Matt, for important historical figures, oftentimes there is archaeological evidence. For example, it was common in Rome to make coins with the image of the emperor on them and various sorts of statuary. There are many archaeological retrievals of ancient coins, and oftentimes these can be dated. Certainly there is coinage showing the Caesars. Sometimes these artefacts depict victory in battles that the historical sources claim that a ruler won.

Also, there is often indirect historical evidence, or a combination of indirect and archaeological evidence. For example, you might have a source about a ruler building a major public work like a wall or a road. Then other authors might refer to this project in a way that is historically plausible, and/or an archaeologist might excavate it and date it to about the time when the ruler lived.

In some sense the past is never truly verifiable; but as in a court of law, one goes by either "the preponderance of the evidence" or evidence "beyond a reasonable doubt."

Deb--I loved your cartoon!

And just one question for anyone who truly thinks that there were actual magi following an actual heavenly body. We might argue that they could have navigated from Medea or the Arabian Peninsula to Israel/Palestine in such a fashion. For one thing, they would have had to travel on actual routes, and would have had opportunities to ask for directions. But how could they have used a "star" to locate Jesus' specific house within the town of Bethlehem as per Matthew 2:9-10?

I mean, you try navigating with something like a planet or comet to distinguish between your house and that of your next door neighbours'!

It wouldn't work like a GPS.

My view of the Bible is that, if taken as a work of history, rather than as a literally true work of scripture, there is an intermediate position between fable and fact. Which is that portions of it might be true, yet they were shaped and amended by the writers to include the more miraculous components that people in the ancient world associated with their gods.

The supposed Jesus's mentioned in the Talmud aren't the Christian Jesus, Tom.

A couple of pieces from Gil Student, who's a far more accomplished Talmudist than I am:

http://www.angelfire.com/mt/talmud/jesus.html

http://www.angelfire.com/mt/talmud/jesusnarr.html

The whole site is pretty interesting, actually.

Hi Tom--I hope that you understand that I bear no disrespect towards believing Christians. I am merely expressing my reasoning, as someone who reads the Bible frequently, but does not take much of it literally.

As I stated above, I believe that a Jew who has come down to us as the Christian Jesus actually lived and attracted a devoted following, but that the miracles attributed to him--like the Star of Bethlehem--are best understood metaphorically rather than as concrete events.

Crucifixion was a fairly common Roman means of humiliating and executing people, so I can also believe that Jesus was crucified on suspicion of the crime of sedition, which is pretty much the narrative in the Gospels. I can also believe that other radical preachers (as they would have been viewed by pagan Rome) would have been crucified.

Tacitus was a pagan historian (56-117AD) who does not seem to have visited Palestine and seems to have post-dated the life of Jesus, so he would not have been an eye-witness to the events recorded in the Gospels. I believe the passage in question is from his Annals 15.44. What it reports is that Nero wished to blame the Christians, rather than himself, for burning Rome. I believe the passage to which you refer is:

"Christus, the founder of the name, was put to death by Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judea in the reign of Tiberius: but the pernicious superstition [i.e., Christianity], repressed for a time broke out again, not only through Judea, where the mischief originated, but through the city of Rome also..."

Tacitus has pretty negative things to say about Christianity, so I would take his use of the term "Christus" here as referring to the ascription meaning "annointed"--possibly referring to the belief that Jesus was the messiah. It is pretty clear that Tacitus himself did not accept the Christian view of Christus! Interestingly, in the Jewish tradition, the messiah was supposed to be a powerful human leader, not divine or the son of God.

So far as I can determine, the Tacitus account seems to meet historical standards of authenticity that the Josephus account does not. But as always, it depends upon which expert one cites.

So to me, Tacitus here refers, as other early sources did, to the emergence of early Christianity as a small and persecuted faith.

Paul, of course, according to the NT itself, had religious experiences of Jesus and knew eye witnesses, but never met Jesus during the latter's ministry.

This is not to deny that the figure of Jesus lives very powerfully as the Son of God in the lives of millions of Christians today, as he did during the birth of Christianity, whatever his history might have been.

Regarding the Star of Bethlehem, I don't get that the ruler of Palestine would have known the whereabouts of the house of a working-class carpenter in a town outside the capital. No doubt Herod knew where Bethlehem was, but Matthew 2:9-10 says that it was the star that showed the magi where Jesus' particular house was.

I think that the Star of Bethlehem story is far more powerful on a metaphorical level--as you described--than on a literal one.

I would rather address the meaning of anatolE in the Matthean text, as this seems to be one of the cardinal points of Koch?s and Molnar?s imaginative speculations.

[Greek text is transcribed with E =eta; w= omega (= aspirate]

There are three occurances of the word anatolEs in Mt. I shall examine each and the related term in Ptolemaeus, with a following section on the use of anatolE in related literature.

Mt 2:1 magoi ato anatolwn

This is a purely geographical description and follows classical Greek usage (Euripedes, Phoen 504; Plato, Politics 269a, Tebtunis Papyrus 276.38 (edd B. Grenfell A. Hunt et al.). We also find it in other NT writings [apw anatolEs Apoc. 21.13; apo anatolEs (Eliou, Apoc. 7:2; (E (odos twn basilewn twn apo anatolEs (Eliou 'the road of the king from the East' Apoc 16:12 and in Acts Thom 18, again with (Eliou.]

It also appears in the Balaam story (LXX Num 23:7) and in the Greek
Magical Papyri PGM IV.514: ?That I may gaze upon the unfathomable,
awesome water of the dawn (where it seems to refer to some sort of
cosmological beginning). In I Clement 5, 6: en te tE anatolE kai en tE dusei, ?in the dawn (rising) and in the setting?. This may be a directional signifier (E/W) (see below).

The phrase is part of Mt?s literary stategy to welcome the Gentiles as opposed to the synagogue Christians. See Mt 8:11, ?I say to you that many from the East and from the West (apo anatolwn kai dusmwn) will come and lie down with Abraham and Issak and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.? Mt 24:27, ?Like lightning from the east (apo anatolwn) flashing as far as the West, so will be the coming of the son of man.? And Lk 13:29, ?From East (apo anatolwn) and West (kai dusmwn) from North (apo borra) and South (kai notou) [people] will come to feast in the kingdom of God.?

It should be recalled that the story of magoi from the East would have verisimiltude, and no requirement for historicity, to the readers of Mt. When Herod finished building Caesarea Maratima in 10-9 BCE ambassadors from many countries came to Palestine with gifts (Josephus Ant. 16,5.1 #136-41). In 44 CE Queen Helen of Adiabene (a Parthian tributary) converted to Judaism and came to Jerusalem with abundant gifts for the population suffering from a harsh famine. In 66 CE Tiridates, king of Armenia, a neighbour of Commagene, came from the Euphrates to Rome overland, a long, long journey with the sons of three neighbouring Parthian rulers in his triumphal procession. He recognised Nero, in a splendid public performance in Rome, as a god, as Mithras (Dio Cassius 63, 1-7), Seutonius Nero 13). Tiridates ?did not return by the route he had followed in coming? but sailed on another. Pliny (NH 30,6, 16-17)
calls Tiridates and his companions MAGOI.

{1} Grk: ?en te anatole? = ?at the rising?, an astrological phrase implying heliacal rise, rising before the Sun at dawn.

This is Mt 2:2 and 2:9:

eidomen gap autou ton astera en tE anatolE
we saw his star in [its]rising ? [or, in the East]

(o astEp (on eidov en tE anatolE
the star which they saw in [its] rising

Odd that the copyists got the phrase slightly wrong as in Greek the possessive pronoun (autou? its) would be needed. Perhaps they were confused with the phrase apo anatolwn.

However it is indeed even odder that the surviving Greek astrological papyri use a slightly different formula.

In _Greek Horoscopes_ (Neugebauer and van Hoesen) we find:

81.74-75 (col IV) ap anatolEs pheromenE oksugwnios
?in the east ?waxing crescent? (scil. Luna)

81.103 (col VI) ewos anatolikos ?at its morning rising?
81.147 ewos anatolikE ?at its morning rising?

137a:21 ewa anatolas ?morning rising?
137b [21] ewia [anatolas] ?morning rising

137b 9 anatolikos [oikw kronou] orois ermou
?(Luna) rising [house of Saturn] terms of Mercury

137b [8] (repeats 137a 9 the text is damaged)

L 497 n37 (Venus) poisamenE tEn (esperian anato[lEv] pro (Emepwn pollwn
?having made its evening rising many days before?

L 497 n38 (Mercury) (esperios (upaugos mellwn poieisthai (esperian
anatolEv ?evening shining on the point of having made its evening
rising

L 412 (Life of Proclus, Marianus 35) of a solar eclipse before the death of Proclus, ?This happened in Capricorn toward the rising centre (anatolikov kentron) [484 Jan 14, the sun being in CP 26 shortly after sunrise in Athens].

As always with _GH_ the numbers refer to the CE dates of the horoscopes.

In Ptolemaeus (Tetrab 1,24,3) we find anatolikous autous (note the correct form in Greek with the possessive pronoun). Heliodorus (so-called, Commentary on Paul of Alexandria, edd. Neugebauer et Pingree, 1962) ? 9 contrasts planets in (ewioi anatolikoi (eastern rising) with those in (ewioi dutikoi (setting), and (espeioi anatolikoi (western rising). Cf. Paul of Alexandira 14.

The point of all this being that en tE anatolE really does mean East, anatolikos is more common for a planet in the Eastern part of the horoscope figure, usually above the Ascendent, but above all, a planet in its dawn rising is (ewios anatolikos as evidenced by the papyri, Ptolemaeus and Heliodorus. Whatever is supposed to have been meant by the text of Mt, and it should seem clearer now that the author, or the putative tradition upon which he built his story, did not understand the technical language of astrology: anatolE is not what Molnar, or Koch would like it to mean.

Why this was so is easily explained.

There is another appearance of the word anatolE in Lk 1:78, which is part of another tradition of infancy narration. The phrase is anatolE eks (upsous? usually translated as a ?light from on high?.

But it can also mean ?a Messiah from (God) most High?? cf. Jer 23:5 ?I will make a righteous Branch spring from David?s line, a king who shall rule wisely?; Zech 3:8 ?I will now bring my servant the Branch?; Zech 6:12 ?Here is a man named the Branch, he will shoot up from the ground where he is?? In these passages the Heb word for a ?Branch? or ?shoot? is shemah and in the LXX in all these cases it is translated by anatolE. The LXX was the text used by Diaspora Jews and christian writers.

Cf. also the phrase ?the sprout (blastos) of God the Most High (Test. Judah 24:4).

The term anatolE meaning ?rising? can encompass the budding of a branch and the rising of a heavenly body as in Mt 2:2. In the passage in Lk 1:78 ?from on High? and the reference to light in 1:79 would suggest that Lk is thinking mainly of a heavenly light rising, and with analogy from Mt this would be a star rather than the sun or a dawn. From Num 24:17 (the prophecy of the magos Balaam) ?a star shall come forth (rise: zarah HB: anatollein LXX) out of Jacob, a sceptre(HB)/ a man(LXX) arise from Israel? the Qumran community expected two Messiahs (Codex Damascus, the Damascus Document, vii 18-20): a star and a sceptre. The star for them is ?the Interpreter of the Law? a levitical High Priest, whilst the sceptre from Israel is ?the Prince of the whole community?, a Davidic Messiah. Similarly in the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, Levi 18:3 it says of the new priest ?His star will rise in heaven, as if he were king?. Also in the later targums there is reference to the same two Messiahs (Targum Neofiti I, Frag. Targum (Jerusalem II), Targum Ps.-Jonathan (Jerusalem I).

eks (upsous is used in Ps 102:20 [19], 144:7 to refer to the highest heaven from which YHWH helps those on earth.

The use of anatolE ?his star at its rising? in Mt 2:1 may mean that the idea of a rising light was widely associated with the birth of the Messiah or his coming, as a mishrashic reflection on Num 24:17 with Isa 9:2, 42:6-7; and Mal 3:20 [4:2].

Further the concept was known outside of Judaism, in magic: see Petersen Eis Theos (1926) 238 with n2 where anatolE means a rising light, on an inscribed cameo: eis Zeus Sarapis (agion onoma Sabaw, phws anatolE chthwn ?To Zeus Sarapis the holy name Sabbaoth, light rising [on] the underworld.

Remembering the use in magos Balaam?s prophecy of the verb anatolein, and that the verb is there used in reference to a star, and the underpinning Hebrew is shemah, ?Branch?, as a reference to the Messiah, one would be loath to conclude with Molnar that the use in Mt is purely astrological. Indeed, more probable, given this evidence, is that Mt is referencing a complicated ?pun?, or more properly put, a long meditation upon the significance of and about the Messiah in the Hebrew scriptures.
And this is congruent with Mt.?s intention to present a syncopated version of the OT in the first two chapters of his work.

?To rise and to illuminate? become a literary topos in later christian literature, as in Heb 7:14 eks Iouda anatetalken (o kurios (Emwn? from Judah has arisen our Lord. Or has ?sprouted? could be a good translation, following Test G 8 and Test D 5, whilst in Test Iud 24 we find ?to shine?. Further in 2 Pet 1:19 and Ignatius Magn 9:1 we find en (E [(Emera] kai (E zwE (Emwn aneteilen di? autou kai tou thanatou autou? ?

The verb anatellw means simply ?to push out, make rise?; as an intransitive it means ?to go out, to rise?. There is no great difference between the secular and religious use. Aesch. fr.300(Nauck): cf. Gen 3:18 of stachus, an ear of corn. Pind. Isth. 6.75 of water; cf. I Clemt 20.4 of a trophy; Diognes 21.1, with LXX 2 Chron 26:19 (a hare), Lev. 13:37 (hair); Lk 12:54 (clouds). It can refer to abstractions, such a justice in Ps 71:7. Or to persons as in the phrase aneteile swtEp, the ?saviour arose? in Epigraph Gr. 978, or to light as in Mt 4:16 = Ps 96:11, to stars in Job 3:9 (LXX) Isa 14:12. To the sun: Herodt 1.204; 4,40; Gen 32:32 (LXX), Ecclus gr 26:16; Mt 5:45, 13:10, Mk 16:2 and James 1:11. One should see the Greek magical papyrus PGM IV 2989: on the cutting of shoots(!) of herbs? ?As you have exalted Osiris, so exalt yourself [the Herb] and rise just as Helios rises each day.?

In conclusion I would say that the use in Mt is much more complex than meets the eye: there is a Greek-speaking Hebraic background to the three uses of the word anatolE, and this must be considered as the primary focus of the author of the legend, as it fits into the literary objective of his writing. Whilst there may be some astrological hints in the language used by Mt, even though he is at variance with the actual usage of the termini technici as we find them, and indeed one contradictory evidence is from 81 CE, exactly contemporary with the writing of Mt, the overriding thrust of the text is not to evidence astrological doctrine. In this I think it should be remembered that Cicero and Varro, to say nothing of Pliny in the NH, used astronomical language about risings, without ever espousing astrological dogma, quite the contrary !

Lorenzo dello Smerillo, MA, ThD.
(Senior Research Lector Late Antiquity,
Biblioteca Nazionale Protocenobio Sublancense,
Subiaco (ROMA). retired)

I have read through Koch?s introduction where he sets up a straw man argument that scholars have not taken the astrological material seriously. This is false, as a survey of the literature will show. See the excellent bibliography of Robert van Gent:

http://www.phys.uu.nl/~vgent/stellamago ... agorum.htm

which is by no means complete and needs some critical evaluation. The major problem in this regard is that the amateur historians who espouse astrological theories about the birth of Jesus have little or no comprehension of the literary and critical issues involved in dealing with the source texts (Matthew and Luke, inter alia) and fall into some very gross errors. Hence they have little credence amongst scholars.

Thanks Lorenzo Smerillo.

I am not a Christian but your interpretation of or quotations regarding -Numbers 24-17 is very interesting and different.

Elsewhere the Star is the Divinity and the Sceptre is the Authority.
The Divinity from human line viz-Jacob and the power and authority from the land viz. Israel.

If there was a sect which was expecting two different Messiahs then what was the lore or signs for identifying each of them separately.

It would be much easier to recognise the divinity(star) and then that divinity establishes its power(Sceptre) in a given land.

If the tradition is of having separate seat of authority for the Priest and the ruling the class then two messiahs can be expected but if someone is trying to change the order or bring in a new order then the vision is more likely to have the the two in one.

An analysis of Balaam and Balak's mind set would be most interesting.

many thanks


PD

In Judaism there can be no incarnate divinity, nor any incarnate divine beings - ever - and we do not look forward to any.

Priests, prophets, and kings are all considered messiahs. They don't even always have to be Jewish. It can be a little confusing for Christians, because Judaism has had lots of messiahs.

On the gentile side of things, Cyrus was considered a messiah in Judaism, and he was Persian.

Olivia wrote:In Judaism there can be no incarnate divinity, nor any incarnate divine beings - ever - and we do not look forward to any.

Priests, prophets, and kings are all considered messiahs. They don't even always have to be Jewish. It can be a little confusing for Christians, because Judaism has had lots of messiahs.

On the gentile side of things, Cyrus was considered a messiah in Judaism, and he was Persian.

Thanks Olivia,

your statement led me to research - "Divinity" and ultimately the difference between Judaism and Christianity. I understand it could revolve around the principle of -

Who can forgive sins and how?

In Christianity- the Son of Man - on earth, has the right to forgive all kinds of sins(Mark 2;1-12), whereas, in Judaism, this is directly to be done with God and forgiveness and reconciliation are very different things.

This could get too off topic for the heading of the thread but interesting to read so much about history.

PD

As a non-Christian I inevitably see this differently. For me its enough that the Magi might have set out and arrived in Palestine looking for a 'great man' . The rest of the story relies on an exclusively Christian perspective. Ultimately while its interesting to speculate on natural theories (comet, conjunction, supernova or astrological alignment) I think its just as possible that the writer of Mathew's gospel was trying to fulfill some older biblical prophecies. Not just in the case of the Star of Bethlehem but also the massacre of the innocents. Neither event is recorded by any contemporary writers. One would have thought the Jewish historian Josephus writing in the first century CE would have discussed this if it really was a spectacular natural phenomena in the night sky. The comet that appeared in 66 CE was described by Josephus in The Jewish War (6.5.3 289). For those not adopting a faith based interpretation of the Gospel of Mathew this does strengthen the kind of astrological theory proposed by Michael Molnar. It seems even more likely to me though that the writer of Mathew is indulging in prophetic embellishments to add to the authority of the new faith to Jewish readers.

Mark

Lorenzo and Olivia, thank you for your illuminating posts! Would that more of us were fluent in ancient languages, so that we were qualified to undertake this kind of research at a scholarly level.

Tom, I hope your post wasn't directed at me. I argued, indeed, that I personally think Jesus and Paul did exist. To me, it is difficult otherwise to explain the emergence of a new religion that quickly attracted a huge loyal following out of non-events and non-people. Where we differ is on the attributes or nature claimed for Jesus and Paul.

What Tacitus points to is that the early Christians thought "Christus" existed. There is nothing debatable here: we know that they believed this. But Tacitus himself clearly saw early Christianity as a pernicious superstition. So there is nothing actually in Tacitus to support the Bible's truth claims about Jesus as divine, the Son of God, or miracles attributed to him. For one thing, Rome experienced introductions of many new deities over the centuries, due in part to Roman soldiers posted throughout the empire bringing new deities and beliefs back home with them. Tacitus complained, indeed, that Rome tended to attract new beliefs and that he took a dim view of them.

Obviously my belief that George Washington was a real person is based upon the accounts of eye-witnesses, his own body of written records, plus other kinds of material evidence with yet further contemporary records, like Mount Vernon. These simply do not exist for Jesus.

It occured to me that there might be another tack to take on the Star of Bethlehem question. I re-read Matthew 2 1:12, and realized how much of my take on it was based on what I assimilated from the Christmas holidays, not the actual Gospel account. So to take a different tack:

1. We are pretty much left, in Matthew, with "wise men (magi) from the East." We actually don't know where they were from, near or far; nor how long it might have taken them to reach Palestine. Things only get problematic for comets or certain heavenly bodies as star candidates if we assume the magi were real people who had to travel a long distance.

2. The term "magi" may or may not have meant men versed astrology. The idea that they came from Medea or anywhere is a post-biblical interpretation of events that the church fathers could not verify.

3. The Magi were not present at the manger scene, but sometime after, because they found the family living in a house (2:11).

4. What the magi actually said about the star in Matthew 2:2 is "We have observed his star at its rising." They came to Jerusalem--but the Bible doesn't actually say they followed the star to get there. Hmmph.

But this might be consistent with the idea that men from the East saw a star at its rising--but didn't actually follow it to get to Jerusalem. Presumably they came by usual routes and either had a guide or an itinerary.

5. It is "chief priests and scribes" of Jerusalem society who quote their scriptures to pinpoint Bethlehem as the place where they expect a shepherd-like ruler to arise, not the magi.

6. The magi told Herod "the exact time the star had appeared." This sounds horoscopic.

7. The star "that they had seen at its rising", however, now leads the magi from Jerusalem to Bethlehem--a distance of only about 9 km today, and the star actually stops right over the correct house--such that they are able to distinguish it from the next-door neighbours. (2:9). Kind of like a stellar GPS. This is apparently not the manger scene, but some time later. It would be extremely difficult to use an actual heavenly body to travel a distance of about 9 km to stop at a specific street address.

This is, I think, a huge argument that this star is not meant in any conventional sense; but as one of many supernatural events attributed to Jesus and his believers.

8. The magi return home (wherever that is) by another route. (2:12)

I think this material, combined with some other gnostic sources, suggests that the star was meant in either a supernatural or a horoscopic sense--the star or planet/s very close to the horizon in the East when someone is born.

In a horoscopic sense, the Star of Bethlehem wouldn't need to be anything terribly unusual--merely highly auspicious.

Has anyone here read the gnostic Gospel of Judas, of ca. 150 AD? It and the extra-biblical books of Enoch (3rd-2nd century BC) have some star-lore that the Bible left out.

More soon.....

I hope everyone who celebrates Christmas had a great one!

I just wanted to suggest that extra-biblical books written before and after the birth of Jesus contain intriguing bits of astrology. I haven't studied them enough to know how they might resemble or differ from classical astrology, but there is at least a hint that the Star of Bethlehem could have simply referred to the star or planet rising in the east at Jesus' birth. For example, in the 2nd century gnostic gospel Pistis Sophia book 6 ch. 148, we find:

"Jesus said unto his disciples: 'When the sphere turneth itself, and Kronos and Ar?s come behind the Virgin of Light and Zeus and Aphrodite come in face of the Virgin, they being in their own ?ons, then the veils of the Virgin draw themselves aside and she falleth into joy in that hour when she seeth these two light-stars before her. And all the souls which she shall cast at that hour into the circuit of the ?ons of the sphere, that |390. they may come into the world, will be righteous and good and find at this time the mysteries of the Light; she sendeth them anew that they may find the mysteries of the Light.''

This passage obviously refers to Saturn, Mars, Virgo, Jupiter, and Venus.

In the gnostic Gospel of Judas (ca. 150 AD), Jesus tells the disciples that each of them has his "own star" (8:7) In verse 9: 15, Jesus tells Judas, "Your star is leading you astray;" but in 15:16, "The star that leads the way, that is your star."

The pseudipigraphical book of Enoch from around 200 BC, has quite an elaborately worked out cosmology.

These books indicate an ancient belief that stars were actually angels, or at least that angels ruled over them. Because angels could sin or behave righteously, just as human beings could, stars could lead people astray or towards religious enlightenment.

If we consider the ancient Hebrew belief in stars as angels (cf. "the heavenly host") then we might get a star in the sky that would be both auspicious in the horoscope of an important leader; as well as one that in its angel form, had the capcity to lead the magi to Jesus' house.

So I am not arguing that this interpretation is true, merely that it is suggestive and might fit the verses of Matthew 2: 1-12.