Star of Bethlehem: Scientific Verification (vs. an Atheist)

Atheist and anti-theist Bob Seidensticker runs the influential Cross Examined blog. I have critiqued 83 of his articles, (no counter-reply as of yet). He was gracious enough to send me a free e-book copy of his new volume, 2-Minute Christianity: 50 Big Ideas Every Christian Should Understand (May 2022), which I critiqued point-by-point. His words will be in blue.

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This is a reply to his articles, “Can the Star of Bethlehem be scientifically verified?” (11-28-22) and “The Star of Bethlehem, a real event?” (12-6-22).

The New Testament has two nativity stories, one in Matthew and one in Luke. They both claim Bethlehem as the birthplace and a virgin birth, but that’s all they agree on.

The last clause is not true. Simply having different but complementary accounts is not disagreement. It’s not even logical to claim that, unless there are demonstrable direct contradictions in play (and there aren’t). It would be like me writing about a white Christmas (that we are about to have in Michigan) and my wife writing about the presents our family got.

Is that “contradictory”? Apparently, Bob would say it is, and that we disagreed. I and classical logic say it isn’t. A real contradiction would be, for example, me saying that our family exchanged no presents this Christmas, and my wife describing fifty presents that we opened up this Christmas.

The shepherds “keeping watch over their flock by night,” murderous king Herod, the census, the baby in a manger, fleeing to Egypt—these are all unique to one or the other of those gospels.

Yeah, so what? It’s irrelevant: what we call a non sequitur in logic. They chose to highlight different aspects. Big wow.

Larson ignored that little problem . . . 

It is no problem, so it didn’t have to be “ignored.”

Larson . . . focused just on the magi (perhaps best thought of as astrologers in the royal court) following the star in Matthew chapter 2.

Since his video was about the star of Bethlehem, that makes perfect sense, doesn’t it?! What: now we can’t focus on one topic unless we comprehensively deal with every jot and tittle of alleged NT “contradictions” according to atheists? It’s absurd. Secondly, they were of the priestly caste. They weren’t kings, and the Bible never refers to them as such (that’s just more mythical “Christmas carolology”).

If you’re going to look at historical astronomical phenomena to find what happened in the sky around Jesus’s birth, you need to know when to look.

I totally agree.

Matthew tells us that Jesus was born during the reign of King Herod, who scholars say died in 4 BCE.

That’s the current consensus, but there are serious objections to it. I summarized some of them in chapter 13 of my soon-to-be-published book, The Word Set in Stone: How Science, History, and Archaeology Prove Biblical Truth:

Historians have primarily relied on the Jewish  historian Josephus (37-c. 100 A.D.) for determination of this date, as influentially interpreted by Protestant theologian and historian Emil Schürer in his 1891 book, A History of the Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ. But physicist John A. Cramer noted that the lunar eclipse preceding Herod’s death, as noted by Josephus, may have been at a later date than the usually accepted one:

This date [4 B.C.] is based on Josephus’s remark in Antiquities 17.6.4 that there was a lunar eclipse shortly before Herod died. This is traditionally ascribed to the eclipse of March 13, 4 B.C. Unfortunately, this eclipse was visible only very late that night in Judea and was additionally a minor and only partial eclipse. There were no lunar eclipses visible in Judea thereafter until two occurred in the year 1 B.C. Of these two, the one on December 29, just two days before the change of eras, gets my vote since it was the one most likely to be seen and remembered. That then dates the death of Herod the Great into the first year of the current era, four years after the usual date.[i]

This argument was also advanced in the nineteenth century by scholars Édouard Caspari, Florian Riess, and others, so it’s not new. Josephus[ii] also noted that Herod died before the Jewish Passover holy day.

These are our two historical clues. John A. Cramer, continuing his analysis based on Josephus, concluded:

Only four lunar eclipses occurred in the likely time frame: September 15, 5 B.C., March 12-13, 4 B.C., January 10, 1 B.C. and December 29, 1 B.C. . . .

The December 29 eclipse, the moon rose at 53 percent eclipse, and its most visible aspect was over by 6 P.M. It is the most likely of the four to have been noted and commented on.[iii]

Noted professor of New Testament history and archaeology Jack Finegan (1908-2000) took a different approach and examined the manuscript evidence in Josephus:

The currently known text of Josephus’ Ant. 18.106 states that [Herod] Philip died in the twentieth year of Tiberius (A.D. 33/34 . . .) . . . This points to Philip’s ascension at the death of Herod in 4 B.C.. . . .

In 1995 David W. Beyer reported to the Society for Biblical Literature his personal examination in the British Museum of forty-six editions of Josephus’s Antiquities published before 1700 among which twenty-seven texts, all but three published before 1544 read “twenty-second year of Tiberius,” while not one single edition published prior to 1544 read “twentieth year of Tiberius.” . . .

[This] points to 1 B.C. . . . as the year of death of Herod. . . . Accordingly, if the birth of Jesus was two years or less before the death of Herod in 1 B.C., the date of birth was in 3 or 2 B.C., presumably precisely in the period 3/2 B.C., so consistently attested by the most credible early church fathers.[iv]

Jack Finegan noted some early writers’ reckoning3/2 B.C. for the birth of Jesus, including Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Julius Africanus, Hippolytus of Rome, Hippolytus of Thebes, Origen, Eusebius of Caesarea, and Epiphanius of Salamis. Another argument that can be made is the date of coins issued by Herod the Great’s successors. The evidence shows that none can be dated before 1 A.D. These coins were controlled by Rome, and only after Herod the Great’s death could such coins be issued. It would be odd for a five-year gap to occur.

As we shall see, a tentative acceptance of Herod’s death in 1 B.C. or 1 A.D. (if Finegan and others of the same opinion are in fact right) will be significant in terms of lining up the known astronomical data regarding an extraordinary “bright star” in the sky that can ostensibly or speculatively be equated with the star of Bethlehem.

[i] John A. Cramer, “Herod’s Death, Jesus’ Birth and a Lunar Eclipse: Letters to the Editor debate dates of Herod’s death and Jesus’ birth,” Bible History Daily / Biblical Archaeology Society (30 November 2020; originally 7 January 2015):

[ii] Josephus, Antiquities 17.9.3; The Jewish War 2.1.3.

[iii] Cramer, ibid.

[iv] Jack Finegan, Handbook of Biblical Chronology (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Hendrickson, 1998), 298-299.

Larson said that he was temporarily sidelined by worries that this might be astrology, because the Bible warns its followers away from astrology. [cites Isaiah 47:13–15] However, Larson found a green light in biblical references to constellations Orion and Pleiades (Job 9:9) and reminders that God created the stars and named them (Isaiah 40:26). This is another example that the Bible can be made to say just about anything. Astrology is bad or astrology is not bad—it’s all there.

Having rationalized an argument that his work wasn’t blasphemous, Larson soldiered on.

Nonsense. Astrology as it is today is indeed condemned in the Bible. But simply observing the stars and constellations is not condemned. As I wrote in my book:

They were . . . Zoroastrians: members of a religion that forbade sorcery, and  astrologers in the ancient Mesopotamian definition, where the appearance of the heavens was seen as a reflection of what happened on earth but not an actual cause. [italics added presently]

So, nice try to manufacture another “contradiction,” but no cigar. The Bible never says that the star of Bethlehem or any celestial phenomenon caused the birth of Jesus. The cause is clearly spelled out: He was conceived supernaturally by the Holy Spirit (Mt 1:18-21; Lk 1:35).

(8) The star went ahead of them, and then (9) it stopped. Taking the story literally, it sounds like the star was a moving light, like a firefly. 

I dealt with this yesterday in another reply to Bob regarding the star. It was referring to retrograde motion of planets: a phenomenon that Bob himself conceded could account for the star “stopping” (and one which the stargazers of that time — amazingly — were already familiar with). None of this requires a “Tinker Bell” or “firefly”-like event.

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The Star of Bethlehem was (drum roll, please), the planet Jupiter! 

It was in the last six-mile portion of the wise men’s journey (from Jerusalem to Bethlehem). Initially, it was Jupiter in conjunction with Regulus, Venus, Mars, and other celestial bodies, in the period between September, 3 BC and December, 2 BC. But Jupiter was the common denominator of all these “light shows.” Bob wrote about Regulus:

Jupiter had not one but three conjunctions with Regulus (September of 3 BCE, then February the next year, and finally in May). Regulus is actually a four-star system, but the magi would have known it as a single, bright star in the constellation Leo. . . . 

The three Jupiter/Regulus conjunctions are because of Jupiter’s retrograde motion.

All natural phenomena, that God in His providence used to guide the wise men.

Next on the calendar was a very close Jupiter/Venus conjunction on June 17 of 2 BCE, so close that the distance separating them was about the apparent width of either planet. Specifically, they were about 40 seconds apart. (There are 60 seconds in a minute and 60 minutes in a degree and 360 degrees in a full circle. For comparison, a full moon is 30 minutes, or 1800 seconds, in diameter.)

Another natural event, producing a bright “star” . . .

The magi would’ve been familiar with conjunctions, and the remarkable thing about this conjunction wasn’t the brightness but the closeness. Conjunctions this close aren’t that rare astronomically, but they would’ve been unusual or unique in the lifetimes of these men.

There you go . . .

This is an interesting set of facts, but Larson benefits from 20/20 hindsight. He knows what he wants to find, so he scans the possibilities (and moves the date of Herod’s death to open up more possibilities) to find what he wants. 

The date of Herod’s death has to be determined in and of itself. If it was 4 BC, none of these events are relevant: they would not have been the “Star of Bethlehem” (period; game over). But if he did die a few years later, then it’s a live possibility that these events were what the wise men saw: leading them to Jerusalem. Larson didn’t “move” the date. He simply threw out for consideration that it may have been later. None of this constitutes dishonestly “find[ing] what he wants” or special pleading or rationalization. People can have honest disagreements!

The Bible’s nativity story is feeble evidence that any magi could or did draw the conclusions Larson would like.

It can be verified by astronomical data, and (again) if Herod didn’t in fact die in 4 BC, then it seems remarkably backed up by what we can determine from astronomy. Atheists always demand “evidence!!!” and “verification” (because many of them seem to think — falsely — that science is the only form of valid, solid knowledge) and that’s precisely what this undertaking is presenting.

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