Searching for the Star of Bethlehem
Like most young boys, I had trouble falling asleep one Christmas Eve. Warm under my covers, I peeked out the window to see my father carrying presents from the garage to the house. Too keyed up to sleep, I looked upward to search for the star of Bethlehem.
Was the star that guided the three wise men to the baby Jesus Christ an explainable astronomical phenomenon, something a boy in upstate New York can see from his bedroom window? Writer Nigel Henbest explored the possibilities in a New Scientist article.
To track heavenly events at the time of Jesus Christ, Henbest first had to estimate when Christ was born. December 25 was chosen by Christians who didn't celebrate the birth of Christ until 350 years after it happened. Henbest speculates the date was probably chosen because if its closeness to the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year, and the Roman feast of Saturnalia.
To further complicate matters, our system of numbering years isn't totally accurate due to an error by a monk named Dionysius Exiguus. In 525 AD, Exiguus devised the system of numbering years since the birth of Christ. (AD emerged from the Latin "anno Domini," which means "since the birth of Christ"; BC means "before Christ").
When the monk was counting back through history, he left out four years during the rule of Octavian. Octavian, Julius Caesar's stepson, was the Roman leader from 27 BC to AD 14. Without the four years Exiguus omitted, Christ's actual birth date would be around 4 BC.
In 5 BC, Chinese sky watchers saw a "broom-star," a comet with a tail that seemed to sweep the sky. Colin Humphreys, a researcher at the University of Cambridge in England, thinks it was this celestial fireball, which probably looked much like Comet Hyakutake, that guided the three wise men on their journey. The Chinese observers saw the comet for 70 days, plenty of time for the wise men to reach Jerusalem from their homes in Persia, Humphreys claims.
Matthew's description of the star of Bethlehem, "lo, the star, which they had seen in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was," could easily describe a moving comet.
But Henbest points out the wise men were astrologers. Rather than comets, they would be much more interested in the movements of planets and what those movements meant to humans. In 7 BC, a planetary dance occurred that would capture the interest of any astrologer.
Once every 139 years, Jupiter and Saturn share the same small patch of space when viewed from Earth. In 7 BC, Jupiter and Saturn could be seen rising together at the instant the sun set. David Hughes, a researcher at the University of Sheffield in England, said the simultaneous rising of Saturn and Jupiter against a backdrop of the constellation Pisces would have special meaning for the wise men. Pisces was the zodiac sign representing the Jews, Jupiter was the king of the gods, and Saturn symbolized both justice and the land of Palestine. Hughes wrote that this meeting of planets within a constellation was "obviously a sign associated with the coming of a Jewish Messiah."
But Matthew mentions a star in the Bible, not planets. Henbest points out Matthew is the only Gospel writer who mentioned the star of Bethlehem in the Bible. Henbest suggests Matthew could have made up the tale of the star to enliven the story. Or maybe the guiding star was a miracle, the result of divine intervention. The only sure bet is the origin of the star will remain a mystery for many Christmases to come.
