Was There Really A Star of Bethlehem?
In this fascinating video from CNS, Jesuit Brother Guy Consolmagno of the Vatican Observatory talks about the possibility that the Star of Bethlehem was a real astronomical event.
Pope Francis: Dismantling Marriage
In the context of this article by the excellent Phil Lawler, Dr. Peter Kwasniewski offers the following comment: Not long ago, I was involved in a fairly intense discussion of whether Pope Francis is an evil man. One side said "yes, absolutely, you can see that from his years-long patterns of equivocation, ambiguity, and deception, his personnel selections and promotions, his attitude of contempt for tradition, his arrogance, insults, etc." The other side said "no, we don't know enough about his internal state, his knowledge, his capacities, to be able to make such a claim. All we can say is that he's confused, mistaken, and misled." I tried for a while to hold the second position, but then I gave up, as it's so counterfactual. Just read this piece (if you dare) by Phil Lawler about the pope's recent Roman Rota speech, and see what conclusions you draw about the kind of pope who could say such things. As another friend said to me: "I truly beli
It was a real ASTROLOGICAL event. The Magi had their own astrological system, which, being the source of their livelihood, was a trade secret and not written down. We do know that Mesopotamian astrologers did not limit themselves to objects outside our atmosphere; in some of their texts, they even refer to a ring around the moon as a "star". Precisely NOTHING in astronomy -- certainly none of the events mentioned here -- could act as the "star" is described as acting -- particularly when it comes to resting over where the Child lay. That just means that a modern astronomer has no special insight into a 2000 year old extinct astrological tradition, which is no surprise at all. (To say that the whole story is cooked up as a lie concealing the truth of the divinity of Christ is still to make it a lie, though. Jesuits once knew better.)
ReplyDeletePlease see also this: http://newtheologicalmovement.blogspot.com/2012/01/it-is-mistake-to-try-to-discover-which.html.
Ever seen this Howard?
Deletehttp://youtu.be/zPHKg0M3mEo
No, and I am not willing to spend an hour trying to find out what your point is. The intro makes it look like the kind of well-meaning but hopelessly naive Protestant production I grew up with -- the sort of thing that believes that "Joshua's long day" was discovered somehow by NASA computers (it was probably a local miracle only, like the Miracle of the Sun at Fatima). If you want me to watch that video, I'll need to know it's worth my time, so could you tell me what I would be watching? (After all, I didn't just point you at BABYLONIAN STAR LORE by Gavin White and tell you to read the book before answering.) Otherwise, I'll stick with Catholic tradition and say that the Star of Bethlehem, which is after all described in a way incompatible with astronomy, was not astronomical.
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