Star of Bethlehem - A Complex Plan by God

Some suggest God is an extraordinary mathematician - I agree, but He also created mathematics so, He has an advantage over the rest of us. Just imagine planning the location and position of planets and stars visible from various places on Earth over time, and then planning the positions of specific people so they could see specific events to make everything look like a miracle, and not a coincidence - yes, I believe this is a good explanation to what happened some 2,000 years ago in Israel. But the star of Bethlehem was just one of many, amazing, miracles planned by God to humble scientists. 

I heard about the Star of Bethlehem in Sunday School when growing up in the land of Zion (no not God's chosen place most know as Israel, but the other one in norther Utah). I never thought much about the Star until after being fired from a job at the University of Utah, when in my late teens. No, I was not devastated - I hated that job, it provided me with a wonderful opportunity to go look for a real job.

I had long hair (I was a member of a popular Rock n Roll band, it was in the middle of the Vietnam War, and there I was, cleaning the ROTC building during my first quarter of college. So, yes, it was to be expected. 

I decided to search for a job to complement my college education. My work experience was unimpressive: paper route, garbage man, road crew, guitar instructor, professional musician, but what could you expect, I was only 18. I loved playing in bands, but it was not favorable work while in college; particularly since most gigs were late at night, when I was suppose to be doing homework.

After the ROTC folly, I applied for a job as tour-guide and astronomy-lecturer at the Hansen Planetarium. I had no experience other than I was absorbed in classes in astronomy, physics and geology, and I figured I had no chance at this job, but one can dream. To this day, I’m not sure why I got hired! Guess they could have mixed my resume with someone else's. But dang, I was excited!

My first day at work, I was introduced to some staff members including a short, elderly, custodian. “Dan DeLuke’s my name”. He was out-of-place and out-of-time, but looked familiar. Straight from a Roaring-20s Speakeasy with clothes, shoes, hairdo, hat and mustache from that period. Dan was a walking museum! He mentioned he was a conscientious objector from World War 2. My jaw dropped - I never met one! A vegan (never met one of those either)! A prospector, miner, monk, and follower of Bahai Faith! I hit the jackpot with Dan. As we talked through the hallway in the basement of the planetarium, a light bulb sparked down the corridor at the same time I snapped my fingers! “Now I remember where I met you!” My world just got smaller.

A few months earlier, I was one of 2-dozen geology students on a Dr. Christiansen field trip riding a chartered bus to Hanksville, Utah. We were on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere, when an old, Willys jeep raced up to the side of the bus and flagged us down. The driver of the jeep told Dr. Christiansen he needed to make a 180-degree turn to get back to Hanksville. Christiansen explained we were not actually lost, but instead driving to the center of the San Rafel Swell for a geology field trip. I specifically remember thinking this little, old, guy looked like a prospector, but seemed out-of-place and out-of-time. It turned out, it was Dan DeLuke! What are the odds!? And, Dan later became a karate student of mine at the U of U! 

The planetarium was a fantastic place to work. Filled with unique people, the facility was visited by the general public, school groups, various universities, and even a few Martians (e.g., Gavin). I could easily write a book about the people I met at the planetarium, including one of our special effects engineers named “Joesph Star”! WHAT are the chances!? I even made a blunder my first week at the planetarium. I answered the phone. Someone on the other end asked for “Joe Star please”. 

Ha, ha, they’re not going to catch me such a dumb phone prank - so I responded, “Sorry, Joe Star hasn’t beam down yet, so could I transfer you to the Daily Planet!?”. 

I slammed the phone down on its receiver with a satisfied look as two staff members ran across the floor waving wildly. As I was dusted off my hands, they told me - we really have a Joe Star working downstairs in the shop. Oops!

One of our more popular programs at the planetarium, was an hour lecture about “the Star of Bethlehem”. The program was an annual event for families and schools throughout the Wasatch Front, and the scientific program tried to explain an amazing miracle from 2,000 years in the past, that is now mostly verified by astronomy and correlates with biblical archaeology. 

The story began prior to 700 BC, when the prophet Micah foretold the birth of the Messiah (Micah 2:5). “And you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, you being least among the thousands of Judah, out of you He shall come forth to Me, that is to become Ruler in Israel. He Whose goings forth have been from of old, from the days of eternity.”

Isaiah (9:6) states, “For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; and the government shall be upon His shoulder; and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace”.

Around 700 to 800 hundred years later, Matthew 2:1-2 states: “After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem, and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.” 

Star? What Star? How come most people at the time didn’t even notice the star, while a handful saw a star and realized its importance and significance? So, what could the star have been? 

Some researchers suggest the star was a comet. In fact, Halley’s comet was visible in the sky in 11 BC. Another was recorded in 5 BC by Chinese astronomers. Comets can be impressive, but short lived in our sky. I remember Comet Bennett in 1970. In a 6-inch reflecting telescope, it was certainly impressive! Bennett had an apparent magnitude of 0 for a short time, which means, to the naked eye, it was brighter than the planet Jupiter. As comparison, Halley’s Comet in 1982, exhibited an apparent magnitude of 2.4, which means it was a little dimmer than Polaris, the north star. Another problem with comets is they are considered signs of bad omens and pending doom, not the birth of a Messiah during a new age. 

Other researchers suggest the star was a meteorite. Possibly; but the problem with meteorites, is they are not uncommon, especially to the people of Israel where nights had no light pollution to speak of. And meteorites entering our atmosphere, are very short lived. Some years ago, Sharon and I were driving back from Kitt Peak in the Quinlan Mountains west of Tucson, after spending time with my son Eric, who was conducting research on asteroids. Driving down the mountain in the late evening, we witnessed meteorite that lit up the night sky for a flash of a second - but if we would have blinked our eyes twice, we would have missed the entire event. 

So, possibly, the star was something more prominent. Other researchers suggest the star of Bethlehem was a supernova. Supernovas produce the largest known exploding events in the universe (after the Big Bang). These originate as giant stars and burn out in spectacular explosions sometimes visible in our night skies. For example, Arab, Chinese and Japanese astronomers witnessed the death of a star 6,500 light-years from earth that left behind the Crab nebula in the Constellation Taurus in 1054 AD. The star, which was not visible to the naked eye prior to its demise, became a very bright star that was visible during daytime for 23 days, and was 6 times brighter than Venus. It even cast shadows at night! Astrologers in 1054, were able to see the star over a period of nearly 2 years. Some supermassive supernovae are thought to emit absolute magnitudes of -19.3 (5 billion times brighter than our sun). Our sun is too small to supernova.

To get a general idea of the power of these stars, the Little Boy atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, released abut 15 kilotons of TNT. The largest hydrogen bomb exploded during the cold war had about 25 megatons (equal to 25,000 kilotons). Whereas, supernovae explosions release as much energy as our sun emits in its entire lifetime, about 10 octillion (10x1027) megatons of TNT. Could the star of Bethlehem have been a supernova? Seems like a possibility at first thought, but after mapping skies for a few hundred years (the telescope was invented in 1608, and it likely took time for telescopes to become common around the planet), astronomers have not found supernova remnants produced around the time of the birth of Jesus. So, what was it then?

In the Gospel of Matthew, some clues to that anomaly are presented. The clues include: (1) a birth of a Messiah, (2) a kingship, (3) association with the Jewish nation, (4) rising “in the East”, (5) a specific time in history; (6) it existed over a specific length of time, (7) it sat in front of the Magi as they traveled south from Jerusalem to Bethlehem, and (8) King Herod was not aware of it, until told by the Magi.

Using the analog computer built into the planetarium’s star-field projector, it was possible to trace events back to the time of Christ. And the necessary characteristics of the Star of Bethlehem appeared in the skies of Israel, just before the birth of Christ!

‘Wise men known as Magi (astrologers and magicians), recognized that the sun sat at the vernal equinox prior continuing into the constellation of Pisces, as viewed from earth. This was an important sign to Magi, because it meant the beginning of a new age: the Age of Pisces (Kidger, 1999; Roberts, 2007; Seymour, 1998).

Between 7 to 2 BC, there were planetary conjunctions (occultations) of note (planetary conjunctions occur when two planets occupy the same position in the sky as viewed from earth). The first of these was the double occultation of Jupiter by the moon on March 20, and later on April 17 in 6 BC in the constellation of Aries (Molnar, 1999). Firmicus Maternus, an astrologer of the Roman Emperor Constantine, wrote that an occultation of Jupiter in Aries was a sign of the birth of a divine king!

From 3 to 2 BC, three planetary conjunctions also announced to the Magi, that a major event was about to occur. In September of 3 BC, a triple conjunction of Jupiter (known as the “king planet”) occurred with the fixed star Regulus (the “king star”). Regulus is one of the brightest stars of the night sky, and the brightest in the the constellation of Leo. It is also referred to as the Kingly star (“kingly one”) known as Malikiyy, in Arabic. 

Nine months later, Jupiter continued moving across the sky in orbit, and appeared in conjunction with Venus in June of 2 BC. In Hebrew, Jupiter is known as ‘Sedeq’, meaning "righteousness", a term used for Messiah. So, it is likely that the Magi viewed the conjunction of Jupiter and Venus as a sign of a coming of a new king (Messiah) for Israel; something King Herod would have taken seriously. The June 2 BC planetary conjunction would have appeared as a "bright beacon of light”, since the disks of Jupiter and Venus would have appeared to touch. Jupiter continued to move in the sky until it stopped in apparent retrograde motion on December 25 of 2 BC over the town of Bethlehem, thus full-filling another requirement. This rare conjunction occurred in 2015 and will take place again in 2036 (essentially 2000 years after Jesus was crucified).