The Star of Bethlehem: An Astronomer's View [Hardcover]

The Star of Bethlehem is a perennially favorite topic for planetarium shows, articles, musings, sermons, and books. What could be left at this late date to say about it? Quite a lot, actually. Enough so that two new books, both titled "The Star of Bethlehem" (How original!) and both copyright 1999 are on my desk as I write.

The story about the Star is found only in the Gospel of Matthew. There are three possibilities: 1) The star was a myth - invented by the writer of Matthew or earlier Christians whom he followed, in order to give Jesus appropriately royal auspices for his birth. 2) The star was a miracle provided by God to guide the Magi, even perhaps visible only to them. 3) The star was a natural astronomical event or events. These three are obviously mutually exclusive and exhaustive. If either of the first two possibilities are correct, there is little more to be said; therefore both of our authors give them short shrift.

Both books cover some of the same material in about the same way. Jesus was *not* born on December 25 of 1 BC as worked out by the Scythian monastic scholar Dionysius Exiguus (Denny the Dwarf) in 525 AD. King Herod, of whom the Magi inquired about the birth, died in 4 BC. For other reasons, the birth is fairly firmly dated to between 6 and 4 BC. If the shepherds were `abiding with their flocks by night', the birth did not take place in December. For various reasons, these authors agree that Spring is more likely.

"The Star of Bethlehem - An Astronomer's View", by Mark Kidger, gives a review of all the various suggestions that have been made over the years, finally settling on a combination of events being the sign: a triple conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in Pisces (the sign Kidger says is associated with the Jews - more on this later) between May and December of 7 BC, with Mars approaching this pair in February of 6 BC, followed by a near-occultation of Jupiter by the Moon in Pisces in February of 5 BC, and then, possibly a nova in March/April 5 BC, as suggested by some Korean and Chinese records.

I would have found this scenario plausible were it not for the second, and to my mind more interesting, book: "The Star of Bethlehem - The Legacy of the Magi" by Michael R. Molnar. There are two problems, as pointed out by Molnar, with the kinds of solutions reviewed, and those eventually suggested, by Kidger. Firstly, they tend to focus on what we as moderns would find to be visually compelling sights in the heavens. But this neglects the fact that the Magi were certainly *astrologers*, most likely Hellenistic rather than Babylonian in their astrological theories. Most of the events put forward would not have been significant to contemporary astrology. Kidger himself makes this point but does not seem to follow through with a close study of Hellenistic astrology as Molnar has made. Secondly, we have the advantage over the Magi of *knowing*, at least approximately, what the correct time frame is, then sifting through a small number a years to find the most significant events during those years. We have to imagine an ongoing community of astrologers, scanning the skies for generations perhaps, and imagine what would have been absolutely unique over many years, and compelling enough to make them undertake an arduous journey. In this light, Kidger's series of events are not so special.

Se my review of Michael Molnar's book for more details.

Mr. Kidger's words open a whole new world to the reader. Whether you think the star is a hoax or a supernatural phenomenon, what he has to say will have you looking at the sky in a whole new way. After I read it I couldn't wait to go out and watch an eclipse, look for a comet, or just look at the stars. I even called my parents to see if they still had the telescope they bought me when I was a child. The book does a good job of presenting several views of what the "Star" could have been. Mr. Kidger doesn't expect you to believe that he is right in his conclusions, instead he gives the reader the opportunity to see many points of view. Like a good teacher, Mr. Kidger makes a conclusion from his research but makes it in such a way that the reader (student) wants to learn more. The only reason that I did not give the book 5 stars was becasue at times it can seem to stray away from the purpose of answering the question, "what was the star?" While there is no way to answer this question without looking at history, the book at times resembles more of a history book than an astronomy book. If you like astronomy or are just curious about the Star of Bethlehem you will find this book worth looking over. If nothing else the new way you look at the sky will be worth reading the book.

Any work is worth reading if you are studying a particular topic. While not every author is going to be correct, they all tend to offer ideas that, at the very least, provide food for thought or a path to explore in your endeavor.

This is one such work. It has some good ideas that might pique your interest. However, it is highly speculative, boasts minimal resource material, and is very poorly researched.

In one instance, for example, he subtly attempts to convince the reader that a hui hsing might have been a nova or supernova due to its apparent lack of motion in the Chinese record of the astronomical event (pp. 234-235). However, a hui hsing, according to its very own wording and definition, is a "broom star," meaning that it has a tufted tail like a broom. Whether it moved across the sky or not, it was a comet, else it would have been described as a hsing po (a star bushing out) instead of a hui hsing (broom star).

In another instance he makes a comparison between a 4 BC po hsing (properly a hsing po, or xing bo in accepted pinyin) recorded by the Koreans (pp. 235-239) and this same 5 BC hui hsing in the Chinese Annals, and argues for the possibility that the two were one and the same event (pp. 243-244). The Koreans, he suggests in this example, were mistaken by one year, because, he claimes, the Chinese never recorded a 4 BC object, and he reasons that, "It [...] seems unlikely, given the known record of the Chinese as observers, that the Koreans but not the Chinese would record the 4 BC object [...]," (pp. 238-239).

The Korean Samguk Sagi states, "In the 54th year of the King Sijo of Silla (4 BC), in the spring, the second month, on the day ji-you, a star appeared (xing-po) in the constellation Ho-Ku." The Chinese Chien Han Shu states, "In the reign of the Emperor Ai of Han, the third year of the Jian-ping reign period (4 BC), the third month, on the day ji-you, a star appeared (xing po) in the constellation Ho-Ku." (See Pan Ku, "The Eleventh Imperial Annals, The Annals of Emperor Hsiao-Ai," in History of the Former Han Dynasty, trans. H. H. Dubs, 1st ed. vol. 3 (Baltimore, Maryland: Waverly Press, 1955), 33.)

His debate on this point, in short, is moot. Both nations recorded the same event, on the same day, in the same constellation, in the same year, and of the same type (xing po). The only difference between them is the month, which is easily miswritten, as anyone who studies Chinese would recognize.

These are but a select few of the pretentious arguements he makes.

Overall, I would recommend the book if you are doing research. At the very least it has ideas to move you along and ensure that you maintain a broad scope of the hypotheses available. However, I strongly recommend that anyone reading this treatment carefully research Kidger's "facts" before they are taken as such.