CONSIDER THIS: Was the Star That Led the Magi to Baby Jesus a ‘Great Comet?’
People have been researching, arguing and speculating about what the three wise men — aka “the Magi” — saw that they thought was a star leading them to a particular location where they would find a newborn king.
Physicist and astronomer Eric Hedin. (Screenshot from Evolution News & Science Today)
Eric Hedin, who earned a doctorate in experimental plasma physics from the University of Washington and did post-doc work at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden, also happens to teach college-level astronomy, so he knows a thing or three about what the answer to such questions involving the night sky.
Just before Christmas, Hedin penned a fascinating analysis for Evolution News & Science Today of the available astronomical and scriptural evidence and concludes that what the Magi saw quite real and was in fact a … Go here for the rest of the analysis.
Previously on HillFaith:
If You Are Struggling Through a Rough Christmas, Please Read This
WHAT WOULD YOU SAY? Christmas is a Pagan Holiday, so Christians Should Not Celebrate It. Really?
CONTRADICTIONS: No, Matthew and Luke Accounts of an Angel Visiting Joseph and Mary Do Not Conflict
Perhaps it is the case the star was not a phenomenon that was unusually visible. Perhaps it ws something that astronomers knew.
https://youtu.be/kvraKAzGkZY
Anyone who today wants to develop a new theory to explain the Star of Bethlehem really should take into account the solid multi-disciplinary work on this subject done by Dr. Michael Molnar of Rutgers University and published in 1999. Dr. Molnar died some years ago, and is no longer around to give voice to his findings, but other noted astronomers such as Owen Gingerich of Harvard and David Weintraub of Vanderbilt University have held Molnar’s theories in high regard.
A significant point noted by Dr. Molnar about Matthew 2:7 is that King Herod had to ask the Magi themselves when exactly it was that the astronomical phenomenon first appeared. If the “star” had been a comet, then _everybody_ would have seen it — in which case Herod could have found out the “when” from any of his advisors. This point appears to rule out any singular spectacular apparition (such as a comet or supernova) from being a Bethlehem-Star candidate. Subsequently, when Herod ordered the killing of infants near Bethlehem, the specified two-year age range supports a notion that the Magi had described an astronomical phenomenon which had occurred over an extended time interval.
Readers today might not know that our modern distinction between “astronomy” and “astrology” did not exist in antiquity. (Indeed, in the year when the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock, the renowned Johannes Kepler was supplementing his academic income by casting horoscopes.) Dr. Molnar’s attention to concepts from ancient astrology provided the essential “glue” to show how and why obscure movements in the sky would have been thought important by Magi from the East. He also took allowance of how other factors — such as the translation of foreign technical terms into koine Greek (perhaps involving an intermediate Aramaic translation) — also have obscured our understanding of the Star.
Dr. Molnar’s book “The Star of Bethlehem: The Legacy of the Magi” is readily available…
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-star-of-bethlehem-michael-r-molnar/1112142982
https://www.amazon.com/Star-Bethlehem-Legacy-Magi/dp/0813564719/
…and I commend it to your attention.
Richard, thank you very much for sharing this information with HillFaith readers. I hope that you will become a regular commenter here.