The Star of Bethlehem
One of the sites that I often go to get ideas, mostly illustrations, for my homilies is www.epriest.com. For example, the information and quote that I had in my homily for the Epiphany about Annie Johnson Flint, I got from that site. They had some fascinating information concerning the Star of Bethlehem on their site, which was just too much to share in a homily, but I thought I would put it here on my blog. What follows is all from the www.epriest.com website, just edited and paraphrased by me.
Who were these Magi, these Wise Men from the east? We know what their coming meant, theologically speaking – it shows that Jesus Christ was not just another Jewish prophet. The Magi were “from the east” – they were not Jews. And yet, they came to worship Jesus. This shows that Christ was the promised Savior of the entire world, of both the Jews and the Gentiles. But that doesn’t really tell us much about the Magi themselves, or about their star-inspired adventure. Is that adventure just a myth, as non-believers claim? Is it just a mystery that we can’t really understand, as many Christians believe? Or does the Magi’s discovery and journey have something more to tell us?
A lawyer and law professor named Frederick Larson recently applied his legal logic to this very question. Professor Larson studied St Matthew’s description of the Magi’s adventure and discovered a group of specific, measurable characteristics having to do with the star of Bethlehem. Then he used modern astronomical know-how to search for a non-mythical and non-mysterious explanation. His investigation could never have been done before modern times, because it required computer technology. With computer software, you can recreate what the night sky looked like on any date in history, from any point on the earth’s surface. When Professor Larson started doing that in search of the Star of Bethlehem, he discovered three things that can give all of us a whole new appreciation for today’s feast of the Epiphany. [Note: Professor Larson has produced an excellent DVD explaining in detail some of the points used in this expositional homily. He also gives parish and church presentations on his findings. More information is at www.bethlehemstar.net]
The first thing he discovered had to do with the Magi themselves. He looked at other references to the term “Magi” or “wise men” in the Bible. Then he looked up references in other ancient literature. He discovered that Magi were, basically, the “scientists” of the ancient world. Quasi-scientists, from our perspective, since they didn’t have the benefit of the modern scientific, experimental method. But even so, they did make a rational, logical study of philosophy, medicine, and the natural world – including the stars. They were like the scholars and professors of ancient times. But instead of working in universities, they usually worked for kings. A king would finance his own group of scholars, using them as consultants and translators, and also to enhance his kingdom’s reputation.
One group of these scholars revered throughout the ancient world was the Chaldean Magi, based in the city of Babylon, just south of Bagdad, in modern Iraq. This school was already well-established 600 years before Christ, when the prophet Daniel was exiled from Jerusalem. The King of Babylon at the time forced Daniel and a few companions, some of Israel’s most promising scholars, to join his school of Magi. There they studied, learned, did amazing deeds, and even kept their faith in the one, true God, as the Book of Daniel describes.
The prophet Daniel never returned to Jerusalem. He lived his whole, long life as a top-scholar and royal adviser among Babylon’s Magi, where he not only learned from others, but also shared Jewish history, prophecy, and beliefs. It is not unreasonable, therefore, to think that his prophesies were known, studied, and passed down through the generations by the Magi there. And if that’s the case, it would make a lot of historical sense for St Matthew to tell us that the wise men “from the east” had seen signs of the Savior’s birth and come to worship “the newborn King of the Jews.”
That is a reasonable, interesting, and enlightening explanation of who the Magi may have been, but it doesn’t explain the star of Bethlehem.
For that, Professor Larson needed to put modern astronomy to work. He programmed his software to show what the stars would have looked like in Babylon in the year 3 BC. He knew the star of Bethlehem couldn’t be a shooting star, or a super nova, or even a comet. Those things would have been obvious to everyone, and yet, King Herod and his advisers were astonished by the Magi’s news. King Herod even asked when the star had appeared – so it couldn’t have been an obviously dramatic phenomenon.
Instead, it must have been something extraordinary inside the ordinary – something that would be truly remarkable, but that only the expert Magi would have noticed. vDid anything like that occur in the sky, in the year 3 BC? Yes. That September, the Planet Jupiter, the brightest planet in the night sky, followed its normal retrograde motion back and forth, but this time that motion created an elliptical, crown-like pattern above the star known as Regulus. The Magi would have known Jupiter as the King Planet – the brightest and biggest planet. And the name “Regulus” also means “king”. The King Planet giving the King Star a coronation – the first coincidence.
At that time and place, this unusual conjuncture occurred inside the constellation known as Leo, or the Lion. The Magi would have recognized the Lion as the Biblical symbol for the Israelite tribe of Judah. And the Old Testament prophesies predicted that the Messiah would be born of the tribe of Judah – the second coincidence.
Also at that time, the constellation that rose in the east after Leo was Virgo – the Virgin.
And right at the feet of the constellation, at that particular moment, was the new crescent moon, the “birthing” moon. Another Old Testament prophecy predicted that the Messiah would be born of a Virgin – coincidence number three.
Together, these starry coincidences linked three concepts: King, Jewish, and Birth – the King of the Jews being born.
Nine months later, things got even more interesting. In June of the year 2 BC, the Planet Jupiter, the King Planet, was no longer in conjunction with the King Star, Regulus. Instead, on the horizon of the western sky, Jupiter was having an even more spectacular rendezvous. Jupiter came so close to the Planet Venus that their light merged, becoming the brightest light in the night sky – the brightest the Magi would have ever seen. And the Magi, along with the rest of the pagan world, knew the planet Venus as the Mother Planet – the icing on the cake.
If at that point the Magi had begun their journey, by the time they reached Jerusalem the orientation of the Jupiter-Venus conjunction would have changed. Looking up from Jerusalem, the Magi would have seen it in the south – the exact direction of Bethlehem. Also at that time, Jupiter’s retrograde motion made it appear – relative to the position of the other stars – to have stopped in its tracks, just as St Matthew says.
Here is a historical and scientific hypothesis that not only doesn’t contradict the Biblical evidence regarding the star of Bethlehem and the journey of the Magi, but actually sheds new light on it.
The theory means that unbelievers can’t just dismiss the star as a Christian myth. It also means that we believers shouldn’t hide comfortably behind a vague and quaint mystery. Instead, this new insight into the star of Bethlehem gives us a deeper understanding and appreciation of our God.
The coincidences witnessed by the Magi were not miracles. They did not suspend the normal laws of nature. On the contrary, the clockwork regularity of the planets and stars was perfectly respected. And this is the most astonishing fact of all. It shows that from the beginning of time, when God set that clock in motion, he already foresaw Christmas Day. It shows that God’s highest priority is us and our salvation. The universe itself is centered on Jesus Christ, the Son of God made man, our Savior, our Redeemer, our Friend.
And we know him. He has revealed himself to us through the Church, just as he revealed himself to the Magi through the star. Even more – he gives himself to us even more astonishingly: in the Eucharist, a gift so wonderful the Magi could never have conceived of it.
The God who guides the entire universe, who guided the Magi to Bethlehem, wants also to guide our lives – just because he loves us, and he knows we need his help.
