The Planet Uranus Testifies of Christ

by John P. Pratt

Reprinted from Meridian Magazine (18 Jun 2004)
©2004 by John P. Pratt. All rights Reserved.

Index, Home

Contents
1. Chronos
1.1 84 x 84 Years
1.2 "12 o'clock" Star
1.3 Chinese Calendar
2. Chronos Calendar
2.1 Outer Planet Orbits
2.2 Cycle of Life
2.3 Adam
2.4 Christ
2.5 Book of Mormon
3. Conclusion
Notes
The planet Uranus (Chronos) not only tracks the earth's millennia, but also testifies of precise dates for Adam and Jesus Christ.

In a recent Meridian article it was pointed out that the orbit of each of the planets in our solar system appears to have been designed to keep track of time, just as the Lord explained to Abraham.[1] It was there noted that the planet Uranus was especially well suited for keeping track of long periods of time. This article shows how that planet is the master time keeper not only for the Hebrew calendar, but also the Chinese calendar. Moreover, it also tracks short periods of time, including important dates in the lives of both Adam and Christ.

The planet Uranus (Chronos).

1. Chronos

In this article, the planet Uranus is called "Chronos" for two reasons. First, it is a much better sounding name. Secondly, Chronos was the name of the Greek god of time, which leads to all of our words like chronology, chronometer, and chronic. That concept fits that planet perfectly because it seems to be the master time keeper. In Roman times, it was not clear what planet Chronos referred to, and it became associated with the planet Saturn. The planet Uranus, discovered in 1781, was unknown to the Romans. It turns out it is actually visible to the unaided eye, appearing as a very faint star, if one knows exactly where to look in a completely dark sky. To me it seems probable that the planet was known to Enoch and that Chronos may indeed have originally referred to the planet Uranus. Hence, in this article the planet Uranus is called Chronos.

1.1 84 x 84 Years

The orbital period of Chronos is almost exactly 84 years. The number 84 equals twelve times seven, which makes Chronos useful in reckoning years by sevens, as does the Hebrew calendar. That is very convenient because there are 12 constellations in the zodiac, through which the planets all move. That means that Chronos spends about one Hebrew sabbatical cycle in each constellation. Is that just a coincidence or could the Hebrew calendar have a tie to Chronos?

One clue that Chronos is designed to reckon the entire seven millennia of world history is that counting 12 sets of 84 years equals 1,008 years, which is very close to one millennium. Counting seven sets of those millennia yields 7,056 years. In other words, counting 84 sets of 84 years yields exactly 7,056 years, divided nicely into seven equal parts.[2] This very nice pattern suggests further investigation. Is there any way to verify that the Lord actually had this use in mind? If so, is there a natural starting point?

Regulus is the heart of the Lion.

1.2 The "12 o'clock" Star

There is a bright star which traditionally is the "King" of all the stars, and which heads the four stars which represent the clock numerals 12, 3, 6, 9 in the great circle in the sky which is the path of all the planets. These four stars were treated in detail in another article[3], but for the purposes of this paper it suffices that the star called Regulus, the Heart of the Lion, is the "12 o'clock" star, which marks the beginning point of the clock. So the question arises, when does the planet Chronos cross the twelve? Using astronomical terms, when is the conjunction of Chronos with Regulus? There should be (at least) one such conjunction every 84 years. Do these conjunctions form a pattern which fits into a reasonable scheme for the 7 millennia of world history?

It turns out that there was a conjunction of Chronos with Regulus in the year 4005 BC. That date is very near the date derived in these articles for the "Beginning of Mortality" of 4001 BC,[4] which suggests that we are on the right track in thinking that Chronos might be useful to reckon the seven millennia, at least according to one calendar.

If this is correct thinking then let us consider where the "Meridian of Time" would fall, being after four millennia. It would come in the year AD 28. Did anything happen then? That was very shortly before the Savior's baptism on Sat 6 Oct AD 29 and the beginning of his public ministry on Sat 6 Apr AD 30.[5] The actual conjunctions of Chronos and Regulus can vary from the average date of every 84 years by a year or so. Also, there can be up to three conjunctions because the planet travels in a looped path. Figure 1 shows just how close the conjunction of Chronos and Regulus was on the very day that Christ began his public ministry. Thus, the evidence is mounting that the Lord is indeed using Chronos to measure the great periods of time of the millennia.[6]

Figure 1: Chronos-Regulus Conjuction. The close conjunction at the beginning of Christ's public ministry completed 48 orbits of Chronos since Adam.
Another clue that this is all part of the same big pattern is that the Hebrew sabbatical year fits it perfectly also. Each Hebrew year is designated by the numbers 1 to 7, with the 7th being the sabbath year, even as Saturday, the seventh day, is the Hebrew sabbath. It turns out that the year AD 28 is year 1 of seven year cycle, as was 4005 BC.[7] So Chronos is not only theoretically able to count years by sevens, it also just happens to align with the actual way they are counted.

1.3 The Chinese Calendar

The 84 years of the orbit of Chronos also equals 7 x 12, which makes Chronos useful in reckoning years by twelves. Is there any calendar which counts years by dozens? Yes, the Chinese calendar groups years in twelves. Could the Chinese calendar also have a tie to Chronos?

Because the Chinese calendar has never been mentioned in any of my articles, it seems appropriate to explain why it may also have an inspired origin. Who are the Chinese? That should be a subject for several volumes, but let me make one brief speculation. The story of the origin of both the Chinese and of the Jaredites is very similar. The Jaredites left Babylon, headed north and built barges to cross a great inland sea, which must have been the Caspian sea (Ether 2:5-7). Then they went on to later build more barges to cross the Pacific Ocean, perhaps leaving from the coast of China. The Chinese claim to have migrated from the tower of Babel about the same time, and to have followed the Yellow River to where a prophet went up on a mountain to pray.[8] So the possibility seems very real to me that the Chinese are descendants of Jaredites who might have not completed the final leg of the journey. The Jaredites had great wisdom, and might have had access to calendar cycles which have been lost to others.

So the question arises, when does the 12-year cycle of the Chinese calendar begin? That first year is called the Year of the Rat, and it turns out that both the years AD 28 and 4005 BC were the Year of the Rat.[9] So both the Chinese 12-year cycle and the Hebrew 7-year cycle begin in the first year of 84-year Chronos cycle. And the cycle is accurate enough that Chronos-Regulus conjunctions can be used to reckon time for all 7,056 years.

This evidence all indicates that Chronos may indeed have been designed to reckon time in the same way that prophets were instructed to do. It fits exactly with what Abraham was shown about the planets being designed to reckon time. But is Chronos useful only for long term reckoning? Until this week I had thought so, but now it is clear how a daily Chronos Calendar could work.

2. Chronos Calendar

The only planetary calendars which have been described in my articles are for the planets Venus and Mercury. The big clue to figuring them out was given by the Native Americans who told us that Venus was symbolic of their god who was born, died, and resurrected similarly to the evening and morning star cycles of Venus (and Mercury). When I applied those traditions to the birth, death and resurrection dates of Christ, the whole calendar fell into place. Venus indeed resurrected on the very Easter Sunday morning when the Savior also resurrected.

But what about the outer planets which are more distant from the sun that is the earth? They do not experience the evening and morning star cycles, but they instead have only one "all night" cycle. How can a calendar be made for them? Until this week, I had never tried to make a life cycle calendar for any of the outer planets. That cycle is dependent on where the sun is (synodic period) and I felt that the position relative to the stars such as Regulus (sidereal period) was far more important. But on Tue 15 June 2004 all of the essential details became clear to me. The life-cycle calendar is not only possible for the outer planets, but the Lord seems to be using it. Many people have asked me about the potential significance of the rare Venus transit which just occurred. I have responded that the important date on the Venus calendar is not the date of the transit (8 June), but the date of its resurrection (15 June). I'm not sure what else might have happened on 15 June, but to me it is important that the entire scheme for the life-cycle of the outer planets became clear.[10] Let us briefly look at only the highlights of such a calendar for Chronos.

Figure 2: Retrograde Motion. Outer planets appear to loop backwards as the earth passes them.

2.1 Outer Planet Orbits

The outer planets do not simply go smoothly across the sky as one might expect. That is, one might expect a planet like Chronos, which is in a nearly circular orbit, to simply move in a nearly straight line through the twelve constellations of the zodiac. Instead it moves in loops, as do Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. The reason is that as the earth passes them in its own orbit, the outer planets appear to move backwards in what is termed "retrograde" motion (see Figure 2).

2.2 Cycle of Life

An outer planet is "born" when it rises in the east just before the sun (heliacal rising), and then immediately disappears in the light of the rising sun. The next morning it rises a few minutes earlier and is visible for a longer period of time before sunrise. Each night it rises earlier until it rises exactly opposite from the sun. That day, when it rises as the sun sets, it is up all night, setting only at sunrise. That corresponds to what we called the "prime" of life of Venus, when it was nearly highest and most dominant in the sky. That point occurs when the earth is passing the planet, that is, in the middle of its retrograde motion (Point 5 in Figure 2). Then the planet sets earlier and earlier every night until finally it sets just after sunset. On that day it "dies" and the next day it is invisible because it sets while the sun is still bright enough after sunset to render it invisible. The planet is then invisible while it passes on the far side of the sun until the next heliacal rising.

So the birth, prime and death points of the life-cycle of an outer planet are easy to identify. The difference from an inner, evening-morning star planet, is that it does not "resurrect" after dying in the west, by rising as a morning star in the east. Instead, it simply starts another life-cycle at birth. In other words, the inner planets have two distinct parts, an "evening" and a "morning" star phase, whereas the outer planets have only one "all-night" cycle.

Moreover, the outer planets display the retrograde motion which the inner planets don't, so we must improvise somewhat to complete the analogy between them. Here is a first proposal at how to compare the two. Each key orbital day is a "holy day" which begins a period of many days.[11]

The milestones during life are more clear in the outer planets and the milestones in the next life are more clear in the inner planets. In particular, after the "birth" of an outer planet, it reverses direction when its retrograde motion begins (Point 4 in Figure 2). That could correspond to becoming an "adult" which was the next phase defined for the inner planets.[12] Then comes "prime" which means when either an inner or outer planet is most dominant (middle of retrograde motion, Point 5 in Figure 2). But then what should the next outer phase of life be called, where the retrograde motion ends (Point 6 in Figure 2)? There is a corresponding point for Venus in which the planet is brightest, which occurs two or three weeks after the planet is highest in the sky. Until now, that point has been overlooked in my work and the two points (highest and brightest) were combined into the Prime date. Because the points are clearly separated for the outer planets, it is here proposed to separate them for Venus also. But what should this new point be called?

We in the West might use the word "retirement" or "old age" to describe the period after the prime of life and before death. But in the East, older people are revered for their wisdom. It is there said that a life of 80 years should be divided into ages 0-20 as youth, 20-40 as adult worker, 40-60 for meditation, and 60-80 for teaching. Another word for teacher is "master," as in the apprentice, journeyman, master progression or in the neophyte, disciple, master relationship. So I propose "master" as the name of the new point. The following table summarizes how these holy days relate to the orbital planetary positons.

Holy DayInner PlanetOuter Planet
1 Creationlow in east(invisible)
1 Quickeningsets in east(invisible)
1 Birthrises in westrises in east
1 Adultlow in westbegin retrograde
1 Primehighest in westrises at sunset
1 Masterbrightest in westend retrograde
1 Deathsets in westsets in west
1 Resurrectionrises in east(invisible)
1 Lordhigh in east(invisible)
Table 1. Life-cycle holy days of the inner and outer planets.

The length of these cycles varies greatly for the different outer planets. For Mars this (synodic) cycle requires 780 days. The cycle gets shorter for each more distant planet because the length depends on when the sun causes the planet to appear and disappear. As the planet gets very distant, the period approaches one earth year in length (369.66 days for Chronos). That exact period is maintained on the Chronos calendar by approximately alternating years of 364 and 377 days according to a fixed pattern which always keeps the first day aligned with a 13-day trecena of the Sacred Round. Now let us see the results of keeping time in Chronos cycles.

2.3 Adam

There has not yet been time to determine the exact points for all of the holy days on the Chronos calendar, but the points where the planet is visible are determined astronomically.[13] Let us just consider just one in this article to give an example: the day of birth, when the planet first appears.

B-day. In an earlier article it was pointed out that there is one day in all of history indicated for the day on which Adam first breathed the breath of life (abbreviated "b-day"): Sat 17 Oct 4070 BC.[14] It was indicated so strongly that it became the starting point for an entire chronology of world history. The indication was that the day represented the day of birth on several sacred calendars, including those of Mercury and Venus. Now that a third planet calendar is finally understood, it turns out that the same day was also the day of birth on the Chronos calendar. The day was already a unique day in over 15,000 years, and this newly discovered alignment increases its rarity by another factor of 28. It was such a rare day indeed that by itself it is becoming a strong argument for the design of the solar system.

Death. But the alignments for Adam don't end there. It was also shown that there is an indicated death date for Adam which was the final day of several cycles on those very same calendars. Is that pattern also fulfilled for the Chronos calendar? I take the law of witnesses very seriously, and generally do not publish any date as meaningful unless there are at least two witnesses that it is correct. After all, the b-day of Adam falling on 1 Birth on the Chronos calendar might just be a chance coincidence. Well, the second witness now comes forth to testify. The proposed death date for Adam (Tue 26 Sep 3071 BC) fell exactly on the day 0 Birth on the Chronos calendar (the day preceding 1 Birth). Thus, the life of Adam was an exact number of Chronos cycles!

These two new witnesses for Adam add to already overwhelming evidence for the correctness of those two dates. But in that article, we saw that Adam is tied closely to Christ in all things, including chronology. Let us now see how the events in the life of Christ also tie to the Chronos Calendar.

2.4 Christ

The key dates in the life of Christ correspond to the life-cycle of all things, including planets. The important dates in his life were birth, baptism (adult), beginning his public ministry (prime), transfiguration (master, the brightest point), and resurrection. Whereas Adam lived long enough that many calendars could actually realign in his lifetime, such was not possible in the 33 year life of Christ. In there shorter periods there are often a few "birth-like" or "resurrection-like" events, among which the alignments are distributed.

Birth. In the case of the Savior, some calendars aligned on the day of his birth, such as the Hebrew, Venus and Mercury calendars. Others aligned on the birth-like event of his presentation at the temple on the fortieth day of his life, including the Priest, Enoch, and the Mercury calendars. It is on this latter date that the Chronos calendar also aligns. The day Sun 14 May 1 BC when Jesus was presented to the Jeshua priest was also the day 1 Birth on the Chronos calendar. Thus the pattern is continued.

Ministry. It has already been noted about that the beginning of the ministry of Christ occurred right at an actual conjunction of Chronos with the 12-o'clock star Regulus. That is rare because it takes Chronos 84 years to complete one cycle around the great celestial zodiac clock. The day of actual conjunctions does not always correspond to the planet's calendar, which is based on average, not actual, planetary positions. But in this case they coincide. That is, the day Sat 6 Apr AD 30 corresponds to 0 Master on the Chronos calendar. Thus, the Savior became a public teacher on the initial day of the Chronos cycle representing becoming a master teacher. Thus we actually have two witnesses from Chronos of the importance of this day: the calendrical and the observational.

Transfiguration. The day proposed previously for the Savior's transfiguration (Sat 2 Oct AD 32) was shown to be a holy day on all of the sacred calendars known at that time. Now that a new calendar is being discovered, it turns out that the day was also 0 Birth on the Chronos calendar. Thus, we have yet another witness of the correctness of that date.

There are also many other alignments of the Chronos calendar in the life of the Savior, but it is too early to publish them, as the precise cycle and method of intercalation is not yet known with certainty. These three examples, however, illustrate the idea, and the correctness of the essentials of the model.

2.5 Book of Mormon

Let us add just one example which ties to the restoration of the gospel. It has already been shown that the date of the "resurrection" of the Book of Mormon (Thu 25 Mar 1830) was the one day in 500 years that was the most similar to the day of the resurrection of Christ.[15] Now there is one more witness of the importance of that date. It was also the day 1 Birth on the Chronos calendar. That not only ties the date to Christ, but also to Adam, whose b-day was also 1 Eagle (Sacred Round) and 1 Birth (Chronos). Thus we see that Adam and Christ are linked indirectly by the Book of Mormon.

The following table summarizes the alignments discussed so far for the day 1 Birth on the Chronos calendar. I couldn't resist throwing in one bonus date: that of the ordination of the prophet Enoch (D&C 107:48). Besides the alignments listed, it was also the beginning day of the Priest cycle, which seems especially appropriate for an ordination. Enoch also ties closely to Adam, being his scribe (D&C 107:57). Enoch's proposed birth date is also on 1 Eagle.

EventDateSacred RoundVenusMercuryChronos
Adam b.Sat 17 Oct 4070 BC1 Eagle1 Bir1 Bir1 Bir
Enoch ordainedSat 5 May 3352 BC1 Eagle1 Cre1 Cre1 Bir
Adam d.Tue 26 Sep 3071 BC13 Grass0 Cre0 Cre0 Bir
Jesus to PriestSun 14 May 1 BC1 Grass-1 Bir1 Bir
TransfigurationSat 2 Oct AD 3213 Light0 Adt0 Adt0 Bir
Book of MormonThu 25 Mar 18301 Eagle1 Res1 Cre1 Bir
Table 2. Some events occurring at "Birth" on the Chronos Calendar.

3. Conclusion

It was shown that the planet Chronos (Uranus) is a sacred timekeeper not only in its 84-year sidereal orbital period through the starry background, but also in its 369.66-day synodic life-cycle period which forms the basis of a Chronos Calendar. The 84-year period, as measured from conjunctions with the "12 o'clock" star Regulus is always aligned with the starting year of both the Hebrew 7-year sabbatical cycle as well as the Chinese 12-year cycle. Moreover, it divides history into seven millennia. The Chronos calendar was developed as the first example of the pattern to be used for all of the outer planets. It was shown to be another witness for key dates in the life of Adam, Christ, and of the resurrection of the Book of Mormon. Even though it is very dim, this planet has an important place in the planetary sequence revealed to Abraham as having been designed by the Lord to reckon time and to testify of Christ (Moses 6:63).

Notes

  1. Pratt, John P., "The Planets Testify of the Creator," Meridian Magazine (14 Apr 2004). Note that Pluto is not considered to be in the set of time keeping planets.
  2. Another point is that 84 x 84 years is also 144 x 49 years, so it also is equal to an exact number of jubilees. Jubilees will be covered in detail in another upcoming article.
  3. The four principal stars are Regulus = 12 o'clock, Antares = 3 o'clock, Fomalhaut = 6 o'clock, and Aldebaran = 9 o'clock. See Pratt, John P., "The Lion and Unicorn Testify of Christ, Part II: The Four Royal Stars," Meridian Magazine (5 Dec 2001).
  4. Pratt, John P., "Venus and the Beginning of Mortality," Meridian Magazine (9 July 2003).
  5. All of my proposed historical dates are listed at "Religious Chronology Summary," which has links to the paragraphs of the articles in which each date was proposed.
  6. I know that readers will calculate that this implies that the last millennium would begin in the year 2044. Before anyone gets too excited about predicting the Second Coming, remember that these are only approximate times. The Savior was born some 28 years before the end of the fourth millennium on the Chronos (Sidereal) Calendar, and it is only in retrospect that we can identify what event seems to be tied to the actual start of the fifth millennium. And nothing more happened than the Savior beginning his ministry. There are at least a dozen sacred calendars, and each has a different starting point for the last millennium. So the existence of these calendars only indicates general time patterns, but they do not predict the exact timing of any known events.
  7. This is the traditional interpretation, that the Hebrew year from the autumn of AD 27 to AD 28 was the first year of the cycle. There has been a scholarly disagreement on the subject because there is some evidence that the following year might have been the sabbath at the time of Christ. Recent evidence from Blosser has tipped the scales to favor the traditional view. See Finegan, Jack, Handbook of Biblical Chronology (Peabody, Mass.: 1998), pp. 116-122.
  8. To my knowledge, the suggestion that the Chinese are descendants of Jaredite stock was first made by Thomas Yates in Origin and Brief History of Nations (Salt Lake City: Paragon Press, 1956), pp 66-67. He also notes the Olmecs (Jaredites) had very oriental looking features and also crossed an inland sea on the way to the sacred mountain by the Pacific Ocean. The name of the mountain is Tai Shan, and he states that all Chinese are supposed to ascend it once in their life, and the monarch annually, to commune with God. The two accounts seem similar enough to merit more research, especially in the light of recent DNA tests which link some Native Americans to orientals.
  9. In AD 28 the Chinese year (of the Rat) began on Jan 14 (Julian). See Parise, Frank, ed., The Book of Calendars (New York: 1982), p. 218.
  10. One other important event of that week was the death of President Ronald Reagan, which occurred during the 13-day period of the death of Venus, and also on the day of the End of the Grain Harvest on the Jubilee Calendar.
  11. In the case of Chronos, each holy day coincides with the first day of a 13-day trecena on the Sacred Round. That is because the orbital period comes out nearly even in Sacred Rounds of 260 days each (30,680 days = 118 x 260 days). The Sacred Round is explained in more detail in Pratt, John P. "A Native American Easter: How the Ancient American Calendar Testifies of Christ," Meridian Magazine (28 Mar 2001).
  12. Inner planet phases proposed to date are: Creation, Quickening, Birth, Adult, Prime, Death, Resurrection, and Lord. See Pratt, John P. "Astronomical Witnesses of the Great Flood," Meridian Magazine (13 Aug 2003), footnote 7.
  13. The visible dates in days after the nearest conjunction with the sun which falls on the beginning day of a Sacred Round trecena are: birth 52, adult 104, prime 182, master 260, and death 312. One other known date is that in the 377-day cycle, resurrection occurs at 325, but in the 364-day year the trecena of death is deleted and resurrection occurs on 312. For both inner and outer planets only half of these holy days are considered "major," those being creation, birth, prime and resurrection. The day 52 was determined for the first appearance because it must be totally dark for Chronos to be seen. That occurs at astronomical twilight when the sun is at least 18 degrees below the horizon. At a typical latitude of 45 degrees, the path of the sun could make an angle as small as 22 degrees to the horizon, meaning that it would require about 48 days to be far enough below the horizon for astronomical twilight. Thus, 52 days (four 13-day trecenas) seemed the best choice to ensure the visibility of Chronos.
  14. Pratt, John P., "Venus and the Beginning of Mortality," Meridian Magazine (9 July 2003).
  15. Pratt, John P., "Venus and the Beginning of Mortality," Meridian Magazine (9 July 2003), section 2.5.