Morning Star

The Morning Star on Christmas

For years they’ve argued about whether the “Star in the East” the magi talked about in Matthew’s gospel actually was a bright celestial event, a supernova, or just some prophesy or what. I suppose the argument will continue but I caught a most interesting new development the other day that may well be the real answer.

In the northern hemisphere our earth’s axis points toward Polarus, or the North Star. And all around it are a sphere of stars. The sphere appears to rotate around the Polarus axis as if one were standing inside a globe imprinted with the stars. All the stars are fixed in orientation to one another as one might expect, except for moon and sun and seven visible planets. Since earth’s axis is tilted 23.5 degrees with respect to the planetary plane of movements, these “wandering stars” move around and slowly progress through a belt that is 47 degrees wide --the same belt where the sun and moon come up and progress across the sky. That is, they come up somewhere in the east and progress across the southern sky and then set in the west. If you go out about 9 o’clock this time of year and look south, you’ll see the constellation Aries. As the night progresses the dome of stars moves from east to west and Pisces, then Aquarius come into that dead south position. As the months go by, the dozen or so constellations, named by ancient astronomers for the star formations, will rotate through the dome of stars so that each month a new constellation will be dead south and so forth. The ancient astronomers named the months, not for the prominent constellations that are straight south in early evening but for the one that is rising in the east as the sun sets. So Leo, the southern constellation in April is the east-rising constellation in July and that is the month designated as Leo. There is a lot of spooky belief about astronomers and astrologers today, but the astrologers were just fledgling scientists. They labored under the mistaken belief that if one could predict the seasons and crops from the movement of the heavens, then surely one could predict more good stuff from really studying the stars. And what interested the astrologers was not the fixed dome of stars but the wanderers—planets and moon. What they really thought significant was the times when the wanderers came very close together or crossed paths in their march across the sky.

A historian was looking at some ancient coins a few years ago. One side of a coin usually has a “head” of an important ruler or god, while the other side is “tails” which often had a commemorated event such as an important victory. On one side of a Syrian-minted coin just a few years after the birth of Christ, was a “head” of the god Zeus, king of the gods, and on the other was a ram looking over his shoulder at a very large star. The Ram is the constellation Aries. Was there a significant event that took place in Aries some time around the birth of Jesus? Well, it turns out that there was a stunning astrological event. During the month of April, 4 BC, the constellation Aries would have been rising just before daybreak. And planet Jupiter (or 'Zeus' as it was known then) was in Aries. The moon, which moves back 50 minutes each night in it’s sky position, would have been very very near the planet Jupiter just before dawn on April 17. In fact the moon, when it comes up just before the sun is a thin sliver (since we face mainly the dark side of the moon). And at about 35 degrees north latitude you would see Jupiter, which looks like a very bright star, just on the edge of the moon as if connected. Just north of 35 degrees you wouldn’t see Jupiter at all since the moon would be eclipsing it. Astrologically this is big stuff. Jupiter was called Zeus by the Greco-Roman world—king of the gods. The moon-star event is seen “in the east” just before daybreak, “the morning star”. And the constellation Aries, the Ram, was identified with the tiny nation of Judea astrologically. So here was born a king among the Jews, king above all gods. Oh, and April 17 was just after Passover of the Jews that year.

“Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin…” begins the story in Luke 1:26ff. The Jewish calendar starts in March and months are lunar so they are only 29 days long. Since 12 months doesn’t add up to a year, there are some years that begin very early in March and last 13 months. At any rate the sixth month is late July or August. And nine months later is April. “some shepherds were abiding in the field laying watch over their flocks by night” says Luke 2. Those passages are the only two hints about the time of year when Jesus was born. But the only time shepherds and sheep would have been ‘in fields’ rather than out to pasture is in the winter rainy season, Dec. to March—or early April if the ground was wet. Oh, and 4 BC is significant since that is the well-chronicled year Herod the Great died. He’s the paranoid king in the story of the Magi. And it was during this 'abiding in the fields' wintering-over that ewes had lambs and were given shelter under outcrops or caves in the cliffs around Bethlehem and fed supplemental hay in mangers. So most scholars think Jesus was born in or around early April of 4 BC.

But who, among the astrologers would think to travel to Judea and scout for a king that was born? Who, outside of little Judea would have known? The Jews had been conquered by the Babylonians 500 years before and during this time the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah foretold of a coming M’shia (Messiah), or “anointed one”, that is, “a king” expected among the Jews. The Greeks and Romans wouldn’t have heard this. So the magi (that is,the Babylonian word for “astrologers”) came from what we call Iraq today, seeking a king born among the Jews that would become ruler of everyone, king of kings and Lord of Lords. What irony that the former conquerers and oppressors had now come to find a king among the Jews.

And as one Messianic Jew (believers in Jesus Christ) said, “wouldn’t it be just too good, too fitting, if Jesus was born on Passover 4 BC and died on Passover?”

Merry Christmas everyone.