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This website is mostly aimed at providing arguments and evidence for the non-Christian, the Christian who may be struggling with what he or she believes, or those Christians who are interested in reaching out to others.
My opinions may contradict what other Christians believe, but many of my arguments are also based on arguments given by a variety of Christian sources. I especially owe a debt of gratitude to the writings of Glenn Miller, J.P. Holding, Paul Maier, Grant R. Jeffrey, Lee Strobel, and Gerald Schroeder.
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Zeitgeist On The Sun's Movement and the Southern Cross
In "Zeitgeist", Peter Joseph claims that the sun stops moving south (from the perspective of those in the Northern Hemisphere) on Dec 22nd, residing in the vicinity of the "Southern Cross" constellation for three days, before moving north again on December 25th. He says that this corresponds to Jesus' death on the "cross" and His resurrection three days later.
There's a lot wrong with this idea.
One is that that sun never stops moving north and south in relation to the people on Earth. It does slow as it reaches its lowest and highest points, but whether it "stops" for 1 day, 2 days, 3 days, 4 days, 5 days or whatever depends on how slow you consider "stopping". In fact, if the sun appears to stop for the two days following the solstice, then it also appears to stop for the two days preceding the solstice, since the sun appears to be moving just as fast approaching the solstice as it is leaving it. There is no evidence that ancient peoples considered it to have stopped for 3 days.
The second is that the "Southern Cross" constellation isn't visible from the northern hemisphere, as he claims (and, besides, it was "discovered" by either Augustin Royer or Petrus Plancius in the 17th century A.D.). It would have been visible from Jerusalem several centuries before Jesus' time (though it wasn't considered a "cross" back then, but just part of Centaurus), but by Jesus' time, it was no longer visible from the middle east, though it might have been if you were closer to the equator. But, either way, the sun did not reside in the vicinity of the Southern Cross in Jesus' day. It would have resided in the Sagittarius constellation, while the Southern Cross is in the Centaurus constellation.
The third is that Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection happened in the spring, not in December.
These "parallels" are clearly a case of Christ-mythers desperately trying to draw comparisons between astrology and the Jesus story, whether they fit or not.
"And after this time on December 25th, the Sun moves 1 degree, this time north, foreshadowing longer days, warmth, and Spring. And thus it was said: the Sun died on the cross, was dead for 3 days, only to be resurrected or born again."
I see many Christ-mythers making the claim that the sun has moved one degree north from the solstice (usually December 21st or 22nd) to December 25th. It's completely false. I used the NOAA Solar Position Calculator to calculate the sun's position in Jerusalem from 12/22 to 12/25 (I had to use the year 1 AD, since the calculator doesn't calculate for BC, but it wouldn't have been much different only a few years earlier):
On 12/22/01, the sun was at -23.69 degrees.
On 12/23/01, the sun was at -23.68 degrees
On 12/24/01, the sun was at -23.66 degrees
On 12/25/01, the sun was at -23.63 degrees
As you can see, it's only moved .06 of a degree, not a full degree as Zeitgeist claims. It isn't until January Sixth that the sun reaches -22.69 degrees, and thus has moved a single degree. That's fifteen days, not three.
Of course, I recently had a Christ-myther say that Zietgeist is considering the "Azimuth" of the sun, or its position clockwise from due north, at sunrise. He gave me the following numbers:
22 December - 117° 37.524'
23 December - 117° 37.695'
24 December - 117° 37.337'
25 December - 117° 36.381'
He says that the jump from 117° 37.337 to 117° 36.381, between the 24th and 25th, is roughly one degree. Of course, he ignores the fact that the degree measure here is the 117 (which is why you see the ° after the 117), and thus the jump he's pointing out is roughly one-sixtieth of a degree, not one degree.
However you slice it, the sun does not move one degree north anywhere near the winter solstice, by any measure.
I recently had yet another Christ-myther point out that the sun moves roughly 1 degree along the elliptical (that is, through the constellations) from the 24th and 25th. This is because the Earth moves 360 degrees around the sun over the course of a year, and there are 365 days in a year. This is correct, but it moves roughly 1 degree every day of the year, so there is no significance to it doing so between the 24th and 25th of December. Also, this is not a move to the north, as Zeitgeist claims, but a move from west to east.