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“O star of wonder, star of light, star with royal beauty bright.
Westward leading, still proceeding, guide us to thy perfect light.”
You’ve probably heard these lyrics before, but have you given them much thought? What exactly did the magi see? How would it have led them to conclude there was a royal birth? Can this information tell us when Jesus was actually born? And why should any of this matter to you?
The answers begin to emerge once we recognize the practice of astral theology in ancient Judaism. Zodiac mosaics have been excavated in synagogues dating before Christ. Jews thought God communicated knowledge through the signs in the heavens (constellations) and their movements. This is Paul’s assumption in Romans 10:18, when he quotes Psalm 19:4. According to Paul, Jews could have known that their king, the messiah, had come because it was communicated to them in the sky. But what exactly does Paul have in mind when he says this? Is there anywhere else in the New Testament that speaks of nature communicating the coming of the messiah? Yes actually!
Revelation 12:1-6 details a vision John has of the sun, moon, and stars (Rev 12:1). Obviously, this is something he is seeing in the sky. What John reports here is likely what the magi saw. So how would the magi have interpreted this scene? Who is the woman? Who is the child? And who is the dragon?
The magi would have interpreted the stars through the the twelve signs (constellations) of the zodiac. One of these constellations is Virgo, the virgin. In John’s vision she is “clothed with the sun,” indicating the sun’s location in her midsection or stomach area. This could have communicated pregnancy. It also says the moon was at her feet. Broadly speaking, Virgo represents “virgin Israel” (Jer 31:4; Amos 5:2) because Israel would produce the messiah. More specifically it represents the virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus.
John, the author of Revelation depicts the child as a king, because he has a scepter and rules all nations? The scepter and the nations are key words alluding to Genesis 49:8-10. That passage says the Messiah would come from Judah, and compares Judah to a lion. John clearly makes this connection earlier in his book when he calls Jesus “the lion of the tribe of Judah” (Rev 5:5). So, what might the magi have seen that would lead them to conclude this child was a king? Well, another sign of the zodiac is Leo the lion, directly above Virgo’s head on the ecliptic. Leo was considered the “royal” constellation in the zodiac, and was associated with the Jewish nation. Connected to Leo is the specific star that the magi followed. Any planetarium you visit at Christmas time will tell you that the star spoken of in Matthew 2, is the planetary conjunction of Regulus (the king star) and Jupiter (the king planet). The movement of the star in Matthew 2 is a description of Jupiter’s retrograde motion. What the planetarium’s fail to mention is that this conjunction happened at the head of Leo the lion, and the retrograde motion of Jupiter not only explains the star seeming to stop, but its movement also formed a kind of crown at the head of Leo. These taken together would communicate the identity of the child as king, the messiah from the tribe of Judah.
Lastly, who was the red dragon, and how could it be standing at the front of the woman waiting to devour the child? The red color locates this constellation in the southern sky. Also, that part of the sky would have had relatively fewer stars since the text says the dragon swept one third of the stars away with its tail. Based on these descriptions, the constellation Hydra, the sea serpent, is a likely candidate. Above Hydra are the constellations Corax (made up of seven stars) and Crater (made up of 10 stars). This makes the most sense of the reference to seven heads and ten horns (Rev 12:3). In the next chapter (Rev 13:1), John speaks of the beast emerging from the sea, alluding to Old Testament imagery of leviathan (Isa 27:1). Ultimately this dragon, or serpent represents Satan.
Now, what is fascinating is that the only date when all these signs converged relative to the New Testament was for 90 minutes on September 11, 3 B.C. This is when the magi would have thought the birth of this king occurred, and so they set out following the star, which as I just said was the planetary conjunction of Regulus and Jupiter. What’s uncanny is that September 11, 3. B.C. was Tishri 1, Rosh Hashanah, the Day of Trumpets, Jewish New Year. Tishri 1 was the inauguration day for kings of Judah in the Old Testament. The Day of Trumpets also commemorated the beginning of the world, and the hope of the renewal of it. Jews of the first century also came to believe Tishri 1 was Noah’s birthday.
So why should any of this matter to you? Well, if you’re reading this and you aren’t a Christian, I hope these “coincidences” spook you. Did John just make this vision up? If so, I guess he just got really lucky. The events in the sky alone were extremely rare to converge on the same day, much less the day that Jewish Kings were inaugurated. Even more curious is that these independent events would happen near the birth of the one human being who has impacted the world more than any other for over two thousand years now. Luck seems a pretty hard sell to me, so perhaps before you buy that explanation you should at least give Christ a chance. Maybe there's something to this guy. Check him out for yourself.
If you are reading this and you are a Christian, I hope this shows you the depth of the Christmas story. Our God wrote this story in the stars from the creation of the world, and the message is very clear. Jesus is the king who came to restore creation. With his coming came the kingdom. May it be on earth as it is in heaven. His mission was to restore a new Eden. He is the one Noah prefigured. This restoration is already begun with his atonement for our sins. Our relationship to God can be restored. The fullness of his kingdom is not yet finished on earth though. We get to participate in spreading his kingdom on earth as his disciples. May the coming of Immanuel give you hope this Christmas season!
To read more about the topic of this article check out some of Michael Heiser's work I have linked to below.
Video (9 minutes)
Podcast (1 hour 40 minutes)
Book- Reversing Hermon Chapter 4