What Nature and Scripture Tell us About the Bethlehem Star

[St.Roymond]

@Christy

, but simply looking for “The King of the Jews” and believing the child worthy of worship does not entail familiarity with Judaism or Jewish prophesy like you are insisting it does.

They at least knew where the Jewish capital city was!

And BTW, just their being able to make that journey indicates wealth; the gifts are just icing on the cake.

[Vinnie]

This post was moved as it started a collection of very much off topic posts but this response was very much on topic here. I think it’s important to at least see a voice on the infancy narratives that is not steeped in concordant readings because the difficulties are many:

This entire reflection on the star of Bethlehem seems to be based on a concordant readings of Matthew’s infancy narrative. From a historical lens, it is most likely that Matthew and Luke attempt to get Jesus of Nazareth to Bethlehem via conflicting stories. There is very little in the Birth narratives of Jesus that look like historical narration.

This is why so many conservatives have trouble with an old earth. They read Genesis 1 -11 the same way this article is reading Mathew’s infancy narrative. Experts tell conservatives both readings are wrong. They dismiss both experts. It seems many Christian evolutionists will cherry pick what is historical and what is not. Conservatives see right through this. Now sure, scientific consensus is stronger than historical consensus but it’s still there. And sure there are potential astronomical candidates in the most commonly suggested decade for Jesus’s birth but none that accurately fit the Bible’s descriptions and we now know stars can’t settle over a house and they don’t behave as described. They can’t fall to the earth either. The earth isn’t immutable and thoughts don’t originate in our kidneys. Etc.,etc etc. We know now, just as we do about Genesis1-3, this story is based on mistaken cosmogony.

Matthew is looking backwards and ascribing a most wonderful birth to Jesus almost a century after the fact. Whatever actually happened we cannot know. We have two highly supernatural stories that contradict on details, are filled his astronomical and historical errors, entire streams of NT thought are entirely oblivious to this most wonderful miracle (even demons call him Jesus of Nazareth and Mark may very well have Jesus adopted at baptism), that shows up very late in the tradition with competing (highly theological) genealogies through Joseph, Luke describes Mary’s purification rituals poorly despite conservatives claiming he is using her story, history is silent on the massacre of the innocents despite Josephus parading the insanity of Herod, many other figures were given virgin births—some while alive and I’m assuming, like me, other Christian’s reject these out of hand—just as they do the other birth stories about Jesus outside the Canon). I’m sure someone can try a divide and conquer harmonization. Eusebius did so long ago. It’s all “baby dinosaurs on the ark.”

This might be hard, especially at Christmas time but imagine what conservatives think when told the Bible is not correct in how it describes creation. I personally accept the virgin birth of Jesus based on Church testimony and creed. Μuch the same way I do some form of inspiration. It is a faith based position.

Christmas is a time to celebrate the incarnation. We can read Matthew and Luke and wonder how a baby born in a backwater hamlet of Galilee, where idiom suggests nothing good could come from, a baby who grew into an inconsequential and probably illiterate woodworker that was crucified as a criminal by Rome was given the honor of such wondrous birth tales. How? Why? How indeed! Easter helps with the answer.

Wondering about the star of Bethlehem is like wondering what type of snake was in Eden.

[St.Roymond]

@Vinnie

And sure there are potential astronomical candidates in the most commonly suggested decade for Jesus’s birth but none that accurately fit the Bible’s descriptions

I thought the material in the Star of Bethlehem movie showed a very fine fit.

[Terry_Sampson]

@Vinnie

There is very little in the Birth narratives of Jesus that look like historical narration.

Wait! Are you saying not only are the Christian Birth and Infancy narratives convenient fiction but the whole of the Qur’an is too. So much for unbridled ecumenism.

[jpm (Phil McCurdy)]

Interestingly, our Sunday School teacher showed an AIG video on the star and wise men this Sunday. Actually was not bad, and pretty much made the same observations as the Biologos article, though I cringed at the AIG logo plastered everywhere.