Posted on 12/20/2007 3:32:58 PM PST by shield
FORT WORTH (CBS 11 News) ― The Star of Bethlehem has befuddled scholars throughout the ages. Now, a Texas law professor claims to have scientific proof that the Star was real, and not purely biblical myth. He has another major discovery as well, which resulted from his study of the Star.
Texas A&M adjunct law professor Frederick Larson began researching the Star after putting up a nativity scene for his daughter. The lawyer in him, Larson said, required him to investigate what it was that he was putting up in his front yard. Beginning with the book of Matthew, he ended up on a decade-long odyssey into astronomy.
Larson is emphatic in saying that, although his quest was initially faith-driven, it became much more. "If I'm going to make a star hypothesis," he said, "I want to know, what did it do? Was it an angel? Was it a comet? Was it a myth?"
Although his story begins with one man's journey into the skies, it ends an unfathomable truth for some, that Larson said will change the way the world sees the Star of Bethlehem forever.
The Star of Bethlehem echoes the symphonic sounds of verses like "a star, a star, twinkles in the night" and "these three Kings of Orient are," along with oil masterpieces like 'The Adoration of the Magi.'
These pieces tell a story laid out in the Gospels. "Behold where is the one who has been born King of the Jews? We have come to worship him (Matthew: Chapter 2)." This is a quintessential verse pointed to by scholars, of the Magi being led by a star to the Christ child, the King of the Jews, as they approached King Herod for direction to His location in Jerusalem more than 2,000 years ago.
Based on the three laws of planetary motion by German mathematician and physicist Johannes Kepler, Larson developed a video presentation using modern-day software. This new software can pinpoint events in the sky for any day of any year.
Larson first had to approximate the death of King Herod, which, based on the writings of ancient Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, most scholars presume to be about 4 B.C. But Larson said he found a recent discovery that states a printing error occurred in the 14th Century. The error had incorrectly printed Josephus' presumption of Herod's death. This caused scholars to look at the wrong date in researching the Star of Bethlehem. "All the oldest manuscripts, before 1544, are consistent with Herod having died in 1 B.C.," Larson said. "That opens up the possibility for us to look in the years 2 and 3 B.C. There, the sky explodes!"
Many scholars have hypothesized the conjunction of planets theory before, but Larson said that alone might not have been anything spectacular to stargazers 2,000 years ago.
Something did happen, however, that was much more profound -- a triple conjunction of Jupiter, Venus and the star Regulus on April 3, 2 B.C., and a new moon. "What you had was two stars stacked on top of each other," Larson explained. "To an observer, it appeared to be the brightest star anyone had ever seen." Larson described it as an astronomical event that hasn't happened again in the 20th Century.
Larson also hedges much of his hypothesis on the existence of this Star phenomenon on nine points taken from Matthew. This includes: it rose in the east, it endured over time (eliminating that it could have been a comet or a meteor) and that it stopped over the place where the Christ child was born.
The last point has driven many people away from the idea that a Star of Bethlehem ever existed, but Larson said, although it is astronomically impossible for a star to "stop" over something, it did because of something called retrograde motion. "Wandering stars move around in a field of fixed stars, causing it to appear as though they're moving," Larson said. The Star would've appeared to move and stop.
Larson has come up against rigorous criticism from the scientific community for what they see as a religious approach to a scientific issue.
SMU adjunct professor of astronomy and physics John Cotton said Larson's approach is flawed, in part because he did not research ancient astrology. Cotton points to the work of modern-day astronomer Michael Molnar, who spent three years researching ancient astrologers to arrive at his Star hypothesis.
For starters, Cotton said, Molnar begins with the presumption of the time of Christ's birth as more plausible in 6 B.C., as the skies look much different in that year. He said that ancient astrologers and astronomers, such as what the Magi were said to have been, would have been in tune with the symbolism of the stars. Molnar puts the Star in line with Aries the Ram versus Larson's Leo theory.
Cotton said, "If it fits what you know, with the Matthew story, and it fits the ancient astrology then it's a reasonable candidate. [Larson's work] is nothing new because it was proposed years ago."
Other religious scholars said that there is no real consensus as to the exact time of birth or death of Jesus, thereby making any hypothesis on the Star of Bethlehem irrelevant.
According to biblical scholar Bruce Alan Killian, if one were to go by the astrology of the times as Cotton asserts, "Venus, called the wandering star by ancients, rose before sunrise on August 24, 2 B.C. and fulfilled prophecies in Jacob. Jesus called himself the bright morning star (Revelations 22:16)."
Looking at Larson's hypothesis of Venus rising as a conjunction with Jupiter (the King planet) and Regulus (the King star), and the fact that Jacob calls Judah a lion in Genesis 49:9-10, according to Larson, "You can choose to see what you want, but, from the symbolic perspective, I see King, King, King everywhere."
Larson admits that he is riding on the backs of many great historians, scientists and scholars with his work, but added, "You begin by unearthing everything that's already been discovered and add to it." He said he respects and appreciates many great names in science on this subject, including the work of Molnar.
On the issue of adding value to the existing research, Larson said, "I resist just being a storyteller. What is new is the poem. The poem is a new discovery and it is striking." The poem is, in theory, an arch of symbolic celestial and astronomical events, Larson said, that began with the Star and a new moon at Christ's conception or birth.
Larson's presentation does, however, bring the Star of Bethlehem to life. His project brings color and clarity to a subject often too complicated and detailed for the layman to understand. If you are interested in seeing a purely scientific approach, the Museum of Natural Science at Fair Park will have their "Mystery of the Star" exhibit beginning December 3rd and running through the 21st.
Jupiter. The King star.
2. An overwhelmingly strong argument in favor of the correctness of this view lies in the fact that the date of "the Festival of Michael and All Angels" has been from very early times the 29th day of September, on Gentile (Western) reckoning. But "the Church" even then had lost sight of the reason why this date rather than any other in the Calendar should be so indissolubly associated with the great Angelic Festival.
3. The following expresses the almost universal knowledge or rather want of knowledge of "Christendom" on the subject: "We pass on now to consider, in the third place, the commemoration of September 29, the festival of Michaelmas, par excellence. It does not appear at all certain what was the original special idea of the commemoration of this day" (Smith's Dict. of Chr. Antiqq. (1893), vol. ii, p. 1177 (3) ).
A reference, however, to the Table and statements above, makes the "original special idea " why the Festival of "Michael and All Angels" is held on September 29 abundantly clear. Our Lord was born on that day, the first day of the "Feast of Tabernacles" (Lev. 23:39). This was on the fifteenth day of the seventh Jewish month called Tisri, or Ethanim (Ap. 51. 5), corresponding to our September 29 (of the year 4 B.C.) The "Begetting" (gennesis) Day of the Lord was announced by the Angel Gabriel. See notes on Dan. 8:16 and Luke 1:19. The "Birth" Day, by "(the) Angel of the Lord", unnamed in either Matthew and Luke.
That this Angelic Being was "Michael the Archangel (of Jude 9), and Mika'el hassar haggadol - "Michael the Great Prince"- of Dan. 12:1, seems clear for the following reason: If, "when again (yet future) He bringeth the First-begotten into the world, He saith, Let all the Angels of God worship Him" (Heb 1:6; quoting Ps. 97:6) - then this must include the great Archangel Michael himself. By parity of reasoning, on the First "bringing" into the world of the only begotten Son, the Archangel must have been present. And the tremendous announcement to the shepherds, that the Prince of Peace (Isa. 9:6) was on earth in the person of the Babe of Bethlehem, must therefore have been made by the same head of the heavenly host (Luke 2:9-14). In mundane affairs, announcements of supremest importance (of kings, &c.) are invariably conveyed through the most exalted personage in the realm. The point need not be labored.
4. The fact of the Birth of our Lord having been revealed to the shepherds by the Archangel Michael on the 15th of Tisri (or Ethanim), corresponding to September 29, 4 B.C. - The first day of the Feast of Tabernacles - must have been known to believers in the Apostolic Age. But "the mystery of iniquity" which was "already working" in Paul's day (2Thess. 2:7) quickly enshrouded this and the other great fact of the day of the Lord's "begetting" on the first day of the Jewish month Tebeth (corresponding to December 25, 5 B.C.) - as well as other events connected with His sojourn on earth, (*1) - in a rising mist of obscurity in which they have ever since been lost.
The earliest allusion to December 25 (modern reckoning) as the date for the Nativity is found in the Stromata of Clement of Alexandria, about the beginning of the third century A.D. (See note 3 p. 197). (*2)
Doesn’t the first day of Tishri make more sense?
The new year, the day of Kings?
And that should have been 3 BC.
No, it does not. Our Lord was made flesh on Dec. 25th [conceived] 280days = 40 weeks = PERFECT human gestation. Feast of Tabernacles is what lines up with scripture. When one has an understanding WHY?
That’s pretty much what Starry Night shows too, after hiding the horizon. :-)
IMO basing research around a “perfect” gestation period brings in a needless bias and flaws the objectivity of the research at the outset.
1 Tishri was the new year, the day of trumpets (the day chosen to blow trumpets in honor of the king), and the day that according to some traditions was the day Adam took his first breath.
The astronomical signs also line up with Tishri 1 as well:
http://www.geocities.com/kubyimm1/sm3g.htm
The question is whether you believe and trust Sukkot as the date is supported by Elizabeth's pregnancy of John the Immerser. Zacharias served as a high priest and based on his tribe, we know when he served John would have been born on Pesach. Most Jews believed that Factor in when Miriam visited her cousin Elizabeth, John (1:14) tells us that Yah'shua was made flesh and tabernacled among us. Eight days after the beginning of Sukkot is another Holy Feast Day called Shemini Atzeret. Eight days after a Jewish male is born he is circumcised. Nine months back from Sukkot is Chanukah where the light entered the temple.
the Holy Word of Elohim in Luke 1
or you trust the traditions of man Yah'shua's birth on Sukkot (September 26 at sundown to October 3 2007)
b'SHEM Yah'shua
(Sukkot is the Feast of Tabernacles or booths, where we live in temporary shelters.
Sukkot is when YHvH took on a temporary garment to be with His People
and to die as the Lamb of G-d on Pesach in order to bring salvation to all
who would call on His Name : Yah'shua ( YHvH is become my salvation)).
The time sequence is outlined by the Holy Word of Elohim in Luke 1 with Zacharias.
and when he was struck dumb and when John was conceived.
Elijah would come at Pesach to announce the coming of the Messiah
Elizabeth was six months pregnant (Luke 1:26)
Thus the timing of Yah'shua's birth can be ascertained.
“If you get a chance to see the presentation you should do so.”
I just got the DVD for Christmas and it blew me away. I can’t stop thinking about it.
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Note: this topic is from November 2007. |
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Regards,
TS
It was an incredibly persuasive piece of work. I am amazed to hear that it took the professor ten years to compile it, but I believe that to be the case.
Freepers should check it out: BethlehemStar.Net
Regards,
TS
Thanks! I will look forward to seeing it.
(I commented earlier on this thread: Post 65 and Post 80.)
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Thanks again shield. Note: this topic is from 2007. |
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I heard A&M bought the Law School in Ft.Worth (Southwestern??????). Not sure of the name of the previous non A&M law school. Not 100% sure.
not sure about that either. It seems like every few years A&M talks to a school but I’m not sure if a deal has ever been finalized....
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