The Great Christ Comet (78 page)

39
 Even when a heliacal rising of a planet or star had astrological or societal importance, it was not the seeing of it that mattered, since such events were calculated in advance. The fact that the Magi explicitly state that they had traveled to Judea because they had
seen
what the Star had done at its heliacal rising suggests that it was observations rather than calculations that had had the decisive influence on them. Indeed it may well imply that they had been unable to determine reliably or precisely in advance of the Star's heliacal rising, based solely on mathematical calculations and/or past experience, what ended up happening. Accordingly, that the Magi saw the Star may reveal that they had been surprised by what it did at its rising or at least had been uncertain about what it would do.

40
 When a bright comet is positioned just above the Sun at dawn or sunset (usually with the tail upwards), it generally means that the comet is very near the Sun in outer space (Seargent,
Greatest Comets
, 23, 175).

41
 Cf. Steve Moyise,
Was the Birth of Jesus according to Scripture?
(Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2013), 51n6: “The swift movement across the sky of a comet comes closest to what Matthew describes.”

42
 I have rendered the Hebrew “will do” (rather than “is doing”), since the entire content of these verses is manifestly prophetic, speaking of the distant future.

43
 It is, however, interesting to observe that a number of scholars, including W. Staerk,
Die jüdische Gemeinde des Neuen Bundes in Damaskus
(Gütersloh: C. Bertelsmann, 1922), 28, 65; Berend Gemser, “Der Stern aus Jacob (Num. 24.17),”
Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft
43 (1925): 301–302; Jacob Milgrom,
Numbers
, The JPS Torah Commentary (New York: Jewish Publication Society, 1992), 207–208; and Thomas F. McDaniel, “Problems in the Balaam Tradition,”
http://
tmcdaniel
.palmerseminary
.edu
/Balaam.pdf
(accessed August 1, 2014), maintain that
Berakhot
58b's
shbyt
is related to the Akkadian cognate
Å¡ib
á¹­
u
and means “comet” or “meteor.” If so, the use of the Hebrew word
shbt
in Num. 24:17 might be double entendre, with Balaam referring simultaneously to a scepter and a comet.

44
 For example, Staerk,
Die jüdische Gemeinde
, 28, 65; Gemser, “Der Stern aus Jacob,” 301–302; I. Zolli, “Il significato di ‘
sh
ē
bhe
á¹­
' nel Salmo CXXV,”
Atti del XIX congress Internazionale degli Orientalisti
(Rome: G. Bardi, 1938), 459; Sigmund Mowinckel,
He That Cometh: The Messiah Concept in the Old Testament and Later Judaism
(New York: Abingdon, 1954), 12, 13, 68, 102; Hans-Jürgen Zobel, “Å¡
ēḇ
e
á¹­
,” in
Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament
, vol. 14, ed. G. J. Botterweck, H. Ringgren, and H.-J. Fabry (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerd­mans, 2004), 305; Joseph A. Fitzmyer,
The One Who Is to Come
(Grand Rapids: Eerd­mans, 2007), 30n21; McDaniel, “Problems in the Balaam Tradition.” Cf. Baruch A. Levine,
Numbers 21–36
, Anchor Yale Bible (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000), 190, 199–201 (“meteor”).

45
 Kokkinos, “Crucifixion in A.D. 36,” 160; Humphreys, “Star of Bethlehem, a Comet in 5 B.C.,”
Tyndale Bulletin
, 37–38.

46
 Josephus,
J.W.
6.5.3 (§289). The sword-like comet has been identified as 1P/Halley in AD 66 by R. M. Jenkins, “The Star of Bethlehem and the Comet of AD 66,”
Journal of the British Astronomical Association
114 (2004): 336–343 (
http://
www
.bristolastrosoc
.org
.uk
/uploaded
/BAAJournalJenkins
.pdf).
If Josephus is referring to two different comets, one like a sword “and” one that lasted for a year, it is possible that the sword-like comet is referring to Halley's Comet in AD 66. However, if the Flavian historian is referring to a single comet that at one stage of its year-long apparition looked like a sword (“a star . . . , even a comet . . .”), then he was certainly not thinking of Halley's Comet, since it was visible for less than 2½ months, from January 30 to April 11 (unless we charge Josephus with an unbecoming exaggeration regarding a detail the truth of which Vespasian and Titus and many readers would have known well). Unfortunately, there is some debate regarding the date(s) of Josephus's comet(s). Humphreys, “Star of Bethlehem, a Comet in 5 B.C.”
Tyndale Bulletin
, 37–38, reckons that the sword-like comet Josephus mentions is the one mentioned in Tacitus,
Ann.
15.47.1, as occurring in the year AD 64. However, it is probably best to see Josephus's comet(s) as occurring in AD 65–66, since he is writing about omens in the run-up to the outbreak of the Judean War in AD 66, and since the immediately succeeding context refers to an omen dated to the spring of AD 66.

According to the fourth-century AD Pseudo-Hegesippus (
On the Ruin of the City of Jerusalem
), in the run-up to the Judean War there was one comet that lasted a year and looked like a sword and indeed was so bright in early spring that it shone on the temple and altar for half an hour each night through Passover week. Josephus also mentions this strange light, but does not make explicit any link to the comet or give any indication that it occurred on successive nights. Pseudo-Hegesippus also claims that there was great division regarding how to interpret the comet—some regarding it as heralding freedom but others perceiving it to announce war (see Wade Blocker's translation,
http://
www
.tertullian
.org
/fathers
/hegesippus
_05
_book5.htm
[last modified November 25, 2005]). Josephus mentions only his own interpretation—that it was an omen of judgment. Pseudo-Hegesippus states that the year-long cometary apparition occurred “before the people dissociated themselves from the Romans” (5.44). That would suggest that the comet occurred in AD 65–66, climaxing in the spring of AD 66, shortly after Halley's Comet. Whether Pseudo-Hegesippus is simply interpreting Josephus freely or is drawing on other sources we do not know. Regardless, it is possible that his understanding of the events is essentially correct.

Like Jenkins, Phipps, “Magi and Halley's Comet,” 88, suggests that Matthew invented the Star of Bethlehem under the inspiration of the dramatic AD 66 apparition of Halley's Comet. However, it is surely methodologically sounder to consider whether a different comet, one at the time of Jesus's birth, inspired Matthew's account than to propose that it was one sometime around when Matthew wrote (before or after AD 70). Certainly, Halley's Comet in AD 66 did rise heliacally in the east, did make it to the southern sky by mid-March, and was able to set in the west from about March 24 through to April 11 (at which point even the trained Chinese astronomers could not see it any more). To that extent it bore some similarities to the Christ Comet as described by Matthew. However, by the time Halley's Comet eventually was able to set in the west in a dark sky at the close of the apparition, the comet was very faint (about fourth magnitude) and rapidly fading, and its tail was exceedingly short (1–2 degrees long, according to Project Pluto's Guide 9.0) and setting at too sharp an angle to be regarded as “standing over” a place. It is really difficult to believe that any non-astronomers like Matthew were still keeping track of the comet at this stage, when it was so faint. Further, the Star of Bethlehem probably went from the east to the south via the west, unlike Halley's Comet in AD 66. Therefore Matthew's description is much too different from the AD 66 Halley's apparition to have been inspired by it. Moreover, as we highlighted in chapters 2–3, Matthew was not an inventor of stories.

47
 Cassius Dio 54.29.8.

48
 As cited by Steffan Rhys, “Star of Bethlehem Comet Theory,”
http://
www
.walesonline
.co
.uk
/news
/wales
-news
/2008
/12
/22/star
-of
-bethlehem
-comet
-theory
-91466
-22528488
(accessed March 26, 2014). This counters the claim of Kenneth Boa and William Proctor,
The Return of the Star of Bethlehem: Comet, Stellar Explosion, or Signal from Above?
(New York: Doubleday, 1980), 74: “The Gospel says that the Star stood over the place where the child was—and that would have been an extremely hard trick for any comet.”

49
 Craig S. Keener,
The Gospel of Matthew: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary
(Grand Rapids, MI: Eerd­mans, 2009), 104.

50
 Because time is required for the dust particles to make their way to and along the tail (Littmann and Yeomans,
Comet Halley
, 58).

51
 Kenneth D. Boa, “The Star of Bethlehem” (ThM thesis, Dallas Theological Seminary, 1972), 66; cf. 35–36.

52
 See especially the comment by Suetonius in
Nero
36.1—a comet, or hairy star, is “a thing that is popularly perceived to portend the demise of great dignitaries.” Cf. Tacitus,
Ann
. 14.22.

53
 Suetonius,
Claudius
46.

54
 Suetonius,
Nero
36.1.

55
 Nicholas Campion,
A History of Western Astrology: Volume 1, The Ancient World
(London and New York: Continuum, 2008), 239.

56
 Cassius Dio 65.8.

57
 Ibid., 66.17 (cf. Suetonius,
Vespasian
23). Translation from
Dio's Rome, Volume 5
, trans. Herbert Baldwin Foster (New York: Pafraets, 1906), 141.

58
 The Hebrew and Aramaic Scriptures prophesied that the eschatological turn of the ages would see severe tribulation in the world and more particularly in Jerusalem (see, for instance, Psalms 2, 110; Daniel 2, 7, 11–12; Zechariah 14). The people of Jerusalem knew that neither Herod nor his sons, nor their Roman overlords, would quickly and quietly stand aside to let the Messiah take his place as King of kings.

59
 Stephenson, “Ancient History of Halley's Comet,” 244.

60
 Justinus,
Epitome of the Philippic History of Pompeius Trogus
37.2.1–3. See Justinus,
Epitome of the Philippic History of Pompeius Trogus
, trans. J. C. Yardley (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 234. In addition, R. A. Hazzard (“Theos Epiphanes: Crisis and Response,”
Harvard Theological Review
88 [1995]: 426–427; and
Imagination of a Monarchy: Studies in Ptolemaic Propaganda
[Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000], 185) has made the case that, when Ptolemy V was proclaimed Theos Epiphanes in 199/198 BC, it was claimed by the court that Zeus had announced the Ptolemaic ruler's greatness in advance by sending two comets, one at the time of his birth (210 BC) and one at the time of the boy-king's accession (204 BC). Hazzard maintains that images of stars/comets on coinage from that period reflect this.

61
 
Sib. Or.
1.323–324 speaks of the Star as coming from the east, brightly shining even in the middle of the day. Similarly,
Sib. Or.
12:30–33 describes it as a celestial body extremely like the Sun, that shines so brightly that it can be clearly seen at noon. These passages, from the second or third century AD, could only be referring to a large daytime comet in the same league of brightness as Ikeya-Seki of 1965 and the Great September Comet of 1882. The Gnostic writer Theodotus (second century AD) speaks of “a strange and new star” (
Excerpta ex Theodoto
74).

62
 Patrick Moore,
The Star of Bethlehem
(Bath, England: Canopus, 2001), 67.

63
 Fred Schaaf,
Comet of the Century
(New York: Springer, 1997), 39.

64
 F. L. Whipple and S. E. Hamid, “A Search for Encke's Comet in Ancient Chinese Records: A Progress Report,” in
The Motion, Evolution of Orbits, and Origin of Comets
, ed. Gleb Aleksandrovich Chebotarev, E. I. Kazimirchak-Polonskaia, and B. G. Marsden (Dordrecht
,
Netherlands
:
Reidel, 1972), 152, claimed that the hypothesis that the brightness of a comet steadily decreases over time was supported by the history of observations, basic logic, and the icy nucleus model.

65
 Yeomans,
Comets
, 344–345; one exception is 109P/Swift-Tuttle, which seems to have maintained the same absolute magnitude for at least the last two millennia (Yau et al., “Past and Future Motion,” 314).

66
 Schaaf,
Comet of the Century
, 40.

67
 That the Star's standing as it set is suggestive of a comet located on the ecliptic plane was first pointed out to me by Prof. Mark Bailey, Director of the Armagh Observatory, in April of 2011.