Balder Ex-Libris

Author : Murdock D. M. (Acharia S)
Title : Jesus as the sun throughout history
Year : 2009

Link download : Murdock_D_M_-_Jesus_as_the_sun_throughout_history.zip

“The result of the Church’s encounter with the sun-cults of antiquity was nothing less than the dethronement of Helios.” Dr. Hugo Rahner, Greek Myths and Christian Mystery (93). “Doctrinal Christianity may have dealt the final blow to the divinity of the Moon, since the symbolism in which Christ’s divinity was clothed after his death came from the Sun. In the contemporary Hellenistic world, both the Greek Sun god Helios and the Persian and Roman Sun god Mithras portrayed the celestial drama of resurrection through the risen Sun, reborn from death every dawn and every midwinter at the winter solstice. As Mithras was called the Sol Invictus, so Christ was to be the new invincible Sun, whose birth was timed (four centuries after he died) to the winter solstice in the image of the reborn Sun - as was the birth of Mithras. Christ’s God was beyond Sun and Moon as the transcendent Creator of the natural world, but the Sun and Moon played a crucial role in the Christian imagination through the complementary figures of Christ and Mary...” Jules Cashford, “Sun and Moon in Christianity,” The Moon (164). In my books and articles, I present the evidence that many aspects of the gospel story about Jesus Christ, and of Christian tradition in general, represent motifs from older astrotheology and solar mythology, specifically reflecting legends and myths regarding the sun gods of antiquity. There remains much confusion concerning this subject, including erroneous claims that this equation of Jesus with the sun only started to be expressed during the 19th century. This contention that connecting Jesus to the sun constitutes a “modern” phenomenon is easily demonstrated to be false, through the study of ancient texts, including the Bible and works of the early Church fathers, as well as Christian traditions, rituals, architecture and artifacts. From a wide variety of sources, it is clear that associating, identifying and equating Christ with the sun began in ancient times and has continued abundantly over the many centuries since then. ...