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Star of Bethlehem ???


Skipper Billy

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1 hour ago, Moonshed said:

It’s always puzzled me how it’s possible to “follow” a star across a country and then have it lead you to one specific dwelling that it stops directly over. How can you tell which house is directly under a star? All this before sat navs!

And yet for centuries our Royal Navy did exactly that but across oceans !   Indeed up until the demise of the RAF's Nimrod  maritime aircraft it provided its Navigator with the facility (periscope) to allow for a star shot to be taken as a redundancy navigation method.  Maybe the magi were just fed up with sat nav backing them up a cul de sac :) 

Jim

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15 minutes ago, shropshire lad said:

You used to be able to go to the small post office there and have them frank the stamps with their location rubber stamp... so "Posted in Bethlehem" would be on your christmas cards (for a small fee to charity) but think they stopped it.

Wales' Bethlehem prepares for annual Christmas post rush - Wales Online

 

 

 

 

They still do it - BBC news article about them yesterday or may have been the One Show!  The official Post Office closed but the residents man a pop up post office in a village community building over the run up to Christmas. 

 

Jim

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32 minutes ago, Mick H said:

Gabriel said (who was from Yorkshire)

"There's a babby boy been booarn toneet, a reight special babby, who's liggin in a manger, wrapped up in swaddling bands, ovver in tut Leeds. God's own lad, Saviour o' World, Christ the Lord, the Messiah.

Did you forget the bit about him being the world's greatest left-handed spin bowler?

James

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In science, a good problem takes us far beyond the results of a single observation. The Christmas Star has been debated on many levels. The International Planetarium Society website (ww.ips-planetarium.org) lists over 100 citations to the Star of Bethlehem. Some of those articles and letters were part of a multifaceted decades-long argument among at least five astronomers and one editor. Writing in Archaeology Vol. 51, No. 6 (Nov/Dec 1998), Anthony F. Aveni cited 250 “major scholarly articles” about the Star of Bethlehem. For about 1500 years, the story of the Star of Bethlehem was accepted as historically accurate because it was divine truth. Miracles were not questioned. With the Renaissance, a new way of looking at the world evolved. Over the centuries, the Christmas Star has been explained as a comet, a meteor or meteor shower, but the conjunction theory has been the most popular.  I have an entry on my own blog https://necessaryfacts.blogspot.com/2017/12/the-christmas-star.html and I publised a version of that in our local astronomy club newsletter the next year.  

 

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I've had a fair few friends immediately contact me (knowing I have a little more than a passing interest in astronomy 🤔) all excited about how bright this 'star' will be etc etc.

When I start with my cynicism regarding the daily comi......erm I mean  newspapers & their love of disregarding actual science fact over paper sales, my friends start to lose interest, when I continue with the actual real distance between these planets, my friends start to yawn, as soon as the words 'arc seconds' leave my mouth, my friends eyes glaze over, I've lost their interest completely & that's pretty much where the discussion ends.

The friends who are the most excited by this impending celestial firework show are also the ones who get the most excited by the daily express yearly headline about the upcoming winter which will be the coldest, longest and most ice age like for the last 15,000yrs.......again 🙄

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17 hours ago, Ouroboros said:

I doubt the ancients distinguished stars and planets in the way we do. Doesn’t the word planet translate as wanderer or wandering  star? 

I always thought that more people in the ancient world understood the motions of the stars, planets and heavenly bodies more than our so called enlightened modern era person.

The majority of people that I know have no idea that planets can be seen in the sky without the aid of a telescope.

I believe that the star of Bethelhem was caused by some phenomena that we don't understand as yet.It was described as being extremely bright and moving. Probably brighter than a conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter.

Venus can be very bright. I wonder if there may have been a fast moving large and bright comet that appeared at it's brightest apparently near Venus as seen in the sky by humans on Earth.Just a wild thought.

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I expect they did. Apart from anything else the sky would have been much more visible to people back then than it is to most people today.  Nevertheless, I doubt the word ‘star’ as used in the bible is a technical description of the celestial object supposedly observed by the Magi.  ‘Star’ is being used as a widely understood generic term for one of the pin pricks of light in the heavens. The word ‘planet’ wasn’t used possibly because it wasn’t one or not considered important or necessary to the story.  Probably more  important was the reference to  a celestial event. Such phenomena were considered as portents of something  significant. 

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3 minutes ago, Ouroboros said:

I expect they did. Apart from anything else the sky would have been much more visible to people back then than it is to most people today.  Nevertheless, I doubt the word ‘star’ as used in the bible is a technical description of the celestial object supposedly observed by the Magi.  ‘Star’ is being used as a widely understood generic term for one of the pin pricks of light in the heavens. The word ‘planet’ wasn’t used possibly because it wasn’t one or not considered important or necessary to the story.  Probably more  important was the reference to  a celestial event. Such phenomena were considered as portents of something  significant. 

True indeed. The ancients needed to know the movement of celestial bodies to plan their crops, what seasons to travel long distances etc.

There has been conjecture that some objects in our solar system were not always as stable in their motions and orbits as they are today.

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8 hours ago, nephilim said:

 

When I start with my cynicism regarding the daily comi......erm I mean  newspapers & their love of disregarding actual science fact over paper sales, my friends start to lose interest, when I continue with the actual real distance between these planets, my friends start to yawn, as soon as the words 'arc seconds' leave my mouth, my friends eyes glaze over, I've lost their interest completely & that's pretty much where the discussion ends.

Tell 'em what they want to hear. Great conjunctions are portents of significant events, this one tells us that a saviour will soon appear to deliver us from the pandemic. When the vaccine finally appears, you can say to your friends: "see, I told you so!"

😉

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1 hour ago, Grumpy Martian said:

Venus can be very bright. I wonder if there may have been a fast moving large and bright comet that appeared at it's brightest apparently near Venus as seen in the sky by humans on Earth.Just a wild thought.

To an extent we likely have to consider that the Bible is an amalgamation of myths and references to events that might not necessarily be connected.  They are probably based on some actual event but then distorted over time.  A bright comet is perhaps an option for the "star of bethlehem" not only because they can be very bright if close but also have a tail which could point in a direction (and hence referencing that it is pointing to a location).  Some comets are one off wonders which we may never see again (or have such long periods no humans will be left to see it again).

On the other hand if my understanding is correct (I'm by far not an expert) if the Saturn/Jupiter conjunction signals the second coming doesn't that imply the beginning of the apocalypse, which with COVID, climate change, anti-bacterial resistance, draining of the earths resources may not be that far from the truth!

  

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1 hour ago, Roy Challen said:

Tell 'em what they want to hear. Great conjunctions are portents of significant events, this one tells us that a saviour will soon appear to deliver us from the pandemic. When the vaccine finally appears, you can say to your friends: "see, I told you so!"

😉

Good idea there mate. Once I have one 'prediction' in the bag they will then look at me as their new messiah & my plan for world domination can commence.
I'll grant you the position of Astronomer Royal for putting me onto this cracking idea because I'm generous like that 😂

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For me the best description of the "Star of Bethlehem" is given by  Michael R Molnar in his book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Star-Bethlehem-Legacy-Magi/dp/0813527015.

It turns out to be Jupiter. The circumstances fit pretty much all the details from the Biblical stories provided we view these from the society of 2000 years ago and not from our current times.  It doesn't need any unusual/unexplained events in the heavens. None of the other "obvious events"  to our eyes (Novae, comets, conjunctions etc) can be regarded as fitting anywhere nearly as well - hence the continuous debates.

Nigel

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1 hour ago, Whirlwind said:

To an extent we likely have to consider that the Bible is an amalgamation of myths and references to events that might not necessarily be connected.  They are probably based on some actual event but then distorted over time.   

True, also good to keep in mind that the whole thing went through generations of laborious hand copying, and subsequent translations to different,  modern languages will have introduced changes in meaning too. Plus the entire world view of old testament times people was different ... the Old T books are from a several thousand year span , most of  which was in the Iron Age . Reading highly nuanced detail into meanings and implications of particular words is therefore dubious .

The New Testament books not only have the nth generation hand copy thing,  and the translation thing,  they also are packed with detail which accord with the O.T. to support the belief that J.C. fulfilled various Old T. prophecies to support his followers view that he was the messiah. *

My source of the above is a bunch of research I did because I had to teach R.E. to small people (as well as every other subject) it's not something I'm interested in at all , so (especially in a school with a good proportion of Hindu, Muslim and Sikh pupils, for whose religions I did similar due diligence ) I wanted to know what I was talking about.

Heather

* Can you read that without thinking of the Life of Brian ? I can't !

 

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I suppose  a different story would have to be written for our modern times;  give it a few years and any future winter conjunctions will be sponsored by the likes of Coca Cola, Pepsi or Elon Musk - while we all partake in the great celebration of divine commercialism just because well, that's what we do!  If the cosmos does not cooperate with a timely display then no doubt messrs Musk and co will be able to fire up "Star of Bethlehem 2"  - wi-fi enabled of course.   

No,  I prefer the story that captivated popular culture for over 2000 years and I welcome with a smile this particular conjunction  as it brings a much needed uplift to a horrible year !  My only hope is that the weather obliges to allow me to view it :)   Our very own BBC Sky At Night produced a Christmas episode a few years back which featured the historical  candidates for the star of Bethlehem.  I've used the episode in class as a Christmas filler and it's been well received.    It's worth a watch for those interested although the iPlayer showing it as not available at the moment - BBC timing come on people  :(    https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06t3wst

Jim 

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10 hours ago, nephilim said:


I'll grant you the position of Astronomer Royal for putting me onto this cracking idea because I'm generous like that 😂

No probs, as long as you understand that the real power lies with those behind the scenes, ie Mrs C!

😂

Edited by Roy Challen
Hopefully, this is seen as the humour I see it to be!!
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I think one of the obvious but neglected part of the story about the birth of Jesus Christ and the star of Bethlehem is as the story unfolds from the biblical context is that the Magi saw the star rise in the east, they started traveling west following the star arriving in Bethlehem not to find Jesus Christ as a baby in the manager but in a house. It was approximately six months later. The star was then in the West. Thus six months for the star to rise in the east to west. The Magi didn't actually turn up at the stable according to the biblical accounts in the new testament. It therefore couldn't have been a comet, a meteor or a conjunction of planet's as these would have been moving faster than a fixed point of light that the Magi followed for quite some time.

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15 minutes ago, Nigella Bryant said:

 It therefore couldn't have been a comet, a meteor or a conjunction of planet's as these would have been moving faster than a fixed point of light that the Magi followed for quite some time.

Serious question, could a comet in a retrograde orbit not give the required impression?

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1 minute ago, Roy Challen said:

Serious question, could a comet in a retrograde orbit not give the required impression?

Comet's of naked eye visibility don't last six months as far as I know. Usually only whilst nearing the sun. Unless of course it was a very large brilliant comet. But that would surely have been recorded by Chinese star gazers of the time. It's intriguing none the less.

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14 minutes ago, Nigella Bryant said:

I think one of the obvious but neglected part of the story about the birth of Jesus Christ and the star of Bethlehem is as the story unfolds from the biblical context is that the Magi saw the star rise in the east, they started traveling west following the star arriving in Bethlehem not to find Jesus Christ as a baby in the manager but in a house. It was approximately six months later. The star was then in the West. Thus six months for the star to rise in the east to west. The Magi didn't actually turn up at the stable according to the biblical accounts in the new testament. It therefore couldn't have been a comet, a meteor or a conjunction of planet's as these would have been moving faster than a fixed point of light that the Magi followed for quite some time.

I think you are right Nigella, the notion of the adoration of Christ by the shepherds and magi was popularised by artists and poets.  I was always taught that the visit by the magi happened some time after the birth by as much as a few years.  Makes identifying the star even more complicated :) 

Jim

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