Loaves and Fishes

[neilgodfrey]

I would be very surprised if you found a single text, a single scholarly work on imperial/monarchical government structures of the ancient Near East at all, that were based on any notion of "social contract". . . .

Neil, while we are obviously in total disagreement about how to read the Bible, I will respond to your comments in detail because they provide a good opportunity for me to rebut your views and explain my reading.

You did not address my specific point and did nothing except repeat and expand on your own thesis and personal interpretations of the bible. That's not a rebuttal.

Geeze I get tired of your constant accusations of persecuting you or accusing of things I never do. Where does this "accusation of insanity" come from? I have made very clear exactly where the term parallelomania comes from. I have never interpreted it in terms of "insanity" when scholars have used it as a criticism or warning. This is as poor as you once suggesting I'm calling you a sodomite. Get real and get off the victimhood thing.

It is amazing that you would raise the sodomite claim again when that should have been so embarrassing for you. I fully accept that you did not mean to call me a sodomite (and in fact I am not). But my point was that the actual literal meaning of your comment was that I am a sodomite, even though that was not what you meant. . . . .
A similar ambiguity appears in the ‘parallelomania’ phrase. Now you are implying this is just a descriptive phrase, not normative. . . . .

I should be embarrassed because of your hypesensitivity? I used a well-known expression that only pedants would consider offensive in the way you do -- How many people are offended if I use "damn" or "gosh" because of what they literally and historically stand for or think I am praying to pagan gods if I use the word "fortunate". Get real.

Parallelomania is the term used by Sandmel and I am using it exactly as he did and that was very clear by my regular references to his article. Now how about grappling with the real issues.

Of course your argument is parallelomania according to Sandmel's defintion. You do not follow the controls built in to the "hypothetico-deductive" model you say you use. You skip a key step. You never replied when I pointed that out to you before more than once. You do not use the controls or methods Sandmel says protect an argument from parallelomania. You begin with your assumptions and read them into the data and then call them conclusions.

This is a point that my last post expanded on in some detail. It is entirely in line with the hypothetico-deductive method to start with a hypothesis and explore how that is justified against the evidence.

Of course it is "entirely in line with the h-d method" --- you are missing my point (again). Do you notice what is missing here? Do you notice what else is lacking? Do you recall where I come in here and point out your logical fallacy?

I addressed your attempts to explain you are following points 3 and 4 of the h-d method and you simply repeat your errors in trying to justify your efforts.

I have used this thread to comment on the verses in the Gospel of Mark that discuss the loaves and fishes miracle. Neil Godfrey has responded with vague accusations of methodological error, while never engaging on detail to explore how the method I am suggesting could be valid.

I have made very specific points about your methodological errors. I have reached the stage where I don't bother to repeat it all in detail because you have always ignored my point. You do not engage in the sort of close verbal and structural analyses required to avoid the trap of parallelomania and you do not follow the step of testing (to see if you can disprove) your hypotheses. You fall into the fallacy of piling up proof after proof after proof for a hypothesis as if oblivious to the nature of scientific method.

I have used the close verbal and structural analysis of the loaves and fishes stories as presented by Saint Mark to illustrate in this thread how an astrotheological reading applies sound method. . . . .

You did? If your efforts were "close verbal and structural parallels" then I insist that you accept my own application of astrotheology to Casey's book is exactly the same sort of "close verbal and structural parallels". Just arm-waving and saying I am being ad-hoc while you are being something more rigorous won't do. Demonstrate how my effort is any less rigorous than yours. I think you confuse imagination and rigour.

But I think sometimes you reject the true scientific method because you sometimes imply Popperism means relativism?? I stand to be corrected.

. . . . But his ideas get taken too far, with the assertion that any claim of absolute knowledge, such as from the Platonic theory of ideas, is intrinsically dangerous. That does in fact lead to relativism, with the idea that we lack grounds for certainty about anything.

Tell me I am wrong here. Are you really saying that Platonic theory of ideas is indeed true and "absolute knowledge"?

Well I don't advance any of those theories so you'll have to excuse me for not doing anything to support them. What's your point?

A debate requires conflicting views to be assessed on common ground. Rebuttal requires direct engagement with an opponent’s argument. You keep asserting that I am wrong, but never really discuss how or where with any precision or detail. You implied that the loaves and fishes meaning is exhausted by its claimed parallels to Old Testament passages, but ignored my close textual analysis in Mark, for which the whole parable becomes meaningful against a cosmic intent, simply using Judaic continuity as context.

I still have no idea what Atwill has to do with any of this.

Your "precision and detail" is just as meaningful, just as valid, just as subjective, just as unverifiable as the precision and detail I have seen applied by Mormons, JW's, the rest.

And right you are. I cannot demonstrate that a midrashic analysis is incompatible with your analysis (though it is far from a "textual analysis" if by textual analysis we mean anything approaching the detail used by comparative literary critics) -- and that's because I can't demonstrate it is incompatible with the Jesus is Caesar theory, either.

I already responded in detail to this point, illustrating that it reflects an astonishing failure of understanding. The Jesus is Caesar theory is junk, incompatible with core Biblical intent and ethics. By contrast, an astral reading is fully compatible with evidence and illuminates and deepens the intent and ethics of the Bible.

Why do you ignore my earlier argument that there is no incompatibility with New Testament "ethics"? (I'm not sure what you mean by "Biblical intent" -- the Bible is a collection of a lot of books.) Many scholarly works speak of the NT ethics and values as part and parcel of the society of the day.

And that's the point. There is no criterion to decide between one hypothesis based on an extravagance of a grab-bag of parallels and another. I demonstrated how your method can apply astrotheology to Casey's book. That demonstrates the invalidity of the method, surely.

Here your blindness to the astral intent leads you to use the false term ‘grab-bag’. That is an accurate description of the Caesar-Christ theory, and of your facile Casey example, but not of astrotheology, which starts from a coherent hypothesis of Gnostic Hermetic origins and analyses the sources against that framework. As in the loaves and fishes example, seeing the original astral intent indicates a path to a fruitful scientific understanding of Mark’s ideas in their social and theological context.

You are ignoring the Caesar-Christ claim that it also starts with something pretty nifty and coherent.

You disagree, of course, but I disagree with both because I fail to see how their methods (as opposed to their content) differ.

I repeat: Why don't you try to sum up what you believe my own criticisms of your views really are. Sum up what you understand are my criticisms. Demonstrate that you really do understand my criticisms. Then let us see how well we are communicating from that starting point.

[neilgodfrey]

A point of bible interpretation.

Robert Tulip argues that "the social contract" notion is found as early as Jeremiah. (He also argues it is in the NT -- and appears to see it as a "biblical" notion as if the Bible represents a single idea on such things.)

In this case, the social contract in the Bible, consider Jeremiah 7:3, “Thus says Yahweh of Hosts, the God of Israel, Amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place.” The social contract here claims to provide a basis for political security in true faith, and continues to give examples – “don't oppress the foreigner, the orphan, and the widow, and don't shed innocent blood in this place, neither walk after other gods to your own hurt: then will I cause you to dwell in this place”. God requires that the powerful look after the powerless.

By "social contract" I believe most political theorists understand a "contract" entered into by parties such that if one party breaks the contract the other has the right to consider the agreement broken and act accordingly.

I do not know of any reason to think that the author of Jeremiah had any such concept. The passage here, Jeremiah 7:3, is entirely one-sided. God alone has all the power and lays out the terms. The other party has no rights and no say in the matter. They are dictated to by God: xenophobes, money-lenders, landlords, robbers are told to refrain from their oppressive activities, and baal and other worshipers are ordered to change their religion to proto-Judaism. The whole community is threatened with death and exile if the criminal element does not desist and if everybody does not convert to "the one true religion".

The obligation then falls to the rulers to introduce a zero-tolerance policy to all criminal activity and freedom of worship. Some might well say that what is envisaged is comparable to a Taliban or Wahibi state. This is especially so when we recall the punishments for crime and disobedience to God listed in other parts of the OT.

There is no contract entered into here. This is an outright unilateral set of demands by God who threatens to ethnically cleanse the land if his tribe does not obey him.

This God claims the moral high-ground because, like all great kings of the Near East in those days, he boasts how he protects the poor, delivers justice to all, punishes the cruel, etc. He is their Saviour, just like human kings claimed to be.

The rulers of Israel have no choice. The people of the land under the rulers have no choice. If the rulers of the land do not do the right thing then the people are not given any permission to overthrow them or set up their own alternative rulers and government. There is non social contract at all.

To see here the notion of "social contract" is to read modern concepts anachronistically into the text.

The text needs to be studied in the context of its own time.

In the time of the text kings did claim to be saviours who protected the poor and demanded absolute obedience and even "love" in return -- love meaning faithfulness and obedience and payment of tribute and willingness to fight and die for their ruler.

Little changes by the time we later come to the Roman era and the writings of the early Christians.

[neilgodfrey]

I should add to the above the clarification that no responsibilities are imposed upon God at all. God promises to refrain from ethnic cleansing if his tribe obeys him. This is the same ethic as that of the Godfather -- he will protect those who submit to him and pay their dues and do as they are told. The remainder of the story even shows that God is not bound in any way to keep his promises or to behave consistently. It is always the obligation of his tribe to render total obedience and never speak ill of him even though his ways are not always understood or do not even seem just by their standards.

[neilgodfrey]

Robert --- it would take more posts than you have made to demonstrate how each of your interpretations is really an ad hoc one and by no means whatever a structural or close semantic analysis. I should have taken the time to comment at the time. I was pretty amazed that you just kept writing the way you did obviously oblivious to how random and ad hoc it all was. I take just one example to illustrate this point of the lack of valid method of your interpretation.

34Jesus came out, saw a great multitude, and he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd, and he began to teach them many things.

• As the sun appears to travel through the multitude of stars each year, its position in each group of stars has a distinct meaning, relevant to the time of year. This traditional view is depicted in the stained glass windows of Chartres Cathedral, with the occupations for each month. So the sun gives meaning to the random shapes of the stars through its regular annual procession through them. As we shall see, a deeper eternal meaning of this order is seen, and was perceived by the ancients, in the equally regular slow precession of the sun through the stars, one degree back per human lifetime.

• The shepherd motif echoes King David and the Psalms. In terms of precession, the spring point was in the sign of the ram for two thousand years until the time of Christ, when it moved into the sign of the fish. So the ‘without a shepherd’ idea matches to the stellar disorientation occurring at the time of Christ, well known to the ancients. Philo said Passover occurred when the sun was in the sign of the ram. This had been visibly seen to no longer apply since the blood moon of 23 March 4BC at Passover in Jerusalem, a lunar eclipse that was physically at the foot of the woman (Virgo), directly opposite the sun in Pisces. This event is a possible source for the great wonder seen in heaven described in Revelation 12:1, and for Paul’s motif in Galatians ‘born of a woman’. We can again see this great wonder with the blood moon in the same spot in the sky on 15 April this year.

The verse says "Jesus came out" in some English translations, and to be generous to you, I think you mean to imply that this represents the sun coming out to travel through the constellations. If I am wrong then I stand corrected. But if that is what you mean then this is entirely ad hoc since in the previous verse we read the crowds themselves had just likewise "come out" -- only before Jesus. So whatever it is Jesus is doing he is doing the same as the crowds -- (the stars?). It conflicts with the natural reading to interpret Jesus as the sun doing one thing and the crowds doing something else -- when in fact the text says they are doing the same thing.

Jesus is not even going through the crowds as we would expect if the crowds represented the constellations. He is clearly distinct from them and in front of them. He sends his disciples through them later -- but he does not go through them.

You can't say I am expecting too much by demanding a literal meaning. I am simply following the text that is to be interpreted. Your interpretation is not consistent with the text's narrative.

That's why such an interpretation is ad hoc.

Next, you say the shepherd motive echoes King David but don't explain how or why you interpret it this way. Would it not be more in keeping with the exact text to interpret in light of OT passages that actually speak of "sheep without a shepherd" (e.g. Isaiah 13 et al). Now there is a Psalm that does speak of God being a shepherd (not David) and that does have other allusions in Mark 6, so we are invited to compare and find meaning of Mark 6 in these passages.

But then you go on and add a whole lot of other details that find no match in the verse at all. Now that IS ad hoc. It is entirely a matter of injecting your own imagination into the verse. You are clearly not drawing out from the verse itself any of the following points you want us to read into it:

precession
sun traveling through the stars
each year
groups of stars having distinct meanings
sun giving meaning to constellations
one degree per human lifetime
sign of the ram
spring
stellar disorientation
. . . .

Absolutely nothing in the verse prompts you to introduce any of these ideas. These ideas are those you have brought into the verse yourself entirely on the basis of:

Jesus coming out (to the wilderness after the crowds had just done this)
seeing a multitude
having compassion on them
sheep without a shepherd
teaching them many things

Now you may say that in later verses you find something more specific (e.g some fish) and therefore you are entitled to return to this verse and add all of the above (precession, etc). My point is that such an interpretation has nothing in common with anything I have read in the scholarly literature and is entirely ad hoc. It is baseless -- there is no grounding in the text to justify all the meanings you inject into it.

Indeed, I suggest that my own astrotheological reading of Casey's opening lines was far less ad hoc, far truer to the text being interpreted, with far less randomly imaginative concepts injected into it.

If so, I suggest that a stronger case can be made for an astrotheological reading of Casey's book than can be made for Mark 6.

[pakeha]

...Love of neighbour, love of God, first and last, -- all of these are concepts that fit well with the ethics of ancient Rome, pietas and Stoicism and the rest. And yes, the Bible really is a product of its own day and culture and it does indeed embrace values of the day and reapplies them to a new master, Jesus. Modern interpreters have reinterpreted them to make them relevant to today. But a literary critical study demonstrates the context of the sayings was indeed the culture in which they were written. ...

Thanks for the heads-up about Thompson's The Messiah Myth. It's now on my wish list at Amazon.

[neilgodfrey]

...Love of neighbour, love of God, first and last, -- all of these are concepts that fit well with the ethics of ancient Rome, pietas and Stoicism and the rest. And yes, the Bible really is a product of its own day and culture and it does indeed embrace values of the day and reapplies them to a new master, Jesus. Modern interpreters have reinterpreted them to make them relevant to today. But a literary critical study demonstrates the context of the sayings was indeed the culture in which they were written. ...

Thanks for the heads-up about Thompson's The Messiah Myth. It's now on my wish list at Amazon.

I should add that I can't be sure that all the points I made, even those indebted to Thompson, are found in that book. Certainly the motifs of imperial propaganda -- the saviour kings who debase the oppressors and exalt the righteous etc -- are there; but I have read so many other books and articles by Thompson that I am no longer sure exactly where which details came from what without going back and doing some homework.

[pakeha]

...I should add that I can't be sure that all the points I made, even those indebted to Thompson, are found in that book. Certainly the motifs of imperial propaganda -- the saviour kings who debase the oppressors and exalt the righteous etc -- are there; but I have read so many other books and articles by Thompson that I am no longer sure exactly where which details came from what without going back and doing some homework.

No worries, neilgodfrey.
Lately I've been reading a number of opinions related to the extraordinary, ground-breaking nature of Jesus' teachings.
My BS alarm tells me this is wrong as wrong can be and I'm happy to have sources that may help me find out what tripped the alarm.

[neilgodfrey]

Let's take another detail of Robert's "detailed verbal and structural" analysis of the the miracle of the loaves in Mark 6 and see if it is truly a detailed verbal and structural analysis or an ad hoc application of excerpted concepts from astrotheology.

41 He took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven, he blessed and broke the loaves, and he gave to his disciples to set before them, and he divided the two fish among them all.

The central event of the miracle is the creation of universal abundance by faith and vision from a small source.

There is nothing in the verse to substantiate this stated theme. "Universal abundance" is a vague term that suggests far more than a very specific feeding miracle.

The phrase “looking up to heaven” is a strong indication of the astral meaning of the story.

Looking up to heaven has no astral associations anywhere in Mark. They are all imported into the text by the interpreter. The heaven in the text is the place of God and original home of the holy spirit (Mark 1). The gospel itself leads readers to see heaven as the place of God and here the natural reading is to picture Jesus addressing God. The astral meaning is quite arbitrary and without any support in the text itself.

Due to the influence of church teaching we are accustomed to thinking of heaven as a place where good people go after death. But Jesus here uses the concept of heaven as something that can be seen by looking up, ie the sky. This old meaning remains in our concept of 'the heavens', and in the German use of Himmel for heaven and sky.

There is nothing in the text to indicate that heaven refers to the astronomical sky. The only meaning we can gain from the context of Mark is that heaven is the place from which God speaks and sends the spirit. The suggestion that we are to imagine the planets is entirely arbitrary. Robert gives no analysis in the text itself to justify his interpretation. A textual analysis should justify itself from the text itself, not from concepts arbitrarily injected into it.

So what did Christ see when he looked up to heaven? The astronomical fact is that the shift of ages marked by the position of the sun at the equinoxes moved into star groups conventionally associated with loaves and fishes at precisely the time of Pilate, 21 AD, and this event had been known and anticipated by ancient astronomers for at least a century, and probably in Babylon for many hundreds of years.

If the text set the story in the evening when the stars were out and there was some mention of Jesus looking up at the stars then yes, we might have some basis for Robert's interpretation to be considered.

The March spring equinox, used by the Jewish calendar to mark the beginning of the year and the timing of the great annual festival of Passover, had occurred with the sun in Aries the Ram since before the time of Moses. But in 21 AD, this annual event shifted into Pisces the Fishes, while the opposite equinox in September shifted from Libra into Virgo the Virgin, whose main star Spica is named after the spike of wheat used to make loaves of bread. So the cosmic axis of the year marked by spring and autumn was understood by ancient astronomers to have shifted at this time into the signs of the loaves and fishes.

This moment of shift of the heavens was in fact a moment of perceived celestial harmony between earth and heaven, as the only time in history when the signs and the seasons have been in perfect alignment. So this perceived connection provides fertile source for the idea that Jesus Christ is the terrestrial incarnation of the eternal God of the universe, bringing the order of the heavens into manifest planetary presence.

There is a lot of discussion here but absolutely no analysis of the text itself. This is not textual anaylsis, Robert. There is absolutely no explanation for how the textual reference -- their context and function and structural place in the narrative vis a vis other details and verbs and objects and nouns -- leads to any astrotheological conclusion at all.

The symbolism of the creation of universal abundance from two fish and five loaves is that by understanding our real relation to nature, we can overcome the alienation produced in human psychology and culture by the fall from grace. I interpret the fall as the rise of metal technology, an indicator that our material progress has come without the required social and intellectual progress, and so creates the risk of destruction, requiring a new covenant to restore our state of grace. This reading of the fall aligns with the Enochite Gnostic Watcher Nazirite tradition that Mark 6 has already alluded to with the beheading of John the Baptist, an event which illustrates the oppressive context for Gnosis.

Again, there is no indication at all of "universal abundance" derived from a semantic or structural analysis of the text. There IS an indication of hunger needs being satisfied with plenty of food left over, but that's not the same thing. "Universal abundance" is going well beyond the hard evidence -- a textual analysis requires close adherence to the text itself. To go beyond is what Sandmel called "extravagane" of interpretation and application and that 'mania' word. To then leap out into metal technology here is totally bizarre. This is now leaving the text behind invisible in the dust.

If the Enochite "Gnostic" Watcher "Nazirite" tradition has any relevance then Robert, you need to demonstrate that with a comparative semantic study. That's what other textual studies do but what you have failed completely to do.

This miracle of the loaves and fishes asserts that if we can re-establish a connection between earth and heaven, we can find miraculous creativity, like the use of faith to move mountains. Without a real understanding of nature we are lost and falling into destruction, but with knowledge we are saved by grace. This idea presents a practical scientific foundation for the reformation of Christianity today on a natural rational basis.

This sounds like you have abandoned all pretence at textual analysis and are simply preaching to your choir, wherever they are.

As I have noted already, the numbers five and two for the loaves and fishes key directly into popular ancient knowledge of visual astronomy, representing the five visible planets Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn and the two great lights the Sun and Moon. When Jesus gives the five loaves to the twelve disciples to distribute among the 5000 men, it represents how astronomer priests since time immemorial had watched the regular orderly movement of the planets among the stars to understand the structure of time and the mathematical pattern of the mind of God revealed in the cosmos.

The numbers 5 and 2 "key directly into" a lot of things in the OT, too. You have provided no justification from the text itself to interpret them the way you do. The closest you got to that justification was with the image of Jesus looking up to heavens.

Your "analysis" is not an "analysis" of the text at all. You have built a huge edifice of unjustified concepts upon a couple of images. Not one of your justifications comes from textual or structural analysis of the text of Mark 6. Not one. What you have done is spot a few images that you can with a stretch of the imagination and exclusion of far more natural and justifiable possible explanations injected your astrotheological concepts into or upon those images. That's exactly -- it's in fact far worse than -- what Sandmel was talking about when he spoke of "extravagance" and "parallelomania".

http://www.grandmar-ak.com/virtual-memo ... em-lyrics/
Behold, all flesh is as the grass, And all the goodliness of man is as the flower of grass; For lo, the grass with’reth, and the flower there-of decayeth. Now, therefore, be patient, O my brethren, unto the coming of Christ. See how the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit, the fruit of the earth, And hath long patience for it, until he receive the early rain and the latter rain. So be ye patient. Behold all flesh is as the grass, and all the goodliness of man is as the flower of grass; For lo, the grass with’reth, and the flower there-of decayeth. But yet the Lord’s word endureth, endureth forever-more. The redeem-ed of the Lord shall return again, and come rejoicing unto Zion. Gladness, gladness, gladness, joy everlasting; Joy upon their heads shall be; Joy and gladness, these shall be their portion, and tears and sighing shall flee from them. The redeem-ed of the Lord shall return again, and come rejoicing unto Zion. Gladness, gladness, gladness, joy upon their heads shall be, joy everlasting. Joy everlasting.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ph8lM4Fqj3E

What the. . .?? Yes, this is all very eloquent preaching, Robert. But I did not see a single instance of 'textual analysis' in either of the two verses I have addressed so far.

This is why I did not reply at first to these posts of yours. My jaw really did drop at the time and I was left wondering if you were really serious and surely you would have to come up with something more analytical of the text itself. But you didn't.

I suggest you read scholarly textual and structural analyses and see how it is done. What you have done is exactly what I have been saying. My own astrotheological reading of Casey's book is not nearly as extravagant or out of touch with the text as you are here. In fact, I suggest my Casey spoof is closer to genuine textual analysis than anything you have given us.

[Robert Tulip]

Are you really saying that Platonic theory of ideas is indeed true and "absolute knowledge"?

Plato was revered as divine among the Gnostics, and his dialogues were found among the Nag Hammadi texts. Some of Plato’s ideas are indeed true and absolute, although obviously ideas about the good, the true and the beautiful have changed since Plato’s day. Part of the Gnostic love of Plato arose from the sense that he expressed a deeper wisdom than is available from those who deny and ignore the mystery in the world.

The big underlying theme in the Platonic theory of ideas emerges in the Gospels as the messianic secret. Ancient Gnostic mystery traditions followed Plato’s idea in The Republic that the world of human appearance is corrupted by delusion, and that knowledge could gain access to an ultimate or absolute truth as the path of salvation. Considering this agenda against the heritage of Platonic philosophy leads to the question whether Gnostic teachings could have rested in a coherent and accurate cosmology. The starting point for accuracy is observation, and coherence requires that we set what we see in a consistent logical framework.

Could this have been the Gnostic method? If so, the extant literature appears to miss crucial gaps, leaving Gnosticism as a fragmented and incoherent method. But it is legitimate to explore how behind the fragments there may have existed a high wisdom, that can be reconstructed from concealed traces. This wisdom, I argue, resides in ancient astronomy, which the Gnostics used to develop a basically astrological theory of the structure of time understood against the real movement of the heavens seen in precession of the equinoxes.

The messianic idea within precession is that the Age of Pisces occurred at the bottom of the fall, and that the vision of the perfect man, Jesus Christ, would guide the salvation of the earth, firstly through belief during the Age of Pisces and then through knowledge during the Age of Aquarius. Therefore Biblical eschatology, the theory of time, asserts that belief in Jesus Christ as saviour would be the guiding theme of the Age of Pisces, and would be replaced by Gnostic knowledge, a reconciliation of faith and reason, in the Age of Aquarius, an age corresponding to the Sabbath day of rest envisaged in the Genesis creation story. This concept of zodiacal ages is an entirely natural result of ancient knowledge of precession, producing the allegory of the day representing a millennium, with the creation imagined over 7000 years from 4000 BC to 3000 AD.

One of the simplest clues to this precessional vision is the story of the man with the water jug who guides the apostles to the upper room for the Last Supper. Mark 14:13-16 tells that “He sent two of his disciples, and said to them, "Go into the city, and there you will meet a man carrying a pitcher of water. Follow him, and wherever he enters in, tell the master of the house, 'The Teacher says, "Where is the guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?"' He will himself show you a large upper room furnished and ready. Make ready for us there."”

Understood as precessional cosmic allegory, this story is simple. The city is the visible heavens of the starry sky, the man with the water jug is the constellation Aquarius, and the upper room is the vision of human reconciliation with nature understood as connection to natural cosmic identity in the new heaven and new earth. Gnostics could see that the equinoxes were precessing into the signs of Pisces and Virgo at the time of Christ, and would precess into Aquarius and Leo in turn in about 2000 years. The Gnostic vision in the Gospels takes a very long view. Seeing the man with the water jug as a guide appears as allegory for the theory that the Age of Pisces would be a time of preparation for an understanding that would only become public in the Age of Aquarius. Ancient society was too ignorant and conflicted to comprehend the cosmic mystery, which it would take the world a whole age to become ready for.

My reading is that this understanding of time is the essence of the messianic secret, the mystery of what is needed for salvation. This reading differs completely from fundamentalist and supernatural traditions, in that the precession theory places the stories within a highly explanatory scientific context, against both science as we understand it now and science as it was available to the Gospel authors. The degradation inflicted by Christian dogma has concealed this essential natural cosmic meaning, but there are ample clues to extract it from the Gospel text.

The value of Platonic ideas of love, truth, justice, beauty and the good is to provide a framework for a transformative ethical vision. This ideal Platonic vision was fundamental to the Gnostic imagination of the person of Jesus Christ as an ethical ideal, including the vision that messianic intent would lead to conflict with the principalities of the world. Plato’s ideas inform the Gnostic philosophical vision of the need for a messianic paradigm shift to overcome the depths of delusion within the fallen world of corruption.

[neilgodfrey]

Are you really saying that Platonic theory of ideas is indeed true and "absolute knowledge"?

Plato was revered as divine among the Gnostics, and his dialogues were found among the Nag Hammadi texts. Some of Plato’s ideas are indeed true and absolute, although obviously ideas about the good, the true and the beautiful have changed since Plato’s day. Part of the Gnostic love of Plato arose from the sense that he expressed a deeper wisdom than is available from those who deny and ignore the mystery in the world.

The big underlying theme in the Platonic theory of ideas emerges in the Gospels as the messianic secret. Ancient Gnostic mystery traditions followed Plato’s idea in The Republic that the world of human appearance is corrupted by delusion, and that knowledge could gain access to an ultimate or absolute truth as the path of salvation. Considering this agenda against the heritage of Platonic philosophy leads to the question whether Gnostic teachings could have rested in a coherent and accurate cosmology. The starting point for accuracy is observation, and coherence requires that we set what we see in a consistent logical framework.

Could this have been the Gnostic method? If so, the extant literature appears to miss crucial gaps, leaving Gnosticism as a fragmented and incoherent method. But it is legitimate to explore how behind the fragments there may have existed a high wisdom, that can be reconstructed from concealed traces. This wisdom, I argue, resides in ancient astronomy, which the Gnostics used to develop a basically astrological theory of the structure of time understood against the real movement of the heavens seen in precession of the equinoxes.

The messianic idea within precession is that the Age of Pisces occurred at the bottom of the fall, and that the vision of the perfect man, Jesus Christ, would guide the salvation of the earth, firstly through belief during the Age of Pisces and then through knowledge during the Age of Aquarius. Therefore Biblical eschatology, the theory of time, asserts that belief in Jesus Christ as saviour would be the guiding theme of the Age of Pisces, and would be replaced by Gnostic knowledge, a reconciliation of faith and reason, in the Age of Aquarius, an age corresponding to the Sabbath day of rest envisaged in the Genesis creation story. This concept of zodiacal ages is an entirely natural result of ancient knowledge of precession, producing the allegory of the day representing a millennium, with the creation imagined over 7000 years from 4000 BC to 3000 AD.

One of the simplest clues to this precessional vision is the story of the man with the water jug who guides the apostles to the upper room for the Last Supper. Mark 14:13-16 tells that “He sent two of his disciples, and said to them, "Go into the city, and there you will meet a man carrying a pitcher of water. Follow him, and wherever he enters in, tell the master of the house, 'The Teacher says, "Where is the guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?"' He will himself show you a large upper room furnished and ready. Make ready for us there."”

Understood as precessional cosmic allegory, this story is simple. The city is the visible heavens of the starry sky, the man with the water jug is the constellation Aquarius, and the upper room is the vision of human reconciliation with nature understood as connection to natural cosmic identity in the new heaven and new earth. Gnostics could see that the equinoxes were precessing into the signs of Pisces and Virgo at the time of Christ, and would precess into Aquarius and Leo in turn in about 2000 years. The Gnostic vision in the Gospels takes a very long view. Seeing the man with the water jug as a guide appears as allegory for the theory that the Age of Pisces would be a time of preparation for an understanding that would only become public in the Age of Aquarius. Ancient society was too ignorant and conflicted to comprehend the cosmic mystery, which it would take the world a whole age to become ready for.

My reading is that this understanding of time is the essence of the messianic secret, the mystery of what is needed for salvation. This reading differs completely from fundamentalist and supernatural traditions, in that the precession theory places the stories within a highly explanatory scientific context, against both science as we understand it now and science as it was available to the Gospel authors. The degradation inflicted by Christian dogma has concealed this essential natural cosmic meaning, but there are ample clues to extract it from the Gospel text.

The value of Platonic ideas of love, truth, justice, beauty and the good is to provide a framework for a transformative ethical vision. This ideal Platonic vision was fundamental to the Gnostic imagination of the person of Jesus Christ as an ethical ideal, including the vision that messianic intent would lead to conflict with the principalities of the world. Plato’s ideas inform the Gnostic philosophical vision of the need for a messianic paradigm shift to overcome the depths of delusion within the fallen world of corruption.

So your answer is "Yes"?