Do You See What I See?

From antiquity to the space age, stars have intrigued scientists, inspired poets and fascinated humankind.

But it is at Christmastime that a conjunction of pious belief and secular doubt occurs in the retelling of the Star of Bethlehem story.

Was there really a Christmas star?

As recounted in the second chapter of Matthew’s Gospel, a star rose in the sky leading wise men from the east to the place where the Christ child was born. When the star reached its destination over the nativity scene, the Bible says, it miraculously stopped.

Thus attested to by Scripture and celebrated in Christmas carols, the sign in the sky is believed by millions of Christians the world over to have actually appeared over historic Bethlehem, bathing the infant Jesus in its heavenly light.

For years astronomers and others have attempted to re-create the skies over the Jerusalem of 2,000 years ago. Like detectives working with just a few clues, they draw on fleeting biblical references to events surrounding the birth of Jesus, as well as non-Christian sources, including ancient Chinese astrological records.

For example, Matthew says Jesus was born “in the time of King Herod.” Jewish historian Josephus Flavius, who died in AD 100, wrote in “The Antiquities of the Jews” that Herod died shortly after an eclipse of the moon but before Passover.

It is child’s play for astronomers to calculate precisely when eclipses will occur--or when they happened in the past. One eclipse that could have been associated with Herod’s death would have occurred Jan. 9, 1 BC, says John Mosley, director of the Griffith Observatory, which is offering a planetarium program on the Christmas star through Jan. 3.

Mosley believes that the Gospel account means Jesus was born in the last year or two before Herod’s death. That would put the birth during the two years before the eclipse--3 or 2 BC.

Conjunction of Planets Is One Explanation

Church scholars have long held that Jesus’ birth was probably not in the winter. They note that the traditional date, Dec. 25, was simply chosen by the church in an effort to remake the popular pagan observance of the winter solstice for its own purposes.

What would the stars have looked like from Jerusalem in the spring of 2 or 3 BC? “The sky that Herod saw from his winter palace at Jericho is almost exactly the same sky that we will see almost 2,000 years later from Los Angeles,” Mosley said.

So what would account for the Christmas star? Mosley and others have ruled out a comet. Chinese astronomers kept detailed records of astronomical events, said Mosley, and the only comets recorded in that period occurred in 12 BC, 5 BC and 4 BC--too early for the birth.

Supernovas--exploding stars--have also been ruled out. Ancient Chinese records note such an event in 5 BC, but not in 3 or 2 BC, Mosley said.

That leaves a conjunction of the planets as the event most likely to have caused a star such as the one described in Matthew. Most likely, said Mosley, the “star” would have been a conjunction of Jupiter and Venus at precisely 8:51 p.m. June 17, 2 BC. Others have suggested a rare juxtaposition of three planets--Jupiter, Saturn and Mars--in 8 BC.

The mystery of the star of Bethlehem might end there, except that such astronomical calculations presuppose that the Scriptural account of Jesus’ birth is to be read as a historical record of actual events, not unlike news reports last year of the Hale-Bopp comet.

But that assumption may not be warranted. As Mosley notes in his book, “The Christmas Star,” many historians agree that the story of the star and the Magi is a legend created after the fact to make Jesus’ birth sound more miraculous.

There are numerous references in ancient literature, both pagan and biblical, to omens and unusual heavenly displays as a means of assigning importance to major figures.

Besides, if there really had been such a star, the heavenly fireworks would not have gone unnoticed by Herod or anyone else in his kingdom. Yet the Bible account says Herod had to ask the Magi the exact time when the star had appeared. And, of course, although the star figures prominently in Matthew’s Gospel, there is no mention of it in the Gospels of Mark, Luke or John.

Skepticism about the historical nature of the star was shared by Father Raymond Brown, the late acclaimed Roman Catholic biblical scholar and author of “The Birth of the Messiah.”

“A star that arose in the East, appeared over Jerusalem, turned south to Bethlehem, and then came to rest over a house would have constituted a celestial phenomenon unparalleled in astronomical history; yet it received no notice in the records of the time,” Brown wrote.

Still, the pious view of a star marking the spot of the Christ child’s birth has endured among the faithful for nearly two millenniums.

“You talk to most Christians on the street and they would say, ‘Sure, that’s a story that actually happened at the birth of Jesus, and I take it that way,’ ” said Michael J. Wilkins, a New Testament professor at Biola University in La Mirada. The school teaches that the Bible is without error in its moral and spiritual teaching--and its record of historical facts. In 1995, Wilkins co-wrote “Jesus Under Fire,” a book that sought to challenge biblical scholars who have questioned the credibility of large parts of the Bible in their search for the historical Jesus.

Some Look to a More Symbolic Truth

Others, however, argue that a literal reading of the story not only invites disbelief among readers today but misses a greater truth about Jesus that the Gospel writers were trying to convey through literary devices--in this case a star.

“There is a tradition in antiquity when someone was popular or famous or extraordinary, especially in the Greco-Roman world but also in Judaism, to glorify the circumstances around the birth,” said Dennis MacDonald, the John Wesley professor of New Testament and Christian origins at the Claremont School of Theology.

For example, there is a reference in Numbers 24 to a star rising from Jacob, which is understood to mean the Jewish people. According to Rashi, the most famous of Jewish biblical commentators, who lived in 11th century France, that star referred to King David, who was not yet born.

In writing of a star over Bethlehem, Matthew was simply tapping into this tradition, many scholars argue.

For those who believe the Bible to be literally true, to question the reality of the star is to question the authority of holy writ.

“It really does pose major problems,” Wilkins said. “If you lose the historical element, you lose the story the author intended to pass on. And what we can end up doing is almost make the story anything we want it to mean.”

Others disagree, among them Roy Hoover, retired professor of biblical literature at Whitman College in Washington state and a member of the Jesus Seminar, a group of biblical scholars who have challenged the authenticity of many sayings and miracles attributed to Jesus.

Hoover said he recognizes that traditional Christians and those who read the Bible literally are offended by the kind of work undertaken by the Jesus Seminar. But he said he has found in speaking engagements across the country that there are large numbers of Christians drawn to such scholarship.

“They tell me in meeting after meeting that the work of the seminar is helping to save Christianity for them,” Hoover said.

That is the “second naivete” of which the modern philosopher Paul Ricoeur wrote, describing it as a positive quality. The first naivete, said Ricoeur, looks at stories such as that of the Bethlehem star and assumes they happened. When evidence arises that the story is not historical truth, some lose faith. Others embrace the second naivete.

“You realize that myth and metaphor are carriers of truth in a different way,” said MacDonald. “It’s a riskier kind of truth. . . . We think truth has to do with fact. In the ancient world fact was not given as much a premium in religious discourse as fiction as a way of understanding truth. The Matthew story would be truth for his community, although it’s not factual.”