by The Great Christ Comet- Revealing the True Star of Bethlehem (retail) (epub)
Accordingly, it would appear from Revelation 12:5 that the newborn baby was not the only image being created by the comet at the point of birth. Even as the comet’s coma played the part of Virgo’s baby boy, the comet as a whole seems to have been forming an enormous iron scepter that symbolized his eschatological reign over the whole earth. Together, these two images powerfully revealed that the Messiah, future autocrat of the world, was being born at that time in Judea.95
In light of the fact that Hydra was presented in Revelation 12:3–4 in terms that highlighted his royal authority and indeed his determination to attack, kill, and devour the Messiah as soon as he was born, the mention of the iron scepter in verse 5 is very striking, for it makes the point that Hydra is destined to fail. Even Hydra’s final worldwide kingdom at the end of the age would be overthrown and replaced by the Messiah’s everlasting kingdom (Revelation 12–14). The Messiah’s scepter would loom large over the whole world.
The Deliverance of the Child
In verse 5b we discover that, although the dragon Hydra was determined to devour the son of Virgo, he was unable to, because the infant child was snatched forcibly away and quickly taken to God and his throne. Scholars disagree regarding what is in view here. As far as the immediately preceding context is concerned, a reference to the deliverance of baby Jesus from Herod the Great would seem the most natural interpretation. However, as far as the rest of the chapter goes, the most plausible interpretation is that Jesus’s resurrection-ascension (the two events being viewed as one) is in view. It is probably best to allow for both senses, with John deliberately conflating the two. In other words, baby Jesus’s rescue from Herod was a foretaste of the ultimate deliverance he would come to know at his resurrection-ascension, when he would take his seat at the Father’s right hand (Acts 1:9; 2:32–36; cf. Ps. 110:1).
This somewhat awkward combination of ideas, as well as the skipping over of Jesus’s ministry and death and the most peculiar conceptualization of the resurrection-ascension as a forcible snatching of Jesus away to God and his throne (Rev. 12:5b), calls for some explanation. How are we to explain these things?
The answer is most probably found in the realization that the action remains strictly astronomical until verse 6. Only there does the scene shift from the heavens to the earth, and the focus from that point onward is the woman rather than the male child. What therefore John sees in verse 5 is apparently still part of the heavenly nativity play marking Jesus’s birth. Consequently, the reason that the male child’s snatching to God’s throne immediately follows the birth is presumably that this is how the drama marking the Messiah’s birth unfolded in the heavens. In other words, the comet baby, having descended to the point where it was clearly below Virgo’s belly and therefore was born, continued to move down toward the sunlight and the horizon, quickly disappearing from the predawn sky. If we are correct that the Sun had played the part of God on September 15, 6 BC, then it was very natural for the Sun to be envisioned as continuing to assume the role of God in the celestial nativity drama. Therefore, when the cometary baby appeared to move down toward the sunlight, it would have seemed to dedicated observers that the child was being taken into the presence of God. In the context of the conflict between the Messiah and Hydra, the speedy removal of the cometary baby would have seemed to refer to a divine rescue from Hydra.
Revelation 12:1–5: A Summary
In summary, Revelation 12:1–5 reveals the multifaceted celestial wonder that coincided with the birth of Jesus—the very sight that the Magi had seen in the eastern sky and that had prompted them to make a long journey west to Judea to worship the Messiah. In this astonishing celestial nativity drama, Virgo was playing the part of Israel/Mary, and the comet’s coma was playing the role of the messianic baby. After rising heliacally in Virgo’s womb, looking like a baby, the cometary coma remained there for many days, growing in size in the manner of a normal human baby in its mother’s womb. While the comet rose in altitude, each passing day would have meant that it was observable earlier and in darker skies. Then, after descending within Virgo’s belly, the coma would have moved down out of it, making it seem that the baby was being born. Eventually, the baby appeared to have completely vacated Virgo’s womb and at this point it was regarded as having been born. At that moment the comet as a whole apparently formed an immense scepter that stretched from the eastern horizon all the way to the western horizon. Those attuned to what was happening and interpreting it messianically would have had no question but that the Messiah was born at that very time. Finally, the cometary baby speedily disappeared into the Sun’s light (i.e., heliacally set), bringing an end to the wonder in the eastern sky.
We infer from Revelation 12:1–5 that the comet’s coma became extraordinarily large, equivalent in size to a large full-term baby at the point of birth; that the comet as a whole took the form of a long iron scepter at the point of the child’s birth; and that it must have been very bright. Further, Revelation suggests that, on the eve of the birth, there was a meteor storm radiating from the tail of Hydra.
What John writes enables us to narrow down when the celestial events took place—during the months of Ululu and Tishratu (Babylon) or Tishri and Heshvan (Judea), namely in September and October of 6 BC. Moreover, Revelation 12:1–5 enables us to narrow down the time of Jesus’s birth to mid-October (early Tishratu in Babylon and early Heshvan in Judea)96 of 6 BC. This is a plausible time of year for Jesus’s birth—it was when the Romans tended to have their censuses97 and when shepherds would certainly have been out in the fields (Luke 2:1–18).98 The cometary baby would have heliacally risen on September 29 or 30 and remained in her belly for about two weeks before slowly descending out of it to be born.
Essentially, the wonder that marked Jesus’s birth was an incredible full celestial nativity drama focused on Virgo and a great comet that seemed to bring her to life.
FIG. 7.16 Comet Hyakutake on March 21/22, 1996. The image to the right is a close-up of the coma that has been altered to highlight the pattern of the coma’s condensation of brightness. Image credit: Herman Mikuz, Črni Vrh Observatory, Slovenia: http://www.observatorij.org/BrightComets/96b2c.html.
FIG. 7.17 Comet Hale-Bopp on April 4, 1997. Image credit: E. Kolmhofer and H. Raab, Johannes Kepler Observatory, Linz, Austria (http://www.sternwarte.at).
FIG. 7.18 Comet Hyakutake on April 13, 1996. Image credit: The High School Astronomy Class at Alssundgymnasiet Sønderborg, Denmark, www.astronomy-ags.dk.
FIG. 7.19 Comet Hyakutake on March 28, 1996. Image credit: Bojan Dintinjana and Herman Mikuz, Črni Vrh Observatory, Slovenia, http://www.observatorij.org.
The Astronomical Dimension
As to how a comet could have done what Revelation 12:1–5 indicates that this 6 BC comet did, it is helpful to consider the following.
We have already seen that a cometary coma that is elliptical (oval) is ideally qualified to represent an upside-down baby.
For a comet to do (from the vantage point of an Earth-dwelling observer) what Revelation 12:2–5 describes requires very unusual comet-Earth-Sun geometry. It is possible only in the case of a narrowly inclined retrograde comet that has a close encounter with the Sun near the end of September. A few days later, the coma of such a comet would emerge over the eastern horizon in Virgo’s womb just in advance of the Sun. Observers on Earth would be able to see the coma in Virgo’s belly each day during a short window of time just before dawn, as they looked at the eastern horizon. As Earth continues on its orbit around the Sun, each day observers are able to see more and more of the stars of Virgo (from the top down) before the Sun rises. For the comet to remain in the same small area of sky, within Virgo’s belly, its orbital course and velocity would have to work in synchronization with Earth’s. The comet’s relative “stability” within Virgo’s belly would have had to last for a couple of weeks, to provide sufficient time for the lower part of Virgo to be far enough off the horizon to accommodate the cometary baby as it emerged from the womb
to be born.
What might explain the growth of the baby?
At the moment of perihelion, cometary comas are smaller than they were in the run-up to it, or will be in its aftermath, since they are receiving their most intense blast of the Sun at close range. As they subsequently move away from the Sun, escaping the worst of its compressing effect, they grow bigger. Moreover, as productive comets come toward Earth, their comas naturally become larger and larger. These two factors obviously were working together to create the impression that Virgo’s pregnancy was developing normally. The baby would have become larger and larger each day, just like a growing fetus in its mother’s womb, albeit at a greatly exaggerated rate.
At some stage, the cometary baby would have seemed to drop and descend within Virgo in the manner of a baby being born, because the retrograde comet’s orbit was straightening out after the sharp U-turn around the Sun. This would have meant that the comet could no longer keep in sync with Earth, and hence the coma could no longer maintain its relatively stable position within Virgo’s womb. The more the comet’s orbit straightened out and the more the comet moved toward Earth, the faster the comet would have seemed to human onlookers to descend within Virgo toward the eastern horizon and the Sun.
At one point, as it slowly dropped within Virgo’s belly, it would have seemed to be weighing down on her pelvic floor muscles, which naturally would have caused onlookers to envision the constellation figure as beginning labor. Educated observers could not help but attribute labor pain to Virgo. The delivery would have stretched over days, and during that time the coma would have continued to grow. Only when the whole coma had descended below the area regarded as Virgo’s vaginal opening (approximately at the level of the star 80 Virginis; see fig. 7.11) would they have regarded the baby as having been born. By that time the comet would have been getting much closer to the eastern horizon. In space, the comet was actually preparing to cut through the Earth-Sun line, moving from the east side of it to the west.
The enormous length of the tail at the point of the birth would have been due to the fact that the comet was exceptionally large and productive and close to Earth.
All of this coheres perfectly with the data about the comet that we extrapolated from Matthew’s account, for in both Matthew and Revelation we discover a very large, intrinsically bright comet with a long tail, a retrograde, narrowly inclined orbit, and a small perihelion distance. Both Matthew and Revelation reveal that the comet heliacally rose (this is explicitly stated in Matt. 2:2, and implied in Rev. 12:1–299) and that it was in connection with this event that it spoke most powerfully. Moreover, both accounts suggest that the comet moved from the western evening sky to the eastern morning sky and then returned to the western evening sky.100 When we recognize that Revelation 12:1–5 records the celestial wonders that so impressed the Magi, suddenly their behavior—traveling hundreds of miles to worship the Messiah and securing gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh—appears eminently more reasonable.
It should also be noted that the massive size of the Christ Comet is curiously supported by the apocryphal and pseudonymous Protevangelium of James (Gospel of James) 21:2–3, which dates to around AD 150. According to that source, in response to Herod’s question regarding what celestial sign the Magi saw that related to the newborn King, the Magi answered, “We saw an immense star [astera pammegethē] shining among these stars and causing them to become dim, so that they no longer shone; and we knew that a king had been born in Israel.”101
“We Saw His Star at Its Rising”:
Matthew’s Account of the Cometary Star
In light of what we have discovered in Revelation 12:1–5, it is helpful to reread Matthew 1–2. Is Matthew’s account of the comet consistent with the testimony of Revelation 12 concerning the celestial sign that attended the Messiah’s birth?
Matthew 1:18–25 discloses what happened in Judea at the very time when the Magi in the east were gazing in astonishment at the spectacle unfolding in the eastern sky. Then 2:1–12 relates the story of the Magi’s pilgrimage to worship the newborn King of the Jews.
Matthew 1:18–25
With respect to the question of what happened in Judea at the point when the celestial sign took place in the eastern sky, Matthew 1:18–25 emphasizes that the terrestrial event was the birth of the Davidic Messiah to a virgin girl who had conceived by the miraculous intervention of the Holy Spirit, in fulfillment of Isaiah 7:14.
Matthew 1:18a highlights the subject of the paragraph: “Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way.” We discover that Mary, betrothed to Joseph, a descendant of Abraham and David (vv. 1–17), had not had sexual intercourse with him but nevertheless “was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit.”
According to Matthew, Joseph, not realizing that a remarkable miracle had transpired as God was putting into effect the glorious salvation promised through the Prophets, concluded that Mary had been immoral with another man and that he had no choice but to divorce her. However, Joseph was gracious and kind and was fond of Mary, and so he resolved to carry out the divorce in as quiet a manner as possible, so that he might not add to her disgrace (v. 19).
Matthew then tells of how God let Joseph in on his secret plan, because it was to be through Joseph that the Messiah would have, as his legal father, a descendant of King David. An angel commanded Joseph not to be afraid to take Mary as his wife, explaining that the child “conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit” (v. 20b). It was, in other words, a virginal conception. The angel went on to say that “She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins” (v. 21). Mary would be a virgin mother and would bear for the line of David a son. Joseph would then name the son Jesus.
After waking up from his revelatory dream, Joseph “did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him”: he married Mary but avoided having sexual intercourse with her until she had given birth to her son, and he named the son Jesus (vv. 24–25).
In the middle of the narrative, Matthew inserts a parenthetical comment to explain the Scriptural background to what was taking place (vv. 22–23): “All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: ‘Behold, the virgin shall be with child and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel’ (which means, God with us).” Matthew’s claim is that Mary’s virginal conception and birth of Jesus occurred in fulfillment of Isaiah 7:14.
The focus of Matthew 1:18–25 therefore is on the fact that Jesus was conceived in and born to a virgin but with a descendant of David as his legal father. Isaiah 7:14 was fulfilled when Joseph’s betrothed, Mary, a virgin, became pregnant by the Holy Spirit and gave birth to Jesus.
According to Matthew, then, the terrestrial event that accompanied the celestial wonder in the eastern sky was the birth of the Davidic messianic King to a virgin who had conceived him by a miraculous work of God through the Holy Spirit. Whatever the celestial phenomenon was, it was highlighting that this was happening at that very time in the land of Judea, in fulfillment of Isaiah 7:14.
Matthew 2:1–12
Occasion of the Wonder
The opening two verses of Matthew 2:1–12 link the terrestrial event detailed in 1:18–25 to the Magi’s journey from the east to Judea—and therefore to the natal sign the Magi saw when back in their homeland: “After Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, magi from the east came to Jerusalem” (2:1). The Magi’s visit to Jerusalem therefore is chronologically located in the aftermath of the birth of the Davidic Messiah Jesus to the Virgin Mary.
Despite being hundreds of miles away from Judea, the Magi knew that the divine Messiah had been born, and so they set out to worship him (v. 2). What the comet had done in the heavens in connection with its heliacal rising had revealed to them that the Messiah’s nativity had taken place.
Meaning and Nature of the Wonder
According to verse 2, the Magi asked the people of Jerusalem, “Where is he who has been
born king of the Jews, for we saw his star at its rising and have come to worship him?” The logic of the Magi is striking: at or around the time of its recent heliacal rising, the Star, identified with the baby Messiah, had by its behavior in the heavens communicated to them that he had been born and could now be found in Judea. What the Magi saw therefore was a celestial nativity scene, an equivalent to the actual terrestrial nativity transpiring in Bethlehem. At the same time, in view of the probability that the Magi were alluding to Balaam’s oracle (Num. 24:17) when they reported to the people of Jerusalem that they had seen “the star at its rising,” it seems very likely that during this phase of its apparition the comet as a whole looked like a scepter.
Terrestrial House of Grain
The emphasis on the birth of the Messiah is continued in verses 3–4. King Herod, convinced by the Magi’s deeds and words that the Messiah had indeed been born, inquired of the chief priests and scribes as to where the birth was to have taken place according to the Hebrew Scriptures (v. 4). The Jewish teachers informed him, based on Micah 5:2, that the Messiah was to be born in Bethlehem, which means “House of Grain”102 (Matt. 2:5–6).
First Appearance of the Star
When Herod was told that the Prophets had predicted that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem, he summoned the Magi and discovered from them the precise time when the Star had first appeared (v. 7). This information, Herod evidently assumed, disclosed the maximum possible age of the Messiah. We are informed in verse 16 that, at the point when Herod sent his troops to massacre the babies of Bethlehem and environs, he commanded them to kill all children in their first or second year. That means that the Star was first visible to the Magi at least 12 lunar months (if 7–6 BC) before the slaughter in Bethlehem and that the comet was a historically great one, visible to the naked eye for over a year in total.
