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Star of Bethlehem - solved!


iamjulian

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In a somewhat bold move, I'd like to propose that the star of Bethlehem was in fact the planet Jupiter. I came to the conclusion last night at 4.15am as I was looking at a cloudy sky devoid of stars. Despite the cloud, Jupiter was super bright.

I know that the standard argument is that it couldn't have been anything obvious, because the people of the day were accomplished astronomers. But here's the thing, not all of them were. Was that bit of the Bible story written by an astronomer? Probably not. I also know that they can work out exactly where all the stars and planets were at any given time in the past. However, they haven't really got a clue what year, let alone what month, day, and time, the three wise men were heading east.

So there you go. It was Jupiter all along. I'm available for keynote speeches at the next IAU conference.

Joking aside, how bright is Jupiter! I have seen it plenty of times, but looking out last night while half asleep, it took my brain a few seconds to stop thinking, "what the heck is that". Perhaps it seemed even brighter because there were no other stars visible. Is it going to be higher in the sky for us this year?

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I think you are nearly there.

People would have been used to seeing Jupiter, Venus or indeed Saturn in the sky and this would have seemed normal to them, what you need is a fantastic, very rarely seen event, this would make people look up and stare and herald a new King so to speak.

Well in 7BC Saturn and Jupiter were in conjunction with each other and that would have been looked upon as something special and the the brightness would have been unmissable.

So I think this is the Star of Bethelem we all know.

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Yep, and I recall seeing something that mentioned that Jupiter was retrograde at that point too, so seemed to be traveling backwards across the heavens... and in Leo near the star Regulus from what I remember.

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I avoid attempting to find evidence for biblical happenings, mainly because it's been one of the biggest reasons science isn't much further forward than it is today.

I don't follow your logic. You can leave the religion out of it completely (I do), there is still a good chance that a lot of the stories are based on some kind of world events. Huge floods and all that. And I wouldn't be surprised if some of them were related to astronomical events, meteorite strikes and such. Big events like that would stay in popular folklore for many centuries, even before written text.

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I don't follow your logic. You can leave the religion out of it completely (I do), there is still a good chance that a lot of the stories are based on some kind of world events. Huge floods and all that. And I wouldn't be surprised if some of them were related to astronomical events, meteorite strikes and such. Big events like that would stay in popular folklore for many centuries, even before written text.

Nor would I be surprised to find references to astronomical events and such, but the Bible is nothing more than a storybook, the dates and such are by no means accurate and there's no proof to suggest that anyone ever followed a star, it could well have been the story teller making something up to add more suspense or an attempt to add validity to their side of the argument, in which god created everything and much like everything before, it was his flashlight (star,planet or whatever) that guided the wise men to Bethlehem.

Indeed it is plausable that they seen jupiter, but the fact that they mention it was guiding them, i find a little odd. Unless they just so happened to follow it and for some strange bit of co-incidence, it lead directly to the stable lol.

I dunno, sorry but to me, religion and astrology are one and the same lol....a load of baloney.

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Thanks for the link TopHouse.

Starblazer, you missed the bit where I said leave religion out of it. You still have a unique historical document, written in the ancient past. As you rightly say, the stories may be 100% myth. But equally, some of them may be based on actual events.

Unless you investigate, you'd never know. So I'm not sure how you reason that attempting to find evidence for biblical happenings is hindering science!? Surely ignoring evidence from the past would hinder science.

Doc, didn't the Chinese record a comet, probably Haleys, at roughly the right time - what ever time that was? A comet or something less predictable than a planet would be more likely to be taken as "a sign". And would it be possible for a comet to be seen in the Middle East, but not in China? Probably not.

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What I refering to is how religion, has itself, stifled the progress of science. The destruction of the great libraries and vaults containing possible documents of scientific value, the list goes on.

I wouldn't quite call it unique, it is merely a rehash of the egyptian story, the sun god, miracle conception, stars leading the way....all been done before.

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We need to keep this to discussion of the points, and not get into a theological discussion, this is verging far too much towards religion. We can discuss the Astronomical events as reported in myths, legends and books.

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Surely, if the bible can't be fully justified then neither can the star of Bethlehem. Maybe it was just a made up story of the time hence why it can't be proven. Anyhow the Mrs thinks it was probably a Chinese lantern. Lol

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Surely, if the bible can't be fully justified then neither can the star of Bethlehem. Maybe it was just a made up story of the time hence why it can't be proven. Anyhow the Mrs thinks it was probably a Chinese lantern. Lol

Watch the video linked above and all will be explained :p

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I wouldn't quite call it unique, it is merely a rehash of the egyptian story, the sun god, miracle conception, stars leading the way....all been done before.

Yes, very good point! Why do all these ancient cultures from Peru to Timbuktu, invent strikingly similar stories? If there was a very bright supernova tomorrow (fingers crossed) we'd all know what it was. Two thousand years ago we'd not have a clue and we'd invent all kinds of stories to explain it. All of which would seem foolish today. But foolish as those stories may seem, they could be talking about actual events.

Difficult to prove. But then so is dark matter. Doesn't make it baloney :p

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OR, maybe the Bible truly is telling it how it was. God put the star in the sky for the magi to follow. Maybe he used some astronomical event to mark it, but if so it was most definitely HE who caused the event to take place anyway.

It's foolish to completely discard the Bible as an account of history on account of a bias, disdain, difference of opinion, or whatever have you when it comes to the Bible. Anyone who does so throws away a rich account of history because whatever the Bible IS, it is at the VERY LEAST a basically reliable historical document that has been confirmed, corroborated, and re-established over and over again by multiple scientific disciplines. In fact as time goes on, its validity and accuracy seem to become MORE reliable with the advances in archeology, etc.

So, to take the idea of a "Star of Bethlehem" out of the Bible and then discard the Bible itself seems ridiculous to me.

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OR, maybe the Bible truly is telling it how it was. God put the star in the sky for the magi to follow. Maybe he used some astronomical event to mark it, but if so it was most definitely HE who caused the event to take place anyway.

That's a leap of faith that I aint willing to take lol.

Historical evidence yes, but lack of evidence for god of any kind.....stories which may have some reliable facts of historical significance, yet was used as a way to oppress and replace lack of faith, with faith enough to serve...or should i say, be enslaved.

Anyhows, sorry mod's, I will refrain from posting anything more on the religious front, hard not to with regards to the topic of this thread.

RE- Zeitgeist, it's a cracking watch, although some of it has been debunked, that said, there's sooo much in the way of conspiracy theories doing the rounds it's hard, without having the time, to verify the information....take it all with a pinch of salt unless you can test it out for yourself, i suppose.

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As for the great flood(as depicted in Ice Age 3), was after the last Ice age when the waters forced the ice in the North America's to break and thereby causing a big catastrophe, by flooding the oceans of the world and Europe to separate from the UK. I think the Bible is not 100% true and you believe what you have to believe.

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What I refering to is how religion, has itself, stifled the progress of science. The destruction of the great libraries and vaults containing possible documents of scientific value, the list goes on.

I wouldn't quite call it unique, it is merely a rehash of the egyptian story, the sun god, miracle conception, stars leading the way....all been done before.

Never heard of Egyptian stories of stars leading the way, sorry not being confrontational but where did you get that from? Got any links?

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Viewed as the history of the Israelites it has lots of interesting things, which essentially the OT pretty much is.

Interestingly Star lore et al is missing due to the "Astrological" implications which was forbidden.

As for accurate dating of events, dubious but some interesting cross references can be found within other cultures.

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Never heard of Egyptian stories of stars leading the way, sorry not being confrontational but where did you get that from? Got any links?

Sirius became the symbol of the virgin godess (sound familiar)

THE EGYPTIAN STAR OF BETHLEHEM. Excerpt from the book Secret Chamber

Also, look up any references to the stories of Osiris, Isis and Horus.

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Have a watch of this, the beginning/intro is a bit long but there's a lot of astronomy info regarding biblical happenings, I don't know how much of it is bunkum but it seems to make a very good case, as I said, be patient with the beginning, it drags on a bit.

Zeitgeist: The Movie - 2007 by Peter Joseph on Vimeo

and I wanted an early night......

DOH !!!

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