem. However, through uncanny streaks of luck, the situation always seems to work itself out for him, leaving him no worse than before.” (wiki)

Yes for once we are in full agreement Flann; Mr Magoo is the perfect myth for the founders of the orthodox church of the literal Jesus. Naturally the church remains highly sensitive and censorious regarding their depiction by the spiritual Gnostics as “psychics”, a term treated negatively in the NT by Paul and Jude. Psychics is the only term at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_gnostic_terms that does not link to its own wiki entry.

Texts such as The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels provide good discussion of this group, whom I categorise as the “outer party” in Orwell’s social terms. In the Gnostic imagination of Valentinus, the psychics could be seen as the ten percent of the population who serve as functionaries for the spiritual elite. The naivety of the Gnostics meant they were incapable of matching the scheming and networking skills of these shortsighted Magoos who purged the original spiritual wisdom from the church. Paul distinguishes between psychics (the ‘natural man’) and pneumatics (the spiritual) at 1 Cor 2:14-15 http://biblehub.com/interlinear/1_corinthians/2-14.htm and 1 Cor 15: 44-47 http://biblehub.com/interlinear/1_corinthians/15-44.htm These links are to the interlinear version putting the Greek against the English.

Jude 1:19 discusses psychics as sowers of division in the church, perhaps rather like Lenin forseeing the tyranny of Stalin, although the traditional church would contest that reading. Valentinus “taught that there were three kinds of people, the spiritual/pneumatic, natural/psychical, and material/hylic; and that only the spiritual received the gnosis (knowledge) that allowed them to return to the divine Pleroma, while those of a psychic nature (literal Christians) would attain a lesser form of salvation, and that those of a material nature were doomed to perish.” (Adapted from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentinus_(Gnostic)

Flann 5 wrote: Ironically, for Robert the psychics/fundies are partially sighted and yet they are the ones who emphasize the problem of sin and need for forgiveness as Jesus does. Whereas the pneumatic 'enlightened' ones see no need at all for this, but rather gnosis.

This idea is defending the core church dogma of salvation by belief, "whosoever believes shall not perish". The church dogma is that if you only believe in Jesus as Lord and Saviour you are forgiven. This is a simplistic psychology that was suited to the construction of a mass movement in a pre-scientific society. Forgiveness in exchange for belief alone is rather like the Roman governor saying a pinch of incense for Caesar’s statue is sufficient for social acceptance.

The Gnostic ideas behind the NT see salvation in far more complex terms. We could begin with how Mark introduces the Nazirite John at the start of his tale, preaching forgiveness as conditional upon repentance, not as a simple matter of cheap grace available in response to stated belief in a simple formula. The clash between the enlightened vision of the depth of sin in the world and the popular demand for a mass faith shows the absence of sight among the natural psychics who took over the church from its Gnostic founders.

The Gnostics saw the Magoo simpletons as the destroyers of the high original wisdom. The Gnostic ideas in the NT recognise that forgiveness requires confession, understanding and penitence to identify and heal the trauma, rather like modern psychological analysis and theories of restorative justice. If you don't see what you have done as wrong, it is hard for people to forgive you for it. This stands against the Magoovian view that the mere statement “I believe in Jesus” is a magic talisman that puts you straight on the holy elevator to eternal bliss.

"Jesus saith unto them, Bring of the fish which ye have now caught. Simon Peter went up, and drew the net to land full of great fishes, an hundred and fifty and three"