Really!! I mean goodness forbid that the Creator of the universe just put a star there to announce the birth of His Son into the world. Everyone knows that God has to fit into our little box of understanding else he isn't really God, now is he? < /sarcasm>
This statement is kind of silly. I mean, a bunch of guys in Rome who don't really think that Judea is any more or less important than any other conquered land see an obscure atrological event and think "Oh, this must mean the birth of a kind in Judea". Hardly.
Atheism makes no rational sense. Science can never prove it - nor even hint at it. Whereas the more we learn about our universe from science the more rational the notion of God becomes. Universes do not just happen.
I saw a special the other night that had a more plausible story, and which I've heard before.
In the year 7 B.C., Jupiter, Saturn and Mars aligned against a background constellation that was considered to be Israel. Jupiter represented a king, Saturn a son. I forget what Mars represented. Anyway, the "magi" or astrologers understood this to mean that a son was to be born to a king in the nation of Israel. In other words, a new king was to be born in Israel.
So the magi headed west to the capital of Israel and asked where the new king was to be born. The Jews explain that the messiah was to be born in Bethlehem. The symbolism is very interesting considering that non-Jews (gentiles) recognize the King of Israel while the Jews (or at least a lot of them) do not.
Five hundred years before the birth of Christ, Daniel the prophet was taken captive to Babylon, he was evenutally such a hit there with the king that he was allowed into a very closed sect of astronomers in which no foreigner had ever been allowed to be a member of called the Magi, according to some accounts. Babylon was to the East and the Three Kings of the East being Magi would most likely have been from Babylon.
It makes me wonder if Daniel told them to look for an astronomical event that would mark the birth of Christ and maybe, perhaps, just guessing, God began to prepare for his Son a stake of Frankincense, Murr, and Gold, to tide him over in Egypt until he could return to Israel, that began to be collected for Jesus 500 years before he was born in the flesh.
In any case Jesus himself said in Luke 21:25 "There shall be signs in the sun and in the moon and in the stars; and upon the earth, distress of nations, with perplexity, the sea and the waves roaring."
Looks like we are in for a universal shake up, where stars appear to fall, the earth reels to and fro on it's axis like a drunkard, someday man will really be living in interesting times.
There shall not be found among you
any one that makes his son or his daughter to pass through the fire,
or that uses divination or sorcery,
or an observer of signs, or a witch, (Deuteronomy 8:10)
Thus says the LORD: "Learn not the way of the nations,
nor be concerned over the signs of the heavens
because the nations are dismayed at them,
for the customs of the peoples are false. (Jeremiah 10:2-3)
For thou hast rejected thy people,
the house of Jacob,
because they are full of diviners from the east
and of soothsayers like the Philistines,
and they strike hands with foreigners.
Their land is filled with silver and gold,
and there is no end to their treasures (Isaiah 2:6-7)
There was an occultation of Saturn by the moon just a couple of weeks ago. My astrologer is vague on the meaning of this. Perhaps I don't pay her enough.
Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on, off, or alter the "Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list --
Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
The GGG Digest -- Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)
FR Lexicon·Posting Guidelines·Excerpt, or Link only?·Ultimate Sidebar Management·Headlines
PDF to HTML translation·Translation page·Wayback Machine·My Links·FreeMail Me
Gods, Graves, Glyphs topic·and group·Books, Magazines, Movies, Music
Others have made the connection with Aries. Some have pointed to a nova which seems more likely to me. Bright Jupiter is in the sky at least as often as not. The presence of Jupiter in Aries wouldn't have heralded the beginning of an astrological "age". There are no astronomical or astrological clues in Matthew, and this Aries connection is just a supposition. The Romans may have commemorated their conquest by minting coins showing Aries fleeing in vain. A portent of Jupiter in Aries would have looked pretty good in retrospect to the Romans.Coin May Link Star of Bethlehem to King of PlanetsThe Star of Bethlehem has been called many things by many people: a comet, a conjunction of planets, a supernova, a miracle, a myth. With just one biblical account, in the book of Matthew, of the star and how it caused the wise men to come to Judea in search of the newborn Jesus, exactly what it was, if indeed it was anything at all, remains an open question.
by Henry Fountain
Dr. Michael R. Molnar, an astronomer and physicist and former teacher at Rutgers University, proposes that the star was the planet Jupiter, seen in the constellation Aries the ram on April 17, 6 B.C. A Roman coin, which Dr. Molnar bought for $50 at a New York show for his collection, was minted in Syria around A.D. 6. It showed Aries looking back over his shoulder at a star. The Romans, he learned, annexed Judea in A.D. 6, and Aries first appeared on Roman coins in that year. That told him that Aries was a symbol for Judea, a fact confirmed by reading Ptolemy.
Dr. Jack Finegan, an emeritus professor at the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, Calif., and author of "The Handbook of Biblical Chronology," a standard reference on the subject, now puts Herod's death more likely at 1 B.C. John Mosley, program director at the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles and an expert on the Star of Bethlehem, said that while it may never be possible to know what the star was, "when Herod died was an actual event and should be knowable." And if Herod died in 1 B.C., he added, "you can't stretch the birth of Jesus back to 6 or 7 B.C."
Searching for the Star of BethlehemIn 5 BC, Chinese sky watchers saw a "broom-star," a comet with a tail that seemed to sweep the sky. Colin Humphreys, a researcher at the University of Cambridge in England, thinks it was this celestial fireball, which probably looked much like Comet Hyakutake, that guided the three wise men on their journey. The Chinese observers saw the comet for 70 days, plenty of time for the wise men to reach Jerusalem from their homes in Persia, Humphreys claims. Matthew's description of the star of Bethlehem, "lo, the star, which they had seen in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was," could easily describe a moving comet... Henbest suggests Matthew could have made up the tale of the star to enliven the story. Or maybe the guiding star was a miracle, the result of divine intervention. The only sure bet is the origin of the star will remain a mystery for many Christmases to come.
by Ned Rozell
Alaska Science Forum
December 12, 1996