I want to continue where we left off with Chapter Four.
We were looking at Jupiter’s Royal Dance, A Coronation.
That’s where we will start for this chapter. We were looking at Jupiter’s Royal Dance, A Coronation. Jupiter’s interesting behavior may explain the kingly aspect of the Star. But there are nine qualifications of the Star of Bethlehem. Many are still missing.
How did Jupiter’s movement relate to the Jewish nation? Is its association with the Jewish New Year enough? Where is an indication of a birth? Some might say that the triple conjunction by itself would indicate to a magus that a new king was on the scene.
Maybe. But there is more. The Jewish nation is composed of twelve ancient tribes. Jewish prophecy states that a particular tribe will bring forth the Messiah: the tribe of Judah. The symbol of Judah’s tribe is the lion. You can see these connections in an ancient prediction of Messiah’s coming found in the first book of the Bible, the Book of Genesis, Chapter 49:
1And Jacob called unto his sons, and said, Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you that which shall befall you in the last days.
2Gather yourselves together, and hear, ye sons of Jacob; and hearken unto Israel your father.
3Reuben, thou art my firstborn, my might,
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and the beginning of my strength, the excellency of dignity, and the excellency of power: 4Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel; because thou wentest up to thy father's bed; then defiledst thou it: he went up to my couch. 5Simeon and Levi are brethren;
instruments of cruelty are in their habitations.
6O my soul, come not thou into their secret;
unto their assembly, mine honour, be not thou united: for in their anger they slew a man, and in their selfwill they digged down a wall.
7Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce; and their wrath, for it was cruel: I will divide them in Jacob, and scatter them in Israel. 8Judah, thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise: thy hand shall be in the neck of thine enemies; thy father's children shall bow down before thee.
9Judah is a lion's whelp: from the prey, my son, thou art gone up: he stooped down, he couched as a lion, and as an old lion; who shall rouse him up? 10The sceptre shall not depart
from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his
feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be. 11Binding his foal unto the vine, and his ass's colt unto the choice vine; he washed his garments in wine, and his clothes in the blood of grapes: 12His eyes shall be red with wine, and his teeth white with milk. 13Zebulun shall dwell at the haven of the sea; and he shall be for an haven of ships; and his border shall be unto Zidon.
14Issachar is a strong ass couching down between two burdens: 15And he saw that rest
was good, and the land that it was pleasant;
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and bowed his shoulder to bear, and became a servant unto tribute. 16Dan shall judge his people, as one of the tribes of Israel. 17Dan shall be a serpent by the way, an adder in the path, that biteth the horse heels, so that his rider shall fall backward. 18I have waited for thy salvation, O LORD. 19Gad, a troop shall
overcome him: but he shall overcome at the
last. 20Out of Asher his bread shall be fat, and he shall yield royal dainties. 21Naphtali is a hind let loose: he giveth goodly words.
22Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a well; whose branches run over the
wall: 23The archers have sorely grieved him,
and shot at him, and hated him: 24But his bow abode in strength, and the arms of his hands
were made strong by the hands of the mighty
God of Jacob; (from thence is the shepherd,
the stone of Israel:) 25Even by the God of thy father, who shall help thee; and by the Almighty, who shall bless thee with blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that lieth under, blessings of the breasts, and of the womb: 26The blessings of thy father have prevailed above the blessings of my
progenitors unto the utmost bound of the everlasting hills: they shall be on the head of Joseph, and on the crown of the head of him
that was separate from his brethren.
27Benjamin shall ravin as a wolf: in the morning he shall devour the prey, and at night he shall divide the spoil. 28All these are the twelve tribes of Israel: and this is it that their father spake unto them, and blessed them;
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every one according to his blessing he blessed them. 29And he charged them, and said unto
them, I am to be gathered unto my people: bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite, 30In the cave that is in the field of Machpelah, which is before Mamre, in the land of Canaan, which
Abraham bought with the field of Ephron the
Hittite for a possession of a buryingplace.
31There they buried Abraham and Sarah his
wife; there they buried Isaac and Rebekah his wife; and there I buried Leah. 32The
purchase of the field and of the cave that is therein was from the children of Heth. 33And
when Jacob had made an end of commanding
his sons, he gathered up his feet into the bed, and yielded up the ghost, and was gathered unto his people.
This association of Messiah with the tribe of Judah and with the lion is a productive clue. It clarifies the connection between Jupiter’s behavior and the Jewish nation, because the starry coronation—the triple conjunction—occurred within the constellation of Leo, The Lion. Ancient stargazers, particularly if they were interested in things Jewish, may well have concluded they were seeing signs of a Jewish king. But there is more.
The last book of the New Testament is, in part, a prophetic enigma. But a portion of the Book of Revelation provides clear and compelling guidance for our astronomical investigation. The apostle John wrote the book as an old man while in exile on the island of Patmos. Perhaps the austerity of this exile or a lack of companionship left him time to
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ponder the night sky. Whatever the reason, Revelation is full of star imagery.
In Revelation, Chapter 12, John describes a life and death drama played out in the sky: the birth of a king. (Vs 1-5) A woman in labor, a dragon bent on infanticide and a ruler of the nations.
1And there appeared a great wonder in
heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars: 2And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered. 3And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads. 4And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born. 5And she brought forth a man
child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God,
and to his throne.
We have already seen this ruler in the Book of Genesis. This would be the Messiah, in his role as King of Kings. If that interpretation is correct, then according to the gospel story the woman would be Mary, the mother of Jesus. The dragon which waits to kill the child at birth would be Herod, who tried to do that very thing.
John says the woman he saw was clothed in the Sun. She had the moon at her feet. What can he be describing? When we continue our study of the sky of September of 3 BC, the
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mystery of John’s vision is unlocked: he is describing more of the starry dance which began with the Jewish New Year.
As Jupiter was beginning the coronation of Regulus, another startling symbol rose in the sky. The constellation which rises in the east behind Leo is Virgo, The Virgin. When Jupiter and Regulus were first meeting, she rose clothed in the Sun.
And as John said, the moon was at her feet.
It was a new moon, symbolically birthed at the feet of The Virgin. The sheer concentration of symbolism in the stars at this moment is remarkable. These things could certainly lead our magus to conclude that a Jewish king had been born.
But even this is not the whole story. These symbols could indicate a birth, but if they were interpreted to indicate the time of conception, the beginning of a human life, might there be something interesting in the sky nine months later?
Indeed.
In June of 2 BC, Jupiter continued the pageantry. By the following June, Jupiter had finished crowning Regulus. The Planet of Kings traveled on through the star field toward another spectacular rendezvous, this time with Venus, the Mother Planet. This conjunction was so close and so bright that it is today displayed in hundreds of planetaria around the world by scientists who may know nothing of Messiah. They do it because what Jupiter did makes such a great planetarium show.
Jupiter appeared to join Venus. The planets could not be distinguished with the naked eye. If our magus had had a telescope, he could have seen that the planets sat one atop the other, like a figure eight.
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Each contributed its full brightness to what became the most brilliant star our man had ever seen. Jupiter completed this step of the starry dance as it was setting in the west.
That evening, our Babylonian magus would have seen the spectacle of his career while facing toward Judea. No one alive had ever seen such a conjunction. If the Magi only began their travel plans in September, when they saw this sight nine months later, someone may have shouted “What are we waiting for? Mount up!”
At the end of their travel, which may have taken weeks or months, these experts arrived in Jerusalem. They told their tale, and “all Jerusalem was disturbed.” Herod wanted to know two things: when the Star had appeared, and where this baby was.
The Magi presumably described the timing of events starting in September of 3 BC and continuing through June of 2 BC.
Herod sent them to Bethlehem in search of the child with orders that they return to tell where he was.
To qualify as the Star, Jupiter would have to have been ahead of the Magi as they trekked South from Jerusalem to Bethlehem. Sure enough, in December of 2 BC if the Magi looked south in the wee hours, there hung the Planet of Kings over the city of Messiah’s birth. Herod sent them to Bethlehem in search of the child with orders that they return to tell where he was.
Sure enough, in December of 2 BC if the Magi looked south in the wee hours, there hung the Planet of Kings over the city of Messiah’s birth.
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✓ The Planet of King’s coronation of the Star of Kings signified kingship.
✓ The triple conjunction began with the Jewish New Year and took place within Leo, showing a connection with the Jewish tribe of Judah (and prophecies of the Jewish Messiah).
✓ Jupiter rises in the east.
✓ The conjunctions appeared at precise, identifiable times.
But the ninth qualification would require that Jupiter stop over Bethlehem. How could a planet do that? And did Jupiter do it?
To Stop a Star
The problem with a planet stopping is not what you might think. The problem is not that planets can’t stop. Just the opposite. The problem is that all planets are always stopped to the eye of a human observer. The sky moves above Earth at half the speed of the hour hand on a common clock. Its movement is imperceptible to the naked eye. So, if all stars are always stopped, what can Matthew have meant?
Perhaps you have already anticipated the key to this final mystery: retrograde motion. An astronomer tracking the movement of planets through the star field watches not so much on the scale of minutes, but on the longer scale of days, weeks, and months.
❖ On this scale of time, Jupiter did stop.
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❖ On December 25 of 2 BC as it entered retrograde, Jupiter reached full stop in its travel through the fixed stars.
❖ Magi viewing from Jerusalem would have seen it stopped in the sky above the little town of Bethlehem.
Conclusion
From the evidence that has been presented here, we can now pinpoint some general dates.
➢ Jesus would have been conceived of the Holy Spirit on September 3 B.C., in Nazareth.
➢ Nine months later Jesus would have been born in Bethlehem, June 2 B.C.
➢ On June 2 B.C., the Magi probably began their journey.
➢ On December 25th of 2 B.C., the Magi would have seen the planet Jupiter come to a full stop over the little town of Bethlehem.
➢ This means that we have to come to some conclusions.
➢ The stars can be believed as to what they present (we will see this in the next chapter).
➢ God was the One Who put them in their order.
➢ We can now safely say that these astronomy facts do coincide with the Biblical record.
➢ Hence, since Jesus’ Birth was in June, the shepherds surely would have been in the fields at that time.
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➢ There is no reason to question that when the Magi arrived, Joseph and Mary were in a house, whether it was theirs or not doesn’t matter; they might have been with family or friends.
➢ Now that we have an idea of the mentality of Herod, we can better understand why he would have all the male children under the age of two killed: to make sure that none would escape.
➢ Before we continue to consider the flight of Mary, Joseph, and Jesus to Egypt, I want us to consider why all of this evidence now.
Source: www.bethlehemstar.net
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Why Now?