Is there historical evidence for the Star of Bethlehem?
Theologians, historians and astronomers have debated the Biblical story for centuries.
The story of the Star of Bethlehem is one of the most recognizable scenes in the Christian imagination: a brilliant sign shining over the place where a child was born, guiding mysterious eastern visitors to the cradle of a newborn king. The Gospel of Matthew, the only book of the Bible to mention the event, describes a star that rose in the east, captured the attention of “magi” (likely astrologer-priests from Babylon or Persia), and moved before them until it rested over the place where Jesus lay.
The episode is only a dozen verses long, but these few lines have generated two millennia of speculation. What did the magi see? Could an astronomical event match Matthew’s description? Scholars, astronomers, and theologians have proposed a wide range of answers from comets to supernovas, to a planetary alignment.
The Comet Theory
One of the oldest explanations is also the most intuitive: comets can be spectacular and widely visible. Ancient people routinely interpreted comets as signs announcing auspicious events. Halley’s Comet, for example, appeared in 12-11 BCE and again in 66 CE. Its appearance on August 26 in 12 BCE is recorded in the Chinese astronomical Book of Han. The Roman historian Cassius Dio connected the appearance of Halley’s Comet in the skies above Rome with the death of the general Marcus Agrippa.
When the 3rd-century Christian theologian Origen of Alexandria attempted to account for the unusual movements of the Star of Bethlehem, he wrote that it should be “classified with the comets which occasionally occur, or meteors, or bearded or jar-shaped stars....”
The problem is that the timing does not line up well with the reign of Herod the Great, who died in 4 BCE and is explicitly mentioned in Matthew. If we assume that the Gospel chronology is roughly correct, then Halley’s Comet—the only plausible candidate for the comet—appeared too early to be relevant to Jesus’ birth.
More importantly, Matthew describes the star as something the magi saw “at its rising” and something that later “stood over” a particular house. Comets do not behave this way—their motion is smooth and predictable.
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Interestingly, for ancient readers, comets were usually thought to be predictors of disaster rather than good fortune. The Jewish historian Josephus wrote of a comet that passed over Jerusalem before its destruction in the first Jewish War. And Suetonius notes that the appearance of a comet prompted a superstitious Nero to have several important figures in his empire executed. If the star was a comet, writes Raymond Brown, author of The Birth of the Messiah, it is difficult to imagine why the magi would have followed such a bad omen to Bethlehem.
The Supernova Theory
Another dramatic possibility is that the magi witnessed a supernova—an exploding star bright enough to be visible in daytime—or a less intense nova, which still produces a sudden and striking increase in brightness.
Chinese astronomers, who kept careful records dating back to 1000 BCE, recorded a possible tailed comet in 5 BCE and a possible nova or supernova in 4 BCE. These are promising dates: they fall within a plausible timeframe for the birth of Jesus and the final years of Herod.
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Once again, however, the fit is imperfect. A supernova or nova would be visible to everyone, not just astronomers. But Matthew gives no indication that Herod or the residents of Jerusalem had noticed an unusual light in the sky; Herod seems surprised when the magi arrive and must ask them privately about the timing of the star’s appearance. Moreover, just as with comets, supernovae also do not “stand over” a single home.
Where the nova hypothesis succeeds is in its dramatic imagery. The early 2nd-century Christian bishop Ignatius of Antioch described its light as “beyond description” and exceeding all other stars—a celestial sign worthy of a king’s birth.
The Planetary Conjunction Theory
The most popular modern explanation is that the star was actually a conjunction of two or more planets in the night sky. The theory dates to the 8th-century astronomer Mash’allah, whose astrological history was based on an earlier Babylonian theory that important events and power shifts are predicted by the conjunctions of planets in the sky. He claimed that three important events—the great flood, the birth of Jesus, and the birth of the Prophet Muhammad—were all anticipated by conjunctions of Saturn and Jupiter.
Grant Mathews, an professor of theoretical physics at the University of Notre Dame, studied planetary alignments in the rough time frame for the birth of Jesus (8-4 BCE). He noticed that on April 17 in 6 BCE there was a special alignment of the sun, moon, Jupiter, Saturn, and the vernal equinox in the Aries constellation, while Venus aligned in adjacent Pisces. This specific alignment of the planets (with Mercury and Mars in Taurus) was so unusual that it will not occur again until 16,213 CE.
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Each of the celestial bodies involved in this planetary conjunction had particular significance to ancient astronomers. Jupiter was associated with kingship and was suggestive of a ruler when it was with the sun. Taken together, said Mathews, the conjunctions of these planets in Aries, which was associated with Judea, would suggest the appearance of a new ruler in that region.
A planetary alignment may well have motivated the special journey undertaken by the magi and, unlike a supernova, a planetary conjunction is not especially bright. This might explain why no one other than the magi was interested in the star.
Miracles and Symbols
Finally, many Christian interpreters have argued that the Star of Bethlehem was not a natural phenomenon at all but a miracle. The late antique bishop John Chrysostom thought the star must have been miraculous because it acted unlike a normal star by coming to a standstill over a home. Origen, similarly, compared the star to the supernatural pillar of fire that guided Israel in the wilderness.
Other scholars think that the story of the star is a literary device. Robyn Walsh, associate professor of New Testament at the University of Miami, said, “Matthew’s star narrative is less about astronomy and more about literary and theological symbolism … Celestial portents were a standard feature in biographies of heroes, emperors, and gods.” Virgil writes that a blazing star guided Aeneas to the place where Rome should be founded. Ancient commentators note that the births of Alexander the Great and Augustus were heralded by astrological portents. For Matthew and his ancient readers, the star was a familiar literary device that communicated that the birth of Jesus has cosmic implications: the heavens were proclaiming a new king.
