Astronomical Explanation for the Star of Bethlehem

From The Blaze.com (Jan. 6):

Adults and children in Latin America and Spain, among other locations, are celebrating Three Kings’ Day Tuesday, a joyous religious holiday that is held each year on the 12th day after Christmas.

The event marks the moment the wise men, also known as the Magi, followed a “star” in the sky and met Jesus Christ sometime after his birth, as recounted in the Bible.

Consider that Dr. Grant J. Mathews, a professor of theoretical astrophysics and cosmology at the University of Notre Dame and the director of the school’s Center for Astrophysics, is among the experts who has investigated “unusual events in the sky” near the time of Christ’s birth.

While traditional Christmas stories generally refer to the phenomenon in the sky that led the wise men to Christ as a “star,” Matthews said that the actual event likely wasn’t a star at all.

“It’s probably not a ‘star’ somehow hovering over a manger and pointing a beam of light as we traditionally view it. Any new star or comet in the sky was usually taken as a harbinger of disaster at that time,” he said, noting in past interviews and appearances that the Magi wouldn’t have followed a star due to perceived negative events to come. “It was most likely an unusual planetary alignment.”

Matthews said that he believes three planetary alignments could have created the bright light in the sky that the Magi followed, though there’s one pattern that he — among other researchers — believes is more plausible than the others.

“In my opinion the most [probable] was the occurrence of the Sun, Moon, Jupiter, and Saturn in Aries, with Venus in the next-door constellation Pisces along with Mercury and Mars on the other side in the next constellation Taurus,” he said. “Michael Molnar put this hypothesis forward in the book ‘The Star of Bethlehem’. It is corroborated by the writings of the famous ancient astronomer C. Ptolemy who noted that Aries (the ram) was the constellation associated with Judea.” [read more]

An interesting explanation. So, it wasn’t like in the 1985 Twilight Zone episode of “The Star” where future space explorers find out the Star of Bethlehem was a supernova that destroyed an ancient civilization. The Star episode was based on a short story by Arthur C. Clarke.