Christ Conspiracy_ The Greatest Story Ever Sold - Acharya S [134]
Furthermore, the fact that there is no set date for Easter is only explainable within the mythos and not as the historical death and resurrection of a savior-god. As Jackson relates:
Everyone knows that Easter is a roving date in the calendar, since it is the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Vernal Equinox (the beginning of Spring). Easter, therefore, cannot be the date of the death of any historical personage. Two dates are given in the New Testament for the time of crucifixion, namely: the 14th and 15th of the month of Nisan. Why this discrepancy? The truth explanation was given by Gerald Massey:
"The Synoptics say that Jesus was crucified on the 15th of the month of Nisan. John affirms that it was on the 14th of the month. This serious rift runs through the very foundation! . . . The crucifixion (or Crossing) was, and still is, determined by the full moon of Easter. This, in the lunar reckoning, would be on the 14th in a month of twenty-eight days; in the solar month of thirty days it was reckoned to occur on the 1511, of the month. Both unite, and the rift closes in proving the Crucifixion to have been astronomical, just as it was in Egypt, where the two dates can be identified."22
The date of Easter, when the godman was purportedly crucified and resurrected, was debated for centuries. One "distinguished churchman," as Eusebius calls him, Anatolius, reveals the meaning of Easter and of Christ, as well as the fact that astrology was a known and respected science used in Christianity, when he says:
On this day [March 221 the sun is found not only to have reached the first sign of the Zodiac, but to be already passing through the fourth day within it. This sign is generally known as the first of the twelve, the equinoctial sign, the beginning of months, head of the cycle, and start of the planetary course.... Aristobolus adds that it is necessary at the Passover Festival that not only the sun but the moon as well should be passing through an equinoctial sign. There are two of these signs, one in spring, one in autumn, diametrically opposed to each other ... 23
Heaven and Hell
The concepts of heaven and hell were not introduced by the Judeo-Christian tradition but existed for millennia in other cultures, such as the Persian and Indian. The Tibetans depict several levels of heaven and hell, which is a temporary state of mind, rather than enduring torture. The afterlife was also a common theme in the Egyptian theology, which tended to be more upbeat and less focused on the torments of hell. As Massey relates:
The prototypes of hell and purgatory and the earthly paradise are all to be found in the Egyptian Amenta. . . . The Egyptian hell was not a place of everlasting pain, but of extinction of those who were wicked irretrievably. It must be admitted, to the honour and glory of the Christian deity, that a god of eternal torment is an ideal distinctly Christian, to which the Egyptians never did attain. Theirs was the all-parental god, Father and Mother in one whose heart was thought to bleed in every wound of suffering humanity, and whose son was represented in the character of the Comforter.24
The word "Hell" is also derived from the European goddess Hel, whose womb was a place of immortality. The Christians demonized this womb and made it a place of eternal damnation, and, since volcanoes were considered entrances into the womb of Mother Earth, it became a fiery hell. The original Pagan hell had no locality and was often situated in the same-place-as heaven.
The nature of hell has thus varied with the culture and era. Some cultures thought hell was the harsh winter; thus, it was located near the South Pole, the "bottomless pit," from which winter was thought to come. This hellish variety is reflected in the Judeo-Christian scriptures: Matthew and Jude both speak of a hell of darkness, while Matthew also refers to a hell of light/fire. Matthew also speaks of a hell where the body and soul are annihilated, and one where the soul is punished for eternity. In the Bible in general,