The Great Christ Comet (79 page)

68
 Moreover, we know that the 110 BC comet was first seen by the Chinese in the zodiacal constellation Gemini. In addition, orbital calculations of Halley's Comet's performance in 87 BC (built on the assumption the Chinese comet of 87 BC was Halley's Comet) suggest that during the month when the Bab­ylo­nians first observed the comet it was beside Taurus's left horn, in Gemini, next to Cancer, and then in Leo and Virgo.

69
 A zodiacal comet would have set in the west to west-southwest, the direction of Judea from Babylon, in the middle of the night if the season was early summer or in the first half of the fall. Only in the fall, however, would the ecliptic have been near-vertical in the middle of the night.

70
 Moore,
Star of Bethlehem
, 70.

71
 Michael R. Molnar,
The Star of Bethlehem: The Legacy of the Magi
(New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1999), 17–18.

72
 Seymour,
Birth of Christ: Exploding the Myth
, 102–103.

73
 Carolyn Sumners and Carlton Allen,
Cosmic Pinball: The Science of Comets, Meteors, and Asteroids
(New York: McGraw-Hill, 2000), 31–32. Cf. Brown,
Birth of the Messiah
,
172; Boa, “Star of Bethlehem,” 65.

74
 Humphreys, “Star of Bethlehem, a Comet in 5 B.C.,”
Tyndale Bulletin
, 38–39.

75
 My translation. For an excellent modern translation of Tacitus's
Annals
, see Tacitus,
The Annals
, trans. A. J. Woodman (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2004).

76
 My translation. Hans-Rudolf Schwyzer,
Chairemon
(Leipzig: G. Harrassowitz, 1932), 62–63, suggests that Chaeremon's claim was rooted in a prior source. See also
Chaeremon: Egyptian Priest and Stoic Philosopher. The Fragments Collected and Translated with Explanatory Notes
, ed. Pieter Willem van der Horst (Leiden: Brill, 1984), 12–13.

77
 So Wilhelm Gundel, “Kometen,” in
Paulys Realencyclopädie der Classischen Altertumswissenschaft
11.1 (Stuttgart: Druckmüller, 1921), 1148–1149; A. A. Barrett, “Observations of Comets in Greek and Roman Sources before A.D. 410,”
Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada
72 (1978): 87–88.

78
 Justinus,
Epitome of the Philippic History of Pompeius Trogus
37.2.1–3.

79
 My translation. See A. A. Barrett, “The Star of Bethlehem: A Postscript,”
Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada
78 (1984): L23.

80
 See Kronk,
Cometography
1:15–16, on the comets of 120 BC and 119 BC. Kronk correlates Mithridates's coronation comet with the 120 BC comet. In his favor is the fact that the Bab­ylo­nians cover the 120 BC comet's progress over at least 56 days, which is not far from the 70 days mentioned by Justinus. However, it is probably best to date the crowning of Mithridates to the spring of 119 BC (John T. Ramsey, “Mithridates, the Banner of Ch'ih-Yu, and the Comet Coin,”
Harvard Studies in Classical Philology
99 [1999]: 197–253; Adrienne Mayer,
The Poison King: The Life and Legend of Mithridates, Rome's Deadliest Enemy
[Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010], 29) and hence to associate the 119 BC Chinese comet with the beginning of Mithridates's reign.

81
 Ramsey, “Mithridates,” 198–199. Ramsey also points out that a coin from Mithridates's reign portraying a comet authenticates Justinus's claim with respect to one or both comets (213–253).

82
 Ibid., 202–253. J. K. Fotheringham, “The New Star of Hipparchus and the Date of the Birth and Accession of Mithridates,”
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
89 (1919): 162, regarded the first comet as appearing in 134 BC (cf. Yeomans,
Comets
, 365) and the second in 120 BC.

83
 Strikingly, Barrett, “Star of Bethlehem: A Postscript,” L23, appeals to Justinus's quote in defense of his view that the Star of Bethlehem was a comet that marked a royal birth.

84
 Octavius's
Commentarii de vita sua
as cited by Pliny the Elder,
Natural History
2.23. See
The Natural History of Pliny
, vol. 1, trans. John Bostock and Henry Thomas Riley (London: Henry G. Bohn, 1893), 58.

85
 Ibid.

86
 Cassius Dio 45.7. Translation from
Dio's Rome, Volume 3
, trans. Herbert Baldwin Foster (New York: Pafraets, 1906), 8–9.

87
 Molnar,
Star of Bethlehem
, 18.

88
 The 44 BC comet has been the focus of extensive debate and study. According to the ancient sources (for a useful collection of them, see John T. Ramsey and A. Lewis Licht,
The Comet of 44 B.C. and Caesar's Funeral Games
[Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997], 155–177), while a minority may have interpreted the comet as a negative omen (Cassius Dio 45.6.6–7: “Some called it a comet and said that it signified the usual things [that comets signify]” [my translation]—this need not be interpreted to mean that the comet was regarded as a negative omen for Octavian in particular), the vast majority of people interpreted the appearance of the comet as marking the divinization of Julius Caesar. Octavian, while giving lip service to this popular notion (Pliny the Elder,
Natural History
2.23; Servius on Virgil,
Aeneid
8.681; and Servius on Virgil,
Eclogue
9.47), privately regarded the comet as a positive omen for himself (Pliny the Elder,
Natural History
2.23) and perhaps even as marking the inauguration of a Golden Age (Servius on Virgil,
Eclogue
9.47). On the Golden Age, see Mary Francis Williams, “The
Sidus Iulium
, the Divinity of Men, and the Golden Age in Virgil's
Aeneid
,”
Leeds International Classical Studies
2 (2003): 1–29, esp. 20–25, contra Ramsey and Licht,
Comet of 44 B.C.
, 140–142, and 165n14, who claim that Octavian's propaganda twisted the truth, covering up intensely negative assessments of the cometary apparition. Pliny speaks for the consensus when he asserts that the comet was, “if we confess the truth,” “a positive omen for the world” (
Natural History
2.23, my translation).

89
 My translation.

90
 Ramsey and Licht,
Comet of 44 B.C.
, 135–136n5, also point to the “torch” of 204 BC, which may have been cometary and was interpreted by the Romans as heralding their victory over the Carthaginians in the Second Punic War (Livy 29.14.3).

91
 Ivor Bulmer-Thomas, “The Star of Bethlehem—A New Explanation—Stationary Point of a Planet,”
Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society
33 (1992): 368.

92
 R. T. France,
The Gospel of Matthew
, New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerd­mans, 2007), 68. Cf. Henry C. King,
The Christmas Star
(Toronto: Royal Ontario Museum, 1970), 4.

93
 Parpola, “Magi and the Star,” 15. Also Moyise,
Was the Birth of Jesus according to Scripture?
, 51n6, who rejects the comet hypothesis on the grounds that “the seventy-seven year orbit [
sic
] of Halley's comet would have been too early (c. 12–11 B.C.E.) and we know of no other comet that fits the bill.”

94
 It should be borne in mind that, as Timothy D. Barnes, “The Triumphs of Augustus,”
Journal of Roman Studies
64 (1974): 21–26, and Ronald Syme,
The Crisis of 2 B.C.
(Munich: Verlag der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1974), 3–34, point out, the decade beginning in 6 BC is one of the most obscure in the entire history of the Roman Empire, due to gaps in our historical sources.

95
 E.g., Frank Ramirez,
The Christmas Star
(Lima, OH: CSS, 2002), 34; “Bethlehem's Star,”
http://
www
.unmuseum
.org
/bstar.htm
(accessed May 15, 2014).

96
 Judith Weingarten, “The Magi and Christmas,”
http://
judithweingarten
.blogspot
.com
/2007
/12
/magi
-and
-christmas.html
(posted December 22, 2007).

97
 Brown,
Birth of the Messiah
, 172; the identical words are used in Marten Stol,
Birth in Babylonia and the Bible: Its Mediterranean Setting
(Groningen: Styx, 2000), 99–100. Brown,
Birth of the Messiah
, 172, does concede that Origen's statement concerning comets indicates that there was a common conception of comets as bearded stars and that this could “solve this difficulty.” Unfortunately, his subsequent repetition of the argument on p. 612 suggests that he does not take on board the force of this concession.

98
 Brown,
Birth of the Messiah
, 612. Cf. Susan S. Carroll, “The Star of Bethlehem: An Astronomical and Historical Perspective,”
http://
www
.tccsa
.tc
/articles
/star
_susan
_carroll.pdf
(last modified February 22, 2010).

99
 See Hermann Hunger, F. Richard Stephenson, C. B. F. Walker, and K. K. C. Yau,
Halley's Comet in History
(London: British Museum, 1985), 17.

100
 Pliny the Elder,
Natural History
2.23.

101
 Williams, “
Sidus Iulium
,” 5, points out that Augustan literature tends to avoid using the word “comet,” presumably because comets were generally bad omens. It prefers the word “
sidus
” (“star”) for the great comet of 44 BC.

102
 Pliny the Elder,
Natural History
2.22–23.

103
 
Natural History of Pliny
, vol. 1, 58.

104
 Ibid., 55.

105
 Ibid., 58.

106
 Pliny the Elder,
Natural History
2.23 (my translation).

107
 Seneca,
Natural Questions
7.13.2 (my translation).

108
 Ibid., 7.14.4 (my translation); cf. 7.26.2.

109
 E.g., Cassius Dio 56.29; 60.35; 65.8; 66.17.

110
 Ibid., 54.29; translation from
Dio's Rome, Volume 4
, trans. Herbert Baldwin Foster (New York: Pafraets, 1905), 56.

111
 Josephus,
J.W.
6.5.3 (§289) (my translation).

112
 Origen,
Contra Celsum
1.58–59.

113
 It is also worth noting that sometimes, when comets first appear, only the bright central condensation of the coma is visible, making the comet look very like a star or nova. In addition, in cases where a comet becomes visible when it is far away from the Sun and Earth, its movement within the starry sky may not be detectable by the naked eye for days or weeks, as in the case of Sarabat's Comet (see Kronk,
Cometography
, 1:394). Therefore it is very possible that the Magi initially categorized the Christ Comet as a new star or nova.

1
 Sometimes, of course, the timing of a cometary appearance could be significant in determining its meaning. The great comet of 44 BC was interpreted as an “auspicious” omen, based on the fact that it had appeared during the Games of Venus Genetrix, at the start of Octavian's reign, in the aftermath of Julius Caesar's death (Pliny the Elder,
Natural History
2.23). In this historical context people interpreted the comet to be the divinized soul of Caesar, and Octavian thought that it was a positive omen for himself.

2
 Sarabat's Comet had an absolute magnitude of between -3 and -6 and a nucleus with a diameter of over 100 km, and it attained to naked-eye visibility when it was still over four times farther from the Sun than Earth is.

3
 Hale-Bopp had an absolute magnitude of -1 and a nucleus with a diameter of 40–70 km, and it attained to naked-eye visibility 10½ months before perihelion.

4
 The Great Comet of 1811 had an absolute magnitude of 0 and a nucleus with a diameter of 30–40 km, and it attained to naked-eye visibility 5½ months before perihelion.

5
 The zodiac features in the apparently first-century BC book of
2 Enoch
(long recension) 21:6; 30:6. See Wilhelm Bousset,
Die Offenbarung Johannis
(Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1904), 336, 355; R. H. Charles,
A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Revelation of St. John
, 2 vols., International Critical Commentary (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1920), 1:315–316; W. K. Hedrick, “The Sources and Use of the Imagery in Apocalypse 12” (unpublished ThD dissertation, Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, CA, 1971), 44; David E. Aune,
Revelation
, 3 vols. (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1997–1998), 2:681. We also find zodiacs on Jewish synagogue mosaic floors from the early centuries AD, including the Galilean Beth Alpha synagogue. A tomb at Khirbet el-Qom, 11 km from Lachish, contains graffiti that may represent the zodiacal constellations Leo, Virgo, and Libra; it is apparently from the eighth century BC (Emile Puech, “Palestinian Funerary Inscriptions,” in
The Anchor Bible Dictionary
, ed. D. N. Freedman, 6 vols. [New York: Doubleday, 1992],
5:127–128).

6
 My translation.

7
 Most of what John describes in Rev. 12:1–5 would have been visible in both Babylon and Judea. The strong allusions to pagan mythology and paradigms may favor the hypothesis that the report that underlies these verses stems from Babylon. However, the Jewish and Biblical perspective reflected in verses 1–5 is consistent with Judean observations. Nevertheless, there was a Jewish community in Babylon too, and we have good reason to believe that some within it influenced the Magi to adopt a Jewish and Biblical interpretation of the Star. Therefore we should leave the question of the provenance of the report underlying Rev. 12:1–5 open, while acknowledging that the case for Babylon, the center of astronomical record-keeping in the ancient Near East, may be slightly more compelling.

8
 Euripides,
Rhesus
528–533;
Ion
1146–1158, specifically 1157; Aratus,
Phaenomena
10; see Henry George Liddell and Robert Scott,
A Greek-English Lexicon
, ed. Henry Stuart Jones (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1940), 1593.

9
 So, for example, Aune,
Revelation
, 2:679; Craig S. Keener,
Revelation
(Downers Grove, IL: Inter­Varsity Press, 2009), 312.

10
 Cf. Jürgen Roloff,
The Revelation of John: A Continental Commentary
, trans. John F. Alsup (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1993), 145.

11
 So, for example, Franz Boll,
Aus der Offenbarung Johannis: hellenistische Studien zum Weltbild der Apokalypse
(Leipzig and Berlin: Teubner, 1914), 98–124; A. A. Farrer,
The Revelation of St. John the Divine
(Oxford: Clarendon, 1964), 139–145; Bruce J. Malina and John J. Pilch,
Social-Science Commentary on the Book of Revelation
(Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2000), 155–157; Roloff,
Revelation
, 145; Tim Hegedus, “Some Astrological Motifs in the Book of Revelation,” in
Religious Rivalries and the Struggle for Success in Sardis and Smyrna
, ed. Richard S. Ascough (Waterloo, ON: Wilfred Laurier University Press, 2005), 77, 83–84;
pace
, among others, Charles,
Revelation
, 1:319; George Bradford Caird,
The Revelation of Saint John
(Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1966), 148–149 (who, despite deducing that the woman and the dragon are constellations, states that they have been newly imagined and so cannot be found in any star atlas), and Keener,
Revelation
, 312.

12
 Stephen Benko,
The Virgin Goddess: Studies in the Pagan and Christian Roots of Mariology
(Leiden: Brill, 1993), 110–111.

13
 The Seleucid Empire lasted from 323 BC to 63 BC.

14
 H. van der Waerden,
Science Awakening II
(Leyden, Netherlands: Noordhoff, 1974), 288 and 81 plate 11c. This part of the cuneiform tablet (a copy of an older original) is found at the Department of Oriental Antiquities of the Louvre in Paris: item number AO 6448. Note that Ulla Koch-Westenholz,
Mesopotamian Astrology: An Introduction to Babylonian and Assyrian Celestial Divination
(Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 1995), 41–42n3, suggests that the ears of grain on certain kudurrus represent Virgo. (Kudurrus are second-millennium BC Kassite boundary stones that were sometimes used to record grants of land from the king.)

15
 Pseudo-Eratosthenes,
Catasterismi
9; Benko,
Virgin Goddess
, 111; André Le Boeuffle,
Les Noms Latins d'astres et de constellations
(Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1977), 212–215; Boll,
Offenbarung Johannis
, 109–111; Malina and Pilch,
Social-Science
, 163; Tim Hegedus,
Early Christianity and Ancient Astrology
(New York: Peter Lang, 2007), 236–227. For ancient references to Virgo, see Aratus,
Phaenomena
93–138; Cicero,
De Natura Deorum
2.42; Hyginus,
Poetica Astronomica
2.25; Nonnos,
Dionysiaca
2.655.

16
 Pseudo-Eratosthenes,
Catasterismi
9.

17
 Hyginus,
Poetica Astronomica
2.25; Mary Amelia Grant,
The Myths of Hyginus
(Lawrence: University of Kansas, 1960),
http://
www
.theoi
.com
/Text
/HyginusAstronomica2.html
#25
(accessed March 26, 2014); Theony Condos,
Star Myths of the Greeks and Romans: A Sourcebook
(Grand Rapids, MI: Phanes, 1997), 206.

18
 Apuleius,
Metamorphoses
6.4.

19
 For example, the fourth-century AD Avienus,
Phaenomena
273–292. See Bruce J. Malina,
On the Genre and Message of Revelation: Star Visions and Sky Journeys
(Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1995), 159. On Isis worship throughout the ancient world, see R. E. Witts,
Isis in the Ancient World
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1971).

20
 On Isis as Virgo, see Boll,
Offenbarung Johannis
, 108–110; Benko,
Virgin Goddess
, 111–112; M. Tsevat, “b
e
thûlâh,” in
Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament
, vol. 2, ed. G. J. Botterweck, H. Ringgren, and H.-J. Fabry, trans. J. T. Willis (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerd­mans, 1977), 338–343, esp. 338–339. On the Dendera Zodiac, see note 43, below.

21
 Hegedus, “Some Astrological Motifs,” 80–81. Cf. Malina,
Genre and Message
,
160: “in the mind of the first-century Mediterraneans, the female statuses and roles of virgin, mother, and queen could . . . readily reside in the same person.”

22
 Condos,
Star Myths of the Greeks and Romans
, 207.

23
 E.g., George R. Beasley-Murray,
Revelation
, New Century Bible Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerd­mans, 1981), 197; Brian K. Blount,
Revelation: A Commentary
, New Testament Library (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2009), 225.

24
 It should also be remembered that the woman represents Israel/Jacob, and that the twelve stars represent the twelve tribes. Had there been only eleven stars on the woman's crown, the symbolism on that level would have been ruined.

25
 Ptolemy,
Almagest
,
book 7, H37 (my translation). For an excellent recent translation of Ptolemy's
Almagest
, see
Ptolemy's Almagest
, trans G. J. Toomer (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998).

26
 In fact, in his description of the constellation, while Ptolemy does describe
δ
(Delta) Virginis as on Virgo's right side (under the girdle), he portrays
γ
(Gamma) Virginis as in the left wing. But he probably meant that the star was both on Virgo's wing and on her side.

27
 Ptolemy,
Almagest
,
book 7, H37 (my translation). Ptolemy was referring to the star
δ
(Delta) Virginis. Hipparchus had located
δ
on Virgo's right shoulder. The third-century BC Aratus,
Phaenomena
137–138, writing before Hipparchus, stated that Vindemiatrix was located above her shoulders, which reveals that the right shoulder was perceived to be around
δ
Virginis. Ptolemy argued against Hipparchus's interpretation of
δ
Virginis on the ground that the head stars would then be too far from
δ
. Ptolemy made an excellent point: in Hipparchus's constellation the proportions of Virgo's upper part were utterly absurd—her neck was giraffe-like!

28
 Pseudo-Eratosthenes,
Catasterismi
9: see Condos,
Star Myths of the Greeks and Romans
, 205.

29
 See the translation in ibid., 205–206. Unfortunately, because Theony Condos is too influenced by Ptolemy's version of Virgo, she is unable to identify which stars Hyginus and Pseudo-Eratosthenes had in mind in most cases. Moreover, she acknowledges that
ε
Virginis was the wing by the shoulder, even though in her scheme it is nowhere near the shoulder, but rather at the mid-belly region.

30
 This astrologer lived in the late first century BC or early first century AD; see Boll,
Sphaera
, 8; and Otto Neugebauer,
The Exact Sciences in Antiquity
(Mineola, NY: Dover, 1969), 189, 175, 189 (between 100 BC and AD 50). T. Boiy,
Late Achaemenid and Hellenistic Babylon
(Leiden: Brill, 2005), 310, states that Teukros lived in the first century BC; and Bruce M. Metzger, “Ancient Astrological Geography and Acts 2:9–11,” in
Apostolic History and the Gospel: Biblical and Historical Essays Presented to F. F. Bruce
, ed. W. Ward Gasque and Ralph P. Martin (Exeter: Paternoster, 1970), 130, said that Teukros “flourished about 10 B.C.”

31
 My translation of the Greek text in
Catalogus Codicum Astrologorum Graecorum
, ed. and trans. Franz Boll, vol. 7 (Brussels: Lamertin, 1908), 202; cf. idem,
Sphaera
, 210; idem,
Offenbarung Johannis
, 109–110. The Arabian astrologer Abu Ma'shar, from the ninth century AD, in
The Great Introduction to Astrology
, book 6, chapter 1, wrote of Virgo that she was “a Virgin that Teukros called Isis; she is a pretty, pure virgin with long hair, with a beautiful face; she has two ears of corn in her hand and is seated on a throne on which lie cushions. She is looking after a little boy and gives him bread to eat, in a place called the Atrium; this boy is called by some peoples Isu (Jesus)” (translation influenced by Alfred Jeremias,
Handbuch der altorientalischen Geisteskultur
[Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1913], 172; cf. A. E. Thierens,
Astrology in Mesopotamian Culture: An Essay
[Leiden: Brill, 1935], 34). Abu Ma'shar was referring to a Persian translation of the book
Sphaera Barbarica
by Teukros of Babylon.

32
 Boll,
Catalogus
, 7:203. Teukros locates the beginning of the emergence of the head at 1–3 degrees, the nose at 4–6 degrees, the neck at 7–10 degrees, the arms at 11–13 degrees, the fingers at 14–18 degrees, Spica at 19–21 degrees, and (the upper section of) the lower half of the leg at 22–23 degrees.

33
 In earlier centuries, the Bab­ylo­nians regarded Virgo as two distinct constellations consisting of the Furrow (who carried an ear of grain), who rose first, and the Frond (who carried a palm branch). While the Greco-Roman Virgo and the later Babylonian Virgo were parallel to the ecliptic, these constellations were oriented at close-to-90-degree angles to the ecliptic. It seems that at some stage around the middle of the first millennium BC, when the zodiacal band was divided into twelve equal signs, the Furrow and Frond were united into a “single unified figure” who carried an ear of grain in her left hand and a palm branch in her right hand (Gavin White,
Babylonian Star-Lore: An Illustrated Guide to the Star-Lore and Constellations of Ancient Babylonia
, 2nd ed. [London: Solaria, 2007], 115).