2
that is what masha'allah, guido bonati and abu masher did and they were 3 wise men~! me, as a wise crack - i am trying to do the same, lol..

merry christmas and happy new year to all the good folks at skyscript!

4
it was supposed to be in pisces. i don't know that the myth of december 25th is based on any reality, but more a myth connected with the winter solstice + 4 days, 4 being a number associated with making something concrete - in this example the force of light in the northern hemi having gained in strength over the darkness as the days grow longer from the first day of winter in the nh.. so, the symbolism might be in place, but there is nothing factual about it otherwise. well - i guess we are all entitled to our opinions. there was a conjunction 0007 bc at 16/17 pisces of jupiter/saturn fwiw.

5
I opened a thread on the Star of Bethlehem just before Christmas in 2009 and we got a good level of participation.

I also got it going again in 2010. As there is so much discussion there already (4 pages!) you could post there and give the thread a new life. Without sounding too sacriligious I hope Christmas is about life after death....


http://www.skyscript.co.uk/forums/viewt ... f326b70894

Mark
As thou conversest with the heavens, so instruct and inform thy minde according to the image of Divinity William Lilly

6
Saturnhead, the short answer is "no." Astrology was alive and well in the Near East ca 1 CE, and wise men (known as Magi) would have known the difference between a planetary conjunction and a unique and special star. Moreover, if you re-read Matthew 1-12, the star of Bethlehem actually leads the Magi to a particular house. This just isn't possible for a heavenly body; unless, I suppose, a meteorite were to fall on the roof.

Some Christian denominations interpret the star of Bethlehem metaphorically and very powerfully. Their interpretations seem consistent with what we know about ancient astrology.

7
Well yeah ... as David Pingree noted the only thing the Persians contributed to astrology was noting the periodicity of the chronactors .. the 20 year cycle of Jupiter Saturn ... the Magi were Persian astrologers, originally trained by Daniel/Zoroaster after Cyrus' bloodless conquest of Babylon. In the Daniel OT, the 70 weeks of astrology bear within it a prediction of Christ (as parsed out online ) 70 weeks is 490 days in the day for a year secondary progressions, still a major tool in the astrologer's toolbox. 490 years is as parsed out, the 490 years between Daniel and Christ. The Magi were following their "star" the Ju/Sa conjunction of -6BC in Pisces, it was exact, pretty much, as the full Virgo/Pisces moon which denoted the Jewish Succouth, or Feast of Booths, and an arcane version of the NT say of the Magi that 2 travelled together and were joined by a third, which I took to refer to a poetic as above so below passage with Ju/Sa traveling together, to be joined by the third, the full Piscean moon. And Christine Arens noted in a recent webinar that 2 of the Magi met the 3rd in Petra where they took public transportation (eg a camel train shuttle business) to Bethelehem. If a rather brilliant female Rabbi I met years ago explicated that the stable Christ was supposedly born in was a Succouth, the Booth at the Feast of Booths in Bethlehem. Incidentally, I've never been able to find the cite in the Bible however ...

The Persians also invented the natal chart ... since the first nativity is dated to 410 BC during the Magian hegemony of astrology ... prior to Alexander and the Hellenists, most of which were probably old wine in new bottles, old Magi w/Hellenistic names.