If anyone is interested:
Who decided December 25th as Jesus' birthdate?
The early Christian church did not celebrate Jesus' birth, and therefore the exact date has not been preserved in festivals. The first recorded mention of December 25th is in the Calendar of Philocalus (354 A.D.) which assumed Jesus' birth to be Friday, December 25, 1 A.D.
December 25th was officially proclaimed by the church fathers in 440 A.D. as a sincretism between the new religion of the Roman Empire and the tradition of the Roman holiday of Saturnalia, observed near the winter solstice, which was among the many pagan traditions inherited from the earlier Babylonian priesthood.
The Star of Bethlehem: The Legacy of the Magi, by: Michael R. Molnar
Could the purchase of an ancient coin have led to an important clue about the Star of Bethlehem? The above illustration is a Roman coin from Antioch, Syria which shows the zodiacal sign, Aries the Ram. In trying to understand the meaning behind this coin, I found that Aries was the sign of the Jews. Realizing that this is where ancient stargazers would have watched for the Star of Bethlehem, I embarked on searching for the celestial event that signified the birth of the Messiah in Judea.
Superposed on the photograph of the coin is what I found: Jupiter underwent two occultations ("eclipses") by the Moon in Aries in 6 BC. Jupiter was the regal "star" that conferred kingships - a power that was amplified when Jupiter was in close conjunctions with the Moon. The second occultation on April 17 coincided precisely when Jupiter was "in the east," a condition mentioned twice in the biblical account about the Star of Bethlehem. In August of that year Jupiter became stationary and then "went before" through Aries where it became stationary again on December 19, 6 BC. This is when the regal planet "stood over." - a secondary royal portent also described in the Bible. In particular, there is confirmation from a Roman astrologer that the conditions of April 17, 6 BC were believed to herald the birth of a divine, immortal, and omnipotent person born under the sign of the Jews, which we now know was Aries the Ram. Furthermore, the coins of Antioch and ancient astrological documents show that there was indeed a Star of Bethlehem as reported in the biblical account of Matthew.
Information taken from:
The Star of Bethlehem: The Legacy of the Magi is published by Rutgers University Press. (ISBN: 0-8135-2701-5) In the book you will see why the star was not a comet or supernova. Nor was it the famous "triple conjunction." The practices and beliefs of astrologers during Herod's reign show why Jupiter and the planets in Aries the Ram on April 17, 6 BC signified a Messianic birth. You will also find confirmation by a Roman astrologer, Firmicus Maternus, that the conditions of that day when Jupiter was in the east were those for the birth of a "divine and immortal" person.
Kyra_Ny <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
