Fortean Times Review of The Gospel and the Zodiac
May 21st, 2009 by Bill
FORTEAN TIMES REVIEW
The Sign of 12
The gospels may not be straight history, but is an astrological interpretation better?
Bill Darlison, a Unitarian minister, began researching this book when he became puzzled by the brief mention of a man carrying a jar of water in Mark’s Gospel. He identified this as the symbol of Aquarius, then found that themes of all 12 zodiacal symbols can be found in order, in Mark’s gospel.
Mark, he says, was deliberately written in this form, demonstrating that Christianity was originally a mystery religion akin to all the others around the Mediterranean. The mystery religion theory isn’t new. Recent proponents include Timothy Freke & Peter Gandy, with The Jesus Mysteries and Jesus and the Goddess, and Acharya S with The Christ Conspiracy and Suns of God. Unlike them, Darlison doesn’t claim that Jesus was the fictional creation of those who developed the earliest version of Christianity. He may have existed, and parts of his life might have been incorporated into the gospel narratives; however, Darlison says, ‘insisting that the gospels be read primarily as history has given us a distorted view of their original meaning.’
Darlison begins by looking at different scholarly approaches to the gospels, then outlines his astrological interpretations logically and lucidly, matching the zodiacal signs to the narrative of Mark. But with a reviewer’s scepticism, one wonders how significant the matching is; every sign has numerous attributes, and it would be human nature to select those which are the best match for stories or teachings in the gospel – and to ascribe certain keywords to gospel events. To take just one example, Darlison says the beheading of John the Baptist ‘illustrates the dangers of Geminian inconsistency’ because Herod was a man ‘who cannot make up his mind’. But going from the author’s own list of zodiacal attributes, if the story had been elsewhere in the gospels it could just as easily have been married up with Scorpio for death, or Sagittarius for recklessness, or Aries for impulsiveness – Taurus, ‘associated with neck/throat’. So, although Darlison argues his case well, the very nature of the exercise renders it at best an act of artistic creativity.
Following the introductory chapters, the remainder of the book covers the 12 signs, a chapter (and a chunk of Mark) to each. Usefully, an appendix contains Darlison’s own translation of Mark, divided into 12 very uneven sections; Aries covers the first three chapters and Pisces most of the last three, but most of the other signs get less than a chapter each – in some cases just 20 verses. Obviously we don’t know how close the standard version of Mark is to the original text, but it seems strange that someone should go to the trouble of creating a work of spiritual teachings based on the zodiac that is so ill-balanced.
Ultimately, for such a radical theory to be compelling, the evidence needs to be more objective and more consistent.
David V. Barrett
SUMMARY: NICE THEORY BUT NOT SUFFICIENTLY CONVINCING.