RE: [asa] The Christmas Story

Hello all,

Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New
Year! I'm still trying to catch up on email...

One of the key constraints used in the
bethlehemstar.net analysis is Herod's death date.
Traditionally it's listed as 4 BC (wikipedia bears
this out), but he states the following on his website:

"But modern scholarship has deepened our understanding
of Josephus' manuscripts. A recent study was made of
the earliest manuscripts of Josephus' writings held by
the British Library in London, and the American
Library of Congress. It revealed a surprise that
allows us to target our mathematical telescopes better
than could Kepler (10). It turns out that a copying
error was a primary cause of the confusion about the
date of Herod's death. A printer typesetting the
manuscript of Josephus' Antiquities messed up in the
year 1544. Every single Josephus manuscript in these
libraries dating from before 1544 supports the
inference that Herod passed in 1 BC. Excellent
scholarship confirms that date (11). Knowing this, and
since Herod died shortly after Christ's birth, our
investigation turns to the skies of 3 and 2 BC."

  10. David W. Beyer, "Josephus Re-Examined:
Unraveling the Twenty-Second Year of Tiberius", in
Chronos, Kairos, Christos II, edited by E. Jerry
Vardaman (Macon: Mercer University Press, 1998) ISBN
0-86554-582-0.

  11. Ernest L. Martin, The Star That Astonished the
World (Second Edition; Portland, Oregon: ASK
Publications, 1996) ISBN 0-94-5657-87-0. This book is
a "must have" reference work if you would like to
study the Star. It contains a wealth of material
corroborating the date of Herod's death as 1 BC.

Is anyone familiar with the details of the claim
and/or the references he's citing?

Thanks,
Christine

--- John Walley <john_walley@yahoo.com> wrote:

>
> Yes he does use Dec 25th because according to him in
> 2 BC "Jupiter reached
> full stop in its travel through the fixed stars".
>
> I have heard before that Christ was likely born in
> the spring, since that is
> when they took the census. I wonder if he has every
> commented on this. I
> can't find anything about it on his website. All the
> rest of the
> astronomical evidences sound compelling to me
> though.
>
> Thanks
>
> John
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu
> [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On
> Behalf Of gordon brown
> Sent: Thursday, December 20, 2007 10:41 PM
> To: asa@calvin.edu
> Subject: RE: [asa] The Christmas Story
>
>
> I have problems with the dates. His placing of the
> first Christmas on
> December 25 makes me especially suspicious of his
> approach to the subject.
>
> Gordon Brown (ASA member)
>
>
> On Thu, 20 Dec 2007, Christine Smith wrote:
>
> > Hello all,
> >
> > John sent me this link off-list (so that he'd stay
> > within his posting limit :) ), and I found it a
> really interesting
> > read. Admittedly, I'm working on less than 6 hours
> of sleep, but the
> > arguments sounded pretty well thought out and
> supported. Any other
> > perspectives on the merits of the arguments
> presented?
> >
> > Thanks!
> > Christine
> >
> > --- John Walley <john_walley@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Offlist:
> >>
> >> This guy came to our church last year and
> although I
> >> didn't get to hear him
> >> I heard very favorable reviews and from checking
> it
> >> out I think it is the
> >> most plausible explanation of the Bethlehem Star
> of
> >> all the ones that are
> >> out there.
> >>
> >> Thanks
> >>
> >> John
> >>
> >> http://www.bethlehemstar.net/
> >>
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu
> [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu]
> >> On Behalf Of Christine Smith
> >> Sent: Thursday, December 20, 2007 1:44 PM
> >> To: asa@calvin.edu
> >> Subject: [asa] The Christmas Story
> >>
> >>
> >> Hello all,
> >>
> >> Was contemplating the Christmas story and all of
> the
> >> popular conjecture about both the story's origins
> >> and
> >> the holiday's origins. Specifically from a
> science perspective, I've
> >> done a bit of reading about the Star
> >> of Bethlehem and the theories about astronomical
> >> events that this may have corresponded to. I was
> >> wondering what your perspectives on the Christmas
> >> story, the Christmas holiday, and the Star of
> >> Bethlehem might be?
> >>
> >> Thanks ahead of time for the insights :) Merry
> >> Christmas!
> >>
> >> In Christ,
> >> Christine
> >>
> >> To unsubscribe, send a message to
> >> majordomo@calvin.edu with "unsubscribe
> >> asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> > "For we walk by faith, not by sight" ~II
> Corinthians 5:7
> >
> > Help save the life of a homeless animal--visit
> www.azrescue.org to
> > find out how.
> >
> > Recycling a single aluminum can conserves enough
> energy to power your
> > TV for 3 hours--Reduce, Reuse, Recycle! Learn more
> at www.cleanup.org
> >
> > To unsubscribe, send a message to
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> >
>
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Received on Mon Jan 7 00:07:33 2008