The Great Christ Comet (26 page)

In light of the Magi's prior history with the Star and the fact that it had seemed to have ushered them to Bethlehem, one can well understand why they would have interpreted the “standing” of this comet while they were in Bethlehem as revealing the precise location of the messianic baby.

Ironically, Boa claims that “A comet must be ruled out because it could not move on before the magi until it came and stood over where the Child was (Matt. 2:9).”
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In fact, he could not be further from the truth, for the
only
celestial entity that could do this is a comet!

Sixth, comets by their movements within and among constellations are exceptionally well placed to convey significant and even complex messages to those equipped with the knowledge and paradigms to understand them. Simply put, these eccentric astronomical entities are capable of turning the fixed stars and constellations into a giant noticeboard. It is evident that what the Magi observed in the eastern sky back in their homeland was extraordinarily powerful and full of meaning. So hard-hitting was it that they embarked on a long journey, indeed a pilgrimage, to Judea. From the heavenly scene they witnessed, the Magi perceived an incredible amount of information: that someone had been born, that this person was a king, and that he was divine. Among astronomical phenomena, a cometary apparition is uniquely able to communicate such a complex set of ideas.

Seventh, the Star was clearly unique. The Magi evidently developed an extraordinary emotional bond with the Star, convinced that it was communicating especially to them, personally charging them to go to Judea and worship the newborn Messiah, and even guiding them there. They had obviously not seen the Star before, nor observed a celestial performance quite like it. The sheer uniqueness of the Star of Bethlehem's apparition is most naturally explained if it was a comet. Because comets are so diverse in size, intrinsic brightness, shape, color, chemical makeup, and behavior, and because they orbit the Sun at different speeds, angles, and distances from the solar disk and make their passes by the Sun at different times of the year, no two comets ever put on the same celestial show. Even individual periodic comets do not repeat the same display, since they are subject to gravitational and nongravitational forces that alter their orbit, and since their returns do not occur at the same precise time of the year as their previous visit. Therefore the unique nature of a cometary apparition fits well with the unique nature of the Star of Bethlehem.

Eighth, the fact that comets in the ancient world were often interpreted to augur regime change and regarded as threatening to the ruling establishment may help elucidate the negative responses of Herod the Great and the people of Jerusalem to the report of the Magi regarding the Star (Matt. 2:3).

Comets were often interpreted by the ruling elite as distinctly bad news, portending the death of a ruler.
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The death of the Emperor Claudius was presaged by a comet.
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As we have seen, when a comet appeared during Nero's reign, he was so fearful that it was an omen of his death that he consulted his astrologer Balbillus, who recommended that he execute prominent subjects to redirect the wrath of the gods.
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Nero then embarked on a brutal massacre of the nobility that ironically ended up bringing about his own deposition.
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Moreover, according to Cassius Dio,
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the Emperor Vitellius's death was announced by a number of different celestial phenomena, including “a comet star.” Cassius Dio also records that Vespasian's death in AD 79 was presaged by “the comet star which was seen for a considerable period” and which Vespasian tried to play down by insisting that the comet's long hair meant that it was an omen not for him, since he was bald, but rather for the long-haired Parthian king.
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In the case of the Magi's Star, however, the threat to Herod was based not simply on the fact that a comet had appeared but on the fact that the comet clearly represented the Messiah and indicated that he had now been born.

The negative response of the people of Jerusalem may possibly also have been partly due to a conviction that comets were often portents of disaster and partly due to their belief that this particular comet was announcing ultimate regime change—the end of Herod's dynasty and even the end of the Roman empire as the Messiah overthrew his enemies and established his kingdom on the earth.
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Ninth, we know that the Bab­ylo­nians were very interested in comets. They made records of them in their astronomical dia
ries. In these records they were particularly concerned to note the time and details of a comet's first appearance and key moments of the apparition such as its heliacal setting and rising. As Stephenson writes, “Even the existing descriptions [of comets by the Bab­ylo­nians] are fragmentary, but they still enable us to infer the characteristic features of a typical Bab­ylo­nian cometary account. Whether in the daily reports or the monthly summaries, records of comets were apparently entered only on the following occasions: (1) first sighting; (2) heliacal setting; (3) heliacal rising; (4) any stationary points; and (5) last visibility.”
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In light of this, it is noteworthy that in Matthew 2 the Magi are portrayed as having made a record of the first appearance of the Star and its heliacal rising.

Tenth, in the ancient Near East around the turn of the ages, a cometary apparition was sometimes interpreted as a sign of a great ruler's birth. Justinus (writing in the second century AD, but no doubt reflecting opinion from the second and first centuries BC) emphasized that the “future excellency” of Mithridates VI Eupator (134–63 BC), king of Pontus and Armenia Minor and formidable foe of Rome, was signaled in the heavens on the occasion of his birth in 135 BC by a brilliant, fiery, long-tailed comet that lasted for 70 successive days and at one stage took four hours to rise and set.
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There is therefore precedent for the idea that a great comet could function as a celestial announcement of the birth of a great leader. Since the Star of Bethlehem was a heavenly sign marking the birth of the messianic King of the Jews, a comet is an ideal candidate for the role.

Eleventh, the proposal that the Star of Bethlehem was a comet has in its favor that it is the earliest explicit identification of the Star of which we know and is the only astronomical explanation of the Star that is suggested by Christian descriptions of the Star in the first three centuries AD. We have already considered evidence for the identification of the Star as a comet from Origen, and we have seen that Ignatius and the
Protevangelium of James
spoke of the Star in terms that seem to require that it was a comet.
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These arguments form a formidable case that the Star seen by the Magi in their eastern homeland and in Bethlehem in 6–5 BC was a great comet.

We can, however, go further than this.

A Long-Period, Retrograde Comet Narrowly Inclined to the Ecliptic

The most plausible candidate for the role of the Star of Bethlehem is assuredly a long-period comet. Moore observed that short-period comets can be safely discounted, because only rarely do they attain to naked-eye visibility, and even then they are faint and fuzzy.
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His point is valid: some short-period comets, although dormant for long stretches of time, reactivate to such an extent that they cross the threshold of naked-eye visibility for brief seasons, sometimes just for single apparitions (e.g., Comet Helfenzrieder), but other times for up to a few hundred years, with the
intensity of their brightness fading over this time (e.g., Comet Encke). But even these comets are generally difficult for the naked eye to make out.

At the same time, we should bear in mind that Jupiter-family comets are capable of remarkable outbursts of activity that increase their level of brightness dramatically for a brief time, from a day up to a few months (e.g., Comet Holmes). Furthermore, a short-period comet is capable of becoming a striking object in the night sky if it makes a very close pass by Earth
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(e.g., Comet Lexell in June/July of 1770). In addition, a number of astronomers believe that many short-period comets which in the modern era have a weak magnitude were probably brighter a few millennia ago.
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It is sometimes suggested that a given comet may have been brighter in the past by 1 magnitude per millennium,
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although this is not a reliable measure.

However, we do well to remember that virtually all the great historical comets, with the notable exception of Halley's Comet, have been long-period comets that had made relatively few passes into the inner solar system and hence were still loaded with volatiles.

It is long-period comets whose closest approaches to the Sun are within the orbit of Mercury (at its farthest, just under half the Earth-Sun distance) that are most likely to become bright, large, and long, and hence may put on a compelling celestial display.
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The fact that the Star of Bethlehem was visible for so long reveals that it was intrinsically extremely bright and indeed very large (like Hale-Bopp in 1996–1997, and Sarabat in 1729–1730), meaning that it was a long-period comet. That the tail was very long is suggested not just by the implicit claim that Numbers 24:17's oracle of the cometary scepter was fulfilled (Matt. 2:2; Rev. 12:5; see also
chapter 8
below), but also by the Star's going ahead of the Magi to Bethlehem and then standing over the house where Jesus was. Long tails are characteristic of long-period comets. Moreover, the awesome nature of the heliacal rising of the Star favors a productive comet with a close perihelion distance, which likewise strongly favors a long-period comet.

Not only was the Star evidently a large, intrinsically bright, long-period comet with a perihelion distance within Mercury's orbit, but it was also almost certainly narrowly inclined to the ecliptic plane on which Earth orbits the Sun. The fact that the comet, obviously long, stood vertically or near-vertically over the western horizon at the conclusion of the Magi's journey strongly favors this.
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We are privileged to have a number of glorious images of historical comets standing up over the western horizon. In each case the comet was located in a zodiacal constellation and was setting in approximately the same location as the Sun—the tail pointing upwards because tails are always oriented away from the Sun. The fact that the Star at its climactic appearance was probably first seen in the south-southeast and then crossed the meridian (in the south) and finally set upright (Matt. 2:9, 11) seems to indicate that the scene occurred between October and December. At that time the angle of the ecliptic midway through the night, from the perspective of someone in the ancient Near East, was nearly vertical. Further, a comet that “stands” is most likely a straight-tailed comet. This, coupled with the fact that the Star was
regarded as having fulfilled Numbers 24:17, which prophesied that a straight-tailed cometary scepter would signal the Messiah's coming, favors a narrowly inclined comet. When a comet orbits on or near the plane of Earth's orbit, the sharp curvature of the tail in outer space is not apparent to Earth-dwellers—the tail appears to be straight.