Christ Conspiracy_ The Greatest Story Ever Sold - Acharya S [88]
Esther
In the story of the heroine Esther, her husband-to-be, King Ahasuerus, becomes enraged by the behavior of his current wife, Queen Vashti, so he takes council with "the wise men who knew the times-for this was the king's procedure toward all who were versed in law and judgment . . ." These "wise men who knew the times" were astrologers, whom the king evidently considered "versed in law and judgment" and indispensable to the workings of his domain. This book is, however, not historical, as "Esther" is a remake of the Goddess and Queen of Heaven Ishtar, Asherah, Astarte, Astoreth or Isis, from whom comes "Easter." Of Esther, Walker relates:
"Star," the Hebrew rendering of Ishtar or Astarte. The biblical book of Esther is a secularized Elamite myth of Ishtar (Esther) and her consort Marduk (Mordecai), who sacrificed to the god Hammon, or Amon (Haman). Yahweh was never mentioned, because the Jews of Elam worshipped Marduk, not Yahweh.... Even the Bible story admits that Esther-Ishtar was not the real name of the Elamite-Jewish queen. Her real name was Hadassah (Esther 2:7).3
Walker continues:
The story of Esther is an allegorical tale of the intercession of Ishtar, whom the Jews worshipped at the time, with the king who was supposed to be her consort, on behalf of the subject Jewish tribes. Interwoven with this theme is that of the ritual sacrifice.32
The Dial of Ahaz
In the second book of Kings and in Isaiah, the reformer king Hezekiah on his death bed calls upon the Lord, who adds 15 years onto Hezekiah's life by making "`the shadow cast by the declining sun on the dial of Ahaz turn back ten steps,' So the sun turned back on the dial the ten steps by which it had declined." This story represents the correction of the calendar to align with the changing heavens. Higgins elucidates:
The cycles would require correcting again after several revolutions, and we find Isaiah making the shadow go back ten degrees on the dial of Ahaz. This would mean nothing but a second correction of the Neros ]600-year cycle], or a correction of some cycle of a planetary body, to make it agree with some other. In the annals of China, in fact of the Chinese Buddhists, in the reign of Emperor Yau (a very striking name, being the name of the God of the Jews), it is said that the sun was stopped ten days, that is, probably, ten degrees of Isaiah, a degree answering to a year, 360 degrees and 360 days.33
Deborah
The great biblical prophet Deborah is also an astrologer, who, in order to defeat Sisera's armies, uses the stars: "From heaven fought the stars, from their courses they fought against Sisera." (Judges 5:20) Naturally, like Daniel, Esther, et al., Deborah is a deity of an older age rendered human:
"Queen Bee," a ruler of Israel in the matriarchal period, bearing the same name as the Goddess incarnate in early Mycenaean and Anatolian rulers as "the Pure Mother Bee." . . . The Bible called her a "prophetess" or "judge" to disguise the fact that she was one of the governing matriarchs of a former age (Judges 4:4).34
In addition to the biblical texts, there is direct evidence of the Jewish use of astrology in the scrolls found at the Dead Sea, specifically the "Horoscopes" dated to the first century BCE. These horoscopes are similar to those used today but combine astrology with physiognomy, or the study of physical features. The Dead Sea horoscopes seem basically to be templates to determine who will be a "good" man and who will be "bad," rather than castings for particular individuals. Also, as Zecharia Sitchin reports:
Earlier in this century archaeologists uncovered in the Galilee, in northern Israel, the remains of synagogues dating to the decades and centuries immediately following the destruction of the Second