by The Great Christ Comet- Revealing the True Star of Bethlehem (retail) (epub)
19 Hughes, Star of Bethlehem Mystery, 124, 139, 152.
20 Kidger, Star of Bethlehem, 206.
21 Cf. Patrick Moore, The Star of Bethlehem (Bath, England: Canopus, 2001), 45; Luz, Matthew 1–7, 132.
22 A. J. Sachs and C. B. F. Walker, “Kepler’s View of the Star of Bethlehem and the Babylonian Almanac for 7/6 B.C.,” Iraq 46 (1984): 47, insist that the tablets all hail from Babylon or possibly Borsippa, which is about 11 miles from Babylon.
23 Ibid., 46.
24 For a translation of the relevant sections, see ibid., 43–45.
25 Ibid., 45–46. The almanac mentions the behavior of Jupiter and Saturn in the midst of references to the locations of other astronomical entities like Venus, Mars, Mercury, and Sirius.
26 Parpola, “Magi and the Star,” 17–18, claims that the fact that the manuscript recording the triple conjunction of 7 BC exists in four copies is extraordinary and highlights the conjunction’s rarity and importance. However, Sachs and Walker make the point that it was not uncommon for an almanac to be preserved in more than one copy and they comment that, in the case of the 7–6 BC almanac, it is unclear whether the copies are each original texts with independent astronomical calculations or whether two or more of them were copied from one of the others or from a common original (Sachs and Walker, “Kepler’s View,” 47).
27 See Franz Boll, “Der Stern der Weisen,” Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft und die Kunde des Urchristentums 18 (1917/1918): 40–43.
28 Cf. Raymond Brown, The Birth of the Messiah: A Commentary on the Infancy Narratives in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, 2nd ed. (New York: Doubleday, 1993), 173.
29 W. D. Davies and Dale C. Allison, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to Saint Matthew, 3 vols., International Critical Commentary (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1988–1997), 1:233–234, however, point to evidence that some ancient astrologers—namely, Pseudo-Callisthenes 1:12; and Firmicus Maternus, Math. 6:1; 8:31—regarded particular conjunctions as hailing a royal birth.
30 Parpola, “Magi and the Star,” 18.
31 That Saturn could be regarded by Gentiles in this period as the planet of the Jews may be suggested by the anti-Semitic Roman historian Tacitus (Hist. 5.4). This association of Saturn and the Jews is present also in the writings of Augustine (On the Harmony of the Gospels 1.21–22). Shlomo Sela, Abraham Ibn Ezra and the Rise of Medieval Hebrew Science (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 152–153, points out that it is uncertain when precisely the idea was first accepted by the Jews, but that the Babylonian Talmud did refer to Saturn as Shabtay (Sabbath). Sela suggests that Ibn Ezra was the first Jewish intellectual to develop the Saturn-Jews association in a macro-astrological scheme (153). Strikingly, Amos 5:25–26 (see also Acts 7:41–43) declared that the Israelites worshiped Saturn (named Sikkuth and Kiyyun in Amos) as their God in the eighth century BC and possibly even during the wilderness years.
32 So, for example, Hughes, Star of Bethlehem Mystery, 90, 211; Jean-Pierre Isbouts, Young Jesus: Restoring the “Lost Years” of a Social Activist and Religious Dissident (New York: Sterling, 2008), 58–59; cf. Kidger, Star of Bethlehem, 206.
33 The medieval Jewish thinker Ibn Ezra believed that it was a “Great” Conjunction in the sign Leo (205 BC) that had importance with respect to Jesus’s birth, while Bar Hiyya associated the following “Great” Conjunction in Virgo in AD 34 with the emergence of Christianity (Sela, Abraham Ibn Ezra, 293–294; Josefina Rodríguez Arribas, “The Terminology of Historical Astrology according to Abraham Bar Hiyya and Abraham Ibn Ezra,” Aleph: Historical Studies in Science and Judaism 11 [2011]: 22, 29).
34 Parpola, “Magi and the Star,” 19.
35 Hughes, Star of Bethlehem Mystery, 147–148.
36 Cf. Konradin Ferrari-D’Occhieppo, “The Star of the Magi and Babylonian Astronomy,” in Chronos, Kairos, Christos, ed. Jerry Vardaman and E. M. Yamauchi (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1989), 46.
37 Parpola, “Magi and the Star,” 18–19, suggests that the Magi left Babylon on Tishri 22 (coinciding with the second conjunction) and then, a few paragraphs later, he contradicts himself by suggesting that they departed in “early Tishri.” It is all very confusing because Parpola claims that early Tishri corresponds to October, when earlier he stated that Tishri 22 = October 6. Moreover, if the Magi left in early Tishri, then the second conjunction had not taken place and hence they had (according to the hypothesis proposed by Parpola) no basis for going in a westward direction. Probably Parpola meant to write “early October” rather than “early Tishri.”
38 In truth, Mars did not arrive with Jupiter and Saturn until mid-February of 6 BC, well after the final conjunction in early December of 7 BC. Mars was still a full zodiacal sign away from Pisces in the second week of December. It reached the sign of Pisces only in mid-January.
39 Michael R. Molnar, The Star of Bethlehem: The Legacy of the Magi (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1999), 86–96.
40 Ibid., 86.
41 As Molnar concedes (ibid.).
42 Ibid., 89. However, Jupiter’s heliacal rising probably took place a week or so after this date—see Planetary, Lunar, and Stellar Visibility software (version 3.1.0; November 20, 2006), developed by Rainer Lange of alcyone software and Noel M. Swerdlow of the University of Chicago and available at http://www.alcyone.de. It is also interesting to note that the Babylonian almanac for 7/6 BC, which covers the period up to April 19, 6 BC, does not mention Jupiter’s heliacal rising, which suggests that it did not occur when Molnar thinks. Molnar’s theory is heavily dependent on the idea that the second occultation coincided with Jupiter’s heliacal rising, and so the implications of the planet’s heliacal rising falling on a day other than April 17, 6 BC, are significant.
43 Molnar, Star of Bethlehem, 89, 96–97.
44 Ibid., 86.
45 Ibid., 87–96.
46 Ibid., 90–92, 95–96.
47 Ibid., 5.
48 Ibid.
49 As Hegedus, Early Christianity and Ancient Astrology, 202–203, points out.
50 Molnar, Star of Bethlehem, 102.
51 Ibid., 92, 96.
52 Parpola, “Magi and the Star,” 60n1. Note especially one particular ancient Near Eastern omen: “When the Moon occults Jupiter, that year a king will die (or) an eclipse of the Moon and Sun will take place. A great king will die. When Jupiter enters the midst of the Moon, there will be want in Aḫarrû. The King of Elam will be slain with the sword: in Subart[u] . . (?) will revolt. When Jupiter enters the midst of the Moon, the market of the land will be low. When Jupiter goes out from behind the Moon, there will be hostility in the land.” Translation by R. Campbell Thompson, The Reports of the Magicians and Astrologers of Nineveh and Babylon in the British Museum, vol. 2 (London: Luzac & Co., 1900), lxvii, no. 192.
53 For English versions of these works, see Mark Riley’s translation of Vettius Valens, Anthologies, at http://www.csus.edu/indiv/r/rileymt/Vettius%20Valens%20entire.pdf (p. 3 for the geographical associations of Aries) (last modified January 5, 2011); and Manilius, Astronomica, trans. G. P. Goold (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989) (pp. xci–xcii on astrological geography).
54 Frederick H. Cramer, Astrology in Roman Law and Politics (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1954), 23; see James M. Scott, Geography in Early Judaism and Christianity: The Book of Jubilees (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 74–75 table 3.
55 See Francesca Rochberg, Babylonian Horoscopes (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1998), 109.
56 It is surprising that the October 2014 multi-disciplinary colloquium on the Star of Bethlehem at the University of Groningen had as its primary purpose the examination of Molnar’s theory; see http://www.astro.rug.nl/~khan/bethlehem/scientific-rationale.php (accessed July 5, 2014).
57 Moore, Star of Bethlehem, 73–74; see also Wikipedia, s.v. “Nova,” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nova (la
st modified April 11, 2013).
58 The AD 1006 supernova was visible at its brightest for 4 months in the spring before disappearing for a few months and then reappearing less bright in December for something like 2½ years. It was probably visible about 3 years after it was first observed (F. Richard Stephenson, “SN 1006: The Brightest Supernova,” Astrophysics and Geophysics 51.5 [2010]: 27–32). According to Chinese records, the AD 1054 supernova lasted for 642 days. The AD 1572 supernova lasted well beyond 1 year, and the one in AD 1604 was tracked for a year by Kepler.
59 Moore, Star of Bethlehem, 74.
60 In astronomy a “magnitude” is a measurement of a star’s apparent brightness. The scale is rather counterintuitive, since the brighter a star is, the smaller its magnitude value is (into minus numbers). A one unit increase is equivalent to a reduction of brightness by a factor of 2.51. A magnitude +1 star is 100 times brighter than a magnitude +6 star. A difference of 10 magnitudes would mean 10,000 times brighter; a difference of 15 magnitudes would mean 1,000,000 times brighter. The apparent magnitude of the Sun is -26.7, and that of the full Moon is -12.6; this means in effect that the Sun is 400,000 times brighter than the Moon.
61 Ibid., 75.
62 E. W. Maunder, “Star of the Magi,” in International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, ed. James Orr, 5 vols. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1939), 5:2848–2849; idem, The Astronomy of the Bible: An Elementary Commentary on the Astronomical References of Holy Scripture (New York: Mitchell Kennerley, 1908), 393–400; R. S. McIvor, Star of Bethlehem, Star of Messiah (Toronto: Overland, 1998); A. J. Morehouse, “The Christmas Star as a Supernova in Aquila,” Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada 72 (1978): 65–68; John Seymour and Michael W. Seymour, “The Historicity of the Gospels and Astronomical Events concerning the Birth of Christ,” Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society 19 (1978): 194–197.
63 For example, James Mullaney, “The Star of Bethlehem,” Science Digest 80 (December 1976): 61–65.
64 Moore, Star of Bethlehem, 78.
65 Guy Consolmagno, “Looking for the Star, or Coming to Adore?” Thinking Faith, http://www.thinkingfaith.org/articles/20101231_1.htm (last modified December 31, 2010).
66 So, for example, Kidger, Star of Bethlehem, 234–246. We will take a closer look at the Chinese hui-hsing in chapter 6.
67 See Donald K. Yeomans, Comets: A Chronological History of Observation, Science, Myth, and Folklore (New York: John Wiley, 1991), 361–362 and 367.
68 In order to get around this problem, Kidger, Star of Bethlehem, 244–245, resorts to arguing that the Chinese data regarding the location of the hui-hsing is incorrect. He speculates that the nova actually appeared near the star Theta Aquilae, not far from Capricornus (246).
69 So, for example, ibid., 281.
70 Cf. Kenneth Boa and William Proctor, The Return of the Star of Bethlehem: Comet, Stellar Explosion, or Signal from Above? (New York: Doubleday, 1980), 81.
71 Robert Lunsford, Meteors and How to Observe Them (New York: Springer, 2008), 2.
72 Moore, Star of Bethlehem, 96.
73 Ibid.
74 Ibid.
75 Cf. Kidger, Star of Bethlehem, 122.
76 Moore, Star of Bethlehem, 99.
77 Ibid., 98–99.
78 Cf. Kidger, Star of Bethlehem, 122.
79 Richard Coates, “A Linguist’s Angle on the Star of Bethlehem,” Astronomy and Geophysics 49.5 (October 2008): 27–32; and David Seargent, Weird Astronomy (New York: Springer, 2011), 276–281.
80 Seargent, Weird Astronomy, 277.
81 Ibid., 276–277.
82 Ibid., 279.
83 Ibid.
84 Ibid., 278.
85 Ibid., 280.
86 Ibid., 279.
87 Ibid.
88 The medieval Jewish scholars Bar Hiyya and Ibn Ezra, who maintained that Jupiter-Saturn conjunctions played an important determining role in Israel’s history, did not believe that Pisces was Israel’s sign, but rather Aquarius, one of the houses of Saturn. Abarbanel (in his Wells of Salvation) did invent some feeble connections between Pisces and Israel (see Roy A. Rosenberg, “The Star of the Messiah: Reconsidered,” Biblica 53 [1972]: 106–107; and Hughes, Star of Bethlehem Mystery, 212), but he did not regard it as Israel’s sign.
89 Kidger, Star of Bethlehem, 198–275.
90 Ibid., 258–259, 264–265.
91 Ibid., 216.
92 Contra ibid., 254; also 257.
93 Ernest L. Martin, The Star of Bethlehem: The Star That Astonished the World, 2nd ed. (Portland, OR: Associates for Scriptural Knowledge, 1996), available at http://www.askelm.com/star.
94 http://www.askelm.com/star/star004.htm (accessed March 26, 2014).
95 Ibid.
96 Ibid.
97 Ibid.
98 Ibid.
99 Ibid.
100 Ibid.
101 Ibid.
102 Ibid.
103 Ibid.
104 http://www.askelm.com/star/star006.htm (accessed March 26, 2014).
105 Frederick A. Larson, The Star of Bethlehem, DVD, directed by Stephen Vidano (Santa Monica, CA: Mpower Pictures, 2006).
106 Notably, the Magi did not set off back to their homeland as soon as Jupiter started its retrograde motion!
107 http://www.askelm.com/star/star008.htm (accessed March 26, 2014). Frederick Larson, in his Star of Bethlehem DVD, diverges from Martin at this point, suggesting that the Sun clothing Virgo and the Moon under her feet on September 11 of 3 BC simply marked Jesus’s conception, with a very close conjunction of Jupiter and Venus on June 17 of 2 BC occurring at the point of Jesus’s birth. If conception occurred on September 11, 3 BC, and the period between conception and birth was an average 266 days, birth would be expected on June 4, 2 BC. Larson suggests that the Magi started planning to travel to Judea in September of 3 BC, but actually departed only when they witnessed the conjunction of June 17, 2 BC (Frederick A. Larson, “Westward Leading,” http://www.bethlehemstar.net/starry-dance/westward-leading [accessed March 26, 2014]). Larson subsequently states that, on December 25, 2 BC, Jupiter appeared to come to a halt relative to the fixed stars, because it was beginning retrograde motion. The Magi, making their way from Jerusalem to Bethlehem at this time, perceived that it was standing over the town where David had been born (Frederick A. Larson, “To Stop a Star,” http://www.bethlehemstar.net/starry-dance/to-stop-a-star [accessed March 26, 2014]). That, of course, would mean that the Magi’s trip lasted an absurdly long time—over 6 months! Moreover, quite why the conjunction of Jupiter and Venus in 2 BC, as stunning a sight as it undoubtedly was, would have been interpreted by Magi as a signal that the Messiah had been born, is unclear. Certainly there is no evidence that any ancient would have interpreted the conjunction to have this significance. Larson suggests that the Magi would have been surprised by the sight of Jupiter and Venus in conjunction. However, by the first-century BC astronomers were able to calculate the movements of the planets long in advance. As we have seen, the Babylonian astronomers even produced almanacs, containing their predictions for a given upcoming year. Therefore the Magi would not have been taken aback by the conjunction. As regards Jupiter’s retrograde motion, that too would have been known about well before it happened. Further, a look at the Starry Night® Pro software that Larson uses reveals that the date when Jupiter “paused” was actually December 27/28, not, as Larson claims, December 25. In truth, the Magi would probably have been aware that Jupiter was still moving within the fixed stars and constellations on December 25.
108 It is also worth pointing out that the third occultation occurred below the visible horizon.
109 And, even if ancients could have regarded a planet’s slow apparent loop motion in the sky as an act of “crowning,” Jupiter was hardly crowning Regulus. Regulus was, after all, nowhere near the middle of the loop of the planet’s celestial motion.
110 So, f
or example, David L. Turner, Matthew, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2008), 80, 86; Craig Blomberg, Matthew, New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman, 1992), 65; cf. Hare, Matthew, 14; Luz, Matthew 1–7, 135.
111 E.g., Ken Collins, “The Star of Bethlehem,” http://www.kencollins.com/explanations/why-01.htm (last modified March 23, 2013); and F. Richard Stephenson, as cited by Fiona Veitch Smith, “Did the Star of Bethlehem Really Exist?” http://www.veitchsmith.com/2009/12/10/did-the-star-of-Bethlehem-really-exist/ (posted December 10, 2009).
112 Cf. Donald A. Carson, “Matthew,” in Expositor’s Bible Commentary, rev. ed., ed. Tremper Longman III and David E. Garland, vol. 9 (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2010), 111.
113 Cf. Molnar, Star of Bethlehem, 16.
114 For example, Kenneth D. Boa, “The Star of Bethlehem” (ThM thesis, Dallas Theological Seminary, 1972), 76.
115 Dale C. Allison, “What Was the Star That Guided the Magi?,” Bible Review 9.6 (1993): 24, and reprinted in The First Christmas: The Story of Jesus’ Birth in History and Tradition, 25–31; cf. Michael J. Wilkins, Matthew, Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2002), 16; Craig Evans, Matthew, New Cambridge Bible Commentary (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 52–53.
116 Translation from M. B. Riddle, “Arabic Gospel of the Infancy of the Saviour,” in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, 10 vols. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1979), 8:406.
117 So, for example, Christopher Cullen, “Can We Find the Star of Bethlehem in Far Eastern Records?,” Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society 20 (1979): 153–159; Géza Vermes, The Nativity: History and Legend (London: Penguin, 2006), 22; and E. P. Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus (London: Penguin, 1993), 85.
118 Cullen, “Can We Find the Star?,” 158.
119 Brown, Birth of the Messiah, 188. Cf. Marcus J. Borg and John Dominic Crossan, The First Christmas: What the Gospels Really Teach about Jesus’s Birth (New York: HarperCollins, 2007), 182 (who reject as implausible that the Star led the Magi westward, then southward, and finally pinpointed the exact place of Jesus’s birth); Steve Moyise, Was the Birth of Jesus according to Scripture? (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2013), 51–54, 90 (who objects to the idea that the “sat-nav” Star could have guided the Magi to Jerusalem, then south to Bethlehem, and then “hover[ed] over” and pointed out a particular house). Rudolf Schnackenburg, The Gospel of Matthew (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2002), 22 (cf. 20), rejected the historicity of the Star because “stars do not move from north to southwest (the direction from Jerusalem to Bethlehem) and cannot indicate a precisely delimited location.”
