The Star of Bethlehem Part 3

 
Of course, it didn’t work out the way they had planned. There was no royal birth in the family of King Herod the great of Judea in the spring of 6 BC. This was a catastrophe for the Magi. They had invested a ton of money into the enterprise and so far they had nothing to show for it. What does an ancient astrologer do in a crises like this? They consulted their star charts and astrology tables for the answer.
 
What they saw there was Jupiter entering retrograde motion in the house of Taurus on August 23^rd. Retrograde motion of the outer planets is a wonderful optical illusion. The Earth’s orbit is shorter and faster than Jupiter’s, and so every so often we catch up to Jupiter and pass it. When that happens, Jupiter appears to stop against the background of stars for a week. Then the big planet moves in the opposite direction than it normally does for several months. It then stops a second time for a week and proceeds on its merry way. A modern astronomer knows that Jupiter never stops and also knows that retrograde motion is due to the different speeds of the planets and the changing angle of view. However, to an ancient astrologer, planetary retrograde motion was an amazing phenomenon that portended great things. The meaning they assigned to this event was that it enhanced greatly whatever qualities the portents were predicting. In other words, if I was born under a sign that foretold I would be a leader, and Jupiter was in retrograde motion at the same time, the portent would mean that I would be a great leader. Thus when the Magi looked at their tables, they saw that Jupiter would move backwards out of Taurus and back into Ares and stop for a week on December 19^th. They would have interpreted this to mean that the royal birth would happen in the winter of 6 BC rather than the spring. They were back in the hunt.
 
I would also like to point out that during planetary retrograde motion, the wandering star, in this case Jupiter, stops in the sky. “And, lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was” (Matthew 2:9). The planet (wandering star) was “moving before them”, which meant that it was moving against the background of stars. The language used in these quotes is exactly the same language ancient astrologers used to describe retrograde motion.
 
How did the Magi find Jesus? At the time there were several prophets proclaiming the coming of the Messiah in the Jerusalem Temple. Simeon (Luke 2:25-35) and Anna (Luke 2:36-38) were probably typical of the people who came to the temple and prophesied in the outer courts. Word may have reached the Magi of their preaching and they went to speak with them. Both Simeon and Anna were aware of Mary and Joseph and so they could have sent the Magi to Bethlehem. Of course this common couple and their new born were not what the Magi expected. But what the heck? Prophets had proclaimed Jesus the King of the Jews, and that meant the Magi could return home and proclaim victory. And of course, cash in.
 
One last detail before I wrap up our Christmas story. Why would a good Jewish boy like Matthew associate the worst of sinners, astrologers, with the coming of the Jewish Messiah? Deuteronomy 18:10 condemns anyone who practices divination or reads omens, which is what astrologers did. No good God fearing 1^st century Jew would have anything to do with someone who cast horoscopes. So why would Matthew write this story? Because it is true. As strange as it sounds, the more unlikely a story is the more likely it is to have happened. For the simple reason that if Matthew was to make up a story about the birth of God’s anointed King, he would follow the OT tradition of miraculous birth announcements, like Sarah and Abraham in chapters 17 and 18 of the book of Genesis. Instead Matthew tells his mostly Jewish audience that the birth of Jesus was predicted by sinful Babylonian diviners. It’s so crazy it must be true.
 
So, next time someone brings up the question of The Star of Bethlehem, you can say; why it was Jupiter in retrograde motion, of course.
 
I hope you have enjoyed this brief explanation. If you wish to know more, I heartily recommend the books I listed in the beginning of this narrative.
 
God bless you,
 
Pastor Bill

The Star of Bethlehem Part 2

 
(Above, the great conjunction of April 17th, 6 BC)
 
And now a quick explanation of what the ancient art of astrology is all about. The stars move across the sky at night because the earth rotates creating a 24 hour day. The stars shift position from night to night because the earth revolves around the sun in a 365 day year which changes what part of the sky we can see. But moving across this slowly changing background are the wandering stars, the planets. Across the background of stars they move at their own pace through the constellations. Ancient scientists realized the planets and the sun follow a line across the sky called the ecliptic. Today we know it as the plane of our Solar System. Because the planets constantly changed positions compared to the stars and each other people created meaning in the movements. They saw portents in the sky that foretold events on earth.
 
There is a trick to this whole astrology thing. The movement of the planets through the ecliptic has to match the calendar. The twelve month calendar is based upon the 28 day moon cycle. That cycle creates an imperfect 12 month year (it took until the 1600’s to fix the European calendar). The ancients needed 12 constellations along the ecliptic to match the months, but there are actually 13 constellations, and their boundaries are not evenly spaced. So, astrologers just changed the organization of the celestial sky to suit their purposes. The boundaries were shifted into 12 equally spaced zodiac signs that matched the calendar and Ophiuchus the thirteenth constellation was dropped from the list. Ophiuchus is the Serpent Bearer, and I don’t like snakes, so I’m good with this. What is important to understand is that people 2,000 years ago derived great meaning from this system. It doesn’t matter whether the system makes sense to us. What matters is what the Magi saw in the sky and the meaning they derived from it.
 
What they saw coming up was a major conjunction of the planets in the House of Ares in March and April of 6 BC. Not only was it major, it was a portent of a royal birth in the land of Judea. And if they could be the only astrologers to claim to have predicted it, they could really cash in. As the sun moved through a zodiac house, it meant that the portents the planets pointed had a great effect on the people born while the sun was in that sign. The House of Ares was associated with the Kingdom of Judea. From March to April Jupiter rose ahead of the Sun, which is what the phrase “we have seen his star in the east” meant to the Magi. Jupiter was associated with royalty, and was surrounded by the other planets. The other planets became the attendants in a royal procession. At the same time the Moon occulted, or passed in front of, Jupiter on March 20^th and April 17^th. The occultation of Jupiter was seen as a portent of a royal birth. All of these signs pointed to a royal birth happening in Judea in the spring of 6 BC. Upon seeing this in their tables, it was time for the Magi to hit the road.
 
Traveling in the ancient world was a dangerous and expensive proposition. It meant hiring security and servants to accompany the group. It meant spending more money on food and sleeping arrangements. And it meant losing potential income while on the move. The Magi could set up shop in a friendly community once they arrived in Palestine. A friendly town would have lots of Greeks, Persians and Romans in it. The Jewish community of the time period considered astrology a pagan practice and thus a terrible sin. Another cost was the gifts they had brought to present to the Judean King when the royal announcement was made. One always brought gifts to a King. However, they also hoped to receive gifts in return as a reward for successfully predicting the birth. These gifts would be further proof of their success back in Babylon. I hope you can see the motivation for this long and expensive trip. Predicting this birth was a home run for the Magi, and they hoped to parlay it into a big reward.
 
Tomorrow, catastrophe strikes when there is no royal birth. Jupiter goes into retrograde motion and they find the baby Jesus.
 
God bless you,
Pastor Bill

Magi and the Star of Bethlehem

This is a long post so I’m going to chop it up into several pieces. The Astronomy and Astrology research comes from “The Star of Bethlehem” by Michael R. Molnar a retired Rutgers professor. Some of the historical and biblical research comes from “The Birth of the Messiah” by Raymond E. Brown one of the most amazing biblical scholars of our time. And some of the historical, cultural and biblical research comes from me. I tried not to make it too technical, but if you have questions, please contact me and I’ll fill you in as best I can. Enjoy, Pastor Bill.
 
I’m sure at some point you have wondered what the Star of Bethlehem could have been. I’m sure you have heard many possible explanations. Most of those explanations haven’t panned out. This week, I’m going to give you a plausible explanation that makes the most sense within the Biblical, historical, cultural and astronomical information we have available. To answer the question in one sentence, The Star of Bethlehem is Jupiter in retrograde motion. Now that the cat is out of the bag I’m sure you’re wondering what the heck is he talking about? And so it is time to plunge into the ancient biblical and astrological world in search of The Star of Bethlehem.
 
Our story starts with attempting to establish the year in which Jesus was born. There are two dates that best match the biblical story, 6 BC or 6 AD. Both dates have pros and cons. The earlier one would have the baby Jesus born during King Herod’s lifetime (Matthew 2:1), before his death in 3 BC. Jesus would also be in his thirties (Luke 3:23) during the time Pontius Pilate was procurator of Judea, from 26 AD to 36 AD. In 6 BC there was a conjunction of planets that could have been what the Magi saw (Matthew 2: 1-2). However, there was no census (Luke 2:1) that we know of taken in Palestine in 6 BC. We do know that there was a census taken in 6 AD while Quirinius was governor of Syria (Luke 2:1). However if Jesus were born in 6 AD he would not have begun his ministry in his thirties and still face Pilate at a trial. The 6 BC date matches more of the story than the 6 AD date. Plus there is a possibility that there was a census in Palestine in 6 BC. Roman records show that there was an Empire wide census in 8 BC. However Palestine was exempt. It could be that the Romans took a census of Palestine after the census was completed in the rest of the empire. Most biblical scholars feel that Jesus was born sometime in the year 6 BC.
 
The next important question in our story is, who were the Magi and why did they travel to Bethlehem? The Magi were astrologers; they studied the stars to predict a person’s fortune. The Magi followed a very ancient tradition of star gazing in the Middle East. The oldest astrological records come from Babylon and list the appearances and conjunctions of the planet Venus. Records of the planets and constellations spread into Persia, India, Egypt and Greece. The movement of the planets against the background of stars was recorded for hundreds of years. These records were compiled into tables which predicted the movements into the future. Astrologers studied the tables and interpreted them for their paying customers. Ptolemy, a Greek astrologer from the second century BC instructed his readers on how to do this, which is why we know so much about this practice today.
 
For the Magi, this was a business. They needed to make money, and the meaning they derived from the movement of the heavens was their trade. To advertise they sent their servants out into the busy streets to shout out their masters accomplishments. The better their accomplishments the more they stood out from their competitors and the more money they made. A home run prediction for a Babylonian astrologer was predicting the birth of the future king. If a Magi could send his servant out to announce that, he would have customers standing in line. So when our Babylonian Magi looked at their celestial tables several months into the future, they saw something that got their hearts racing.
 
Tomorrow, how ancient astrology works and what the Magi interpreted from the movement of the spheres.