What
was or is the Star of Bethlehem?
By Jeffrey Goodman, Ph.D.
Many people consider the Biblical story
of the Star of Bethlehem to be a fairy tale or myth. Some ask if there was a Star of Bethlehem,
where is it now? They say that there is no scientific evidence for the Star as presented
in Matthew, chapter 2. On the other
hand, some people speculate that the Star was either a planetary conjunction or
a comet. As scientific knowledge about
the heavens rapidly increases, astronomy just might provide a scientific explanation for the Star of Bethlehem.
The Christmas story in Matthew tells
of wise men who came to Jerusalem searching for the one born King of the Jews
for they had “seen his star in the east.”
The
wise men probably came from Babylonia tracing back to
the prophet Daniel and the Judean exile where a large Jewish population still lived in Babylonia. They would have made the connection of the
star to the Jewish King based on the prophecy told of in Numbers 24:17 which says, “…there shall come a Star out of
Jacob and a Scepter shall rise out of Israel ….”
During their visit with King Herod, he
told them that according to prophecy (Micah 5:2) the ruler of Israel was to
come from Bethlehem of Judea. He also asked “what time the star appeared
(2:7).” After the wise men departed for
Bethlehem they again saw the same star which they had seen in the east as it
stood over where the young child was. Matthew 2:10 says when they saw the star they
rejoiced with exceedingly great joy.
The
story provides some very interesting information about the Christmas Star. First, nothing in the story indicates that
everyone saw the Star – only the wise men.
The fact that Herod asks when the star appeared and it appeared again
after the wise men left Jerusalem implies that the star was not always
visible. So we can gather that the word
“star” is not being used to designate a comet, a planet or a planetary
conjunction, objects which can be seen each night moving against the background
of stars. But what kind of star appears,
disappears and then reappears? Maybe the Star of Bethlehem is a very special
kind of Star which makes it very hard to locate and to see.
Meet the “Red dwarf stars.” Red dwarfs have masses that
range from forty percent to just eight percent of the mass of the Sun, and
diameters as small as one-seventh the diameter of our Sun. They emit little light, sometimes less than
1/10,000 that of the Sun. Red dwarfs are the most common star type in
the Galaxy, and twenty-one of the thirty nearest stars to the Sun are red
dwarfs. Some red dwarfs can suddenly
erupt and temporarily get much brighter, and the light given off by some red
dwarfs can be obscured or concealed by a “nebula” or cloud. A “nebula” is an interstellar cloud of dust
and gases, something quite different than an atmospheric cloud.
Astronomers call
a cloud-enshrouded eruptive red dwarf a “flare star.”[1] More simply, a flare
star is a red dwarf that may undergo very sudden short term changes in
brightness. Most dim red dwarfs are also
flare stars. Since flare stars can
suddenly brighten as much as six magnitudes or more and go from invisible to
visible and then back to invisible in minutes, a “wise man” who knew both where
and when to look could see an otherwise dark red dwarf star when it flares and
unveils itself.[2] Could the star the wise men saw in the East
and then saw again in Bethlehem have been a flare star? A flare star erupting and then suddenly
increasing in brightness would explain Matthew
2:10 which says, “When they saw the star (in Bethlehem) they rejoiced with
exceeding great joy.” Is this why
Matthew 2:7 says Herod secretly asked the wise men “what time the star appeared.” It
is a blessing to be looking in the right place at the right time when a flare star suddenly erupts
and unveils itself. Clearly we are not
talking about a star that can be seen with the naked eye each night like the
millions of stars that dot the sky each night.
For comparative
purposes consider that on April 25, 2008 the tiny “red dwarf
star known as EV Lacertae, unleashed a mega flare packing the power of
thousands of solar flares. The flare was
not seen but recorded by Russian and American satellites. To anyone looking in the right spot at the
right time the flare would have been visible to the naked eye. Rachel Osten of NASA’s Goddard Space Center
in a report titled “Red dwarf star releases giant burst of light,” and said
“Here’s a small cool star that shot off a monster flare.” It is interesting to note that Proxima
Centauri, the closest known star to the Earth (4.22 light years away), and many
other known stars closest to the Earth are red dwarf
flare stars. The possibility of being
able to find an unknown flare star in the Earth’s stellar neighborhood by modern
astronomical techniques is demonstrated by the discovery in 2003 of a faint red
dwarf, a probable flare star that at first appeared to represent the third closest
star system to our own. “Our new stellar
neighbor is a pleasant surprise, since we weren’t looking for it,” wrote
Bonnard Teegarden, an astrophysicist with NASA’s Goddard Flight Center. Teegarden and his colleagues detected the
unknown star while searching a database of telescopic sky survey
observations. “It was while going
through the database that researchers discovered the dim red
dwarf, which shines about 300,000 times fainter than the Sun. Its faintness has
veiled it from astronomers until now. . . .” Bonnard Teegarden, the discoverer of
the new star said, “since the survey only covered a band of the sky (about
twenty-five degrees in declination), it is entirely possible that other faint
objects remain to be discovered.”
It should be noted that a number of
scientists such as award winning astrophysicist, Richard Mueller of the
University of California Berkeley, believe that a dark dwarf star exists in our
solar system. For various reasons a number of these astronomers propose that
our local star, the Sun, like most other stars in the universe has a
companion! This proposed companion has
come to be popularly referred to as “Nemesis.” Nemesis has still not yet been seen and confirmed
after 30 years, most likely because it is “dark,” and it gives off very little
light. Some scientists say that it is
not simply faint but actually “sub-luminous” meaning this type of star is
relatively cool and does not give off enough radiant energy to be clearly seen
via electromagnetic spectral emission in the visible light band. Another possibility is that something is
obscuring the light that this star gives off.
Beyond the Nemesis theory, some astronomers
are now searching the sky for small sources of light and infrared radiation, which might indicate the
location of a secretive companion star to our Sun, most likely an infrared emitting brown
dwarf or a red dwarf.[3]
The Bible
appears to give information about this special type of flaring red dwarf
star in a number of different places. Arguments
could be made that some scriptures talk about this star. In light of the
detailed information the Bible provides about comets, it would not be surprising that the Bible also gives information
about a type of star that can drive comets to the Earth. (For full references
please see THE COMETS OF GOD, and see
www.thecometsofgod.com and www.newscientificevidenceforgod.com
Psalm 19:4 says, “he hath set a tabernacle for the sun,” and since a
“tabernacle” is a “dwelling place” (Interlinear Bible) this suggests
that this dark dwarf, is part of the solar system. Psalm 19:6 says, “His
going forth is from the end of the heaven (‘heavens’ – Interlinear, NAS, NIV)
and his circuit (‘orbit’ – Interlinear Bible) unto the ends of it: and
there is nothing hid from the heat thereof (‘from His heat’ –
Interlinear).” This suggests that the
star travels at the end of the solar system (heaven).[4] When Psalm 19:6 also says that
“nothing is hid from the heat thereof or from His heat,” it suggests that
this star is an infrared emitter, as infrared radiation is the heat given off by a
body. Infrared radiation is a function
of temperature, and this is how night vision glasses work by making heat waves
visible.
A flare star,
that is, an eruptive red dwarf star enshrouded in a hydrogen cloud, is an infrared
emitter, because the dim light it gives off is mostly blocked and converted to
additional heat by the thick and opaque hydrogen cloud that conceals it. II Peter 1:19 may apply here since it
talks about “a light that shineth in a dark place” until the day comes when the
“day star” arises. “A light that shineth
in a dark place” is an accurate description of a flare star, a
star that shines inside the cloud that covers and conceals it. Finally, it must be noted that most flare
stars are dim eruptive red dwarfs and that all flare stars are infrared
emitters.
While the Bible
is not a science book, it contains historical and scientific information. There
are scriptures that clearly describe cosmic objects enshrouded by clouds,
objects that shine in dark places, and objects that unseen by we
Earthlings. Finally, could the Star out
of Jacob, a Scepter out of Israel, the Star seen only by the wise men at the
time of Jesus’ birth also be the “sign of the Son of Man in heaven …” Matthew
24:30) that appears with Jesus’ return? If
so, according to the Bible it will make a reappearance that many will see.
[1] On December 7, 1947 the American astronomer K.
G. Carpenter accidentally photographed UV Ceti while it was
flaring. UV Ceti increased in brightness
by a factor of 12 and returned to normal within a three minute time span. The word didn’t get out to the astronomical
community until 1948, and the next flare star discovered, AD Leo, was in 1949. G. A. Gurzadyan, Flare
Stars, Pergamom Press, New York, 1980, p. 1. A different account of the discovery of flare
stars is given in Burnham’s Celestial Handbook by Robert Burnham, Dover
Publication, New York, 1966, pp. 641 and 642, and in Variable
Stars by Michel Petit, John Wiley & Sons, New York, 1982, p. 156. In these two books Willem J. Luyten of the
University of Minnesota is credited with first discovering the flaring of the
UV Ceti system (L726-8) in 1948, and this discovery being announced by Harvard Observatory in April
1949. The fainter member of this pair of
stars called the UV Ceti system has been called “Luyten’s Flare Star” and it is
the classic example of the type.
[2] The
flares of a flare star (stellar
flares) are unlike the more familiar flares of our Sun (solar flares). The flares of a flare star are of a
different nature and infinitely greater magnitude than the flares that
our sun undergoes. “A stellar flare is a
grandiose event, truly stellar in its scale, an event that, each time it
appears, encompasses huge volumes of space around the star and develops with
fabulous large speed”— G. A. Gurzadyan, Flare Stars, Pergamon Press, New
York, 1980, p. 334. In an article called
“The Atmosphere of M Dwarfs” which appears in The M-Type Stars – NASA
(J. Johnson and F. Querci editors) 1986.
[3]
Several
astronomical surveys are currently underway.
In particular the “Wide Field Infrared Survey Explorer” (WISE) a
NASA funded satellite mission carries an infrared sensitive telescope. Note that instead of giving off radiation in
the visible light spectrum, an infrared brown dwarf
and many red dwarfs would only give off radiation of invisible infrared
wavelengths.
[4] In the Bible, when used in
regard to astronomy the term “heaven” pertains to
the “solar system,” and the term “heaven of heavens”
pertains to the “greater solar system” which includes both the solar system and
the Oort Cloud. So in regard to astronomy, the term “heavens”
indicates both “heaven” and the “heaven of heavens.”
