The Star of Bethlehem: Astronomy proves Christianity?

[Mithcoriel]

I'm debating with a stubborn christian who thinks the astronomy around the time of Jesus' birth and cruxifiction unmistakably marked divine events. She's basing it on these videos:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10
Part 11
Part 12
Part 13
Part 14
Part 15
Part 16
Part 17
Part 18
Part 19
Part 20
Part 21
Part 22
(Website: http://www.bethlehemstar.net/)

I don't think she actually knows a lot about astronomy. I first adressed her when she claimed that there was a lunar eclipse and a solar eclipse at Jesus' crucifiction. But still, I'm not experienced enough to debunk this video. Can someone help?

Some questions that arose for me when I watched it:
- How often does the "King planet" Jupiter get close to the "king star" Regulus? And is it really that rare that Jupiter circles it three times?
- Is the lion really the animal symbol for the tribe of Judah, from which Jesus came? (Part 16). One thing I notice is: Regulus is IN the constellation of the lion, so it's no big surprise that if Jupiter circled it, it would do so in that constellation.
- Is Venus really called the mother planet? (Part 18)
- Did Jupiter really stop (start retrograde motion) on Dec 25? (Part 19)

 

[xman]

Well I haven't watched the vids yet, but I can respond to some of what you've said;

I don't think she actually knows a lot about astronomy. I first adressed her when she claimed that there was a lunar eclipse and a solar eclipse at Jesus' crucifiction.

Well she clearly doesn't know much about astronomy. It is flatly impossible to have a solar and a lunar eclipse on the same day since the moon needs to be on opposite sides of the earth for each which is a two week journey for the moon.

- How often does the "King planet" Jupiter get close to the "king star" Regulus? And is it really that rare that Jupiter circles it three times?

Jupiter's orbit is 11.8 years so however close it gets to Regulas, that will happen every 11.8 Earth years. I can't imagine how it could circle any star three times though. It might pass it three times, but it will need to be a very precise alignment.

- Is the lion really the animal symbol for the tribe of Judah, from which Jesus came? (Part 16). One thing I notice is: Regulus is IN the constellation of the lion, so it's no big surprise that if Jupiter circled it, it would do so in that constellation.

If Jupiter retrogrades a slight loop is certainly possible (I know Mars does this), but an 'S' motion is also possible. it depends on our alignment with it throughout that period. it does so in a different part of the sky each time we pass it, once per year as it advances and is in a different part of the sky in our next year when we pass it.

- Is Venus really called the mother planet? (Part 18)

Venus is the planet of love. She shines bright on the horizon at dawn or dusk, the most amorous times in our lives.

- Did Jupiter really stop (start retrograde motion) on Dec 25? (Part 19)

It's not actually reversing its orbit or rotation, but we are catching up on it on the inside track and eventually passing it. Did it happen on Dec 25 around year 1CE? I haven't got a clue.

 

[IBSpify]

Did Jupiter really stop (start retrograde motion) on Dec 25? (Part 19)

If she actually thinks the bible describes December 25th as when Jesus was born she has bigger problems then just her lack of understanding astronomy

December 25th was not proclaimed the birth of Jesus until 440 AD, and even then the date was not chosen based on anything out of the bible, but chosen because December 25 is the date of a pagan feast. Saturnalia was a tradition inherited by the Roman pagans from an earlier Babylonian priesthood. December 25 was used as a celebration of the birthday of the sun god. It was observed near the winter solstice. Basically the date was chosen to draw pagans towards Christianity.

The Bible itself tells us that December 25 is an unlikely date for His birth. Palestine is very cold in December. It was much too cold to ask everyone to travel to the city of their fathers to register for taxes. Also the shepherds were in the fields (Luke 2:8-12). Shepherds were not in the fields in the winter time. They are in the fields early in March until early October. This would place Jesus' birth in the spring or early fall.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

The foundational, underlying questions have nothing to do with any claims about astronomy at all. You could cede all of her points about astronomic events, even the ones that are wrong, and it STILL doesn't get her a single step closer to "proving" anything. Even if these things DID happen, if they were observable to local folks than the simplest explanation is that they retro-fit their myths to fit astronomical events, not that one was caused by the other.

 

[Squagnut]

Ditto what Xman said. I've not watched the videos.

- How often does the "King planet" Jupiter get close to the "king star" Regulus? And is it really that rare that Jupiter circles it three times?

Regulus lies very close to the ecliptic, the line marking the path of the sun and the planets. Jupiter goes into retrograde motion and can do so while very close to Regulus, but never does so three times successively. Unless you mean it circles (it doesn't ever "circle" Regulus - the only planets which can occult Regulus within several millennia of now are Venus and Mercury) Regulus on successive orbits? It helps to know exactly what she means. Jupiter did a retrograde motion loop close to Regulus around Nov 3BC - Feb 2BC.

"Regulus" is Latin for prince or little king, but Regulus is a Latin name and Middle-eastern astronomers would have had their own name for it. It has had many names. Most likely its name would have had some reference to "lion" in it, such as Qalb Al Asad, the Arabic for "Heart of the Lion". Not sure about that tho'.

Ok, I watched some of vid 19. It seems to focus on the action of Jupiter as seen from Bethlehem on the 25th Dec 2BC. I have no idea what he means by "stopped". Yes, Jupiter was close to a turning point in its retrograde motion then (I just ran the data through one of my progs), but it wouldn't have looked unusual or strange or anything like that. Jupiter would certainly not have hung still in space while the rest of the sky kept on turning, which is the impression I got from what he said. Even astronomers of the day would have been accustomed to planetary retrograde motion, even if they didn't understand its cause. Nothing special happened.

As far as I'm aware, the lion is indeed the symbol of the tribe of Judah. If you listen to as much dub reggae as I do, you'll have heard songs refer to the lion of Judah.

Venus certainly has a long association with the feminine, altho' I've never heard it called the "Mother Planet". Mars is her masculine counterpart. The symbol for Venus is ♀, and Mars ♂.

 

[Mithcoriel]

Jupiter's orbit is 11.8 years so however close it gets to Regulas, that will happen every 11.8 Earth years.

Really? Even considering the earth's movement? I mean seeing as we move around, that should also affect where we see Jupiter relative to the other stars as well. It's not just Jupiter's movements that come into play here.

I can't imagine how it could circle any star three times though. It might pass it three times, but it will need to be a very precise alignment.

Well if you'll watch the movie, it was doing a very elongated loop on/next to Regulus, three times.

If she actually thinks the bible describes December 25th as when Jesus was born she has bigger problems then just her lack of understanding astronomy

Um, no, she doesn't. She believes what the video says, that he was conceived in September, born in June, (there are astronomical signs for this as well) and when the Magi came by, which was on December 25, he was already a toddler.

It helps to know exactly what she means.

Lol, well why don't you guys just watch the video? There's an animation there showing Jupiter's movement.
You can skip the first five parts, the real info starts on Part 6.

"Regulus" is Latin for prince or little king, but Regulus is a Latin name and Middle-eastern astronomers would have had their own name for it. It has had many names. Most likely its name would have had some reference to "lion" in it, such as Qalb Al Asad, the Arabic for "Heart of the Lion". Not sure about that tho'.

Both meanings are used in the video. Jupiter circling Regulus the "king" star three times, indicating a king, and this being in the constellation of the lion, and lion supposedly stands for Juda, the tribe from which Jesus came.

Well the maker of the video assumes that when the bible says "stopped", it's referring to it beginning the retrograde motion. I guess that would count even if the magi knew about retrograde motion. It supposedly "stopped" over Bethlehem.

 

[Pulsar]

I find it very ironic that this Rick Larson is apparently a law professor, because people should sue his ass off: not a single thing he said was original. This whole Jupiter-Venus-Regulus stuff can be dated back to a 1968 article in Sky and Telescope by Roger Sinnott. This was picked up in 1980 by John Mosley at Griffith Observatory, who showed the Jupiter-Venus conjunction in a planetarium. Since then, this has been one of the prime candidates for the star of Bethlehem, among many, many others (conjunctions of Jupiter and Saturn, an occultation of Jupiter by the Moon in 6 BC in Aries, etc etc). After all, there are more than enough planets and constellations to create some sort of astro-event every single day (tomorrow, Mars and the Moon are in conjunction, ZOMG!)

There are tons of books and sites about this, like the aptly named Yet Another Eclipse for Herod or this book chapter. And of course wiki.

Same thing for the lunar eclipse at Jesus' death, that was proposed by Humphreys and Waddington in 1983. Again, see wiki.

As for the significance, I agree with Joe: just because all these events happened, that doesn't mean they add something to the credibility of Jesus' story. It's the same old fallacy: Herod was a historical figure, therefore the entire bible is 100% true... and since London is a real place, Harry Potter must be real too. Right?

 

[Mithcoriel]

The foundational, underlying questions have nothing to do with any claims about astronomy at all. You could cede all of her points about astronomic events, even the ones that are wrong, and it STILL doesn't get her a single step closer to "proving" anything. Even if these things DID happen, if they were observable to local folks than the simplest explanation is that they retro-fit their myths to fit astronomical events, not that one was caused by the other.

Oh, you're right.
Although I did find a small flaw in that: supposedly, the ancients didn't have telescopes good enough yet to tell that the "star" was actually Jupiter and Regulus together, so how could they make up that part of the story.

Anyway, problem is, fundies are stubborn. :/ I can point out to them that this proves nothing cause they could have made the story to fit the astronomy, that doesn't completely prove wrong their belief that it was the other way around..


EDIT: Another question: what do you think about their distinction between Astrology and Astronomy, their justification that what they're doing isn't astrology? They say:

"Astrology is a form of divination based on the theory that the movement of the celestial bodies,the stars, the planets, the sun and the moon,influence human affairs and determine the course of events."
By contrast, the Bible refers to the celestial objects as carrying signs from the Almighty. But it prohibits worship of what we see above or even holding such things in too high regard.

In other words: Looking into the sky for signs that God put there himself to signify important events would go into the category of stuff that's okay to do (and into the category of astronomy).
I kinda conceded to the person I'm debating with that the three wise men were astronomers, not astrologers, cause simply looking at a star is astronomy. Though I pointed out that the conclusions they drew from it, that a messiah was born, would be faith, not astronomy. What do you guys think about that distinction?

 

[scalyblue]

I have no source for this, but I remember reading something about there being some sort of celestial curiosity with jupiter around that time that may have caused some hubbub with learned stargazers. In july/august. 12/25 has about as much of an association with the original jesus myth as this delicious cake has an association with the truth.

 

[Pulsar]

Although I did find a small flaw in that: supposedly, the ancients didn't have telescopes good enough yet to tell that the "star" was actually Jupiter and Regulus together, so how could they make up that part of the story.

They would've seen Jupiter approaching Regulus weeks beforehand. They would've known perfectly well what they were looking at.

I kinda conceded to the person I'm debating with that the three wise men were astronomers, not astrologers, cause simply looking at a star is astronomy. Though I pointed out that the conclusions they drew from it, that a messiah was born, would be faith, not astronomy. What do you guys think about that distinction?

Why would you concede that the three wise men even existed in the first place? Only Matthew mentions them, and he doesn't even say there were three. The names Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar aren't used until the 8th century.

The conjunction was real, the rest was made up.

PS: Today the Moon, Venus and Regulus appear close to each other. Clearly this marks an important event!

 

[Mithcoriel]

Why would you concede that the three wise men even existed in the first place? Only Matthew mentions them, and he doesn't even say there were three. The names Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar aren't used until the 8th century.

Yeah I know, just saying, if.

What astronomy software are you guys using? Anyone know: Is it true that in the year 3BC there was a triple conjunction between Jupiter and Regulus, and just as this began, a new moon rose, which lasted till June, then it went on to a conjunction with Venus?

The movie also uses these two sources to determine Jesus' death date:
- Supposedly April 3 33 AD was the only date where the passover falls on the friday, or whatever that was, among the years in which pilate ruled. (However, Wiki says before the year 500 it's kinda hard to tell the weekdays of calender months cause they were adjusted occasionally, "though it's possible to guess based on astronomy")
- only one Passover lunar eclipse was visible from Jerusalem while Pilate was in office (30). It occurred on April 3, 33 AD.

Strange, Wikipedia mentioned several dates with an eclipse as possible candidates for the Jesus thing. Does anyone know if the eclipses of April 7, 30 AD and April 23, 34 AD were really not visible from Jerusalem?

It's just a bit hard to convince a fundie, if you have seemingly two separate evidences pointing at the same date. (And the old testament talks about a blood moon, so if the historical Jesus really died on a day with a blood moon, it's an interesting coincidence) I mean assuming Jesus wasn't completely made up, d'you think his followers would, even if he'd died on some other date, rewrite the story to make him die on the day of the eclipse?

 

[scalyblue]

Is the concept of friday even old enough to have applied in those times? Were those people even using a 7 day week?

 

[Mithcoriel]

I'm sure they were. Remember they had the genesis story to justify resting on the seventh day. So saturday certainly had a name, "sabbath". And I think it's well established, at least the legend, that Jesus died on Friday. I think that's where the catholic tradition comes from to not eat meat on a friday, or the superstition that Friday the 13th is unlucky. (The "13" doesn't have anything to do with Jesus. It's just "not a nice number")

 

[scalyblue]

Actually friday was execution day, friggatriskaidekaphobia has nothing to do with the christ myth.

I still don't think that the concept of friday was around at that point, I believe that the romans were using an 8 day calendar.

 

[Zylstra]

Wait... when did she ever demonstrate any evidence jesus or her god ever existed in the first place?

 

[Mithcoriel]

Wait... when did she ever demonstrate any evidence jesus or her god ever existed in the first place?

Well she'd say it's proven by this astronomy here. I don't think I'd get anywhere near convincing her unless I can debunk this video here. That's why I posted it.

 

[Zylstra]

Wait... when did she ever demonstrate any evidence jesus or her god ever existed in the first place?

Well she'd say it's proven by this astronomy here.

That does not compute

scanning for facetiousness.... negative

scanning for satire.. negative

scanning for fail....

WARNING: DANGEROUS LEVELS OF FAIL DETECTED

I don't think I'd get anywhere near convincing her unless I can debunk this video here.

....


who keeps letting them breed?

 

[Mithcoriel]

Why? Can you debunk this video? I mean without just saying "It's wrong"? Kindly go ahead and tell me. I want to show her it's nonsense. I mean can you actually explain why the signs mentioned in the vid are not as rare as they make them sound, or show contradictions or other fallacies in it?

 

[Zylstra]

As others have already said, it doesn't matter. ONe can always point to alignments and 'unusual' occurrences happening at any time. None of it supports her claim that her deity exist or that a singular historical 'jesus' existed. It makes no difference whether or not a supernova was visible. Unless she claims that every such occurrence means another jesus was born, and has evidence to support that claim, it's all totally irrelevant