Recently, a friend I've known for decades who also happens to be a professor at a top-tier private university wrote to say that while my arguments showing correlation between the stars and the myths are compelling and indicate a world-wide pattern of celestial metaphor in operation in the scriptures and sacred stories of cultures around the planet (including the texts collected into what we call the Bible), I have not addressed the "null hypothesis."
What is the null hypothesis? In statistics and inferential analysis, the null hypothesis refers to the base-case or default explanation which the proposed alternative hypothesis is trying to displace. It is not considered enough to merely show that another explanation fits the evidence: it is also necessary to show that the accepted hypothesis (the null hypothesis) does not satisfactorily explain the evidence.
He asked what evidence I could present to argue that the stories of the Bible are not actually describing literal and terrestrial historical events (and literal and terrestrial historical persons). He points out that, if only presented with evidence that the events and figures match the constellations, one could still argue that they are also literal and historical in addition to celestial.
Of course, such an argument would not really be very credible, to try to argue that virtually every single episode and figure described in the Bible, from Genesis all the way through to Revelation, just happened to line up with the stars in addition to being literal and historical accounts of physical terrestrial persons, simply "by coincidence." He recognizes implicitly that for one to make such an argument, one would have to argue that these events -- and the stars -- were ordered by an all-seeing divine Providence beforehand. Thus, he asks what evidence I would offer to argue against a proposed "null hypothesis" in which (in his words) "the Christian God put the stars where they are in order to enable the Holy Spirit to help everyone learn the same truths before the coming of Christ?"
This is actually a version of a question that I am asked quite frequently, which is whether or not I think it is possible for the stories and persons in the Bible to be both literal and celestial. It is very helpful that my friend recognized the need to state that for such a hypothesis to be argued, one would have to argue for divine intervention: there is simply no way to argue that the vast majority of the hundreds and hundreds of figures and events described in the Bible "just happen" to correspond to the stars if not for active and basically omnipotent Providence.
For those readers who wish to believe that the events described in the Bible are in fact literal and historical (even while lining up with the constellations in remarkable and extremely specific ways, over and over), I do not wish to dissuade them from such a belief: I strongly believe in respecting the beliefs of others, as long as those beliefs are not being used to try to falsely excuse the violation of the rights of others.
That's why I have not generally spent a lot of energy arguing against this proposed "null hypothesis." However, my friend raises a very good point: if everyone believes that the earth is flat (for example), it is not enough to just show that a round earth would also explain the evidence -- a full argument for an alternative hypothesis requires showing evidence which refutes the null hypothesis as well (evidence which is difficult or impossible to explain with the flat earth hypothesis, in this example).
Therefore, I made the above video discussing some of the categories of evidence I would offer which is I believe causes some significant problems for the null hypothesis. The video is entitled "Refuting a Null Hypothesis (for the Star Myth argument)."
Please feel free to watch it if you are interested in those arguments -- and please feel free to skip it, if you do not want to question the historicity of figures and events in the ancient myths and sacred stories.
This information is intended to be helpful to others and not harmful, and is offered for those who are interested in exploring this subject (including those who have been harmed or even traumatized by proponents of literalist interpretations of the Biblical scriptures). I am absolutely convinced that the Biblical scriptures (along with the other ancient myths of the world) have as a central theme recovery from trauma -- and that this message is much more easily understood when we listen to them in the language that they are speaking, which is the language of their celestial patterns and the heavenly cycles.
And it can be shown that literalistic interpretations tend to invert their message -- which is why their message has so often had the exact opposite impact: inflicting trauma, instead of healing trauma.
