by The Great Christ Comet- Revealing the True Star of Bethlehem (retail) (epub)
For one thing, the comet’s coma appeared, looking like a baby, in Virgo’s womb at her heliacal rising (that is, as the constellation was emerging from a conjunction with the Sun). Just a few weeks before, on September 15, 6 BC, the Sun had been over her womb when the Moon was under her feet. Now, in the very place where the Sun had been, there emerged a cometary coma. The impression that the cometary baby was conceived as the result of the Sun’s life-giving presence would have been quite compelling. Thereafter the baby appeared to grow while remaining in Virgo’s belly because (1) the retrograde comet, after perihelion, was moving away from the Sun and toward Earth, and (2) the comet’s movement on its orbit countered the effect of Earth’s movement on its orbit, causing the coma to appear to Earth-dwellers to remain in approximately the same location in the sky. Then, since the comet’s course on its orbit was straightening out and taking it toward Earth, the comet fell out of sync with Earth and hence appeared to human observers to move down toward the Sun. This meant that the coma appeared to descend within Virgo in the manner of a baby moving through the birth canal. When the coma-baby descended to such an extent that it was clearly about to be fully born the next morning, there was a major meteor storm radiating from the tail of Hydra. After being “born,” the coma appeared to descend rapidly toward the horizon and into the Sun’s light (i.e., it heliacally set), a phenomenon that in context may well have seemed to some observers to indicate that the child would be rescued by God, whom the Sun may have represented in the celestial drama.
At the same time as the drama was unfolding in Virgo, it seems that the Magi were also impressed by another celestial show that the comet as a whole was putting on: it had become a majestic scepter that dominated the sky, eventually stretching right across the whole sky from eastern to western horizon.
As they watched these phenomena unfolding before their eyes, observers could have understood much: a divine dignitary destined to exercise dominion over the whole world was being born on the earth to a terrestrial surrogate of Virgo. However, the wonders did not directly reveal who or where the child was.
In this chapter we have suggested that one or more members of the Jewish community in Babylon probably introduced the Magi to Numbers 24:17 and Isaiah 7–12, enabling them to grasp the meaning and significance of what the comet was doing to mark the Jewish Messiah’s birth. It was the Messiah—called Immanuel and “mighty God”—who had been conceived by a virgin, who would be born at the point that the cometary baby completely exited Virgo’s belly, and who was destined to reign as King over the whole earth. Therefore at the conclusion of the wonders in the eastern sky the Magi set off to Judea in a bid to find the terrestrial virgin and her divine son, and to worship and honor him (Matt. 2:2, 11).
Needless to say, what the comet did during its time in the eastern sky left the Magi in no doubt that the Messiah had indeed been born. It is little wonder that the people of Jerusalem and Herod were deeply shaken by the Magi’s appearance and report. If Eastern Magi were so confident that the great comet that had been gracing their skies in recent months was signaling the fulfillment of key oracles in the Hebrew Bible concerning the Messiah’s birth, that they traveled hundreds of miles to Jerusalem to worship him, this constituted powerful evidence that the Messiah had indeed been born.
Of course, that the prophesied sign marked the birth of Jesus was a remarkable attestation of Jesus’s messianic status. It made it rather clear that the time of fulfillment had come and the Messiah was now finally on the earthly stage.
Having defined the celestial sign precisely, and having highlighted the Biblical keys to its interpretation, we shall in the next chapter develop an astronomical profile of the Bethlehem Star Comet and determine its orbit.
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“Lo, the Star Appeareth”
Profiling the Comet
Having identified what the Star was, what it did in connection with its rising to impress the Magi, how they understood it, and why they interpreted it as they did, we shall now turn our focus to the Christ Comet as a historical astronomical object. In particular, we shall attempt to develop a profile of the Star, determining approximately its orbit and its intrinsic brightness. This is possible because of the wealth of information concerning the Christ Comet in the Biblical text.
The claim of the Bethlehem Star to be historical is strong, grounded not only in multiple independent sources but also in the sheer implausibility that anyone in the ancient world could have fabricated a cometary apparition so complex and unusual.
Determining the comet’s orbit and its intrinsic brightness will enable us to recreate the whole cometary apparition in 8/7–6 BC. In particular, it will put us in the position of being able to figure out where the Star was when it was first observed by the Magi, how close to the Sun and Earth it came, how bright it became at its rising, and how it guided the Magi from their homeland to Jerusalem, ushered them to Bethlehem, and enabled the Magi to find the baby Messiah. It will also give us the opportunity to work out roughly what the comet looked like at the different stages of the long apparition. In the next chapter we will overview the comet’s career from its first appearance to the point when it stood over the house in Bethlehem where Jesus was.1
A Chronology of the Magi’s Journey
Before going any further, we must pause to consider the chronology of the nativity story, asking how the Magi’s journey fits into the story of Mary, Joseph, and Jesus. In particular, we need to give special attention to the matter of how much time separated the end of the comet’s performance in the eastern sky and its appearance in the southern sky to escort the Magi to the baby Jesus.
We shall begin with a consideration of Mary and Joseph’s schedule. According to Luke 2:1–7, when Mary was already in the advanced stages of her pregnancy, she and Joseph traveled from Galilee to Bethlehem to be registered for tax purposes. But when did they plan to leave Bethlehem?
A long journey back home to Nazareth with a newborn baby would have been impractical. Moreover, Mary had to be in Jerusalem, just five or six miles from Bethlehem, on the 40th day after the birth to perform her ceremonial obligations in the temple (Lev. 12:2, 4–8): a woman who had given birth to a baby boy had to avoid contact with anything holy for 40 days after the delivery (including the day of delivery) and then go to the temple and make the prescribed offerings so that she could be ritually clean again. During that visit Mary and Joseph could also present the child to God at the temple, in accordance with Leviticus 12 and Exodus 13. Quite simply, it would have made no sense for Mary and Joseph to trek all the way north to Nazareth only to turn around shortly thereafter and head back to the very area they had just left.
At the same time, however, it is difficult to imagine that the holy family would have wished to remain in Bethlehem any longer than was necessary before heading back home to Galilee.
It seems safe therefore to conclude that Mary and Joseph had planned a 6-week stay in Bethlehem, intending to depart within a few days of their visit to the Jerusalem temple. As it happened, they did not immediately return to Galilee, but fled to Egypt instead, because Joseph had a dream alerting him to the imminent threat to the baby’s life posed by Herod.
Where does the Magi’s visit fit into this chronology? Matthew 2:12–14 makes it clear that the holy family’s flight to Egypt occurred on the heels of the Magi’s departure from Bethlehem:
And being warned in a dream not to return to Herod, [the Magi] departed to their own country by another way. Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” And he rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt.
It was the failure of the Magi to return to Jerusalem to report to Herod concerning the location of the newborn Messiah that prompted Herod to adopt Plan B of his scheme to kill the Messiah, namely, to send in his troops t
o massacre all the male babies in Bethlehem.
So did the Magi’s visit occur before or after Mary and Joseph’s visit to the Jerusalem temple? This is a complex matter.
What we can say with some confidence is that the Magi would have felt great urgency about leaving their eastern homeland on their mission to worship the newborn Messiah. In light of this, the Magi would probably have departed very shortly after the conclusion of the celestial drama connected with the Star’s heliacal rising.
As regards their journey, the fact that their homeland is said to be in “the east” may well imply that the Magi traveled due west across the inhospitable desert from Babylon to Jerusalem (in the Biblical tradition, those coming from Babylon by the normal trade routes were normally portrayed as coming from the north, because they would have approached Jerusalem by way of Syria in the north).2 Camel caravans traveled at the speed of humans walking (about 2–3 miles per hour), since caravaneers would typically walk with the camels or go ahead of them.3 A study of journeys in the ancient Near East reveals that an average day’s journey by camel caravan would have consisted of between 15 and 20 miles.4 For those taking a straight route from Babylon to Jerusalem, the journey is about 550 miles long.5 An average rate of progress toward Jerusalem of 15 miles per day would have got the Magi to the capital of Judea on the 37th day of their journey. Progress of 20 miles a day on average would have resulted in the Magi arriving on the 28th day of their trip.6
For how long did the Magi remain in Bethlehem?
According to Roland de Vaux,7 the cultural expectation among Arabs and ancient Israelites would have been that visitors should remain for three days and nights. This could be extended if the host was positively inclined toward his guests. The host would furnish food and beverages for his guests and provide necessary staples for their animals.8 We can therefore assume that the Magi, after their long, arduous journey and with so much to discuss, spent about 3 days in Bethlehem with Joseph, Mary, and baby Jesus. It might have been cut short on the 3rd day or extended by a day or 2—so we should allow for the possibility that the Magi were in Bethlehem for 2–5 full days in total (i.e., they left on the 3rd–6th day).
If the Magi’s journey started shortly after the end of the celestial wonders in the eastern sky, and lasted approximately 28–37 days, it is possible that they arrived in Bethlehem either before or very shortly after Mary and Joseph’s temple visit on the 40th day after Jesus’s birth. In view of the fact that Herod’s massacre of the innocents occurred on the heels of the Magi’s visit, and that Joseph, Mary, and Jesus left Bethlehem for Egypt immediately in advance of it, the most natural time for the Magi’s Bethlehem stay would be in the week prior to the temple trip or in the week following it.
Obviously, if the Easterners’ Bethlehem visit occurred before the holy family went to the Jerusalem temple, the Magi would have traveled more quickly to Judea, and Mary and Joseph’s trip to the temple would have been rather tense. After all, it is very likely that, immediately prior to departing Bethlehem, the Magi informed Joseph about their dream (and perhaps explained to him that Herod was the personification of the serpentine dragon Hydra, preparing to kill the baby Messiah).
Alternatively, the Magi may have arrived in Bethlehem in the immediate aftermath of Mary and Joseph’s return from Jerusalem. As we have noted, Mary and Joseph were almost certainly only intending to remain in Bethlehem until they had fulfilled their religious obligations at the temple on the 40th day. Had the Magi arrived any more than a few days after that, the holy family would presumably have been on their way back up north to Galilee.
Unfortunately, we are forced to leave the question of whether the Magi arrived in Bethlehem before or after the temple visit open, allowing for both possibilities.
Herod the Great eventually realized that his crafty plot to assassinate the Messiah had been scuppered (Matt. 2:16). The text does not make it explicit what the catalyst for his realization was, but it is most natural to believe that the time Herod had allotted for the Magi’s finding the baby Messiah and completing their visit to worship him had expired. Herod would probably have been willing to wait the customary 3 days and nights and maybe, impatiently, a few days beyond that. Certainly it is difficult to imagine him waiting more than 6 full days in total before concluding that he had been double-crossed by the Magi.
What We Have Learned about the Star
In order to tell the full story of the Christ Comet’s apparition, it is important to gather up all the key bits of information that we have gleaned in the course of our investigation.
1. Long-period comet. It was undoubtedly a long-period comet. This is demonstrated by the duration of the apparition and particularly how long prior to perihelion the comet first became visible to the naked eye, by the great size of the cometary coma shortly after perihelion when it was in the eastern sky, and by the length of its tail at that time and some weeks later when it stood over the house where Jesus was.
2. Narrow inclination. The comet was narrowly inclined to the ecliptic and probably orbited within the zodiacal band, rendering it of more astrological significance to the Magi. Among other things, that the comet set with its tail stretching upwards, when the Magi were in Bethlehem, is suggestive of narrow inclination.
3. Retrograde. The comet was unquestionably retrograde (moving in a clockwise direction, from the vantage point of the north pole). This is indicated by the fact that it increased in size within Virgo and, having left the eastern sky, quickly progressed to the southern evening sky.
4. First appearance. The comet first appeared at least 12 lunar months (assuming a Jewish [and not Babylonian] system of intercalation) before Herod the Great issued the order for the infants in Bethlehem and environs to be slaughtered. This information reveals that the comet was intrinsically very bright (i.e., it had an extraordinary absolute magnitude) and was very large and productive. Herod regarded the date of the Star’s first appearance as the earliest possible birthday of the Messiah. He may even have wondered if it actually coincided with the Messiah’s birth.
5. The exaltation of Virgo. The key celestial drama began on September 15 of 6 BC, when the Moon was under Virgo’s feet and the Sun was clothing her (that is, was over her belly region). With respect to how the constellation figure Virgo is being imagined relative to the stars, the proportional constraints indicated by Revelation 12:1, together with the facts that she is wearing a crown and glorious robes and has the Moon under her feet, suggest that Virgo is being thought of as seated on a throne. This is consistent with how Teukros of Babylon (first century BC and/or beginning of first century AD) and others viewed Virgo. Since the Sun on September 15, 6 BC, is said to have been clothing Virgo, the author of Revelation is evidently imagining the constellation figure’s midriff in particular to be wide enough to accommodate the ecliptic at that point. Since the Babylonians established the beginnings of months by calculation in advance, we can be confident that the sighting of the new crescent Moon after sunset occurred at the start of the second day of the Babylonian month of Ululu (since Ululu 1 fell on September 14/15, sunset to sunset). According to the observational Hebrew calendar, it would have been the beginning of Tishri 1 or 2, depending on whether the new Moon had been spotted on the evening of September 14.
6. Heliacal rising. The Magi saw the cometary coma rise heliacally in the eastern sky, meaning that it had been in conjunction with the Sun prior to its reappearance. The retrograde comet was emerging from the Sun around the time of perihelion (when a comet’s brightness peaks). During this time the coma was an especially bright morning star and was observable in the northern hemisphere (specifically in the Near East). The comet as a whole probably looked like a scepter at this time.
7. In Virgo’s womb. Since the comet was very bright, its coma was visible in Virgo’s belly before sunrise each day from about September 29/30.9 At that time Virgo was emerging in the eastern sky after its annual encounter with the Sun. We can be confident concerning where a
pproximately Virgo’s belly was thought to be: the area from a little above 80 Virginis up to a little below the level of δ.
8. Cometary baby. The comet’s coma appeared to play the part of a baby in Virgo’s womb. That it was viewed as a baby was not only because it was located in a womb, but probably also because it had the general shape of a baby in the womb. Elliptical (oval) comas may look like upside-down babies in the womb.
9. Growing baby. When the baby heliacally rose in Virgo’s womb shortly after perihelion, it was relatively small. This makes sense because, when a comet makes a very close pass by the Sun, its coma is generally relatively small in the run-up to perihelion, due to its receiving the most intense blast of the Sun at that time. Then the baby seemed to increase in size within the womb area over the course of Virgo’s pregnancy; comas tend to grow immediately after perihelion as they are increasingly liberated from the Sun’s intense compression. More important, the comet was moving toward Earth and so, from the vantage point of humans, the coma appeared to become larger and larger.
10. Stable in womb. The comet’s coma remained relatively fixed in Virgo’s womb area. The cometary baby was able to stay within Virgo’s belly because of unusual comet-Sun-Earth geometry. There was a remarkable synchronism between the movements of Earth and the comet in their respective orbits. The relative stability of the baby in Virgo’s womb before its delivery may also have been partly due to the growth of the coma.
11. Notable apparent magnitude. Since dim comets would not be visible low on the horizon at sunrise or remain observable when very large, and since this comet is regarded as a great light shining into the deep darkness, the Christ Comet must have had extraordinary apparent magnitude values. It was probably a daylight object around perihelion. The coma’s pseudonucleus (the area immediately surrounding the nucleus) may have had a condensed brightness, making it seem that the baby’s face was shining.
