Searching for the Star of Bethlehem

 Last night as we were coming home from our daughter's house, I happen to notice two brilliant lights in the sky. Al glanced at them as he was driving and thought they must be airplanes, because they were so bright. But when we got home I could see they were not moving. So I did a little searching on the internet and found some fun things to share.

Gazing at these brilliant "stars", I thought of the Star of Bethlehem and wondered what the Wise Men saw. In the movie the Nativity, I remember seeing the Magi looking into a pool and seeing in the reflection of the night sky, three "stars" looking as though they would converge. I seemed to remember two of the stars being Venus and Jupiter. So I watched some of the movie last night. The Maji spoke of Venus as the mother star and Jupiter as the great Father. For the third star they said a Babylonian name for king. In some of my checking around one site suggested that third "star" may have actually been a star, and not a planet like Jupiter and Venus, perhaps the star Regulus, which is the brightest star in the constellation Leo, and was considered the constellation of Kings. Indiana University has a good article about this that I found interesting. The Star of Bethlehem may have been planets Jupiter and Venus

Well what we saw was last night was Venus and Jupiter, quite close together forming a double beacon. Tonight they will be even closer. This does not happen very often, only once in 24 years.

Kind of amazing that we can see something somewhat similar to what they saw, tonight and tomorrow. In one of the articles I read, not everyone noticed as the stars were moving toward converging, including Herod. The stars converging together mainly had significance to those who knew what they were looking for. The Wise Men searched out the birth of this great king and found Him in the unlikely place of a stable, not a palace. God says to us, "... You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart. I will be found by you." Jeremiah 29:13, 14 NKJ

Happy Star Gazing,

Sheri

Apparently, there is still more to see with Jupiter and Venus this month. On the 26th Venus will be seen with a crescent moon and Jupiter lower and near by.
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Bright Lights in our Western Sky

Tonight when we neared our house I saw two really bright lights in the western sky. They were so bright that Al and I thought they were airplanes. But they were't. They are the planets Venus and Jupiter. They will appear to come together tomorrow on the 12th of March. Here is a link that tells about them: http://oregonsky.org/8201.html

Am I remembering correctly that in the movie the Nativity that there were three stars coming together; two of them being Venus and Jupiter?

After further exploration here is a portion of an article I found. Apparently from this article it is exceptionally rare for Jupiter and Venus to appear to converge.

In September of 3 B.C., Jupiter came into conjunction with Regulus, the star of kingship, the brightest star in the constellation Leo the Lion. Leo was the constellation of kings, and it was associated with the Lion of Judah. Just a month earlier, Jupiter and Venus had almost seemed to touch each other in another close conjunction "in the east" (http://www.btinternet.com/~prgreetham/Wisemen/theory2.html). Then the conjunction between Jupiter and Regulus was repeated in February and May of 2 B.C.

Finally, on June 17, 2 B.C., Jupiter and Venus, the two brightest objects in the night sky except for the moon, came so close that their disks appeared to touch. This exceptionally rare event could not have been missed by observers such as the Wise Men.  Here is a link to the whole article

http://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/1203.html

Sheri