Christ Conspiracy_ The Greatest Story Ever Sold - Acharya S [93]
• Aries is represented as the Ram/Lamb because March/April is the time of the year when lambs are born.
• Taurus is the Bull because April/ May is the time for ploughing and tilling.
• Gemini is the Twins, so-called for Castor and Pollux, the twin stars in its constellation, as well as because May/June is the time of the "increase" or "doubling" of the sun, when it reaches its greatest strength.
• After the sun reaches its strength at the summer solstice and begins to diminish in Cancer (June/July), the stars
are called the Crab, who "backslides." • Leo is the Lion because, during the heat of July/August, the lions in Egypt would come out of the hot desert.
• Virgo, originally the Great Mother Earth, is the "Gleaning Virgin, who holds a sheath of wheat," symbolizing August/ September, the time of the harvest.
• Libra (September/ October) is the Balance, reflecting the autumnal equinox, when the days and night are again even in length.
• Scorpio is the Scorpion because in the desert areas the fierce storms of October/ November were called "scorpions" and because this time of the year is the "backbiter" of the sun as it begins to wane.
• Sagittarius is the "vindictive Archer" who side-wounds and weakens the sun during its approach in November/ December towards the winter solstice.
• In Capricorn, the weakened sun encounters the "filthy, illomened He-goat," who drags the solar hero down in December/January.
• Aquarius is the Water-Bearer because January/ February is the time of winter rains.
• Pisces is represented by the Fishes because February/ March is the time when the thinning ice is broken and the fattened fish are plucked out.`
The story of the skies was so important to the ancients that they were singularly focused on it and their lives in effect revolved around it. As we have seen, however, the heavens were revered not only by so-called Pagans but also by biblical peoples, including the Israelites, whose name and various Elohim were also stars and aspects of the solar-celestial mythos. In the Bible, the sun is worshipped in various forms by the Hebrews and "kings of Judah." It is also overtly personified and imbued with divine and ethical qualities, as in Deuteronomy: "But thy friends be like the sun as he rises in his might." Throughout the Old Testament important deeds are done "in the sight of this sun," "before the sun," or "under the sun," revealing the ages-old perception of the sun as God's proxy, judge or "eye." So significant was the solar orb that it was ever a grave concern that the sun would "go down on the prophets."
At Psalms 113:3, the chosen are instructed to praise the Lord from the "rising of the sun to its setting." Psalms 85:11 states, "Faithlessness will spring up from the ground, and righteousness will look down from the sky." Psalms 84:11 reads, "For the Lord God is a sun and shield." At Psalms 68:32-32, the faithful are instructed to "sing praises to Jah, to him who rides in the heavens, the ancient heavens . . . whose majesty is over Israel, and his power is in the skies," exactly as was said about the ubiquitous solar hero.
At Psalms 72:17, we read, "May his name endure for ever, his fame continue as long as the sun," and, at Malachi 1:11: "For from the rising of sun to its setting my name is great among the nations." The Lord's name is not said to be great after the setting of the sun, during the night, because his "name" is the sun, as we have seen lao, Jah, YHWH and so on, to mean. Thus, the esteem of the sun by the Hebrews is evident; yet, the story of the solar hero is also found in numerous places in the Old Testament, but these stories are masked by carnalization and historicization. Indeed, so important was the sun to the ancients, including the Israelites, that they created a "Sun Book," a "Helio Biblio," or "Holy Bible,""° the original of which can be found in the myths encoded in stone and story around the ancient world millennia before