Star of Wonder
Dan Olinger
Faith for the Family — December 1980
The Babylonian skies are a deep, rich, unobscured black, A group of astrologers (how many, we cannot guess) sits atop a ziggurat, plotting the future of their land as they think they read it in the stars. Suddenly they are shaken and nearly blinded by a brilliant light immediately over their heads. Terrified and disoriented, they flee to the interior of the ziggurat. They search the records for some explanation of this nighttime sun. (Do they find references to Judaea? Or does the God of the Jews appear to them in a dream, as He will in the near future?)
A short time later (a few minutes? or several days?) perhaps they discover, to their dismay, that the light has vanished. But by this time they are sure that it signified the birth of a unique Man, and that they can learn about Him in Jerusalem.
And so, as Abraham did 2000 years before, they set out in faith, not knowing exactly whither they go. For weeks they travel westward, guided by their desire to know this Man and by their faith in the God of that fleeting heavenly light.
Upon arriving in the capital city of the Jews, they go immediately to the king, who they think is most likely to know where and who his successor is. He can tell them nothing without the help of his scribes, who direct these eastern visitors to a little hamlet not far to the south. As they leave the presence of the king, they wonder if perhaps their efforts have been wasted. If the Man they seek is so great, why doesn’t the king of the Jews know about Him? Why is He to be born in such a miserable little village as this Beyth-Lechem or whatever they call it? And how will they find Him once they get there? For the first time, their faith wavers; they are tempted to despair.
Discussing among themselves whether to go on or to return home, they leave the building and are stopped in their tracks by a strangely familiar but unearthly light. It is the Star! The God of the light has neither forgotten nor misled them. Running to their camels, they mount and turn southward toward Bethlehem. By the time they leave the city, they are sure of it; the Star, unlike any other star they have ever seen, is low above their heads, and it is moving with them. Following? Or leading? They stop their camels; the Star continues southward. They will follow.
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Perhaps no part of the Christmas story is more familiar to Christians than that of the Christmas star — that strange heavenly light which led superstitious but genuinely-seeking Gentiles to the Infant Whose life was the light of men. This event was one of the earliest promises in the New Testament that God’s love and salvation are universal and not limited by race or national boundaries. But because the star story is so popular among children and adults alike, many traditions which go beyond what the Bible actually says have grown up around the biblical account. The preceding description may not be true in every detail; but there is good reason to believe that where it departs from the more popular story, it may well be accurate. There are many reasons to believe that perhaps the wise men did not follow the star from the East, but that they came to Jerusalem on their own.
The Bible tells us that the wise men (more properly, astrologers) saw the star “in the east” (Matthew 2:2) and came to. Jerusalem to inquire about the King which they felt it represented. Then Matthew relates that the star led them to Bethlehem, But verse ten is very interesting, Why should the wise men rejoice “with exceeding great joy” upon seeing the star outside of Herod’s palace if they had been following it all the way from their homes in Mesopotamia? And why does the Bible say, not “the star which had led them to Jerusalem” but “the star which they saw in the East”? And, more importantly, if they had been following a steadily moving star all these many miles, why had they now stopped to ask directions? Their surprised joy may indicate that after seeing the star in the East (that is, in their homeland, not on the eastern horizon) they went to Jerusalem without benefit of the star’s guidance; then the star reappeared and led them five miles south to Bethlehem. This is only a hypothesis; but it explains many facts which the common account does not,
How, then, did the wise men know to go to Jerusalem to ask of Herod, if there was no star to guide them there? And how did they know that the star foretold a king’s birth? Secular historical records cast some fascinating “star-light.” In the first place, legends throughout the world of that day told of stars appearing as signs of the birth of a great man, especially a king. The Roman historian Suetonius, for example, speaks of such a star appearing before the birth of Caesar Augustus in 63 B.C. Furthermore, we know that there was a tradition in that day that a great king would arise out of Judaea; again Suetonius records that “an old and established belief that it was fated at that time for men coming from Judaea to rule the world” had “spread all over the Orient” (Vesp., IV, 5), This would explain how the wise men knew to go to Jerusalem.
There are many speculations as to how this tradition arose. Some have pointed out that Balaam, who prophesied that “there shall come a Star out of Jacob” (Numbers 24:17), was from Mesopotamia (22:5), and so his prophecy might have been recorded there. Others suggest that Daniel’s prophecy of a coming kingdom (2:44) might have been recorded in the Babylonian annals, since he spent most of his life in Babylon as a statesman. Or, since God spoke directly to the wise men in Bethlehem (Matthew 2:12), many suppose that He appeared to them in the East as well, explaining to them the significance of this heavenly phenomenon. But then one wonders why He didn’t direct them all the way to Bethlehem, as Evidently, they could have gotten that far without the star’s help.
There have been a number of guesses as to what the star might really have been. Many unbelievers have tried (unsuccessfully) to explain it away as a natural phenomenon. The most popular suggestion is that it was a conjunction of planets, which men of that day viewed as signifying a great event. The famous astronomer Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) calculated that there were conjunctions of Jupiter and Saturn in the spring, fall, and winter of A. U. 747 (that is, 7 B.C.), and that Mars joined the group in the following February (6 B,C.). Christ must have been born before 4 B.C., when Herod died. He also noted that the conjunction took place in the constellation Pisces, which astrologers connected with the Jews. This planetary conjunction has been recorded in Babylonian cuneiform records. Kepler suggested that the wise men saw the conjunction in the spring and travelled to Jerusalem, arriving in the fall or winter, when the conjunction “reappeared” (Matthew 2:9). The great problem with this theory is that it contradicts the Greek. The word for “star” which Matthew uses, aster, refers specifically to single heavenly bodies. If Matthew had been referring to multiple bodies, he would have used astron, the specific Greek word for that phenomenon.
A second suggestion is that the star was a nova, or exploding star. Such stars may flare up to outstanding brilliancy from almost nothing, and then may dim and brighten periodically. Hence another guess that the star’s “reappearance” was the second brightening of this heavenly body. Kepler supposed, without any scientific verification whatsoever, that a nova might have appeared in the middle of the conjunction already mentioned, thereby heightening its importance and wonder.
Two other suggestions are that the star was either a meteor or a comet. Chinese records speak of a comet appearing in March, 5 B.C., and lasting for 70 days in April of 4 B.C. Meteors, of course, are quite common, and would have been even more clearly visible in the skies of that day, which were unobstructed by bright lights and air pollution.
The trouble with all of these suggestions is that they are merely attempts, and poor ones at that, to explain away by natural means what was obviously a miracle. It would be impossible for a conjunction, or a nova, or a cornet to guide anyone to a specific house five miles away, as the Bible says the star did (Matthew 2:9). As one student of the subject has commented, “Any astronomical phenomenon would be at such a great distance from the earth that its appearance would be of no value as a local guide.” And while it is possible that a meteor might have landed in the vicinity of Bethlehem, it is difficult to see how the wise men would have found it from Jerusalem, unless there were a whole series of meteors landing in the same place, to guide them all the way to Bethlehem. And furthermore, if a meteor fell at exactly the right time in exactly the right place to guide the wise men to Joseph and Mary’s house, it would have been as much a miracle as a special star, anyway. So any attempt to explain away the miracle is futile. One commentator has noted, “The patently miraculous character of the star in the narrative makes it gratuitous to seek a material explanation of it from astronomical science.”
The Christmas star was unique and unexplainable in terms of anything we know today. This fact is indicated by the use of the word “Lo” in Matthew 2:9, which indicates that something very much out of the ordinary was happening.
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Mary has put her child to sleep; Joseph is placing more oil in the lamp before he and his wife retire for the night, The rapid knocking on the door of their little house startles him. It is much too late for social calls; these visitors must have a good reason for disturbing them. He strides to the door, throws it open — and there is Light.
Dan Olinger is currently Chairman of the Bible Department at Bob Jones University. This article appeared in Faith for the Family, December 1980 and is republished here by permission. Dr. Olinger recently published a blog related to the subject this article. You may find it of additional interest.