Seeing and believing in the Star of Bethlehem

Dec. 28, 2005 - " ... during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, 'Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him.'" - Matthew 2:1-2

They are requisite figures in every nativity scene: Three elegantly dressed exotic men, camels in tow, weighed down with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. They are always a few steps removed, seeming to defer to the farm animals surrounding the young mother and her newborn.

Accuracy is not a hallmark of either marketing or religious traditions, which is why nativity scenes feature the three wise men, even though the only written account of these curious travelers has them arriving at a house, not a stable, and not immediately after Jesus' birth.

In fact, Christian tradition marks the Feast of the Epiphany on Jan. 6 as the date the Magi arrived in Jerusalem saying they were following a bright star to a newborn king.

But what if it didn't happen that way? What if there was no star? What if - gasp - it was just a literary device the gospel writer used to convey that Jesus was, indeed, a king? After all, Augustus Caesar had used astrology as an excuse for why people should follow him. He attempted to show that of all the different heirs of Julius Caesar had the will of the gods behind him because of a particular heavenly constellation that appeared at his birth.

So many questions, so little time. Lucky for me, Guy Consolmagno likes questions. (And let me issue a warning right now: If you cling to a literal interpretation of biblical texts, do not continue reading.)

Consolmagno is the curator of meteors for the Vatican Observatory Group, a consortium of Jesuit scientists who study everything from the Big Bang to black holes to the expanding universe. Many of them are stationed at the University of Arizona, but a few like Consolmagno - a planetary scientist with degrees from MIT and the UA - work from the group's observatory just outside of Rome. It is at Castel Gondolfo that Consolmagno baby-sits 4.5 billion-year-old pieces of the solar system and plays "You can borrow mine if I can borrow yours" with the Smithsonian, the British Museum of Natural History and Japan's Institute for Polar Research.

He visits fellow Jesuits at the UA each fall, and has an abiding interest in the star of Bethlehem, so he was the perfect person with whom to discuss Michael Molnar's book, "Star of Bethlehem: The Legacy of the Magi."

Was there a star?

"We don't know," he says, matter-of-factly, "We weren't there."

But, Consolmagno adds, of all the theories that aim to prove the famed star's existence, Molnar's rings most true. Molnar posits that the star was actually a heliacal rising - a group of planets rising with the sun - and could not be seen because the presence of the sun among planets makes them virtually invisible.

But if the star wasn't visible, how could the Magi follow it?

Ancient astronomers, Consolmagno said, could calculate the positions of the planets by marking where they had been over a large period of time and then extrapolating forward. Knowing where the stars and planets are is not of primary importance to astrologers, however; the key is knowing what those locations mean.

"The positions of the stars are like a code," Consolmagno said, adding that both astronomers and astrologers could "agree the code says XYnn4, but then we'd argue interpretation."

"Astronomers don't see cause and effect between what we see in the sky and events in human life, but astrologers do. In the process of this interpretation, they come up with rules they think explain what happens on earth. Among the rules is that certain parts of the sky represent certain parts of the earth," he explained. "As near as we can tell, (ancient astrologers) believed things that happened in the constellation of Aries represented things going on in Syria and Jerusalem," and planets rising with the sun signified the birth of a king.

Which would explain the proclamation of a star no one but three Persian astrologers could see: They were "seeing" it not in the sky, but on an astrological map.

Matthew's gospel offers "a perfectly reasonable story," Consolmango said, but what intrigues the Jesuit astronomer is using modern science to calculate if there really was a time when four planets rose with the sun.

"Indeed, this did happen at just the right time to match up with the other things we know about the time Jesus was born," he said. "So, from a scientific point of view, we know there was an astronomical event, but does it prove anything? No."

He pauses, sipping his coffee, waiting to deliver the theological punch line.

"Ultimately, for how I'm going to live my life, it doesn't matter. If you showed me a tablet inscribed by God saying it was all a myth, I'd still have to live my life the same way because this isn't an essential to my faith. The essential truths to my faith are the existence of God, the sonship of Jesus and the presence of the Holy Spirit."

From a Christian theological perspective, he's absolutely correct. But try telling that to the little kids wrapped in bathrobes and sporting Burger King hats at Christmas pageants.

Then "the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, until it came and stood over where the child was.

Exactly. The passage that you describe here is from the second chapter of Matthew's gospel -- and it refers to what happened after the Magi had met with Herod and his chief priests in Jerusalem. The star would have had no function as a directional guide at this point, since Bethlehem is situated just a few miles south of Jerusalem and is probably visible from the city itself. If anything, the star was a guide in terms of timing rather than location -- and whatever occurred in the night sky surely unfolded over a period of several months.

This is what has led to some serious speculation that the "star" was actually a series of events in the sky related to the movement of one or more of the outer planets -- since these planets go through what is called retrograde motion at different points in their cycle of revolution around the sun relative to the earth's revolution over the course of a year. The combination of two or more planets going through their retrograde cycles at the same time could result in some unique arrangements of the planets in the night sky that would change over time. Depending on where this activity took place (in terms of proximity to the constellations in the Zodiac, bright stars in these constellations, etc.), it could have been viewed as a major omen to wise men who had an understanding of what was unfolding before their eyes.

It says in the Gospels that the magi came from the EAST. They could've come from Babylon. Daniel was in Babylon after the fall of Jerusalem. He could've very easily left records of when, what to look for, and what it meant. The way Daniel is treated by the Babylonians indicates that he was held in high esteem by them, and his writings would've been preserved and studied, he being the wisest "wise guy" of all. Also, it seems likely that everyone in Jerusalem saw the star, since, when the magi mosied into town, all of Jerusalem was "troubled." Perhaps Herod had put an APB for anyone knowing what this meant, from the court astrologer to the toothless bubbe on the edge of town.

Granted, there are a lot of perhapses in the above, but it doesn't seem like a conjunction of planets would worry people whose king had people on staff who could tell them what it was. But when the chumps are stumped, it's something else.

Here are some "wise men:"

Daniel 2:48 Then the king made Daniel a great man, and gave him many great gifts, and made him ruler over the whole province of Babylon, and chief of the governors over all THE WISE MEN OF BABYLON.

In 586 B.C. the Babylonians invaded and captured Jerusalem. Thousands of Jews were forced to relocate and live in Babylon. Though many returned to Jerusalem at the end of this "Babylonian captivity," the area continued to have a large Jewish population for many centuries. This made it likely that wise men of Babylon knew of and were interested in the prophecies of a coming Jewish Messiah.

The 70 week of Daniel 9 epecially, it gave the general time for the wise men to look for the messiah, 483 years from the Cyrus decree “unto the messiah.” The wise men would have known that they were in the general time frame when this would occur. The time was nigh.

In the Old Testament Book of Numbers, the prophet Balaam says, "I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near-a star shall come forth out of Jacob and a scepter shall rise out of Israel..." The wise men would have known of this prophecy. They would have connected the birth of the Messiah with a celestial sign.

By the end of the first century B.C. the wise men of Babylon would have been anticipating this sign for hundreds of years. Whatever the sign was it would have to be unique and in the time frame of the Daniel 9 prophecy.

Also, it seems likely that everyone in Jerusalem saw the star, since, when the magi mosied into town, all of Jerusalem was "troubled." Perhaps Herod had put an APB for anyone knowing what this meant, from the court astrologer to the toothless bubbe on the edge of town.

There are a couple of things in that gospel passage that are very intriguing, and probably give a strong indication about what exactly was happening at the time.

1. The point that Herod was troubled, and "all of Jerusalem" was troubled with him, sounds very odd -- since Herod was a pretty bad guy and I can't think of too many things that would disturb the people of Jerusalem as much as they would disturb Herod. Herod could possibly see a great leader in Israel as a potential threat, but that wouldn't bother the ordinary citizens of Jerusalem.

2. The gospel passage indicates that Herod and the people of Jerusalem became troubled AFTER the Magi explained exactly what motivated them to leave their homes in the East and travel to Jerusalem. So whatever it was that disturbed these people, it wasn't something blatantly obvious in the sky.

One other curious element of this is that Herod and all of Jerusalem were deeply troubled by something that the Magi had assumed to be a wonderful, world-changing event. So whatever it was that troubled Herod and the people of Jerusalem had to be something that the Magi didn't understand, or didn't consider all that important.

The combination of these factors tells me that what the Magi saw in the sky prompted fear in Herod and the citizens of Jerusalem over the one thing that would have affected them greatly but would not have affected the Magi very much at all -- the Roman forces occupying Israel at the time. Herod wasn't troubled because this great leader of Israel represented a threat to him -- he was troubled because the interpretation of events in the night sky described to him by the Magi would likely have been interpreted in a similar manner by the astrologers in Rome. If the emperor of Rome had been told by his astrologers about an omen in the sky indicating the birth of a great leader in Israel, then Herod and all of the people of Israel would have much to fear.

The events in the night sky that would be interpreted in this way would have to meet a couple of different criteria, and anyone who has the ability to research these things might pursue this further:

1. It had to be something in the sky that looked "normal" to most people at the time, so I've ruled out a comet or supernova and would focus on planetary activity (which was often studied among wise men in different cultures back then).

2. It had to be something that didn't occur very frequently, since many celestial events like planetary conjunctions occur at multiple times over the course of many years -- and this one had to be so different than the others that it prompted the Magi to travel from the East.

3. It had to occur over a period of time, since it was evident in the sky at different points in time as the Magi traveled from the East. Also, Herod's fixation on when the "star" first appeared -- and his subsequent order to have every male child under the age of two killed -- indicates that this series of events occurred over at least a 1-2 year period.

4. It had to have some relevance to Israel, which could mean planetary activity in the constellation of Aries (because the Ram was seen as the symbol of Israel at the time) or Leo (because of the Old Testament references to Judea in the context of "the Lion of Israel").

5. It also had to have some importance to the Romans, which would lean toward something related to Mars (the Roman god of war) or Jupiter (the head of all Roman gods).

Based on these factors, I'd go back to a ten-year period leading up to 0 AD and see what happened in the skies involving Mars and/or Jupiter and the constellations of Aries and/or Leo over a 1-2 year interval.

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