# Do three stars align with the sunrise on the winter solstice? Need answer fast **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 21, 2019, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-three-stars-align-with-the-sunrise-on-the-winter-solstice-need-answer-fast/845198 "2019-12-21T21:04:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2019, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-three-stars-align-with-the-sunrise-on-the-winter-solstice-need-answer-fast/845198/21 "2019-12-22T12:39:40Z")
> [@FlikTheBlue](#): > > 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? 1. They came from “east of Jerusalem”. That covers a lot of territory. The only hint regarding Persia is the use of the term “magi”. But note that a lot of people used magi/magus in that region around that time. One mentioned in _Acts_ is [Simon Magus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Magus) who was apparently a Samaritan, i.e., from the Judea area. Another person called a “magus” in _Acts_ is [Elymas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elymas) who was Jewish. Josephus wrote about a Cypriot magus named [Atomos](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomus). 2. There is nothing in the New Testament to suggest the Magi visited anywhere near the solstice. Again, this thread demonstrates a problem so many people have of distinguishing what is actually in the Bible vs. the folklore that later accumulated. (BTW: The singular term “star” (astēr) is used in Matthew. No plural.) ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2019, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-three-stars-align-with-the-sunrise-on-the-winter-solstice-need-answer-fast/845198/22 "2019-12-22T13:34:57Z")
> [@](#): > > 1. There is nothing in the New Testament to suggest the Magi visited anywhere near the solstice. Actually, to break that down, there’s nothing in the New Testament to suggest what time of year Jesus was born, _and_ even if he was born near the Southern Solstice, it doesn’t matter, because there’s also nothing in there that says that the visit by the Magi came when he was still a newborn. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2019, 7:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-three-stars-align-with-the-sunrise-on-the-winter-solstice-need-answer-fast/845198/23 "2019-12-23T07:22:38Z")
> [@DPRK](#): > > You can do the same thing yourself, at home. Just download [stellarium.org](http://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.) What really impressed me at that time-travelling star show (this was many years ago), was the not-digital, massively huge mechanical star projector ([photo](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bb/ZeissPlanetariumProjector_MontrealPlanetarium.jpg)) with the umpteen-unknown-thousands of moving parts. It tracks the movement of all the stars, planets and other heavenly lights completely mechanically like physical clockwork. They physically run the whole machine forward or backward in time. The whole thing seems to rotate around various axes in twelve or more dimensions and whole bunches of sub-components all have their own movements and axes of rotation, etc. How do they even build something like that? ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2019, 7:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-three-stars-align-with-the-sunrise-on-the-winter-solstice-need-answer-fast/845198/24 "2019-12-23T07:28:34Z")
BTW – OP, come back to this thread and tell us what you saw! Did you get out on the Solstice Night? Was the sky clear? Did you see any stars lined up? Did you follow them? Did you encounter any Magi on the road? Did you find the Holy Boy Child? What gifts did you bring? Did you come across any shepherds in the fields? Was the cold winter night really so deep? So many questions! ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2019, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-three-stars-align-with-the-sunrise-on-the-winter-solstice-need-answer-fast/845198/25 "2019-12-23T14:53:09Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > BTW – OP, come back to this thread and tell us what you saw! > > Did you get out on the Solstice Night? Was the sky clear? Did you see any stars lined up? Did you follow them? Did you encounter any Magi on the road? Did you find the Holy Boy Child? What gifts did you bring? Did you come across any shepherds in the fields? Was the cold winter night really so deep? So many questions! I fell asleep after watching Benny hill so the mystery of whether there is astronomical phenomena that gave birth to the three wise men myth will have to wait until next year apparently. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2019, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-three-stars-align-with-the-sunrise-on-the-winter-solstice-need-answer-fast/845198/26 "2019-12-23T14:55:17Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Actually, to break that down, there’s nothing in the New Testament to suggest what time of year Jesus was born, _and_ even if he was born near the Southern Solstice, it doesn’t matter, because there’s also nothing in there that says that the visit by the Magi came when he was still a newborn. The point was that the entire story of Jesus is just a metaphor for this astronomical phenomena according to this theory. There is no three magi, they were just metaphors for the three stars. Jesus was a metaphor for the sunrise on the solstice. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2019, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-three-stars-align-with-the-sunrise-on-the-winter-solstice-need-answer-fast/845198/27 "2019-12-23T18:31:07Z")
But that makes no sense, because the entire story of Jesus doesn’t specify a time of year, and even if the writers did know (or think they knew) when Jesus was born, the time they (thought they) knew probably wasn’t at the Solstice. ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2019, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-three-stars-align-with-the-sunrise-on-the-winter-solstice-need-answer-fast/845198/28 "2019-12-23T18:58:54Z")
I think if you pick any arbitrary point on the horizon, you can probably find three stars that align with that point. But the main reason this theory doesn’t make sense is, as mentioned, the earliest versions of the story and the one in the Bible don’t mention that there were three Magi. If the whole story is an astronomical metaphor for these mythical three stars, it’s hard to see how that part could be missing from the original story. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2019, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-three-stars-align-with-the-sunrise-on-the-winter-solstice-need-answer-fast/845198/29 "2019-12-23T19:23:09Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > But that makes no sense, because the entire story of Jesus doesn’t specify a time of year, and even if the writers did know (or think they knew) when Jesus was born, the time they (thought they) knew probably wasn’t at the Solstice. Eventually, it was decided that Jesus was born on December 25th. Supposedly to factor in pagan beliefs. Point is the story of Jesus was just written to match pre existing pagan astrological phenomena involving the solstice. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2019, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-three-stars-align-with-the-sunrise-on-the-winter-solstice-need-answer-fast/845198/30 "2019-12-23T19:30:41Z")
Yes, it was eventually decided to celebrate Jesus’ birth on December 25 (though even then, I don’t know if the folks who decided that actually believed it was any more accurate than the Queen’s Birthday is in the UK). Eventually. As in, long, long after the story of Jesus was written. And even if December 25 was chosen to factor in pagan beliefs, it’d be a completely different set of pagans than whichever ones were relevant at the time the story of Jesus was written. Your argument is like claiming that Henry Ford never actually existed, and the Ford Motor Company was actually named after the 38th President of the United States. Showing that there was a real President of the United States in 1904 doesn’t help your case at all. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2019, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-three-stars-align-with-the-sunrise-on-the-winter-solstice-need-answer-fast/845198/31 "2019-12-23T20:27:22Z")
> [@bizerta](#): > > While the stars do not move relatively to each other Sure they do; not super fast, of course. But enough so that people can and did notice over a couple of thousand years. > [@](#): > > Two thousand years ago, the winter solstice occurred on December 25th Getting back to astronomy, how are you getting that date, rather than around December 20-21 (or let’s say December 22-23 in the Julian calendar)? ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2019, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-three-stars-align-with-the-sunrise-on-the-winter-solstice-need-answer-fast/845198/32 "2019-12-23T22:05:55Z")
> [@DPRK](#): > > Getting back to astronomy, how are you getting that date [Dec 25], rather than around December 20-21 (or let’s say December 22-23 in the Julian calendar)? When Julius Caesar instituted his canlendar, the winter solstice was on the 25th (or 24th, it moves a bit from year to year, and sometimes that takes it to the previous/next day). But his calendar was off on the length of the year and the solstice drifted away from that date over the centuries. It was finally corrected by Pope Gregory XIII in the 16th century, at which time they dropped 10 days to get it back to what it once was. But they didn’t get it all the way back to Caesar’s day, but rather to the early 4th century when the date of Easter was set. That was much more important than the date of Christmas. So it’s still four days off of what it was originally. ---
**Author:** ![RioRico](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f04885/32.png) [@RioRico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RioRico)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2019, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-three-stars-align-with-the-sunrise-on-the-winter-solstice-need-answer-fast/845198/33 "2019-12-23T22:28:46Z")
Stars can behave strangely to humans. Rise in the west; move north or south; stand still. Seasons and years are just as funny. [But a census?](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Census_of_Quirinius#Mention_in_the_Gospel_of_Luke) > [@](#): > > …the gospel links the birth of Jesus to the reign of Herod the Great, but the census took place in 6 CE, nine years after Herod’s death in 4 BCE; there was no single census of the entire empire under Augustus; no Roman census required people to travel from their own homes to those of distant ancestors; and the census of Judea would not have affected Joseph and his family, living in Galilee. So if Yusef and Maryam left home in Natzrat (which place was unrecorded then) to Bet Leḥem, it wasn’t due to a census. If a historical Yeshua actually existed, he was born in spring; we can combine Xmas and Easter. If Magi showed up some time later, they either didn’t arrive from the east or didn’t follow rising stars. Wouldn’t sky-watchers besides a few Magi have seen the astral signs? Wouldn’t a mass of astrologers have descended on Judea? > [@DPRK](#): > > Getting back to astronomy, how are you getting that date, rather than around December 20-21 (or let’s say December 22-23 in the Julian calendar)? [I just checked.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_calendar) Today is 23 December 2019 Gregorian, 10 December 2019 Julian. Xmas will be 13 days late. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2019, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-three-stars-align-with-the-sunrise-on-the-winter-solstice-need-answer-fast/845198/34 "2019-12-24T00:08:47Z")
> [@RioRico](#): > > [I just checked.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_calendar) Today is 23 December 2019 Gregorian, 10 December 2019 Julian. Xmas will be 13 days late. We are talking about 2000 years ago. Only a couple days’ difference. (I mean, if you extrapolate the Gregorian calendar.) > [@dtilque](#): > > When Julius Caesar instituted his canlendar, the winter solstice was on the 25th (or 24th, it moves a bit from year to year, and sometimes that takes it to the previous/next day). But his calendar was off on the length of the year and the solstice drifted away from that date over the centuries. It was finally corrected by Pope Gregory XIII in the 16th century, at which time they dropped 10 days to get it back to what it once was. But they didn’t get it all the way back to Caesar’s day, but rather to the early 4th century when the date of Easter was set. That was much more important than the date of Christmas. So it’s still four days off of what it was originally. This is where you have lost me. You are claiming that around Caesar’s reform, let’s say 45 B.C., the date of the winter solstice (in the Julian calendar) was December 25, but I think (admittedly based on only a rough calculation, but I don’t think I was 2 days off) it was December 23. Can you show your work? By the 4th century, we are talking around December 20, and March 20 for the vernal equinox. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2019, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-three-stars-align-with-the-sunrise-on-the-winter-solstice-need-answer-fast/845198/35 "2019-12-24T02:12:00Z")
> [@RioRico](#): > > [I just checked.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_calendar) Today is 23 December 2019 Gregorian, 10 December 2019 Julian. Xmas will be 13 days late. Today is also, of course, [Eternal September](https://www.eternal-september.org) 9610, 1993. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2019, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-three-stars-align-with-the-sunrise-on-the-winter-solstice-need-answer-fast/845198/36 "2019-12-24T04:39:41Z")
> [@DPRK](#): > > This is where you have lost me. You are claiming that around Caesar’s reform, let’s say 45 B.C., the date of the winter solstice (in the Julian calendar) was December 25, but I think (admittedly based on only a rough calculation, but I don’t think I was 2 days off) it was December 23. Can you show your work? > > By the 4th century, we are talking around December 20, and March 20 for the vernal equinox. I’m not sure they did any significant calculation. I think they just knew from records that the vernal equinox (which is what they were actually interested in) was ten days later in 325 than what it was going to be in 1583. So they skipped forward ten days to get it back to that day. That, according to the Gregorian rules of how leap years are dropped, actually put the calendar back to the 3rd century, not the 4th. The one-day difference might just have been because of the difference in where 325 (or perhaps 324) and 1583 were in the 4-year leapyear cycle. However somewhere I heard that they did do calculations but used a slightly wrong length of the day and thus got it wrong. Maybe that’s right, I don’t know. At any rate, the Wikipedia entry for [Julian Calendar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_calendar) says: > [@](#): > > Caesar’s reform was intended to solve this problem permanently, by creating a calendar that remained aligned to the sun without any human intervention. … A century later, when Pliny dated the winter solstice to 25 December because the sun entered the 8th degree of Capricorn on that date,[10] this stability had become an ordinary fact of life. I doubt if “8th degree of Capricorn” is all that exact from a modern measurement point of view, so perhaps the actual solstice was on the 24th or even the 23rd by that time. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2019, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-three-stars-align-with-the-sunrise-on-the-winter-solstice-need-answer-fast/845198/37 "2019-12-24T21:01:40Z")
Well, the OP asked about sunrise on the winter solstice (Dec. 23 on the date in question), not sunrise on some date somebody calculated was more or less near the solstice. Either way, the sun will not have moved THAT far in the sky in the meantime. Anyway, it looks like a regular starry night to me, but feel free to load up the planetarium software of your choice and use your imagination. ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2019, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-three-stars-align-with-the-sunrise-on-the-winter-solstice-need-answer-fast/845198/38 "2019-12-28T14:20:35Z")
The software I use compensates for the procession of the equinoxes, but I didn’t allow for the three or four days change in the calendar. That would be a trivial consideration, however. Much more important is determining which year Jesus was born in- has anybody got a clue? ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2019, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-three-stars-align-with-the-sunrise-on-the-winter-solstice-need-answer-fast/845198/39 "2019-12-28T21:56:37Z")
> [@eburacum45](#): > > Much more important is determining which year Jesus was born in- has anybody got a clue? While the year range for the birth is kinda wide, it isn’t anywhere close to being broad enough to cause a problem in determining what stars (per the OP) were in the sky before sunrise (for example) on a given time in the solar (per the OP) calendar. ---
**Author:** ![RioRico](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f04885/32.png) [@RioRico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RioRico)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2019, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-three-stars-align-with-the-sunrise-on-the-winter-solstice-need-answer-fast/845198/40 "2019-12-28T22:00:16Z")
> [@eburacum45](#): > > The software I use compensates for the procession of the equinoxes, but I didn’t allow for the three or four days change in the calendar. That would be a trivial consideration, however. > > Much more important is determining which year Jesus was born in- has anybody got a clue? [Many clues, all inconsistent.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Date_of_birth_of_Jesus) > [@](#): > > The date of birth of Jesus is not stated in the gospels or in any historical reference, but most theologians assume a year of birth between 6 BC and 1 BC.[1] The historical evidence is too incomplete to allow a definitive dating,[2] but the year is estimated through two different approaches—one by analyzing references to known historical events mentioned in the nativity accounts in the Gospels of Luke and Matthew, and the second by working backward from the estimation of the start of the ministry of Jesus.[3][4] The day or season has been estimated by various methods, including the description of shepherds watching over their sheep.[5] This assumes that Yeshua bir Miryam “actually” existed in our observable reality in a timeline that somehow accords with censuses and slaughters unrecorded elsewhere. IOW pick whatever date you want. And I recently read (sorry, can’t find the cite) an analysis of the Magi’s “star” as being an astrological aspect, not an astronomical event. Pick an astrology system and chart your aspects, no problem! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-three-stars-align-with-the-sunrise-on-the-winter-solstice-need-answer-fast/845198.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-three-stars-align-with-the-sunrise-on-the-winter-solstice-need-answer-fast/845198.md?page=3)