There shall come a Star out of Jacob. Numbers 25:17
The appearance of a star at the time of the birth of Christ is an important part of the Christmas story. The Gospel account in Matthew tells us that the “Wise Men” from the East – the Magi – were alerted to his birth by the appearance of this star, which they “followed” until they arrived at Bethlehem.
Bible skeptics, of course, dismiss this story as yet another fable of the Christian religion. However, if it is possible to identify a celestial apparition from this time period, then it would lend credence to the story. In other words, it is a story which should be corroborated by non-biblical accounts.
Curiously, Isaac Newton does not discuss the star in his Observations. He calculates the birth and life of Christ from internal Gospel accounts in relation to the number of Passovers in which they chronicle His ministry. Newton establishes the time in which Christ was crucified and then works back from that to the time of the census of Caesar Augustus.
This seems counterintuitive, although, as it turns out, it is a reliable calculation. My guess is that Newton was a loyal son of the Puritan movement which regarded Christmas as a pagan intrusion into the Christian calendar. A discussion of the Christmas star would have elevated the festival to the discomfort of his fellow Puritan compatriots.
I say it is counter-intuitive because I believe the Wise Men of the East were informed of their astrological calculations by the Prophet Daniel. Daniel was admired by Newton. Likewise, Newton was heavily involved in the Copernican revolution and with Edmond Halley, studied comets. It is a puzzle as to why he neglected this astronomical part of the biblical record.
“The Magi” was an ancient order and brotherhood that is known to history, and numerous references to them can be found in the writings of the early Church fathers. It was also customary for the Magi to pay courtesy visits to new kings. So their quest to visit this new King of Israel was not so unusual. See below.
Nevertheless, the suggestions offered over the years as to what this star might have been can be reduced to three:
1) It was a comet,
2) It was a conjugation of Jupiter and Saturn, and
3) It was a nova.
Each view has pros and cons which are easily discoverable from a little research on the internet. I believe that these are not contradictory views but three separate aspects of the same event.
[ I am relying here on Colin J. Humphreys, “The Star of Bethlehem – a Comet in 5 BC – and the Date of the Birth of Christ,” published November, 1991, in the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society, 32:389 and can be found at https://researchgate.net]
There are comets known to the Chinese records which occurred in 7 BC, 5 BC, and 3 BC. (Halley’s Comet appeared in 12 BC and would have been too early). These comets appeared before Christ’s birth. However, if a comet appeared “in the East” – a thousand miles away or even half that (assuming they came from Mesopotamia or far down the eastern coast of Arabia) – then it could have been seen by the Magi in the correct and expected coordinates. This would have motivated them to start their long and arduous journey. The comet may not have been observable to the star-gazers in Jerusalem because it was lost in the radiance of the daytime Sun, or as Humphreys suggests:
It is proposed that a remarkable sequence of three astronomical events stimulated the journey of the Magi: the triple conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter in 7BC; the massing of the three planets Saturn, Jupiter and Mars in 6 BC; and finally the appearance in 5 BC of the ‘star of Bethlehem’, a comet initially in Capricornus.
As time went on and the Magi got closer, they would have lost sight of the comet as it became a daytime comet . . . meaning that it was approaching its perihelion behind the Sun. They would now be relying upon star charts to finish their journey. When they arrived in Jerusalem, no one knew what the Magi were talking about. No help.
Jewish scholars in Jerusalem should not have been surprised. They would have had access to biblical records, including the Book of Daniel. They should have had access to the reports of travelers. Yet, they missed this celestial sign.
Evidently, the comet was expected to encounter Jupiter, which the ancients considered to be the Messianic star. The comet reappeared in a conjunction with Jupiter, perhaps causing Jupiter to brighten in a nova-like outburst. This reappearance enabled the Magi to find the baby Jesus in Bethlehem.
It is important to remember that the Magi did not find Jesus at the time of His birth, but sometime after. The shepherd story occurs on the night of His birth. There is nothing said in Luke’s account about a star. But, the Magi came later when the baby Jesus was living in “a house.” On the night of His birth, He was born in a stable, not a house. Trips to the Temple for his circumcision and his dedication (after Mary’s time of purification) would have required a residency in Bethlehem for two months and perhaps longer. All was quiet at the Temple.
Herod ordered the massacre of males under two years old, so some time must have elapsed between the birth and this auspicious visit. However, Herod is known to history to have died in 3 BC, so it all had to occur before that time frame.
It so happens that this suggested comet also appeared in 524 BC, according to Chinese star records, about the time of Daniel the Prophet when he was “chief of the astrologers” in Babylon and Persia. One wonders if his calculation of Christ’s birth – as suggested by his prophecy of the 70 Weeks – was understood to coincide with this comet’s expected encounter with the Messianic star. If so, then this information must have been passed down in a secret oral tradition, of which the Magi were recipients and the scribes of Jerusalem were not. We believe that Pythagoras was influenced by Daniel’s school through Ezekiel (https://2046ad.org/peshers/thanksgiving-pesher-2020/ and https://2046ad.org/pesher-the-confession-of-st-peter-2021/). The Magi would have been Pythagorean, while Jerusalem would not have been for sectarian reasons. The Pythagoreans were at Qumran, while the Jerusalem elite – as the martyrdom of Zachariah, the priestly father of John the Baptist attests – were Herodian hacks.
The Chinese astrologers ascribed prophetic significance to this comet, calling it a “new broom . . . [that] signals the sweeping away of evil.” (Humphreys, p. 395).
It must remain for a future discussion the question of whether Daniel created his prophetic timeline based upon the significance of historical events, or whether there was a cosmological chronometer upon which he relied. I have suggested this before in reference to the Charlemagne Event as perhaps the real start of the 1,260 day vision of Daniel. He would have been consulting the star charts of the Babylonians, and considering the strategic influence of that great empire, he would have had diplomatic access to the star charts of the Far East, including that of the Chinese as cited above.
An answer to this question would have bearing on our timeline of 2046 AD, which seems to, at this point, to be based upon historical events (i.e. the Donation of Pepin) and not cosmological ones.
Regardless, we continue with our analysis of Comet B-B (Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein) in the next Survival Praxis installment.
There shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel . . . Out of Jacob shall come he that shall have dominion, and shall destroy him that remaineth of the city.
(Numbers 25:17, 19).
— JWS, Christmas Eve, 2022
