Astronomers keep coming up with explanations for what the star of Bethlehem might have been. But for most historians it is very questionable whether there really was a special heavenly sign to be seen. Scientific knowledge is too fragmented and nobody really wants to tackle that, argues Jona Lendering.
I got to know Shirley after I gave some exasperated words to the fire mirrors that the Greek engineer Archimedes allegedly used to set Roman ships on fire. I was disturbed that an ancient historian presented this as historical fact, even though it was contrary to the laws of nature. Shirley was happy that at least one 'alpha' had recognized the problem and explained how I could have explained it better.
There are more science students like Shirley:former gymnasts who have kept their love for the ancient Greeks and Romans, even though there is no good information about Antiquity for the highly educated either online or in bookstores. That bothers her and she periodically sends me e-mails with the stupidities that she has now encountered in her reading.
She's right:the laws of nature also apply to alphas. And vice versa:the rules of philology also apply to betas. They too should never simply believe historical sources. After all, sources record what was unusual and rarely deal with the ordinary. Anyone who simply believes them reconstructs a past full of rarities.
History students learn this in their first month and uncritically refer to source belief as "naive positivism." When it comes to the Bible, it's called "Biblical literalism," but it's the same method error. Take the star of Bethlehem. As you know, there are all kinds of theories about this:a comet, a planetary conjunction, a supernova, the planet Uranus. A reasoned overview can be found here.
The problem with all these hypotheses is that they take the Bible way too literally. For three centuries, archaeologists have been researching how to extract historical truth from biblical poetry, history, biographies, laws, letters and legends. One thing is certain:whatever you read, a Bible text refers at least as often to another Bible text as it does to something that actually happened. The Sermon on the Mount that Jesus delivered according to the Gospel of Matthew is a reference to Moses' acting as a lawgiver and not a historical speech. And we've known that since the nineteenth century.
So it is with the star of Bethlehem. Bethlehem was the village where the messiah would be born, so Matthew arranged for the man from Nazareth to be born in Bethlehem. The star was the symbol of the messiah, so Matthew placed a star in the sky. The messiah embodies divine wisdom, and so Matthew sent for wise men from the east with gold, frankincense, and myrrh—gifts that would one day be brought when Israel was restored. Matthew has screwed the whole story together to fulfill prophecies of Micah, Balaam and Isaiah.
It doesn't stop there:by allowing Jesus' parents to flee to Egypt, the evangelist can present Jesus as the fulfillment of a word from the prophet Hosea. Matthew's story is full of scriptural references and it is therefore uncertain whether a special heavenly sign was actually seen.
Does this matter much? Not per se, but there is something worrying about it:The astronomers working on the matter were often unfamiliar with a methodical principle that is freshman dust to historians. The astronomer who does not recognize his Biblical literalism is comparable to the ancient historian who does not understand why you cannot set fire to ships with burning mirrors:a trivial matter that betrays that someone does not master high school dust.
Next year there will be a congress about the Bethlehem star in Groningen. The result is predictable:the historians, theologians and astronomers will conclude that they understand disturbingly little about each other's work and will once again call for interdisciplinarity. The result of that appeal is equally predictable:after all, the fact that it has been resounding for forty years means above all that no one really wants to tackle the fragmentation of our knowledge.