Mageth

What "brightest star in history" are we talking about? "Stars" don't stop! And how do you know Jesus was born on Dec. 25th in any case?

And is the alleged lunar eclipse being used to date Christ's alleged death, or is the date of Christ's alleged death known and being matched to the alleged lunar eclipse?

(And, as I indicated above, it seems there was no total eclipse of the moon in the year 33 CE in any case!)

Toto

The date for Herod's death was discussed in this thread, I believe:

Quirinius and the registration of 3 BCE

It's long, but if you are interested in this subject, you will want to read through it.

This article from newscientist is related, but does not help the theory:

Early Christians hid the origins of the Bethlehem star

jmamos

The Bethlehem Star site does not claim it was a total lunar eclipse. It claims it was a lunar eclipse. The site you provided lists a partial eclipse as:

33/04/03 14:47 L,P 71 1.671 0.586 -0.679 172m00s

Toto

You realize, do you not, that astrologers can find meaning in totally random, predictable events?

That we don't know the date of the birth of Jesus? Or his death? that anyone who looks for a sign can find something that they interpret as that sign?

jmamos

Most of those questions are answered in the article itself. The brightest "star" is history was the alignment of Jupiter and Venus (this is one of the claims that should be easily shown true or easily shown false.) The "star" was Jupiter and the "stopping" was retrograde motion. The article argues from history that the hour of Jesus' death was one of two possibilities (a weak argument brings it down to one, but I don't buy it.)

I would not say that Jesus was born on 12/25. That was the date of the visit of the magi. The Bethlehem site does not make this argument, but elsewhere I have heard the author argue that the fact that it is 12/25 is, as he dramatically put it, "a sign to the modern age."

Mageth

If the "star stopping" is Jupiter going retrograde, Jupiter goes retrograde about every 399 days. So it's not uncommon. It seems to me that the "magi", if they were studious, would recognize Jupiter and its tendency to go retrograde every 13 months. So what would be so "special" about it?

Mageth

The site clearly describes it as a total eclipse:

Mageth

http://www.noao.edu/outreach/press/pr03/pr0304.html

"“On the magnitude scale used by astronomers, it was about minus 7.5, which puts its brightness a little less than halfway between that of Venus and that of the full Moon. And all that light would have been concentrated in a single star, which must have been twinkling like crazy...To visualize how bright the 1006 supernova appeared, find the planet Jupiter, high in the southeast and the brightest object now visible in the evening sky. “If you compare Jupiter with the three stars that make up the belt of Orion, a bit farther west in the sky, the planet is obviously much brighter than any of the belt stars,” Winkler says. “At its peak, the supernova of 1006 would have appeared about as much brighter compared to Jupiter now, as Jupiter is in comparison with the faintest of the stars in Orion’s belt.” "


Jupiter goes retrograde every 399 days. Not too amazing.

Sounds like wishful thinking to me.

jmamos

I totally agree that "meaning" can be found in stupid ways. The Bible codes come to mind, or more humorously, the fact that "Elvis" anagrams to "Lives". The question is if the cumulative evidence is sufficient to reasonably conclude that it was a coincidence.

With the date of the birth of Jesus, there is still the issue of the date of Herod's death, which I have not yet looked at (give me a couple days.)

So far I have been given no reason to question the claim that a lunar eclipse began the hour of Jesus' death. With about five a year, that's a one in 876 chance (counting the fact that there are two guesses for which hour.) Acts
2:20 refers to this eclipse. If nothing else, that's evidence that Acts was written close to the events, and accurately records at least this part of Peter's speech. (The end of part 3, section "Peter's Argument" of the Bethlehem site makes part of this argument.)

Mageth

Aren't you leaping a bit there? From there was a partial eclipse 4/3/33 to "a lunar eclipse began the hour of Jesus' death"?

Please interpret the above for me.

Acts 2:20 refers to this eclipse.

This:

"The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before that great and notable day of the Lord come:"

refers to THAT eclipse? By what reasoning?

Peter was apparently quoting from Joel, who was apparently alluding to the "last days". How does all this link with the date of Jesus' death? It just does not compute without an AWFUL lot of special pleading.