20-12-2008 Star of Bethlehem (Article 168)

[Simon Kenny]

Star of Bethlehem (Article 168)
Around this time of the year the Star of Bethlehem is in the ascendancy, albeit if only to decorate the top of Christmas trees or to enhance the many Christmas decorations. But what was the Star of Bethlehem? It is a question that has exercised many great minds over the centuries and continues to do so. With the advent of powerful astronomical software programmes, it is now possible to simulate exactly, the skies over Bethlehem in any particular year. But first there are some problems to solve, not least of which is the actual date of the birth of Jesus. Taking the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, Jesus was born under the reign of Herod the Great who died in 4 BC! The commonly used western standard for numbering years, in which the current year is 2008, is based on an early medieval attempt to count the years from Jesus' birth. Today, the western method of recording the passing years is based on the Gregorian calendar introduced in 1582, and which has been accepted world wide; but there were many ways in which events were recorded 2000 years ago.
Based on the writings and records of the time, the best estimate of Jesus’ birth is somewhere between 7 BC and 2 BC. Can astronomers come up with a better estimate based on the appearance of the Star of Bethlehem? Was it actually a star or perhaps a comet, nova, supernova or conjunction of some kind? We should also remember that the word star had a different meaning, at that time, to our present day understanding of a star. The Chinese who have a very long history of recording astronomical events did not record any such events, as nova or comets, during the years in question. The biblical writings record the Magi or Wise Men as seeing the star in the ascendancy — therefore in the east and almost certainly in the morning. If it were in the east at evening time then it would have traversed the night sky — setting in the west. The writings claim that they followed the star to the east. It appears that the only ones who saw any significance in the star ascending in the east were the Magi. If it is accepted that the ‘star’ actually referred to planets then we are left to explore some relatively rare event such as planetary conjunctions, which would have some meaning to people living in that region of the Middle East. One such event did take place during the years 3 BC to 2 BC. In the year 3 BC on a mid June morning Venus was close to Saturn. In August of 3 BC, there was the spectacular pairing of Venus and Jupiter - if you have seen the pairing of Venus and Jupiter earlier this month I think you will agree it was a very special event. Between September 3 BC and June 2 BC, Jupiter passed by the star Regulus, reversed its direction, passed Regulus again, then turned back again and passed Regulus for a third time. These events would be considered remarkable by astrologers of that time as Jupiter was regarded as kingly and Regulus was regarded as the king star. The final event in the sequence came on 17 June 2 BC when Jupiter came so close to Venus that they would have looked like a single star to the unaided eye.