We begin with the story of the Wise Men, found only in the Gospel of Matthew, ch. 2:
The Visit of the Wise Men
2:1 After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, in the time of King Herod, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem 2:2 saying, “Where is the one who is born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.” 2:3 When King Herod heard this he was alarmed, and all Jerusalem with him. 2:4 After assembling all the chief priests and experts in the law, he asked them where the Christ was to be born. 2:5 “In Bethlehem of Judea,” they said, “for it is written this way by the prophet:
2:6 ‘And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are in no way least among the rulers of Judah,
for out of you will come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.’”
2:7 Then Herod privately summoned the wise men and determined from them when the star had appeared. 2:8 He sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and look carefully for the child. When you find him, inform me so that I can go and worship him as well.” 2:9 After listening to the king they left, and once again the star they saw when it rose led them until it stopped above the place where the child was. 2:10 When they saw the star they shouted joyfully. 2:11 As they came into the house and saw the child with Mary his mother, they bowed down and worshiped him. They opened their treasure boxes and gave him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. 2:12 After being warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they went back by another route to their own country. . . .
This text, together with the chronology established in this first post and the second one, furnish all the information we need to identify the phenomenon that was the Star of Bethlehem. Who were the "wise men from the East"? And why would they, of all people, come to worship a new-born baby, whom they identified as the "king of the Jews"? Israel had not had any kings for almost six hundred years.
Recall, however, that at the end of the southern kingdom of Judah in 586 B.C., most of the Jewish nobility was taken captive to Babylon. One of those taken captive was the young Daniel, who as a gifted interpreter of dreams went into court service under first Nebuchadnezzar, and then Belshazzar, until Darius conquered Babylon. His continued Jewish piety earned him several enemies at court, but he survived the ordeal of the lions' den, and remained at the court until his death at an old age. In that role he may have learned all the observational skills of the Babylonian (Chaldean) court astronomers. One branch of that science led to the founding of astrology -- the notion that the stars influenced events on earth. Astrology is, however, condemned in the Bible, and as a pious Jew, Daniel would not have seen his role for that purpose.
At the same time, however, there is a long-noted tradition in the Bible of of seeing and interpreting signs in the heavens (as referenced in the previous link). It is reasonable to conjecture, since the wise men came to "worship" the newborn king of the Jews and to offer him costly gifts, that they were (a) Jewish court astronomers from Babylonia, in the tradition of Daniel; and (b) skilled in interpreting heavenly signs in the Jewish tradition.
[UPDATE 01/17/2010: For a most fascinating look into just how far advanced the ancients were with regard to astronomical calculations and modeling, take a look at this story with its pictures of an early "eclipse computer".]
Let us, then, take note of what the wise men said they saw -- that brought them from Babylonia, a journey of almost a thousand miles (according to the traditional route of the caravans; it took Ezra four full months to cover the distance [Ezra 7:8-9]):
"For we have seen his star in the East" is the traditional language of the King James Version. The NET Bible, which I quoted above, gives the more accurate rendition: "we saw his star when it rose [in the East]." The Greek word which appears in the text of Matthew is anatole, which refers to the rising of astronomical objects in the east -- due to the earth's diurnal rotation.
This is our first important clue as to the identity of the Star -- that it rose in the East, like most other stars. (The North Star, of course, remains fixed, and the ones in its vicinity do not "rise" in the East either.) Other clues in the text are (a) its duration, for a period of at least five months while the Wise Men traveled and met with Herod, before continuing on to Bethlehem; (b) its need for special skills to interpret its meaning and significance (Herod was taken by surprise, and had to ask when the star had "risen"); (c) its ability to seem to travel in a given direction, first from east to west, toward Jerusalem, and then south, from Jerusalem to Bethlehem; and last but not least (d) its apparent ability to come to a stop over Bethlehem.
These clues severely limit the possible candidates for the Star. It could not have been a bright meteor (duration, change of direction), or a supernova (change of direction, lack of observation by Herod [as well as no record of any supernovae in this period in the well-maintained Chinese observational records]), or a comet (same; plus, a comet was anciently an omen of doom, not of joy), or simply some very bright star (same). That eliminates pretty much all but one type of celestial body from consideration: the planets.
"Planet" comes for the Greek word for "wanderer", and planets indeed do wander in their observed motions through the sky as they rotate around the sun. The ones closer to the sun orbit it very quickly; Mercury takes just eighty-eight days, and Venus about eight months. As a consequence of the small size of their orbits, they are not seen as having any very great elongation from the sun -- they generally rise and set with it, and are consequently seen as either "morning" or "evening" stars, depending on their position relative to the sun.
The outer visible planets -- Mars, Jupiter and Saturn -- take much longer than earth to rotate around the sun, and therein lies the reason for their seemingly odd behavior when observed from the earth: they can appear to move backward in the sky as the earth overtakes them in orbit, exactly as a car which you are passing on the freeway appears to move backward, even though both of you are moving forward. This phenomenon is known as "retrograde motion", and from our standpoint on earth, it applies only to the planets whose orbits are outside ours.
So we ask: what were the planets doing in the skies of 3-2 B.C.? Through the abilities of modern astronomical software, we may answer: quite a lot. In what follows, I am making use of a program called "Starry Night", available for both PCs and Macs, and which allows you to re-create on your desktop the stars and planets as they would have appeared in the sky observed from any point on the earth (or elsewhere, for that matter), at any time in the past or future. Not only that, but it allows you to control the time-lapses, in order to see the celestial motions as observed from the chosen point. And finally, it allows one to make Quick-Time "movies" of that observed motion.
Now, then, using Starry Night, let us travel back in time to the skies over Babylon in the early hours of the morning of August 12, 3 B.C. [UPDATE 12/28/2009: As Rolin points out below, Babylon was no longer settled in the first century B.C. The Parthian court had moved to Seleucia, on the Tigris River about 45 miles due north of the site of ancient Babylon. The distance does not make any difference in the views that follow, and so I have left the description as being from the viewpoint of the skies over Babylon.] Watch the movie below, and you will see what the Babylonian astronomers observed rise in the East, beginning about 4 a.m. To orient what you are seeing, I have included graphical (but faint) depictions of the constellations, and you will make out the claw of Cancer the Crab, and the head and the mane of Leo the Lion, as the sky gradually reddens (and cloud wisps appear -- for aesthetic effect) with the rising of the sun:
If all worked as designed (I find one has to be patient, and allow time for the video to load), you saw rise in the east a very close conjunction of the planet Venus (considered since Sumerian times as the "mother planet") with the planet Jupiter just on the boundary between Cancer and Leo. And with this conjunction -- the two planets are still separately distinguishable -- Jupiter, the largest of all the planets and hence known in ancient times as "the King planet", began a seventeen- month odyssey through the skies, from August of 3 B.C. to December of 2 B.C., which displayed each of the characteristics identified in the passage from Matthew, quoted above.
Because all the planets lie along the ecliptic, with Venus being the second closest to the sun, Jupiter has to have a conjunction with Venus at least once every time it makes a conjunction with the sun during its 4,333-day (11.86 years) orbit, and if the circumstances are right, retrograde motion will produce two more conjunctions. Thus, Jupiter-Venus conjunctions occur either once or three times in any given cycle. However, due to the combination of factors explained in this article, the actual close conjunctions (to within half a degree, or 30 arc minutes) of Jupiter and Venus occur only once every eighteen years, on the average. The conjunction just depicted, on August 12, 3 B.C. was at an angular separation of about 15 arc minutes in the dawn hours, and closed to just 4 arc minutes at the maximum approach -- which, however, occurred in broad daylight (at just around 11 a.m.) over Babylon. Thus it was a much more rare occurrence, on the order of about once every 144 years -- or only once, if at all, in the lifetimes of two successive Chaldean astronomers. So the Babylonian magi would have taken note of this conjunction over others -- they had likely never seen anything as close before.
Because all the planets lie along the ecliptic, with Venus being the second closest to the sun, Jupiter has to have a conjunction with Venus at least once every time it makes a conjunction with the sun during its 4,333-day (11.86 years) orbit, and if the circumstances are right, retrograde motion will produce two more conjunctions. Thus, Jupiter-Venus conjunctions occur either once or three times in any given cycle. However, due to the combination of factors explained in this article, the actual close conjunctions (to within half a degree, or 30 arc minutes) of Jupiter and Venus occur only once every eighteen years, on the average. The conjunction just depicted, on August 12, 3 B.C. was at an angular separation of about 15 arc minutes in the dawn hours, and closed to just 4 arc minutes at the maximum approach -- which, however, occurred in broad daylight (at just around 11 a.m.) over Babylon. Thus it was a much more rare occurrence, on the order of about once every 144 years -- or only once, if at all, in the lifetimes of two successive Chaldean astronomers. So the Babylonian magi would have taken note of this conjunction over others -- they had likely never seen anything as close before.
From its close conjunction with Venus, Jupiter traveled westward to make a conjunction to within a third of a degree with the star Regulus, in Leo, on September 14. This again was a noteworthy conjunction -- the King planet with the King star (Regulus, "little king", from the Latin word rex, "king" -- which was the actual name of the star for the Romans, while the Arabs called it "the Kingly One"), in the kingly constellation of Leo. Because Regulus is at a fixed place along the ecliptic, Jupiter-Regulus conjunctions are also once every 11.86 years when they occur. So the conjunction on September 14, 3 B.C., although somewhat closer than usual (20', or a third of a degree) would not have been special but for the preceding very rare close conjunction between Jupiter and Venus. However, as the next film shows, Jupiter's conjunction with Regulus occurred not just once, but three times between September of 3 B.C. and May of the succeeding year, due to the fact that Jupiter's retrograde motion happened to fall precisely in the portion of the ecliptic where Regulus was to be found:
(After you have gotten this video to play, I suggest you use the slider control to run through it again manually in order to see the three separate occasions on which Jupiter comes into conjunction with Regulus. The dates of the closest approaches were September 14, 3 B.C. (20' of separation), February 17, 2 B.C. (51' of separation), and May 8, 2 B.C. (43' of separation). The Chaldean astronomers would have seen this triple conjunction, which traced out a little oval above Regulus, as the King planet "crowning" the King star, after first having made a conjunction with the Mother planet. This could easily indicate the birth of a new king. The fact that the conjunctions all took place in the constellation of Leo would have signified to them that it was a king of the tribe of Judah that was born, because as Jacob blessed Judah's tribe in Genesis 49:9:
You are a lion’s cub, Judah,from the prey, my son, you have gone up.He crouches and lies down like a lion;
like a lioness – who will rouse him?
Judah was the tribe that ruled in Judea, where Bethlehem was located, and the Jews take their own name from this tribe. Thus it is easy to see how Jupiter's triple conjunction with Regulus after a close conjunction with the mother planet could have signified to the magi that there was a new king of the Jews born to the west, in Judea.
Jupiter's own motion in the heavens at this point would have been seen as westward from the vantage of Babylon, except when it reversed course and moved in retrograde. Its double return to a conjunction with Regulus after the first conjunction in September might have also been viewed as a sort of beckoning to them: the star started off westward, toward Judea, but then came back as if to say, "Come and follow me", before heading off once again westward toward Judea.
Given that there is at least a single conjunction between Jupiter and Regulus every 11.86 years, what is the frequency of triple conjunctions? As explained in this article, there is a periodic cycle of such conjunctions between Jupiter and Regulus every 83 years (see Table VI on page 23). When they repeat, however, they usually come in pairs, separated by 11.86 years. The reason is that the elongation of Jupiter's retrograde motion (about eleven degrees) is usually sufficient to take in Regulus on two successive orbits around the sun. As Table VI in the cited article shows, the most recent triple conjunction between Jupiter and Regulus occurred in 1967-68, while the next one will not occur until 2038-39. (It will be followed by a second triple conjunction in 2050-51, and then the cycle will not repeat again until 2121-22 and 2133-34.)
The triple conjunction between Jupiter and Regulus that was the "pair" of that in 3-2 B.C. occurred twelve years earlier, in 15-14 B.C., and the "crown" thus formed was actually more centered on Regulus. However, it was not preceded by any close conjunction between Jupiter and Venus, as occurred in August in 3 B.C.: the closest approach between Jupiter and Venus in 15 B.C. was wider by a third than the diameter of a full moon.
And we still are not done with Jupiter's odyssey. After its third conjunction with Regulus on May 8, 2 B.C., Jupiter proceeded to another conjunction with Venus -- even closer than the one in the previous year! Here is a movie of how that conjunction, which occurred as the sun set in the west on June 17, 2 B.C., would have appeared from Babylon, beginning at about 5:30 PM local time. You will see only a faint indication of the conjunction while it is still daylight, but then the movie depicts very accurately how the two planets, at first barely separable visually, appear literally to fuse into one brilliant star as the sky darkens into night. The movie ends about 10 PM, with the conjoined planets sinking below the local horizon:
Now, that conjunction would really have gotten the attention of the magi! The King planet joins again with the Mother planet, but this time in the constellation Leo, not alongside it; and not far from the King star, Regulus. Moreover, the two planets fuse into one, so that they cannot be separated by the naked eye. Yet Venus does not cover Jupiter, which remains slightly above her. But their light combines -- and since Venus as an evening star has apparent magnitude of -4.3 (the brightest nonlunar object in the night sky), while Jupiter's apparent magnitude is around -1.8, their combined apparent magnitude of greater than -6 would have been far brighter than any other object ever seen in the night sky other than the moon itself (which even in its full phase is about magnitude -12).
The Jupiter-Venus conjunction of June 17 set in the west, as seen from Babylon/Seleucia. If the wise men had taken a few weeks to consult and make their plans, and had set out to follow Jupiter to the west beginning in July, then as we have seen from Ezra's example, they might have arrived in Jerusalem some time after the middle of November. They would have been Herod's guests for at least a couple of weeks, while he tried to mine them for all possible information about this new king they had come to worship. And then they would have set out for Bethlehem. What was Jupiter doing in the sky in early December of 2 B.C.? Just watch (this time our movie is filmed from the horizon in Jerusalem):
You are looking southwest of Jerusalem, tracking Jupiter in the night sky, in the constellation of Virgo, the virgin. Each time the frame of the movie refreshes, one day has elapsed. The movie shows the course followed by Jupiter, marking the date intervals every few days. Notice that Jupiter heads steadily lower, toward the horizon, but then comes to a stop, and eventually reverses course. And note the date when it begins to come to a stop -- December 24! For the entire twelve days from December 25, 2 B.C. to January 6, 1 B.C., Jupiter stood still in the night sky, hovering over a point southwest of Jerusalem, as the earth overtook it in its orbit around the sun.
Bethlehem is just five miles southwest of Jerusalem, on the main road. To the magi, it would indeed appear as though the King planet had guided them there. And they would have arrived during the Jewish festival of Hannukah, during which Jews gave each other gifts.
This is indeed a remarkable odyssey on the part of a planet. Two very rare conjunctions with Venus not quite a year apart, the second even closer than the first, with a triple conjunction of Regulus in between, and then another retrograde motion beginning on December 25 while it is in the southwest sky over Jerusalem, in the constellation of Virgo. What are the odds of such a sequence recurring?
As I noted above, the first conjunction of Jupiter with Venus was an event which might have been seen once in every 144 years. Triple conjunctions of Jupiter with Regulus occur in pairs every 83 years. Because 83 is prime, the periodicity of the two cycles will repeat only once about every 11,952 (=83 x 144) years. And that is without regard to the second closer conjunction with Venus, to within 30 arc seconds, which would have been seen only once in about every 1,080 years. Because 144 is commensurate with 2,160 (= 2 x 1,080 = 15 x 144), we could expect the unique course of planetary events seen in 3-2 B.C. to recur again in about 179,280 (= 15 x 11,952) years.
The Nativity was thus, from the standpoint of the signs in the sky, truly a unique event. We still have not, however, exhausted all the Biblical accounts of it. In a later post I will take up another of the Bible's descriptions of the signs at the time of Jesus' birth, and show how they fit in with what has been discussed in the three posts to date. For the present, let us conclude that there were sufficient signs in the sky to give the wise men ample cause to go and investigate the birth of the King of the Jews.
A terrific series! Thanks so much. I'm calling these to the attention of readers of Just Genesis.
ReplyDeleteYour readers may be interested in this also, on the Egypt connection:
http://jandyongenesis.blogspot.com/2009/12/egypt-in-christmas-narrative.html
Re the visit of the ¿wise? men: I have always been troubled by the use of "wise" to translate the Greek magois.
ReplyDeleteHerod's infamous jealousy. paranoia, and cruelty was widely known from Rome to Egypt to Mesopotamia. Even if these "wise" men were ignorant of Herod's character, it was still consummate foolishness in those days to go to a king and ask where his non-patrilineal replacement had just been born.
In terms of true wisdom, these men were more like rubes who had just fallen off the turnip truck.
In today's terms, they would be called nerds, with rarified knowledge so specialized that it precluded the application of common sense.
I choose to believe that they were men of good faith, Rolin, and that living four full months' journey away from Herod, they had to wait to form their judgment of him until they saw him in person. But they did the right thing, and listened to the warning they got, while escaping Herod's wrath. Meanwhile they showed that they knew how to interpret the signs in the heavens, while Herod and his magi were clueless. So I give them high marks overall.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the reply, A.S.
ReplyDeleteThe only biographical data we have on these travelers, from either the writer of Matthew or the oral tradition on which he draws, is that they were magois and that they came from the east. We do not even know how many of them there were—although from the three gifts, many have extrapolated that there were three Magi.
This plus their actions gives us plenty of room for what to choose to believe, and we often find such tales layered with accretions of saintly traditions. Here is where the tool of deconstruction can be useful. For instance, if one's view of the character of Moses is significantly affected by the cinematography of Cecil B. DeMille, a strong dose of deconstruction is called for.
That is what I was employing in the above as an antidote to such accretions. The truth, of course, is that they were likely neither rubes nor saints but something inbetween.
That said, your novel suggestion that these were "Jewish court astronomers from Babylon" of "good faith" bears some merit and is worthy of more investigation.
While there certainly were remaining clusters of faithful Jews in Mesopotamia up until the fall of Saddam Hussein, their continued participation in "court" life may be questionable. By 141 BC, when the Parthian Empire took over the region, the city of Babylon itself was in complete desolation and obscurity.
Magoi itself originally referred to a Persian (not Babylonian) religious caste, but by the time of Matthew it was rather loosely applied to fortune tellers and esoteric religious cults. The New International Bible Dictionary places the likely origin of these Magi as from the astrology center of southern Arabia, noting that the old Arabian caravan routes enter Palestine "from the east."
Other sources (I don't recall where) speculated that these Magi were associated with northern Parthia, where mixed Hellenic and Oriental mystery religions and Iranian cults were replacing Babylonian deities and the ancient Middle East was giving way to acceptance of universalist religions.
It is worth noting that it was a Parthian invasion of Judea that set in motion the flight of Herod to Rome and his appointment as king, i.e., Parthians were not unacquainted with the politics of Judea and the family of Herod.
In support of your "Jewish astronomers" thesis one might mention the surprising conversion of the Parthian kinglet Izates bar Monobaz to Judaism during Jesus' timeframe, certainly showing the powerful influence of Judaism even outside the Roman empire.
But most likely the writer of Matthew used the magois term as a specific reference to gentile recognition of the power of Israel's God, in the model of Solomon's reception of the Queen of Sheba.
Again, from my standpoint, if these were devout Jews they would be intimately familiar with the embarrasing scandal of an Idumean sitting on the throne of David, and if they were attentive to Jewish scripture would know that the new reign portended in the heavens could only be the Messiah-King who would be born to the line of David, not Herod. Since scripture was explicit as to his birthplace, the Magi would have needed only to enquire for directions to get to Bethlehem.
Accordingly, I find it more reasonable to conclude that these were most likely non-Jewish astrologers from a remote sector of the Parthian empire.
Thank you so very much for all of your fascinating and wonderful Christmas offerings.
ReplyDeleteThank you also for your extraordinary articles year round.
May you have a truly blessed and success filled New Year.
Rolin, sidereal astrology is really an early form of astronomy.
ReplyDeleteIndeed the wise men may have come from South Arabia, but there is biblical evidence that they were Judeans who lived in Babylon. Likely descendents of Daniel and his fellow Judeans who looked for the coming of the Messiah.
Why would non-Jews go in search of the "child born King of the Jews"?
Alice, thank you for your response.
ReplyDeleteYou are correct about astrology being a form of astronomy, and my unfortunate use of the deprecating phrase "fortune tellers" (which I found in my sources) was not intended to apply to these astronomers. The error of astrology is not that astronomical data may parallel human history—an idea supported by the bible—but that astronomical data is determinative of human history.
I don't believe that they may have come from southern Arabia. That is little more than grasping at straws based on the occurence of astrology in that region. The Persian connection, like the Persian word from which Magi is derivative, is much stronger. The Persians were the inheritors of the famous advances in astronomy made by the Babylonians.
I am no expert in ancient history, but I am having trouble locating the "Babylon" residence that you and Mr. Haley ascribe to these travelers. The once-great city was an uninhabited mud-puddle at the time, and I have not found a political existence for Babylonia during the Herodian period. Perhaps you can correct me.
Certainly, as I noted above, the descendants of Daniel and other Judeans have been present in Mesopotamia up until the present day. However, from the time of the fall of Babylonia and Medea, these Jews were located socially far from the centers of courtly power. The "three kings of orient" idea needs some serious deconstruction.
But what is your Biblical evidence outside this passage that such a thing as "Judean astrologers" actually existed? Jews are primarily a people of the Book, not a people of the heavenly bodies.
Again, if they were Judeans looking for the Messiah they would have had no need to risk their necks by exposing themselves to Herod's court. Judean Jews and diaspora Jews were tightly interconnected, in large part by not-infrequent pilgrimages to the Temple for the Jewish holy days. Even if they were Sadducees, their first stop would have been the temple and they would have been redirected on their quest to see the Sanhedrin of the high priest rather than the court of Herod.
Many non-Jews were in search of universalist religions during this time period when the system of local gods and demi-gods was falling out of favor, especially among the educated classes.
They were especially attracted to the God of Israel. Proselytes were not unheard of, and "friends of God" like the most honorable Theophilus, were much more common. The Parthian kinglet learned about Judaism from a Jewish merchant, and delayed his conversion until after his accession to the throne.
It is precisely among these "friends of God" that one would look for educated, travel-capable people who knew enough about the Messiah-King to be attracted to him but not enough to know his birthplace. Like Theophilus, they needed further instruction so that they could be certain of the truth.
As kingdom-oriented rather than temple-oriented seekers, they naturally sought out the local king, who referred them to the more properly informed source: the temple- and Book-oriented officers of the Sanhedrin.
Even after that, they were still so poorly informed about the political situation of Judea and the danger from the murderous Herod that they needed to be warned in a dream not to go back to the court as they had been commanded.
Interpretation of dreams is another discipline attributed by history to the Persian Magi. Although Daniel became known as the dream-interpreter par excellence, he was but one of a sea of Babylonians who claimed the skill.
In sum, the evidence for a non-Jewish Persian (Parthian) origin for these travelers is overwhelming as compared to an Arabian or Jewish Mesopotamean origin.
Rolin, I don't think we are disputing each other; the facts seem to be more or less of record. The Persian court continued all during the Parthian empire, even though Phraates IV had a little difficulty holding on to his throne during Mark Antony's heyday -- but Mark Antony was soon occupied elsewhere. The court had transferred from ancient Babylon to Seleucia, and the Jews went right along with it -- Josephus records a massacre of 5,000 of them there in 41 B.C. (See this summary of the Jews during the Parthian empire.) So I should have written that they were probably "Jewish court astronomers from Babylonia", not Babylon, and I will fix that.
ReplyDeleteThere is a good capsule history of Jewish astronomy during the Mishna at this link. I don't think the Parthian Jews would have had much to fear from King Herod, who knew that his ability to keep the Parthians from overrunning Judea depended on his keeping the Romans as his good friends. Moreover, all Jews -- including Parthian Jews -- still had to come to the Temple in Jerusalem regularly for ritual sacrifice, and so they would not have been strangers to Herod. Their obvious wealth implied plenty of Parthian protection, and so I think they might have had a healthy respect for each other.
A.S., thanks for the data and for the links. As I said, I'm no expert at ancient history. I have the works of Josephus on the shelf but I have not done much more than to sample it and quote from it when led there by other scholars.
ReplyDeleteI had neglected to factor in the wealth and potential power of these travelers, who no doubt had servants (and perhaps armed guards) in their train.
Your data lays open the possibility that the visitors were indeed Jews, and the writer of Matthew used the term Magi for theological reasons perhaps related to the traditions around the Queen of Sheba. It is also possible that they were "friends of God" as I have proposed.
As astronomers accustomed to reading the maddeningly intricate astronomical tables of the Babylonians, one can possibly infer that these scholars were not trained to read Hebrew, and therefore the location of the King's birth had to be sought from experts in a different scholarly discipline.
You might be surprised at the lack of Old Testament knowledge on the part of New Testament scholars (and vice versa) today. Perhaps that is nothing new.
Do not discount your connection to the House of Sheba. Remember that Abraham's people, those who first received the promise of the Son (Gen. 3:15), were related to Sheba. Sheba was one of Abraham's ancestors listed in Gen. 10:21-26, as the lines of Sheba and Ham intermarried, as I've demonstrated here: http://jandyongenesis.blogspot.com/2009/03/sheba-lines-of-ham-and-shem.html
ReplyDeleteFurther, Abraham's second wife, Keturah, was of the House of Sheba. Her home was Beer-Sheba, meaning the well of Sheba.
The oldest known evidence of sidereal astronomy was found in Africa (Google "Lebombo bone") and many of Abraham's ancestors came out of Africa. A palace city associated with Sheba has been found on the Atlantic coast of Nigeria. You may read more about that here: http://jandyongenesis.blogspot.com/2009/09/garden-of-eden.html
Thank-you for a really magnificent and fascinating presentation. I am surprised that this is not more commonly known, because it seems to be a great match of all the data. Some decades ago I studied asto-navigation in the Navy, and based on what I remember this makes perfect sense. But a picky point: I wonder if "elliptic" shouldn't be "ecliptic"?
ReplyDeleteStill, though, thank-you very much.
Right you are, Jim Doe -- that recurring typo has been fixed. The planets follow elliptical orbits that lie along the plane of the ecliptic. Thanks!
ReplyDelete"(c) its ability to seem to travel in a given direction, first from east to west, toward Jerusalem, and then south, from Jerusalem to Bethlehem"
ReplyDeleteRaymond Brown points out (in Birth of the Messiah) that the text doesn't imply the magi followed the star to Jerusalem, only that they noted the star, determined that it implied a Jewish king, because of the constellation it was in or some such reason, and went to Jerusalem as a result. Then ("Behold!") the star started leading them from there to Bethlehem.
That is true, mwp -- the text does not imply that the wise men followed the Star to Jerusalem. However, given the attention commanded by Jupiter's closest ever conjunction with Venus in June of 2 BC, it would seem natural for them to follow Jupiter's path from that time on, which was leading them to where the other signs told them they should go -- to Judea.
ReplyDeleteAn Ethiopian friend whose family were judges and ambassadors has shared with me his interest in the 'magi.' He tells me he has himself read in 'The Annals of the Kings of
ReplyDeleteEthiopia' that the prophecy of Daniel had influenced them to observe the sky for the birth of the Messiah. The annals detail the retinue and preparations of the King of Ethiopia for his journey. Along the way, his attendants joined the others in their journey toward Jerusalem The Annals say the groups camped together outside the walls of Jerusalem. It also says that following the visit to Jerusalem, the king returned to Ethiopia a different way.
Ethiopia was Jewish and awaiting the Messiah. It may be worth someone's effort to research their records as well.
Margaret, That is fascinating! Could you find out more about the Ethiopian connection?
ReplyDeleteI'm not surprised by this since the idea of Christ is evident in ancient Nilotic mythology and the Nilotic peoples were stargazers.
But, to which Ethiopia are you referring, the one in Africa or the one south of the Caspian sea?
ReplyDeleteAbraham's ancestors were Kushites from the Nile region. Genesis tells us that one of Noah's grandsons was Kush. Kush was the father of two first-borns sons by his two wives. One was Ramaah, the father of Sheba the Elder. The other was Nimrod, the father of Asshur and Arpachsad. Ramaah's territory was in Arabia near Dedan. Nimrod built a vast territory for himself in the Tigris-Euphrates River Valley. Terah, Abraham's father, is a descendant of Nimrod, which explains why he controlled the length of the Euphrates, between Haran and Ur.
ReplyDeleteTwo relevant facts relative to Persians:
ReplyDelete1. While the Greeks and Romans considered comets a bad omen, the Persians considered them a good omen. The Persian-descended monarch Mithridates of Pontus actually took the comet as his symbol. Comets marked several important events in his life.
2. Zoroastrians look for the coming of the Saoshyant, the good ruler. This Zoroastrian belief might even have influenced Jewish expectations of the Messiah through their contact during the exile. They probably felt some kinship, as the only monotheists in a world of polytheists. So, of all the Gentiles, the Persians were the most likely to look for a messiah among the Jews.
The Magi were actually from Arabia not Persia
DeleteBethlehem was a Horite town. Messianic expectation originated among the Horite Habiru (Hebrew). It is specifically associated with the Horites in I Chronicles 4:4 which names Hur (Hor) as the "father of Bethlehem." Rahab of Jericho was the wife of Salmon, the son of Hur (Horite). Salmon is called the "father of Bethlehem" in 1 Chronicles 2:54. Rahab was the grandmother of Boaz who married Ruth. Salmon is a Horite name associated with Bethlehem in 1 Chronicles 2:51.According to Psalm 132:1-7 the Ark rested for a while in Bethlehem.
ReplyDeleteThe question is: "Which Bethlehem as Jesus' birthplace?" Bethlehem of Galilee was known as a fruitful place and therefore called Bethlehem "Ephratha." This is the Bethlehem of David's ancestors Ruth and Boaz. It was a region known for fruit and grain. It was connected to the royal house of Tyre. Tyre was one of the ancient seats of wisdom. Hiram I of Tyre helped David build his palace. Tyrian craftsmen also helped Solomon build the temple. The rulers of Tyre were considered to have roots in ancient Eden.
Jesus went to Tyre and there His true identity was recognized, according to Mark's Gospel (cf. Matt. 15:21). Hiram I, David and Jesus share a common Horite ancestry that extends back to Eden. The Horites believed that the promised Seed of the Woman would be born of their ruler-priest lines and they expected Him to visit them. In Mark 7:24, this expectation was fulfilled when the Son of God visited Tyre. Mark explains that there Jesus “could not pass unrecognized.”
The prophet Ezekiel traces the rulers of Tyre back to Eden. "Son of Man, raise a lament over the king of Tyre and say to him: Thus says the Lord God: You were the seal of perfection, full of wisdom and flawless beauty. You were in Eden, in the Garden of God; every precious stone was your adornment... and gold beautifully wrought for you, mined for you, prepared the day you were created." (Ezekiel 28:11-18)
Make ready, O Bethlehem; for Eden hath been opened for all. Prepare, O Ephratha; for the Tree of life hath blossomed forth in the cave from the Virgin; for her womb did appear as a spiritual paradise, in which is planted the divine Plant, whereof eating we shall live and not die as Adam. Verily, Christ shall be born, raising the likeness that fell of old.