Dowling said he had transcribed the text of the book from the akashic records, a purported compendium of mystical knowledge supposedly encoded in a non-physical plane of existence.

The title is derived from the practice in astrology of naming time periods in terms of constellations and their dominant positions in the sky, according to the earth's axial precession.

And When The world is ready to receive, lo, God will send a messenger to open up the book and copy from its sacred pages all the messages of Purity and Love.In his 1931 book Strange New Gospels, the biblical scholar Edgar J. Goodspeed noted: "Augustus Caesar reigned and Herod Antipas was ruler in Jerusalem."

[2]Goodspeed also noted that Dowling borrowed a number of details from the apocryphal Gospel of James, a work that may not be older than the fifth century, such as details about the childhood of Mary and her marriage to Joseph, the birth of Jesus in a cave, and the account of the death of Zacharias which differs from the account given by Origen and other early Fathers.

Goodspeed notes that the many ancient religions and philosophies taught, in many different countries, to young Jesus in the book seem "colored by Christian Science."