Theory: Jupiter is the Star of Bethlehem

Look to the east on Christmas morning, just as darkness gives way to light. A celestial body cresting over Mount Sentinel's southern ridge will shine above Missoula until the awakening day absorbs its brilliance. What you will see is very likely the same “star” wise men saw some 2,000 years ago - the star foretold in prophecy, announcing the birth of a great king.

That guiding light is Jupiter, the fifth planet, which has rotated the sun and brightened our nighttime sky since time immemorial. Twice as massive as all the other planets combined, and 318 times larger than our small world, Jupiter is the fourth brightest object in the heavens, shadowed only by the sun, moon and Venus.

Jupiter, a growing number of professional stargazers believe, is the Star of Bethlehem. If we look skyward around 7 a.m. on Christmas morning, those of us in western Montana will see what some scientists believe is the Christmas star hanging in the eastern horizon at approximately the same hour that the Magi witnessed the bright light so long ago.

The steady movement of the planets, advance mathematics and computer technology make such calculations possible, said David Friend, chairman of the University of Montana's Physics and Astronomy Department. For centuries, the Star of Bethlehem was explained as a supernova, or a conjunction of planets, he said. Some theories dismissed the beacon altogether, labeling it a myth, a tantalizing detail written into a remarkable story to make it even more remarkable.

But the discovery of an ancient Syrian coin by a coin-collecting astronomer in the 1990s led to yet another theory - a scientific theory produced by Michael Molnar and which many astronomers, including Friend, regard as the best explanation for what the Magi saw.

“I'm an astronomer and of course I heard the stories about the Star of Bethlehem,” said Molnar, a scientist and author who lives in New Jersey. “I always thought it was one of those Biblical things you can't explain - and I didn't want to get involved with the discussions because I always felt it was getting too close to a religious issue, and, from my standpoint, I felt my colleagues had explained it. “But one day at a coin show in New York City, a seller who knows I collect coins with stars and moons and anything depicting astronomy called me over to his table. He handed me this coin, about the size of quarter. On one side it had Jupiter, and I thought, no big deal. But when I flipped it over, I was stunned. There on the other side was Aries the Ram in all his glory, leaping across the sky looking backwards at a star.

“I had never seen such a thing before, and I bought the coin for a whopping $50. All I could think about was, ‘Why is Aries on this coin?'” So Molnar researched ancient texts, going back to the writings of Claudius Ptolemy, a Roman largely considered the father of astronomy and who wrote the “bible” of astronomy during his lifetime, A.D. 100-178. This is what Molnar learned: Ptolemy listed the countries and the peoples who lived around the Mediterranean. As Americans read newspapers and watch television today, the people of that time and region watched the sky for signs to guide their life, and astronomers of the day tracked the makeup and change of constellations. Those astrologers assigned the signs of the zodiac to the people and countries. Anitoch, Syria, where Molnar's provocative coin originated, was under Aries the Ram, which astrologers said controlled Judea, Samaria, Palestine and Syria.

"I remember my colleagues saying Pisces, the fish, was the sign of Judea, but what I found was not the case,” Molnar said. “And that's when I really got interested in the Star of Bethlehem; I realized these ancient stargazers who dedicated themselves to looking for signs from the heavens would have been looking for Aries, not Pisces, to define a regal event - for omens and signs for the birth of a great king. “I was amazed. Here was this well-known book, and my colleagues had ignored this detail.”

Molnar consulted more astronomy texts and plugged his information into a computer program scientists and academics use to historically chart the movement of planets and stars. It's the same program used by UM students under the guidance of Friend. While not perfect, the program reliably charts the heavens for the past 2,000 years. Sifting through the ages, Molnar discovered that indeed a profound celestial event with Jupiter in Aries happened in 6 B.C. on December 19, and again on April 17, two years before King Herod died in 4 B.C.Jupiter, which astrologers called the “regal star” and signified kingship, underwent two occultations - eclipses - by the moon in Aries that year. References in the Gospel of Matthew state the guiding star was found in the eastern sky. Molnar believes the star was Jupiter, which emerged in the east as a morning star on April 17, 6 B.C. Having an eclipse, and having Jupiter rise in the east in the morning, was considered the most powerful time to confer kingships, he explained.

Furthermore, with Jupiter, the sun and Saturn in the Aries constellation, astrologers of the day would have found this particular confluence truly awesome. “Keep in mind, astrologers of Roman times were making crude calculations of planetary positions to create horoscopes, but they could not predict eclipses or occultations as we now can,” Molnar said. “However, they could estimate when these were likely. The occultation was the key to finding this incredible day which has many important conditions pointing to the birth of not just a king, but a great king in Judea.”

If, in fact, the coin led Molnar to the star's likely explanation, how is it that Christ was born in 6 B.C. and not A.D. 1, the start of the Christian system of counting years? And if this astrological event took place, why didn't King Herod know about it?

“It's a simple explanation,” Molnar said. “There was no eyewitness account of this event, and everything we know about it was recorded by people who lived hundreds of years later. The counting of years is inaccurate - it was miscalculated by Dionysus Exiguus, a Christian Monk in A.D. 533. Even his colleagues said he dropped a few years in counting the lengths of the reigns of the Roman emperors. Because of that, well-meaning historians have tried to move various dates around to make things add up. But mainstream historians largely agree Herod died in 4 B.C., and if Jesus was born during the reign of Herod, he had to have been born before 4 B.C.”

On April 17, 6 B.C., Jupiter wasn't necessarily brighter than it usually is, it was bright in a philosophical sense, Molnar said. It was the specific and unique alignment of stars that caught the wise men's attention. “Its position in Aries the Ram said it was a sign from God and that the king of kings was born,” he said. And such an alignment was a rare event - something that only occurred every 60 years - which, for the ancients, was a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence. Jews of King Herod's time did not practice the astrology of their neighbors because it was tied to pagan Greek philosophy, Molnar explained.

Although they knew the time of the Messiah was at hand, he said, “they weren't watching the sky for signs.” When Molnar put his theories to print in his 1999 book “The Star of Bethlehem: The Legacy of the Magi,” he became a star in his own right, appearing on PBS, BBC and the History Channel. And over the years he's put forth a challenge to the astronomy world to prove his theory wrong, and to prove that Aries the Ram was not the sign of the Jews. While there have been some grumblings, no one has stepped forward with a solid counter argument. Edwin Krupp, executive director of the famed Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, said Molnar's theory is as good as the next, but no better. “To understand any of this, you have to put the information in historical context and pin the history down, and that's a tough nut to crack,” he said. “When it comes down to knowing the date of the birth of Christ, well, that's been argued for centuries. I personally think a 3 to 2 B.C. date is a pretty good one, even though a popular date has been 6 to 7 B.C. - a time when a triple conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn made an impressive showing. My position is, if you give me the date of Christ's birth, I will you give the Christmas star. There is always something happening in the sky that is a remarkable occurrence.”

Krupp does agree, however, that Christ was likely born in the spring and the Christians used the December date to appropriate the pagan Winter Solstice celebration. Owen Gingerich, a scientific star among astronomers and a professor at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, gives his nod of approval to Molnar's discovery. In a review of the book, Gingerich said Molnar's theory is the most “original and important contribution of the entire 20th century on the thorny question” of how events reported in Matthew's gospel should be interpreted. The debate will no doubt continue through the ages, Krupp said. But some things are for sure. “The sky still seems to speak to us, and we continue to look to it in wonder and a chance for renewal,” he said. “The winter sky is just gorgeous and populated with wonderfully bright, familiar stars, and it is wonderful to be out under those magic lights knowing the sun is moving toward its southern limit and will return again. It's the season of renewal, and it's the only story we really know.”

On Monday, look for Jupiter, shining in Missoula's southeast sky. If you live in town, turn toward Pattee Canyon. Wherever you are, Friend said, the Christmas “star” will be easy to spot. “It's the brightest thing in the sky,” he said. “You can't miss it.”