Christmas is a nice time of the year. It's a time where I'm forced to stop being busy and try to enjoy myself. Anyway, one down side for this time of the year is the amount of Christmas stuff on TV - it's horrible! Luckily Allison, my fiance, bought me a "book":http://www.georgerrmartin.com/gallery/crows02.html for Christmas (the next book in an excellent series) so I won't need to subject myself to yet another B grade Christmas show. Despite all the snoring stuff on TV, I did come across one documentary about the birth of Jesus but this was not your average run of the mill Christian documentary!
The documentary looked at the birth of Jesus through the eyes of science. One part of the documentary that especially caught my interest was events that apparently occurred around 7 BC. You've at least heard of the three wise men that travelled to see Jesus by following the Star of Bethlehem? Keep in mind that astrology, as opposed to astronomy (they were the same thing at this point in time anyway), was significant during this period.
# 7 BC - Jupiter and Saturn move very close to one another three times that year, creating a bright star like appearance. Also, astrologically Jupiter is "The Messiah" and Saturn is "Planet Protector of the Jews". It's proposed that this event served as a sign.
# 6 BC - A conjunction of Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars occurs.
# 5 BC, April - Comet.
It was suggested in the doco that 1 and 2 were signs that would suggest to astrologers that "something big was coming". While the comet in 5 BC would create a long structure pointing from the heavens. The comet has been proposed as the Star of Bethlehem. On top of this, the doco said the comet would have appeared to come from the East which was a sign of an immediate event to astrologers, as opposed to a Western comet which would have been a delayed event.
Both conjunctions occurred within the constellation of Pisces, this has implications that have been "outlined here.":http://astrology.about.com/od/celebrityfamous/a/jesusbirth_2.htm
Anyway, several people in the doco suggested that the three wise men part of the story never actually happened - they said it was a little too neat. On the counter, there is some link between Magi
visiting King Harod and asking to see the newly born King of the Jews".
Here's some links you can follow up with:
* "http://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/1203.html":http://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/1203.html
* "http://astrology.about.com/od/celebrityfamous/a/jesusbirth_2.htm":http://astrology.about.com/od/celebrityfamous/a/jesusbirth_2.htm
* "http://www.tccsa.tc/articles/star_dates.html":http://www.tccsa.tc/articles/star_dates.html
* "http://www.firstscience.com/SITE/ARTICLES/christmasstar.asp":http://www.firstscience.com/SITE/ARTICLES/christmasstar.asp
Well, I'm off to be merry! I hope you have a great holiday season.