Was the Star of Bethlehem The Planet Venus Or the North Star Polaris?

I am convinced it was one or the other.

Was the Star of Bethlehem The Planet Venus Or the North Star Polaris?
neither one, it was a fictional story element added decades after the main character was dead.
Reply:The consensus among modern biblical scholars is that this was not an historical event, but was added about a century later to the gospel; see the article in the December 2007 Sky %26amp; Telescope.





Even if the story were true, it could not have been Venus or Polaris. The magi would have been astrologers, and familiar with the sky, and would have paid no attention to Venus, since it's a well known body. Polaris wasn't the pole star in those days, and isn't a very siignificant star otherwise. What would have caught astrologers' attention would have been an unusual event in the heavens. Astronomers have put forward dozens of possibilities, but none holds up under scrutiny.
Reply:I don't think there was actually a star of bethlehem. The story is fictional.
Reply:Astronomers have been debating this for centuries, and have reached no consensus on the matter. Such a phenomenon has not been confirmed by records from contemporary sources.
Reply:its in your beleif what do you believe in?
Reply:No it was not. If it was so then it would have been written that this was the north star. The star at Bethlehem was a spiritual happening by the Father in heaven. He made everything. Therefore, the universe is his to control. He can make even the wind to obey so why not a star?
Reply:It has been hypothesized that it was a comet , possibly Halley. The time frame fits.


Comet Halley is also depicted on the Bayeux Tapestry.
Reply:Hi Paul!





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.





The star would stay with a constellation if it were, say, a super nova, following the same orbit night after night. (No supernova was reported by astronomers anywhere in the world at that time, and certainly not with the remarkable start-stop properties of the Star of Bethlehem.) For a star at astronomical distances to stop while the rest of the constellations moved would be utterly impossible under Einsteinian relativity, since it would be moving relative to other stars at a speed far, far in excess of the speed of light.





It could not have been the star Polaris, the current north star, because in the time of Jesus Polaris was not the north star! Due to the astronomical phenomenon of precession, the closest noticeable star to due north was Kochab, in the bowl of the Little Dipper, and it got no closer than 8 degrees from the pole. In any case, if the "north star" were overhead, then Jesus must have been born at the north pole, and obviously this is not the case.





If it were an unusual conjunction of bright planets, everyone would notice the planets coming together well in advance. Bright planets would not stop, over Bethlehem or anyplace else. They move through the evening. Jupiter and Saturn passed one another in the year 7 B.C., but no one thinks Jesus was born in 7 B.C., and if He was, a lot of other biblical events must be wrongly reported.





If Venus were one of these bright planets, it is metaphysically impossible for Venus to appear overhead in the night sky. Venus cannot get higher than 47 degrees ahead of the sun, anywhere in the world.





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.





P.S. I saw Michael's intriguing hypothesis about a planetary conjunction in August, 2 B.C.. I suppose that astrologers of the day might well have been fascinated, but the Wikipedia account of this planetary conjunction leaves out one essential fact: it all happened against a bright sky within a few minutes of sunrise. The Wikipedia image fails to show that the sun actually sat directly between Venus and the Jupiter-Mars pair. 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.
Reply:Its says on the history channel that it maybe when Venus and Jupiter conjuct.And with that case,it will be bright as like the one in the star in bethlehem.Other said that it is the comet Halley.
Reply:It couldn't have been the planet Venus because that is only visible in early evening and morning and it most likely wasn't the north star either because according to the time line that would put the birth of Jesus some time in the spring some 5 years earlier (according to astronomers).


I think it was a ufo. lol
Reply:Biblical Scholars think that the Star of Bethlehem is actually a very rare combination of the planets Venus, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn, and the star Regulus, known as "The king star", in the constellation Leo that "fused together to form one star." Since this "star" was a "wandering star" and the planets do wander, it makes since.
Reply:There is a theory that it was actually a comet.
Reply:The Star of Bethlehem may have been an occultation of Jupiter by the moon that occurred in 6 BC, the re-emergence of the royal planet from behind the moon's disc suggesting a royal birth.


Or :


it was a nova with a cloud of hydrogen gas that was ejected


i.e a greater explosion of a star could have been the Star of Bethlehem. It could also have been a faint nearby star that exploded.
Reply:Neither. Its fictional okay. Planet Venus that bright? Seeesh...you can be easily convinced.





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