As soon as god-begotten saviours were born, they were often visited by wise men—called in the apocryphal Christian gospels Magi, Persian priests. Magi, magic and magician are derivations from the same root, all suggesting a wisdom handed down by the gods. When the fame of Pythagoras (600 BC) reached Miletas and neighboring cities, their wise men came to visit him. In the Anacalypsis, Magi came from the East to offer gifts at Socrates’ birth, bringing gold, frankincense and myrrh, the very same offerings given to Christ. Gold, frankincense and myrrh were traditionally offered as gifts to the sun in Persia more than two and a half thousand years ago, and in Arabia about the same time. Zoroaster of Persia (700 BC), says he also was visited by Magi at his earthly advent.

Matthew tells us of a miraculous star bringing from the east to Judæa three wise men bearing gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.

We have seen his star in the east, and have come to worship him.

Mt 2:1

Details of now well known gospel traditions given by early writers in respect of the birth narratives show that they were not known in the same way as they emerged. This Christian Star story makes its first appearance about the year 119 AD in Rome and, curiously enough, three wise men had in 66 AD been brought to Rome from the east to worship the emperor! Moreover, a precursor of the story of Matthew’s travelling star occurs in Virgil (60 BC) where a star guides Æneas westward from Troy. Ignatius of Antioch in a letter of about 110 AD describes the star which appeared at the birth of Jesus:

A star shone in heaven brighter than all the stars. Its light was indescribable and its novelty caused amazement. The rest of the stars, along with the sun and the moon, formed a ring around it, yet it outshone them all.

This description sounds like a possible supernova, and the description in Revelation 12, if that is the same event, sounds more like a spectacular comet sweeping across the sky towards the sun rising in Virgo. Supposed astronomers have made a publishing industry latterly out of identifying the star of Bethlehem without arriving at anything conclusive. Though they call themselves scientists, all they really have is their own speculation to offer irrespective of the historical evidence that they seem uninterested in, depending simply on the gospels alone. Really most of them are Christian apologists trying again to get bogus historical evidence for the gospel events. Apologists have stupidly suggested that the star was a meteorite, even though they move at huge speed and burn out in seconds.

For hundreds of years, astrology and meteorology had been used for predicting the future in Babylon and Persia, and even quite trivial celestial events had meaning, including the sound of thunder. Conjunctions of stars, and their relations to the moon, and the zodiac were common enough events, and the supposed star need not have been a supernova, or any complex meeting of the stars in the sky, even if the star described meant anything like this at all. It was a misunderstanding or deliberate dramatisation of the messianic title, “The Star”!

These wise men, led by a star, which nobody sees but themselves and which moves in such a way as to guide them across country, arrive at Jerusalem and lose the scent. The divine guidance then acts in a way which certainly perplexes the mere human mind. The sages go and tell King Herod that a new “King of the Jews” has been born somewhere and Herod, in a fury, and believing the statement with childish credulity, orders the murder of all the children in Bethlehem and the entire region, under the age of two and a half years.

The little Almighty is taken, presumably on donkey-back, hundreds of miles across the desert, to get out of the way, and let the innocents suffer murder. Miracles and apparitions crowd the narrative but the simple miracle of changing the king’s heart and sparing the children does not occurs to God, or his chroniclers.

An apparent absurdity in Matthew’s story, is that the wise men followed the star in the east, when they were coming from the east. Unless they circumnavigated the world or walked backwards so that they pretended they were travelling east because that was the way they faced, they must have been travelling westward, which would place the star to their backs. The tale of the Magi reads like fairy tale but note, Matthew does not say the wise men followed the star but simply that they had “seen his star in the east”. He writes it was his star not just a star or even the star, suggesting a astrological or prophetic meaning—it could still contain genuine Nazarene tradition.

The stars have a clear role at the births of several of the saviours and to mark important events in their subsequent history. The ancients thought the arrival of gods and great people would be announced by a star. A star figured either before or at the birth of Abraham, Caesar, Pythagoras, Yu and Krishna. Zoroaster, about 700 BC, prophetically announced to “the wise men” of that country that a saviour would be born, “attended by a star at noonday”. Similarly when Nared had examined the stars, having heard of Krishna’s fame, he declared him to be from God—the Son of God. The Roman Calcidius speaks of a wonderful star, presaging the descent of a God amongst men. A star foretold of the birth of the Roman Julius Caesar. The Chinese God Yu was not only heralded by a star, but conceived and brought to mortal birth by a star.

All nations once believed that the planetary bodies or their inhabitants controlled the affairs of men, and even their births. That is astrology which still holds sway over many gullible people. Early people thought a star was alive, because it appeared to move, and acted as though controlled by a living spirit. In Job 38:9, the morning stars join in a chorus and sing together. Pliny in his Natural History records that the people of Rome fancied they saw a man they took for a god in a star or comet. The apocryphal book of Seth relates that a star descended from heaven and lighted on a mountain, in the midst of which a divine child was seen bearing a cross. Jews, Pagans and Christian could have had no idea that stars were immensely bigger than the earth and even the nearest was untold millions of miles away and could hardly hop hither and thither as international guides.

The practice of calculating destinies by the stars had long been popular in the East at the time of Christ’s birth and, indeed, the Essenes were adept at it, as the astrological texts of the scrolls indicate. An astrological interpretation of the star of Bethlehem makes more sense than the notion of a star leaving the firmament and travelling untold light years to stand over the young child Jesus, as he lay amongst the oxen and asses in a stable (Mt 2:7). To those who like to see God grossly violating his own laws of nature, they might as well believe, since it would have been much easier, even for God, that the star was a large electric light bulb suspended on a wire from heaven.

Using Chris A Marritt’s SkyMap Pro to look at the movements of the planets from Jerusalem, 5.00am on 21 September 11 BC proves to be a likely time for ancient astrologers to think that a great king had been born. It was the autumn equinox. Mercury, the messenger of the gods, had risen at 4.02. Venus had risen at 4.34. The sun was to rise at 5.25 and Mars at 7.38 followed by Jupiter at 8.37. Most important however was that the constellation of the Virgin with her infant Spica rose at the very time that the sun itself rose. Thus Spica, the infant, seemed to be the sun on this occasion, and had been preceded by the planet Venus and the messenger only shortly before.

The heliacal rising of Spica was not itself unusual, so the portents depended on the planets coming into conjunction with it. Moreover, within a few days the four planets Jupiter, Venus, Mars and Mercury were in the same part of the sky as the sun, the new born infant, and so were eclipsed by it. On 6 November 11 BC, all five heavenly bodies set together in Scorpio. It might well have been seen as an eschatological omen by Persian and Babylonian astrologers, and soon would be seen as an omen of a great victory over the eagles, the Romans, Scorpio being also considered the eagle by the ancients.

It seems odd that the divine Father chose to reveal the birth of his son, Jesus, to heathen idolaters hundreds of miles distant in Persia. And why should a skill in astrology give them the privilege of seeing the world saviour at birth while people of God’s own election—His Chosen—were denied the honour? Indeed they were denounced as fools and a vipers, despite their having put up with countless troubles at His behest, in attempting to stave off the pressures of mightier surrounding nations with their heathen gods in favour of Him, Yehouah, the ungrateful god.

Matthew mentions the word east three times in nine verses, and curiously it is the same word translated “dayspring” in Luke 1:78 which also means a branch! Now this might seem coincidental since a title of Jesus was “the Branch” but “the star” referred to is a metaphorical use of the messianic scriptural citation Numbers 24:17. Since the reference to “a branch” is also messianic, the coincidence is beginning not to look accidental. Matthew records:

When they saw the star they rejoiced with exceeding great joy.

This verse makes much more sense if in “the star” they recognize a man of destiny rather than a twinkle in the sky. The first part of Matthew 2:11 has been inserted, for without it the wise men rejoice with exceeding great joy then fall down and worship him—all very natural if “the star” is human. Essenes were organized such that there were twelve leaders and three priests. It seems from the clues remaining that the three wise men are really three Zadokite priests, the leadership of the Essenes. In reality they were present to participate in the crowning ceremony, the baptism in the gospels, but have been moved back thirty years in Matthew to appear at the actual birth rather than the ritual rebirth of the baptism. It seems then that a call on the lines of, “Where is he that is born prince of Israel? for he is the star, and he is the branch”, was part of the coronation ceremony.

Matthew immediately records that Herod heard of this and was troubled. Herod was the paranoid Idumaean king of the Jews who murdered half of his sons, young princes he suspected of plotting against him. When Augustus Caesar heard of Herod condemning his son Antipater, he remarked: “It is better to be Herod’s pig than his son”. If Herod had discovered that part of an Essene ritual involved crowning a prince, he would have been outraged. Now Josephus says that Herod and the Essenes were on good terms but that seems belied by the fact that the Essene centre at Qumran was deserted during most of Herod’s reign. If Matthew 2:1–18 is anything to go by, Herod did not get on with the Essenes.