#1. WHAT DID THOSE MAGI SEE?

So Christmas is here once more and you're probably hearing this one in the supermarket or in the local park:

“We three kings of Orient are;                                                            

Bearing gifts we traverse afar,                                                               

Field and fountain, moor and mountain,                                                            

Following yonder star.”

Okay, they were magi not kings and not necessarily three, but what did they see in the night-sky that made them so sure ‘yonder star’ announced the King of the Jews?

(No, this is not astrology. The Bible even tells us that stars are up there as signs and recognizes constellations.)                                          
 

We know from both genealogies of Joseph and Mary that Jesus was born into the tribe of Judah – identified by old Jacob in Genesis 49 as the royal tribe of the lion. Finally ‘The Lamb’ once slain is honoured as ‘the Lion of the tribe of Judah’.          

Let’s look from say Babylon, for the constellation Leo around the time of the birth of Jesus.         

The magi told the Jews that they had seen His star - en anatolē - or "rising in the east” so here is what they would have seen just before the dawn of 12th September 2 BC, with some artwork added for our benefit:

That's Jupiter hugging Regulus over Leo's heart

 

Jupiter is the ‘father’ of all planets (from the Greek planetes : wandering stars) having more mass than all other planets combined AND... radiating its own energy! It takes 12 years to complete its orbit of the sun so we see it spending about one year in front of each of the 12 constellations on the ‘ecliptic line’ that the sun appears to follow across the sky.                                  

The brilliant star Regulus or ‘little king’ over the heart of Leo is the closest of all bright stars to this red ecliptic line and here it is being kept in close company by Jupiter. Over the next 8 months there will be not just one but three apparent conjunctions with Regulus as Jupiter does its retrograde motion while Leo appears to move across the sky. Yes…the king of planets is hugging the ‘little king’ in Leo – symbolic of Judah – moving where?....towards Judaea in the west.                        

Wow!!...no wonder the magi are watching this ROYAL RENDEZVOUS!

Let’s hang around and find out what they see after dawn….NEXT!

Click on:  http://hotspuds.blogspot.com.au/2014/01/one-shy-virgin_5.html

 


Acknowledgements:  

We Three Kings / John H. Hopkins
David Reneke, 'Sky & Space'         

Rick Larsen / DVD, The Star                                                                         

Image credits:                                                                               

christianitymalaysia.com 

Stellarium