The Star of Bethlehem and the Christmas Story

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The Star of Bethlehem and the Christmas Story

• Myth, Fact and Reality

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Fact and fiction I

• The New Testament is a mixture of history,
  hearsay and preaching written some 90 years after
  the Nativity.
• Matthew about 80-100 AD
• Luke about 80-130AD
• It is not strictly a historical record, but it is
  undoubtedly based on something that was at least
  intended to be a more or less factual account.
• We are not dealing with pure fantasy.
• It cannot be taken too literally, but no one can
  argue that the Gospel narrative has no basis of
  historical fact.

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Matthews Version of the Nativity
1 Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of
Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold,
there came wise men from the east to
Jerusalem,2 Saying, Where is he that is born
King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in
the east, and are come to worship him.3 When
Herod the king had heard these things, he was
troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.4 And
when he had gathered all the chief priests and
scribes of the people together, he demanded of
them where Christ should be born.5 And they
said unto him, In Bethlehem of Judaea for thus
it is written by the prophet,6 And thou
Bethlehem, in the land of Juda, art not the least
among the princes of Juda for out of thee shall
come a Governor, that shall rule my people
Israel.7 Then Herod, when he had privily
called the wise men, inquired of them diligently
what time the star appeared.8 And he sent them
to Bethlehem, and said, Go and search diligently
for the young child and when ye have found him,
bring me word again, that I may come and worship
him also.9 When they had heard the king, they
departed and, lo, the star, which they saw in
the east, went before them, till it came and
stood over where the young child was.10 When
they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding
great joy.11 And when they were come into the
house, they saw the young child with Mary his
mother, and fell down, and worshipped him and
when they had opened their treasures, they
presented unto him gifts gold, and frankincense,
and myrrh.12 And being warned of God in a
dream that they should not return to Herod, they
departed into their own country another way.13
And when they were departed, behold, the angel of
the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream, saying,
Arise, and take the young child and his mother,
and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I
bring thee word for Herod will seek the young
child to destroy him.14 When he arose, he took
the young child and his mother by night, and
departed into Egypt15 And was there until the
death of Herod that it might be fulfilled which
was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying,
Out of Egypt have I called my son.16 Then
Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise
men, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth, and
slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and
in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and
under, according to the time which he had
diligently inquired of the wise men.
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Lukes Version of the Nativity
1 And it came to pass in those days, that there
went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all
the world should be taxed.2 (And this taxing
was first made when Cyrenius was governor of
Syria.)3 And all went to be taxed, every one
into his own city.4 And Joseph also went up
from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into
Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called
Bethlehem (because he was of the house and
lineage of David)5 To be taxed with Mary his
espoused wife, being great with child.6 And so
it was, that, while they were there, the days
were accomplished that she should be
delivered.7 And she brought forth her
firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling
clothes, and laid him in a manger because there
was no room for them in the inn.8 And there
were in the same country shepherds abiding in the
field, keeping watch over their flock by
night.9 And, lo, the angel of the Lord came
upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round
about them and they were sore afraid.10 And
the angel said unto them, Fear not for, behold,
I bring you good tidings of great joy, which
shall be to all people.11 For unto you is born
this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is
Christ the Lord.12 And this shall be a sign
unto you Ye shall find the babe wrapped in
swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.13 And
suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of
the heavenly host praising God, and saying,14
Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace,
good will toward men.15 And it came to pass,
as the angels were gone away from them into
heaven, the shepherds said one to another, Let us
now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing
which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made
known unto us.16 And they came with haste, and
found Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying in a
manger.
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Differences between Matthew and Luke

• Matthew
• The Star
• The Magi
• King Herod
• A house

• Luke
• The census
• Caesar Augustus
• Quirinius (Cyrenius)
• The inn
• The shepherds

• A cynic would say that it is hard to believe that
  Matthew and Luke are describing the same event.
• However, it is likely that they were interested
  in different aspects of the Nativity and wrote
  for a different audience
• Matthew an evangelist.
• Luke probably a doctor and an amateur historian.

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Differences between Matthew and Luke

• Matthew
• Jesus as a young child
• A house permanent accommodation

• Luke
• Baby Jesus
• The stable temporary emergency accommodation.

Luke seems to be describing events immediately
around the birth of Jesus. Matthew is talking of
events weeks or months later.
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Matthews Version of the Star
1 Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of
Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold,
there came wise men from the east to
Jerusalem,2 Saying, Where is he that is born
King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in
the east, and are come to worship him.3 When
Herod the king had heard these things, he was
troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. 7 Then
Herod, when he had privily called the wise men,
inquired of them diligently what time the star
appeared.8 And he sent them to Bethlehem, and
said, Go and search diligently for the young
child and when ye have found him, bring me word
again, that I may come and worship him also.9
When they had heard the king, they departed and,
lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went
before them, till it came and stood over where
the young child was.10 When they saw the star,
they rejoiced with exceeding great joy.11 And
when they were come into the house, they saw the
young child with Mary his mother, and fell down,
and worshipped him and when they had opened
their treasures, they presented unto him gifts
gold, and frankincense, and myrrh. 16 Then
Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise
men, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth, and
slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and
in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and
under, according to the time which he had
diligently inquired of the wise men.
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Explaining the Star

• There are three generic explanations
• It was a miraculous event
• Science plays no part in the explanation
• It never existed
• Matthew simply added the Star to his account. End
  of story.
• It was a natural event of some kind.
• Science can explain it.
• Here explanation 3 is assumed. Otherwise this
  would be a very short talk.

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The oldest mystery in astronomy?

• What was the Star mentioned by Matthew?
• We can only deal with probabilities, never
  certainty
• Sadly, it is vanishingly unlikely that any
  completely new information about the Star will
  ever come to light.
• But absence of proof is not proof of absence!

Matthews Gospel French illuminated bible, c.
1250-1260
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A Popular Misconception

• It is not true that the Star is only mentioned in
  Matthew.
• The Star is mentioned in other contemporary
  documents.
• The Apocryphal Gospel of James (purportedly
  written as an eye-witness account) mentions the
  Star in somewhat more detail than Matthew, but
  this book was not incorporated into the
  official version of the Bible around the 3rd
  Century.
• The Star was also mentioned in a letter by
  Ignatius to the Ephesians written after Matthew,
  but about 2 centuries before the New Testament
  was compiled.
• Both Matthew and James apparently used an
  earlier, lost text Q as the source of their
  accounts.

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Fact and fiction II

• The New Testament has at least some basis of
  historical fact.
• Many of the personalities and places associated
  with the Nativity genuinely existed at the time
  of the Nativity and are known about in some
  detail.
• For example

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Known historical facts

• Bethlehem shepherds still graze their flocks on
  the hills around the town (as in this photograph).

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Known historical facts

• King Herod was the last ruler of a united Judea
  under the Romans, before the Kingdom was divided
  in three on his death.

14
Known historical facts

• Jerusalem much of Jerusalem is little changed.
  The sites of such monuments as the Temple and
  Herods Palace are well known.

15
Known historical facts

• Emperor Caesar Augustus was emperor at the time
  of the Nativity and ordered global censuses in
  28BC, 8BC and 14AD.

16
Known historical facts

• Quirinius
• is thought to have spent two periods in the
  region and was charged by Caesar Augustus with
  carrying out a census.
• The tablet shows the results for a census in
  Lebanon organised at an unknown date by Quirinius
  (described as Emperors Legate, not Governor).

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The date problem

• Lukes Gospel is problematic
• Quirinius was Governor of Syria in 6-7AD.
• Herod died 9 years earlier, so Quirinius could
  not have been Governor while Herod was alive.
• There was no global census at the time that
  Quirinius was Governor.
• Most experts believe that the census mentioned by
  Luke was that of 8BC.
• But this creates even more problems Judea was a
  Protectorate, not part of the Empire. Joseph
  would not have been bound to participate in the
  census.
• It was not until 14AD that Rome took over Judea.
  Only the 14AD census decree would have applied to
  Judea.

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We three Kings?

• Matthew does not state that the Magi were kings,
  nor does he state that there were three of them.
• People associate the three (symbolic) gifts with
  three Magi.
• Matthew simply uses the plural to describe them.
• In the oldest representations sometimes they were
  two, sometimes four and, in the Orthodox
  tradition, twelve.

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We three Kings?

• The Magi were not always kings.
• It was the church that elevated the Magi to
  royalty in the 6th Century AD.
• It was a political decision.
• The King of kings must have been visited by
  kings.

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We three Kings?

• The names Melchior, Baltasar and Gaspar are
  even more recent.
• They date from the 8th Century, but were not
  commonly used until the 10th Century.
• The names symbolise the three races of Earth
  African, Asian and European.

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Who were the Magi?

• Magi
• A sect of Zoroastrian priests among the Medes in
  Persia were known as the Magi.
• Zoroastrianism made Messianic prophesies similar
  to those of the Jews.
• The Magi were most probably from northern Persia,
  close to the Caspian Sea.

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The Magi and the Persian Horde

• In 614AD the Persian armies invaded and sacked
  northern Italy.
• In Ravenna, the church of San Vitale was spared
  because the Persian horde saw the images on the
  walls of the Magi in Persian dress and treated
  them as their own sacred religious symbols.
• The oldest images of the Magi often depict them
  as Persians.

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The real Magi?

• In the 13th Century Marco Polo carried out his
  legendary voyage to Cathay...

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The real Magi

• In the small town of Saveh in northern Persia the
  natives assured him that this had been the home
  town of the Magi and from where they had seen the
  Star.

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An odd coincidence?

• Why should the 13th Century inhabitants of this
  tiny and unknown town, half way to China, regale
  Marco Polo with tales of events that never
  happened and, what is more, events in a country
  more than 1500km away, with which they had no
  obvious affinity?

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When was the Nativity?

• The date of the Nativity was set in 525AD by the
  Scythian monk Dionisius Exiguus.
• His choice was not arbitrary, but we know that
  the date given by Dionisius was almost certainly
  not the correct one.

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A historical fact
Herod family tomb

• Historians and biblical scholars agree that King
  Herod died in late March or early April 4BC,
  shortly after a partial lunar eclipse observed
  from Jericho.
• Thus the Nativity occurred before 4BC, probably
  not long before his death.

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More odd coincidences

• It is well known that when Dionysius Exiguus
  established the Christian calendar in the 6th
  Century, he committed two errors
• He did not include a year zero (the Romans did
  not use the number zero!) the calendar jumps
  directly from 1BC to 1AD and the Nativity was on
  December 25th 1AD.
• He forgot to factor in the 4 years during which
  Augustus Caesar ruled under his given name of
  Octavian.
• In the corrected Dionysian calendar the Nativity
  happened in 5BC, one year before Herods
  unlamented death.

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Coincidence or design?

• Is it just a coincidence that the revised
  Dionisian calendar gives a year for the Nativity
  consistent with the known date of the death of
  Herod?
• Critics suggest that maybe Dionisius committed
  more errors and that the Nativity really happened
  even earlier, perhaps in 6 or 7BC.
• This has been used to support some theories of
  the Star of Bethlehem.
• But, nobody has ever suggested what those errors
  may have been.

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The First Christmas

• Why do we celebrate Christmas on December 25th?
• It is quite certain that the Nativity did not
  happen on December 25th.

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The clue of the shepherds

• Why would the shepherds be watching their flocks
  at night?
• The hills around Bethlehem reach altitudes up to
  almost 800m.
• In winter the animals would usually be under
  cover, especially in bad weather.

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The clue of the shepherds

• The weather in Bethlehem in December, January and
  February is cold and humid. Only a shepherd who
  wanted to risk pneumonia would sleep in the open.
• It starts to improve in March when the shepherds
  would start to sleep out with their flocks.
• At lambing time (March-April) they would have
  needed to keep watch intensely by night to help
  ewes in distress.
• If there were large predators (e.g. wolves) they
  would sleep with their flocks, from March to
  September.

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Why then December?

• Sol Invictus was the most important festivity in
  Rome.
• It marked the shortest day.
• It had been celebrated by the Celts from at least
  1000BC.
• Rather than abolish a popular holiday, the early
  Christian church adopted it and adapted it as
  their own second most important celebration.

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Why then December?

• The Roman celebrations of Sol Invictus were
  marked by
• The most important public holiday of the year.
• Parades in the streets.
• Giving and receiving of gifts.
• Special meals and feasts.
• Decorating houses with green bows.
• Does this sound familiar???

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The true date of the Nativity

• Other contextual clues (e.g. the inn being full)
  suggest that the Nativity occurred at a special
  time of year, with many people in transit.
• Passover Like lambing time, in March or April
  according to the year fits the bill.

There are good contextual and historical reasons
to believe that the Nativity may have occurred in
March or April 5BC.
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Consequences?

1. The entire basis of our western calendar is wrong
   (the millennium was not 2001 but, in fact, 1996).
2. Christmas should be around Easter.
3. If we are looking for a Star of Bethlehem it had
   to appear no later than 5BC.

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Popular (wrong) theories

• Venus
• Visible low in the dawn sky this Christmas and in
  the evening sky in 2007.
• The oldest known observations are of Venus.
• If the Wise Men were fooled by Venus they could
  not have been very wise.

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Popular (wrong) theories

• Appeared in 12BC and was extensively observed by
  the Chinese.
• If this was the Star of Bethlehem the Magi were
  obviously in no hurry to get to Bethlehem.

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Popular (wrong) theories

• A conjunction
• There are about 10 conjunctions of bright planets
  each year.
• The most spectacular around the Nativity was in
  2BC.
• The Magi either used a time machine, or earned
  huge quantities of Frequent Camel-rider Miles.

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Popular (wrong) theories

• A meteor
• Can be very bright, impressive and move in the
  sky.
• But, typically only visible 1-2 seconds.
• Did the Magi have rocket-propelled camels?

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Popular (wrong) theories

• Dont even THINK it!

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Ancient chronicles Babylon

• Ancient chronicles have been carefully
  scrutinised to see what celestial phenomena were
  recorded that may have been the Star.
• However there are few known records.
• Tablet BM014 in the British Museum is a
  Babylonian observing log from 7BC.
• It describes, in the driest language, the triple
  conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in 7BC and the
  planetary massing of Mars, Jupiter and Saturn in
  February 6BC.

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• This was not a spectacular event. The two planets
  barely got within 1º of each other.
• Triple conjunctions are rare only 7 happened in
  the last millennium BC.
• Like those of 980/979 861/860BC it took place
  in Pisces, a constellation often associated with
  the Jews.

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Ancient chronicles China and Korea

• Nor are there many oriental records from this
  epoch.
• Between 20BC and 1BC there are just 4 catalogued
  events.
• 12BC
• 10BC
• 5BC
• 4BC

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Ancient chronicles China and Korea

• The 12BC event is known to be Halley.
• The 10BC event is a ghost event another
  observation of Halley with the wrong year.
• The 5 4BC events are interesting but, for
  years, caused confusion.

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Oriental answers China

• The Ch'ien-han-shu states 
• "In the second year of the period of
  Ch'ien-p'ing, second month, a hui-hsing appeared
  in Ch'ien-niu for more than 70 days"
• This can be translated as
• During the interval between March 10th and April
  7th of 5 BC, a comet that was visible for more
  than 70 days appeared close to Alpha and Beta
  Capricornii
• The chronicle gives a fixed position over two
  and a half months, not reasonable if the object
  really was a comet. The Chinese though often used
  hui-hsing to describe bright novae such as
  Tychos Star.
• May is monsoon season in China so bad weather
  would almost certainly have curtailed further
  observations the Star was almost certainly
  visible for longer, hence the phrase more than
  70 days. 

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• It starts first and is worst in the south.
• From May ?50 of days are rainy in Hong Kong.
• Observations of the sky would have been almost
  impossible.

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Oriental answers Korea

• A second record is found in the Korean History
  of Three Kingdoms- the Chronicle of Silla (Samguk
  Sagi)
• Year 54 of Hyokkose Wang, second month, (day)
  Chi-yu, a po-hsing appeared in Ho-Ku
• As the date given was inexistent, like February
  30th, it is believed that "Chi-yu" really should
  be "I-yu", a character written in an almost
  identical fashion in Chinese and easily confused
  with it.
• If so, this can be translated as
• On March 31st of 4 BC a bushy star appeared
  close to Altair

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Oriental answers?
Another remarkable coincidence Either two
separate, notable objects appeared at the same
time of the year to the south of Aquila in
consecutive years or, more probably, a single,
bright nova appeared to the north of the star ?
Capricornii in March 5BC. This is exactly the
most probable date of the Nativity.
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Ho-Ku Chien-Nu

• Ho-Ku is Altair and some fainter stars in
  southern Aquila.
• Chien-Niu is an area of faint stars in northern
  Capricorn.
• Some authors make much of this disagreement.

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The Ho-Ku date clue

• But, on the date given by the Koreans (March
  31st), the nova would have been in conjunction
  with the waning gibbous moon.
• Only the brightest stars in the region, such as
  Altair, would have remained visible, hence the
  position given.
• Probably the Koreans elected this reference date
  deliberately.

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Ko-hsing confusion

• The Chinese had a word Ko-hsing (Guest Star)
  for novae.
• But it was not consistently used.
• Bright novae and supernovae, including Tychos
  Star, were often described as comets.
• European astronomers tended to do the same.
• Tycho Brahe said, on first seeing the supernova
  I am sure that yesterday this comet was not in
  the sky.

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Why a nova and not a comet?

• A new star would symbolise a birth.
• The Chinese star did not move in the sky.
• It appeared in the Milky Way where almost all
  novae appear.
• Comets have been almost universally regarded as
  bad omens.
• Comets were associated with deaths, not with
  births.
• An apparition of Halleys Comet was said
  (correctly!) to foretell the fall of Jerusalem.
• The Jews thus had no reason to regard comets with
  other than fear.

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The nova would have appeared low in the east in
the pre-dawn sky.
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The Star went before them

• Modern translations of the Bible say that the
  Star was seen at its rising in other words
  its first appearance in the dawn sky.
• This is exactly how the nova would have appeared
  in the sky.
• But the Star went before the Magi on the road
  between Jerusalem and Bethlehem.
• The Star must have been in the south at that time
  to appear OVER Bethlehem.
• Where would the nova have been after the ?8 weeks
  the Magi would have taken to arrive from Persia?

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By then the nova would have been almost exactly
due south at dawn, leading the Magi to Bethlehem
from Jerusalem.
57
Why complicate things?

• The Chinese nova of March 5BC offers a simple,
  plausible explanation of the Star.
• It fits in with the Biblical and other
  contemporary accounts of the Star and with
  historical knowledge.
• It would have appeared suddenly, unexpectedly,
  shining brightly in the dawn sky at just the
  right time.
• What better sign of the birth of a new-born king
  than a bright (absolutely real), new star?

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