The Great Christ Comet (3 page)

Colin Nicholl

North Coast, Northern Ireland

SDG

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“Star of Wonder”

Introducing the Bethlehem Star

The Bethlehem Star is, without doubt, the most famous and celebrated astronomical entity in history. No other celestial object captures the attention of the world like it, particularly at Christmastime. This enormous fascination is found among Christians and non-Christians, young and old, and most peoples of the world.

The Star in the Modern World

Every December, planetariums and television channels put on special shows to discuss the Star, keenly aware that few, if any, astronomical issues or Biblical mysteries hold the spell over the popular imagination that the Magi's celestial phenomenon does. Astronomers, even some who scarcely believe in God, give public lectures on it.

Each Christmas the Star features prominently in our celebrations—it is often found as the crowning glory of Christmas trees, embossed on Christmas cards, or perched loftily over the sets of nativity plays. Many of our Christmas carols mention the Star, and a good number are focused on it. Among the many is “We Three Kings of Orient Are.” In it we actually join one of the Magi in addressing the Star:

Star of wonder, star of light,

Star with royal beauty bright,

Westward leading, still proceeding,

Guide us to thy perfect light.
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This love for the Star is apparent all across the globe, but in some places the Magi's Star enjoys special distinction.

Understandably, in few locations is the Star more celebrated than in the town of Bethlehem in the West Bank. There pilgrims can stay at the Bethlehem Star Hotel, do some shopping at the annual Christmas Market on Star Street, have a coffee at Stars & Bucks Café, and visit Manger Square, where images of the Bethlehem Star abound, none more striking than the massive illuminated comet set up on a pole. On Christmas Eve the annual procession to the Church of the Nativity culminates at a grotto (cave), where a large silver 14-pointed star marks the spot where, it is claimed, Jesus was born.

Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, known as
“Christmas City, USA,” relishes in the stellar associations of its name. The most prominent manifestation of this is a spectacular 90-foot-high, 8-rayed star, illuminated by 250 bulbs, on South Mountain, that stunningly beams out over the city and is visible 20 miles away.
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Similarly, Palmer Lake in Colorado boasts a 500-foot-tall, 5-pointed, incandescent Star of Bethlehem on the side of Sundance Mountain.
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Perhaps no people celebrates the Star of Bethlehem more than the Poles. To them Christmas is known as “Little Star.” Festivities formally commence around sunset on Christmas Eve, when the first star is spotted and is called “the Star of Bethlehem.” The Poles enjoy a “Star Supper,” during which a “heavenly Star” cookie might be served. Then, according to the tradition practiced in many parts of Poland, the “Star Man,” the Santa-like gift giver in Poland who represents “the Little Star” itself,
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appears, bearing presents from “Star Land.”
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He is accompanied by the “Star Boys,” carollers dressed up as the Magi or other characters from the Christmas Story, and who carry a Star lantern.
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In parts of western Alaska, Orthodox believers with a Ukrainian heritage practice the yuletide tradition of “Starring”—carollers spin brightly decorated 8-pointed stars as they go from house to house, singing and giving gifts to children.
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And we should not neglect to mention the people of Mexico, who remember the Bethlehem Star when they create (and then smash!) vibrantly colored, 7-pointed Christmas piñatas, and when they decorate their houses with poinsettias.

The pervasive influence of the Star of Bethlehem can be detected in fields as diverse as horticulture and space astronomy. Many star-shaped flowers have been named after it, including one kind of orchid, two types of lilies, and five species of the perennial
Ornithogalum
. Moreover, the spacecraft Giotto, sent to investigate Halley's Comet, was named after the artist who painted a magnificent fresco on the ceiling of the Arena Chapel in Padua, Italy, in which he portrayed the Bethlehem Star as a comet (see
fig. 6.1
).

Popular Portrayals of the Star

As famous and beloved as the Bethlehem Star is in the modern world, conceptions of it are surprisingly varied. Anyone leafing through carol books, collections of religious-themed Christmas cards, or nativity storybooks for children, or watching nativity plays or cinematic portrayals of the birth of Jesus will be exposed to a wide range of ideas concerning the Star. There is a consensus that the Star was an objective phenomenon, was beautiful and bright, and accompanied the Magi as they traveled westward to Judea; but beyond that, there is little agreement.

With respect to Christmas songs, while some suggest that the Star was a new astronomical entity and one even claims that it was a tailed comet, most are content to leave the question of the Star's identity mysterious. The object is sometimes presented as so bright that its light bleaches out that of the other stars, and indeed as visible not only during the hours of darkness but also during the day
time. As to color, some express a preference for its being silver.

Christmas cards, children's storybooks, and nativity play sets portray the Star as intensely bright, often rivaling the full Moon, as stunningly golden or silver, and as very beautiful. Sometimes it is presented as a curved-tailed comet, but most of the time it is an extremely bright, multi-rayed star with a particularly long downward ray. The Star is frequently depicted hanging over the manger, in which cases the downward ray is pointing down to Jesus below, with or without the shepherds and/or Magi in attendance. Of course, the Star is also included in scenes of the Magi traveling from their homeland toward Judea by camel.

Over the last couple of decades, a number of popular computer-generated imagery (CGI) films have portrayed the Star. Two of them present it as a conjunction, or alignment, of planets and stars.

The 2006 multi-million-dollar-budget movie
The Nativity Story
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suggests that the Star consisted of the planets Jupiter and Venus becoming perfectly aligned with the star Regulus in the constellation Leo. As the Magi leave Jerusalem for Bethlehem, the three bright spots suddenly merge (at great speed, it must be said!), with the result that a long downward beam of light with an intensity approaching that of the Sun shines through a gap in the clouds into the cave where Mary is delivering Jesus.

Similarly, according to the British four-part TV drama
The Nativity
, first broadcast on BBC television in 2010,
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the Star consisted of Jupiter, Saturn, and Regulus in perfect conjunction. When the Magi enter Bethlehem just as the child is emerging from Mary's womb, Jupiter, Saturn, and Regulus are merging immediately above her, causing a brightness like that of the full Moon to shine forth.

However, other CGI films have sought to portray the Star in more traditional terms. The 1999 Universal Studios
made-for-TV movie
Mary, Mother of Jesus
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shows it as a very large four-rayed, cross-shaped new star hanging over Bethlehem. This star is brighter than Venus, although not as intensely bright as the full Moon. Moreover, the popular 2013 live-action History Channel miniseries
The Bible
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portrays the Star as an incredibly bright star with eight rays.

It is clear, then, that in the modern world conceptions of the Star vary greatly.

The Ongoing Mystery of the Star

The diversity of contemporary portrayals of the Star is simply a reflection of the scholarly debate concerning it. As bright as the Star evidently was, for almost two millennia its identity has been enshrouded in a mysterious darkness.

The phenomenon witnessed by the Magi was the subject of speculation in the first millennium, and fascination regarding it endures to the present. The modern debate began with Johannes Kepler in the early seventeenth century. Even now, in the twenty-first century, the number of theories offered to explain the Star seems to grow each year. Any interested party will have to sort through countless hypotheses—was it a planet like Jupiter, a star, a conjunction of planets, a nova or supernova, a comet, a miraculous phenomenon, or something else? It has justifiably been described by one respected astronomer as “the greatest of all
detective stories”
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and “perhaps the greatest of all astronomical mysteries.”
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Newspapers and magazines publicize any new hypothesis as though it might just be the critical breakthrough that enables us to identify the Star, no matter how profoundly and obviously flawed the theory may be. Whole books and DVDs are devoted to the task of identifying the Star. Some websites that promote particular theories get hundreds of thousands or even millions of hits. Internet discussion groups are weighed down with countless armchair experts sharing their hunches with the world.

The multiplicity of views and extravagant claims made by some, coupled with the lack of any real progress in the debate, has naturally engendered cynicism among many regarding the whole task. Indeed people would be forgiven for doubting that any definitive explanation of the Star will ever be presented, and for approaching any new proposed solution to the age-old problem with a healthy degree of skepticism. The whole debate about the Star of Bethlehem, after all, has become disconcertingly speculative. All too often, scholars have put forward astronomical explanations of the Star that are only superficially rooted in Matthew's account and, upon close inspection, fail to take seriously key aspects of the narrative.

Moving beyond Futile Speculation

Part of the problem is that academic interest in the Star of Bethlehem has been largely confined to the astronomical community, with relatively few contributions from the theological community. This has resulted in a scholarly debate that is heavy on astronomy but light on theology and history. Astronomer Mark Kidger has humbly admitted that “An astronomer may not be the best qualified person to take on such a task [the quest for the historical Star], particularly in areas where even the greatest experts have profound and fundamental differences, and where many of the agreed-upon facts are based on the penetrating and complicated interpretation of subtle clues.”
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The history of literature on the Star bears out the truth of Kidger's admission: the contributions of astronomers untrained in Biblical studies are all too often flawed in their treatment of the source material. They do not take sufficient account of critically important matters such as genre, subgenre, grammar, and historical background. Even the best astronomical essays on the topic have a tendency to discount cavalierly aspects of the Matthean account.

It should surely go without saying that any quest for the historical Star must be built firmly on the foundation of a rigorous analysis of Matthew 1:18–2:18. Only when this text has been mastered and the profile of the Star fully laid out can one realistically hope to deduce the precise astronomical phenomenon in view. What the whole debate concerning the Star calls for, then, is input from Biblical scholars.

Of course, just as astronomers contributing to the debate face the problem of being out of their comfort zone and area of specialization when they examine the pertinent Biblical and early Christian texts, so also Biblical scholars find themselves in alien territory when they move into the astronomical aspects of the task. What is needed, then, is interdisciplinary work and cooperation between the astronomical and theological communities.
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By training, I am a Biblical scholar. I have
therefore been forced to spend the last few years trying to come to grips with relevant fields of astronomy so that I could develop the implications of the Biblical data in the astronomical arena. Equally importantly, respected members of the international astronomical community, professional and amateur, have graciously and indeed sacrificially given of their time and energy to assist me on the celestial end of things.

In this book I offer what I am convinced is the solution to the age-old mystery of the Star of Bethlehem. What I propose is rooted in a careful consideration of the relevant Biblical material and is, I believe, able to explain everything said about the Star in a natural and compelling way and in harmony with current astronomical knowledge.

When it comes to claims of major advances in the understanding of long-debated Biblical mysteries, many people are naturally very skeptical. We have all seen too many television documentaries on mysteries of the Bible. A grandiose claim is made at the start of the program, and we wait patiently—or, more often, impatiently—through commercials and a long, drawn-out build-up for the narrator finally to unveil the supposedly great discovery. When the program does eventually get there, almost without exception we end up rolling our eyes and regretting that we have just wasted an hour of our lives. The most common, but by no means the only, problem is that key details of the Biblical text have been twisted or ignored in order to accommodate the featured hypothesis.

Over against this tendency, my treatment of the Star of Bethlehem mystery will be driven by the Biblical data and will not play fast and loose with it.

Surprisingly, many have dismissed any possibility that a straightforward reading of Matthew's text is compatible with a natural astronomical phenomenon. R. A. Oriti has written, “Those who believe in a literal [interpretation] of the Bible may choose to believe that the Star literally moved and stood over the young child. Such an interpretation must rule out any astronomical explanation.”
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Even Mark Kidger has claimed that, if the Scriptural narrative is interpreted “literally,” any scientific explanation is impossible.
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