In December
2020, there has been much talk of a “Christmas Star.” It is actually a close planetary conjunction
between Jupiter and Saturn. The closest pass happened last night, December 21st, the Winter Solstice. I have added pictures below.
In early evenings of June 2015, there was
a fairly close conjunction of Venus and Jupiter (the second and third brightest objects in the
night sky, after the moon.) They didn’t
get as close as this conjunction.
What might that original “Christmas
star” have been? Paul Meier is a Christian
pastor and former history professor at Western Michigan University. [First, an “aside.” For trivia buffs, Western Michigan is the
school that the real Tim Allen and his fictional counterpart, Tim Taylor (on Home
Improvement) attended.] Meier's thoughts are the basis for a lot of what is contained here.
The idea of a star twinkles throughout
Hebrew history. Numbers 24:17, written
by Moses, was a bit of Hebrew
poetry, spoken by a false prophet who was trying to “profit” off of cursing
Israel. (His name was Balaam.) Instead of a curse, part of what Balaam said
was:
I see Him, but not now:
I look upon Him, but not near;
A star shall come out of Jacob [the ancestor
of Israel];
A scepter shall rise out of Israel…”
As Jews over the centuries hoped for their
Messiah, their Anointed One [which is what “Christ” means], many expected a
star to accompany Him. The six-pointed Star of David [King David]
has symbolized the People of Israel from Old Testament times to today’s Israeli
flag. The five-pointed Star of Solomon, David’s son, and David’s six pointed
star, show up in stone at archaeology sites.
Scientists and Bible scholars have offered
explanations for the “Star of Bethlehem.” The “Star” could have been a miracle
sign, a miracle star, a supernova, a comet, or a conjunction of planets. If it was a one or more observable
astronomical events, ancient records can supply some insight. Ancient Chinese astronomy records are the
best. But the appearance of something miraculous cannot be tested—or
discounted, for that matter.
Magi was the technical term for the Wise
Men, a term with shadings of “magicians.”
They probably came from Persia (modern-day Iran) to Bethlehem. Why would
they do this? One possibility is that God used the Magis’ fascination with
astrology to draw them to Judea. In ancient astrology, the giant planet Jupiter
was considered the “King’s Planet,” for it represented to the Romans the
highest god and ruler of the universe: Marduk to the Babylonians and Zeus to
the Greeks. In Hebrew Jupiter is called
"Sedeq", meaning "righteousness", a term also used
for the Messiah.
The ringed planet Saturn was seen as the
shield or defender of Palestine, while the constellation of Pisces, which was
also associated with Syria and Palestine, represented epochal events and
crises. So Jupiter encountering Saturn in the sign of the Fishes would have
meant that a divine and cosmic ruler was to appear in Palestine at a
culmination of history.
Jupiter and Saturn traveled very close to
each other in the night sky, and in May, September, and December of that year,
they appeared almost joined. Mars joined
the configuration in February of 6 B.C. In
6 BC, there were eclipses of Jupiter by the Moon in Aries. Jupiter’s status as
a kingly star was amplified when Jupiter was in close conjunctions with the
Moon. The second occluding on April 17 coincided precisely when Jupiter was 'in
the east', a condition mentioned twice in the biblical account about the Star
of Bethlehem.
Jesus was born sometime between 6 and 4
B.C., with B.C. numbers running opposite our AD numbers. This confusion arose
because the man who developed this timeline miscalculated on the date of the
founding of Rome. We know that Jesus had
to have been born this soon because King Herod the Great died in March or April
of 4 B.C. He could have been born as
much as two years before, though, because rotten Herod, according to the Bible,
ordered all the baby boys in Bethlehem under the age of two to be killed. Herod had found out about the matter of
another King being born and wanted Him killed.
In 1871, the English astronomer John Williams
published a list of comets taken from Chinese records. Comet No. 52 on the
Williams list appeared for some seventy days in March-April of 5 B.C. near the
constellation Capricorn and would have been visible in both the Far and Near
East. As each night wore on, the comet would seem to have moved westward across
the southern sky. [Did you track
the movements of the comet from spring 2020?
Did any of you see the much brighter Hale-Bopp Comet in the late
1990s?]
The time is also very appropriate. This
could indeed have been the Wise Men‘s marker. Comet No. 53 on the Williams list
is a tailless comet, which could have been a nova, an exploding star. No. 53
appeared in March-April of 4 B.C. — a year after the comet with the tail. It was visible all over the Far and Middle
East.
Dr. Meier thinks it happened this way: The conjunctions from 7-6 B.C. altered the Wisemen to look for important developments in Palestine. Maybe some Jews living near the alerted them to Old Testament interpretations. The comet of 5 B.C. really emphasized this idea and set them on their way. The supernova of 4 BC appeared after they had stopped in Jerusalem and spoken to suspicious King Herod. Dr. Meier believes that Jesus might have been born in the winter of 5-4 B.C. He has been to the Holy Land many times and has asserted that shepherds do, indeed, stay out "watching their flocks by night", even in Judean winters.
On the other hand, maybe the planetary conjunctions came closer to Jesus' actual birth in 6 B.C., and the Wise Men simply got there later. The story in Matthew speaks of the Holy Family being in a house and refers to Jesus as a Child, not a Baby. Maybe the family had planned to stay on in Bethlehem, to get away from Nazarene gossip about the parents getting married and Mary being pregnant before a full year of betrothal.
On December 21, 2020, Jupiter and Saturn appeared closer in Earth’s night sky than they have since 1226 A.D. They were not fully joined, though. Jupiter and Saturn sat just 0.1 degrees
apart, or a mere one-fifth the width of the Moon, as the Moon appears to us. They did look quite close, though, to the naked eye.
December 21st was also the
Winter Solstice in the Northern Hemisphere.
This was the first day of winter and the longest night of the year. The Northern Hemisphere is tilted away from
the Sun at this time. This has nothing
to do with how close or far we are from the Sun. In fact, we’re slightly closer to the Sun in
January than at any other time of the year!
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