“If the narrative is to be trusted (and for evangelicals, it must be), then the star of Bethlehem identified a particular house in Bethlehem, singling it out from the others, in order that the magi would know what door to knock on. Now Bethlehem was only about six miles away from Jerusalem. Imagine trying to follow a star over to a town that far away from yours, and having it pick out a house for you. Now either the magi were doing some serious astrological math on the back of their camels (in the dark), or a star came down into our sky and stopped over a particular house, which is what the text explicitly says (Mt. 2:9)” (God Rest Ye Merry, p. 39).
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See also: Jesus’ first miracle, turning water into Welch’s grape juice. Two thousand years before refrigeration, pasteurization, or Thomas Welch.
Whatever it was it had to be non-spectacular enough to keep everyone in the whole country, and the authorities in particular, from descending on the house.
Ramandu?
It’s interesting how we can trace it back to Daniel. Those scribes kept very good records and the Lord providentially worked through that when the time was ripe.
Pastor Wilson: although what you say has a point, the other point we must take into account is that Herod (nor all of Jerusalem) knew when the star appeared. It took very well-trained astronomers to pick it out. And it is possible that they knew the sky so well that they could see it in a way we don’t. Finally, there is a dvd called The Star of Bethlehem which attempts to go through the science of it all. It is interesting. Anything more obvious would have attracted the attention of the populace at large, who the Bible clearly says… Read more »