[evets]

"...gas from a weather balloon was trapped in a thermal pocket and reflected the light from Venus."

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Astrology is not astronomy.

[dangus]

Why does Moorehouse regard 4BC as too late? Because it’s after the census?

[stylecouncilor]

Bookmark

[zeugma]

A week or two would have sufficed to prepare for the journey. Kidger believes that the Magi traveled 540 miles, from Babylon to Jerusalem, coming straight across the desert. Every day they would rise before dawn and ride through the morning, then retire to their tents to rest during the scorching heat, then rise again in the late afternoon to travel some more. This way they could preserve their precious supply of water. Even traveling 6 hours a day at the most comfortable rate, they would have reached Jerusalem in 7 weeks. But, in a hurry to get there, they could made the trip in just 4 weeks.26 However, this direct route would have required carrying a huge supply of water – and Hughes is more realistic when he suggests that, instead, the Magi's caravan followed the normal travel route up the Euphrates River, then across to Damascus, then southward to Palestine and Jerusalem – in other words, traveling from oasis to oasis, from watered place to watered place.27

For any of you who have not done so, I would strongly recommend that you read at least the first chapter or two of Ben Hur; A Tale of Christ by Lewis Wallace. The opening chapter is the telling of the meeting of the Magi. I found it to be inspiring.

[pabianice]

“The Star,” by Arthur C. Clarke

[GoforBroke]

No no no, Occam’s razor suggests it must have been the alien mother ship!