The star of Bethlehem, which announced the birth of Jesus Christ to the Magi, is not only the most popular, but also the most mysterious symbol of Christmas. Its description in the Gospel gave rise to centuries of controversy. Scientists have intervened in the discussion these days. What astronomers say today about the sign that happened and how theologians understood it.
The artist's riddle
A small chapel in Padua, Italy houses one of the greatest treasures of medieval art. At the beginning of the 14th century, the forerunner of the Renaissance masters, Giotto, painted the vaults of the church with scenes from the life of Christ. And one fresco is dedicated to the adoration of the Magi. From the point of view of iconography - nothing special: the baby Jesus is on the lap of the Virgin Mary, next to Joseph and two angels, on the contrary - the Magi with gifts. Everything seems to be as described in the Gospel.
“When Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of King Herod, the wise men from the east came to Jerusalem and said: where is the one who was born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east and have come to worship him. And entering the house, they saw the Child with Mary, His Mother, and falling down, they worshiped Him; and opening their treasures, they brought him gifts: gold, incense and myrrh."
Only in the firmament Giotto captured not a star at all, but … a comet. Did the great master dare to go against the Scriptures? Or did he somehow find out that the Magi saw this very unusual celestial phenomenon?
Giotto di Bondone * Adoration of the Magi * (1303)
In ancient times, people constantly peered at the sky, looking for special signs about their future. Here are the astrologers and stumbled upon such a sign: a great ruler was born.
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Interestingly, the Gospel describes how the star led the Magi to Bethlehem - "walked before them." And when they reached the city, they "stopped over the place where the baby was." More about it is not mentioned anywhere - apparently, the heavenly body immediately disappeared.
That is why, already in the 3rd century, theologians put forward the idea that we are talking about a "tailed star", as comets were then called. "If, at the emergence of empires and during other important events, comets and other celestial signs appeared in the sky, is it any wonder that such a phenomenon accompanied the birth of an infant who was supposed to carry out a transformation in the human race?" - the thinker Origen wrote then.
The comet version became dominant. Already in the 18th century, it was suggested that Halley's comet was described in the Gospel. She appears in the firmament about once every 75 years and was named after the famous English astronomer, who suggested just such a periodicity of the return of a celestial body. And at the beginning of the XXI century, scientists figured out exactly in what years earthlings could see a rare phenomenon. And the results amazed many.
“Since the Gospel of Matthew, where the Star of Bethlehem is mentioned, was created, most likely, between 85 and 90 AD, the author probably described Halley's comet he saw during his lifetime. And we know that she appeared in 66. This does not fit into the estimated time frame for the birth of Christ - between the sixth year BC and the fourth year of our era, - says professor of astronomy Rod Jenkins in his article.
And it turns out that, according to the scientist, the events in Bethlehem described by the Apostle and Evangelist Matthew are fiction. And the episode with the adoration of the Magi, the professor believes, is based on the embassy of the king of Armenia to the Roman emperor Nero, recorded just in 66.
Nativity of Christ in the Epiphany Cathedral.
Rare astronomical phenomenon
Jenkins' hypothesis has caused fierce controversy among astronomers, historians, and biblical scholars. In 2007, astronomy professor David Hughes came up with a rebuttal of his colleague's arguments.
“Comets have long been associated with death and something very terrible in people. Therefore, hardly anyone wanted to associate this heavenly body with such an important and joyful event for Christians as the birth of Christ,”he emphasizes.
In addition, it is unlikely that the astrologers, who, apparently, came from Babylon, the largest center of science at that time, equipped an entire expedition to a distant country for the sake of Halley's comet, well-known to them, albeit under a different name. Apparently, it was about a much rarer cosmic phenomenon.
“The heliacal sunrise immediately comes to mind - the first appearance of a star or planet in the firmament after a period of invisibility, just before the sunrise. Perhaps the astrologers recorded a new object in the sky, first over Babylon, and then, for two months before arriving in Bethlehem, they constantly observed it on the way,”the specialist notes.
In ancient times, the heliacal sunrise served as a calendar landmark for many peoples: in Egypt, for example, it foreshadowed the flood of the Nile, which allowed the state to prepare in advance for the irrigation period. Even the famous pyramids at Giza are built according to this phenomenon.
Johannes Kepler Observatory in Linz, Austria on a clear night. Visible in the sky are the bright star Sirius, the constellation Orion, and the star clusters of Hyades and the Pleiades.
That is, this phenomenon was described thousands of years before the birth of Christ, and it was found everywhere.
Therefore, David Hughes proposes to consider much more rare phenomena that could be observed several years before the advent of our era. Most likely, he believes, the Babylonian sages saw in the firmament the so-called triple conjunction of the planets.
“This is when two planets come quite close to each other, and then diverge - and so on two more times. This made a great impression on the Zoroastrian priests, who were the very sages of the Gospels,”the professor said.
We are talking about the conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter in the Pisces phase, which occurred in the seventh year BC. The phenomenon is really rare - it was observed in 1941, and the next time it will happen already in 2239.
“Jupiter - the king of the planets - is a very auspicious sign, and the zodiacal constellation Pisces meant Israel for the Zoroastrians. Hence their journey in that direction,”says Hughes.
Different interpretations
Astrologers traveled from east to west, but the Star of Bethlehem, which they followed, appeared in the east. This paradox could not be resolved until the astronomer Michael Molnar made the discovery: it turns out that "east" is nothing more than a technical term among the Babylonian priests.
Ancient Babylon.
And it meant another extremely rare phenomenon. Jupiter briefly appears on Earth's eastern horizon once every hundreds of years early in the morning. "This is the result of the movement of our planet relative to the Sun, at some point accelerating in relation to a similar passage of Mars, Jupiter and Saturn," the researcher emphasized in an article published in 1998.
Since then, this explanation of the Star of Bethlehem has been considered one of the main in the scientific community. Along with the "triple conjunction of the planets" and the hypothesis of the birth of a supernova near the Andromeda galaxy, which was recorded in the fifth year BC, Korean astronomers.
However, there are also theological interpretations. “For example, St. John Chrysostom in the 4th century believed that it was a special angelic power that guided the Magi,” notes Archpriest Konstantin Polskov, associate professor of the Department of Biblical Studies of the Theological Faculty of PSTGU.
However, such versions only provided another argument for those who consider the Christmas story from beginning to end a fiction. But with the advent of new astronomical and archaeological data, serious science is in no hurry to draw such unambiguous conclusions.
Anton Skripunov