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 The Star of Bethlehem

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Temperance
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PostSubject: The Star of Bethlehem   The Star of Bethlehem EmptySat 02 Jan 2016, 08:07

Anyone fancy a bit of a fight calm and friendly discussion about the very odd happenings in the sky circa 7ish BC? I watched my recording of The Sky at Night Christmas Special - the Real Star of Bethlehem yesterday and was fascinated to learn that many rational-sounding scientists from universities such as Oxford, Cambridge, London, Sheffield and Exeter all agree that something a bit peculiar was going on in the night (or dawn) sky about 2022 (ish) years ago - when Herod the Great ruled as a Roman client-king of Judea. The scientists - as one would expect - give evidence too: please note especially the little baked tablet things with funny writing on them! And even the Chinese made records of the happening (listen to that chap from Cambridge)! Was the unusual celestial event a supernova, the rare triple conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn, a comet, or - my favourite explanation - an heliacal rising? Seems  a group of astronomers/astrologers from Mesopotamia could well have got all excited about weird goings-on in the constellation of Pisces - which to their minds corresponded with Herod's (the Great, not his sons who never had the title of "king") kingdom of Judea - and have been prompted to make an investigative journey.

Anything is possible, after all...



I do hope certain people will take the time to watch this:



  http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b06t3wst/the-sky-at-night-the-real-star-of-bethlehem-a-christmas-special



This is by 14th-century Italian painter Giotto di Bondone, whose 1305–06 fresco The Adoration of the Magi includes a realistic depiction of a comet as the Star of Bethlehem in the Nativity scene; this image is believed to have been inspired by the artist’s observation of the passage of Halley’s Comet in 1301.

The Star of Bethlehem Th?id=OIP.Mb437ef8b06079d0a9b55114ad0112750o0&pid=15






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PostSubject: Re: The Star of Bethlehem   The Star of Bethlehem EmptySat 02 Jan 2016, 10:00

I watched that as well, Temp, enjoyed it although hardly a new topic and I also was thinking about starting a thread.

For anyone who didn't, or can't access it, I must point out that it did include the proviso it is possible (indeed quite probable) that the whole thing is a later invention for obvious reasons but then went on to consider if there was an astronomical event in the period 7-4 BCE that could have been interpreted by the magi as significant. They proposed 6 possibilities: a supernova, a nova, a triple conjunction, a comet, a heliacal rising or a meteorite.

What caught my attention was the observation that the magi had to tell Herod about the 'star' and he had to ask when it appeared. Now, if coming from the believers' perspective, that implies that it couldn't have been a spectacular event since he and his priests and advisers and everyone else would surely have noticed a bluddy big blazing thing in the sky. That then would tend to support the conjunction or heliacal rising theory since they are not unique events and their particular import in this case would only be understood by the cognoscenti. From that viewpoint, I'd favour the conjunction although the appearance, disappearance, reappearance thing about a comet is interesting.

If however, the story was invented around an actual astronomical phenomenon and if thought up within living memory it would most likely relate to something so noteworthy as to have been remembered. If dreamed up later though, it could be total invention which I find the most likely.



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PostSubject: Re: The Star of Bethlehem   The Star of Bethlehem EmptySat 02 Jan 2016, 10:59

With no intention of getting drawn into a religious wrangle, of comets I have seen four and not one was startling bright - fuzzy globes for the most part. And to witness two, we travelled to deep desert and up remote foothills to get a better chance of a sighting. That the ancients were very familiar with the sky patterns I do not doubt so they would have been noted with far more ease - and perhaps wonder - by many people; sound knowledge of the heavens and cycles was widespread. Any change would underpin or anchor an event in memory. (Temps.....I have just used that phrase to you also! My phrase of the day, it seems) 
Was there one at the time of Hastings? Or would you also most likely think that a total invention? I have also suspected that the ancients had a better grasp of such matters until scholars got their acts together again.
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PostSubject: Re: The Star of Bethlehem   The Star of Bethlehem EmptySat 02 Jan 2016, 11:29

Priscilla wrote:
Was there one at the time of Hastings?


1054 - bit early, but  something was afoot in those years - the birth of a new nation was about to happen - a historical event that was to have profound consequences on world history.

Back in 1997 I was teaching King Lear to a group of sixth-formers, and I tried to explain to them the significance of astrological/astronomical happenings to the audiences of Elizabethan and Jacobean England. We were looking at the Duke of Gloucester's famous speech in Act I of Lear and the response of Edmund - Gloucester's cool, rational, cynical, bastard son (did Shakespeare have Marlowe in mind when he created Edmund?). Edmund had absolutely no time for his aged father's ridiculous nonsense:

Gloucester:
These late eclipses in the sun and moon portend
No good to us: though the wisdom of nature can
Reason it thus and thus, yet nature finds itself
Scourged by the sequent effects: love cools,
Friendship falls off, brothers divide: in
Cities, mutinies; in countries, discord; in
Palaces, treason; and the bond cracked 'twixt son
And father. This villain of mine comes under the
Prediction; there's son against father: the king
Falls from bias of nature; there's father against
Child. We have seen the best of our time:
Machinations, hollowness, treachery, and all
Ruinous disorders, follow us disquietly to our
Graves. Find out this villain, Edmund; it shall
Lose thee nothing; do it carefully. And the
Noble and true-hearted Kent banished! his
Offence, honesty! 'Tis strange.


Exit

Edmund:
This is the excellent foppery of the world, that,
When we are sick in fortune,--often the surfeit
Of our own behaviour,--we make guilty of our
Disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars: as
If we were villains by necessity; fools by
Heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and
Treachers, by spherical predominance; drunkards,
Liars, and adulterers, by an enforced obedience of
Planetary influence; and all that we are evil in,
By a divine thrusting on: an admirable evasion
Of whoremaster man, to lay his goatish
Disposition to the charge of a star! My
Father compounded with my mother under the
Dragon's tail; and my nativity was under Ursa
Major; so that it follows, I am rough and
Lecherous. Tut, I should have been that I am,
Had the maidenliest star in the firmament
Twinkled on my bastardizing. Edgar--


Enter Edgar.

And pat he comes like the catastrophe of the old
Comedy: my cue is villanous melancholy, with a
Sigh like Tom o' Bedlam. O, these eclipses do
Portend these divisions! fa, sol, la, mi.
(Laughs)

Halley's comet was visible in the skies that spring of 1997 and I pointed out that the Jacobeans would have expected an event of huge significance to occur during the year, possibly an important royal birth or death. I predicted the demise of the Queen Mother - she was 97 after all and therefore a pretty safe bet. In August of that year, of course, Diana, Princess of Wales, died. Something no one expected. Odd.

The Star of Bethlehem B_T_,%2033,%20Halley's%20comet_jpg


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PostSubject: Re: The Star of Bethlehem   The Star of Bethlehem EmptySat 02 Jan 2016, 11:38

PS I wonder if Shakespeare knew about Kepler's Supernova of 1604? Lear was drafted, we think, in 1605/1606. There had certainly been eclipses of both the sun and moon in 1606.

http://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/starsgalaxies/kepler.html
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PostSubject: Re: The Star of Bethlehem   The Star of Bethlehem EmptySun 03 Jan 2016, 06:50

ferval wrote:


If however, the story was invented around an actual astronomical phenomenon and if thought up within living memory it would most likely relate to something so noteworthy as to have been remembered. If dreamed up later though, it could be total invention which I find the most likely.




Well, there is much in the New Testament that was "total invention", but what was the purpose of the fiction? That is what is important. But some things are certain: there was a birth and there was a death - and a life that was to be of profound importance. T.S. Eliot says it all for me - rather better than Saint Matthew actually. No mention of the star though - only of being "led".


Journey of the Magi  


A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires gong out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty, and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.

Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.

All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we lead all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I have seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.
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PostSubject: Re: The Star of Bethlehem   The Star of Bethlehem EmptySun 03 Jan 2016, 07:02

But may I go back - briefly - to omens in the Heavens? "Interpretations" of such natural phenomena are superstitious, ignorant nonsense no doubt (really), but such stuff does make for a good yarn - or bit of drama if you are Shakespeare.

One last Eng. Lit. quote from me, then I promise I'll shut up...

Two examples from history of the "sundog" or "parhelion" phenomenon -  were these parhelia from 1461 and 1847 omens, or just coincidence?

The prelude to the Battle of Mortimer's Cross in Herefordshire, England in 1461 is supposed to have involved the appearance of a complete parhelion with three "suns". The Yorkist commander, later Edward IV of England, convinced his initially frightened troops that it represented the three sons of the Duke of York*, and Edward's troops won a decisive victory. The event was dramatized by William Shakespeare in King Henry VI, Part 3 and by Sharon Kay Penman in The Sunne In Splendour.

* Actually I think the Earl of March reassured his men that the three suns represented the Holy Trinity and that, therefore, God, obviously a good Yorkist, was on their side.

Three glorious suns, each one a perfect sun;
Not separated with the racking clouds,
But sever'd in a pale clear-shining sky.
See, see! they join, embrace, and seem to kiss,
As if they vow'd some league inviolable:
Now are they but one lamp, one light, one sun.
In this the heaven figures some event.

Odd too that the three Brontë sisters were also the subject of speculation as to possible future glory - because of a parhelion. This is from Rebecca Fraser's biography of Charlotte Bronte:

That August (1847), Ellen (Nussey) went to stay with the Brontes and, full of suspicions about the sisters' writing activities, she recalled how all four women were out on the moor when a sudden light came into the sky...They all stood still and gazed silently at the parhelion, a phenomenon that has appeared intermittently at Haworth for the past five centuries. Ellen then said boldly:'That is you! You are the three suns.' 'Hush,' said Charlotte, but as Ellen looked away she noticed that there was a happy smile on Emily's face."

A few days later Charlotte Bronte, no doubt expecting that she would receive the usual rejection letter, sent her manuscript of Jane Eyre to Smith, Elder and Co. in London.
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PostSubject: Re: The Star of Bethlehem   The Star of Bethlehem EmptySun 03 Jan 2016, 09:40

Another "omen in the sky" often thought to have been parhelia, was that observed by Constantine on 28 October 312 just before the Battle of the Milvian Bridge which led to him adopting a cross as his symbol. As Eusebius (Life of Constantine XXIX) says: "He said that about noon, when the day was already beginning to decline, he saw with his own eyes the trophy of a cross of light in the heavens, above the sun, and bearing the inscription, 'In Hoc Signo Vinces' - with this sign, you will conquer. At this sight he himself was struck with amazement, and his whole army also, which followed him on this expedition, and witnessed the miracle."

But it's also been speculated that Constantine's omen might have been a very large meteorite, possibly that which impacted about 100km away to form the Sirente crater (although it's not even established that this crater was formed by a meteor impact). Interestingly, bearing in mind the omen's influence on Constantine's adoption of Christianity, there is a local oral tradition in the Abruzzo region about the formation of the Sirente lake and the region's conversion from Paganism to Christianity (which happened in the 4th century AD) which describes what might be a large meteor impact. A version of the folk-tale is recorded as follows:

"It was in the afternoon...an uproar hit the mountain and quartered the giant oaks announcing the violent arrival of the Goddess. A sudden and intense heat overwhelmed the people and a shout echoed all around, splitting the air with its trail of violence. All of a sudden, over there, in the distance, in the sky, a new star, never seen before, bigger than the other ones, came nearer and nearer, appeared and disappeared behind the top of the eastern mountains. Peoples’ eyes looked at the strange light growing bigger and bigger. Soon the star shone as large as a new sun. An irresistible, dazzling light pervaded the sky. The oak leaves shuddered, discoloured, and curled up. The forest lost its sap.

The Sirente was shaking. In a tremendous rumble the statue sank into a sudden chasm. The satyrs and the Bacchantes fell down senseless. A huge silence fell. It seemed as if time had stopped in the ancient wood near the temple at the foot of the Sirente, and it looked like the mountain had never existed. The entire valley became dumb. Not a breath of wind could be heard, nor a sheep bleating from the numerous herds, nor a rustle from the strong trees, nor a human sound. After an endless period of time, when stars shone in the sky without the moon, a new breeze came to stir the leaves; sheep were heard again and the Mountain was dressed in the light of a new dawn.

Faint stars disappeared, blue sky slowly came back and the Sirente became a golden mountain in the first rays of the new sun. It looked like the Valley was full of roses. Newly awake, men listened closely to the death rattle of the Goddess at the foot of the wood; and then they saw the statue of the Madonna with the Holy Child in her arms who was sitting on a throne of light and was surrounded by light."

If the Sirente crater and lake were formed by a meteorite, it has been estimated that it would have needed to have impacted with a force similar to that of a small nuclear bomb. It would have appeared as a fireball streaking across the sky to be followed by a massive flash and shockwave, then a rising glowing mushroom cloud of debris, all clearly visible from at least 100km away. Furthermore archaeological investigations have indicated that a Roman village just a few km from the Sirente lake had been abandoned sometime in the 4th century, with mass graves seeming to indicate that the region had experienced some major calamity.

But of course all this is just speculation. These events may not be related to each other nor even have occurred in this way.
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PostSubject: Re: The Star of Bethlehem   The Star of Bethlehem EmptySun 03 Jan 2016, 11:04

Priscilla wrote:
... of comets I have seen four and not one was startling bright - fuzzy globes for the most part. And to witness two, we travelled to deep desert and up remote foothills to get a better chance of a sighting.

I agree with you that comets tend not to be particularly obvious: I've observed two but quite frankly if they hadn't been reported in the press with detailed directions of where to look, I'd never have noticed them. Maybe now that I live in the wilds with no light pollution a comet would be clearer. But I guess Halley's comet is a big one and which is why it has been treated as an omen. The recent conjunction of Jupiter, Mars and Venus however was very obvious: the three planets clustered close together, and each brighter than any other stars, was so clear that I didn't even have to read up on where to look.

By the way Temp, there was a parhelion recorded for 1551 in southern England, followed two months later by an earthquake:

And also abowte Ester was sene in Sussex three sonnes shenynge at one tyme in the eyer, that thei cowde not dysserne wych shulde be the very sonne. Item the XXVth Day of May, wych was the monday after Trenyte sonday, was gret erthyqwakes in dyvers places, as abowte Croy-dyn and in that towne and other dyvers townes there by, as at Rygate, and many other places abowte, and also at Westmynster and divers other places in London, and abowte there.

Chronicle of the Grey Friars of London (for 1551)

The combination of the two events must have caused some consternation ... perhaps for the health of Edward VI.


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PostSubject: Re: The Star of Bethlehem   The Star of Bethlehem EmptySun 03 Jan 2016, 12:37

Temperance wrote:
Priscilla wrote:
Was there one at the time of Hastings?


1054 - bit early, but  something was afoot in those years - the birth of a new nation was about to happen - a historical event that was to have profound consequences on world history.


The Star of Bethlehem B_T_,%2033,%20Halley's%20comet_jpg

Not sure what your 1054 date relates to, Temp, but as your picture shows, Halley's comet did appear in 1066 at about Easter, and was immediately seen, 6 months before the battle, as a dark omen. As well as being depicted on the Bayeaux Tapestry, the 1066 approach of Halley's comet was recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and Irish annals too.

Regarding the Star of Bethlehem, a comet seems unlikely. Halley's was visible in 12 BC, which seems a bit too early, but even so I get the impression that in antiquity comets, were generally seen as bad omens, and so rather unlikely to have been associated with the long-awaited birth of a messiah.
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PostSubject: Re: The Star of Bethlehem   The Star of Bethlehem EmptySun 03 Jan 2016, 14:54

I won't pretend it was a deliberate mistake or a typo, MM; I got it wrong. My other error was saying it was Halley's comet which was seen in 1997: it was of course the Great Comet or Comet Hale-Bopp.  Embarassed

The info about 1551 was interesting - thank you.

And superstition or no, you have to feel for the poor old Nun of Leicester - watching his wife, Anne Neville, die during a total eclipse of the sun in March 1485. A death happening in the eerie gloom of a total eclipse would be unnerving today - all the more so back then with dark mutterings about it signifying a "fall from heavenly grace".

MM wrote:
Regarding the Star of Bethlehem, a comet seems unlikely. Halley's was visible in 12 BC, which seems a bit too early, but even so I get the impression that in antiquity comets, were generally seen as bad omens, and so rather unlikely to have been associated with the long-awaited birth of a messiah.



I agree. Also, according to Wiki, "the possibility has been raised that first-century Jewish astronomers already had recognized Halley's Comet as periodic.[27] This theory notes a passage in the Talmud[28] that refers to "a star which appears once in seventy years that makes the captains of the ships err."[29] "

My money is on either the heliacal rising or the very rare triple conjunction of the Earth, Jupiter and Saturn (in 7BC, if I remember correctly). The latter event happened I think three times within a short space of time -  which presumably would give the impression of a very bright star which seemed to wander about.
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PostSubject: Re: The Star of Bethlehem   The Star of Bethlehem EmptyWed 06 Jan 2016, 13:50

The Great Comet of 1811 is mentioned in Tolstoy's War and Peace as a harbinger on Napoleon's Invasion of Russia;

The Star of Bethlehem Appearance-of-the-great-comet-in-1811
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PostSubject: Re: The Star of Bethlehem   The Star of Bethlehem EmptyWed 06 Jan 2016, 17:42

Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock and Professor Chris Lintott of The Sky at Night Christmas Special plumped for the comet theory for the Star of Bethlehem.

Such a comet (the Great Comet observed by the Chinese in 5BC?) could presumably be still up there and make a reappearance from time to time. I do hope the comet reportedly excommunicated by Pope Callixtus III in 1456 wasn't the Star of Bethlehem. What an unfortunate papal error that would have been.

PS Did the Pope really excommunicate a comet for being on the Turks' side during the Ottoman-Hungarian wars? I know there have been some rather odd pronouncements coming from Rome over the centuries, but declaring a comet to be heretical does seem a bit daft.
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PostSubject: Re: The Star of Bethlehem   The Star of Bethlehem EmptyWed 06 Jan 2016, 23:04

But surely the fault  always lies in our stars? It would probably be a heresy to doubt Shakespeare - and gobbing the blame game through a Roman, at that. When I tell people I am Piscean, they always say 'Ah' with a  knowing nod. This I do not understand but it seems to explain my failings..... a couple of fish going every which way. 

Perhaps the Great Comet birthed the notion of a second coming ..... any idea when it's due, Temp? On reflection that's best not revealed. Gulp - getting close to Benefits again - Oh dear, ferv will have a fit. Resolutions just don't last as long as they used to.
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PostSubject: Re: The Star of Bethlehem   The Star of Bethlehem EmptyThu 07 Jan 2016, 13:43

Priscilla wrote:
But surely the fault  always lies in our stars? It would probably be a heresy to doubt Shakespeare - and gobbing the blame game through a Roman, at that. When I tell people I am Piscean, they always say 'Ah' with a  knowing nod. This I do not understand but it seems to explain my failings..... a couple of fish going every which way. 

Perhaps the Great Comet birthed the notion of a second coming ..... any idea when it's due, Temp? On reflection that's best not revealed. Gulp - getting close to Benefits again - Oh dear, ferv will have a fit. Resolutions just don't last as long as they used to.



I'm afraid not, Priscilla - but that's a cue for a nice bit of poetry. This is one of my favourites. Chilling stuff, though, especially given what's going on in the Middle East at the moment.


William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)

      THE SECOND COMING

   Turning and turning in the widening gyre
    The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
    Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
    Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
    The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
    The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
    The best lack all conviction, while the worst
    Are full of passionate intensity.

   Surely some revelation is at hand;
    Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
    The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
    When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
    Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
    A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
    A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
    Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
    Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.

   The darkness drops again but now I know
    That twenty centuries of stony sleep
    Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
    And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
    Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?



Are you really a Piscean, P.? I'd have never have guessed it. Pisceans are supposed to be dreamy, chaotic types who take drugs and often get drunk to escape the sordid realities of life  Shocked . I'd have thought you were an Aries - decisive leader and a stands-no-nonsense type. I'm a woolly, dithering Libran, of course. I wonder what others here are? I suspect ferval is a Taurean - MM too - love of food and all the good things in life. Nordmann (where is he??) must be a Scorpio - another no nonsense type with a sting in his tail and all. But maybe a Gemini - cerebral (ever-so-brainy), eloquent types often are. Others - Trike, ID, Paul - who knows?!

Astrology was taken very seriously of course in the olden days - it was all very mathematical. Still is, or so a friend tells me. However, I tend to agree with Cassius (and Edmund) about astrology. Wonder what Shakespeare himself really thought?

Star signs and famous characters from history might make an interesting, if silly, thread. Elizabeth I was, appropriately enough, a Virgo.


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PostSubject: Re: The Star of Bethlehem   The Star of Bethlehem EmptyThu 07 Jan 2016, 17:59

Nope, Temp, I'm an Aquarian. Does that surprise you? Maybe that's why I lean towards scatology rather than eschatology.











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PostSubject: Re: The Star of Bethlehem   The Star of Bethlehem EmptyThu 07 Jan 2016, 18:07

You don't strike me as being at all scatty, ferval. Smile I think you are very sensible.

But it is the Age of Aquarius now - all technology and science and stuff. Suspect I'm a bit of a fish out of water these days - or is that Priscilla?


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PostSubject: Re: The Star of Bethlehem   The Star of Bethlehem EmptyThu 07 Jan 2016, 18:15

Temperance wrote:
I suspect ferval is a Taurean - MM too - love of food and all the good things in life. Nordmann (where is he??) must be a Scorpio - another no nonsense type with a sting in his tail and all. But maybe a Gemini - wordy, cerebral types often are.

Actually Temp, I'm Gemini - Gémeaux - the twins ... but I'm certainly not upset if you think that, while I might love the good things in life, I'm also wordy and cerebral.
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PostSubject: Re: The Star of Bethlehem   The Star of Bethlehem EmptyThu 07 Jan 2016, 18:25

Embarassed

Il me semble que j'ai mis mon pied dans it - quelle surprise - not.

Cerebral, but never wordy, MM! I'd better edit that post before His Nibs sees it.
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PostSubject: Re: The Star of Bethlehem   The Star of Bethlehem EmptyThu 07 Jan 2016, 18:42

Temperance wrote:
Embarassed

Il me semble que j'ai mis mon pied dans it - quelle surprise - not.

Cerebral, but never wordy, MM! I'd better edit that post before His Nibs sees it.

Pas de tout chérie, mais sûrement son Nibs est un Lion, Leo, King of all the Beasts, n'est-ce pas?
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PostSubject: Re: The Star of Bethlehem   The Star of Bethlehem EmptyThu 07 Jan 2016, 19:02

Of course! Just big pussy cats though, for all the roaring. I bet he's got Leo rising and his moon in Leo, too.

I still can't get over Priscilla being a Piscean. If His Nibs is Leo, it's no wonder they had a scrap and Priscilla swam away. Glad she's swum back, though.

But enough of this nonsense. We sound like the oriental fortune-tellers who surprised Brian's mum, hanging round a cattle-shed at 2.00am. ("Led by a Star? Led by a bottle, more like.")

Let us return to science, evidence and reason in our discussion of heavenly bodies. Newton saw a comet in 1690 and again in 1691. Did anything of note happen then?


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PostSubject: Re: The Star of Bethlehem   The Star of Bethlehem EmptyThu 07 Jan 2016, 19:03

Temperance wrote:

But it is the Age of Aquarius now - all technology and science and stuff. Suspect I'm a bit of a fish out of water these days - or is that Priscilla?

That takes me back to MM's justified rant on an other thread. This is not aimed at you Temp but, why is it so acceptable among even the well educated in this country to admit to being clueless about maths and the sciences, even at a popular level? Owning up to being completely ignorant about Shakespeare or art or music would bring expressions of surprise, even politely disguised horror, but to look blank at the mention of Clerk Maxwell or quantum mechanics or epigenetics is greeted with nods of sympathetic agreement and shared incomprehension.

One of the things I enjoy about archaeology is the way it brings together so many disciplines in mostly mutual respect and appreciation,. That's not to say that there isn't any winding up; "I'm not interested in the science of how you do it, just give the results" or "Airy-fairy mud covered dreamers, you lot, the truth is in the stable isotope analysis" or the statistics, the C14 figures, the spectroscopic analysis and so on but at least everyone understands that each has their part and is necessary. In fact, in the honours years, archaeology is one of the very few subjects where students from the science faculties (including astronomy) and the humanities are in the same lecture rooms and taking the same courses.

Yup, I've gone way off topic again but maybe not, archaeo-astronomy is an interesting if highly controversial topic and entirely relevant to this thread.
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PostSubject: Re: The Star of Bethlehem   The Star of Bethlehem EmptyThu 07 Jan 2016, 19:06

Clerk Who? Epi-whats?
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PostSubject: Re: The Star of Bethlehem   The Star of Bethlehem EmptyThu 07 Jan 2016, 19:59

Laughing
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PostSubject: Re: The Star of Bethlehem   The Star of Bethlehem EmptyFri 08 Jan 2016, 09:10

You may find this hard to believe, Temp, but a copy of that Giotto painting you put in your opening post is hanging in my old alma mater's chapel. Painted by yours truly, no less.

However, before you leap to any conclusion as wild as the one you made regarding comets in 7ish BCE, it was executed as part of an A-level type art course demonstrating rudimentary use of perspective in religious art at the start of the Renaissance, and had been submitted with other material during the final exams. I was meant to get all the material back afterwards but the bloody Christians nicked the ones they liked.

PS: Astrologically I have decided I'm an Ophiuchus (the 13th sign of the 14 used by Russell Grants in antiquity). Not because I fit any of the personality criteria. Simply because I heartily agree with the sentiment expressed when one loudly shouts out the star-sign's name.
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PostSubject: Re: The Star of Bethlehem   The Star of Bethlehem EmptySat 09 Jan 2016, 09:58

nordmann wrote:

However, before you leap to any conclusion as wild as the one you made regarding comets in 7ish BCE...


My conclusions wild? How so, sir? I was merely repeating comments made by scientists - astronomers - on the very reputable BBC Sky At Night Christmas Special programme.

I suppose you mean the idea that unusual happenings in the skies being linked to events on earth is wild and silly. Maybe, but historically it's very interesting. Well, I think so.

PS ferval - I've been learning about epigenetics this morning. I suppose the Daily Telegraph is not the best tutor, but it's a start. And I've found out who Clerk Thingy was.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/10369861/Epigenetics-How-to-alter-your-genes.html
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PostSubject: Re: The Star of Bethlehem   The Star of Bethlehem EmptySat 09 Jan 2016, 10:52

PPS Still trying to work out how to pronounce Ophiuchus.

Oh! Few cuss? Oh fie! - you cuss? Oh phew! - cuss?
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PostSubject: Re: The Star of Bethlehem   The Star of Bethlehem EmptySat 09 Jan 2016, 11:47

Temperance wrote:
PPS Still trying to work out how to pronounce Ophiuchus.

Oh! Few cuss? Oh fie! - you cuss? Oh phew! - cuss?


Awfi' yuccas perhaps?



The Star of Bethlehem IMGP2245_zps034757ab
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PostSubject: Re: The Star of Bethlehem   The Star of Bethlehem EmptySat 09 Jan 2016, 12:05

ferval wrote:
Temperance wrote:
PPS Still trying to work out how to pronounce Ophiuchus.

Oh! Few cuss? Oh fie! - you cuss? Oh phew! - cuss?


Awfi' yuccas perhaps?



The Star of Bethlehem IMGP2245_zps034757ab






Yucca plants - yuk! Such a spiky, bad-tempered shrub. Not at all suitable in an English garden. My neighbours have one in a pot on their patio. Dreadful thing. Looks dead most of the time (like the one in your pic in fact, ferval).
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PostSubject: Re: The Star of Bethlehem   The Star of Bethlehem EmptySat 09 Jan 2016, 14:50

Temp wrote:
My conclusions wild? How so, sir? I was merely repeating comments made by scientists - astronomers - on the very reputable BBC Sky At Night Christmas Special programme.

Astronomers are annually asked to comment on the "event" that might have triggered the supposedly wise men to land up in Bethlehem, and their answers place them into two camps. On the one hand there are those astronomers who wisely caution against retrogressively assessing astronomical activity based solely on faulty hagiological biographies and birth records etc, especially when the event has a supposedly religious significance. On the other hand there are the astrologers (and those of course who appreciate the extra few bob, what with Christmas coming up and all that, for playing along with the speculation).

I miss Patrick Moore. One Christmas, in response to a letter from a viewer, he just dismissed the whole thing as pointless in his opening remark on the programme and then hastily moved on to more germane matters regarding Mariner 4, a jolly little probe which had done some sterling work advancing humanity (we all thought) away from a reliance on uneducated and superstitious bunkum, and which had sadly "died" the day before.

The plain truth of the matter is that there is no recorded astronomical event (amongst the many recorded in the period, especially by the Chinese who were really good at this stuff) that fits Matthew's tale. There was a nova in 5BCE that would have led Balthazar and his mates to Indonesia had they attempted to "follow" it. Other than that there was a period in 7BCE to 6BCE in which they might have "followed" Jupiter's retrograde motion in Aries, which of course would have then led them beyond Bethlehem, beyond the Levant, into the Mediterranean, and then on around the globe in a corkscrew motion which would have eventually deposited them in the Antarctic. Had they followed a comet it was a peculiarly private one indeed, so private as to be unknown to those at the time whose living was made from watching out for them (and one which bucked the standard trend for such ice clumps regarding solar orbital direction).

Mandy's "bleedin' bottle" theory makes much more sense. Now I'm off up to the roof to shout out my star sign's name repeatedly into the uncaring cosmos.
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PostSubject: Re: The Star of Bethlehem   The Star of Bethlehem EmptySat 09 Jan 2016, 15:59

nordmann - do please tell us that you weren't born in June/July.

Good to see you back by the way.
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PostSubject: Re: The Star of Bethlehem   The Star of Bethlehem EmptySat 09 Jan 2016, 16:06

Temperance wrote:
PPS Still trying to work out how to pronounce Ophiuchus.

Oh! Few cuss? Oh fie! - you cuss? Oh phew! - cuss?

Ofi-ukus.
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PostSubject: Re: The Star of Bethlehem   The Star of Bethlehem EmptySat 09 Jan 2016, 17:02

Thank you, ID. I hadn't thought of that.

Patrick Moore appears in my Christmas Special: an old clip from the Sky At Night, about 33 minutes into the programme. He is described as "a reluctant champion" of the meteor - or rather two meteors - theory of our Wondrous Star.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b06t3wst/the-sky-at-night-the-real-star-of-bethlehem-a-christmas-special

Have you actually watched the programme, nordmann? Should we not keep open minds about these things? Or is that merely an indication of an unfortunate tendency to "wildness"?

First huff of 2016, everyone. Cheers

Smile
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PostSubject: Re: The Star of Bethlehem   The Star of Bethlehem EmptySat 09 Jan 2016, 17:25

I don't know why I'm doing this, I don't believe in any of it, but fair's fair and the Boss clearly hasn't seen the prog., so here goes. The Bible says that the magi turned up in Jerusalem saying that they had seen a star announcing a new king of the Jews, not that they had followed it, and that could be explained by the triple conjunction in Pisces if the interpretation given in the programme is correct. If Herod then told them that the prophecy said the wean would be born in Bethlehem then the 'following the star to the stable' bit could just be embellishment.

The bit of the whole story that would puzzle me most if I were a believer though is the massacre of the innocents - surely someone would have recorded all the male toddlers being killed and remembered it in Jewish history and legend as well as in Christian myth?
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PostSubject: Re: The Star of Bethlehem   The Star of Bethlehem EmptySat 09 Jan 2016, 18:05

Good point, ferval. I don't think the Slaughter of the Innocents really happened: it was an example - perhaps - of the midrashic technique used so often in the Gospels. This is something I am fascinated by; but try to get anyone in Church circles to discuss it with you and you are met with blank looks or hostile stares. I wish Tim were still around: I wonder what his take on all this would be?

Midrash isn't dishonest, by the way - it's an important Jewish literary device. We forget that the New Testament was written by (Hellenic) Jewish men - including Luke, who was probably a Jewish convert.
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PostSubject: Re: The Star of Bethlehem   The Star of Bethlehem EmptySat 09 Jan 2016, 18:15

ferval wrote:
The Bible says that the magi turned up in Jerusalem saying that they had seen a star announcing a new king of the Jews, not that they had followed it

True. That's how the story begins. And then after arriving they ask around. And Herod hears about the lads and summons them to his court to explain what they're on about. And the so-called "wise" men tell this despot that he's about to be deposed by a new king as advertised by this star they'd seen back home which by now had disappeared (or maybe it had just been very untypically cloudy every night in the desert on their way). And then ...

οἱ δὲ ἀκούσαντες τοῦ βασιλέως ἐπορεύθησαν, καὶ ἰδοὺ ὁ ἀστὴρ ὃν εἶδον ἐν τῇ ἀνατολῇ προῆγεν
αὐτοὺς ἕως ἐλθὼν ἐστάθη ἐπάνω οὗ ἦν τὸ παιδίον.
(After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and lo, the star, the one they had seen in the east, kept moving on in front of them, until it arrived and stopped over where the child was.)

So you see it made a comeback. Now, either the triple conjunction happened twice within the space of a few weeks (or however long it takes to hump one's camel over the rugged Zagros Mountains, across the Syrian Desert, and through Israel into Herod's patch) or they were seeing two separate phenomena and thinking them the same, which would rule out any conjunction-type event anyway. Or if they were confusing a triple conjunction with something like a comet later then they were a bunch of really lousy astronomers, even by the standards of the day outside of China. Or they were drunk.

I really miss Patrick Moore.

Temp, I have an open mind - however, the size of its aperture I monitor closely. And be careful what you say about the slaughter of the innocents. Tim might be listening and that apparently is one of his favourite bits! Or at least he argues for its veracity when he's in the mood ...
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PostSubject: Re: The Star of Bethlehem   The Star of Bethlehem EmptySat 09 Jan 2016, 18:26

nordmann wrote:
Now, either the triple conjunction happened twice within the space of a few weeks...



I think this is mentioned in the programme - the conjunction happened three times if I remember correctly, a most unusual occurrence. May I invite you to watch the broadcast? I'm sure you will find it most interesting and it might make discussion easier for us all. I have given the link twice now.


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PostSubject: Re: The Star of Bethlehem   The Star of Bethlehem EmptySat 09 Jan 2016, 18:55

Ah, they missed one then?
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PostSubject: Re: The Star of Bethlehem   The Star of Bethlehem EmptySun 10 Jan 2016, 12:40

Ok. I've watched the programme - as I was so graciously requested to do.

It discusses six theories, for each of which their implausibility can be summarised by a sliding scale of esotericity ascending as the corresponding visual impact descends, and then in a rather futile exercise in the end (astronomically) they settle for the theory (comet) which at least fulfilled two criteria - spectacular and recorded. Except it wasn't really recorded at all but was alluded to in the use of "broom star" in a Chinese annal as a descriptor for an astronomical event seemingly ignored or unobserved outside of China (if it was a comet), which of course also detracts from the supposed impact of its spectacularity.

The one new fact I learned that tickled my funny bone was the Arabic name for Alpha Aquarii - Sadalmelik (lucky one of the king) - for which, it was maintained for the purpose of the exercise, Mesopotomanian astrologers would have associated its heliocentric reappearance with events propitious for royalty. An event that occurs every year of course, which just about sums up who was paying the astrologers.
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PostSubject: Re: The Star of Bethlehem   The Star of Bethlehem EmptySun 10 Jan 2016, 13:43

nordmann wrote:
 ...as I was so graciously requested to do.

Oh, don't be so bloomin' stuffy, nordmann. Since when have you been the arbiter of kindly and gracious discourse?

I've amended my post - hopefully more gracious and ladylike for you now.




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PostSubject: Re: The Star of Bethlehem   The Star of Bethlehem EmptySun 10 Jan 2016, 14:21

FYI - BBC iPlayer TV links do not work outside of the Sceptic Isle. However the programme is (I assume temporarily) available on YouTube if anyone is interested.

Thanks, Temp - I shall also endeavour to be as ladylike as possible.
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PostSubject: Re: The Star of Bethlehem   The Star of Bethlehem EmptySun 10 Jan 2016, 16:59

nordmann wrote:


Thanks, Temp - I shall also endeavour to be as ladylike as possible.


The Star of Bethlehem 4658790_l4 
I am very glad to hear it, nordmann. May I call you Cecily?
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PostSubject: Re: The Star of Bethlehem   The Star of Bethlehem EmptySun 10 Jan 2016, 17:12

Just plain "your ladyship" will do, thanks.
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PostSubject: Re: The Star of Bethlehem   The Star of Bethlehem EmptyMon 11 Jan 2016, 09:08

Of course attempting to apply scholastic reason to factual claims based only very loosely on any appreciation of the fact that "fact" should of necessity be verifiable is nothing new, and has led certain scholars into rather weird and wonderful departures from sanity in the past.

Ussher's calculation of the age of the earth based on biblical characters and their assumed lifespans was even questioned in his day. A contemporary, John Lightfoot, scornfully dismissed Ussher's findings - though not because the method itself was faulty, but because Ussher (the fool) had forgotten that creation meant the entire universe and not just the earth, and anyway Ussher's date of 4004BCE was obviously just plain stupid. Creation began, said Lightfoot, in 3929BCE!

A mid 17th century version of "The Sky At Night" probably featured it at the time.
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PostSubject: Re: The Star of Bethlehem   The Star of Bethlehem EmptyMon 11 Jan 2016, 11:23

Well, goodness gracious me - who'd have thought so many distinguished experts could get it all so wrong? I shall never watch Sky At Night again!

To be serious though, it would be interesting to consider what Matthew was up to with his nativity narrative. Of course, by the time the Gospel writers were compiling their accounts, historical "facts" had been overlaid with mythical elements which expressed the meaning that the life and death of Jesus of Nazareth had acquired for his followers more accurately than a straight "biography" would have done. Robin Lane Fox, the atheist - but extremely fair and unbigoted - Oxford Reader in Ancient History at Oxford, puts it nicely in his The Unauthorized Version: Truth and Fiction in the Bible: this scholar tells us that, despite the nativity narratives of Luke and Matthew being "historically impossible and internally incoherent", these Jewish writers passionately and sincerely believed that "a higher truth" was being served by their "impossible fiction". Neither Luke nor Matthew would have understood what we mean by "history" or "biography".

I'm reminded of something E.M. Forster once said about "stories": that they often have advantages over straight "history". Forster believed "in fictions we can know people perfectly and we find here a compensation for their dimness in life. In this direction, fiction is truer than history because it goes beyond the evidence and each of us knows from his own experiences that there is something beyond the evidence." (E.M. Forster: Aspects of the Novel 1927)

Perhaps we can apply this to "scripture" which, for me, is best read as literature, not history or biography - or an astronomy textbook.

The search of the Magi represented the search for a "new dispensation" - the "light to the Gentiles". Perhaps this light is what the Star represented. It's a compelling image and a "lovely idea" (to quote Waugh) - and one people still respond to in this dark world. Ideas - especially lovely ones - are, after all, often more powerful than verifiable "facts".

And, who knows, perhaps something remarkable did happen a couple of thousand years ago?


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PostSubject: Re: The Star of Bethlehem   The Star of Bethlehem EmptyMon 11 Jan 2016, 11:42

Temp wrote:
Well, goodness gracious me - who'd have thought so many distinguished experts could get it all so wrong?

It depends on what you mean by wrong. A logical theory can exist based on a supposition which itself has been badly extrapolated according to the rules of logic. Ussher wasn't wrong in his calculations. He was very wrong however in what he understood his raw data to be.

The "experts" in the programme were very much a mixed bunch. Some were happy to accept the extrapolation as a starting point for further supposition which was indeed logical, while others actually contributed to the faulty extrapolation in order to prosecute a particular theory. A good example of this was that only one theory attempted to square an obvious change in direction of the alleged phenomenon (as adduced from the narrative) with an actual astronomical phenomenon.

What was alluded to however, though not sufficiently in my view, was that there existed two great unknowns which potentially derailed the whole exercise as pointless; was the account intended to be believed as a factual account and why so much has always been left to assumption, even by the alleged original author of the story, especially regarding the phenomenon's interpretation as significant of a birth. After all, every contemporary reader wasn't necessarily au-fait with Babylonian astrological rules. In the absence of being able to take either further regarding verification of intent then the whole thing is up for grabs interpretationally, meaning your guess that it might all just be clumsy allegory is equally as good as mine that the author was ignorant or mendacious (or both).

There used to be a computer expression for all this that I recall from yonks ago and which covered the dilemma of rationally adducing anything from bad data - GIGO (garbage in, garbage out).
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PostSubject: Re: The Star of Bethlehem   The Star of Bethlehem EmptyMon 11 Jan 2016, 12:11

Clumsy allegories don't last, nordmann. Good ones do. Like saying Homer is clumsy - or an example of your GIGO theory. What were the accounts trying to say - and to whom?That's what is important.

You really can't give an inch, can you? Odd goings on in the Heavens were noted around the time of Herod (the Great)'s death. Matthew perhaps had heard of these and used them poetically. And why not? Good on him, I say. Surprised Luke didn't pinch the idea. Saint John, of course, was far too lofty for Luke and Matthew's nonsense about wandering stars and angels and shepherds and Baby Jesus. But I don't suppose you've time for him either (Saint John, I mean - we all know you don't like Baby J.).

PS Poets as liars? You would ban them all, then?
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PostSubject: Re: The Star of Bethlehem   The Star of Bethlehem EmptyMon 11 Jan 2016, 12:23

Temp wrote:
Clumsy allegories don't last, nordmann. Good ones do.

But that's the whole point. We can't even be sure it was intended as allegory. That's a guess too. It might be one you like, but that's what it is.

And I would mistrust the phrase "odd goings on in the Heavens were noted around the time of Herod (the Great)'s death", at least until I knew a) what constitutes "odd" in that sentence and b) the quality of the record implied by the term "noted". If anything worthwhile came out of the Sky At Night programme it was that both expressions in the case of astronomical activity retrogressively adduced from a source such as scripture must be treated with extreme caution, and all the more so if - as you infer - the author was simply poetically alluding to stuff he couldn't or wouldn't propound further on anyway. Matthew's intentions aside, what we are left with is bad input with which to prosecute any theory that might hopefully provide a plausible scientific explanation for Matthew's statement (poetic allusion or otherwise). Which, after all, was the point of the programme, wasn't it?
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PostSubject: Re: The Star of Bethlehem   The Star of Bethlehem EmptyMon 11 Jan 2016, 12:58

Well, this is an odd picture: I've never come across this artist before. Albrecht Altdorfter. His Holy Night was painted around 1511. How strange it is: does the ruined house represent the world the child has been born into? And is that the Star in the sky - or a ringed Saturn - or is it the moon? The figures seem secondary to the setting. I really do not know what to make of this painting.


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PostSubject: Re: The Star of Bethlehem   The Star of Bethlehem EmptyMon 11 Jan 2016, 13:23

I used to live in Regensburg - he's something of a local hero in that town and is considered top guy in the Danube School of Renaissance painting.

That peculiar orb in the heavens in his painting is normally interpreted as the moon, believe it or not, and it's praised as a good example of his skill in depicting night-time moonlit subjects.
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The Star of Bethlehem Empty
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The Star of Bethlehem

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