Star of Bethlehem

Today, January 6, is the day many Christians observe as Epiphany, a word signifying the "revealing" or "unveiling" of the Christ Child to the Gentiles as portrayed in the story from Matthew's Gospel of the visit of the magi to Bethlehem. They followed a star from their homeland in the East, perhaps Persia, coming first to Jerusalem where they inquired of King Herod where the new king was to be born. Naturally, this question piqued the interest of the paranoid king, and he turned to his scribes for the answer. They quoted biblical prophecy that the messiah would come from Bethlehem. With this information, the wise men journeyed the five miles on to the the City of David. There, we're told, the star came to rest over the place where the young child was.

Scientists and scholars have speculated about this star of Bethlehem. One recent theory, based on the discovery of a coin from the Roman province of Antioch dating from about 6 AD, suggests that there was a confluence of Jupiter, Saturn and the Moon in the constellation Aries, as depicted by a ram on the coin. This confluence may have occurred around 4 BC, two years before the death of Herod. Was this the star of Bethlehem? Perhaps we cannot know for sure. What we do know is that Matthew wanted his readers to realize that the gospel is for all humankind, that Christ has come to save all who will believe in him, without regard to race, nationality, gender or economic status.