There was a star the equivalent to our current North star; Polaris; in the southern sky at the time of Christ's birth; but it was NOT any portion of the Southern Cross.
Posted on 09/10/2019 9:22:45 AM PDT by metmom
“For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ. No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him” (John 1:17–18).
God’s Law was permeated with His glory and reflected His holiness and righteousness. Though God was gracious in the Old Testament, the Law was not an instrument of grace because the Law saved no one (Rom. 3:20–22; Gal. 2:16; 3:10–12). It merely convicts sinners of their inability to keep perfectly God’s righteous standards, and condemns them to the eternal punishment of divine justice; thus it reveals their need for the grace of forgiveness.
Jesus Christ, however, brought the full realization of grace and truth. In Him, the truth of God’s salvation was fully revealed and accomplished.
God also was made visible with a clarity never before seen or known. “No one has seen God at any time,” Jesus declared of the years before His appearing (John 6:46), not merely because He is a spirit who is invisible, but more important because to do so would bring instant death. It is through Jesus Christ, the “image of the invisible God” (Col. 1:15), that God is revealed.
God, who cannot be known unless He reveals Himself, became most fully known because Jesus “explained Him.” Jesus is the explanation of God. He is the answer to the question, “What is God like?”
Jesus is the only one qualified to interpret God to man, since “no one knows the Son except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him” (Matt. 11:27).
Ask Yourself
What is something of God that He has “explained” to you recently, some facet of His nature and character that has been “revealed” to you through your interaction with Him? Aren’t you glad He has chosen to make Himself known?
Studying God’s Word ping
Michael Heiser believes the most likely date for Jesus’ birth is September 11.
I find that fascinating in several ways...
https://drmsh.com/september-11-happy-birthday-to-jesus/
He told them that if they have seen Him they have seen the Father for He is in the Father and the Father is in Him.
In Physics terminology, the only place where the disciples could see God Who is so much greater than their sensing capabilities is where He, God, intersects their limits, as Jesus.
A being limited to only length and width sensing cannot comprehend a three spatial dimension object such as a ball, except where the ball is in their two variable realm, perhaps being passed through their plane. The volume makes a circle in their plane but the ball is so much more.
Meant to ping y’all.
Without longer discussing this, I just wonder if this has any bearing on the idea of the Person of The God being invested in human flesh (bone) and blood form.
Uh; no.
Bethlehem is 31.7 ° north latitude. https://www.google.com/maps/@31.7049,35.20316,2517m/data=!3m1!1e3
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Did you mean: Padanaram?
BUT, how would the stars appear in 3BC? Do you know if someone has run the star clock backwards on computer to locate the Southern Cross in 3BC?
Uh, yes. Last I heard, Bethlehem was just almost due south of Jerusalem and about 50 ft. higher. Unless it has moved in the past week or two.
At that time in history, the Magoi from around Lake Van had been traveling more and more south for centuries, and were still able to see the rise and setting of the Southern Cross briefly from Jerusalem. The star(s) would have been seen briefly just above Bethlehem's hills.
Right now, you can still see the Southern Cross on the horizon from Brownsville, TX. Or Dubai, if you're seeing the sights. Especially from one of their really tall buildings.
του δε ιησου γεννηθεντος εν βηθλεεμ της ιουδαιας εν ημεραις ηρωδου του βασιλεως ιδου μαγοι απο ανατολων παρεγενοντο εις ιεροσολυμα (Mt. 2:1 TR)
"But when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of the Judea in the days of Herod the King, behold! Magoi from Anatolia approached Jerusalem, . . ." (my direct unarguable translation).
The region to the east of Greece which was fought over for centuries was called by Greeks "Anatolia" (simply because it was to the east of Greece) and by everyone else who used the Koine common language, because the Greeks called it that, even though it was to the north of Israel.
Apparently you're not aware that because of the change in precession (tilt of the axis of rotation of the globe itself) of the earth fron the axis of the plane of its rotation about the sun, over the centuries the ability to see the Southern Cross has been shifting more and more south through the centuries. During Abraham's time in Haran of Anatolia, the southern part of Armenia (Aram = Armenia), the Southern Cross could be seen from the slopes of the Caucasian (Chaldean) mountains.
Abraham was born to Terah, who lived in Ur of the Chaldean mountain area, now called Sanliurfa, or "Gorious Ur," which is onlyu about 25 miles north of Haran, likely the place where Terah's son, Haran, the brother of Abraham, died; and Terah called a halt to his plan of travelling south with Abraham.
God had told Abraham to separate himself from his false-god-worshipping kin to go to Canaan. But when they decided to go with Abram rather than just let him go, I believe God started killing them off to prevent them from bringing these false gods with them. Even then, he still brougnt his nephew with him, which has caused problems for the Hebrews ever since, right up to today.
You know that when Jacob went back to live with Laban at Haran, a town in the Padan district of Aram, the east part of Anatolia, his wives decided to steal their father's idols to take with them.
"Then Jacob went on his journey, and came into the land of the people of the east(in the LXX the word is Anatolia) " (Gen. 29:1 AV).
"And as for me, when I came from Padan, Rachel died by me in the land of Canaan in the way, when yet there was but a little way to come unto Ephrath: and I buried her there in the way of Ephrath; the same is Bethlehem" (Gen. 48:7 AV).
Later on, Balaam, a priest of Armenia (Aram) was used to curse the Jews:
"And he took up his parable, and said, Balak the king of Moab hath brought me from Aram, out of the mountains of the east(in the LXX ανατολων, saying, Come, curse me Jacob, and come, defy Israel" (Num. 23:7 AV).
"His substance also was seven thousand sheep, and three thousand camels, and five hundred yoke of oxen, and five hundred she asses, and a very great household; so that this man was the greatest of all the men of the eastAnatolia " (Job 1:3 AV)
Job was of the land of UZ, arguably of Aramaea (Armenia) (Gen. 10:22-23; 22:21; 1 Chron. 1:17). "Who raised up the righteous manAbraham and all his posterity from the eastAnatolia, from Padanaram, called him to his foot, gave the nations before him, and made him rule over kings? he gave them as the dust to his sword, and as driven stubble to his bow" (Isa. 41:2 AV).
These contexts show that Padan (of) Aram is Anatolia, and that is what it is still called today on any map.
I suppose this is all new to you. Of course, it contradicts what a lot of people have been indoctrinated with, especially by Leonard Wooley. But you can't fool the Kurds of Turkey. They know where Abraham was born, have known it for centuries.
The language of Padan Aram (Aramaic) was popular enough (still spoken in Galilee) that the Jewish scribes adopted the Aramaic alphabet to write their Hebrew in not long before Jesus' time, displacing the ugly paleo-Hebrew letters. Those prettier letters are still used today for writing the books of the Hebrew Bible.
Yes
There was a star the equivalent to our current North star; Polaris; in the southern sky at the time of Christ's birth; but it was NOT any portion of the Southern Cross.
Oh; I'm aware all right; but the Southern Cross is not; and never has been; located at the location in the sky to indicate due south.
Well, if I remember correctly, 2,000 years ago the Southern Cross was kust high enough to be seen as during the night the person standing in/near Jerusalem would be rotated low enough to see that cruciform grouping "rise" just enough above the horizon to be seen. And also, at that point in time, the stars appeared more southerly than they do now.
But this declination had been followed and catalogued for hundreds of years (I obstinately presume) to the astrologists, who had to move more southerly every few years to even see it on the horizon at the appointed time. And also this presumes that the ancient, wise people, coming off the ark and needing to keep track of when to plant and when to harvest, were carefully mapping the skies to get their information.
Such people were carrying that kind of mapping technology when they migrated to the (now British) isles, where they set up the Stonehenge circular timetable, with a precisely located slot at which the sun was seen on its northernmost appearance marking the longest day of summer. Because of the change in angle of earth's precession, that location has shifted exactly the same amount from where the sunrise occurred when Stonehenge was built. Other features in the construction allowed the observers to set off a calendar based on lunar, planetary, and stellar cycles, thus learning to survive in the post-diluvian era.
I believe it has been postulated that the earth may have actually turned upside down somewhere along the line. Right now, things are happening that magnetic north location is even becoming a little (or a lot) iffy.
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And furthermore, It is pretty clear that the magoi astrologers serving Nebuchadnezzar had really come down out of the more northwestern mountains in the vicinity of Ararat (roughly where the nearby year-round habitable and agricultural location of Lake Van is), probably keeping in touch with their Armenian relatives.
Many theorists propose that the magoi visiting Jesus at age 2 were from Babylon, but I think not, for Cyrus or Darious had pretty much driven humans out of that area, partly by diverting water flow and creating a sickly marshy area, not good to live in. So I believe they did not come from that locality, nor were they any longer serving the royalty as priests, Even when Artaxerxes and Esther were located at Susha, never Basbylon any longer, and certainly not Wooley's southeastern Ur which was at the edge of the (Persian?) Gulf.
Etc. etc.
"Then spake Joshua to the LORD in the day when the LORD delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon.
And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day" (Joshua 10:12,13 AV).
Reversed?
"And Isaiah said, This sign shalt thou have of the LORD, that the LORD will do the thing that he hath spoken: shall the shadow go forward ten degrees, or go back ten degrees?
And Hezekiah answered, It is a light thing for the shadow to go down ten degrees: nay, but let the shadow return backward ten degrees.
And Isaiah the prophet cried unto the LORD: and he brought the shadow ten degrees backward, by which it had gone down in the dial of Ahaz" (2 Ki 20:9-11 AV).
They must have had some pretty good shock absorbers in those days, eh? from abt 6.7 mi/sec to zero, then back again or even greater in reversal with restart. Hmmmmmmm . . .
Why would they even want to see it; since it barely appeared at all?
There are a myriad of other stars that do the same thing all along the -60° circle.
I suppose we could get one of these; place a laser pointer at the SC location and spin the earth globe inside it to actually see where the laser could touch it in the North.
Gotta love them. Do you know that we get our term 'clockwise' from the way the shadow moves around the dial in the daytime?
If they'd been invented in the southern half of the world, clocks would run BACKWARD!
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