The Great Christ Comet (34 page)

The Deliverance of the Child

In verse 5b we discover that, although the dragon Hydra was determined to devour the son of Virgo, he was unable to, because the infant child was snatched forcibly away and quickly taken to God and his throne. Scholars disagree regarding what is in view here. As far as the immediately preceding context is concerned, a reference to the deliverance of baby Jesus from Herod the Great would seem the most natural interpretation. However, as far as the rest of the chapter goes, the most plausible interpretation is that Jesus's resurrection-ascension (the two events being viewed as one) is in view. It is probably best to allow for both senses, with John deliberately conflating the two. In other words, baby Jesus's rescue from Herod was a foretaste of the ultimate deliverance he would come to know at his resurrection-ascension, when he would
take his seat at the Father's right hand (Acts 1:9; 2:32–36; cf. Ps. 110:1).

This somewhat awkward combination of ideas, as well as the skipping over of Jesus's ministry and death and the most peculiar conceptualization of the resurrection-ascension as a forcible snatching of Jesus away to God and his throne (Rev. 12:5b), calls for some explanation. How are we to explain these things?

The answer is most probably found in the realization that the action remains strictly astronomical until verse 6. Only there does the scene shift from the heavens to the earth, and the focus from that point onward is the woman rather than the male child. What therefore John sees in verse 5 is apparently still part of the heavenly nativity play marking Jesus's birth. Consequently, the reason that the male child's snatching to God's throne immediately follows the birth is presumably that this is how the drama marking the Messiah's birth unfolded in the heavens. In other words, the comet baby, having descended to the point where it was clearly below Virgo's belly and therefore was born, continued to move down toward the sunlight and the horizon, quickly disappearing from the predawn sky. If we are correct that the Sun had played the part of God on September 15, 6 BC, then it was very natural for the Sun to be envisioned as continuing to assume the role of God in the celestial nativity drama. Therefore, when the cometary baby appeared to move down toward the sunlight, it would have seemed to dedicated observers that the child was being taken into the presence of God. In the context of the conflict between the Messiah and Hydra, the speedy removal of the cometary baby would have seemed to refer to a divine rescue from Hydra.

Revelation 12:1–5: A Summary

In summary, Revelation 12:1–5 reveals the multifaceted celestial wonder that coincided with the birth of Jesus—the very sight that the Magi had seen in the eastern sky and that had prompted them to make a long journey west to Judea to worship the Messiah. In this astonishing celestial nativity drama, Virgo was playing the part of Israel/Mary, and the comet's coma was playing the role of the messianic baby. After rising heliacally in Virgo's womb, looking like a baby, the cometary coma remained there for many days, growing in size in the manner of a normal human baby in its mother's womb. While the comet rose in altitude, each passing day would have meant that it was observable earlier and in darker skies. Then, after descending within Virgo's belly, the coma would have moved down out of it, making it seem that the baby was being born. Eventually, the baby appeared to have completely vacated Virgo's womb and at this point it was regarded as having been born. At that moment the comet as a whole apparently formed an immense scepter that stretched from the eastern horizon all the way to the western horizon. Those attuned to what was happening and interpreting it messianically would have had no question but that the Messiah was born at that very time. Finally, the cometary baby speedily disappeared into the Sun's light (i.e., heliacally set), bringing an end to the wonder in the eastern sky.

We infer from Revelation 12:1–5 that the comet's coma became extraordinarily large, equivalent in size to a large full-term baby at the point of birth; that the comet as a whole took the form of a long iron scepter at the point of the child's birth; and that it must have been very bright. Further, Revelation suggests that, on the eve of the birth, there was a meteor storm radiating from the tail of Hydra.

What John writes enables us to narrow down when the celestial events took place—during the months of Ululu and Tishratu (Bab­ylon) or Tishri and Heshvan (Judea), namely in September and October of 6 BC. Moreover, Revelation 12:1–5 enables us to narrow down the time of Jesus's birth to
mid-October (early Tishratu in Bab­ylon and early Heshvan in Judea)
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of 6 BC. This is a plausible time of year for Jesus's birth—it was when the Romans tended to have their censuses
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and when shepherds would certainly have been out in the fields (Luke 2:1–18).
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The cometary baby would have heliacally risen on September 29 or 30 and remained in her belly for about two weeks before slowly descending out of it to be born.

Essentially, the wonder that marked Jesus's birth was an incredible full celestial nativity drama focused on Virgo and a great comet that seemed to bring her to life.

The Astronomical Dimension

As to how a comet could have done what Revelation 12:1–5 indicates that this 6 BC comet did, it is helpful to consider the following.

We have already seen that a cometary coma that is elliptical (oval) is ideally qualified to represent an upside-down baby.

For a comet to do (from the vantage point of an Earth-dwelling observer) what Revelation 12:2–5 describes requires very unusual comet-Earth-Sun geometry. It is possible only in the case of a narrowly inclined retrograde comet that has a close encounter with the Sun near the end of September. A few days later, the coma of such a comet would emerge over the eastern horizon in Virgo's womb just in advance of the Sun. Observers on Earth would be able to see the coma in Virgo's belly each day during a short window of time just before dawn, as they looked at the eastern horizon. As Earth continues on its orbit around the Sun, each day observers are able to see more and more of the stars of Virgo (from the top down) before the Sun rises. For the comet to remain in the same small area of sky, within Virgo's belly, its orbital course and velocity would have to work in synchronization with Earth's. The comet's relative “stability” within Virgo's belly would have had to last for a couple of weeks, to provide sufficient time for the lower part of Virgo to be far enough off the horizon to accommodate the cometary baby as it emerged from the womb to be born.

What might explain the growth of the baby?

At the moment of perihelion, cometary comas are smaller than they were in the run-up to it, or will be in its aftermath, since they are receiving their most intense blast of the Sun at close range. As they subsequently move away from the Sun, escaping the worst of its compressing effect, they grow bigger. Moreover, as productive comets come toward Earth, their comas naturally become larger and larger. These two factors obviously were working together to create the impression that Virgo's pregnancy was developing normally. The baby would have become larger and larger each day, just like a growing fetus in its mother's womb, albeit at a greatly exaggerated rate.

At some stage, the cometary baby would have seemed to drop and descend within Virgo in the manner of a baby being born, because the retrograde comet's orbit was straightening out after the sharp U-turn around the Sun. This would have meant that the comet could no longer keep in sync with Earth, and hence the coma could no longer maintain its relatively stable position within Virgo's womb. The more the comet's orbit straightened out and the more the comet moved toward Earth, the faster the comet would have seemed to human onlookers to descend within Virgo toward the eastern horizon and the Sun.

At one point, as it slowly dropped within Virgo's belly, it would have seemed to be weighing down on her pelvic floor muscles, which naturally would have caused onlookers to envision the constellation figure as beginning labor. Educated observers could not help but attribute labor pain to Virgo. The delivery would have stretched over days, and during that time the coma would have continued to grow. Only when the whole coma had descended below the area regarded as Virgo's vaginal opening (approximately at the level of the star 80 Virginis; see
fig. 7.11
) would they have regarded the baby as having been born. By that time the comet would have been getting much closer to the eastern horizon. In space, the comet was actually preparing to cut through the Earth-Sun line, moving from the east side of it to the west.

The enormous length of the tail at the point of the birth would have been due to the fact that the comet was exceptionally large and productive and close to Earth.