One of the best facets of studying myth and religion is the amount of weirdness there is to be found. Some of the weirdness involves people interpreting myth and religion in new (or sometimes old) ways and making connections between the seemingly disparate. Some of the weirdness springs from myth itself, in the way that it mirrors itself across time and culture and the layers that pile one atop the other like archeological strata. This week’s installment will feature both. Better yet, it’s a video so you won’t have to follow my mind chasing tangents.

I have not checked every assertion made in this video, so i cannot vouch for every piece of information. Some i know to be stretching the truth; though the field is dominated by interpretations, multiple translations and incomplete pictures, there are things we know. Fortunately, the problems with the video are not central to the thesis. They occur in an attempt to connect every savior myth directly and exactly. Myth never works that way, and while the creator of the video may have suggested otherwise in an attempt to clean up and compress the information, it does detract from the total experience.

What is correct outweighs what is incorrect. The heavens were both literal and figurative to ancient man. Until a period in Egyptian history (and more recently elsewhere), everything was dictated by the activity of the heavens…up to and including regicide. We know very well that the ancients were excellent astronomers. Witness tiny holes hewed in solid rock that allow light to pass into a sacred chamber only at a certain time on a certain day. We also know that astronomical numbers and observations have a strong presence in myth: as both personification of the heavens and tools to pass information across generations. And we can be sure that there’s no such thing as an original myth. The original myth is buried far deeper than Egypt or Mesopotamia. Where it comes from is a mystery, but this video almost certainly points in the right direction.