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I’ve never really understood why so much effort is put into trying to “explain” the Star of Bethlehem in the biblical nativity story. The latest paper in the Journal is a case in point. It goes to a lot of effort to show that a particular close flyby trajectory of a comet could briefly have a near-stationary apparent motion consistent with the text in Matthew. Well, lots of things “could” be, but this seems extremely unlikely and a such a close flyby of a small comet would probably not be particularly spectacular given the size of the coma and other physical characteristics.
More importantly, I presume no one is claiming a causal relationship between the arrival of this very unusual comet (or its previous departure from the Oort Cloud) and events occurring on Earth 2000 years ago.
I’m quite happy to settle for the first of the three categories noted in this paper that: “The story is regarded as embellished, perhaps as a myth or midrash created to make a theological point, meaning there was never any physical Star of Bethlehem”. To me, continuing to search for a physical “explanation” is as pointless as searching for Noah’s Ark.
Well said, Nick.
I would suggest that anyone who’s interested in this start out by reading Diarmaid Macculloch’s History of Christianity – an excellent book written by a preeminent historian. In summary, there are plenty of things in the Bible which are well-evidenced, but the Christmas story is unfortunately not one of them.
Unfortunately for Matthew, the Romans were highly efficient at keeping records and distributing them widely across the Empire. The idea that Caesar Augustus might have decided to tax the whole world and then destroyed all trace of the paperwork is almost as laughable as the idea that he was remotely interested in Joseph’s ancestry in Bethlehem. So, it’s probably best to take that star with a pinch of salt.
While Nick and then Dominic might have a point, they seem to be saying that because they personally are happy with the mythic interpretation of the Star of Bethlehem then there is no point anyone else investigating alternative possibilities. I feel this is a rather closed way of thinking, not what I would expect from those involved in scientific investigation in the field of astronomy.
In taking the position they do, Nick & Dominic seem to dismiss Matney’s third category – that the Star might just have been a real event, the occurrence of which was interpreted in line with some belief current at the time, for example a prophesy of the coming of a Messiah. Given that, as they say, there is an absence of provably true evidence concerning the events surrounding the Nativity, surely it is unreasonable to dismiss out of hand possibilities other than the mythic one. As the final sentence of the section ‘The comet theory – the problem’ says, examining whether there could have been a real astronomical object or “happening” (such as a conjunction) which formed the basis of the stories of the Star might, at the very least, shed light on what evidence there is even if it does not settle the question one way or the other. Scientific examination of the situation should therefore surely be encouraged rather than disparaged.
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