The Bethlehem Star (Part 2)

How should modern scientific understanding affect interpretation of stars and heavenly signs in the Bible? For most of the ancient world, stars were heavenly beings - gods, angels, signs, omens. But for modern science stars are suns, with predictable orbits, and offer no such portents for life here on earth. How does this affect things Christianity has depended on for validation, such as the star of Bethlehem?

Suffering Messiah?

In Luke 24, on the road to Emmaus, an undercover Jesus walked with some of his disciples after his death and described from scripture how the messiah would "suffer" (i.e. die), and "enter into glory". Jesus started "with Moses" and then "all the Prophets" to prove this idea. This is way more than just the 53rd chapter of the book of Isaiah. Ever wonder what passages he used? Wouldn't it have been amazing to sit in on that Bible study! One scholar, David Mitchell, has a pretty good suggestion on what some of these passages might be. It seems that specific scriptures kept leading rabbis to talk about a dying and rising messiah, but these traditions have been indexed under a hard to find name -- messiah son of Joseph.

What was the Christmas Star?

I missed the Dec 21st conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in 2020. While the mist caressing the pine trees of the Pacific Northwest is seductive, this same mist obfuscates the sky more than not. The irony is that this was not the Christmas star that heralded Jesus' birth, even though it happened around the right time, 7 years before the common era. In fact, we know the exact date of the sign that made the magi travel so far, April 17th, 6 B.C.