is the story of jesus really about the movement of the stars and planets?

Question

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5216975979627863972&q=zeitgeist&total=764&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=3

i found this very en/lightening.
what do you think?

Answer 1

Hi Jason!

This question has been argued up and down. The accounts mentioned in the Gospels would be astronomically impossible.

Take, for instance, the story of the Star of Bethlehem. According to Matthew, "... and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was."

Anyone who watches the stars know that stars don't move like that, coming to rest over a certain place. They do not come to rest at all. If the Star of Bethlehem were an astronomical object, it could not move to the zenith at Bethlehem and then stop, to mark the place.

The star would stay with a constellation if it were, say, a super nova, following the same orbit night after night. (No supernova was reported by astronomers anywhere in the world at that time, and certainly not with the remarkable start-stop properties of the Star of Bethlehem.) For a star at astronomical distances to stop while the rest of the constellations moved would be utterly impossible under Einsteinian relativity, since it would be moving relative to other stars at a speed far, far in excess of the speed of light.

If it were an unusual conjunction of bright planets, everyone would notice the planets coming together well in advance. Bright planets would not stop, over Bethlehem or anyplace else. They move through the evening. Jupiter and Saturn passed one another in the year 7 B.C., but no one thinks Jesus was born in 7 B.C., and if He was, a lot of other biblical events must be wrongly reported.

If Venus were one of the bright planets, it is metaphysically impossible for Venus to appear overhead in the sky. Venus cannot get higher than 47 degrees above the horizon, anywhere in the world.

The most obvious explanation for the Star of Bethlehem is that it fulfils a pre-existing prophecy in the Book of Micah. Either God performed a special miracle at Bethlehem, one that does not involve astronomical phenomena (something like the miracle of the falling sun at Fatima, reported by the faithful in 1917 but absolutely not observed anywhere else in the world, despite its obviously earth-shaking nature); or Gospel writers simply supposed that the Star of Bethlehem must have happened because the prophet Micah said it would.

Answer 2

His birth is. The magi saw a star in the sky (Jupiter and Saturn) and being astrologers the gathered it had some significance. So they walked in the direction where the star was at its highest in the night sky. Eventually they stumbled on Jesus. They told his parents that Jesus was the son of god. So did his parents all his life. This sealed his faith. The actual date for Jesus birth is off by several years as the date was calculated wrong. So Jesus was born in the year 7 BC which coincides with a Saturn-Jupiter occultation.

Answer 3

Nope, sorry. This requires a leap of FAITH.

Astronomy is a science. Science requires some hard, tangible evidence. It's bad enought that we end up reaching beyond evidence to logical "theories" and "hypotheses".

Answer 4

Interesting, but unless you are a religious theoretician, ultimately unimportant.

It has no relevance to science.

Answer 5

Yep

Answer 6

Nope.

Answer 7

No, it's not.