.
Seriously folks, I really don't think we should go about alleging that God
lined up constellations and/or planetary conjunctions in a manner to signal
the birth of a king; primarily because it makes Christ's followers appear to
be superstitious kooks.
I think most Christians-- and much of the world too --is/are comfortable with
regarding the wise men's star as the supernatural appearance of something
remarkable and/or unexpected; hung not out in space, but instead first up in
the sky, and then later over Jesus' house like a Huey hovering above an LZ.
NOTE: Luke 21:25 speaks of unusual activity in the stars as signs
relative to Christ's return, which at first glance appear to be astrological
signs, but when we examine those activities as they are spelled out in Isa
13:9-13 and Matt 24:29, it's readily seen that Luke 21:25 actually depicts
real-life calamities rather than astrological sign language and/or mystic
messages.
I suspect that the unusual activity planned for the stars will both frighten
and fluster professional astrologers because they probably won't have a clue
how to chart them. Back in Jesus' time, the planets were stars too, a.k.a.
wandering stars, so they're included in Luke 21:25.
_
I'm shortcutting reading this thread....
If you will remember Daniel...
Daniel was trained in the Chaldean art of stargazing and predicting the future based on it. (Seasons of the year and etc)
By birth Daniel was of the tribe of Judah, where he might not have ascended to the throne he was set to be a part of the royal court and as such was educated in reading and writing. Because of this he was tapped by the Babylonians to be a part of the scholar caste in Babylon...as a slave but still one of the scholars.
Now because of the changes in Empires (Persian, Greek, and currently Roman at the time of the writing) the complete knowledge of what was written/predicted was lost. The scholar caste in a caste based society never was lost...it was always tapped to add more knowledge. No successful empire destroys a scholar caste...just the areas of its focus are directed into new directions.
The Roman Governor of that section of the world at the time of Christ's Birth was more than sufficiently wealthy enough to send "Greetings and Salutations " to the "Newborn King of the Jews" as foretold by writings to the Babylonians....likely by Daniel himself some 600 odd years previously. (Currently lost but possibly encoded into Daniel's book of prophecy which gets looked at as eschatology instead of prophesy of Christ's birth)
The other thing about the "magi/wise men" was that they came with their contingent of horses and soldiers. Not really something that you "sneak around " with...of course they needed to see Herod and announce their purpose as one being peaceful and diplomatic. (Fighting among Governors for power was common)
Then it comes down to the old "that way" when asking for directions.
You can see Bethlehem from both the Herodium and Jerusalem when standing on a high point. Bethlehem was a podunk town...blink and you miss it kind of place.
Today its a lot more modernized and larger...but it wasn't so much then. A "two bucket well" was big doings at this time. Buildings and homes were often made of rocks simply stacked on top of each other.
Standing on the shore of the Sea of Galilee you can literally see 5 separate villages easily.
So the maps that the Magi had were obviously lacking the fine detail needed to get to Bethlehem....in a day that knowledge was prized and guarded and kept within a caste's own ranks.
