The Star of Bethlehem Revealed!

The wise men were lead to Jerusalem the capital of Israel by comic signs in the heavens. Three conjunctions between the king star 'Regulus' and the king planet 'Jupiter' where bookended by three conjunctions between the mother planet 'Venus' and the king planet 'Jupiter'.

This first conjunction of Venus and Jupiter took place on August 12, 3 BC, just 33 days prior to the first of three conjunctions between the king planet and the king star on September 14, 3 BC. The distance of separation was just over the width of the moon as it appears in the heavens. This first conjunction appeared in the east in the evening sky.

Ten months later the second conjunction took place in the morning sky appearing in the west from the perspective of the Magi. This conjunction was so close it was impossible for the naked eye to distinguish the two objects. These two planets appeared as one bright star. This close of a conjunction takes place only once every 1.4 million years, not something you see everyday. This second conjunction took place on June 17, 2 BC just 40 days after the third conjunction between the king planet and the king star.

Finally in the east in the evening sky Jupiter came into a third conjunction with Venus in early September of 2 BC. Three conjunctions between the king planet and the king star, bookended by three conjunctions between the mother planet and the king planet and in the middle of all that the closest and brightest conjunction ever! As Jupiter passed Venus in the evening sky in the east, Jupiter began a three and a half month journey across the night sky heading from east to west until it came to a stop over Bethlehem (as seen from Jerusalem) and turned back to the east.

If the Magi had waited until all three conjunctions of Jupiter and Regulus plus all the conjunctions between Jupiter and Venus before following the "wandering star", the planet Jupiter from the east to the west, then sometime in the fall of 2 BC they would have headed for Jerusalem in search of the king of the Jews.

The Magi admit that they "saw His star in the east" (Matthew 2:2) and that the star "went on before them, until it came and stood over where the Child was" (Matthew 2:9). We understand that the signs in the heavens appeared within the last two years of their arrival as Herod ended up killing "all the male children who were in Bethlehem, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had ascertained from the magi" (Matthew 2:16).

This means that signs in the heavens first appeared less than two years earlier. That the star appeared to travel across the heaven from the east then appeared to stop over the city of Bethlehem as viewed from Jerusalem. Jupiter would have ended its 3 1/2 month journey across the heavens in the early morning hours of December 25, 2 BC, standing still in the heavens over Bethlehem.

Jesus would have been 15 and a half months old as He would have been born September 11, 3 BC on the Feast of Trumpets or Rosh Hashanah of 3 BC as described in Revelation 12:1-2, "A woman clothed with the sun and the moon at her feet and she cried out in pain as to give birth."

Amazingly, although Christmas is incorrectly celebrated as the birthday of Jesus Christ, on December 25, 2 BC Magi brought gifts to the Child King Jesus making it the first Christmas.