Jupiter largest and Venus brightest came together to form the Bethlehem star? http://thestarofbethlehemmovie...

Thanks, great information it makes sense also. Using the bible an writings of historians and new astrology software WOW it is exciting. These are FACTS not theory's.


Here is some of his writings from his web-site on the death of Christ at 3:00 pm exactly.





But there is more which they could not see. Kepler's equations indicate that the moon rose already in eclipse, already bloody, fulfilling Joel's vision. Necessarily, this means that the eclipse commenced before moonrise. With software we can look below the horizon and see Earth's shadow begin the eclipse. When we do, we find that at 3 PM, as Jesus was breathing his last on the cross, the moon was going to blood.





The sky at Christ's birth can be viewed as a kind of visual poetry, with the new moon symbolically "birthed" at the foot of Virgo, the virgin. To complete that celestial poem, on the night of Jesus' death the moon had returned to the foot of the virgin. But now it was a full moon. A life fully lived, blotted out in blood.

Jupiter largest and Venus brightest came together to form the Bethlehem star? http://thestarofbethlehemmovie...
This link explains some possible stellar events of that time--


http://dev.smm.org/buzz/buzz_tags/star_o...





However this is of course a matter of religious faith and not really subject to a "science" debate.
Reply:Actually, Tom, the conclusion of that article is that all modern biblical scholars are agreed that the Star of Bethelehem is a "non-historic event," i.e. it didn't happen.
Reply:The source is really good. Basically it could have been Jupiter and Saturn, but it is really more complicated than that.





The bible actually says very little about the star, but one thing it does say (in Matthew 2:7) is that Herod asked the wise men what time the star appeared, which implies it was not obvious to ordinary people.
Reply:It's Christmas tradition to bring up this question.





First, I wouldn't gather my science information from a movie.





I believe that you can find star maps on the internet that can take you into the past to see what the skies might have looked like. It's true that we do not have the exact date of the birth of Jesus. It is likely somewhere between 6BC and 7AD. It is not known whether King Herod died in 4BC or 1BC (Jesus was born before Herod died). This time frame presents many opportunities for conjuncts (if that's what it was).





It is my understanding that the three Magi went out in search of a baby boy. They only stopped at Bethlehem since there was a celebration going on (that's why the inn's were full) and the Magi figured that, with all of the extra people there, this would be a good place to find a baby. This was not necessarily where the 'star' was overhead.





In modern times, astronomers have proposed various explanations for the star, including a nova, a planet, a comet, an occultation, and a conjunction. The Biblical account suggests that the visit of the magi took place at least several months after Jesus was born. Matthew's account suggests that by the time the magi arrived, Jesus was a child (paidion), not an infant (brephos). This is why Herod ordered the execution of all male children in Bethlehem age 2 and under. This ends the familiar fiction story of Jesus receiving gifts as a baby in a manger. In fact, it remains quite possible that, if the savior was supposed to be a baby, the Magi gave presents to the wrong boy.





We are able to place the death of Jesus during the reign of Pontius Pilate, the governor of Judea . Pilate ruled from 26-36AD. Jesus' entire 2-3 year ministry occurred during Pilate's rule (most likely from records as 28-29AD).





It wasn't just Jesus that had a star in the sky: The ancients believed that astronomical phenomena were connected to terrestrial events. Miracles were routinely associated with the birth of important people, including the Hebrew patriarchs, as well as Greek and Roman heroes.





Locating a baby was then a self-fulfilling prophecy. There was an unusual star in the sky, therefore there had to be a savior found on Earth.





Jesus was not considered important during his lifetime so the precise details of his birth were not recorded as they occurred. The major non-biblical source of information about Jewish happenings around the time of Jesus' lifetime comes from the writings of the Jewish historian, Joseph ben Matthias ( also known as Flavius Josephus), called The Jewish War, written just after the fall of Jerusalem in 70AD, and Jewish Antiquities, written around 93AD. Jesus receives just a brief mention in Josephus' writings and what is there is only about his adult life. The Roman historian Tacitus mentions Jesus in only one sentence of his last large work, the Annals, and that sentence is about Jesus' death. The best information we have comes from the biblical books of Matthew and Luke that were written about 80-90 years after Jesus' birth. The authors of Matthew and Luke did not write with our modern understanding of historical accuracy in mind. This fact is not remembered by many Christians, agnostics, and atheists today. Jesus did not have a scribe at his side recording his daily life and sayings.





That's all from me, it's time to saddle up the camel. If someone can pinpoint a magnificent event during these years (besides north star I mean) good luck as there are many many possible conjuncts. A nova would seem likely yet the Chinese report that the nova that occured in 5BC was not very bright. We must remember that the Magi were astronomers (or at least astrologers), so the event must have been more spectacular than average.





Happy holidays and happy star gazing.





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north star, if you are going to quote the Bible, you may want to actually read it instead of repeating STORIES about the Bible that you may have overheard when you were a child.





Thanks for narrowing down the date of the conjunction to the rule of Augustus Ceasar 27BC - 14AD! All stars 'appear' when the Sun sets. The Magi did not travel for a few days as you suggest. From Persia, whence the Magi are supposed to have come, to Jerusalem was a journey of between 1000 and 1200 miles. Such a distance may have taken any time between three and twelve months by camel. Besides the time of travel, there were probably many weeks of preparation. The Magi could scarcely have reached Jerusalem untill a year or more had elapsed from the time of the appearance of the star.
Reply:1997-2006 I was working flat out had no time to look for dates


2007 Got a chance to start dating again
Reply:Hi Forgive!





This question has been argued up and down. The accounts mentioned in the Gospels would be astronomically impossible, and Venus could not be the Star of Bethlehem as described in the Bible.





According to Matthew, "... and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was."





Anyone who watches the skies know that stars and planets don't move like that, coming to rest over a certain place. They do not come to rest at all. If the Star of Bethlehem were an astronomical object, it could not move to the zenith at Bethlehem and then stop, to mark the place.





If you had been trying to find a Christ child, the planetary conjunction in August, 2 B.C. would have been of absolutely no help to you. The articles you've been reading about this planetary conjunction leave out one essential fact: the conjunction happened in the daytime. I've seen images of it on Wikipedia, but they fail to show that the sun actually sat directly between Venus and Jupiter. The "star" would have been invisible to the unaided eye, lost in solar glare. If this "star" did indeed pass overhead it would have done so at noon, a time when absolutely no one could have spied it, what with the blazing sun less than a fists-width away.





The most obvious explanation for the Star of Bethlehem is that it fulfils a pre-existing prophecy in the Book of Micah. Either God performed a special miracle at Bethlehem, one that does not involve astronomical phenomena (something like the miracle of the falling sun at Fatima, reported by the faithful in 1917 but absolutely not observed anywhere else in the world, despite its obviously earth-shaking nature); or Gospel writers simply supposed that the Star of Bethlehem must have happened because the prophet Micah said it would.





People of faith, like me, have no trouble accepting that God could perform a special miracle that the Wise Men saw, but that did not otherwise upset the celestial order. Those, however, who believe in the sort of "Bible-science" that requires the Gospel account to be explained by some sort of natural phenomenon are, I am convinced, fated to perpetually spin their wheels!
Reply:There is some evidence that the Star of Bethlehem was a rare conjuction of Saturn, Jupiter, and Venus. This event coincides with the birth of Christ, which is known, because it was during the reign of Caesar Augustus, and the year of the taxing of the Empire, which is kept in ancient records here on Earth. It says in the Bible that the "Star" appeared, which means that it was not always there and had not been there. The one downside to this is that the wise men traveled for days following the star, and a conjuction of planets could not stay together for more than a night(unless it was supernaturally held in place). Another possibility is a nova, which could easily have dimmed and grown extremely bright for a period of days. The Bible actually describes this star very little, but says that it led to Bethlehem and the place of Christs' birth.
Reply:That's a possibility discussed in the December Sky %26amp; Telescope. It was dusk on June 17, 2 BC in the west-northwestern sky as seen from Babylon. It's not known for certain if this was it, because the exact day of Christ's birth is not known.

gordon