The Great Christ Comet Read online

  10.21 The Christ Comet at perihelion on September 27, 6 BC

  10.22 The Christ Comet’s coma on September 30, 6 BC

  10.23 The Christ Comet as a whole on September 30, 6 BC

  10.24 The progress of the Christ Comet’s nucleus through Virgo from September 30 to October 20, 6 BC

  10.25 Comet Holmes on November 2, 2007

  10.26 Virgo begins active labor on October 15, 6 BC

  10.27 The Christ Comet on October 15, 6 BC

  10.28 Virgo’s baby fully delivered

  10.29 The Christ Comet on October 20, 6 BC

  10.30 The Christ Comet on October 23, 6 BC

  10.31 The course of the Christ Comet from October 23 to November 30, 6 BC

  10.32 The Christ Comet as it set from October 31 to November 30/December 1, 6 BC

  10.33 The Christ Comet at perigee

  10.34 The Christ Comet in the two hours after sunset on November 23, 6 BC

  10.35 The Christ Comet as it set on the night when the Magi arrived in Bethlehem

  10.36 The Christ Comet in outer space on November 23, 6 BC

  10.37 The Christ Comet in outer space on November 30, 6 BC

  11.1 Comet Hyakutake on April 17, 1996

  12.1 Herod the Great

  12.2 The partially eclipsed Moon in Virgo’s womb on March 12/13, 4 BC

  14.1 The meteor storm of 1866

  14.2 The meteor storm radiating from Hydra’s tail in 6 BC

  14.3 The radiant of the Leonid meteors on November 13, 1866

  14.4 The Leonid Meteor Storm of 1833

  14.5 The Leonid Meteor Storm of 1799

  14.6 The Leonid Meteor Storm of 1833

  14.7 The Chelyabinsk superbolide of February 15, 2013

  14.8 The tail of Hydra

  14.9 Possible orbits of the meteoroid stream responsible for the meteor storm of 6 BC

  14.10 The Leonid Meteor Storm of 1833

  14.11 The 1833 Leonid Meteor Storm

  14.12 The Great Meteor of August 18, 1783

  14.13 A fireball on September 30, 2011

  14.14 A 2002 Leonid fireball

  14.15 A fireball on January 21, 1999

  14.16 A Leonid fireball in 2002

  Tables

  9.1 The Christ Comet’s orbital elements

  9.2 The Christ Comet’s absolute magnitude

  9.3 The Christ Comet’s apparent magnitude on September 30, 6 BC

  10.1 The apparent magnitude on September 15, 6 BC

  10.2 The apparent magnitude on September 29, 6 BC

  10.3 The apparent magnitude on September 30, 6 BC

  10.4 The apparent magnitude on October 3, 6 BC

  10.5 The apparent magnitude on October 15, 6 BC

  10.6 The apparent magnitude on October 19, 6 BC

  10.7 The apparent magnitude on October 20, 6 BC

  10.8 The apparent magnitude on the evening of November 23, 6 BC

  10.9 The apparent magnitude on the evening of November 30, 6 BC

  11.1 The Christ Comet’s range of possible absolute magnitude values

  14.1 Orbital possibilities for the meteoroid stream that caused the 6 BC meteor storm if the radiant was γ (Gamma) Hydrae

  14.2 Orbital possibilities for the meteoroid stream that caused the 6 BC meteor storm if the radiant was HIP59373

  14.3 Comparison of the orbit of the meteoroid stream of the 6 BC Hydrids to the orbit of asteroid 2009 HU58

  14.4 Comparison of the orbit of the meteoroid stream of the 6 BC Hydrids to the orbit of asteroid 2000 UR16

  14.5 Comparison of the orbit of the meteoroid stream of the 6 BC Hydrids to the orbit of asteroid 2004 WK1

  14.6 Comparison of the orbit of 96P/Machholz 1 to the orbit of the 6 BC Hydrids’ meteoroid stream

  14.7 Comparison of the orbit of C/1917 F1 (Mellish) to the orbit of the 6 BC Hydrids’ meteoroid stream

  Foreword

  Since observing Comet Kohoutek in my senior year of high school, I have had a passion for comets. I have observed more than 300 comets and have written six volumes documenting recorded comets from the first millennium BC all the way through to modern times (Cometography: A Catalog of Comets, 6 vols. [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999-]).

  I have also been interested in the Star of Bethlehem for many years and have been of the strong belief that it was a comet rather than something else like a planetary conjunction or a nova. I was pleasantly surprised when Colin Nicholl approached me on the subject in 2011, and I quickly became fascinated by his fresh approach to the topic and the new information he was contributing to the centuries-old debate about the identity of the Star. Colin was being aided by David Asher and Mark Bailey of the Armagh Observatory. I too was eager to assist him in his exciting research project. What Colin was doing with respect to the Star of Bethlehem reminded me of what historian John T. Ramsay and astronomer A. Lewis Licht had done with reference to Caesar’s Comet of 44 BC.

  Colin had developed a new case for the Star of Bethlehem being a comet and was proposing that Revelation 12:1–5, a Biblical text previously unharvested in discussions about the Star, revealed what the Magi had seen in the eastern sky that prompted them to travel westward to Judea. Having deduced that only a comet could do what this passage described, Colin had developed a timeline of the comet’s appearances and movement across the sky. From this I recognized that a close approach to Earth was necessary, as well as an unusual Earth-comet-Sun geometry.

  Over the following months Colin and I dialogued as he continued to study cometary astronomy. During that time Colin came to the sensible conclusion that the Christ Comet was a long-period comet, and he figured out that the comet must have orbited in a retrograde direction. As for me, I was feverishly working on the sixth volume of Cometography and struggling to find time to complete my orbital calculations based on Colin’s data. Meanwhile, Colin took it upon himself to work out the orbit within the set parameters. He then presented me with his considered orbit and I found that it was in accord with what I had been concluding based on my own preliminary investigations.

  Using my own research into the probable brightness of Halley’s Comet in ancient times and the likely magnitude required for its discovery at each apparition, I was able to calculate brightness parameters for the Christ Comet based on Colin’s orbit. This revealed that the Star became a spectacular object visible in broad daylight for a period of time. It was brightest at the time when it heliacally rose in the eastern sky in the aftermath of its perihelion. The comet’s maximum brightness was reminiscent of what was observed for the Great September Comet of 1882 and Ikeya-Seki in 1965, the brightest comets in the last two centuries. 30 to 40 days after the comet switched to the western sky, the Christ Comet would have been a striking object in the southern evening sky, being visible from about 6 p.m. until it set upright in the west around midnight. The profile of the comet that emerges is impressive—it would have been the largest comet to come within Earth’s orbit in recorded history and, as Colin claims, the greatest comet in history.

  I was and remain excited about and fascinated by Colin’s work on the Star of Bethlehem, and I very much enjoyed working on the project with him. I read through the majority of the manuscript and liked everything that I read. The research is solid and everything is explained very well. In every respect this volume is a remarkable achievement. I regard it as the most important book ever published on the Star of Bethlehem and enthusiastically commend it.

  Gary W. Kronk

  Preface

  The Star of Bethlehem is one of the greatest mysteries in the Bible, in history, and in astronomy. What was the Star, and what precisely did it do that so deeply impressed the Magi? The modern academic quest to identify the Star can be traced back to Johannes Kep­ler in the seventeenth century. Regrettably, after four centuries of scholarly discussion, we are still far from a solution.

  Part of the reason for the lack of any significant advance is that Biblical scholars, intimidated by the astronomical aspects of the task
or preferring to think of the Magi’s Star as miraculous or mythical, have given the debate a wide berth. If they mention the topic at all, their comments tend to be brief, superficial, and inaccurate.

  As a Biblical scholar with a high regard for the historical credentials of the Scriptural text, I have felt constrained to leave my comfort zone and wade into the field of astronomy in order to follow up Biblical leads concerning the Star. Doing so has been stretching and uncomfortable at times, but has also been incredibly rewarding and invigorating. In this book I present the fruits of my research—what I believe is a decisive breakthrough in the quest for the historical Star of Bethlehem.

  Any progress that I have made is in no small part due to help from others. In particular, I wish to express my profound gratitude to three astronomers who aided me greatly in my work from a very early stage.

  First, a word of special thanks to David Asher, Research Fellow at the Armagh Observatory in Northern Ireland. David is one of the top astronomers in his field, respected the world over. How often I have coveted his brain! Mercifully, David graciously and sacrificially shared his with me, simply because he believes in the academic enterprise and was fascinated by my research. He made many complicated calculations for me, spent two whole days in conversation with me in Armagh, and wrote countless painstaking, long emails answering my questions.

  Mark E. Bailey, MBE, Director of the Armagh Observatory, played an important part in guiding me in astronomical matters. Mark is always brimming with creative, fresh, and penetrating ideas, questions, and insights. He read over an early draft of part of the book and offered valuable feedback, and he took the time to answer my questions and keep me informed of pertinent developments in astronomy.

  Gary W. Kronk, highly esteemed author of the authoritative six-volume Cometography (Cambridge University Press), offered extensive assistance, support, and encouragement. Gary read several drafts of many chapters of the book, made calculations for me, answered countless questions, and graciously agreed to write the foreword.

  I shared my discoveries and research openly with each of these three scholars, and their engagements with me influenced my thinking at many points. As much as they helped me, however, they bear no responsibility for any failings that remain. Nor, of course, should it be assumed that they concur with all that I have written.

  Two scholars assisted me by reading through an entire draft of the book and offering incisive criticism and counsel: John J. Hartmann, Pastor of New Reformation Church in St. Louis; and Paul L. Maier, Russell H. Siebert Professor of Ancient History at Western Michigan University.

  Other academics were also extremely helpful, even when they did not know the details of the project I was working on. Andreas Kammerer, a highly esteemed German amateur astronomer; David W. Pankenier, Professor of Chinese at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania; and Josefina Rodríguez Arribas, researcher at the Warburg Institute of the University of London, each graciously responded to a number of questions by email about comets, Imperial Chinese history, and medieval Jewish astrology, respectively. Professor Rodríguez Arribas also read through a few pages I wrote to check that my understanding of Jewish medieval astrology was correct. I am grateful to Peter Jenniskens, senior research scientist at the Carl Sagan Center of the SETI Institute and at NASA’s Ames Research Center, for doing orbital calculations for me and answering my questions about meteors and meteor showers.

  Thanks are due the following scholars for their assistance: Peter V. Bias, Professor of Business and Economics at Florida Southern College and author of Meteors and Meteor Showers; Paul C. Hewett of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and, until recently, Director of the Institute of Astronomy of the University of Cambridge; Chandra Wickramasinghe, Director of the Buckingham Centre for Astrobiology, University of Buckingham; Sir Colin J. Humphreys, former Goldsmiths’ Professor of Materials Science at the University of Cambridge; and Roberta Olson, Curator of Drawings at New-York Historical Society. Thanks also to Roger MacFarlane and Paul Mills for graciously giving me prepublication access to relevant parts of their forthcoming work (the first of its kind) Hipparchus’ Commentary on the Phaenomena of Aratus and Eudoxus.

  Tyndale House Library (and, in particular, Ian Wilson) in Cambridge, England, provided an invaluable service by sending scanned versions of journal articles in Biblical studies that I was otherwise unable to obtain. Atlantic Productions generously sent me a complimentary DVD copy of the documentary “Star of Bethlehem: Behind the Myth” that they produced.

  I am grateful to the makers of the following planetarium software programs: Project Pluto’s Guide, Simulation Curriculum Corporation’s Starry Night® Pro, and United Soft Media’s Redshift. Calculations regarding comet brightness and size are based on Guide 9.0. Star and planet brightness values and the apparent positions of a comet in the sky are largely derived from Starry Night® Pro. Determinations of the location of planets and comets in space are based on Redshift 7. Thanks are due Seth Meyers of Simulation Curriculum Corporation for permission to make use of images from Starry Night® Pro.

  Images of the planets in the illustrations are courtesy of NASA.

  I am grateful to the many organizations and individuals who granted permission for the use of their images. I am also thankful to a number of artists and designers for guidance regarding illustrations and images: Ross Wilson, a leading Northern Irish artist; Christoph Kaiser of Christoph Kaiser LLC, a designer and architect; and Josh Dennis, Senior Vice President, Creative Department, at Crossway.

  Special thanks must go to my literary agent, Mark Sweeney, and the whole team at Mark Sweeney & Associates for all their labors on behalf of this book.

  I would also like to express my gratitude to Justin Taylor and his colleagues at Crossway for all their work on this project. As an act of kindness, Justin read the first four chapters at an early stage and offered valuable feedback, guidance, and encouragement. Little did he or I know that Crossway would end up being the publisher! Thanks also to Bill Deckard for his stellar editorial work.

  How grateful I am to my daughters Gabriella and Evangelia. They were amazingly patient with Mommy and Daddy and readily made sacrifices so that this book could be finished. The girls also made sure that, no matter how stressed Daddy was, he regularly unwound. Gabriella was my astronomy buddy, learning with me and accompanying me on trips to see the Northern Lights, comets, planets, and meteor showers. Evangelia frequently thought she had spotted the Star of Bethlehem in the sky from the backseat of our car. Who knows? One day she might actually see it!

  I am thankful for the backing of my family. In particular, I would like to express my gratitude to my brother Roy for his friendship, kindness, wise counsel, and enthusiastic support. In addition, my father-in-law engaged me in many conversations regarding the Star of Bethlehem and helped kindle in me an interest in the modern debate.

  No one has done more to assist me in the writing of this book than my sacrificial, patient, and meticulous wife, Sirscha. She has strongly supported and encouraged me every step of the way and has done everything she could to free me up to do my research and writing. Moreover, I am particularly grateful to her for expending so much time and artistic energy to produce a beautiful set of illustrations for the book.

  This book is dedicated to my father and mother, Drew and Florence Nicholl. I count it a great privilege to have them as my parents. Their love, faithfulness, prayers, and example have been a firm bedrock in my life. From my earliest years they have consistently got behind me as I have pursued my passion to study the Bible. Anything good that issues from my life may be credited to God and to them.

  Colin Nicholl

  North Coast, Northern Ireland

  SDG

  1

  “Star of Wonder”

  Introducing the Bethlehem Star

  The Bethlehem Star is, without doubt, the most famous and celebrated astronomical entity in history. No other celestial object captures the attention of the world like it, particular
ly at Christmastime. This enormous fascination is found among Christians and non-Christians, young and old, and most peoples of the world.

  The Star in the Modern World

  Every December, planetariums and television channels put on special shows to discuss the Star, keenly aware that few, if any, astronomical issues or Biblical mysteries hold the spell over the popular imagination that the Magi’s celestial phenomenon does. Astronomers, even some who scarcely believe in God, give public lectures on it.

  Each Christmas the Star features prominently in our celebrations—it is often found as the crowning glory of Christmas trees, embossed on Christmas cards, or perched loftily over the sets of nativity plays. Many of our Christmas carols mention the Star, and a good number are focused on it. Among the many is “We Three Kings of Orient Are.” In it we actually join one of the Magi in addressing the Star:

  Star of wonder, star of light,

  Star with royal beauty bright,

  Westward leading, still proceeding,

  Guide us to thy perfect light.1

  This love for the Star is apparent all across the globe, but in some places the Magi’s Star enjoys special distinction.

  Understandably, in few locations is the Star more celebrated than in the town of Bethlehem in the West Bank. There pilgrims can stay at the Bethlehem Star Hotel, do some shopping at the annual Christmas Market on Star Street, have a coffee at Stars & Bucks Café, and visit Manger Square, where images of the Bethlehem Star abound, none more striking than the massive illuminated comet set up on a pole. On Christmas Eve the annual procession to the Church of the Nativity culminates at a grotto (cave), where a large silver 14-pointed star marks the spot where, it is claimed, Jesus was born.

  Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, known as “Christmas City, USA,” relishes in the stellar associations of its name. The most prominent manifestation of this is a spectacular 90-foot-high, 8-rayed star, illuminated by 250 bulbs, on South Mountain, that stunningly beams out over the city and is visible 20 miles away.2