Several years ago I heard a theory that the story of the three wise men finding Jesus was a metaphor for how on the solstice there are three stars that align and point to where the sun will rise on the solstice morning. Does anyone know if this is true or what the stars are called?
First I’ve heard of it.
Sounds a bit made up. This sort of configuration will naturally depend on the latitude where the observation is made and any such pattern that existed 2000 years ago wouldn’t necessarily exist now (the relative positions of stars can and do shift).
Besides being a religious fantasy, keep in mind that “align” to an astrologer (or even an astronomer) doesn’t mean the astrological bodies are all that close, just in the same general region of the sky.
The Wikipedia article on the Star of Bethlehem mentions a possible asterism being the basis for the Magi’s trip. But an asterism doesn’t necessarily imply a line. Furthermore, once you toss out the word “asterism” in this context, there’s hundreds of different candidates around the solstice (which occurred at a different time then). It basically narrows it down … not.
Furthermore, there is no information at all as to when the author of Matthew thought the two or more Magi visited. It could have easily even 2 years later. So the time of year of their trip is completely unknowable.
Also bear in mind that there is no biblical reference to Jesus being born around the winter solstice, or at any specific time of year for that matter. The only hint of a seasonal reference is the fact that shepherds were keeping watch over their flocks at night, which they were most likely to be doing during the spring lambing season.
Nor is there any mention of three magi in Matthew.
In biblical, pre-light-pollution times, there were roughly five thousand naked-eye visible stars from any point on the globe. The odds that three of them don’t point to where the sun will rise on any morning at all have to be close to negligible, especially if you get to apply astrology-level fudging to “align” and “point to.”
Also, if there were three stars that pointed towards the rising sun at the Solstice at this particular time, the same three stars would also point towards the same location for many years before the event, and many years after. Yes, the sky changes over time, but very, very slowly.
If there were any specific alignment in this era that pointed towards a specific date and location, it would need to be an alignment of planets, or possibly stars and planets together. The wiki article mentioned earlier suggests a few options.
Read it more carefully and see if you can spot the word “three” in there. In my reading it says “Magi from the east” with no number given. The idea that there were three of them is a later assumption, probably based on the fact that they gave three different gifts. Also note the traditional names (Balthasar, Melchior, Caspar, or similar names) of the Magi are not given in the Bible.
Weren’t the magi coming from Iran? Wouldn’t following stars that point to the rising sun at the winter solstice point them southeast towards India? Am I missing something obvious?
You mean other than that whoever came up with this myth didn’t care about astronomical accuracy?
This is my understanding of the theory.
The biblical story of Jesus being born on Dec 25th and three wise men following a star in the north to his birth is all a metaphor for astronomical phenomenon
Jesus is the sun, the three wise men are the three stars that point towards where the sunrise occurs and the sunrise on the solstice is the birth of Jesus.
But…ignoring all of the above, “need answer fast?” I realize the solstice is near, but are you planning a journey? If so, there’s now a whole constellation of “stars” we call by the ancient Mesopotamian name “GPS Satellites” that might be a better choice.
Some “planning”. OP heard this theory “[s]everal years ago” but now, on the very eve of a winter solstice, he “need[s] answer fast”.
Some years ago, I saw a show at a planetarium on this very subject. The show didn’t find any conclusions, but did display a variety of theories. It’s really neat what they can do with those big star projectors – they can run it forward or backward in time, to display the stars just as they were on the winter solstice of 4 BC or any other time they like, past or future.
What biblical story of Jesus being born on Dec 25th?
What biblical story of Jesus being born on Dec 25th?
You can do the same thing yourself, at home. Just download stellarium.org (or similar), punch in a place and time, and voila. (If you really want your own dome, add a video projector and spherical mirror.)
I actually did this, using Celestia; the closest bright* star *to the sunrise is Antares, and there are numerous other stars that could conceivably form an alignment in that sector, but none that seem particularly significant.
But the exact alignment of planets depends very strongly on which year Jesus was born in, and there is considerable doubt about that.
While the stars do not move relatively to each other, their alignment with the sun does. Due to precession of the equinoxes, the sun’s alignment with the stars occurs 28 days later that it did 2000 years ago. Two thousand years ago, the winter solstice occurred on December 25th, A similar star alignment today would occur 28 days after the winter solstice, or about January 18th.