-Caveat Lector-
Astronomers explain Christmas star
Tuesday, 22 December 1998 15:45 (GMT)
(UPI Focus)
Astronomers explain Christmas star
DECATUR, Ga., Dec. 22 (UPI) - A modern-day astronomer says it is
almost certain that strange lights lit up the night sky sometime between
2,004 and 2,040 years ago - at least enough to startle professional
astrologers in what is now Iraq or Iran.
Chris Depress, an astronomer at Agnes Scott College in suburban
Atlanta, says there were lunar eclipses, a supernova recorded by the
Chinese and several other celestial phenomena during the period that
roughly coincides with the Biblical date of the birth of Jesus.
The Magi - a sect of astrologers and sorcerers - probably trekked
from their homeland to Bethlehem trying to catch up with the unusual
light in the sky, Depree says.
They may have been drawn by a lunar eclipse recorded by Roman
historian Josephus Flavius. The Roman wrote that Herod died a few days
before Passover following that eclipse.
"There were two lunar eclipses that took place around that time, and
the likely match is the one that occurred on March 13 of 4 B.C.,"
DePree told United Press International. "That event would place the
birth of Jesus a few years earlier, somewhere around 7 or 6 B.C."
Chinese historians recorded the sighting of a supernova - the sudden
brightening of a known star - about the same time, DePree says. There
are also ancient historical accounts of several bright comets that could
have been visible in the Middle East.
The famed early astronomer Johannes Kepler discovered that a "triple
conjunction of the planets Jupiter and Saturn" occurred roughly in the
same period, says DePree.
A triple conjunction is when two planets come close three times over
a period of several months. There is no doubt that this happened, DePree
says, because past and future movements of the planets and Earth's moon
are perfectly predictable.
DePree adds: "It's pretty much a clockwork, and you can rewind that
to 4 B.C. and say, 'Hey, there was a lunar eclipse. We know from history
when Herod died, and that there was a census.' There is a big historical
record on the era of Ceasar Augustus."
The Magi would have been certain to notice an event most people would
have missed, such as a triple conjunction, DePree says. And it's likely,
he adds, that as court astrologers trained to see good or evil portents
in such signs, they would have headed east to try to get a closer look.
"To them, it would have been a huge event," DePree says. Dr. Oded
Borowski, a professor of biblical history and archaeology at Atlanta's
Emory University, says there is no hard "extra-Biblical evidence" for
the birth of Jesus, though historians recorded many events that occurred
around the reputed time of his birth.
"If Jesus was born, there is nothing in history recording it,"
Borowski says. According to DePree's calculations, Jupiter and Saturn
approached each other in the spring, fall and early winter in 7 B.C.
"It is possible that the first of these three conjunctions started
the Magi on their journey to Bethlehem, and the final one marked their
arrival," he says.
Anthony Aveni, a professor or anthropology and astronomy at Colgate
University, writes in this month's journal Archaeology that the Magi,
familiar with Jewish tradition, would have known that Jupiter was
considered "a lucky star."
When early Christians began to believe in the divinity of Jesus, it
would have been natural to "have looked for a celestial event to
connect with his birth, like our relating Comet Hale-Bopp to the death
of Princess Diana."
The quest for an explanation for the star of Bethlehem, Aveni says,
is "like searching for unicorns" and tells "us more about what lies
in ourselves rather than in our stars."
Depree doesn't see it that way. "In my mind, we're never going to
know what it was," he says. And to believers, he adds, "it doesn't
really matter."
--
Copyright 1998 by United Press International.
All rights reserved.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>From the Urantia Book......
8. THE BIRTH OF JESUS
All that night Mary was restless so that neither of them slept much. By
the break of day the pangs of childbirth were well in evidence, and at noon,
August 21, 7 B.C., with the help and kind ministrations of women fellow
travelers, Mary was delivered of a male child. Jesus of Nazareth was born into
the world, was wrapped in the clothes which Mary had brought along for such a
possible contingency, and laid in a near-by manger.
In just the same manner as all babies before that day and since have come
into the world, the promised child was born; and on the eighth day, according
to the Jewish practice, he was circumcised and formally named Joshua (Jesus).
The next day after the birth of Jesus, Joseph made his enrollment.
Meeting a man they had talked with two nights previously at Jericho, Joseph
was taken by him to a well-to-do friend who had a room at the inn, and who
said he would gladly exchange quarters with the Nazareth couple. That
afternoon they moved up to the inn, where they lived for almost three weeks
until they found lodgings in the home of a distant relative of Joseph.
The second day after the birth of Jesus, Mary sent word to Elizabeth that
her child had come and received word in return inviting Joseph up to Jerusalem
to talk over all their affairs with Zacharias. The following week Joseph went
to Jerusalem to confer with Zacharias. Both Zacharias and Elizabeth had become
possessed with the sincere conviction that Jesus was indeed to become the
Jewish deliverer, the Messiah, and that their son John was to be his chief of
aides, his right-hand man of destiny. And since Mary held these same ideas, it
was not difficult to prevail upon Joseph to remain in Bethlehem, the City of
David, so that Jesus might grow up to become the successor of David on the
throne of all Israel. Accordingly, they remained in Bethlehem more than a
year, Joseph meantime working some at his carpenter's trade.
_
At the noontide birth of Jesus the seraphim of Urantia, assembled under
their directors, did sing anthems of glory over the Bethlehem manger, but
these utterances of praise were not heard by human ears. No shepherds nor any
other mortal creatures came to pay homage to the babe of Bethlehem until the
day of the arrival of certain priests from Ur, who were sent down from
Jerusalem by Zacharias.
_
These priests from Mesopotamia had been told sometime before by a strange
religious teacher of their country that he had had a dream in which he was
_
informed that "the light of life" was about to appear on earth as a babe and
_
among the Jews. And thither went these three teachers looking for this "light
_
of life." After many weeks of futile search in Jerusalem, they were about to
_
return to Ur when Zacharias met them and disclosed his belief that Jesus was
the object of their quest and sent them on to Bethlehem, where they found the
babe and left their gifts with Mary, his earth mother. The babe was almost
three weeks old at the time of their visit.
These wise men saw no star to guide them to Bethlehem. The beautiful
legend of the star of Bethlehem originated in this way: Jesus was born August
21 at noon, 7 B.C. On May 29, 7 B.C., there occurred an extraordinary
conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in the constellation of Pisces. And it is a
remarkable astronomic fact that similar conjunctions occurred on September 29
and December 5 of the same year. Upon the basis of these extraordinary but
wholly natural events the well-meaning zealots of the succeeding generation
constructed the appealing legend of the star of Bethlehem and the adoring Magi
led thereby to the manger, where they beheld and worshiped the newborn babe.
Oriental and near-Oriental minds delight in fairy stories, and they are
continually spinning such beautiful myths about the lives of their religious
leaders and political heroes. In the absence of printing, when most human
knowledge was passed by word of mouth from one generation to another, it was
very easy for myths to become traditions and for traditions eventually to
become accepted as facts.
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