The Wise Men, and, The Star

March 13, 2024

Good morning my friends!

I've been thinking about something and probably should have saved it for Christmas time, but, I'm going with it any way. :)

This is about the Wise Men from the East, and the Star which led them. This you will find in the 2nd Book of Matthew.

Chapter two starts right out with the wise men, which is some time after Jesus' birth in the 1st chapter.

"Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, 'Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we have seen His star in the East and have come to worship Him.' "

First of all, there are lots of different wise men mentioned in the Bible in different places, who were involved in different subjects and actions and studies. So, who were these, who came from the East? I would really be interested in knowing from where, in the East, they came? These men knew Jesus was to be born so they must have studied Old Testament writings, or old Jewish Bibles and Texts. But here is my first 'wondering'; Who are they? and, From how far east did they come?

My second 'wondering' is about the Star. The Wise Men had stopped in Jerusalem, and started questioning people and the Priests and so on about where Jesus was born, where He was at. My question is about the Star. The men's journey hadn't been short, and now they were walking around in Jerusalem, talking, being called before the king and so on. The Star, which was leading them, just stopped there and waited? When the Wise Men were told to go to Bethlehem and started off, the Star started moving again. It went with them to Bethlehem and stopped over where Jesus was and stood over Him.

That seems like a lot of starting and stopping of that star to me! Did anyone pay any attention to that at the time and talk about it?

When Scientists started studying the movements of celestial objects and stars, did they study this one? I know they have some, because I've read them.

If they did there would be a record of it, along with all the other celestial bodies they've studied. Curious minds, (like mine!) want to know! Do any of you know of any such studies?

So... after all of this... what I really want to know is...

1. From how far away did these Wise Men come?

2. Is there any scientific study of this particular star, that I can find and read?

Okay, that's it for this rambling of mine. Hope to hear from some of you!

Later, Shirley

Comments

Rencie the Crayon manMarch 14, 2024 at 2:51 PM
I am trying to look up how far the wise men came and if I could, I would study all about this Star myself. I would love to get back to you the minute I find an answer.
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D.M. GregoireMarch 14, 2024 at 3:00 PM
Thanks Grandma! I appreciate you sharing your thoughts and questions. I definitely don't have answers but, like you, I also read the bible with questions and like to explore them so I'll definitely have to dig deeper into the questions you raised. My question: the Gospels in the New Testament are all such wealths of wisdom, and in some areas there is agreement across the gospels on the life of Jesus, what happens and what he says. In other areas there isn't. I am curious why that is? Also why some Gospels made it into the Canon called the Bible, and other Gospels were omitted from the Bible back when Rome was collecting and organizing the various records. I find the history of this wisdom book so fascinating. I also love learning about when archaeologists find things that support places and occurrences in the Bible. I am currently working through the NLT version of the bible and am just starting Deuteronomy. Having just read Exodus I wonder if the moving star may have been something along similar way to how God guided the Israelites away from Egypt- a bright fiery cloudy pillar that moved and guided they Israelites to their various destinations as they travelled to the promised land? Perhaps, in this case farther away and brighter but still something light and moving.
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Darth KentariMarch 14, 2024 at 3:11 PM
Hi Grandma Shirley,

I'm very interested in historical documents especially as they relate to religious ideas. I will say as a disclaimer that there is a lot of conjecture around the questions you asked, but nothing has been definitively stated as "the factual occurrence" thus far to my knowledge.

Your first question and second actually go more hand-in-hand than you might think, which is really cool (to me)!

It's important to note that even though the story states "magi" which is usually translated as "wise men" it can also mean astronomer/astrologer. The reason it gets pushed to mean "wise men" is typically because astrology or any scientific pursuit of the heavens was deemed illegitimate by non-leadership of the church during the time of the translation.

It's actually extremely likely that the magi referred to were among those who took an interest in the stars, which happened to be several prominent Middle Eastern and Asian cultures. In fact, the primary religion of the Persian (Parthian) empire was Zoroastrianism, one of the oldest (if not the oldest) monotheistic religion. One of their beliefs was that the stars held both good and evil power and we could look to the stars for guidance as well as mapping the cyclical nature of the sun and moon. The magi themselves were supposedly named Balthasar, Melchior, and Caspar, from Arabia, Persia, and India respectively (although all three of these nations were a part of the Partian empire at the time).

There is a theory that there was a celestial event such as a planetary conjunction that led these three to Bethlehem, but it is widely contested. For as predictable as the celestial movements are to us now, there is actually no concrete theory that explains exactly what the star of Bethlehem was.

Interested to hear what you think.

-Z
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GamerJemaMarch 14, 2024 at 4:09 PM
Interesting questions!

It has always been tempting for me to think that the wise men came from the far eastern Asia - but that's just a fancy thought rooted in nothing. According to the book "Matthew" by Craig A. Evans, from the New Cambridge Bible Commentary series, the men might have come from the area of Chaldea - which, if I understand correctly, would be in Babylonia. So not that far East of Bethlehem, really. But in those days, probably pretty far to travel though!

As for the star, I don't know anything. But if the wise men were indeed astronomers, it stands to reason that the star's movement was visible to all studying the celestial objects at the time. The same book I mentioned above states that Chaldeans were famous for studying astronomy and magic (I'm assuming this means magic as we think of it, but I don't know). In any case, they would be the people to study peculiar phenomena in the sky, such as this.

There really is a lot to ponder here!
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Shirley CurryMarch 14, 2024 at 5:06 PM
I hope you find them, because I've had those questions for a long time. lol
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Oliver SendallMarch 14, 2024 at 8:20 PM
Hello Grandma! The story of the nativity is always so interesting and contains so many unanswered questions. Unfortunately, there is scarce little information on what actually goes on in a lot of it so we're left to pick up the pieces.

I think Darth is right on the money when saying the Magi were probably from the Parthian Empire, to add a little more to that there is an ancient text written on the birth of Jesus called the Arabic Infancy Gospel which says the Magi were following a prophecy created by the prophet Zoroaster, the creator of Zoroastrianism. It is contested when he was born, but most scholars agree he was born around 1000-500BC. He died at age 77, so he either predicted the Magi's travel to Bethlehem centuries beforehand, or more likely the writers of the Infancy Gospel were taking creative liberties. In any case, if you'd like to you can actually read the Infancy Gospel translated here: http://gnosis.org/library/infarab.htm

On your second question, there really is no consensus on what the star of Bethlehem was. Many have argued conjunctions, comets, novas or other celestial events but all are considered incorrect or unlikely, for further reading I highly recommend wikipedia's article on the star of Bethlehem as it has a good overview of the various explanations. The most accepted is that the star and the Magi are simply legendary figures that have little to no basis in reality. To many Christians who believe the Bible is 100% truth the idea that something might be fictitious is wrong. I'm not sure where you stand on the 'Bible accuracy' discussion Grandma but most scholars seem to think they're not real. On the other hand, the reason scholars can't prove it is perhaps because God created it and it defies our understanding of the celestial bodies. Either interpretation is valid.

Hope this was insightful or helpful to you Grandma!
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Shirley CurryMarch 16, 2024 at 12:06 PM
Thank you for this Rocky!
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Aditya KulkarniMarch 17, 2024 at 7:54 AM
Grany Shirley!! Hope you're doing well. I came here from your Skyrim channel on YouTube.
There's this nice channel on YouTube that speaks of different relgiions
https://www.youtube.com/@LetsTalkReligion

If I remember correctly, in one of his videos he spoke about the wise men in Zoroastrianism (I think he made a passing comment of how the Magi in the Bible are possibly Zoroastrian Magi). But I'm not sure which video that was. Here's a wiki article on Magi
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magi#:~:text=Magi%20(%20PLUR%20)%2C%20or%20magus,known%20as%20the%20Behistun%20Inscription.

If his hypothesis is correct, then the three wise magi came from Mesopotamia.

Wish you a good week ahead Granny Shirley!!
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oracusMarch 17, 2024 at 11:11 PM
Hello, Grandma Shirley... I'm a fan of your Skyrim channel, too...

I think that it is generally accepted that the prophet Daniel and others during the Babylonian captivity spread the prophecies concerning the birth of the Savior to Babylon, Persia, and many other regions, and that the Holy Spirit prepared the Magi to come with their gifts of gold for the King, frankincense for the Priest who is God made Man and myrrh, for His Sacrificial death. The Church Fathers – Sts. Basil, Jerome, Leo, and Cyprian, others – relate that the Magi knew about the prophesy of Balaam. In Numbers 24:17, Balaam said that “a star shall rise out of Jacob.” Pagan religions like Zoroastrianism cannot lead anyone to the Truth.

While we don't know how many Magi came, the traditional names of the three who brought the gifts are Gaspar, Melchior, and Balthasar.

The star also is something miraculous, since no natural phenomenon could account for what the Bible says: "the star which they had seen in the east, went before them, until it came and stood over where the child was" (Matthew 2:9). Neither a fixed star nor a planet nor a comet could have disappeared, and reappeared, and stood still. Only a miraculous phenomenon could have been the Star of Bethlehem. It was like the miraculous pillar of fire which stood in the camp by night during Israel's Exodus (Exodus 13:21), or to the "brightness of God" which shone round about the shepherds (Luke 2:9), or to "the light from heaven" which shone around about the stricken Saul (Acts 9:3).
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Shirley CurryMarch 18, 2024 at 12:09 PM
Hello Oracus! Oh I have read all that and totally agree with what you have said. My questions here start people looking for the answers and getting into their bible and then getting back to me. And also, telling me something new! This is being so enjoyable for me! Your comment is so wonderful and I'm so happy that you left it!!. I did NOT know what each of the Magi's gifts meant! That was very interesting! I learn something all the time, still, at age 88 (in a couple of weeks! lol). I hope you will be responding in this Blog some more!!!
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D CarollaMarch 20, 2024 at 2:32 AM
Hey Grandma!! Sorry I'm a little late to the convo but this is interesting stuff!! We talked about some of this when I was in Catholic school. The wise men most likely studied at the library of Alexandria and read the prophecies about Jesus. I'm not as sure about this question.. but I was reading something about the wise men, it said they probably came from Persia and were part of a religious group of the Magi. It seems there isn't much solid info on these guys 🤔 but omg, the star!! I know the answer. Or at least have some interesting info on that!! I was fortunate enough to escape taking physics in my senior year of high school, and instead I got to take astronomy!! It was so awesome and I still have my notes and all my handouts LOL. Ahem* so, I'm not sure how familiar you are with the night sky, but when you look at stars, they twinkle right? Well, planets actually don't twinkle. That's how you can tell them apart from stars. They don't twinkle, and they are alot brighter. So the general consensus is, from my understanding, that Jupiter and Saturn were in conjunction. So, they were right next to each other in the sky, causing an extra bright "star" to appear. I think there may have been a third planet or large star in conjunction with them too but I can't remember which one! But it gets even cooler! So Jupiter was in retrograde at the time, which is why it aligned with Saturn and appeared to "stop." (Retrograde in terms of astronomy is when a planet appears to be going backwards, not actually, but it appears that way in relation to planet Earth and the way the orbits work.) So I think, the wise men tracked that star until they came directly beneath the "star's" zenith. (Zenith is what is directly overhead.) And guess what...this part is really cool too. So Jupiter is the king planet right? The word Jupiter is derived (in Latin anyway) from the words Deus Pater, meaning Father God. (Deus is God, Pater is Father.) So Jupiter represented Jesus, the king! And guess where Jupiter appeared to stop in the sky? In the constellation Virgo!! Representative of Mary. I thought that was sooo cool when I learned about it. This exact phenomenon actually happened again a few years ago.. I can't remember the exact year but I thought it was 2018 or 19. It hasn't happened since that time! Isn't that super cool. I was actually a little spooked at that time, I thought something major might happen 😅 who knows maybe something did which we just don't know about 🤔
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cfcallierMarch 20, 2024 at 8:54 AM
My apologies I am so slow with replying again. It has been very busy.
According to Strong's Lexicon Wise Men came from the Greek word Magos
For Biblical Usage the definitions are:
I. a magus
A. the name given by the Babylonians (Chaldeans), Medes, Persians, and others, to the wise men, teachers, priests, physicians, astrologers, seers, interpreters of dreams, augers, soothsayers, sorcerers, etc.
B. the oriental wise men (astrologers) who, having discovered by the rising of a remarkable star that the Messiah had just been born, came to Jerusalem to worship him.
C. a false prophet and sorcerer
Strong's Definitions: magos; of foreign origin; a Magician, i.e. Oriental scientist, by implication, a magician: - sorcerer, wise man.

So I have heard of it being said that the Wise Men may have been from Babylon due to the fact that they would've been familiar with the Hebrew texts that were available at the time of the seventy year exile of the Israelites. Or the Babylonian scholars would've heard about the the prophecy of a Messiah through oral tradition even. I do believe Daniel became rather important within the government at the due to his ability to interpret the dreams of the kings and God was him. So it's possible that through influential Israelites the prophecies would've been shared with the Babylonians of that time of captivity.

This bit about the stars is from Halley's Bible Handbook.
The star that guided the Wise Men to Bethlehem has been the subject of much speculation. Several explanations have been suggested:
- A supernova or new star. This involves a very distant star in which an explosion takes place so that for a time the star becomes many times brighter than usual-sometimes so bright that it can be seen during the daytime. But there is no record of a supernova around the time of Jesus' birth.
-A comet. The best-known of these is Halley's comet, which actually was visible in 12-11 B.C. But this is rather too long before the actual date of Jesus' birth in 6 or 5 B.C.
-A conjunction of planets. In 7-6 B.C., three planets appeared close together: Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars. This is a rare triple conjunction known as the conjunctio magna, or great conjunction. This conjunction took place in the zodiacal constellation of Pisces, which was sometimes associated with the last days and with the Hebrews, while Saturn was considered the star of Syria-Palestine region and Jupiter was associated with the world ruler.
But what matters in the end is that God, either by supernatural means or by the supernatural use of a natural event, guided the Wise Men, as representatives of the Gentiles, to worship the King of the Jews who will one day be King of all.

I admit, I find the conjunction of the three planets quite interesting. Especially since There is Father, Son and Holy Ghost and God does use symbology a lot when He does His thing. The conjunction of the three planets makes me think of the there are three but they are one with the trinity. From what Matthew says the Wise Men saw one star since the word was not written as a plural but if it was truly three planets seen as one star.... Which ever way, God definitely did something supernatural to make sure the Wise Men found Jesus to provide the means for their flight to Egypt.
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Shirley CurryMarch 20, 2024 at 1:18 PM
CFCollier Thank you for your wonderfully detailed comment!!! About the Star... read what else D Carolla posted about those three stars.. just above your post. You are both so interesting and I wish I could just sit down.. with both of you.. and we would just chat!! It would be such cool conversation! Most people have uninteresting conversations!! I like to think deeply about
things!! lol Thank you so very much!!!
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Shirley CurryMarch 22, 2024 at 10:50 AM
Thank you so much for your nice comment, and for being here!!! :)
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