Historical location of Venus & Jupiter

[shakti4]

I would like to know the historical locations of Venus and Jupiter in 2 and 3 BCE around the Winter Solstice. <br /><br />Could either one of them been seen as stationary over Bethlehem? <br /><br />Were there any other astronomical events that may have been perceived as a star that was stationary over Bethlehem near the time of the Winter Solstice? <br /><br />Were there any other astronomical events that may have been perceived as a star that was stationary over Bethlehem at another time of the year in either 2 or 3 BCE?

 

[little_star]

The winter solstice happens in winter, but Jesus' "real" birthday didn't. It was moved to coincide with some existing holidays in the wintertime.

 

[thalion]

In 3 B.C. Venus and Jupiter were on nearly opposite sides of the sky at the winter solstice. In 2 B.C., Venus and Jupiter were both morning objects, but they were separated by almost 70 degrees.

 

[CalliArcale]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>The winter solstice happens in winter, but Jesus' "real" birthday didn't. It was moved to coincide with some existing holidays in the wintertime.<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />Well, it might've. To be perfectly honest, the scriptural evidence really doesn't point to any particular day. Okay, there are a few times of the year with good cases in favor of Jesus' birthday, such as mid-May, but that's about it. Really, it could just as well be Dec 25, though I think that would be nothing more than a coincidence.<br /><br />You are absolutely correct that the real reason Christmas is celebrated around Midwinter is because almost everyone in the Northern Hemisphere wants to have a big party around that time of year. <img src="/images/icons/tongue.gif" /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em>  -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>

 

[bowlofpetunias]

This may be of interest.

 

[bowlofpetunias]

One source of Christmas is the festival of Alban Arthuan. It's one of the ancient Druidic fire festivals occuring on the winter solstice 21/12 and marking the rebirth of the sun amongst other things. As the name means Light of Arthur, the questions are, Arthur who? and if it's the Camelot dude what was the festival called before.<br />It probably had many names, the Norse Yule festival, the roman Saturnalia (got the pic disc), the Son of Isis hoe down in Babylon, the Persians and Phrygians had sun gods they worshipped around that time, etc. New Grange in Ireland marks the day, it's 5000 years old and I'm sure the festival goes way back before then. Having green plant stuff inside is a celtic thing.<br /><br />Anyway, Christianity bagsied the festival as was it's wont and it wanted a birthday as well as to stamp out the pagan beliefs.<br /><br />Festival name subject to change with the passing of millena. Party on.<br /><br />

 

[neilrieck]

Folks,<br /> <br />This past week I've been playing around with various "Star of Bethlehem" theories and "Starry Night version 4.5.2". This morning, Sunday 2004-12-26, I decided to observe Johannes Kepler's triple-conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn which begins in 7-BC-04-30 and runs through 7BC-12-10.<br /> <br />What I think I discovered is this: it appears that the Earth's shadow is eclipsing Jupiter and Saturn starting at 7BC-10-10 19:25:30 as viewed from Al-Basrah, Iraq (a good substitute for Babylon, Persia). At this time, I believe a sky watcher would just see Jupiter and Saturn wink out.<br /> <br />I've searched the net looking for the phrases "Star of Bethlehem" and "Eclipse" but can only find mentions of "various Lunar eclipses of Jupiter" (which should probably called occultations) or "a Lunar eclipse in 4BC near the time of Herod's death".<br /> <br />Has anyone got anything thoughts on this matter? (The second link below contains my setup notes for Starry Night. Look at "Event #2")<br /> <br />Neil Rieck<br />Kitchener/Waterloo/Cambridge,<br />Ontario, Canada.<br />http://www3.sympatico.ca/n.rieck/<br />http://www3.sympatico.ca/n.rieck/docs/starry_night_activities.html<br /> <br />

 

[bowlofpetunias]

True, bad old Christianity seems to have bagged most of the important dates as festivals. Easters taken over from the pagan rites celebrating the spring equinox, eggs representing fertility and re-birth. It may be linked to Passover too.<br />The Summer Solstice (the green man) became the feast day of 'St. John the Baptist', not a very succesful takeover imo and the autumn equinox or mabon became the harvest festival.<br />The church of rome was quite succesful in it's eradication of the old religeons, the burning of witches (root wit meaning wise) just being a purge of the stubborn remnants. Perhaps they felt they could control the witless better.<br /><br />The thread is to do with the star in the east and folk look for astronomical explanations for that which there's nothing wrong with. But did it ever exist. If it did then there should be an explanation. If it didn't then the search is moot. The gospels don't agree at all and they're just the ones that made it into the book.

 

[neilrieck]

This is a correction to my previous post (2004-12). The eclipse indicator in "Starry Night" is for Earth's moon. Since the eclipse cone comes to a point just beyond the orbit of the moon, there will be no winking out of Jupiter. Sorry for the confusion.