Star of the East keyword, sorted newest to oldest, by subforum (bloggers, chat, news, religion):
How about two neutron stars or two black holes merging?
Or, one planet or one star being sliced and diced by a black hole or neutron star?
I think you could get a pretty good light show from any of those possibilities, and not much radiation, because of the intense gravity.
It moved over the place where Jesusresided. It was supernatural
It was a supernatural miracle of divine origin. Anyone who scours astronomical history or strains the laws of physics to explain an act of God clearly described in inerrant scripture is barking up the wrong tree. Just believe. Don’t allow your considerable intellect be your undoing. Allow your faith pride of place and watch what happens.
“The fact that they needed to ask Herod for directions when they arrived suggests they were not being led to their final destination by a single bright object...”
Or it was cloudy weather and they hadn’t seen the star for a few days? Later when they were pointed in Bethlehem’s direction by the Priests in Herod’s court the star(not star-—z of a conjunction..we make 21st century assumptions that the magi singularized a collected conjunction of planets into a singular “star” object), the Star(singular) appeared to them and they rejoiced as it appeared to go before them until it hovered over the house where Jesus was. If it was a star or conjunction, given the distance from Bethlehem to Jerusalem, it would have been overhead or looked overhead(it would have actually looked far to the west if it were truly celestial)...but it wasn’t overhead until the Magi arrived at Jesus’ house.
I think the Magi saw a dim star that didn’t move with the times of night or the seasons over a two year time period. They saw it in the west from their positions in the East. They decided that this was worth their attention and decided to travel towards it...as they got closer the star remained fixed in the same direction even though the constellations would move about polaris thru the night and then seasonally...but the star stayed in its position...albeit visible after sundown. As they traveled towards it the star’s position stayed fixed in the in the west but it’s angle above the western horizon rose the farther west they traveled indicating that the object was rather close to Earth. Being Magi they would also know somthing of the legends and religions of the various lands. As the star’s apparent x axis angle above the Horizon rose each night but always staying in it ‘s fixed y axis...the Magi would have figured that the star’s eventual overhead position would put them somewhere in Roman Palestine. This was not an ordinary star but most unlearned folk would not have noticed it. Yet the Magi knew the heavens and knew the fixed comings and goings of various stars and planets, they knew the Earth was round and that even Sol itself traveled through various constellation groups over much longer periods of time.
So what they saw of this star must have excited them so much that they had to come to see what was going on. A star that changed not its position through-out the night but did rise to near overhead the closer to Israel they got. They had heard of legends of a coming Holy one thru many of the religions that were extant at the time. The priest’s at Herod’s court confirmed a coming “King of the Jews” and that the prophets had indicated that Bethlehem would be such a birthplace.
After seeing the child and the star overhead and the dreams they had telling them not to return to Herod, they had their confirmation that they had seen with their own eyes the Salvation of mankind.
That is my view of the star of Bethlehem based on the Bible and on the science of Observation. The Magi knew the heavens but it was the peculiarities of the behaviour of this particular object that actually prompted them to move it. Like the Burning Bush that Moses saw....he took a second look and a third look and realized that it was not being consumed away.(Some bushes in that region were known to catch fire in the hot sun due to resins in such bushes becoming super heated).
I think the Magi had a similar experience with this “star”. Some plain old looking star...no too bright, not too dim. You might note the time of its appearance but as other stars come and go it might seem at first to be a yawner...until you started realizing that it doesn’t drift around Polaris the same way... The wandering “planetes” did their thing across the seasons and the years...but this star...same place every night, given the seasons and time of sunset, same position and when you moved towards it it’s position, it would apparently rise above the western horizon...while staying in its same y axis line. This star was the Magi’s burning bush. Modern astronomers should be so lucky!
Ping
ASTRONOMY PING!...................
Aliens in a UFO? 🤓
Either the birth of Jesus was Divine, or it wasn’t.
If it was Divine, then what the Magi were following was a Divine sign, completely unrelated to any natural phenomenon, and needs no further explanation.