Christmas Star Explained

Even I can answer this one.They all saw the star, but none of them thought of the implication. The wise men specifically asked Herod where the new king of Israel was. This lit up a light in Herod's head.The better question in this is if they were wise men, why the hell did they ask the regional king where the new king was? Seriously, we are talking about a time when brothers killed brothers to be kings. Why on Earth would the "wise men" tell the king that a new king had just been born?

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Disclaimer:

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Occasionally, owing to the deficiency of the English language, I have used he/him/his meaning he or she/him or her/his or her in order to avoid awkwardness of style.

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He, him, and his are not intended as exclusively masculine pronouns. They may refer to either sex or to both sexes!

But why would "all Jerusalem" be troubled? Herod had a throne to lose but surely some of the ordinary peons would be glad to see him go, not troubled. They assumed that he had wise men of his own who would have told him about the sign.But if Herod already knew about it, why did he ask the wise men when it appeared?

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Mat 2:7 Then Herod, when he had privily called the wise men, inquired of them diligently what time the star appeared.

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Edited by Ringo, : "And" --> "But".

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“Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place”
-- Joseph Goebbels
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I think we should take "all" as a metaphore for a lot of people here. Ringo, people are generally weary of political change, especially during times of absolute authoritarian. You never know what will happen when a new king come to power. Well, a peasant's life was simple. Get in the morning to work. Eat. Sleep with your wife. Breed. Ok, may be I'm not doing them enough justice, but I want to point out that their lives were probably stable enough that they didn't want to risk a change in government. Well, yeah, and we'd assume that Hitler had wise men with him that could have told him that the Normandy Beach landing was the real deal and not a diversion. You can't use coulda/woulda/shoulda to evaluate history... myth.By your logic, I could point out that little red riding hood should have recognized the big bad wolf right away instead of asking about the eyes, teeth, ears, etc. Because nobody paid attention? I don't know.

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Disclaimer:

​

Occasionally, owing to the deficiency of the English language, I have used he/him/his meaning he or she/him or her/his or her in order to avoid awkwardness of style.

​

He, him, and his are not intended as exclusively masculine pronouns. They may refer to either sex or to both sexes!

You can take the "star" as a metaphor for Kris Kristofferson while you're at it. I'm just taking what the text says, and there's simply no indication that anybody saw the "star" except the wise men. (Before or after, for that matter.) You're missing my logic. My logic is that the wise men were open with Herod because they assumed He already knew about Jesus' birth. While we're at it, why would they assume that the new king was a usurper and not Herod's own son? Everybody saw the "star", but nobody paid any attention until some guys from the East mentioned it? Then they got troubled?Just read the story, SimpleTaz.

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“Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place”
-- Joseph Goebbels
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I have, many times. Again, I don't know. It's a fable. We could sit here all night nitpicking the hell out of this myth or we could recognize it for what it is. For one thing, I can guess that they didn't think the new king was Herod's own son for one very good reason: They asked Herod where the new king was instead of asking to see him.Let's look at it this way. Suppose that the news has just reached your ears that my wife had just given birth to a new born baby and the baby was healthy. It took you a month to get here to congratulate me. You finally got to my house. You see me sitting there with my wife. You then proceed to ask me "could you give me driving directions so I could go visit your new born baby?"What a stupid question! The baby is upstairs sleeping, you dumbass. I suppose I am. Again, nitpick the myth all you want.But for a moment, consider this. What if the author of the myth exaggerated the brightness of the star? What if it was just a new star in heaven? Not everybody in the ancient world paid attention to the heavens. The few that did, like the wise men, followed it.

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Disclaimer:

​

Occasionally, owing to the deficiency of the English language, I have used he/him/his meaning he or she/him or her/his or her in order to avoid awkwardness of style.

​

He, him, and his are not intended as exclusively masculine pronouns. They may refer to either sex or to both sexes!

A fable doesn't need embellishment any more than the truth does. You know damn well that's not what I'd ask. I'd ask, "Where's the baby?" - exactly like the wise men did. It was Herod who told them to go to Bethlehem. In your analogy, you'd be telling me, "He's at grandma's house." You're still missing it. There is no "brightness" in the story to exaggerate. When I asked you to read the story, I meant read what's in the story, not make up a bullshit story of your own. You need to read the Bible with Occam's Razor. So you agree that most of the people never saw any "star"? That's what I've been saying.

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“Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place”
-- Joseph Goebbels
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My guess is that they were concerned about a king being born. Not that they paid much attention to stars.

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there's simply no indication that anybody saw the "star" except the wise men. (Before or after, for that matter.)

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And not really anything that indicates otherwise. That Herod may have been uninterested in spending time gazing at the cool night sky, rather than calling his female slaves, and eating feasts, or whatever he did, is not a big issue. The guy was insane. Who else would kill babies??I will direct your attention the the shepherds. It doesn't mention the star here, and that could be because it was too low at that point to be considered a star. It almost sounds like it was almost on top of them! The folks inside singing up a storm, and angels about, etc. Oh, and the lights, of course! What is a close encounter without those lights shining down??
Luke 2:9 And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid..As we saw back in Ezekiel, that host seems to tag along the mobile throne, glorifying God. After all, what do you think the crowd of people were doing, floating on a CLOUD??

Well, God, for one. Multiple times. The most obvious probably being the killing of the firstborn in Egypt. So, you agree that the Christian God is depicted as a psychopathic nutcase?I suppose if God were actually just an alien, it might make a bit more sense than an omnipotent benevolent deity. I mean, aliens supposedly mutilate cattle all the time, and seem to have a preoccupation with inserting objects in the human rectum. The Biblical God was certainly all about wanton slaughter while being obsessed with sex. Perhaps the 11th Commandment would have been "Thou shalt not have the buttsex, for that is reserved for the LORD your God and his anal probes alone," but he ran out of room on the tablet?

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Every time a fundy breaks the laws of thermodynamics, Schroedinger probably kills his cat.

Or, it could be because it wasn't there.

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“Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place”
-- Joseph Goebbels
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I can see you have a pet peeve against God, for not advocating for mankind, the stuff you seem to like.For your info, alien abduction, so called, has nothing to do with God. Since it involves some of the things you mentioned, I would look to the US military, or some such. Blame it on the aliens, I suppose was as good a cover as anything, before Abu Ghraib?There was a time when the savage enemies of His people had to be dealt with in a tough way, before the new testament. Like the cruel slavers of Egypt. Go God go, ra ra rah.I see nothing wrong with sex, I do see something wrong with a sexless attitude, as if there was something wrong with it.

There was obviously something there, that profoundly influenced their lives. You can disbelieve it for no reason if you like. You can pretend that the host of heaven praising, were floating in thin air, if you like. You can ignore the great light that shone on them, and the appearance of angels. You can ignore the Christmas star, and anything else you like, but you can't use science to do it. And you can't use the bible to make a good case against the Starship Sceptre!

And I've been saying that you also need to read the story while considering the way people wrote down things in the ancient world.Helen was the most beautiful woman on Earth and everybody knew this. Paris was the most beautiful man on Earth and everybody knew this. Troy was the most blessed city on Earth and everyone knew this.Are we honestly going to point out that the regular Hittite peasant knew who the hell Helen or Paris was or what the City of Troy looked like? Or are we going to read it for what it was, a myth that probably was based partly on a real event and place with lots of exaggerations?All I'm saying is what if it was a very faint but newly appeared "star" and the wise men happenned to be the only ones that noticed it? Let's look at the story passage by passage.

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3When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him.

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Again, did everybody know who the bitch Helen was or the dumbass Paris was? And yet, everybody supposedly knew that these were the two most beautiful people in the world. Why nitpick the "all Jerusalem with him" part?

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7Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared.

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Herod didn't ask the Magi to tell him where the star was because he couldn't see it. He asked them when it appeared.Let me ask you something. If tonight a new star appears in the sky would YOU notice it by yourself or would you only notice it after someone else (probably who observes the heavens everynight) pointed it out to you?

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9After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen in the east went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was.

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Ok... so we know it's impossible for any star to be directly on any one particular location on Earth. Still, I see this as nothing more than an exaggeration, if not total fabrication.

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A fable doesn't need embellishment any more than the truth does.

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What do you mean? Without embellishment, the Illiad would be just another war story... if that.If there was such an event as the virgin birth and if there was such an event as the wise men visiting the newborn Jesus, I'd imagine that it would be a really boring story if told accordingly.

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Disclaimer:

​

Occasionally, owing to the deficiency of the English language, I have used he/him/his meaning he or she/him or her/his or her in order to avoid awkwardness of style.

​

He, him, and his are not intended as exclusively masculine pronouns. They may refer to either sex or to both sexes!

actually, you have not effectively demonstrated who or what "shiloh" means in this context. you quoted a few sources that said "obviously it's the messiah" and a few that pointed out the aramaic translators thought it meant "messiah."you then used that information to turn this into a messianic prophecy. it's not. it's a prophecy/birthright given to judah. "until shiloh comes" is an idiom for "until the end." the end has not happened yet -- this makes a lot more sense when you understand that the jewish concept of the messiah has more in common with the second coming of christ than the first.and in any case, the verse is about judah's royalty. not jesus. not a UFO. judah's royalty. no, as i keep pointing out, those groups of angels are different. you can't simply ignore that. you are trivializing the appearance of the heralding angels at christ's birth. i agree, your point is silly. if they wanted to describe a spaceship -- couldn't they have given a description even remotely like ezekiel's?

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I'm not ignoring anything. I'm just saying that there's no indication in the Bible that the shepherds saw the star.

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“Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place”
-- Joseph Goebbels
-------------
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