Is the Jesus story an astrological allegory?

[Ishtar]

btw, on Bethlehem = House of Bread = Virgo, you posted this:

From the astrotheists:

"This house of bread and its symbol of wheat represents August and September, the time of harvest. In turn Bethlehem in fact literally translates to house of bread. Bethlehem is thus a reference to the constellation Virgo a place in the sky not on Earth."

This is a tremendous leap in faith the kind that often results is a splat. How is Virgo's association with wheat harvest an automatic association to Bethlehem (which means "house of Bread" as in "bread of life which is a Hebrew is reference to the Word of God). There is no supporting evidence.

There is supporting evidence and I'll try and explain this as simply as I can.

As you know, the New Testament was originally written in Greek, the language of the Roman Empire. It was only later translated into Hebrew.

The Word of God you refer to was originally written by the Greeks as ‘the Logos’. To the Pagan Greeks, the Logos referred to Sophia, their Goddess and their version of the Virgin Mary.

That’s why when John says: “In the beginning was the Word, the Logos,” he was referring to Sophia who became the Jewish Virgin Mary, hence Virgo.

In other words, “In the beginning was Virgo..” which is the beginning of the astrotheists’ story.

[Ishtar]

After going through Richard Carrier's article, my view is that it in no way debunks the Horus theory but in many ways, confirms it:

The inscription in Panel 4 (which is often cited on the web as the key frame) describes the god Amun jumping into bed with the human Queen on her wedding night (or at any rate before she consummates her marriage with the human King) disguised as her husband...and the god tells her in bed that she is impregnated and will bear his son, Amenophis. To be more exact, the Queen inadvertently chooses the name by telling Amun she loves him, which is what "Amenophis" means.

As I explained earlier, mythological heroines (unlike the rest of us!) are allowed some latitude when it comes to being described as virgins. I don’t know why it is. I’m not even saying it’s right. I’m just pointing out that for some reason, in mythology, you can be a right old slapper and still be deemed to be a virgin. The only criteria is that when you conceive the Godhead (Horus, Jesus etc) it must be done by supernatural or means other than straightforward bonking with an ordinary bloke. Having it off with a god is the usual method, so this is what the panel at Luxor shows taking place.

the Christian cycle differs from the Egyptian cycle in that there is no sex in the former and Mary remains a virgin, whereas in the Egyptian cycle, as the inscription makes unmistakably clear, the Queen definitely loses her virginity--and in the old-fashioned way. The only parallel is that the Queen is in fact a virgin when she conceives the god-child, despite being married to the human king, since that marriage has not yet been consummated.

But we do know that Jesus had brothers. Thus there is a possibility that the same criteria of virginity is being used for Mary too. But in any case, it doesn’t have any bearing on whether Isis is deemed a virgin or not, as explained above.

In conclusion, the Luxor narrative has some parallels with the Christian narrative, but also with dozens of other narratives that would have been more familiar to the Christians (such as those surrounding Alexander the Great), though none present a complete or particularly startling parallel. Granted, the key narrative signposts are present at Luxor: there is a divine conception, a divine annunciation, a birth of a Son of God, then a divine adoration and confirmation (all leading eventually to a coronation).....But, again, the parallels to Hellenistic kingship-theology are the same here, and yet chronologically and culturally closer to Christianity.

So here we find Carrier supporting much of the theory that the Horus story could have been an earlier incarnation of the Jesus story, although not the only one. However, nobody is claiming that Horus is the only inspiration by any means. For one thing, the Greeks would have been keen to throw their own mythological figures into the melting pot, such as Dionysus and, as discussed earlier, there is evidence for this too.

And yet the Christian narratives are, like most myths, very much original creations (that's why the two versions--in Matthew and Luke--are so radically different from each other).

I didn’t think anyone was or is claiming that they weren’t original creations – rather that they were creations that were influenced by other older myths.

Understanding their background and cultural and historical context is certainly helpful, and necessary, but it doesn't lead to any plagiaristic scandal of the sort Acharya S wants there to be.

I’m by no means an apologist for Acharya S, but this attack on her views is misguided and myopic because, as shown in my previous post, she is but the last in a long line of people propagating this theory starting from the earliest Christians.

She may still be right that what we are told is actually a myth about Jesus, not historical fact, but that is a conclusion that requires a lot more evidence than what we find at Luxor.

But she is in no way basing all her conclusions that Jesus wasn’t a historical but a mythical figure on that one frieze at Luxor. There’s masses of evidence out there to support this, some of which I’ve posted here myself. Acharya has written two books that are packed with research in this area, as have many others including Freake and Gandy.

So the straw man strikes again!

[Forum Monk]

Ishtar - you are defending the indefensibe and constantly changing the game and making up new points of view as you go along. I watched your film last night (the first 35 minutes or so - which really doesn't begin until 10 minutes into it) and as I have suspected it is does not present evidence only musings. So many times it says "and that is why..." and I am left thinking "wha???? based on wha???" No evidence is presented. All those claims about Horus, Dionysis, etc. and their similarities and not a single attested piece of evidence except the inscription of Luxor which does not reflect the Jesus story. The film opens with a quote from G. Mssaey and labels him an Egypologist but he was not an egyptologist, he was a poet.

You see...it is an easy target, or so you think, to focus your argument on me and claim I know nothing about mythology and yet it would appear that many of the astrotheists really know nothing about Christ, nor do they understand how the totality of the hebrew and christian texts written over thousands of years provide the total picture of the Hebrew messiah. I am not the topic, nor my perceived lack of knowledge. But its seems the topic has now also shifted from astrological allegory to mythology. And Jesus went from non-existant to having brothers. And so every time it suits your point of view the game shifts.

By the way, Ishtar, I have not quoted a single apologist, so I don't know where you are getting that thought. As for Justin Martyr and Origen they were in the unfortunate position of defending their faith from attacks which cited the unbelievability of the christian story by pointing out the story should already be familiar to the reader as similar points of view had been believed for hundreds of years. It in no wise is a capitulation or acknolwedgment that the Christ story is a derivative of earlier mythology which is really the point you are trying to argue. Nothing they say supports this points of view, so it can only be supported by taking snippets from a much longer narrative which ignores the entire point of the letter. Give up on the church fathers. None of them ever said the Christ story was an astrological allegory, nor a myth of any kind. True they also were forced to defend their faith against this same idea presented in this thread, no doubt, but whether they did it successfully or not is only a matter of perspective and personal point of view.

Sophia - was the goddess of wisdom not the word nor the bread. She is an invention of the Gnostics and a fairly modern one at that, since she is not even mentioned in Ovid's Metamorphoses which was written during the time of Jesus.

I will address, for the third time, the astronomy in the following post.

[Ishtar]

Ishtar - you are defending the indefensibe and constantly changing the game and making up new points of view as you go along. I watched your film last night (the first 35 minutes or so - which really doesn't begin until 10 minutes into it) and as I have suspected it is does not present evidence only musings. So many times it says "and that is why..." and I am left thinking "wha???? based on wha???"

My evidence for saying that the Jesus story is a myth based on other myths does not come from this film which, I warned you, presents the mythology in a dumbed down way. I’ve been accumulating my own research on this for years, as have many others, and there’s masses of it.

What was new to me was the astrotheism and I asked you, with your expertise in astronomy, to kindly tell me if what they are saying about Sirius and The Three Kings is a true reflection of what goes on.

You’ve still not done that. Saying “wha....” means nothing. I’m getting tired of asking you so this is the last time. If the astronomy in the film is wrong, please tell me when and where. Otherwise, I will be moving on.

No evidence is presented. All those claims about Horus, Dionysis, etc. and their similarities and not a single attested piece of evidence except the inscription of Luxor which does not reflect the Jesus story. The film opens with a quote from G. Massey and labels him an Egypologist but he was not an egyptologist, he was a poet.

I refer to you to my last answer.

Do you not think poets can be Egyptologists too?

You see...it is an easy target, or so you think, to focus your argument on me and claim I know nothing about mythology and yet it would appear that many of the astrotheists really know nothing about Christ, nor do they understand how the totality of the hebrew and christian texts written over thousands of years provide the total picture of the Hebrew messiah.

Please tell me how and why you think that. It’s a totally unsubstantiated and sweeping statement. And again, the makers of this film have produced a dumbed down version that is easily received by popular culture. As I have shown in previous posts, that the Jesus story is an allegory has been well discussed and researched for 2,000 years by expert researchers on all the Hebrew and Christian texts.

I am not the topic, nor my perceived lack of knowledge. But its seems the topic has now also shifted from astrological allegory to mythology.

Astrotheism is, and has always been (as has this topic) an interpretation of mythology. Astrotheism would be nothing without the underlying mythology. The topic hasn’t changed. From the first post, I’ve been talking about mythology and the reasons for all the myths being so similar.

And Jesus went from non-existant to having brothers. And so every time it suits your point of view the game shifts.

This is hair splitting and unworthy of you, FM. I’m not shifting anything. Obviously I mean that he had brothers in the story. Nowhere do I say that Jesus (or his brothers) are real people. You have read that into it.

By the way, Ishtar, I have not quoted a single apologist, so I don't know where you are getting that thought.

Then why are you answering points not raised? It was if you were talking to someone else, not me.

As for Justin Martyr and Origen they were in the unfortunate position of defending their faith from attacks which cited the unbelievably of the christian story by pointing out the story should already be familiar to the reader as similar points of view had been believed for hundreds of years. It in no wise is a capitulation or acknowledgment that the Christ story is a derivative of earlier mythology which is really the point you are trying to argue.

I don't think it's a capitulation either. But I presented their thinking to show that this thinking goes back to the 1st century and is not an invention of Acharya S.

Nothing they say supports this points of view, so it can only be supported by taking snippets from a much longer narrative which ignores the entire point of the letter. Give up on the church fathers.

Contra Celsus is a very long letter from Origen about the ‘heretic’ Celsus. However, I didn’t misrepresent his remarks by quoting them out of context. I had to extract it as the whole letter is far too long to be posted in full here, and most if it is irrelevent to this argument. However, I posted the link for others to read the full text. So please show me where I’ve misrepresented his comments.

None of them ever said the Christ story was an astrological allegory, nor a myth of any kind.

Finally, something we agree on.

No-one, and especially me, has ever said that the early Church teachers said it was an astrological allegory. I’m still not convinced myself that it’s an astrological allegory, which is why I want to discuss it’s astronomical aspects with someone who knows about such things, but so far, you refuse to commit yourself.

But both Martyr and Origen patently had to deal with a movement that thought it was allegorical, hence their comments. If you can’t see that, you must be blind.

True they also were forced to defend their faith against this same idea presented in this thread, no doubt, but whether they did it successfully or not is only a matter of perspective and personal point of view.

Whether they were successful or not was not the point of my argument. The fact that they had to address it at all shows the idea was extant at that time, and not just something made up by Acharya S and Massey.

Sophia - was the goddess of wisdom not the word nor the bread. She is an invention of the Gnostics and a fairly modern one at that, since she is not even mentioned in Ovid's Metamorphoses which was written during the time of Jesus.

Wisdom is one meaning of Sophia. Logos is another. I wouldn’t call the Greek philosopher Philo (who was born in 25 BC) modern. His work is dominated by thinking about Sophia and the Logos.

[Ishtar]

FM, you will find this interesting on Plato and Sophia. As you know, Plato is definitely not modern!

... Plato shifted the meaning of sophia, wisdom. Prior to Plato, sophia had the same wide connotation as the Hebrew hokma: "To be sophos . . . is to dominate one's activity, to dominate oneself and to dominate others. This is why a carpenter, a doctor, a diviner, a poet, a rhetor, a sophist, and the like could be labeled sophoi." Anyone who learned a craft through apprenticeship to a master had learned a form of sophia. The philosophos is one who has completed an apprenticeship in a particular form of wisdom.

Plato, however, sees philosophia as a transcendent form of wisdom, an "aspiration to a sophia transcending human possibilities in that its ultimate goal is the contemplation of a domain of objects, the world of intelligible form, of which the world of sensible things - into which the human soul has temporarily fallen - is only a reflection."

http://www.leithart.com/archives/001243.php

Heraclitus (535-475 BC) also wrote about the Logos:

"This Logos holds always but humans always prove unable to understand it, both before hearing it and when they have first heard it. For though all things come to be in accordance with this Logos humans are like the inexperienced when they experience such words and deeds as I set out, distinguishing each in accordance with its nature and saying how it is. But other people fail to notice what they do when awake, just as they forget what they do while asleep.

"For this reason it is necessary to follow what is common. But although the logos is common, most people live as if they had their own private understanding.

"Listening not to me but to the Logos, it is wise to agree that all things are one."

All things are one. Definitely a spiritual idea.

[Forum Monk]

I think its important to understand that the association of certain mythologies and names of mythological characters to characters in the christ story occured well after the believed time of christ. For example Sophia/Sophos, goddess of Wisdom. Her association with Mary which was only one narrow interpretation, was made after the christ story was established and so it becomes very problematic to say Sophia was the basis of the Mary myth. What is happening, is, the mythologies of the egyptians and greeks are being manipulated after-the-fact into an allegory, not the other way around, and this is the major flaw.

The same is true for the "three kings" which I am now preparing to show. And I will show the astronomy, I need to upload some pictures and do a little work to get everything prepared. I promise you will see it before you retire tonight (as long as you don't retire too early ). Lets keep the thread on topic and deal with the astronomical/astrological basis which is being held up to support the long standing notion that the christ story was plagerized as you well point out with the quotes from the church fathers. After all the movie repeatedly points out that virtually every important story in the hebrew scripture was plagerized. Apparently, the only thing the hebrews could do properly was write poetry according to the beliefs of many.

Also bear in mind, I am not making a defense of roman catholic theology (I don't even come close to understanding it) nor the existence of Jesus as a historical person nor in any way am I trying to assert the truth of the scriptures. I am asserting that the story of christ in its totality is not based on preexisting mythology and while it may or may not be supported in hebrew mythology of the sky (I have no clue about this) it is not as presented in Zeitgeist.

[Ishtar]

Lets keep the thread on topic and deal with the astronomical/astrological basis which is being held up to support the long standing notion that the christ story was plagerized as you well point out with the quotes from the church fathers.

NO NO NO - why don't you understand what I write? I think I'm quite clear.

The allegory theory is not dependent and has existed for far longer than the theory about the whether the allegory is based on astronomical symbols.

I don't need your opinion on the former, because I know you don't have enough experience in this area.

I need your opinion on the latter, in which you do have some expertise. And if that opinion finds that the astronomy part of the argument does not stand up, it will in no way detract from the view that the story of Jesus is an allegory.

Please try to listen to what I'm saying to you, rather than viewing everything through the red mist of your fear that your religiion is under attack. I know you're not thick or stupid, so this can be the only explanation for why you seem completely unable to absorb the simplest information.

After all the movie repeatedly points out that virtually every important story in the hebrew scripture was plagerized. Apparently, the only thing the hebrews could do properly was write poetry according to the beliefs of many.

Also bear in mind, I am not making a defense of roman catholic theology (I don't even come close to understanding it) nor the existence of Jesus as a historical person nor in any way am I trying to assert the truth of the scriptures. I am asserting that the story of christ in its totality is not based on preexisting mythology and while it may or may not be supported in hebrew mythology of the sky (I have no clue about this) it is not as presented in Zeitgeist.

I already said that this aspect of Zeitgeist was dumbed down. It in no way reflects the vast body of work on this subject.

I want only your opinion on the astronomy and even that, now, I'm beginning to wonder if I will trust as you don't seem to be understanding the simplest points I'm making to you, so how can I be sure that you understood what the film said on the astronomy aspect? I'm sure you sat down to watch it determined to find fault with it, so your opinion, even on this area, is becoming increasingly worthless to me

In fact, I think I'm going to have to get a second opinion now, from someone more disinterested than yourself, who doesn' t view everything through a Christian conditioned prism. So don't sweat it. Enjoy the rest of your weekend.

[Minimalist]

As for Justin Martyr and Origen they were in the unfortunate position of defending their faith from attacks which cited the unbelievably of the christian story by pointing out the story should already be familiar to the reader as similar points of view had been believed for hundreds of years. It in no wise is a capitulation or acknowledgment that the Christ story is a derivative of earlier mythology which is really the point you are trying to argue.

Capitulation may be the wrong word but it is certainly an acknowledgement that they were trying to defend against the charge that there was nothing new in Christianity. Why would they defend their religion against charges which were not being made? In order to come up with the whole theory of diabolical mimicry they put themselves in the untenable position of saying that "the devil outsmarted god." They must have been very desperate indeed to make such an absurd point. I wouldn't expect a politician to stand up and declare "I am not a child molester" unless someone had, in fact, called him a child molester.

"After all, the old myths of the greeks that attribute a divine birth to Perseus, Amphion, Aeacus and Minos are equally good evidence of their wondrous works on behalf of mankind- and are certainly no less lacking in plausibility than the stories of your followers."

--Celsus

But even more to the point is this observation by the author of the page.

Celsus' books, along with those of Porphry and others, were condemned by order of Valentinian III and Theodosious in 448CE. Celsus' writing is one of the few writings made in response to christian claims that survives today in any form; the church, beginning with its first alliances with Roman power in Constantine's time, never took criticisms lightly; anyone with the audacity to question their claims was branded a "heretic," and their books were banned and burned, often alongside their authors. Celsus is one of the handful of critics who have not been written completely out of history.

The strongest evidence then is what the Christians themselves say. Having destroyed most of the evidence of dissent they cannot now say "well, there is no evidence!" That's the equivalent of a kid murdering his parents and asking for mercy because he is an orphan. We owe Origen a debt of thanks for preserving as much of Celsus' as he did. While burning books the Christians forgot to burn this one and it gives us at least a window into what the Greco-Romans were thinking.


http://members.aol.com/PS418/celsus.html

[Forum Monk]

Please try to listen to what I'm saying to you, rather than viewing everything through the red mist of your fear that your religiion is under attack. I know you're not thick or stupid, so this can be the only explanation for why you seem completely unable to absorb the simplest information.

Come off it Ishtar. You are not nor can you attack my religion. I am not defending any religion as I already said. This entire premise is bull. A while back on a different thread, I agreed there is a commonality running through the old mythologies and the biblical stories. I believe it more that possible that certain mythological characters and certain biblical are obviously based on the same characters. No problem for that. That is not the premise under which you opened this thread and now that the premise is disintegrating, you are falling back to another topic. So if not an astrological allegory, allegory of what? What is the larger or hidden story being told? The greeks were already fairly along in their knowledge of astronomy at the time of the christian era so it is improbable that the Jesus stroy is an allegory of the sun and play between light and dark. Come on. These people weren't primitive.

I want only your opinion on the astronomy and even that, now, I'm beginning to wonder if I will trust as you don't seem to be understanding the simplest points I'm making to you, so how can I be sure that you understood what the film said on the astronomy aspect? I'm sure you sat down to watch it determined to find fault with it, so your opinion, even on this area, is becoming increasingly worthless to me

I understand how you could think this way since I don't agree with you. I have given my opinion on the astronomy and yet you it doesn't seem to register. I will make it even more clear soon.

In fact, I think I'm going to have to get a second opinion now, from someone more disinterested than yourself, who doesn' t view everything through a Christian conditioned prism. So don't sweat it. Enjoy the rest of your weekend.

Who's sweating?

[Forum Monk]

Capitulation may be the wrong word but it is certainly an acknowledgement that they were trying to defend against the charge that there was nothing new in Christianity. Why would they defend their religion against charges which were not being made? In order to come up with the whole theory of diabolical mimicry they put themselves in the untenable position of saying that "the devil outsmarted god." They must have been very desperate indeed to make such an absurd point. I wouldn't expect a politician to stand up and declare "I am not a child molester" unless someone had, in fact, called him a child molester.

I agree with you on this point Min. I thought Ishtar was claiming that the early christian writers were agreeing that the christian story was a derivitive of the so-called pagan mythologies. She did not say that.

You are right. The people of the age were saying "so what is new?" but I tend agree that RC belief system was more than likely "borrowing" in order to gain wide-spread acceptance, especially by the time of the 4rd century.

[Digit]

Ther's nowt wrong with Monk's astronomical knowledge Ish, trust me.

(Ther's nowt wrong) Yorkshire dialect for 'there's nothing wrong,' Monk.

[Forum Monk]

If you mean "why not say that the stories of Mithras and Horus are also astrological allegories", that's exactly what the astrotheists ARE saying.

When speaking of astrology in this thread we must clarify that we are speaking of "western astrology" which has morphed into its present form of the familiar 12 signs of the zodiac in relatively recent times; say, from the golden age of greece.

There are three main independent branches of astrology today, namely Western astrology, Indian or Jyotish astrology, and Chinese or East Asian astrology. The study of Western astrology and the belief in it, as part of astronomy, is first found in a developed form among the ancient Babylonians; and directly or indirectly through the Babylonians, it spread to other nations. It came to Greece about the middle of the 4th century B.C., and reached Rome before the advent of the Christian era. In India and China, astronomy and astrology developed largely independently.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_astrology

While the Babylonians (Vedic astrologers as well) were probably the first to divide the ecliptic into 12 zones they did not have the same meanings as modern astrology. The traditional signs began to be fixed during the reign of Ramses II in the 13th century BC.

It is thought that some of the astrological signs of the zodiac originated in Egypt, although most did originate in Babylon. Aries the ram appears for the first time in an Egyptian zodiac, although the head of a goose was also used as a symbol by the Egyptians. It is also possible that the sign of Gemini the Twins first appeared in Egypt, named after the two bright stars Castor and Pollux, which were called the "Two Stars" by the Egyptians. There is also evidence of a Babylonian origin for Gemini however, as the symbol of the twins appears there too. Leo the Lion is almost certainly Egyptian in origin, as the Babylonian name for the same constellation was the Great Dog. Virgo the virgin is quite likely to have originated with the Egyptian grain goddess Nidaba, as in Egypt the harvest began when the full moon was in Virgo. (Note: her article says Nidaba was Sumerian). However, In Babylon the equivalent constellation was called the Great Mother.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_astrology

Its important to note, however, the basis of egyptian astrology was fundementally different in that the ecliptic was divided into 36 decans of 10 degrees. Only after the conquest by the greeks, did the concepts merge.

Clearly if a tale is to be told by the movement of the sun or planets through segments of the ecliptic, then the tale by necessity would have had different meanings according to the cultural interpretations of the regions and their solar significance. If, for example, the sun was rising in the constellation scorpio, today we may make astrological interpretation according to significance of the scorpion, but if our culture did not recognize the scorpion, rather, another element, our interpretation would be according to our cultural beliefs of our constellations. So the important point I am making here is, in order to fit the biblical stories into a astrological context it must be clear that such context did not begin to emerge until Alexander the Great. In other words at the absolute earliest, 3rd century BC. and since Mithras and Horus may share common traits and possibly emerge from a common tradition, the modern zodiac could not have played a part in the development and spread of those myths.

So if Mithras and Horus, for example, are to be considered astrological allegories, then it becomes necessary to craft an allegory and backfit it into the Mithras or Horus mythology since both were clearly established 1000s of years prior to the 2300 year old zodiac in use today.

In my opinion, the modern. northern, constellations are shown to clearly represent greek mythology but this is not necessarily true of the zodiacal signs. The zodiacal characters and their mythology emerged from the ancients relating certain earthly phenomenon to the position of stars, planets and the sun. For example, to the egyptians, the sun was in a certain decan when the harvest season arrived so that decan became associated as the decan of harvest. In another expample, Sirius would rise during the season of Nile flooding, so Sirius became associated with enriching of the land for crops, a sort of harbinger of spring floods and planting. The zodiac became a way of predicting earthly events based on celestial events. They were never intended to tell a story. That came later by relatively modern theorists who want to put more significance into their practices and beliefs.

[Forum Monk]

The Three Kings.
It is said as part of the astrological allegory, that Jesus was visited by "Three Kings" who followed a star in the east to place where Christ was laid. The three kings being the biblical magi. The kings are depicted as the three belt stars of Orion which are seen in the image rising in the southeast, on 24 Dec in the year 1BC from a location in Israel. (note the time is set for eastern US timezone (which didn't exist in 1BC) but if you add 8 hours, you will get the local time in Israel.

The belt stars are circled and the direction of motion noted.



While the adoration of the magi is mentioned in the gosples, the number of magi is never noted. The quantity is from a later tradition.

I can find no evidence whatsoever, that the belt stars were ever referred to as the three kings by any culture prior to the middle ages. It was said, dutch sailors referred to them as the three kings. http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/G ... rion*.html

These Arabian titles of δ, ε, and ζ, although now applied to them individually, were at first indiscriminately used for the three together; but they had other names also, — Al Nijād, the Belt; Al Nasaḳ, the Line; Al Alḳāṭ, the Golden Grains, Nuts, or Spangles; and Faḳār al Jauzah, the Vertebrae in the Jauzah's back. Niebuhr cited the modern Arabic Al Mīzān al Ḥaḳḳ,º the Accurate Scale-beam, so distinguishing them from the curved line of the fainter c, θ, ι, d, and κ, Al Mīzān al Baṭīl, the False Scale-beam. The Chinese similarly knew them as a Weighing-beam, with the stars of the sword as a weight at one end.

They were the Jugula and Jugulae of Plautus, Varro, and others in Roman literature; the Balteus, or Belt, and the Vagina, or Scabbard, of Germanicus. The Zona of Ovid may have been taken from the Ζώνη of Aristotle.

The early Hindus called them Iṣus Trikāṇḍā, the Three-jointed Arrow; but the later transferred it to the nakshatra title, Mrigaçiras.

The Sogdian Rashnawand and the Khorasmian Khawiya have significations akin to our word "Rectitude," which this straight line of stars personified. The Rabbi Isaac Israel said that it was the Mazzārōth, Mazzālōth, or Mazlātha that most of his nation applied to the zodiac.

Riccioli cited Baculus Jacobi, which became in popular English speech Jacob's Rod or Staff, — the German Jakob Stab, — from the tradition given by Eusebius that Israel was an astrologer, as, indeed, he doubtless was; and some had it Peter's Staff. Similarly, it with the Norse Fiskikallar, or Staff; the Scandinavian Frigge Rok, Frigg's, or Freya's Distaff, — in West Gothland Frigge Rakken, — and Maria Rok, Mary's Distaff; in Schleswig, Peri-pik. In Lapland it was altered to Kalevan Miekka, Kaleva's Sword, or still more changed to Niallar, a Tavern; while the Greenlanders had a very different figure here, — Siktut, the Seal‑hunters, bewildered when lost at sea, and transferred together to the sky.

The native Australians knew the stars as Young Men dancing a corroboree, the Pleiades being the Maidens playing for them; and the Poignave Indians of the Orinoco, according to Von Humboldt, as Fuebot, a word that he said resembled the Phoenician.

The University of Leipsic, in 1807, gave to the Belt and the stars in the Sword the new title Napoleon, which a retaliating Englishman offset by Nelson; but neither of these has been recognized on star‑maps or -globes.

p316 Seamen have called it the Golden Yard-arm; tradesmen, the L, or Ell, the Ell and Yard, the Yard-stick, and the Yard-wand, as occupying 3° between the outer stars, — the Elwand of Gavin Douglas; Catholics, Our Lady's Wand; and the husbandmen of France and along the Rhine, Râteau, the Rake. In upper Germany it has been the Three Mowers; and it is often the Magi, the Three Kings, the Three Marys, or simply the Three Stars, that Tennyson had in his Princess,—

[Forum Monk]

This image taken soon after the first shows the rising of Sirius, which in the movie is called the star of the east. I have reproduced the image in the movie depicting the alignment between the belt and the Sirius on Dec 24. This is a bit misleading because this alignment never changes, the date is significant to alignment. It "points", more or less, to the direction of sun rise (only during the first hours of dusk).



My only point from the beginning of this thread has been, the belt has preceeded Sirius, not followed it.

[Forum Monk]

The constellation parade actually plays out long before sunrise. the following frame shows Orion and Sirius setting in the west horizon a few hours before sun rise. The alignment is now pointing south-westerly so in the allegory, the pointing to sunrise is only valid in the first hours of the evening.