The large scale movement of precession is a star clock which establishes a primary long term structure of time on earth, providing a principal real context for exploring the meaning of time. The next step here is to interpret precession as the basis for a specific hypothesis about how the structure of cosmic time provides a scientific underpinning for key elements of Christian faith. The hypothesis is that the precessional alignment between the signs and the stars which occurred at the time of the birth of Christ can justly be called the centre of time, and that through the person of Christ the energy of this alignment became a force for human salvation, providing a scientific basis for understanding the orthodox teachings that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Word made flesh, and suggesting a scientific meaning for the Christian idea of the age.

4. As a result of the precession of the equinox, the natural year on earth defining the sun signs aligns directly with the corresponding stars of the zodiac only once every 25,764 years, when the sun signs of astrology match the stars of the zodiac. This moment of alignment, marking the beginning and end of the great year when the equinoctial point stood between the first constellation of Aries and the last constellation of Pisces, last occurred at the time of the birth of Christ, and will not occur again for 24,000 years. In that central year the monthly period of each astrological sign occurred while the sun moved through its corresponding constellation. Over the 2000 years since Christ, the equinox has precessed by almost one full zodiacal sign through the sign of Pisces, so the astrological period of Aries now begins with the Sun between the constellations of Pisces and Aquarius. Every 2147 years (one twelfth of 25,764), precession causes the March equinox to move backwards through another of the twelve constellations of the zodiac. For about the last 2000 years it has moved through Pisces, the last sign of the zodiac, and for the 2147 years before the birth of Christ the equinox precessed through the constellation of Aries, the first sign.

5. Over the last two thousand years, the movement of the equinoctial point to a slightly earlier position each year within the constellation of Pisces has created an ever-widening misalignment between the sun signs of astrology and their constellations. Over the next 24,000 years, the equinoctial point will gradually move through the whole zodiac to once again reach the first point of Aries, a point viewed by astrology as the natural starting point of the stars. The present position of the equinoctial point can be seen from star maps as the point in Pisces where the ecliptic crosses the celestial equator. The diagram shows the millennial movement of the equinoctial point. In astronomical terms the precise timing of the age of Pisces is uncertain, but the assumption here is that the Piscean age is due to end in about the year 2147, when the sun will begin the natural year in Aquarius. The equinox will then precess through the sign of Aquarius over the next 2147 years, defining the age of Aquarius.

Tom there are quite a few of our very old churches and cathedrals with zodiacs.

If I remember correctly, when I visited Chartes in France, I think there was a zodiac in that, Europe's oldest cathedral. There is certainly a lovely labyrinth maze, depicted in tiles on the floor.

Chester Cathedral, here in these parts, has a zodiac too.

Is there a zodiacal significance about the different blessings Jacob gave to his various sons. You know they each formed the twelve tribes and each were given a different blessing.

I was always charmed by the one which went: Thy shoes shall be of iron and brass and as thy days, so shall thy strength be.

RT
Frank, thanks for the Jesus Puzzle link. It is a good read and very informative. It certainly pares back the scope of who the historical Jesus may have been, especially with the absence of any historical reference from the epistles.

RT
The discussion of the source of the Gospels in the document known as Q could well contain the counter-cultural ethical teachings from Jesus which are at the heart of the gospels.

RT
Yet, I have to agree with Tom Harpur that these scientific observations can serve more to deepen faith than to undermine it.

I’m glad you liked it. But as the author explains; the earliest writings of Jesus describe him as a spirit not a man, he was an embodiment of mental wisdom a “logos”, not a flesh and blood person. And if people so close to the time Jesus was said to have lived did not mention or even know about his earthly existence it seems unlikely that a real Jesus inspired any part of the biblical text.

Still clinging to that little thread of hope I see… I thought the author made it clear that the vast majority of that material was hand me down sayings from older scriptures; and from many different locations, vastly spread out, its not at all likely that a historical Jesus was responsible for any of it.
And since most of the well known and cherished parts of the scripture can be shown to come from somewhere else (at least in meaning, if not word for word) what’s left is less than impressive. If you want to believe that some guy named Jesus was the author of that remaining material it can’t be disproven, but it certainly is not very noteworthy or special.

Well if you mean that it stretches the belief farther from reality… requiring a greater leap of faith… then I totally agree. Later

RT: "No, it is rather about transforming the faith into a real possibility rather than accepting mythical traditions based on authority."I've seen you write this a couple of times. It makes me wonder, are saying that your personal faith is greater due to your cosmic interpretations?

RT: "It is a jarring and foreign form of thought, but unlike conventional Christianity is actually compatible with modern scientific knowledge so does not require a leap of faith."Your interpretation is not falsifiable nor testable, it's not science. The workings of the celestial bodies in the solar system are subject to science, but the correlation between that and the bible is not.

I propose that we are all players in a video game created by aliens and only exit the game when we die. We score points based on certain accomplishments in life. One of those accomplishments is to find patterned and symbolic correlation between our solar system and the christian bible. Unfortunately for you, that accomplishment was coded into the game and is meaningless beyond the points it awards us.

RT
It seems to me there is a stronger theology of the cross in the Pauline literature than Doherty acknowledges, and this indicates a material belief in an actual Jesus who died.

Christianity's savior god, Christ Jesus, had undergone death and been resurrected as a redeeming act (1 Corinthians 15:3-4), giving promising of resurrection and eternal life to the believer. This guarantee involved another feature of ancient world thinking, closely related to Platonism: the idea that things and events on earth had their parallels in heaven.

For the average pagan and Jew, the bulk of the workings of the universe went on in the vast unseen spiritual realm (the "genuine" part of the universe) which began at the lowest level of the "air" and extended ever upward through the various layers of heaven. Here a savior god like Mithras could slay a bull, Attis could be castrated, and Christ could be hung on a tree by "the god of that world,"

http://jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/preamble.htm

RT
However, I still feel that an actual Jesus figure could have originally collected these sayings.

Robert: - It is rather like the Holy Blood Holy Grail fable of Mary Magdalene secretly going to Marseilles pregnant with Christ's child who became the progenitor for the Merovingian kings - a lovely possible myth kept secret for fear of violence.

As we model our time measurement after the rotation of the Earth and the Earth around the Sun, any claims that the structure of time for our planet is based on such are painfully obvious and has nothing to do with Christianity.

If all you are saying is that some of our ancestors were adept at astronomy and used their findings in the religion and architecture they created, my intuition tells me there isn’t a problem.

if the hypothesis we devise to test our explanation isn’t falsifiable, then it’s not science.

Also, my mention of the footprints in the sand most definitely was evidence that a person walked there, you completely missed my point.

The line you draw will only be a method of human understanding and isn't objectively real. There is no metaphysical tether between footprints in the sand, though we are able to understand a creature made them in passing.

RT
I would entertain Doherty's idea that Paul did not think Jesus was a real person except that in Romans 1:3 Paul says Jesus Christ "was descended from David according to the flesh." Similarly, in Galatians 4:4, Paul writes “when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law.” The point of the term flesh throughout Paul's writings is that it is material.

Christ's self-sacrificing death was located "in times eternal," or "before the beginning of time" (pro chronon aionion). This is the second key phrase in 2 Timothy 1:9 and elsewhere. What is presently being revealed is something that had already taken place outside the normal realm of time and space. This could be envisioned as either in the primordial time of myth, or, as current Platonic philosophy would have put it, in the higher eternal world of ideas, of which this earthly world, with its ever-changing matter and evolving time, is only a transient, imperfect copy (more on this later). The benefits of Christ's redemptive act lay in the present, through God's revelation of it in the new missionary movement, but the act itself had taken place in a higher world of divine realities, in a timeless order, not on earth or in history. It had all happened in the sphere of God, it was all part of his "mystery." The blood sacrifice, even seeming biographical details like Romans 1:3-4, belong in this dimension.

http://jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/parttwo.htm

RT
Reading Doherty, I get the impression there may have been a complete disjunct between Paul and the Apostolic community of Jesus. Paul was such a powerful and lucid writer that people assumed he was connected to the Jesus movement, but as Doherty points out, Paul's ideas seem to come from his own imagination rather than any tradition. So any discrepancy between the Epistles and the Gospels can be explained away by Paul's complete ignorance of and indifference to the historical story.

When T S Elliot wrote:- I have measured out my life in coffee spoons: We all know what he meant.... We didn't say, 'How many coffee spoons'? or, 'Well, what was the exact cubic capacity of the coffee spoons?' We tell ourselves stories....to help us to understand the question.. What are we doing here? The stories are not scientific......because science is asking a different question? Note the question mark. I'm not intending to intrude on a debate which is somewhat above my head. Well....more than somewhat......but I'm doing my best for the proletariat

If I thought my answer were given to anyone who would ever return to the world, this flame would stand still without moving any further. But since never from this abyss has anyone ever returned alive, if what I hear is true, without fear of infamy I answer you.

There will be time, there will be time To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet; There will be time to murder and create, And time for all the works and days of hands That lift and drop a question on your plate; Time for you and time for me, And time yet for a hundred indecisions, And for a hundred visions and revisions, Before the taking of a toast and tea. ... In a minute there is time For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse. For I have known them all already, known them all:— Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;

Would it have been worth while, To have bitten off the matter with a smile, To have squeezed the universe into a ball To roll it toward some overwhelming question, To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead, Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”— ... I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach. I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves Combing the white hair of the waves blown back When the wind blows the water white and black.