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Was the Virgo really a Virgo?
(Astrology vs current organized Religions)
by David A. Pardo


Follow Your Star

     In Many Moons, a delightful children's story, James Thurber narrates the hidden wisdom of the court jester over that of the academic. Indeed, the court jester, inspite of his physical and/or emotional deformity, is nothing if not creative, innovative, flexible and challenging. He uses humor to dress up his prophetic foolery. [1]

     We could say that astrology has been and is the court jester. On the other hand, philosophy prides himself as the king, while theology prides herself as the queen. There is an irony here. Utilitarianism, the basis of positive economics and much of modern philosophy, violates the first and second commandments. What pray tell is the "graven image"? What the "love of pleasure", if not, "the works of our fingers"? Positive economics, one could also say, gives rise to the biological model of "civilization"-the rise and the fall from which new religions are spawned. So positive economics, the pleasure/pain principle, contradicts the tenets of Judaeo-Christian tradition. But theology itself, not necessarily religion, is also flawed in its premise. This paper will take one topic, the "virgin" birth, and show why Jewish, Christian, and Islamic theology is totally misguided. Associating Mary with the Virgo sign is a much simpler approach, leading to some as yet unknown and profound truths about Christ's life. Astrology, since it is ultimately empirical, in principle triumphs over the metaphysics of theology and the contradictions of positive economics.
 

The Secret?

     The theory goes that Christ experienced a catharsis of conscience that probably led to a waking dream and/or auditory hallucinations, the outcome of a subconscious "moral" conflict. [2]  From this catharsis he discovered the identity of his real biological father whom he then forgave. [3]  The catharsis itself we can speculate did not occur before Christ had the maturity to understand and protect his real parents.

     Who was Christ's biological father? The controversy has always centered around Matthew's translation of the word "alma" in Isaiah 7:14. "Alma", according to the rabbis, most closely means "young woman". If Isaiah had intended a virgin, he would have used the word "bethulah". We don't know, however, if there were any contemporary multiple meanings or, in fact, what the role of unintended scripture is. For example, the Acts of the Apostles 27-28 is an unintended messianic passage.

     Language, whether oral or written, is a tricky affair with its many nuances and double meanings that may be specific to their own time. Consider, for example, the following hypothetical rules:

     Could the love of God mean it is unconditional, in other words the "not I"? Could "everything you've got" mean with all your heart or with all your possessions? Might "Figure it out" mean fashion out or puzzle out etc. etc.? Depending upon your interpretation, these rules might indeed also be consistent with Jeremiah 31:34, Psalm 60:7 and Micah 4:4 as well as with Buddhist, Hindu and the Chinese philosophical tradition. [4]

     "Parthenos" used by Matthew is the Greek word for Virgo, not just a virgin, while "Bethulah" not used by Isaiah is also the Hebrew word for Virgo. Here we might find a compromise to the impasse. Mary was a young woman but also a Virgo. This is a plausible solution, given the mathematics of the Star of Bethlehem. [5]  Some very interesting issues are now raised. First, Matthew may have known that Mary was a Virgo so that the word "Parthenos" may be a pun, not a mistranslation. Matthew is the only one who records the Star of Bethlehem event. Second, the book of Isaiah, particularly chapter 47, must be mistaken in condemning astrology. Reading between the lines, I suspect that the book is more hostile towards commercial or "professional" astrology just as it is toward the business of "pop" religion and dogma.

     It seems clear that the Jews did not and still do not believe in the "virgin" birth. Even the evangelists had their doubts (compare Luke 3:23 with Luke 1:34). Mary left for Bethlehem because she had to--for social reasons. And she went with a husband who by tradition was much older than herself because her parents out of good intentions insisted. ( We can infer then that Joseph the carpenter may have been dead at the time of the crucifixion which is why he did not object to the event)

     But, the Jews did not understand and still don't understand the profound human truth in Christ's response to an illegitimacy over which this "ugly duckling" had no control. All they saw was that Christ's social/political background was completely out of touch with mainstream prophetic expectation. Christ's family was insignificant and John the Baptist was poor and without the pull of the "religious" establishment. The Pharisees, the Essenes, and the Sadducees who were in any event dogmatic materialists also saw his name. It just did not, does not, make sense.

     We can also surmise from Isaiah 53 that owing to suspected illegitimacy Christ's childhood was a miserable one. Joseph the carpenter could not give him the love he needed. Reading between the lines, I surmise other evidence such as in John the Baptist's hatred of Herodias. A quick look at Herod's family history showed much more serious crimes than divorce and remarriage on a legal technicality. Herodias wanted power. Why not use her own daughter Salome? John the Baptist saw this just as he had probably seen how Christ had been abused and taunted in school because of his suspected illegitimacy.

We can now review the circumstantial evidence in arriving at the identity of Christ's father:

    (1) He would have to be at least middle aged-50 or over. We know that Christ could not have been more than forty years old on April 1, 33 AD. In fact, Christ was most likely thirty nine years old.

    (2) He had a career and/or a relatively powerful position in Jewish society. This explains why Christ's real parentage remained a secret.

    (3) He must have believed Christ was telling the truth otherwise Christ would not have gone through with the crucifixion.

    (4) From Christ's attitude towards the Pharisees his real father probably was one of them.
 

Supporting evidence might include:

    (1) John the Baptist's attitude towards the religious establishment. Mary had been wronged probably by a Pharisee and she would have to suffer for it. Ample evidence exists for this scenario. (Luke 1:47-55; 2:35)

    (2) Nicodemus' question on how to be reborn suggests that someone back at Temple headquarters had made mention of Christ's catharsis of conscience.

    (3) The Old Testament in putting forward the idea of dyadic messianism indicates that ben Joseph originates from the land of Ephraim. The most logical place would be Arimathea, the hometown of Samuel himself, a city well known to the Jews and early Christians. Furthermore, there is evidence to suggest that Joseph the carpenter and/or Mary had connections to Ephraim (Luke 2:44, John 11:54)

     I will make one assumption which is common in literature, particularly poetic literature. We find it in James Joyce and Boris Pasternak, for example. Convergence and coincidence are ingrained in life, suggesting that the true identity is contained in the gospels. In short, I argue that the gospels are a "poem in prose" similar in spirit to the Koran, the difference being that the Muslims see the message, not the messenger, as the Platonic idea.

     In any court of Western law, Christ's father would have been found to be Joseph of Arimathea - which explains why both Christ's parents loved Christ for his forgiveness. In addition, it explains not only John the Baptist's attitude and behavior but also Christ's insistence on forgiveness throughout his ministry.
 

The Crux of the Matter

    Before discussing Joseph of Arimathea's role in the crucifixion and resurrection for the completeness of the argument, it might be worthwhile speculating on the primary symbolic reasons for these events.

The Crucifixion:

Economic: material progress so far has been based on competition and predatory behavior.
Political: the acquisition and maintenance of power entails cruelty.
Sociological: the prisoner's dilemma makes predatory behavior inevitable
Psychological: what do family members, friends, colleagues, or lovers sometimes do?
Contemporary events: the possible historical Essene martyrdoms.

Traditional: Isaiah 53.

The Resurrection:

Astrological: the rebirth of a New Year as expressed in a love story
Biological: the miracle and evolution of life and the seasons
Social: the cycles of history
Psychological: a "miracle" such as the resurrection will capture the imagination of the world.
Theological: The evil of the world as expressed through murder by the religious and academic establishment loses out to the good in the world. And with the evil comes its karma...

(It is an irony of religious history that Christian dogma by transferring guilt to an individual does not constrain or solve fundamental political, social or economic problems).

     Obviously, Christ knew in advance what the outcome would be in challenging the power base, egoism and status of the establishment and the "elders". And, obviously, he knew the ordeal he would have to face even if it had not been revealed. He had read Psalm 22:16, Zechariah 12:10-12 and 13:6. Crucifixion dates back to at least Darius I in 519 BC. And he had read Hosea 6:2, Habakkuk 1:5 and Isaiah 29:14-the resurrection, a"wonderful work", a "marvellous thing difficult to understand".

     The question is: how did he do it? I won't resort to hand waving. Many New Testament "miracles" could, in fact, be literally true. For example, one might consider the truth of the feeding of the 5,000 inasmuch as it illustrates what happens when people are willing to share. To make my case, I argue there were six, seven conspirators at most. (1) John the Baptist: it was not in the plan that his anger should get him beheaded. (2) Mary: she would have had Christ, her favorite child, committed if she did not know or she would have become hysterical. (3) Joseph of Arimathea: his career was on the line. (4) A doctor: he administered the drug on the cross and prescribed a dose to be taken in the garden of Gethsemane. (5) One or two "angels": they appeared at the tomb on Sunday morning.and may have loosed the colt for Palm Sunday. (6) Christ, of course. The silent conspirators hypothesized in the crucifixion(excluding Mary) were probably from Jospeph of Arimathea's side which explains the complete messianic misinterepretation-and belief dynamics-from Mary's clan. The northern kingdom's claims wanted to take over the southern kingdom's claims, so to speak.

     We know why the plan would have been kept secret and, the fewer the number who knew about it, the more likely it would remain so. Joseph of Arimathea and Mary had every reason to keep silent and to help. To survive the crucifixion, Christ would have to have the full cooperation and trust of the other plan members.

     The crucifixion, it is generally agreed, was "scheduled" for a Friday at Passover (33 AD) when bodies would certainly be taken down by that nightfall. Christ must have deliberately antagonized the chief priests and elders. This would not be difficult since they harbored an almost idolatrous attitude towards the Torah and they did not understand Christ's situation or motivation.

     Now, Joseph of Arimathea must have known when the chief priests and elders customarily went home during Passover. He would also have known the legal time limits before crucified bodies declared dead could be taken down without abuse. These time limits may have been flexible. Christ at 3 pm gets a drug, the vinegar of opium, and becomes unconscious. Whether he is clinically brain dead or not I do not know, although one would get the impression from Isaiah that he died. At 6 pm Joseph of Arimathea (and the centurion) makes the short walk from Golgotha and asks for the body. He has made sure the elders and chief priests have gone home. 7:30 pm is dusk.

     Joseph of Arimathea must have had some diplomatic skills in making his case before Pilate. He was, after all, a councillor, maybe even a trial lawyer. His argument: (a) Christ was a just man-could not he be buried honorably and without abuse according to Jewish custom? (b) Christ has been dead for 3 hours, he hardly survived the scrouging and the punishment allotted a "dreamer of dreams". Is it any wonder he died at 3 pm? Since Christ had not antagonized Pilate at the trial, Joseph of Arimathea, who must have studied Pilate's character, could appeal to his Roman, Anglo-American, sense of justice. There was, however, always the nagging possibility that the Romans, the Philistine thinking Kittim, would run Christ through when he was taken down from the tree.

     An important player was the doctor. He would have to administer the "vinegar of opium" (Psalm 69:21) on a hyssop while Christ was on the tree. He also probably administered a dose to be taken in the garden of Gethsemane. To do all of this, the doctor would have to be skilled enough to avert the possibility of opium poisoning. That would mean that the doctor would have known about Christ's diet, size, etc. and would have calculated the amount of opium Christ would drink. The use of this drug explains why the vinegar and gall normally given to the condemned was not drunk.

     From a medical point of view, why opium? (1) opium is a pain killer and a euphoric that takes effect(when administered in small doses) over as much as a 12 hour period. (2) Vinegar of opium can produce a death-like state-the patient must recover within 12 to 72 hours if he is to regain consciousness. Muscles are relaxed, respiration is slowed and shallow, the heart rate is lowered and sleep is induced. A sense of satisfaction and euphoria takes place. (3) The coronary arteries can be dilated so that the patient can survive a heart attack. Christ would have died of heart failure, not asphyxiation. (4) The effects of opium were well known since the ancient Egyptians. Had anyone noticed the effects on a crucified man?

     So Joseph of Arimathea leaves the body in the tomb and late that Friday evening one of the "angels" takes it out quickly. The aloes and myrrh brought for convenience are used as a stimulant and an antiseptic that evening. Christ, although badly mauled, could be up and about in 72 hours. [6]

     The elders and the chief priests, not suspecting Joseph of Arimathea and the plan, place the guards infront of the rock. The guards faint on seeing the "angels". And, of course, from now on, Christ must be careful about his own safety and his health. One day, after dinner, he leads his little band out to Bethany on the wooded Eastern slopes of the Mount of Olives-and then departs in true Old Testament style, a cripple for a long time. .Legend has it Christ leaves for India or England, perhaps with Joseph of Arimathea's financial help or with Joseph of Arimathea himself.

     Two things I would note. If the passage is not attributed to poetic metaphor, the saints "who came out of their graves" after the crucifixion probably were Essenes who considered Christ's statements simply as bravado. Also, the plan participants had sized up Judas well before his act of betrayal. (And, of course, Joseph of Arimathea explains how Christ knew what Judas was going to do.) When Judas saw that Christ was serious, that is when he decided to make some money on what he saw as a hopeless cause.
 

Why did St. John do it?

     St. John-and only St. John-tells us that a spear was thrown. Nowhere in the Old Testament was this mentioned. So why did John insert the passage-and, incidentally, the passage about Joseph and Nicodemus both taking the body to the tomb-while the other gospels did not? If true, Christ probably could not have survived. We are not talking about the poetic "drops of blood" shed in the garden of Gethsemane which no-one could have seen except Christ, and we are not talking about the cult of the virgin Mary, a necessity to launch the Church.

     Besides the psychological evidence in John 19:35, I think the reasons are obvious. First of all, St. John wanted to stop any speculation about a conspiracy. (John 18:20) He also knew the other gospels; he was probably writing at Ephesus between 80 AD and 95 AD; he disliked, even hated, the Jews because they were trying to suppress the burgeoning Christian movement; he idolized Christ. He felt he needed every weapon to confirm the faith and to keep the Church, the "beloved disciple", alive. He could get away with the passage since he knew he was probably the last disciple.

     What he did was out of love of Christianity, not hate-but, in my opinion, it was not the truth. This sort of deception, however, is different in motivation from that perpetrated in the shroud of Turin where the person responsible probably used his knowledge of medieval Persian crucifixion. [7]  Ultimately, I think St. John himself, the "snake and the eagle" if you will, did not understand why there was a resurrection. (John 20:9;20:31)
 

Conclusion

     The evidence presented here on the Virgo figure clearly shows the convoluted and irrational thinking of the followers, intellectuals, philosophers and theologians of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The entire gospels can be much more simply explained by associating Mary with an astrological sign than with a miraculous event such as a virgin birth. The astrological sign hypothesis does not contradict precessional or historical models of religious development.

     A number of points can be concluded now about current organized religion. The rabbis have not distinguished between Christ's behavior and his message, a message that in any event has become more relevant by the day. Moreover, without understanding the relationship between Christ and his real parents the rabbis do not perceive the role of Christ, ben Joseph, in dyadic messianism. The Christian ministers, by denying the validity of astrology, invalidate their own religion by denying the Star of Bethlehem event. Neither do they understand dyadic messianism, let alone the major point of the gospels as presented in this paper. With John 19:35 (the Judas goat) Christian theology has come to an end. The Muslim position (Qu'ran 19:16-19:22 and Qu'ran 4:157) also contrasts with the position in this paper. This raises the issue of extraneous insertion and/or accurate transcription similar to the Christian commandment to proselytize particularly for money or power. Furthermore, Mohammed considered himself a reminder, the last of the biblical prophets, not the end of religious evolution. (Qu'ran 6:91-93)

     With the increasing political and economic dysfunctionality of the globe, religion (including respect for astrology) and the search for truth may be rejuvenated once again. Could Jerusalem, and not just a spiritual New Jerusalem, spearhead a new consciousness with participation from the "remnant" of Rome and Mecca? Could baselines for the city be drawn and could the city be placed as a cultural and educational center under the common heritage of mankind, at first leased to UNICEF and/or UNESCO however bureaucratic? (Isaiah 3:4, Zechariah 2:2,2:4 and 8:3-5) Could the Israelis and Palestinians then reconcile their differences? The Israelis must seek peace while they still can. We must wait and see.


[1]  James Thurber (illustrated by Louis Slobodkin), Many Moons, Harcourt Brace and Co, N Y, 1943 « Text

[2]  For the full details, rationale and evidence see David Pardo, "The Capricorn Figure (A Study in Subjective Probability)", Centre Universitaire de Recherche en Astrologie, 24th Edition, http://cura.fr/xxv/24pardo2.html « Text

[3]  Isaiah 49:2 not only fits with this theory, it also explains why Christ chose oral as opposed to written communication for which he was less adept. We can also infer that the discovery was psychological from John the Baptist's question just before his death. All John had was Christ's word and the circumstances of his own possibly unusual birth as the last descendant of Elijah. « Text

[4]  Adoption of these rules, particularly through innovation by a Christian (Amos 8:1-2), would contradict the theology of John 3:16, the most romantic passage in all of religion. However, it would fit with 4QFlorilegium where the political figure is subordinate to the priestly "star". « Text

[5]  David Pardo, "A Statistical Solution to the Star of Bethlehem Problem", Centre Universitaire de Recherche en Astrologie, 20th Edition, http://cura.free.fr/xx/20pardo.html « Text

[6]  The torture that Christ had endured explains why he was unrecognizable on the road to Emmaus. « Text

[7]  I personally think Jean de Charnay who died around 1314 made the shroud for financial gain. I arrive at this conclusion through logical deduction. We know the cloth dates from c. 1280 AD. Therefore the culprit was not likely to be Giovanni Bellini or Leonardo who would in any event have only done it with a papal commission. Furthermore, they were too young when Felix V of the house of Savoy became antipope. Jacopo Bellini was a pagan. « Text


To cite this page:
David A. Pardo: Was the Virgo really a Virgo? (Astrology vs current organized Religions)
http://cura.free.fr/xxx/27pardo3.html
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