Johnnyboy

*sigh*

Hello guys,

This will now take some time I think, so please don't be bothered by my bad english. I am still learning.

The issue is this. I have read now some stuff about the "star of bethlehem" and even if there are many lack's in the fundamentalits view, there is something that makes me insecure. While I am a pretty "fresh" deconvert, I am very vulnerable to fundie propaganda too.

In the last few weeks I asked you some questions (thank you for all who answered), about:

-The date of Qirinius legacy in syria.
-The number of cenci in syria between 10 BC and AC.

I also started a thread in S&S about modern conjunction theories.

I don't konw if it is a psycological thing why I cannot leave that topic alone, but how I said I am a "fresh" deconvert, and this status is, some of you will remember, very sensible.

My problem is this: I ve been talking to a guy, who is a devout christian, and who claimed that the so called star of bethlehem was a very close conjunction between jupiter and saturn in the year 7 BC in pisces (the star formation).

While being ingorant about science, because I have always made up my mind only in philosophical ways, I could not counter his following claims:

- There was a census in 8 BC
- Quirinus was governor in 12-8 BC

So the census made a perfectly fit into this whole conjunction theory. But now, thanks to you, I know that this is ad hoc and that there is no evidence that Quirinus was governor at that time, and that the cenus was only for roman peaople etc.

But that is not the only point.
It is a fact that there was a very close conjunction between Jupiter and Saturn in 7 BC and that this appeard in pisces, which was astrological assosiated with the jewish nation.

The modern conjunction theroy now claims that the astrologers of this time read this as a message, that there will be a great king arising in judea (because of jupiter who sood for kings and pisces what stood for judea). And that constellation should have been seen over bethlehem when you looked from jerusalem.

In fact pisces is a symbol of the early christians. So I am a bit puzzeled. As far as I know jesus birth could have happend around 7 BC, and such a constellation of stars does not happen very often, especially with htat certain astrological meaning.

Since I am not a scholar at all, and that I don't know anything about astrology of these days, and nothing about sciecne and biblical science, I would be very intrested in your thoughs.

In fact I am a bit shocked that I dind't find anything about that in the infidel library here, that seems to be a very common argument around fundamentalists these days.


cheers

Gorit Maqueda

As far as I know, planet conjunctions are far from uncommon. Why not throw a comet at the moon instead? That would be more spectacular. But not enough for me to believe that a God's child was about to be born...

Johnnyboy

Well yeah they aren't uncommon. But that special kind? I mean the whole astrological context etc.

Gorit Maqueda

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greatest_Conjunction

I'm sure some astrologer could find an atractive explanation for, say, the 1981 conjuction. Perhaps, the first of the conjuctions of this triple event took place on Aries, as seen form the Earth. Aries, as everybody knows, is one of the symbols of Satan (I'm improvising here, of course). Surely, that means that the Antichrist was born in 1981, celebrated his 20th birthday crashing planes and is preparing the End of the World (on 2014).

Personally, I find more attractive a short sci-fi story (from A. C. Clark?) in which a jesuit astronaut finds rests of a super-nova explosion on a planet. That planet would have been full of inteligent life, only to be swept on 4 B.C. by that explosion (Bethlehem star, of course). Imagine that poor guy, asking his God why He had to do this just to celebrate His Son's birthday.

Johnnyboy

But a conjunction with one degree ist really rare. And why do the christians have pisces as a symbol? Besides of that, it is not an invention of myself that pisces was a symbol for the jewish nation in ancient days, it is a fact. It somehow really disturbes me, that this thing happend. To make it clear, I am not in astrology, but one is really tricky. By far the best theory for the star of bethlehem I ve heard of.

robto

I would say

1. Matthew says "a star". A conjunction is not "a star". The star "went before" the wise men, and "came to rest" over Jesus. Stars don't do that. This is a legend about a supernatural event. It is not a record of a historical event.

2. 7 BC is four years away from 3 BC, when Jesus's birth is usually said to have taken place. During those 4 years, there must have been dozens of astronomical events which could have been given a suitable interpretation.

Finally, why do you say Israel was associated with Pisces? I would be interested in what evidence there is for that.

rjf

Ultimately the entire argument can be boiled down to this:

Fundies want you to believe that a common occurance of no significance is significant because it happened at a time when they say something else happened that they cannot prove without said occurance.

The whole thing is ad hoc reasoning. They needed something that they could call 'The Star of Bethlehem' and this was convenient. That is all there is to it.

Gawen

As for the census....from Josephus' Antiquities (18.1) Quirinius held a census shortky after Judea was annexed by Rome in either A.D. 6 or 7. But by this time Jesus lived at least 10 years.
We know from Luke 1:5 and Matthew 2:1 that Jesus was born during the time of Herod. But since Herod died in 4 B.C. Jesus would have to have been at least 10 years old at the time of the census. Quirinius could have held an earlier unrecorded census, but at the time of Jesus' birth Rome had no jurisdiction in this area.

As for the 'star'....to my knowledge, there is no pagan (or otherwise) contemporary historical writing of any celestial event that would or did herald the coming of a Messiah.

Chris Weimer

Allison argues, and I think pretty effectively, that the "star" was actually an angel, in his book "Studies in Matthew (or via: amazon.co.uk)."

Johnnyboy

Okay, they cannot prove that Jesus was born in this time, but I ask myself, why did the early christians choose pisces as their symbol? I know that the greek word for fish has a cetain meaning amoung christians, but in early christian chures you will often find the smybol of pisces (the symbol of the star constellation).